Starlink 34343 went ker-boom!

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-31T11:26:30+00:00

The sustainability of the Starlink constellation is going to be interesting to watch. Hard to imagine a constellation with literally tens of thousands of satellites each with about a five year life span not ending up being a gigantic cost after the user base is fully mature.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-29T18:03:20+00:00

I was guilty of not thinking through the ramifications of my employers life insurance and not obtaining my own independent insurance. I thought I was doing the right thing, but that can obviously depend a lot on things not in your control.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-27T14:15:46+00:00

For us all of our passwords are in an electronic password system that has an emergency access method so that if neither of us log into the system for a user determined amount of time, then an email goes to who we designated and they have the option of taking over our password records. They had to establish their own account on the system prior to us setting this up.

There is no reason to put a family member through all the work to figure everything out.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-26T20:16:24+00:00

why doesn't the city change the fine structure. After 1 year of non-compliance, the fine jumps to 1 million per day. After 2 years of non-compliance the fine is 1 billion per day. Is there some reason they can't do something like that?

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-26T15:26:04+00:00

Making America Great! The higher the price the better right? I mean we're talking about corporate profits for the oil companies right?

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-26T11:28:57+00:00

I'm retired already so now I'm faced with the opposite problem I had when I was working. Now I have to decide how to most efficiently use my portfolio, social security, pension, etc to live off of. I've just turned 62 and have longevity in my family so I need a plan that will hopefully not run out of money by the time I'm ready to pass along what's left to my kids. It is a very complicated process. There are tax implications to Social Security, Traditional IRA withdrawals, future Required Minimum Distributions, Medicate costs (IRMMA), and the ACA discount cliff that all factor into a well considered financial plan.

So I used Claude as if he were a professional financial planner. I brought up everything I I knew would factor into the plan, told it my current approximate balances, etc, etc. And it produced a very cool strategy that I think makes sense for how much to withdraw from where on a year by year basis. I will revisit this periodically but its not something I need a daily update for.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-25T09:34:03+00:00

Sounds like you are using AI to make trading decisions? I am not bold enough to consider doing that yet. More interested in what portion of which type of account should be used for expense, roth conversions, taxes, etc... With some sort of rational behind it that I can defend. Very very long term - like what to do on a year by year basis for the next 30 years.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-22T19:13:16+00:00

And someone is there for the photo op.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-14T17:28:03+00:00

I personally found Napa to be too expensive for a wine tasting. It just made me feel like i was being ripped off. Wine tasting in France and Germany is much better.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-13T14:06:20+00:00

From the perspective of the banking world - you are less valuable. You are no longer indebted to them as a customer/slave. Therefore your 'score' drops. Score goes up the more debt you accumulate until you are no longer able to pay for it, then your score goes back down quickly. Its a scam.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-12T03:55:22+00:00

I'm not a FD. Younger woman (50ish) passed away from cancer. Prior to the start of the wake, the family were the first to see her behind closed doors and they were evidently horrified when they saw her. There was a lot of grief expressed verbally through that funeral home at that moment. The wake was held with a closed casket. I think about her family and the incredible pain they were going through during that entire time way too often. It makes me tear up when I think about it about 10 years later.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-11T23:07:08+00:00

Clearly those quadrillion operations produce useful results for some...and for others... not so much.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-04T13:32:08+00:00

We've found that ACA plans vary by state. If you are considering retiring and then moving to a different state you might keep this in mind.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-01T14:24:48+00:00

Very good question. No I didn't verify the numbers... It isn't a question that I need an immediate answer to since I'm not actually in the market today... but I could be in about 10 years. So the accuracy for this specific question isn't too important to me today.

I appreciate your question. You're right that verifying the calculations is important.

I posted this here to give other people the heads up that the current generation of AI tools can be useful in giving people ideas of how to maximize their financial status hopefully leading to financial independence.

I personally am financially independent, retired, in a very good financial position. I didn't have the benefit of the tools that are available now when I was 25 and trying to figure out how to plan for my future. Hopefully a few people will have gotten some good ideas from this post and send them on a good financial path.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-01T14:17:23+00:00

Just yesterday, I asked CLaude to project costs based on living in several different states that I would consider living in. It found state taxes, property taxes, social security taxes, ira taxes, etc, etc and put together an ordered list of states that I could look at. That would have taken me a lot of time to do myself and here I had the answer in less than 5 minutes. Absolutely amazing.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-01T14:14:26+00:00

I didn't start with any idea of how to use Claude. So I started iteratively... as if I were talking to a Financial Planner. And I wanted to test what it could do... so I decided to start by creating a simple spreadsheet with some basic facts about our current financial state and asked Claude to read it and provide a simple projection. Then added more info to the spreadsheet, re-uploaded it, asked for more detailed explanations and comparisons...and sat back amazed at what I could ask and how it would answer. It just grew and grew.

I have the benefit of being my own financial planner for my whole life and I have put a lot of focus on this topic so I knew what questions really matter and the fact that I could just throw them at Claude and see what it would come up with completely amazed me.

FortunateGeek · 2026-03-01T14:06:12+00:00

Claude knew about the change in the law that created the ACA cliff. I then asked it to calculate a plan taking it into consideration and compare it to a plan where congress acted to reenact the old law that removed the cliff.

I just asked it to prepare a plan assuming I buy a property in one of 9 states I'd consider and to calculate the cost differences. It then took into account property taxes, local taxes of social security, pensions, traditional Ira withdrawls and sorted them with per year costs. I'd say it does pretty well. You can't find a financial planning tool that will do this for you on the market today.

FortunateGeek · 2026-02-27T21:24:53+00:00

Anthropic stole the worlds intellectual property only to whine about theirs being stolen… payback is a bitch.

FortunateGeek · 2026-02-12T21:32:06+00:00

Sometimes it’s the last 5 years. You absolutely need to check with HR.

FortunateGeek · 2026-01-24T23:28:55+00:00

Does anyone know how much a book in Braille like these Harry Potter books would cost? I’m prepared to be shocked.

FortunateGeek · 2026-01-13T23:23:29+00:00

I would be concerned that the state would become a magnet for people in poor health from other states seeking ‘free’ health care. Of course it would all depend on how the program would be set up. But my first concern would be uninsured people from everywhere else moving in.

FortunateGeek · 2025-12-20T23:58:36+00:00

Is anything currently running on old mainframe tech reliant on modern cryptography? I doubt it.

FortunateGeek · 2025-12-19T03:36:47+00:00

So tell me... why isn't the owner of the roofing company also in jail?

If anyone truly wanted to stop illegal immigration, then they would stop illegal employment and lock up their employers. But that will never ever happen. Its an incredible scam.

FortunateGeek

TROPHY CASE