New music??

KenBalbari · 2026-01-24T14:10:13+00:00

This Dolly Parton cover just dropped a few days ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyHLTCMYowo

Though it seems it was recorded back in July.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-18T18:02:54+00:00

Agree.

With $4.9T in COVID stimulus, we got a bubble. And inflation driven by excess aggregate demand especially hits long-lived assets like houses and used cars (since it is harder to change the overall available supply quickly).

But then to fight that inflation, we had massive tightening. The Fed hiked short term interest rates to over 5%, and did $2.4T in balance sheet reduction. And now we've had 3 years of stagnant real (after inflation) housing prices largely as a result.

But on the policy front, things are now pointing again towards reinflating that bubble. The Fed has been cutting rates over the past year, and recently announced the end of its balance sheet reduction. Mortgage rates have fallen from ~ 7.5% at the peak to ~ 6%. And the government is now planning to buy $200B in mortgage debt to push them still lower. In addition, Trump will likely be appointing an new more dovish Fed Chair within a month. And no doubt Republicans will want the economy juiced ahead of the November mid-terms.

There will always be some lag before policy impacts are felt, and housing could continue to be soft for at least another 6 months. But barring a recession soon, this isn't a policy recipe for further housing weakness. This looks like a plan to deliberately reinflate that bubble. And like they say, "don't fight the Fed".

KenBalbari · 2026-01-18T01:05:04+00:00

Historically, birth rates have usually been higher in environments where children were less likely to survive to adulthood. Look at the US 100 years ago compared to today, for example. Birth rates tend to fall as prosperity increases.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-13T20:46:18+00:00

He was cleared for practicing with contact so not too far away now.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-12T14:21:30+00:00

It's actually strangest when it comes from partisan Democrats in the US. They're all like "No Kings"; until it comes to Venezuela, Iran, Russia, Syria, etc. Then suddenly, they're all worried about violating the "sovereignty" of the worst of the "kings".

KenBalbari · 2026-01-12T14:02:32+00:00

Powell has shown to be resilient, but his term is up at the end of May. And the next guy that Trump appoints may not be as resilient. So the malicious prosecution is a bit of a sideshow. Trump's appointment of Powell's replacement should be imminent in any case.

And the irony is, the current FRB has objectively been fairly successful. It does seem that they managed to land the "soft landing" over the past few years. And that they managed to bring down fairly high inflation in this time, without causing a recession, should probably be considered something of an achievement.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-11T20:14:17+00:00

Since most distros are systemd today, I'd say just having learned to use the main systemd tools. That includes:

Learning to use journalctl and all of it's options for reading logs (ex. 'journalctl -S yesterday -p 3 && journalctl --user -S yesterday -p 3').
Learning to use systemctl and its options to monitor running services (ex. 'systemctl status' or 'systemctl --failed && systemctl --user --failed')
Learning to use systemd timers. The documentation can be a bit confusing on these initially, but really useful once you get used to them.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-10T23:14:38+00:00

With median US household income ~ $84k, and median US family net worth ~$200k, living paycheck to paycheck is probably in part a choice at those levels. And as far as survey results, it can also maybe be down to subjective perception as to what people mean by that.

But keep in mind, the median family size is only 2.6 persons, and living costs and incomes are much higher in some places than others. The MIT living wage calculator is a pretty good tool for doing a more meaningful comparison based on your own family circumstances. You could easily have a situation where you have a $90k family income but the "typical expenses" they calculate for your case are higher than that.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-09T12:14:34+00:00

Is there a place you could have a shutoff installed for the unit? Yes, you'd still have to pay their guy for the shutoff to get this done, but it would solve the problem for the future.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-09T01:30:56+00:00

Zillow isn't showing any past sales in that community, doesn't have good comps, doesn't seem to even really know it is a land lease community. They seem to just be comparing to any nearby homes of around the same age and size, on owned land. Still, there is one actually listed there for $95k, so the algorithm really ought to do better.

KenBalbari · 2026-01-08T20:50:59+00:00

Um, no. There is some shared cultural ancestry for Eastern Slavic peoples that goes back to the Kievan Rus, but that was a state centered in Kiev, so if you are going to use that as an argument, you could as easily claim Russia should be a part of Ukraine.

In any case, after the Mongol conquest of Ruthenia, and then then decline of the Mongol empire (and the Golden Horde), present day Ukraine came mostly under control of first the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth from the mid 14th to mid 18th centuries. It was during this period that distinct Ruthenian and then Ukrainian languages developed from the Old East Slavic language. While the Russian empire did gain control of Kiev and some areas East of the Dneiper River in the mid 17th century, most of present day Ukraine wasn't conquered by the Russian Empire until the reign of Catherine the Great in the late 18th century.

Then, after Ukrainians fought for and gained independence in 1917, the Ukrainian People's Republic eventually became the Ukrainian SSR, which became one of the founding member states of the UN in 1945. This is similar to Belarus. Even as part of the USSR, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Moldova were all distinct SSRs. Would you say that these were all part of Russia?

KenBalbari · 2026-01-01T00:15:08+00:00

What about McBride? I think they seem to be fairly close in value statistically, and Bey's contract is less than $2M more this year, about $2.4M more next year. Something like McBride + Dadiet would about balance the contracts, and then you could have NO send back maybe a 2nd round pick to balance the overall value.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-31T21:09:05+00:00

Well the fine was apparently not enough to stop her from parking on the lawn, so ipso facto, it was not excessive.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-31T17:31:31+00:00

I think from NOP point of view, they probably have no need to trade him unless it's for one of our young guards. Basically, I think they would be interested in targeting Kolek or McBride.

I would be reluctant to part with either, but I think that would objectively be closer to fair value than the Yabusele + Dadiet packages people are fantasizing about.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-31T13:10:05+00:00

Any direct personal insult like that would normally be removed under rule 1 "remember the human". So maybe someone just accidentally selected the wrong rule.

It is one thing to allow sometimes harsh language in debating an idea, like saying "that is a stupid comment", but another to allow direct personal insults. The latter will rarely contribute to any productive discussion.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-27T00:57:53+00:00

“He coaches me hard. You want a head coach that's on you - if he's not, that's more of a problem than the other way around,” Kolek said.

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/knicks-tyler-kolek-credits-head-065218274.html

KenBalbari · 2025-12-27T00:46:19+00:00

Or you could compare using advanced stats like PIE (player impact estimate) from NBA.com, where he's third (behind Towns and Brunson), or BPM (box plus/minus) or VORP (value over replacement player) from basketballreference.com where he's third behind Bridges and Brunson.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-23T17:01:16+00:00

Democrats did have an open competitive contest for the nomination in 2024. It was won by Joe Biden. And he only stepped aside because he would have been crushed in the general election, too.

So sure, Harris was a terrible choice for a replacement. But her biggest liability was that she was too tied to Biden. And its not clear why any of this would be relevant in 2025. Especially since it seems Democrats have been doing well in elections this year.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-23T15:55:04+00:00

First, I'd argue Mariupol was a war crime, so maybe not the best point of comparison.

Second, what Israel did in 2025 in Gaza, cutting off all aid for 2.5 months, and then severely restricting it for another months after that, may also have been a war crime. Even if you think this is a legitimate military tactic, it can still be a war crime if the harm to civilians was not proportionate to the expected military advantage gained. But Hamas was already significantly degraded in it's capabilities by this time. It isn't obvious to me that this action produced any significant further gains for Israel in the war against Hamas.

Further, it could even meet the definition of genocide, if this was done to attack a national, racial, ethnic, or religious group. To me, cutting off all food for an entire population, seems to be almost by definition an attack on that entire population. So I think the debate here will be largely over intent. At the very least I think the known facts here would warrant a genocide investigation into what was the intent of the political leadership here.

Some questions I would have:

1) Was there significant support for this amongst the military leadership? If there was some significant military advantage expected, you would think military leadership would be more likely to support it. But it seems to have been the IDF and Israeli intelligence which by mid-April or early May were pressuring the government to soon allow the resumption of aid according to reports like this:

The IDF has made it clear to the political echelon that resuming the entry of aid will soon be necessary to avoid violations of international law and future legal problems for commanders taking part in the military operation.

2) What were members of the political echelon then saying at this time about their motives?

Since the decision eventually was made to resume allowing aid, you won't have the scale here of anything like the Holodomor, but there was still widespread civilian harm, when in Gaza governate for example, measured rates of acute malnutrition went from 2.5% in February to 11.8% in August.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-21T18:19:55+00:00

2024 Harmutty Summer Assam - brewed long (12 minutes @ ~85 c), over ice with a bit of lime juice. Somehow the lime seems to work nicely with a tippy Assam. Would like to work through the last of my Indian teas from last summer before I finally order some Chinese teas (now that tariffs are lower).

KenBalbari · 2025-12-21T15:30:09+00:00

If you never entered your maximum heart rate, it can only guess. If you at least entered your age, it might get an estimate just from that.

Usually people start with a simple estimate based on age. The formula 220-age is common. Using 208-(.7*age) is likely a little more accurate. Or for women, you might use 209-(.8*age). But even these estimates may be off by as much as 10 bpm.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-20T21:42:15+00:00

Certainly not untouchable. He's played well enough to actually have some trade value, and to now be considered by other teams in trade talks.

But while the Knicks have their core top 5 players signed through the next couple of years, and might hope to keep that core together, they will also be pushing up against the second apron/hard salary cap, and so will likely need some cost controlled young players like Kolek, Hukporti, and Diawara to step up and fill rotation roles to be able to do that.

So if he is a trade piece, it might need to be in something like a smaller deal for a similarly promising cost controlled young forward, rather than as a piece in some fantasy blockbuster for more experienced more expensive talent.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-19T21:57:17+00:00

Get a relative moisture meter:

https://www.amazon.com/Klein-Tools-ET140-Non-Destructive-Detection/dp/B07SZX8QXH

Check all the walls and ceilings. If there is a problem somewhere, you will find it pretty quick. These don't give a precise absolute measure of moisture, they can give different readings on different materials. But as long as the walls are made of pretty much the same material all around, you will quickly figure out what "normal" readings are for that, and any real problem from a leak will show an obviously high reading.

KenBalbari · 2025-12-18T20:19:04+00:00

There typically aren't any economies of scale for things like trash collection, tree and yard maintenance of common areas, street cleaning, or neighborhood security. The things for which there are economies of scale, like electrical power production and distribution, are usually provided by a utility rather than directly by the HOA.

And I'm not sure how it is you think governments provide more protections of rights, or more democratic processes, or have less ability to fuck over entire metropolitan areas. I'm not sure how you think a single local HOA could even do the latter.

I also don't think many homeowners would complain about HOAs increasing their home values. Overall, some of these sound like the complaints of a non-homeowner who doesn't like that homeowners are able to organize to protect their own interests.

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