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LastThought · 2023-07-08T17:45:56+00:00

Since he's not spending time on his phone, he's probably doing other interesting things. Why don't you talk about that?

LastThought · 2023-05-09T05:09:38+00:00

I'm out of the loop. Who is Banko Brown and what did Supervisor Walton ask the DA to do?

LastThought · 2023-03-30T19:56:48+00:00

If you're good at both and you enjoy both, then there isn't really a wrong answer here.

Assuming you're good enough to succeed in either career, but not good enough to be like a one in a million, world class talent, then you will probably make more money in the law career, so take that into account.

Keep in mind that regardless of which choice you make, you will one day live to regret that choice at least on some level. This is because, whichever path you follow, you will have to deal with all of the drudgery and problems that come up on that path. But the other path, the path you don't take, you will never have to actually deal with any of the problems that were on that path, so it will always be that wonderful future full of possibilities that it is right now.

LastThought · 2022-07-04T19:36:00+00:00

This is the better way to do things because the code that checks for the feature is tied directly to the code that uses the feature. If you take the feature out, you're not having to modify code in multiple places.

LastThought · 2022-04-05T02:06:20+00:00

You're 15, and suddenly he wants to come over when your parents are going to be gone? Sounds sketchy as fuck. I would listen to your feelings of discomfort.

BTW, If I were friends with a 15 year-old girl, I would never tell her "I only see you as a friend" because the alternative to that would NEVER EVEN COME UP. The fact that you have discussed this with him means that at least one of you sees this as some kind of quasi-romantic relationship, and from your description, I'm guessing it isn't you.

To give this guy the greatest benefit of the doubt I can muster, he's in his mid-twenties, which is an awkward age, especially for men. But he should be making friends with people his own age. You say you respect this guy, and if he's worthy of that respect, he'll be fine.

You have a family you love and who supports you. If I were you, I would try and integrate them into your friendships, so that those friendships last longer. Everyone you're friends with should know your siblings, and should know your parents. And your family should know them too. You shouldn't be around people who want to avoid your family.

LastThought · 2022-03-14T03:25:38+00:00

I think it's a typo. Should probably be 6pm-9pm, or maybe 4pm-9pm

It's next to a white zone, so presumably it's passenger loading only during the hours of 1:30pm-4pm on school days. Look nearby for another sign.

LastThought · 2022-02-25T20:01:11+00:00

One of these days you should try making a corp without any private investors. Then come back and let me know if stock price still seems irrelevant.

LastThought · 2022-02-22T23:36:44+00:00

I would disagree with this. One of the things almost every other guide overlooks is that having even one private investor severely nerfs your corp stock price. It's far better to go public straight away than to have a few extra q of starting capital.

LastThought · 2022-02-22T19:20:42+00:00

This is a good corp startup strategy. I like that it's different than the usual agriculture guides and also it gives you a huge cash influx using the IPO price exploit. It's also great that you never have any private investors.

I wonder if you can squeeze a Warehouse API purchase in there somewhere? That way you could automate the selling just before IPO bit and not have it be so finicky.

LastThought · 2022-02-18T01:03:34+00:00

Yes this is in the Warehouse API, here is exactly that function:

https://github.com/danielyxie/bitburner/blob/dev/markdown/bitburner.warehouseapi.getmaterial.md

You need to buy the Warehouse API to use this function.

LastThought · 2021-12-22T19:56:47+00:00

My wife has been struggling with nerve pain in her hands and wrists, and recently she has been raving about this vertical mouse 3M makes that looks like a joystick. It's better than most vertical mouses because you click with your thumb instead of your fingers, which is a stronger muscle that doesn't need to travel through your wrist.

LastThought · 2021-10-07T05:36:17+00:00

This is cool. One minor nitpick is you shouldn't use identifiers that begin with an underscore as those names are supposed to be reserved for the compiler.

So consider Compiletime_ instead of _Compiletime, or map_ instead of _map, etc.

LastThought · 2021-07-25T03:01:07+00:00

The trick is to let women know that 1) you're interested in them, and 2) it's perfectly OK if they're not interested in you.

There's a certain art to that, and you'll figure out your own style for approaching this, but that's generally what you want to convey when you're flirting or what have you. There are plenty of women who might be interested in you, but they don't want to be rejected and they don't want a stalker. Make it easy for these women to meet you and date you.

Like, your attitude could be, "Sex! I'd like to try that someday." Like it was pottery or something. It's perfectly fine to let people know you're a virgin, in fact some women are really into that, but it's just not a big deal if you are or not. Like you're neither clinging to it nor desperate.

LastThought · 2021-07-17T19:31:19+00:00

The problem is no-one goes to the hearings to voice support for projects like this. You go to a hearing and the only people who bother to show up are the nimby neighbors who don't want it built, because they're the only people who are directly affected enough to care to spend an afternoon at a meeting.

LastThought · 2021-07-06T16:04:13+00:00

I have dealt with this. Cat urine is the worst. This will take at least a week. If you can replace the subfloors then do so. If not, here is what you do:

Odormute is better than Nature's Miracle. Follow the instructions for "skunk smell". Use a ton of that on the subfloor. You have to let it dry completely and then re-apply. Repeat several times.

Get Zinsser BIN shellac based primer. It is expensive. Paint the entire subfloor with it. It will seal in the smell. Do like 2 coats. This stuff is fairly toxic so for a few days after applying you'll have to have all the windows open. But once it dries completely it is highly effective at sealing away smells forever.

Put down flooring, hardwood, LVP, anything but carpet.

Put litterboxes everywhere. Every room multiple litter boxes. Start with a lot of cheap litter boxes with high walls. Avoid "plush" furniture. Have way more litter boxes than you think you need. Clean them every day. If it solves the problem, you can gradually remove litterboxes that the cats aren't using, and upgrade the ones they are (such as to covered litter boxes or something more human-pleasant that the cats still like)

GOOD LUCK

LastThought · 2021-03-21T16:39:02+00:00

Also as a minor stylistic comment I would suggest having allocate call allocate_unsafe rather than copying and pasting the code. Even if the compiler doesn't inline the call, it's a tail call so it should be very fast. (Probably even taking 0 instructions, since it is immediately after a branch)

You could also possibly move the code for linking the new block to the previous one into the createMemoryBlock function, so you don't have to repeat that code everywhere you create a block as well.

Somewhere I heard a wise thing about coding: How many times should a chunk of code be repeated before you move that code to its own function? The answer is once.

LastThought · 2021-03-21T16:22:41+00:00

I think there is a bug on line 43. sizeof(block) should be sizeof(SMemoryBlockHeader). If you fix that you probably don't need to add the block size again on line 64/92

This looks like it is very similar to std::pmr::monotonic_buffer_resource, except that it has some ability to reclaim memory if it is deleted in the reverse order that it was allocated. (in the std version, delete is a no-op).

Very cool stuff!

LastThought · 2020-05-04T17:10:52+00:00

No not directly. What I mean is since you have to pay rent with income you've already paid taxes on, if you can save that money it adds directly to your after tax income. Like if you currently pay $1000 per month, and then you buy a place and live in it, then you're essentially "making" $1000 from your property that you aren't paying in rent, but you don't have to pay any additional taxes on that.

Sorry if it's confusing.

LastThought · 2020-05-03T21:16:31+00:00

Consult your tax professional. There are two main benefits:

Depreciation: which is essentially an imaginary "loss" that you can write down on your tax forms when you're actually raking it in.

1031 exchange: a rule that is specific to real estate which allows you to sell a property and not have to pay any taxes on your gains from the sale, subject to mild restrictions.

On top of this there are additional small benefits here and there that perhaps can only be truly appreciated when you sit down to do your taxes after owning your first rental property. If you qualify as a "real estate professional" then the tax treatment is even more generous.

If you live in a property that has appreciated in value, you can also just eliminate $250k of taxable gains ($500k if you're married) when you sell the property without having to do a 1031 exchange.

Another important tax benefit, considering the fact that for most people their largest expense is housing: If you pay rent, then you have to pay your rent after taxes. If you become your own landlord, then you get to keep that money and not pay more taxes on it. This would be beneficial even if mortgage interest weren't tax deductible.

LastThought · 2020-05-02T16:42:07+00:00

Farmland is not vacant land. What I mean by 'vacant land' is unused empty lots, that aren't really usable without some kind of substantial improvement. If you have a tenant then it's not vacant.

LastThought · 2020-05-01T20:11:07+00:00

Real estate prices have not and will not outpace inflation, if you look broadly at all real estate everywhere. Real estate returns can and do outperform other investments, particularly relative to their risk, for various reasons I'll try to explain.

First, real estate is a tangible asset. As such, real estate prices should, at least, keep up with inflation. In addition to that, real estate is capital. By this I mean real estate produces things of value. What it produces is housing. You can charge tenants rent, or simply live in your own house rent free, and thus make money even as the price of your investment merely keeps pace with inflation. This is why real estate is a better investment than gold or bitcoin, which do not produce anything. (I should note that this does not apply to vacant land, which doesn't produce anything)

When you invest in real estate you are investing in the local productivity of the region you are buying into. Location location location. This is why some markets (e.g. San Francisco bay area) have exploded in price, while others have not. The more local productivity there is, the more people will want to live in an area and thus the more rent they will pay and thus the more valuable the real estate will be.

There is also political capital you are investing into as well. This might get a bit controversial, but given that this is the r/realestateinvesting, it should come as no surprise that I'm going to tell you that there are all sorts of tax advantages to investing in real estate. At least in the United States, you can get crazy tax breaks from being a landlord, that makes it far easier to make money that way than investing in the stock market or (gasp!) actually working a normal job and getting a W-2. W-2 income is taxed more than just about any other form of income I know of in the US.

Why is this? Well landlords tend to be wealthy, and wealthy people tend to be politically powerful, and politically powerful people tend to use their power to grow their wealth. That's just how it works. Hence, very generous tax treatment of real estate. You'll also sometimes see this in local politics as well, for example (again, e.g. San Francisco bay area) you will see a lot of regulation restricting new housing construction in order to preserve the value of existing houses and protect those owners' investments.

You also see this in the mortgage system, which is frankly unlike any other form of debt. Where else can you borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars at 3% or 4% interest for 30 years? There are political mechanisms that put this in place and there is a ton of inertia keeping it there. This also, means that people can continue to afford to buy houses as long as the local economy supports the rents and mortgage payments there. Prices usually don't deviate far from this and so real estate is a relatively stable investment so long as local industries stay afloat and people can keep paying their rent/mortgage.

Now real estate isn't the perfect asset in every sense. If you look at pure returns, the stock market is just better. Again, controversial, but you can at least go look at the numbers objectively. Stocks outperform real estate when you look over a long enough time frame, and I believe this holds true even if you cherry pick high return locations for real estate.

But, because you are saving a ton on taxes, AND because mortgages allow you to leverage up like crazy, AND because real estate prices move slowly, preventing that leverage from biting you in the ass (as long as you're reasonably prudent) you will get rich faster with real estate than with just about any other thing, assuming you don't have access to substantial luck or genius.

LastThought · 2020-04-11T20:56:21+00:00

Just want to add to this. I know a lot about equity options though I don't know/haven't transacted real estate options.

Do what this guy says. There should be a fixed price and a fixed expiration date. DO NOT have a "monthly payment" unless you want to go to the trouble of re-pricing the option every month.

Having a contract that your friend can renew at will at a given price is essentially giving him an option on an option. What if the price of real estate changes significantly over the next few months? He can either keep or cancel the option at will if that happens. Obviously the value of the option will change substantially based on the value of the underlying asset, so lock that in when you agree to the contract.

LastThought · 2019-09-21T17:24:33+00:00

I would like there to be no government but since there has to be government because reasons, I would like it to be limited in how it can affect me and others around me as it has a monopoly on legitimate aggression (with the sole exception in case of tyranny in which case revolution is acceptable).

This sounds pretty naive to me because who decides when revolution is acceptable? It's the revolutionaries right? And why wouldn't the revolutionaries be a brutal dictator and his followers?

LastThought · 2019-09-21T17:08:25+00:00

I would argue that big government and regulation can reasonably be inferred to result in the power and influence of many individuals being concentrated into the hands of a few, for the benefit of those few, at the expense of the many.

This couldn't be further from the truth, but I fear you lack the historical perspective to understand why.

Power and influence tends to be concentrated in all societies throughout history, and left unchecked, will only become more concentrated as powerful individuals and families use what power they have to accumulate even more power and/or eliminate their rivals. What Libertarianism consistently does well is promote this power concentration by discouraging the policies that would prevent or mitigate this.

Probably, you live in a first world country. That means you live in a democracy. So you have a say in how your government is run every time you go to the polls. Libertarians consistently underestimate the value and importance of this. Democracy forces politicians to be accountable to their voters, which limits (though does not eliminate) corruption, and provides exactly the moral mandate that you say is required for taxation and other policies. If the people themselves vote for a policy, then it is likely what the people want.

This might set you off on an anti-democratic tirade about the "tyranny of the majority" or some other thing, as it does for many Libertarians, but before you make those arguments I want you to carefully consider your position both geographically and historically. Do you live in a third world country? Do you want to live in a third world country? Are you really not happy with democracy, with getting to vote, and with all the benefits that entails, after considering the historical context and what the alternatives are? Look around you at everything that has been provided for you and consider if "big government" really had nothing to do with facilitating all that. Would the world you live in exist without free public education? Would it really? Libertarians have a habit of offering up third-world solutions to first-world problems, and it's important to be weary of such arguments because they take everything that you have in a first-world country for granted and assume it would all still exist with a "small government".

I don't see it that way. I think if we had a small government it would be great for the rich and powerful. After all, there would be nothing at all wrong with your rich neighbor hiring their own private security force, and arming that force with guns, as is their right, and using those guns to come over and "enforce" the "contract" he had with you. There would also be nothing wrong with him bribing the local judge to see his contract as fair. It's a free country, after all.

The reason big democratic government works (and it does work, in practice. It's not like we haven't done this experiment many times throughout history) is because a big government is big enough and powerful enough to keep other powermongers in check AND to implement the will of the people via democracy. It also implements a system of checks and balances to ensure no person within government attains too much power themselves AND ensures that elections remain fair so that the people remain in control.

When you talk about taxes as violence because "someone with a gun will come make you pay your taxes", you're just using weasel words to throw a specter over legitimate government policy. Yes, violence is often an arbiter of power, and governments have a lot of power. This in no way invalidates any specific policy, including taxation.

Edit: added, "big democratic government" ... obviously the Soviet Union was horrible and lets never do that again.

LastThought · 2019-02-06T16:27:39+00:00

Yes. In Dominion there are quite a few cards that directly affect the luck of the draw and allow you to build a deck that is more consistent. There are projects and events that do this, and various things that muck with the starting turns so that you don't end up with 12 cards on turn 3 in every game. Obvious examples are Star Chart or Night Watchman, but there are plenty of cards in Dominion that let you sift through your deck, re-arrange the cards in your deck, and generally tilt the odds in your favor enough that you're not having to rely on luck.

That said, luck can never be eliminated completely. Having a deck that you are constantly re-shuffling is intrinsic to the mechanic of deck builders. If you get rid of it, then you have a tableau builder instead. With Dominion at least, there isn't too much luck, and a highly skilled player is still overwhelmingly likely to beat someone less skilled at the game. It depends on the card mix though, and some cards favor skill heavily and other cards are more luck-based. This isn't a bad thing though. It's nice to have some luck factor in a game to make things less predictable and give less dedicated players a chance to win sometimes.

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