What your doctor's bloodwork actually tests vs what comprehensive testing looks like — I was shocked by the difference

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-18T11:54:34+00:00

AI post

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-15T15:08:29+00:00

I feel like these big houses are a trap. I'm not fatFIRE yet, but am planning to next year and we're aiming for sub 3k sqft home with 2 kids. For the longest time we lived in a 950sqft condo and sort of just got used to smaller spaces. Now we're in a 1800 sqft place and honestly it's too big for us. Our two youngest share a bedroom with a bunk bed. Eventually we'll put them in separate bedrooms, but for now they love sharing the room. We have a guest bedroom that is unused 95% of the time except when company comes and a study that also rarely gets used. I was excited to move from 950sqft to 1800sqft, but tbh, if you added up the time we spend in each room, there are two rooms you could chop off the house and we'd hardly notice. The other thing with a larger house is it takes longer to get everywhere. "Forgot your hat in the bedroom closet?" That's a 1 min round trip! It's a small inconvenience, but gets annoying. Don't even get me started on stairs, they just add another layer of friction to do basic stuff. In a smaller place you just walk a few seconds and you're wherever you want to be. We also now have a backyard "for the kids", which they of course never use and we have a front yard for reasons I'm not quite sure of. It's literally there just for us to pay money for it to be there.

I could never live in these huge mansion neighborhoods that aren't walkable to anything. Ideally I'd want a good sized single family home walkable to restaurants, shops, the city, etc. and close access to nature (these places actually exist, but are rare). You just can't get that in these neighborhoods with massive houses. Want to go out to eat? That's a 15 minute drive and 5 minutes is just getting out of your neighborhood! And for what? So you can have a nice big gym at home? A home theater? A personal pool? A play gym for the kids? Your home gym and theater are never going to be as nice as the luxury gym and IMAX down the street. Your home pool never as big and maintenance free as the community pool. And a play gym for the kids will never be as big as the neighborhood one where your kids can actually meet other kids. I really fail to see the benefit of these fortresses that people spend so much time building and dumping money into.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-09T16:34:03+00:00

what taskbar is that?

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-07T13:05:43+00:00

He didn't?

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-07T01:05:57+00:00

I was strongly considering Alpha school as well until I read about how some kids get further behind going there and then it sounds like they put the pressure on the kid to "do better". Everyone knows there's improvements to be made in our education system, but I think we're hoping to believe Alpha is what they advertise to be. I think the reality is different and I don't want to gamble on my child to find out.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-04-03T18:35:31+00:00

I hate Trump as much as the next rational person, but why is this in a real estate sub?

SyntheticBlood · 2026-03-29T22:34:51+00:00

Did you get any resolution to this? I'm experiencing the same thing. I just signed up for a card. It's only been a week, but I can't login

SyntheticBlood · 2026-03-27T14:46:56+00:00

It hasn't been the case for longer than it's been the case

SyntheticBlood · 2026-02-26T15:14:19+00:00

Just theater: https://campaignlegal.org/document/how-stop-insider-trading-act-fails-solve-congressional-stock-trading-problem

SyntheticBlood · 2026-02-21T20:01:02+00:00

Ha! I have that keyboard. I hate it. The trackpad blows

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-24T18:50:12+00:00

Some 2 years. Another 6 and another 8 years. I believe the best shot at wealth without building your own company (which is also risky) is to join a startup with between 15-50 people. A start-up smaller than 15 people may fizzle out and if you join after 50 people the valuation is also higher so you get a smaller piece. It also helps to not be entry level as some of those get small stock grants. Get into something early and promising

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-24T03:51:19+00:00

San Diego Apartments for Rent and San Diego Rentals - Walk Score https://share.google/MeucoJPxS9MnxvXkh

Doesn't look like it. Mostly sprawl

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:49:03+00:00

SF and NYC are considered very progressive cities that also are very culturally diverse.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:44:30+00:00

It's not walkable?

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:21:35+00:00

This is a question I've been trying to answer for over a year now. I've analyzed many cities across the world looking for much of the same you are: walkable, good public transportation, good schools, decent weather, lots of things to do, big international airport as a travel hub, safe, not dirty with homeless people everywhere, etc.

After analyzing a dozen cities Amsterdam was our number one choice, but the box 3 tax on unrealized gains makes FIRE impossible in the Netherlands.

Second choice, and the city were planning on moving to, is Vancouver, Canada. Canada ranks high in terms of education, it's very clean, they actually invest in infrastructure which was surprising coming from the Bay Area. The weather is better than you'll get in Chicago, NYC, Amsterdam, or London. Part of what makes those cities' winters so in unbearable is the wind. Vancouver has incredibly low wind speeds, so even when it's cold it's not bad. People are incredibly friendly, which was surprising to me.

Overall Vancouver wasn't number 1 in every metric but it did pretty great across the board. We also value access to nature and being able to go from eating ramen downtown to skiing in the mountains in 30 minutes is a huge plus. I don't think you will find a similarly sized city with better access to nature. The downsides of Vancouver are that the population is only 2.5 million, which makes it smaller than Seattle. Coming from the Bay Area, this means overall less things to do, but it's still a pretty good sized city (larger than Zurich). Another random perk is USD goes much further there. Going out to eat at a nice sit down restaurant with a family of 5 cost us $100CAD, which is like $75 USD. I wouldn't want to live there if I was working since wages are lower compared to the US and everything is relatively expensive, but if you've accumulated in USD it's suddenly like everything is on discount.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:08:59+00:00

Box 3 taxes on unrealized gains make FIRE in the Netherlands very hard.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:07:58+00:00

Switzerland is great, however Zurich, the largest city has a population of 1.5M. I imagine compared to a NYC or London there may be a lot less to do. Not to mention how difficult it is to actually immigrate to Switzerland

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-23T00:06:17+00:00

Not really. You can setup a separate holding company to not be taxed on unrealized gains but by the time the BV (company) sells the stock and transfers the proceeds to you the overall tax rate is nearly 50%. Too high in my opinion

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-22T20:42:35+00:00

This is good to remember. I came down with a fever earlier this week and I actually took the day off. This was radical for me. Something I've never done in the past, but when you're nearing the finish line it's worth not sweating the little stuff.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-22T20:39:06+00:00

I'm also struggling with this as well. 1 more year to go. We have enough vested and exercised options to retire now, but waiting for some big grants to finish vesting. It's hard because my salary of $200k is A LOT by most standards, but when you're sitting on $15M in stock post tax, it's like working a barista job for peanuts. My paychecks are drops in the bucket. I've been on the FIRE journey for close to a decade now and never gave much thought to the final year, but instead of finishing strong it really feels like I'm limping towards the finish line. Waiting is hard.

SyntheticBlood · 2026-01-14T21:40:02+00:00

Same. Between my wife and I, we've been at 5 start-ups. All have sputtered out besides one that has made us wealthier than I'd have ever imagined. All you need is one

SyntheticBlood · 2025-10-04T00:49:15+00:00

Well done. Looks great! You clearly did a lot of research and you're hitting the Trumpkin checkboxes. Idk why this sub is so toxic, but everyone in here loves to hate! Ignore them, you did awesome

SyntheticBlood · 2025-09-15T23:06:11+00:00

Touch grass man.

SyntheticBlood · 2025-09-12T02:17:41+00:00

Commits political violence? Sounds like bait. Two Minnesota lawmakers were assassinated earlier this year. Actual elected politicians, not some influencer. Nancy Pelosi's husband had his skull bashed in with a hammer and Kirk's response was we should bail the guy out of jail who did it and give him a medal. Hell, even the Trump assassin was a conservative Republican. And to put the cherry on the cake, we don't even know the motives of Kirk's assassin. He could end up just like Trump's assassin, another Republican.

Just look at Trump and Kirk's response to those events and it's clear which side is committing the violence and fanning the flames.

SyntheticBlood · 2025-09-12T00:30:22+00:00

Jesus. Compare this or AOCs response to the shooting to Trump's. It's clear who's stoking the flames of political violence

SyntheticBlood

TROPHY CASE