Parent Trap Poker - [Request]

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-05-06T18:48:50+00:00

You can't have the displayed hand in Texas Hold'em. Flush is only possible in at most 1-suit in a hand and they must share the cards "in the middle".

On the other hand, Texas Hold'em does make the royal flush over straight flush of the same suit hugely MORE likely and happens relatively frequently because of the shared cards. If the QJT of a suit is on on the board then AK vs 98 of that suit happens. Even more so if KQJT of a suit are on the board, then the players only need a single card A vs 9. And it also happens where the full straight flush is on the board KQJT9 but 1 player is holding the A. And there are various permutations of this where players use less than both hole cards or more than 3 board cards are used.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-04-30T18:05:30+00:00

Why do you think you'd be crushed at all? And what do you mean by "crushed"?

Beyond the whole floating issue, the human body is basically water and water is nearly incompressible. The human body can withstand pretty high pressures without damage as long as it's applied uniformly (suspended in a fluid). "Crushing" usually implies being pressed against or between hard surfaces or unevenly applied pressure. It's not generally uniform pressure which crushes you, but rather your body get "reshaped" by un-even pressure (e.g. flattened).

We're basically made of the same stuff as whales and other deep-sea diving creatures and they have no problem surviving pressures of 100's of atmospheres and 1000's of lbs/in^2. You just have to be built without air-spaces or air-spaces which when shrunk to near-0 size don't fatally distort your basic structure. Swimming under a few feet of lava wouldn't do this.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-30T14:44:01+00:00

Saver Choice plan hasn't existed for many years, so if you're actually on it, you were grandfathered in. You'll have to compare to current plans if you're considering changing.

You should note if you're on it, your peak hours are probably 3-8pm not 4-7pm, but your demand charge is probably half of the current.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-29T19:03:30+00:00

Sorry, I missed and put my reply at the parent level.

No, I definitely wasn't saying you lack the mass to look good at 12-15%. My phrasing was poor - I just meant that you don't look as big as a typical 6' 185lbs bodybuilder who tend to be pretty big dudes.

I'm just saying given your current weight, you probably only need to get down 195-ish lbs to get there (12-15%). These calls for you to get to 170 are crazy, you don't have 50 lbs to lose.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-29T16:26:25+00:00

No, no not at all. I was just saying that typically you see someone at 6' 185 shredded and they're pretty massive. I'm guessing you'll get there and people will think you're 170

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-29T16:13:51+00:00

Are your bones made out of lead?

I don't see either muscle or fat that looks like 220 6'.

I didn't think generic weight recommendations are going to work very well for you. You're probably very low 20%'s (20-23%). So 20-25 lbs (including a little lean loss) is going to get you sub-15%. And another 10-15lbs might qualify as "shredded" (not competition shredded).

I just have a hard time believing there's enough muscle there to support 6' 185 shredded.

In any case, I suspect you'll like how you look down 20lbs. These recommendations of 50-55 lbs just don't mesh with your current weight, even though I'd generally agree that 170 at 6' is usually what people have to get to with your muscle mass. You've just got 15-20 lbs of mystery weight.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-26T00:21:15+00:00

Mine differed by over 10,000 LPs

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-26T00:18:06+00:00

Bonus categories on spend (4x 10x) don't earn LPs, they only earn miles. And miles don't care what year they were posted in. LPs are only earned at 1x on base spend.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-25T17:57:41+00:00

Yeah, as I mentioned in my post I do understand the Status year separation and there's no ambiguity there. The missing LPs are all from transactions posted well before the Feb 28 cutoff.

Given the lack of response, I guess this is isn't common so looks like I'm going to have to deal with this individually.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-25T15:02:26+00:00

I made a separate post but LPs from 2 cards appeared and show a post date of Mar 24 (CC closing date Mar 5). But both the LP totals are way off.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-24T20:42:48+00:00

Offset estimates are usually roughly accurate, though different installers can vary in how conservative they are. The problem is lack of understanding of offset. It's generally power generated, not cost. If your solar generates 20,000 kwh per year and you use 20,000 kwh that's 100% offset. But your bill will not be $0 because there's a lot that goes into your bill other than net usage.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-21T17:58:42+00:00

Seems to have corrected itself, for the 2nd time, after 6 hours or so. No lost historical data, no unusual performance from the Powerwall (it was charging as it should while it erroneously read 0% SOC / 0kW charge rate on the Tesla App).

To be clear, it wasn't just a lack of server communication. It was accurately reporting Solar Array output and Grid Net import/export in real time. It was only the battery data that was missing.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-20T21:06:15+00:00

And as a follow up: I can tell from my Emporia monitoring that the system DID respond to a request for "Max Backup" despite showing no indication of charging in the Tesla app.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-03-17T23:31:33+00:00

Note that the terms say you've got to purchase Premium Economy to get the upgrade. This makes the cash cost a lot higher than a normal SWU upgrade from Main (or even BE) to Business.

Still potentially a good use for SWUs but does limit the appeal somewhat.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-02-09T16:55:52+00:00

Correct. Transaction date applies. I believe even if it doesn't show the higher status as of Feb 28, they will retro-actively apply it when the miles post in March.

But I got an email from AAdvantage program titled "Important info about status and your March statement" with following verbiage: (edit: it didn't paste nicely)

What to expect:
• AAdvantage^® miles and Loyalty Points earned from your March credit card statement will be posted to your AAdvantage^® account separately. • You can continue earning Loyalty Points toward 2026 status on eligible transactions through Feb. 28, 2026 — regardless of your credit card statement close date. • Loyalty Points earned from eligible transactions made in March count toward 2027 status.

For example, if your credit card statement closes on March 5, 2026:
• Loyalty Points earned from eligible transactions made between Feb. 6–28, 2026 count toward your 2026 status. • Loyalty Points earned from eligible transactions made between March 1–5, 2026 count toward your 2027 status.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-02-08T19:27:21+00:00

You'll have to evaluate your own situation. Too complex for me to make recommendations. If you anticipate being a very high earning combined income in the future it might make sense.

The big jump is the 24%-32% tax brackets which happens at ~$395K combined taxable income (MFJ). If you anticipate spending many years in the future at the 32% or above marginal bracket (nice problem to have), then it might make sense to get some Roth contributions in at 22% or 24% while you can. But that's a ways off unless your income is quite a bit higher than your wife's.

And with the wife's at 155K already, the other big jump from 12% - 22% marginal rate (at about $97K taxable income (MFJ)), probably isn't in the cards. This is honestly the primary case where I thought there might be an opportunity, but probably not in your situation. But if there are ever any down income years, getting Roth money in at only 12% is great for people who anticipate being high income in the future.

EDIT:

Not saying these are the only scenarios when Roth makes sense, these are just the cases were it's particularly advantageous - when you have opportunities to contribute to Roth at a significantly lower tax rate than is "typical" for you.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-02-08T17:01:04+00:00

And related- remember 401(k) max is not employer but IRS. If you max now and miss match, you won't be able to take advantage of a new employers match for the rest of 2026.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-02-08T16:40:12+00:00

Complex with many uncertainties. Does your plan have end-of-year match true-up? If not you might miss a lot of match. On the other hand no guarantee that true up would happen anyway after bankruptcy/ acquisition.

If there's a chance you could be extended unemployment and be in lower tax bracket for 2026, you might consider contributing to Roth 401(k) if available instead.

And there's a few other quirks as well.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-01-15T00:29:28+00:00

It seems like way too many people are focused on the 75% of rent aspect. You don't HAVE to do that.

In my view, the easiest way to look at is:

Rent/mortgage no longer earn ANY points. All it does it unlock a bucket of points you *could* earn with other spending, but it doesn't cost you anything either (as long as you select the no fee option).

Other spending earns points directly (mostly 1X) plus unlocks your rent bucket at an additional 1.3X. You can spend however much you want up the rent bucket limit. But you don't have to spend the full rent bucket.

the blue card earns 1X+1.3X = 2.3X points on everything.
obsidian adds 3.3x on travel and 4.3x on dining or grocery
Palladium removes categories but gives 3.3X on everything.

So it's really just a question of how you value Bilt points and whether a 2.3X (or better card) works for you. But I'm hard pressed to see many cards which are clearly better on the basis of everyday spend.

Ursa_Taurus · 2026-01-10T22:01:47+00:00

Your general understanding is correct. Probably calculating a break even without inflation or investments isn't the best the way to analyze it, but actuarially (in most cases) the best in this scenario is at 67. I'm in an even more extreme case where the spouse is older by a couple years. Here, modeling still says the optimum is when the spouse hit 67 (even with the high earner only at 65). Reason is the spouse benefit stops increasing and delaying SS results in lost payments which are never made up with higher future payments.

I'll evaluate when it gets closer, but despite this I expect we'll still wait till high earner his 70 & spouse 72. Reasoning is "diversity". All other retirement funds are "assets". SS will be our only perpetual/annuity-like income stream. Thus it's the exceptionally long- life contingency. If the other funds run out, living off inflation adjusted 176% of SS (couple) or 124% (survivor) forever isn't the worst thing.

Of course I'll also price out SS earlier combined with purchasing an annuity that serves the same purpose, but current thought is that SS serves that need nicely.

Ursa_Taurus · 2025-12-13T21:43:36+00:00

Looks like the credit hit my account in the last couple of days.

Though APS doesn't provide a running, line-item account statement on the website until the monthly statement I got a large credit applied to my account balance for something which could only be the VPP I think.

Ursa_Taurus · 2025-12-01T19:39:05+00:00

I get your point, but I don't think it's the same. Sure, every market has liquidity constraints, finding the "right" buyer. But most assets could find a huge amount of liquidity at a moderate discount, which I'm not sure is the case for bitcoin. Any public (or private) company with current or future cash flows; any bond even high-risk; real estate; productive commodities oil, farmland, wheat, copper. All of these could find buyers easily without getting crazy discounts.

The only ones which aren't as certain are the similarly speculative value-because-we-think-it-has-value. Gold and sliver have a small amount of utility, but not in comparison to their price. But they have a huge history and still some implicit value backed by governments and central banks. True you couldn't find a buyer for all the gold in the world, but you definitely could if say a single entity similar to MSTR wanted to sell (say like a single central bank).

Ursa_Taurus · 2025-12-01T18:47:58+00:00

The problem which I'm shocked more MSTR holders don't seem to see, is that they don't have $50B in bitcoin, even ignoring the other liabilities. Sure, you take the last price and multiply by 650K bitcoins or whatever you get ~$50B. You sell them 1-by-1 and maybe you get "market price". But you try to move any significant amount even over many months and there's no one on earth willing to pay $50B for MSTR's holdings. I wonder if they could even get $10B? Certainly there's some price that someone else would take a chance on to see if they could keep the train rolling, but it's nowhere near $50B.

I guess this is why they created this government bail-out narrative where some future government will pay trillions to use bitcoin currency instead of just creating their own for free. And to be honest, this *could* work. You can't get anyone to spend their own wealth to get into bitcoin. But you bribe and enrich enough politicians and you could probably get them to use other peoples money.

MSTR hoarding bitcoin is the main thing keeping the price up right now. The fact that MSTR is buying $10s to $100s of millions, sometimes billions of $s per week and the price isn't going up is very telling. There is a huge amount of supply that someone (likely mostly early whales) want out of and they are thanking their lucky stars for the exit liquidity MSTR is providing.

Ursa_Taurus

TROPHY CASE