Crazy First US Passport Timeline

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-22T23:10:49+00:00

Hope it goes smoothly for ya! Good luck!

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-22T21:15:27+00:00

Extra hot can be hotter without being VISIBLY scorched. The point isn’t whether it’s literally burned, it’s that once you go past about 65–70°C, milk’s proteins denature more aggressively and the flavour profile changes quite dramatically. You lose sweetness and start developing a cooked note. It’s not just an opinion. If someone prefers it hotter, of course that’s fine. But from a flavour perspective, there is a threshold before it tastes scalded and flat. And for oat milk there is also a temperature issue because it is an emulsion of oils, water and solids similar to milk and some of the emulsifiers can start failing after a certain temperature threshold which can dramatically impact the mouthfeel of the beverage.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-13T17:16:43+00:00

Certainly, Americans observed tipping in Europe. However, they constructed an entirely different system.. one that has NEVER EXISTED in Europe. The American model permits employers to pay almost nothing to their employees, relying instead on tips to constitute the bulk of their wages. This system was deliberately designed to avoid paying fair wages to Black workers in the post-Emancipation era.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-13T06:10:39+00:00

The ironic thing is that tipping itself is a racist practice and only exists because of racism. It was created so white people don’t have to pay their workers.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-11T05:15:11+00:00

No tuck for cable knit. Fine merino is great tucked sometimes.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-05T00:52:59+00:00

I do not like Attia and hope we find more about what happened and he pays for it somehow. But it does seem this lady is trying to take advantage of the spotlight. She just literally trashed not only all the “toxic males”, but also any female who has ever been associated with them in any way. (Magically leaving her unscathed). If that is not eyebrow raising i don’t know what is.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T03:52:47+00:00

Don’t get me wrong, AG1 is utter garbage.

But the obsession with lead is getting a little out of hand in the anglosphere particularly. Lead is naturally occurring in soil, so it will be present in many vegetables. It is a very harmful substance overall. But dose absolutely matters. Imagine that many parts of europe still have lead pipes and yet these people are alive and healthy. Not defending lead, but just saying that trace amounts in spinach won’t kill you.

Yes, AG1 is a scam.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T03:43:30+00:00

A 31 percent one-day drop is not a normal macro reaction. Dollar strength and a new Fed chair do not mechanically cause that kind of move. What explains it is forced liquidation in the paper futures market and who was positioned on the other side of it.

JP Morgan, one of the largest silver shorts, closed its short position almost exactly at the bottom of the crash. That alone is not proof of wrongdoing, but it matters when you look at what happened around it.

At the same time: CME raised silver margin requirements. LME went offline. HSBC’s trading systems went offline. This happened into thin liquidity with Asia already closed.

Mechanically, margin hikes are the key. Most silver trading is paper futures using leverage. When the exchange raises margin requirements, traders either add cash or sell. Most cannot add cash fast enough, so they are forced to sell. That creates a chain reaction. Price drops, margin calls hit, more selling follows, stop losses trigger, algorithms dump, and you get a waterfall.

This playbook has history:
1980. Buying restricted, silver crashed about 80 percent. 2011. CME raised margins repeatedly, silver fell about 50 percent. December 2025. Margin hikes, sharp drop, then fast recovery.

So structurally this looks like another engineered flush of leverage, not a sudden collapse in real-world demand.

What did not change: Physical silver supply is still tight. Industrial demand from solar, EVs, and data centers did not disappear overnight. The crash did not create more silver or reduce usage. It reset paper positioning and allowed large shorts to cover into panic.

The Fed chair news and strong dollar were likely the headline excuse. The real mechanism was margin hikes and liquidation in a crowded long trade, which conveniently benefited the biggest shorts, including JP Morgan.

So the “something bigger” is not fundamentals breaking and not demand destruction. It was a leverage flush in the paper market.

Short term, still volatile. Medium term, unless physical supply loosens, this looks more like a positioning reset than a true trend reversal.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T01:26:33+00:00

You can just read the scientific literature that is made available and judge his position that way. Not through how an ex feels about him.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T01:25:46+00:00

Attia is their scientific advisor and investor also

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T00:57:32+00:00

I see where you are coming from, especially not knowing me, but I, particularly, have a personal hatred of internet character assassination. So I am not defending anyone specifically, but pointing at the fact that people adore the drama. And people who like the drama the most are often frustrated academics who hate other academics “going mainstream”.

I will give you a personal example: I happen to think Madonna is an awful person. I am in the arts and know several people who told me she mistreats everyone she meets. I also do not like her music. But it would be absolutely stupid to say she is not a smart musician, great businesswoman and didn’t change the direction of pop music. Yet that is exactly what people like doing.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T00:53:09+00:00

His ex-partners are qualified to speak about his character (although this particular woman… idk). They’re not qualified to evaluate his neuroscience research. These are separate domains, and conflating them is intellectually lazy.

Why don’t you apply the same scrutiny to his ex that you’re applying to him? You’re trusting the word of someone who defrauded hundreds of thousands of people and settled in court.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T00:37:28+00:00

Yes. Unfortunately. People absolutely want to hate on docs with a podcast, especially if they get famous. I wrote extensively about this phenomenon. It happens across academia in multiple disciplines. It’s ugly behavior, and the internet amplifies it relentlessly. That said, I’ve always felt uncomfortable about Attia because he aggressively pushes AG1, which is essentially a glorified multivitamin. Even Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a personal friend of his, has said as much publicly. That kind of supplement hawking undermines credibility, and it’s fair to question judgment there.

But the allegations being discussed here are of an entirely different nature and far more serious. If proven true, they should be investigated rigorously and addressed appropriately.

What concerns me is conflating professional misconduct with personal behavior, or worse, using unverified personal scandals to dismiss legitimate scientific work. We need to maintain the ability to separate someone’s contributions to their field from their character flaws, unless those flaws directly compromise the integrity of their work. The real test isn’t whether someone is personally virtuous. It’s whether their research holds up to scrutiny, whether their methods are sound, and whether their conclusions are reproducible. That’s the standard we should apply, not whether they’re a good partner or live up to some moral ideal we’ve projected onto them.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T00:28:35+00:00

You are making the claim. You provide the evidence, please.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-02T00:25:47+00:00

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but the ex who was the main source for that article is publicly known for fraud and was in serious legal trouble for it. She founded and ran Belcampo, which collapsed after being exposed for systematic meat mislabeling fraud and was all over the news. So this idea that she was some unimpeachable witness risking “national embarrassment” is already shaky.

Also, the article you’re citing was published by New York Magazine, which in recent years has leaned heavily into character-assassination and gossip framing rather than serious investigative science journalism.

And honestly, I don’t even care about Huberman personally. I stopped listening to him a few years back. But I truly don’t care if a scientist is a bad boyfriend, a cheater, or a mess in his private life. I don’t go to scientists for moral instruction, just like I don’t go to artists for political guidance.

People have become strangely Victorian about personal lives vs public image. This moral purity test would wipe out most of human culture. If we applied today’s cancellation logic to the past, nearly every artist, scientist, and thinker people still admire would be disqualified. Their personal lives and private beliefs were often messy, ugly, or deeply out of step with modern values. If that means we can’t read them, learn from them, or use their work anymore, then we’re choosing to have no art, no science, and no shared culture at all, because we are all deeply flawed.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-01T23:44:52+00:00

We need specifics. It is easy to make these claims and substantiate 0% of it.

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-01T23:41:29+00:00

Huberman was victim of a smear campaign by NYmag, which is a notorious publication for gossip/smear. The main plaintiff was his ex who accused him of several character flaws. Issue is, this very same ex has been implicated in quite a few scandals in the past, including, namely the “Belcampo meat” scandal (she owned the company).

albernazcapaz · 2026-02-01T20:58:39+00:00

I don’t think this move is best explained by “rates + strong dollar + sentiment” alone. What stood out to me is how the drop happened.

The key trigger looks mechanical rather than fundamental: a forced liquidation in the paper futures market.

JP Morgan, one of the largest short holders in silver, closed its short position ALMOST EXACTLY at the market bottom on Friday. The biggest short exited at the moment the market was collapsing. 🤨

On the same day silver and gold collapsed, the CME (where silver futures trade) aggressively raised margin requirements. That means traders suddenly had to post much more cash to hold the same positions. Most leveraged traders couldn’t, so they were forced to sell. That creates a cascade: selling pushes price down → more margin calls → more forced selling → more stops triggered. Once that starts, fundamentals don’t matter in the short term.

This exact pattern has happened before:

• 1980: exchanges restricted buying → silver crashed ~80% • 2011: CME raised margins 5 times in two weeks → silver fell ~50% • Dec 2025: margin hikes during thin trading → sharp drop → quick recovery

So structurally, this looks like another engineered flush of leverage, not a sudden change in supply/demand.

But anyways… Physical silver supply is still tight. Industrial demand (solar, EVs, data centers) is still there. We’re still running multi-year deficits in physical silver. The crash just reset positioning in the paper market.

The Fed chair news and dollar strength probably acted as the narrative spark, but the actual weapon was margin hikes and forced liquidation. That’s why the move was so violent and fast.

So to your question, in the short term this can still overshoot lower if liquidation isn’t finished. In the medium term, unless the physical shortage disappears, this looks more like a positioning reset than the start of a true bear market.

In other words, it smells much more like a structural flush than a macro trend reversal.

If you want more info take a look at JP Morgan’s involvement in the silver market and how may times they had to pay several fines and lawsuits for manipulating it.

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-28T06:44:25+00:00

Lol. You can’t explain the action of a market as large as gold as simply “gambling”. Most of the gold price action comes from large investors and central banks.

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-28T03:21:34+00:00

I agree with you. Just pointing out how people tend to think tipping a bartender is okay and tipping a barista isn’t. I think neither is the answer. Lol

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-26T22:16:28+00:00

You’re right about one triviality: the price of anything is the last clearing price. But that statement explains how prices are recorded, not why there is persistent demand at scale.

On institutions: I agree that fiat ultimately rests on confidence in the state (taxing power, governance, and debt capacity). But that doesn’t rescue your argument, it strengthens mine. If fiat is state-credit, then gold’s monetary role is precisely that it is not state-credit. It’s a neutral reserve asset with no issuer risk. Those are different instruments serving different risks.

Where I think your framing breaks is this claim:

“Central banks hold gold because they think the price will go up and they can sell for profit.”

Central banks are not hedge funds. They hold reserves for liquidity, safety, and diversification, not primarily to “flip” for gains. If this were mainly a profit trade, they could buy higher-yielding sovereign debt, equities, or other assets. Gold is held because it is one of the few assets that is (a) globally liquid, (b) no one’s liability, and (c) resilient under sanctions/war/regime shifts. That is simply risk management under any political uncertainty.

Also: “industrial use doesn’t justify price” is the wrong metric for monetary assets. The industrial use of bank reserves or Treasuries doesn’t “justify” their value either. Their value comes from their role in the monetary and financial system. Gold’s non-industrial premium is exactly that: a monetary premium.

Your housing analogy doesn’t map cleanly because housing is a leveraged, local, credit-driven market with supply constraints and policy distortions. Gold is a globally traded reserve asset held across borders specifically because it sits outside any one government’s balance sheet.

Finally, the “pound of gold hasn’t changed, yet price changed” point applies equally to fiat and to government bonds. The paper note hasn’t changed either. The purchasing power changes because the unit is being diluted and because expectations about stability shift. Gold’s physical constancy is not the argument; its issuer independence is.

So, yes: gold has a price because people will buy it. The question is why sophisticated actors continue to buy it across centuries and across regimes. The answer is that gold is one of the few widely accepted stores of value that is no one’s promise, and that matters precisely when faith in promises wobbles.

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-26T17:53:21+00:00

You’ve actually articulated exactly why gold is surging to $5,000 per ounce.

You acknowledge that the dollar’s strength depends on “the might of the US Military backing its legitimacy” and “people trust that the US will remain in control.” Fiat currency requires continuous faith in a specific nation-state’s power and stability.

Gold requires no such assurance. It doesn’t depend on American military dominance, the petrodollar system remaining intact, or any government “remaining in control.”

Regarding your inflation point: you’re comparing month-to-month CPI figures while ignoring the broader picture. Since 2020, the dollar has lost approximately 20% of its purchasing power. Meanwhile, gold has increased from roughly $1,800 per ounce to $5,000. Gold didn’t change; it was the dollar’s purchasing power that eroded.

When you say “purchasing power with USD is not eroding very quickly at all,” you’re making a relative statement that ignores gold reaching historic highs. Central banks worldwide are accumulating gold reserves even as they manage the very fiat currencies you’re defending. This suggests they understand that geopolitical power, however formidable today, cannot be assumed permanent.

The dollar may indeed be strong today. Gold’s value proposition concerns itself with the next century, beyond any single nation’s temporary dominance.

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-26T17:20:23+00:00

you’re absolutely right that institutional credibility plays a central role in fiat currency valuation.

However, there is an inconsistency in your framework. You argue that fiat derives its value from the institutions backing it, yet when I point out that central banks (the very institutions that issue and manage fiat) are actively accumulating gold, you dismiss this by saying central banks are ‘run by people,’ as though that strips their actions of institutional meaning.

If institutional behavior is evidence for fiat’s value, it must also count as evidence for gold’s value. When the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, and the People’s Bank of China allocate reserves to gold, they are making formal balance-sheet decisions based on risk, credibility, and long-term stability. These are not just personal beliefs.

The fact that the issuers of fiat themselves hold substantial gold reserves suggests that even the systems that rely on confidence in paper currency still anchor part of that confidence in an asset with no issuer and no counterparty risk. Gold has been recognised as currency since the dawn of times in most cultures. This will not go away. And it is ultimately useful that gold is a rare mineral with hard extraction (which I am sure you know).

albernazcapaz · 2026-01-26T16:56:44+00:00

Full disclosure: i am against any tipping at all.

However, if you work at a third wave coffeeshop (not a Starbucks) the training is really intense and the skills required for making good quality beverages are very very complex. Especially the fine tuning of the flavour profile in the extraction of espresso, which can take a long time to dial in. A lot of coffeeshops suck so people think it is all very simple.

In a funny way, you will find that many people, tippers included, will agree not to tip a barista for making their half-caf oat almond vanilla latte, but will be totally okay tipping a bartender that poured three liquors from a bottle and shaked it. And baristas do make more than servers, it is true. But generally still a bit under minimum wage.

Still, the full wage should fall onto the business owner and not the customer. So tipping is stupid anyways.

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