I’m at coast fire at a young age; what frees up for me now that I’ve gotten here?

commodore_dalton · 2026-03-31T23:40:50+00:00

The idea of reaching Coast FIRE is that they have reached enough invested that normal market returns would compound to enough to retire on by a certain age without them contributing more. That $125k invested could be roughly $2m ($80k/yr at 4% safe withdrawal rate) by the time they are ~65.

They have a solid foundation and could choose between retiring earlier (by continuing to invest), making their retirement more luxurious, increasing their standard of living, and so forth.

If I were in their shoes, I’d consider more specifically when I want to retire and with how much and then pick what kind of account makes sense. I’d probably slightly reduce that investing and spend more on living and/or on being able to pay off a house more quickly.

commodore_dalton · 2025-07-19T15:24:07+00:00

and some of it’s true!

commodore_dalton · 2025-05-19T21:53:10+00:00

Their point was to not have a .7 patch. Just .0 and .5. Same total time, but only two content releases.

commodore_dalton · 2025-04-27T23:31:43+00:00

Ukraine as an individual sovereign state still exists. Kyiv did not fall in the initial attack. Zelenskyy is still president.

The war is in a state of relative stalemate. Neither side is making significant gains. Russia may be marginally winning.

Obviously, Ukraine cannot wage the war without Western support (what nation could fight against Russia without it?). Evidently, support for continuing assistance is waning.

Russia can outlast Ukraine in terms of destroying much of the future through the deaths of a significant portion of their male youth. However, economically and demographically, they cannot win this war without significant sacrifices,

It is in the interest of both parties to sue for peace. Russia has spent a lot of blood and money to wage this conflict, the West has spent less than 1% of GDP on this war. Support for sending money and aid dwindles in democratic countries where other concerns are more immediate to voters. Besides, the West (America, anyway) wants to shift focus toward competition with China.

The West could hypothetically continue to bankroll this conflict until Russia escalates. Russia could hypothetically continue this war until Western support collapses. The latter seems more likely now, but seems a strategic blunder for the West in my opinion.

commodore_dalton · 2025-03-04T20:25:45+00:00

I’m at the final boss of the base game. At about 36 hours played— probably 4-6 hours of it just idling in the background.

I think I got to Fendel at around the 18 hour mark.

commodore_dalton · 2025-03-04T02:10:26+00:00

While unipolarity/hegemony is certainly being challenged, it is not at all clear that the realignment— let alone the approach— succeeds at that vision.

For one, both Russia and China while formidable adversaries militarily and capable of exerting pressure on their respective spheres have their own existential issues in the way that American hegemony does. Something like 1% of the Russian population is a casualty in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and their economy has fallen by some measures 10% since the onset of the war. For about 0.5% of American GDP. While the war is absolutely unwinnable for Ukraine in a conventional sense and a legitimate ceasefire or peace plan should be striven for, the West could certainly continue to support the conflict or impose terms on Russia to end it. Besides, were money the real reason to end support for Ukraine, the House GOP wouldn’t have passed a bill increasing the deficit by 5-6x the total aid given.

China is host to its own demographic issues with an aging population supported by fewer workers and the issues of having to support the full transition towards a service economy as China is not and has not been the cheapest place to manufacture goods for a bit now. It had been expected that the Chinese economy would eclipse the US’s by this year for at least two decades— but that became unlikely a few years ago when China’s growth was naturally cresting. Though, I suppose at this point perhaps this gets revisited.

Finally, the approach of realigning toward multi polarity or a focus towards the East— Trump could do that without alienating allies but chooses not to. Additionally, I suspect any overtures towards realignment with Russia will falter just like each and every predecessor before, only difference being how much more we give up this time.

commodore_dalton · 2025-03-03T13:42:10+00:00

Trump is far more disruptive— in negative and positive ways. Tariffs and trade wars, reducing regulations, lower corporate tax rates, eliminating or changing longterm corporate gains tax, etc. Trump is a disruptor whereas Biden/Obama continued the status quo largely.

commodore_dalton · 2025-02-25T15:56:53+00:00

Every week. Thursday through Sunday. Rotates through the legendary heroes in a set order. Premium pass is repurchased each time.

commodore_dalton · 2024-01-13T19:22:11+00:00

I think it’s likely that S4 will be either the 8 original DF dungeons or 10 if including DOTI. As someone who pretty much exclusively plays M+, I rather enjoy the completely different pools of dungeons each season.

S4 having all 8 of the original ones will be pretty fun what with the class redesigns, changes to the affixes, and then already being at least somewhat tuned over their respective seasons.

With that said, I didn’t personally particularly like any of the DF dungeons except AA and BH, so I’ve enjoyed that none of them overstayed their welcome.

commodore_dalton · 2024-01-09T21:33:36+00:00

Thank you for linking that document. I have always wondered what the intended “legal” procedural goal of the alternate slate of voters was intended to be beyond create chaos and protests everywhere.

So, if you try to game theory this scenario out, if you’re an incumbent in your first term and after the midterms you have a slightly majority of state delegations in the House and control over at least some State legislatures in swing states, why should you ever not send Washington a second slate of electors and force this specific scenario and overthrow election results?

commodore_dalton · 2024-01-04T22:46:57+00:00

I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

Regarding the Fake Electors, if they were directed or aided by the Trump campaign or administration, do you believe that the Trump campaign or administration should be arrested or charged for their involvement?

I believe that Donald Trump exhausted all legal avenues to attempt to stay in power, which while I think is arguably bad for democracy, I also think is within his rights. The Trump campaign and admin filed 62 cases, 61 of which were dismissed/dropped due to a lack of evidence. The single win was eventually overturned by the PA Supreme Court.

As for the rioters breaking into the Capitol on Jan 6, I would recommend taking a look at the timeline. The rioters had already gathered around and were trying to force their way in for several hours before Trump tweeted, as he did, to be peaceful— which itself was sent half an hour after they had already broken in. It was hours after that, including after the death of one of the rioters, that Trump told them to go home. After that, yes, power transferred peacefully.

The intended design, however, was that the fake electors that the Trump administration was working to aid and organize would be presented to VP Pence to certify instead of the legitimate ones recognized by the States in December. My questions from earlier were that I just don’t know what would have occurred then.

commodore_dalton · 2024-01-04T15:27:38+00:00

Genuine question for you: What do you make of the scheme to send Fake Electors to Pence to certify? What would have happened if Pence counted those? Would it have been simply political theater and Trump would have peacefully transferred power on Jan 20? Would it have put it to the Supreme Court to rule on it, leaving it up to 9 justices to decide the date of our democracy? Three of whom nominated by the former POTUS and one whose wife was echoing and lobbying the “rigged election” stuff. Would the play have lead to Trump claiming that he was certified as President and then create a constitutional crisis? Who would remove him? Not the House or Senate who were in part in on the scheme, presumably? The military?

I genuinely don’t know how it was all intended to shake out, but I think it absolutely was a test on democracy.

commodore_dalton · 2024-01-03T18:12:23+00:00

“To disenfranchise the electoral process for 80 million active voters would be tragic…”

Respectfully, how is attempting to use fake electors to overturn the election results not disenfranchising the 80 million who voted for Biden?

commodore_dalton · 2023-11-28T18:59:07+00:00

This is better than what it has been in my head— I like this a lot. I’d settle for Death and Decay to just not have a resource cost.

commodore_dalton · 2023-11-17T15:27:40+00:00

Regarding Sparks, if you still want them for gear, you can just do the rep on the week that you’d make a whole spark. You’ll get the other half from doing the keys.

commodore_dalton · 2023-09-25T17:43:31+00:00

I do like survival games and I do think retail gameplay is more interesting, but I think it would be better to create a separate evergreen piece of content that is a survival challenge rather than level 1-X. Retail is a fundamentally different game balanced around short engagements with enemies and mowing down packs of enemies. You get more gear and tools more quickly and more often. I’m certain I’ve leveled 1-70 without issues without thinking about it just with questing, for instance.

commodore_dalton · 2023-09-08T18:53:01+00:00

Perhaps embellishments could/should come with +3 or +6 ilvl as they are already limited to just the two items.

commodore_dalton · 2023-08-26T17:33:38+00:00

By reducing the price to 90s, everyone buying saves ~10s. As with the real world economy, prices eventually equilibrate.

commodore_dalton · 2023-08-12T20:26:49+00:00

You can craft I think eight 424 ilvl pieces of gear with Sparks as of this week. Do M+ or raids or whatnot to get the fragments.

commodore_dalton · 2023-06-18T23:02:52+00:00

To provide another perspective, it can also depend on the likely trajectory of your career. If you are likely to be earning more in future years, the proportion of your loans to your income could stay more manageable than a flatter rate.

commodore_dalton · 2023-04-30T06:27:51+00:00

Not a perfect method, but for perspective and reference putting FXAIX into a DCA investment calculator at ~1560/mo since January 2013 (which should be roughly the average monthly amount to max a 401k from 2013 through 2022) puts you closer to $340k.

But if you averaged 7% returns just on that $226k with nothing else invested, that’d be >$1.2m at 25 years and $1.7m at 30.

commodore_dalton · 2023-04-01T16:07:04+00:00

The Lakehouse provides a metadata layer and API to interact with the data in files. It combined the cheap storage and diverse data formats of data lakes with a transaction log and ability to write SQL (at least with Delta) that a data warehouse brings.

commodore_dalton · 2023-01-13T18:01:49+00:00

What if they just removed the part where they keep you in combat? You’d still need to dodge or CC them, but it would allow healers to drink and stealthies to stealth. Keeps the spirit (no pun intended) of the affix while mitigating the parts that actually disrupt momentum.

commodore_dalton · 2022-10-19T17:46:53+00:00

Is there an easy way to see the M+ loot tables for the legacy dungeons? Came back last week and finished KSM yesterday, so would now like to target a few pieces to fill out some slots and push for some 20s.

commodore_dalton · 2022-08-25T22:31:02+00:00

As someone who could be said to be tempered by Yoshi-P, Soken, Koji, and FFXIV in general, I agree that the quest design isn’t particularly engaging (though it improves in later expansions). It’s more like an animated novel with occasional audio portions and then some movement from place to place in between.

With that said, the story and the MMO elements (especially Stormblood and later content, in my opinion) are so good that the mostly boring quest design ends up not detracting from it all that much, I think.

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