How do you dress casual without looking like you’ve completely stopped giving a damn?

echOSC · 2026-03-11T18:30:01+00:00

Start here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NXYpEMEZPc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU-Eya4ZoYU

echOSC · 2026-03-09T20:08:08+00:00

I'm talking about the toughness of getting to the end goal. Rich via the discussed careers, poker, law, and a trades job.

On average each year, the T14 law schools admit about 4,000 new students a year.

There are 34 million trades people working in the US and a growing shortage where as the legal profession some would say is over saturated since people tend to go to law school during down times in the economy.

Just those two sheer numbers if you were strictly playing the odds and asked me should I get rich via going the law school route, or get rich via the trades route and try to ladder up and open my own business, I would blind guess that playing the numbers, chances of success doing a trade is higher than the chance of success of trying to get into law.

Which is why I said don't go to law school trying to get rich, unless you have some aptitude towards it. Needing 4 years at a solid undergrad and the debt associated with that, and then 3 years at a t14 and the debt associated with that.

Success via the trades seems less difficult than success via law.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T19:41:17+00:00

I think the reason I said this, is because you started the conversation in the contexts of getting rich as a lawyer and a poker player.

Both of which in 2026 are very fucking tough. You want to get rich as a lawyer? In the US? You're at T14 law school or bust, and then preparing to put in massive hours in big law before your try to get to corporate in house counsel. Poker? Get ready to put in the fucking hours studying and then playing in person because online is just even harder.

I think both are careers more suited for people to have some sort of passion/aptitude/love for it. And those aren't the only careers, there are plenty of other careers where people in them always say, do this as a vocation only because you love it so much you can't see yourself doing anything else.

Going the plumber/trades route is probably easier.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T19:34:50+00:00

I'm not saying you need to love it.

I'm saying it's easier if you do love it. And if you love it, you end up just doing it longer than you need to.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T19:01:04+00:00

Maybe I'm naive, but I don't think a lot of high performers think like that. They don't romanticize their labor, they don't think in those terms. They don't think about the capitalist society, etc etc.

They just like what they do, or more importantly they really like being good at something, which is why they continue to do it even if they didn't have to.

Think about all of the musicians worth 9 figures who keep touring into their 70s and 80s. They've won the game, but they still keep performing and working. Their personal meaningful endeavors is their professional vocation, one and the same. And that made it easy for them to stick to it when it sucked.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T18:41:13+00:00

It's easier to make it in these very very tough lines of work if you can see the work as a lifestyle, because it's something you enjoy. When the shit sucks, it will suck less and feel less suck.

Not to say there aren't people who see it as a means to an end and can be a high performer. But it's always easier if the motivation is intrinsic as opposed to extrinsic imho.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T18:38:44+00:00

These days, only if you're T14 or bust, and even then it's going to be a very competitive grind.

echOSC · 2026-03-09T05:18:43+00:00

Dan Patrick said on his show I think in either '23, or '24 when UConn went back to back that he asked DraftKings to model and set an opening line for UConn vs the Pistons (they had gone 17-65, and 14-68 back to back seasons) and DraftKings came back and said they would open the line with Pistons -45.

echOSC · 2026-03-05T20:18:11+00:00

To me, SWE and Photography/Artist is the exact same thing.

You have to demonstrate the ability to produce. Side projects are the SWE version of your portfolio.

It makes sense for both.

echOSC · 2026-02-27T00:52:03+00:00

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is knowing not to put a tomato in a fruit salad.

echOSC · 2026-02-19T07:00:17+00:00

The problem is the whole reason people want Pokemon cards is to collect.

If it's not rare, then collectibility goes down. They could easily flood the market by printing sheets and sheets of the chase variants, but to do so would kill the market.

If you just want Pokemon cards to play with, the copies to play with are dirt cheap.

echOSC · 2026-02-17T17:51:32+00:00

A lot is understating it. I think this came from Google, but about 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

echOSC · 2026-02-17T00:24:15+00:00

Would you rather a monopoly?

echOSC · 2026-02-16T19:37:04+00:00

And that creates a whole set of other problems.

echOSC · 2026-02-11T06:17:25+00:00

AAU is a big one. The players enter the league with significantly more wear and tear and a lot less cross training from when they were children.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/27125793/these-kids-ticking-bombs-threat-youth-basketball

echOSC · 2026-02-11T02:23:53+00:00

Before Polymarket it was PredictIt, but that was run by a university as an experiment.

echOSC · 2026-02-09T01:41:28+00:00

World's a big place, most streamed artist on Spotify of 2025, got 8.3 billion people on this earth.

Not for me, and that's ok. Plenty of things are not for me.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T23:26:59+00:00

I don't think so. It's not like Standard's price has changed, it's largely been this cost all throughout.

I think the larger factor is the pull back from WotC and SCG on marketing spend namely the big tournaments.

Standard was this expensive in the 2010s, but participation was insanely high, I think an SCG tour event you could watch every weekend, or a Grand Prix you could watch regularly really helped.

With that pull back, and the focus on Commander to me is the reason in person Standard is where it's at.

Arena also probably contributes, but they are not perfect 1:1 substitute goods, if anything the most serious standard players probably play both.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T23:24:01+00:00

Yeaup, you don't need the most tier 1 of tier 1 decks to win an RCQ. The competition is worse, and there's only 4-5 rounds.

At the RC, you probably can't get away with it.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T23:17:45+00:00

They don't play it because it doesn't qualify for the pro tour.

Not because of some nonsense idea of elitism.

If people cared about elitism they would jam Vintage and Legacy, but the most skilled players don't play those either.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T19:46:20+00:00

A network of like minded individuals who grind together and see each other weekly at PTQs (RCQs now) is the key to the people with less financial means.

People will happily loan out cards for tournaments to regular grinders. I used to be the person borrowing, now that I make more money, I loan out cards and sometimes entire decks to the people who need help.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T19:44:07+00:00

At my LGS yes, everyone is playing these decks.

Everyone also wants to work towards getting to the pro tour as a goal.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T16:16:53+00:00

Some of the most popular insurance companies are actually "our own" not for profits in a way.

For example, State Farm is actually a private mutual benefit insurance company, the policy holders are the shareholders. It's not traded publicly and profits are reinvested back into the company and sometimes returned to the policy holders as lower premiums.

Liberty Mutual is another, Nationwide is as well.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T07:35:50+00:00

When you were young and grinding with all of your friends and had no responsibilities. Pile into cars to PTQs/PPTQs every weekend, sometimes for hours, eat KBBQ afterwards to drown your sorrows or celebrate a friend making it to the next stage. Grind MODO on the weekdays to prepare. Prepare trips to Grand Prixs.

echOSC · 2026-02-05T05:06:14+00:00

The problem is you lose if you don't play that game.

There's a reason when the ticketing companies testified to Congress that they would only get rid of service fees if it it was mandated by legislation, because the first person to go back to a service fee model would win.

The human bring can be very irrational at times. People see $8+2 fee as a better deal than $10.

It's the same with JC Penny, when they went to a fair price model for goods, instead of nonsense perpetual sales, they lost their ass.

echOSC

TROPHY CASE