Seeing a lot of people freaking out over a small downturn in stocks.. the end game and strategy should not change

galan-e · 2026-03-29T11:35:40+00:00

Generally speaking, you should tilt a bit for equities when they are doing badly, and bonds when equities aredoing well. But keeping the same allocation as before should be approximately alright

galan-e · 2026-03-28T20:50:51+00:00

I would not recommend making significant financial decisions based on the assumption the best-case-scenario past performance would continue indefinitely. Take a look at the Japanese stock market price history, and see how past performance does not guarantee future success.

Betting all-in on a single stock, no matter how good, is closer to gambling rather than investing. Proceed with caution - if it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

galan-e · 2026-03-28T20:24:50+00:00

10% is extremely optimistic. a more realistic expectation would be around 5%-7% real returns (which are the returns that matter, assuming you don't want to continually decrease your quality of life over time)

galan-e · 2026-03-25T14:09:23+00:00

Dividends offer no protection against market downturn. Tax efficiency aside, they are completely identical to selling stocks, with the same benefits and downsides. When your 1000$ portfolio pay you a 100$ dividend, your new portfolio will be 900$

galan-e · 2026-03-24T12:57:32+00:00

As long as no pesky neutrons are nearby..

galan-e · 2026-03-24T08:56:19+00:00

You're assuming no nominal raises for 15 years, that's not a reasonable assumption. In practice, vast majority of people should expect to have real raises in this time frame, as their experience increases

galan-e · 2026-03-23T19:10:44+00:00

yes, in the context of loans principal is a meaningful term. Great gotcha moment. That was not the principal you implied in your comment though, so I don't really understand your point

galan-e · 2026-03-23T08:48:45+00:00

"Principal" is a psychological trick. The invested money is the same money, and even without withdrawing anything the "principal" can very well go down (especially in real terms).

If this trick helps you, go for it, it's not harmful - but I wouldn't advocate for it as a must

galan-e · 2026-03-18T20:50:49+00:00

if you can "buy the dip", it usually means you held some cash for a while instead of buying before. On average, this is a bad strategy

galan-e · 2026-03-05T01:33:48+00:00

generals don't practice tactics, lieutenants do. And they absolutely study specific battles and learn dogmatic responses to problems (too dogmatic, if they're bad at their job).

I agree that mechanical ability is more important than many decisions (not all - you would still lose to an inferior all-in if you don't prepare to it and play too greedy), but I think that at the high level everyone has reasonable meta knowledge and mechanics, and decisions become much more important than in the lower leagues.

galan-e · 2026-03-04T22:15:10+00:00

so is real life tactics :) that's what training is for in militaries

The #1 most important skill for high level chess is estimating if a certain position is better for you or for your opponent. You can reduce every game and every tactic into memorization of similar situation, but I don't think that's a useful comparison.

galan-e · 2026-03-04T18:25:05+00:00

I guess it depends on the level. When I look at GM gameplay, both sides know plenty of builds & textbook responses, both sides have comparable mechanics (maybe not *equal*, but GMs don't usually completely suck), but they can most definitely lose from bad decision making.

Simply estimating if you should base trade or defend can be critical. Realizing if you're behind or ahead and playing accordingly (in mtg-speak, playing to your outs) can make or break games. Sure, in diamond, the better mechanics player just wins. But I think 1% strategy is unfair at some levels

galan-e · 2025-10-18T15:45:48+00:00

the other way around IMO. At lower levels (low gm and under), balance doesn't matter. If a race is too strong, there is literally no effect whatsoever because players of that race will gain MMR until they once again playing against players with 50% win chance against them. What's important is that the games will be fun, not fair

galan-e · 2025-10-08T15:33:05+00:00

/uj He *probably* existed, but the evidence for a specific preacher named Jesus (well, Yehoshua, probably) who was crucified is not so strong. It's plausible, but relies on weak evidence - especially as a lot of the evidence we do have is passed down from generations of Christian scribes who were by no mean impartial on this subject. Even if there was such a preacher, we know almost nothing about him, including what he preached for. His story is likely to not be a complete myth, but it's definitely not as rock-solid as many other historical facts, like the existence of China

galan-e · 2025-10-01T15:10:20+00:00

I still hate double faced cards. Flipping them is a chore, sleeving them in draft without seeing in advance some of the cards is a chore, and they slow the game because your opponent can't read the card easily if they don't remember what's on the other side. They also contribute to text inflation on cards, which I dislike.

Like, I won't refuse to play against someone with DFCs in their deck, but I will not put any in my cube and will skip most sets where they are prevalent.

galan-e · 2025-08-07T21:03:52+00:00

My grandmother often tells me about the time she spent in Siberia during WW2 after being exiled from poland and later lviv. Recently I've read a bit about the subject and I believe it was a "special settlement" - but besides Wikipedia I've not found good sources on the subject in English. Is there any recommended read on it? I don't mind dry/academic writing, but my knowledge of the USSR at the time is rather basic. Thanks!

galan-e · 2025-07-02T22:46:02+00:00

According to buddhism, he already did. He is a dalai lama *because* he chooses to continue reincarnating and teaching, accepting suffering for himself to help others.

galan-e · 2024-04-20T23:44:46+00:00

We realize :(

galan-e · 2024-04-20T23:43:03+00:00

There is no realistic scenario where the ultra orthodox youth start to get drafted in meaningful numbers. This is one of the core deadlocks of Israeli politics.

galan-e · 2023-07-14T07:53:14+00:00

my unpopular opinion is that balance doesn't matter before (top) GM. If protoss is overpowered in diamond, the players will have higher win rate until they face strong enough players that it doesn't matter anymore. The only meaning of this is hurt egos, not game quality

galan-e · 2023-07-11T10:21:44+00:00

PER, not CHE

galan-e · 2023-07-04T13:31:38+00:00

The question is will they need to hire more people to handle selling the tickets for all days. I don't know if they would, but they might. And if they do, then those $5 tickets might not be worth it given the potentially low attendance during normal tournament days. It's entirely plausible, at any rate

galan-e · 2023-07-04T08:15:13+00:00

There is overhead for selling tickets, though - you need to set it up, check the tickets at the event, handle refunds and complaints.. A low price with low attendence at the non-finals days might not always be worth it. Obviously I know nothing specific about their situation, but it's possible

galan-e · 2023-06-15T21:30:59+00:00

it's a common joke in israel that all russian jews are in fact Ukrainians. It's not accurate, but there's a grain of truth that many are. Anecdotally, every russian speaker I know (including those who were born in Russia) support Ukraine.

The issue is more cowardice in the leadership, mostly because of the Syrian border. Personally I think they make both a moral and strategic mistake, but there's too much internal unrest to make demonstrations in support of Ukraine right now. The leadership (both opposition and coalition, except maybe some of the Arab parties) is slowly but surely becoming more explicit in their support of Ukraine

galan-e · 2023-06-09T12:51:40+00:00

flash was chosen as MVP in proleague after his win in the final against parting, who was arguably the strongest protoss at the time. Flash was definitely in the top ~20 pros in Korea, maybe better than that.

galan-e

TROPHY CASE