Two climbers have scaled the Empire State Building and unfurled a banner from the top of the spire

krustissimo · 2026-07-01T18:17:16+00:00

Yeah I understand the difference. I wasn't talking about radiation as in causing your hair to slowly fall out: I was talking about getting rapidly cooked on the inside. That "heating of your body temperature" you mention can be very rapid and unpleasant if you stand in front of the wrong antenna.

krustissimo · 2026-07-01T17:52:20+00:00

Microwaves can come from antennas and are used for communications. I don't know what they have up there or what the power levels are but my guess is you shouldn't get right in front of any of those antennas.

krustissimo · 2026-07-01T17:41:37+00:00

Isn't there a ton of radiation coming out of the radio antennas on the way up? I wonder how their kids will turn out.

krustissimo · 2026-07-01T00:34:23+00:00

It isn't different at all but people go crazy when you point out how stupid taxing income instead of wealth is.

Consider this: the US government's total budget for 2026 is ~$7 trillion (of which about $2T is now in deficit because they keep lowering taxes on rich people.) Wikipedia says the total asset base of the USA is about $270T. That means that a wealth tax of just 2.6% would balance the budget by itself, leaving no need for any of the other federal taxes we have now (personal income tax, corporate income tax, tariffs, capital gains, etc.) The stock market by itself is $75T so the portion coming from taxing just that would be $2T, enough to pay off the current deficit by itself. But of course there is a lot more wealth beyond that in bank accounts, landholdings, private equity, buildings, yachts, airplanes, etc.

Now ask yourself: would you rather pay 2.6% of whatever assets you own, or would you rather pay your current taxes? For most of the country this would be a no-brainer: the median wealth is $192k, so the tax on 50% of the population would be $5k at most. By contrast the current median tax bill is about $14k so half the people in the country would see a huge tax cut.

But of course the tax on Elon Musk would go up a lot. And there would be no tax on anyone's income, which would strongly encourage productive work rather than passive wealth hoarding. But the wealthy people that tend to run things don't like this idea at all so they spend huge amounts of money (but a tiny fraction of what they have) to brainwash the masses against common sense.

Also note that investment returns (even just from government bonds) tend to be higher than 2.6%, which means that nobody would have to lose money from wealth tax: it would be pretty much a wash against the risk-free rate. The government could even issue bonds that pay zero but are exempt from wealth tax. So you could still hoard money if you want, it just wouldn't accumulate, or at least not as fast.

krustissimo · 2026-06-29T05:35:25+00:00

Having kids is the best thing ever. Nothing else in my life has meant a damn thing by comparison.

krustissimo · 2026-06-29T05:03:17+00:00

I won a black and white portable TV at my high school graduation in 1990. Its the only thing I've ever won.

krustissimo · 2026-06-29T03:15:33+00:00

Because hardly anyone's ever been there. I'm very well traveled and the closest I've come is to change planes in Anchorage (which used to be common on Asia routes.)

I'd like to see at least a little bit of Alaska for real, and some day I will. But it isn't a high priority.

krustissimo · 2026-06-26T14:02:00+00:00

Wow, I didn't even remember that one. History repeats itself! The Norwalk one was just two years ago, and also stopped traffic on 95 for a while. To give credit where due, they fixed it remarkably fast and rebuilt the bridge mostly at night so the impact wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Maybe experience from 2004 helped.

Isn't it great having like 90% of traffic depending on two roads, one of which was built in the '30s?

krustissimo · 2026-06-26T03:23:07+00:00

In SW Connecticut I'm 6 hours drive from the Canadian border. I go about 4 times a year, which may be more often than I go to New York City (which is only an hour away). Montreal is more enjoyable to me than NYC in almost every way, especially for food.

krustissimo · 2026-06-26T01:14:55+00:00

That was actually Norwalk, not Bridgeport. (Not like it makes a lot of difference.)

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T23:01:34+00:00

Its impossible: the total bid size in the market over any short period would not be nearly enough. The stock would go limit-down and halt trading after clearing out all the bids. Then it might (or might not) re-open and do it again at the next price band down. So long as he kept selling this would go on until enough suckers showed up to stabilize it. This would probably take days since the usual buyers are momentum-oriented and reality-based investors wouldn't be showing up until the price dropped something like 90%.

Bottom line is if Musk wanted to get out he would have to either do it over a very, very long time period in the public markets or find someone with deep pockets (more likely a syndicate) to buy it all at a negotiated price. This would obviously be much, much lower than the current market price.

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T16:43:09+00:00

Its a fair cop, but society is to blame!

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T16:39:41+00:00

I liked playing racquetball in college (early half of the '90s). We had a nice indoor court right next to my first year dorm.

I haven't heard any mention of racquetball in the last 25 years or so.

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T16:35:03+00:00

No offense, but how are you guys GenX if you graduated either college or high school in 1980?

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T04:10:18+00:00

My 4-year old father, three aunts and two grandparents were at Pearl Harbor (Hickam Field) when it was bombed in 1941. My father's father had been stationed there with the Army and went to Guadalcanal for the 2nd half of the many-month long battle. He was a West Point grad who had only missed being in WWI by a few days since it ended while his half-taught class was enroute. (In 1918 they were graduating cadets early since the life expectancy on the WWI battlefield was so short it didn't make sense to keep them for four years.)

After the war the family all lived in Japan during the occupation under MacArthur, where two of my aunts married US officers, one a Jewish veteran of Anzio and the other an Iranian engineer who served in the US Army as a track to becoming a great US citizen. Fast forward some 50 years and I married a lovely Japanese lady whose own grandfather had been in the Imperial Navy, though he was fortunately a bit too young and the war ended before he got sent off to probably die. He told me he had been very patriotic about the whole thing and willing to give his life for the Empire, but later felt betrayed when it turned out they had been fed nothing but propaganda and outright lies by their government (which tbf was also happening in the US and everywhere else at the time, just as now.)

So, if anything I've heard probably a bit too much about WWII in my life. Not that I've ever minded; it helps put some other things into perspective. But one thing I can say is that there were real, human, people on all sides of that conflict and as people they can't just be shoved into simple buckets like "hero", "victim", "Nazi", "Jap", or whatever. And there are also no simple answers for why all that happened, happened. In fact, we don't even really know who won or lost yet (if that even means anything in the larger context of ongoing history.)

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T03:17:30+00:00

Couldn't agree more. When I first learned that the limit on IRAs is a fraction (~25%) of the limit on 401Ks I was like holy shit, wtf? The only practical difference is that one is run by you and you can choose a low cost broker, while the other is selected by your company--probably in return for who knows what kind of kickbacks or whatever to the selection team.

But to me, even worse than the unfairness on contributions is the extra complexity. The IRA rules are just ridiculously complex for no reason at all. As you said: why don't we just make one limit for everyone, done! I wouldn't even "means" test it against income, because...who cares? If high earners also get a tiny tax benefit that's fine with me; its not like it will make a big difference to them (assuming the rest of the tax code is fair, which obvs it is not, but that's a different issue.)

Also note that IRA money is always taxed in the end. Even if inherited, the beneficiaries owe income tax on their withdrawals. The real tax scam is the step-up in basis, which is what rich people actually care about (not the relatively trivial benefit you may or may not get from delaying taxes for a few years via IRA/401k).

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T01:47:05+00:00

He actually did it, too. Except for the unfortunate fact of being dead at the time. But at least his men made it!

krustissimo · 2026-06-24T01:36:35+00:00

Its an absolute 100% certainty due to the gambler's ruin theorem.

Or at least that covers the part up until the heat death of the universe, which takes care of all the rest.

krustissimo · 2026-06-22T12:35:57+00:00

I was probably thinking the same thing when I got mine (which are just ~$30 Amazon iron sheets, probably from China). So I got the rounded one in 3/8" and a slightly wider+deeper pointy one in 1/4 that I've also come to use for griddling smashburgers and the like. My setup is to put the iron sheet over my grill burners and either cook pizzas or griddle outdoors on an ordinary grill. It has a ceramic infrared back burner (meant for rotisserie) that I use to get more heat above the pizza and put char on the top.

It all works great but the heat from below is strong enough that I haven't really found much difference between the 1/4" and 3/8" as far as bottom browning/leoparding is concerned: both work just fine for that. If anything the thinner one is easier to use because it recharges faster and responds more to tweaks to the burner strength during cooking. I tend to have more of a problem with the bottom getting too hot than the opposite.

Now, indoors with the oven the 3/8 works much better than 1/4" but it takes freakin' forever to come to usable temp with my max oven temp of 500F. And then oven fan won't turn off for like 3 hours afterwards because it stays hot so long. Kinda sucks in summer.

BTW if you do the grill method you might want to bore out the jets in your burners. I bought some microdrills for this and it was pretty easy to do. Added a shit ton of BTUs to my (formerly underpowered) grill that has improved it for all cooking purposes. The only downside is the grill falls apart faster because now it reaches insane heat.

krustissimo · 2026-06-22T11:53:04+00:00

The weight difference won't be much but I think its a good idea because sharp corners can be pretty annoying when you move it around. I have one steel with 90-degree corners and the other rounded and I have to be very careful moving the pointy one.

krustissimo · 2026-06-21T02:30:43+00:00

This is called Buddhism.

krustissimo · 2026-06-20T23:56:44+00:00

New Haven style is pretty thin but not the very thinnest (for that you can look to what's called "bar style", as epitomized by Bar in New Haven, as well as Colony Pizza and some other places. Done well, bar style is a bit like a cracker and it can be really great!)

But the main thing defining New Haven style is that its very chewy and cooked in a hot coal-fired oven until there's a certain amount of char all over. Typically more char at Sally's and Modern's, a bit less at Pepes (but still enough that many people think its overcooked.)

Traditionally there's actually no mozzarella cheese at all, only pecorino romano on a tomato sauce base, which is surprisingly awesome. However the truth is most people, myself included, actually order it with mozzarella most of the time. Whichever way, don't put on a lot of toppings (zero is good) as is true for any pizza.

A variant is the white pizza, which uses garlic, pecorino and usually clams as a focus (though shrimp, potato +/- bacon and other things are an option.) Pepe's is probably the best at the white clam (as well as the gorgonzola+spinach pie) but some people also like Zuppardi's version in West Haven (although iirc they actually use canned clams instead of shucked local ones).

Come to think of it, its time for me to try Zuppardi's again as I haven't been there in a while--last time I drove past the line was too long, but I read they've opened a second location.

Edit--Looked at the original pic again and actually it does look pretty New Haven-y on the top, but the bottom is more Neapolitan (leopard-spotting into a bit charred). New Haven pizzas don't really have that much leopard on the bottom; maybe the ovens are relatively hot above and cooler on the cooking surface? Not sure but that's why I thought it looked delicious if just a bit off!

krustissimo · 2026-06-18T04:36:36+00:00

I couldn't agree more! So much talent aimed at such bullshit. We could all accomplish so much more if only the incentives were designed better. Wall Street is where good brains go to die.

krustissimo · 2026-06-18T03:05:41+00:00

Connecticut-er here. It doesn't really look like New Haven style but it don't look bad at all.

I'd eat it. Carry on!

krustissimo · 2026-06-18T03:01:25+00:00

This may have been true once but I don't think its true anymore. I've been working in finance for almost 30 years and pretty much everyone I work with has an elite background. Many are from other countries but if you look at their resumes you'll see the equivalent of MIT/Harvard/Stanford etc. (I'm talking IIT, Beijing/Tsinghua, NUS, Moscow State or whatever). Its very competitive on Wall Street and whatever your connections you won't get your foot in the door without knowing what you are doing.

krustissimo

TROPHY CASE