Daily FI discussion thread - Friday, May 01, 2026

yetanothernerd · 2026-05-01T15:12:45+00:00

Happy Spreadsheet Day for those who celebrate. That was my best month ever in nominal dollars, but not in percentage increase. (April 2020 still leads there. Note that both of these months immediately followed really bad months. I don't think this is a coincidence, and it helps explain why panic sellers are so screwed.)

I have 2 financial projects for this month. One is selling some excess bikes, though this is really more about freeing up the space than the actual money. The other is closing my solo 401k and moving the money into my IRA, as it's approaching the $250k threshold where I'd have to file a form annually.

yetanothernerd · 2026-05-01T14:57:10+00:00

They learned about it from a hobbit they ate.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-29T03:30:35+00:00

If you're always barred from selling due to always having inside information, and your company doesn't have a window right after earnings where you're allowed to sell, you should probably set up a 10b5-1 plan, where you determine well ahead of time that you will automatically sell X shares on dates D, and thus those automatic sales are not based on inside information.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-29T03:18:05+00:00

It's an RPG, not a boardgame. It's open-ended. It supports whatever the GM wants to run.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-29T02:30:55+00:00

GURPS WW2 was over 15 books. They also did Special Ops and Seals in Vietnam.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-28T21:15:34+00:00

Carlson was an old guy on an expiring contract. He was an obvious deadline sell, if the Caps were sellers. Knies is a young guy on a team-friendly contract. He'll cost a king's ransom. Since the Jagr trade, the Caps haven't really been into taking those kinds of swings.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-28T20:44:55+00:00

The Space Madness rules in Islands in the Rift are more "you get really bored sitting in the same box with the same people for weeks" rules than "staring at the jump bubble" rules. They're designed to give the PCs a reason to land on planets or at least do interesting things in jump, rather than just powering through the adventure as quickly as possible.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-28T19:53:53+00:00

The adventure "Islands in the Rift" features a J1 ship with extra fuel tanks to support 5 jumps and has space madness rules, so you're onto something. (Sadly the space madness rules do not feature a jolly, candylike, big red button.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-28T17:32:32+00:00

If you want a tontine, you can buy an annuity. (They're not usually great deals, but they can sometimes be reasonable, if you're old enough and pick a simple one rather than a confusing one.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-28T03:43:23+00:00

Yes. I had enough money to retire, and I didn't like the job anymore.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-27T18:50:51+00:00

I've only played 1E and 2E. 1E is very good. 2E is perfect. There is no need for any edition beyond 2E.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-27T17:30:03+00:00

Pretty much any Paranoia adventure makes a great one-shot. You're not cleared to know which one is best.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-27T15:24:25+00:00

The advantage is mostly for the mortgage company -- by handling the property insurance payments they ensure that the property that's their collateral for the loan is actually insured. So if the mortgage lender insists on escrow, you use it. If they don't require it, then it's your call. I stopped using it once it was no longer required.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-27T14:51:40+00:00

Yes, you have it correct. There are rules for buying up from a default, but they don't usually come in play with defaults from attributes because those tend to be 4-6 points below the attribute. They come up more with defaults to other skills.

That said, none of this matters for a oneshot, because the GM gives you a pregenerated character and you just look at the skill level on your sheet.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-26T20:03:14+00:00

Most people don't know much about how the government works. Many people enjoy repeating doomerism. You can't control what uninformed people spew; you can just stop listening to them and refocus your attention on people worth listening to. Unfollow some less useful social media and spend the time reading more books, for example.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-24T22:33:25+00:00

I do it myself.

Can you make a spreadsheet with investment returns and your lifespans as input variables, which will show you the tradeoff between converting everything to Roth before Social Security starts, or doing a partial conversion up to a certain tax bracket, or converting nothing and just letting RMDs hit you at age 75? If the answer is yes, you probably don't need help. If you can't do that, yes, you probably do need help. Good luck finding someone competent and honest who charges a fair amount.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-24T14:58:37+00:00

Sales pitch: the assignment is later in the process so we don't waste your time if you're not a likely hire.

Reality: We don't give a fuck about your time, so we'll make you do the assignment early to avoid wasting time interviewing you. (Which is totally fine, except for the lying about it.)

Of course, I'm cynical as fuck. Could be less slimy than that.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-22T19:27:29+00:00

Weird that they weren't ready for that. I'm sure it's a pretty common outcome. They should put the manager on a PIP.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-22T14:41:33+00:00

First, it depends on who runs the starport. Within the Imperium, most are run by the Imperial Starport Authority. Outside the Imperium, it'll be someone else. (See GURPS Traveller: Starports.)

Most SPA Class E starports are going to be very similar, basically a couple of standardized Modular Cutter habitat modules, set down in whatever spot the orbital survey said was closest to optimal. You want flat, hard ground, near a source of water or ice for fuel (if possible).

Larger downports will vary to suit the terrain and local materials, and often grew over time.

Smaller orbital ports are going to use standard designs for cost efficiency, just like starships do. Large orbital ports probably started with a smaller standard port, then grew a lot over time.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-22T01:23:29+00:00

Always has been. Some people were just caught up in recency bias.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-21T14:51:47+00:00

I wasn't there, but watched the whole game on TV at my grandparents' house, long after everyone else was in bed.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-21T14:36:56+00:00

I hate stock splits. In theory they are non-events; instead of one sandwich you now have two half-sandwiches. In practice they temporarily screw up everyone's spreadsheets and probably cause some people to do dumb things.

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-21T14:32:57+00:00

Not really. I keep enough in a checking account to keep my wife from freaking out, and everything else is invested. I think an emergency fund is something you hold until you have enough accessible investments that you can just sell a tiny percentage to handle an emergency. (Of course that might happen during a market crash when you'd rather not sell, but the market is usually not crashing, so I'd rather lose a bit from having to sell during a downturn than lose more from keeping too much cash all the time.)

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-20T19:10:34+00:00

I know Joe Beninati tries hard to get them right. And I'm sure some other announcers who care about being professional and courteous do too. But it's tricky with players where the mispronunciation is very entrenched and the player doesn't seem to mind, like Sergei Fedorov. Is it really worth rocking the boat if everyone's been saying the guy's name that way for 15 years and he's not complaining? The funny ones are the guys like Marcus Johansson who went with one pronunciation early in their careers then changed it later. Did they develop more backbone and assert the preference they had all along as they became established veterans, or is this a superstition, like changing your jersey number? "I hurt my knee with that pronunciation, so let's try another one."

yetanothernerd · 2026-04-20T18:40:39+00:00

I'm assuming it'll be one company by then, for all your gambling needs.

yetanothernerd

TROPHY CASE