Defenestration is probably one of the craziest thing about the Putin oligarchy. Like, that’s their calling card, and it fucking works at silencing dissent.

There was Vladimir Shklyarov who died last week, but he was on painkillers in anticipation of spinal surgery, and he slipped off his narrow balcony while having a smoke. His girlfriend saw it happen, and called the police. This was a horrible accident.

So naturally all the reports of his death include a bit about how one time two years ago he tweeted that he wanted the war in Ukraine to end and vaguely yearned for peace. The conservative news media is using any tragic accident to remind would-be Putin critics that if they step even one toe out of line, they could be murdered by the government. Which is how Putin wants it.

Whether we use the term “cope” or “manage” it’s pretty clear that our ability is far less impactful than our willingness.

Now literally isn’t the time. You want Pete, or any politician, to commit to an election strategy and endorse a candidate now? It’s delusional.

After being kicked in the balls, most men are concerned about the pain in their testicles.

We’ve got 4 years to survive before the next election. Can you call the fuck down?

It is, but forex markets allow traders to trade on significant margin. Meaning, if I have $100, I might be able to buy $1,000 worth of foreign currency (a 1:10 margin) and if the value of the currency increases 1% ($100) you get 10% of the profit, which is 10% of your investment. If the position increases by 10%, you double your money. However, this also means that if the value drops by 10%, your money is gone.

Now consider that forex traders often leverage at 1:500 margins. You get to buy massive positions with currency pairs, and even the tiniest fluctuations can provide massive profits or instantaneous ruin.

The algorithm I used monitored recurring micro-patterns, watching for predictable movements. You’re also watching relative value pairs, rather than just an absolute market value. Both sides of a currency pair have nations vying to improve the value of their own currency, so you can make money (or lose money) on either side of the pair. Dollar is low against the yen, buy dollars with yen. Yen drops against the dollar, sell your positions. Euro drops against the yen, go pick up Euros agains the yen, and feel confident that Japan is already trying to strengthen the yen (simplified example, because it’s way more complex than that).

So if you track currencies across all currency pairs, you can find inconsistencies. I called it “torque” 15 years ago, but I’m sure a proper forex trader can give you an actual name for it. These are areas where three or more currencies are out of alignment, like if the dollar is up against the yen but down against the euro, and the yen is up against the euro. These are situations where you would expect the market to equalize in one direction or the other, and the trick was being able to predict which way it would go.

And I thought I had figured that out. I had not figured that out. I had gotten lucky several times in a row. In fact, the market can tolerate that sort of incongruity, and the market forces on various positions are far more complicated. And because you’re leveraged, if you bet big, even small swings in the wrong direction can wipe you out.

And because your leveraged, if the position dips, you can’t just hold it hoping it will bounce back. Once the loss in value reaches your investment, the position automatically closes and you’ve lost everything you put in. It doesn’t matter if it bounces all the way back up, because you no longer own it.

That’s per person, double occupancy. Going alone is $64k.

But it does include meals, housekeeping biweekly, port fees and taxes, and all the amenities on the ship. Honestly not bad, if you can sell your house and downsize into a suitcase.

It hurt with fake money, because I thought I had discovered some big secret key. Like that movie Pi. And then it was gone. All the sucess, all the dreams of a 9-screen batcave-style computer station with financial tickers and shit. I realized that I had nothing, and I was foolish for thinking otherwise. Stung like a bitch.

But you’re right, safe investments are the smarter long-term play. I did make an extra paycheck on dogecoin once on a moonshot. But otherwise, my boring retirement funds are all steadily beating inflation by a few percentage points. Why fight the tide?

Reminds me of the time I started learning about forex. I used a practice account to test an algorithm for recognizing short-term trends and trading on the activity. I ran a simulation for a few days to make sure it was working, and my fake $10,000 bankroll turned into $50,000 in less than a week. I was excited about the results, and went to explain it to someone with deeper pockets who might actually have $10k to invest, and in the time it took me to walk from my desk to his and back, it went to less than $600. Five minutes, $50k wiped out.

Needless to say, he didn’t invest and I stopped daydreaming about owning a yacht. Forex is gambling.

Funny and factually correct.

Predicting the results of the feasibility study:

• Is it feasible?
  Fuck no.

The goal is to make it illegal for trans folks to exist at all. Next, they’ll come for the entire LGBTQ+ community. Then probably the atheists.

Mace is a Republican, so I can understand why she might assume all members of congress as sex predators. Think about the people she surrounds herself with. She must be terrified, poor thing.

Doesn’t excuse bigotry at all. The bill is hatred on paper.

The bigger problem is that lose should rhyme with pose or close. Loose is fine.

What you’ve got there is a graph of testing. The slopes are all the same, because that’s when each country received tests, and that’s how quickly they ramped up testing. Covid 19 wasn’t even sequenced until 40 people were extremely ill from the virus. We know now that it is spread through the air, and carriers of the virus can be contagious without being symptomatic. Zero countries were wasting precious tests on deceased people who died in the previous weeks.

China made for a convenient target for xenophobes and racists to blame. It spread quickly through dense populations, and their government was using (ineffective) draconian methods to contain the spread. Westerners spread the image of indigent communists eating bats and civets, ignoring the growing number of anomalous respiratory illnesses at home.

Maybe it started in China. Maybe it didn’t. We cannot know for sure, because we deliberately did not collect the data. And anyone trying to convince you differently has an agenda.

There’s strong evidence it was in the USA well before the first cases were reported in China.

That’s not to say that anything RFK says makes any damn sense. But it’s also not clear that it started in China.

For people asking for evidence, check the statistics for respiratory-related illnesses and pneumonia in late 2019.

https://nchsdata.cdc.gov/DQS/#nchs-home_by-primary-diagnosis/diseases-of-the-respiratory-system/age-group/all-time-periods/1

There was an unexplained spike in respiratory illness across all age groups, and a spike in pneumonia deaths starting in September. Google also tracked a spike in searches related to pneumonia. We didn’t even have COVID tests until January of 2020, which is when the first diagnoses started coming in. None of the deaths in 2019 attributed to pneumonia were tested for COVID.

That doesn’t mean it was definitely COVID, but it is enough to make me doubt the Trump narrative that China started it.

You’ll also notice the incidence of scented candle complaints began in the latter quarter of 2019.

https://www.reviewpartydotcom.com/blog/reviews-as-data-points-yankee-candle-covid-cases

If we’re going to get pedandic, blood infiltration of the heart is a medical condition, usually called infiltrative cardiomyopathy. So you’re correct that the metaphor is better, but the literal meaning could be confusing.

I like the cereal bowl analogy because cereal is ostensibly its own thing. But practically speaking, you’d be silly to assume it won’t be consumed with milk. Like it could be, but the box advertises it with milk, and the commercials suggest adding milk, and everything about the cereal implies you’re going to add milk. Adding water would make you the weirdo, and assuming other people would add water would be absurd. Like suggesting Trump would make an attempt to build a bipartisan coalition. If that’s what you’re expecting, you’re not in touch with the reality we all share.

Water to a sponge? That might have the same issue since infiltration is still a thing, so maybe we avoid fluids for the analogy. Fans infiltrating the stadium? Clothes infiltrating a laundry basket? Now I’m just saying things I see around me. Let’s workshop it independently and come back in a week with ideas. No rush, we will have four years of this bullshit.

Low information voters are easily confused, but also consider that polling doesn’t capture cross sections very well. If 6 out of 10 can vote for the GOP, and 6 out of 10 support the right to abortion, then only 2 out of 10 need to be completely oblivious. It would still be true to say that a majority voted for Trump, and a majority support abortion rights. That doesn’t mean it’s the same majority.

I haven’t looked at the data, but it wouldn’t surprise me that 20% of people in any category are confused or out of touch.

Like milk infiltrating a bowl of cereal.

It’s not even a cover, it’s the stated intention. They want a reduction in staff.