MollieTheMare
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User ID: 875
Why not ask ChatGPT or Claude to write you a simulation? Ask it to create a simulation with 2 funds: bonds and stocks. Plug in default volatility and return expectations. Find the highest median return. Then adjust volatility and run again.
Don't you need it to simulate with the full covariance matrix and not just the diagonal terms to have this be a meaningful simulation? I think you can also just do it analytically for a two-asset basket if you know the covariance matrix and expected returns. Probably better if the covariance matrix is itself a function of the return stream. The covariance matrix its self, of course, being one of the least stable quantities and most difficult to estimate and simulate.
Edit: I realize I didn't actually answer the original question.
What's an investment to make based on the prediction that over the next 5 years, market volatility will be significantly greater than expected?
Nasdaq futures probably have enough options liquidity to produce a relatively long-term variance-spread-replicating options position. This is technically a direct trade on what you are asking about, but is also one of the easiest ways to blow yourself up if you do not know what you're doing. It would be interesting to see how the implied forward variance compares to historical.
MollieTheMare
17hr ago
Yes, over the long term, I would expect that's true. But not in the short term. In 2022, going by memory here, you could still get a mortgage for like 3% while inflation was hitting 9%.
This is roughly correct.
I'm sure the professional econometricists have more sophisticated models that include more factors and lags, but I think the rough picture is "supposed to" be like this: Higher core inflation affects investor and consumer expectations for long-term inflation. The Fed, trying to implement its dual mandate, tries to contain this by adjusting the federal funds rate.
The funds rate, however, acts most directly on the front end of the yield curve, while the long end responds to expectations of future short-term rates and the term premium. So the effect on the long end can be muted, and it doesn't necessarily move in lockstep with the funds rate. Eventually, if they pull hard enough and long enough with the curve inverted, the long end will also move.
Investors then trade agency MBS at a spread over Treasuries, based on current expectations for the risk premia required to compensate for interest-rate, prepayment, and liquidity risks (and those spreads aren't necessarily always positive). People's actual mortgages are then quoted at an additional spread that accounts for origination and servicing costs, lender margin, your personal risk, percent down, the local market, etc. (plus whatever policy shenanigans are going on at Fannie and Freddie with guarantee fees).
It does seem more fun and to work better than the last round.
women don't like 95% of male portraits.
I wonder if it's a matter of would prefer vs do not like. It's a bit hard to tell with this methodology. But yes, the difference in distribution is quite remarkable.
MollieTheMare
7d ago
Mini-Program Review: Squatoberfest Jr.
About a month ago, I posted complaining about the official Sorinex SQUATOBER™ and proposed doing a squat-focused Smolov Jr. as an alternative. Here is a mini-review of that.
Baseline: Probably slightly over the hump, kind of fit, kind of fat, remarkably average-sized male. Training for more than a decade at this point. Typical programming is homebrew based off of GZCL, but I have not had a squat-focused period outside of my birthday month for the better part of a year now. I took a full month off of squatting last year after being disgusted with the official SQUATOBER™ program. I was only squatting twice a week, as a T2, for a total of three sets of triples, three sets of five, and two sets of eight per week for most of the last year. All roughly 8–9 RPE. Estimating based off of those triples, I was about 5–10% below my lifetime one-rep max squat strength at less than 5% higher body weight. I have done Smolov Jr. for bench before, but never for squats. My squat was marginally "advanced" by Symmetric Strength standards.
Program:
Percentages based on training 1RM.
Added 10 lb to working weights each cycle (+ ≡ +10 lb; ++ ≡ +20 lb).
(Sets × reps)
| Week | M | T | W | R | F | S/Su |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 70% 6×6 | Upper | 75% 7×5 | Upper | 80% 8×4 | — |
| 2 | 85% 10×3 | Upper | 70%+ 6×6 | Upper | 75%+ 7×5 | — |
| 3 | 80%+ 8×4 | Upper | 85%+ 10×3 | Upper | 70%++ 6×6 | — |
| 4 | 75%++ 7×5 | Upper | 80%++ 8×4 | Upper | 85%++ 10×3 | Taper |
| X | Arms | 1RM | — | — | — | — |
Basically standard Smolov Jr., with a training max estimated from my previous working triples. The main modification is that I spread the program over four weeks, three times a week (MWF), rather than three weeks (MTRS). No other lower-body work. Upper-body work on T&R. No structured cardio, but 7–8k steps a day and 2–4 hours of walking on the beach or light XC mountain biking with the wife on the weekends. My complaint about percentages in SQUATOBER™ was that they were bad and poorly regulated, not that a program can't be specified in percentage terms.
Results: Tried to roughly maintain weight for the month; not tracking macros right now. Still kind of fit, kind of fat. Spreading the prescribed volume over four weeks instead of three made recovery seem pretty feasible. Subjectively, it felt like about the same systemic fatigue as regular Smolov Jr. for bench, and way less joint creakiness. With this structure, there were no back-to-back training days and two consecutive days off every week. The only real drawbacks were a less sharp peak and the periodicity of the program not lining up with the week. The workouts took me from about an hour for the six sets to 1.5 hours for the ten sets. I do use timed (5-minute) rest, but mostly because otherwise I'd spend my whole gym session bullshitting with the bros. I probably should have at least been doing conventional heavy 5×5 or picked a lower starting training max. I used 10-pound-per-cycle progression and the standard percentages. I'm pretty sure I gave myself the squat flu after the first 6×6 and was not recovered by the first 7×5. By the time I got to the first 10×3, I was feeling decent, though. The second cycle was sort of normally challenging, and the third cycle was easier than expected. If I had to do it over, I would probably start about 5 lb lighter and go up in 15 lb increments.
For the taper, I partied too hard and ate a bunch of candy and other garbage on Halloween Saturday. I worked up to a 3 RIR single on Sunday, based off of perceived exertion and my wife's subjective evaluation of bar velocity on the second set of the last day of triples. I then did walkouts at 95% and 103% of my expected one-rep max, just so my one-rep max attempt would not be the first time I had that much weight on my back in a year and a half. After taking another day off, I felt fully tapered on Tuesday. I took three attempts at singles after warming up: 91%, 99%, and 101% of my lifetime gym PR. Even the last attempt seemed to move fine, though I think I was too fatigued for it to be smart to take another jump. I was at a slightly higher body weight, probably about five pounds heavier than the last time I took a 1RM attempt. I would say that this is pretty satisfactory, considering age and training age. Slightly less-marginally advanced according to Symmetric Strength.
Overall: I personally far preferred Squatoberfest Jr. over SQUATOBER™ and saw much better results. I still have not been able to find any meaningful progression in the official SQUATOBER™, not in tonnage, effective 1RM conversion, repeated workout load, effective working sets, etc. Breaking up Smolov Jr. the way I did meant that the majority of sessions each week were only squatting, making for a real "month" of squatting. Progress was about what you'd expect from a peaking program like Smolov Jr. Easier to arrange around life; you could probably cut it down to three total 90-minute sessions a week with some light upper-body work instead of spending time bullshitting between sets if you were crunched for time. There was something refreshing about having only one exercise to do most days, but I'll probably move back squats to T2 for a while now.
MollieTheMare
9d ago
Hmm, a tricky one. I would also recommend Asimov.
In addition, the humor is hit or miss by personality and only sort of sci-fi, but each entry in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series is reasonably compact and episodic. Has some amusing themes for an advanced 10-year-old to explore.
For some quick pulp fiction, the Animorphs series is very approachable. Might be too low of a reading level given the description, but in terms of getting volume in, there is a lot of very digestible material there.
Smuggling in my personal taste for naval fiction, David Weber's Honor Harrington series is more or less Horatio Hornblower with a sci-fi mask. A decent chunk to bite off, but not very difficult.
MollieTheMare
12d ago
I'm pretty sure actual coffee snobs would judge me poorly, and I do get a plain black drip about 50% of the time when the wife and I go out for coffee. That being said:
-
Flat white
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During this particular season, I do personally go for the PSL. People can judge me if they want for ordering a basic bitch girl drink.
MollieTheMare
12d ago
N.B. Apologies in advance: this is not 100% "fun" and light culture war, but mostly a commemoration of the joy brought to us. I'm also quite loose with the distinction between the man and the character, but perhaps more than with any other actor of our time, this will be understandable: "It came to a point where I had no idea where Picard began and I ended. We completely overlapped."
The Measure of a Man
In memoriam: Sir Patrick Stewart (1940–2026).
The actor, one of the most impactful and beloved of his generation, has died at age 86. Most famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, he shaped a generation of sci-fi enthusiasts and the broader public. His work is still relevant to our collective conception of the possibilities and challenges that technological progress will bring, and its relationship to our own humanity.
The Inner Light: Family life
A native son of Mirfield, Yorkshire, he developed an early interest in drama. As has been discussed recently here, many of his generation experienced a truncated adolescence. Stewart was no exception, leaving school at 15.
Acting was tightly interwoven with his family life. His mother was involved with drama and encouraged his early interest. He appeared with his son Daniel, who played Picard's son in the alternate family life portrayed in TNG's "The Inner Light." He also had a number of significant romances with women involved in productions throughout his career, and later met his wife, Sunny Ozell. Skepticism has been expressed here with respect to large age-gap relationships. In this case, Stewart is reported to have died in the loving care of Sunny while suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia. May we all find love that can survive such a journey, and let us hope that it's never called upon to be tested in such a way.
There are four lights: Conviction
Many of us here would not be able to enjoy any media if we only consumed things from artists whose culture war stances we agreed with. That being said, Stewart was also known as a principled and passionate supporter of many causes. Of particular personal interest was his willingness to speak about his own observations of domestic violence and its impact.
He was also a principled defender of civil liberties, including speech.
The Best of Both Worlds: From an "unknown British Shakespearean actor"
While we recognize those closest to him and the positions he advocated for, there is little doubt that the greatest impact Stewart will leave is through his acting legacy. Classically trained and involved with the Royal Shakespeare Company throughout his life, Stewart would reshape the sci-fi television and movie genre, bringing echoes of Henry IV to what had previously been a more swashbuckling role.
Yesterday’s Enterprise: A cultural icon
It is then, perhaps, no coincidence that any list of the most impactful Star Trek episodes contains a plurality of entries in which Jean-Luc Picard is a central figure. While TNG is often regarded as a reflection of the optimism of its era, in many ways this influence flowed both ways. Arguably, no other media did as much to shape an entire generation's view of what might come of rapid advances in technology. TNG may represent the zenith of optimistic depictions of the future in media. The more morally complicated universe of Deep Space Nine already suggested a turn away from that optimism, one that would feel even more pronounced after the dot-com collapse and 9/11. But of course, Stewart's distinctive portrayal as captain of the USS Enterprise was never really about techno-space-communism (he did seem to privately own Château Picard) but about what makes up our humanity.
Picard represented an unusual model of authority: intellectual, capable of violence but reluctant to employ it, and principled without being blind to the difficulties of applying those principles consistently. It was not his infallibility that made him admirable, but his conviction in the face of uncertainty and weakness.
For those of us who grew up with TNG, perhaps the more lasting influence was not what it taught us to expect of technology, but what it taught us to expect of the people entrusted with it. That distinction is as relevant as ever. His portrayal marked a radical change, making restraint, deliberation, and moral courage the defining virtues of a starship captain. We may question the optimism that surrounded it, but that ideal still echoes strongly in our hopes for the future.
Darmok: He taught us to speak in memes
Perhaps his greatest and most relevant legacy here is that he reminded us that even as media changes, we are still part of The Great Conversation: our shared stories and understandings are what make the culture, and the Culture War around which this site orbits.
They were… victorious. But… Enkidu fell to the ground, struck down by the gods. And Gilgamesh… wept bitter tears, saying, "He who was my companion, through adventure and hardship, is gone forever." — Picard, Epic of Gilgamesh
MollieTheMare
13d ago
That was my interpretation. Perhaps a more famous quotation from the novel than the one about my beautiful red ribbons 🎀.
MollieTheMare
13d ago
the motte is very much a case of an Animal Farm, and has been so for some time.
Will there still be sugar after the Rebellion? And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?
MollieTheMare
13d ago
I suppose it has been at least three weeks since our last meta-discussion.
I'll just come in and say what regularly seems to get brought up in these discussions. The site has lasted much longer than many people, including myself, expected. I, for one, am not sure exactly what to do about the evaporative cooling effects. But it's not clear to me there is a much better alternative. Of course, we also face ever-changing ground beneath our feet on the internet. And while others can debate whether or not The Motte is flourishing, the community does seem to be surviving
By clinical definition, I expect yes, but you would have to ask a professional psychologist.
By trait cluster, I think probably yes, though possibly overlapping. I think one is the inability or a deficit in ability to regulate or drive focus in attention, even if it makes more work in net. The other, a truly lazy person, is trying to do the least work they can get away with to get by. Like Rosencrantz2 said, it's less total work to just do the minimum to avoid getting hassled.
I'm pretty sure hyperfocus is also associated with ADHD. So you will sometimes find people with the seemingly contradictory behavior of working very hard with a lot of attention on one thing, even if normies find that thing unpleasant, but who are also unwilling to do basic "easy" things that would make less work for themselves.
So one archetype is that dev that is clearly just doing the bare minimum all the time to skate by and collect a paycheck. The other is the guy who sometimes writes inspired code, but for some reason refuses to complete a 15-minute training module HR requires to release his paycheck.
MollieTheMare
14d ago
From my understanding of the literature, it is possible for women to get bigger quads on a relative basis to themselves and other women, though, of course, they are unlikely to end up with "manly" quadz. From the addendum on sex differences in training:
A recent study by McMahon et al. had men and women train their quads for eight weeks. Physiological cross-sectional area increased by about 23% for men and 30% for women, and knee extension torque increased by about 14% for men and 22% for women. These differences were not significant.
IMO, trained legs look more "toned" and generally aesthetic based on shape, which is arguably more important than absolute size. I do, however, generally prefer a more hip-drahve-oriented squat for general training. I think it both produces a more aesthetic physique and more useful general physical preparedness for becoming a human forklift.
MollieTheMare
14d ago
So far, she has refused to do squats.
I assume you already mansplained the "something axial loading... something bone density... something osteoporosis" argument.
Maybe you should emphasize:
- SQUATOBER™ is a federally registered trademark, so October is officially the month for squats.
- Using the power of the squat-morning, you are going to challenge her for the household thiccness crown.
- Forklifts are indispensable in the modern world, and a useful addition to any operation.
MollieTheMare
14d ago
stupid and boring and so I didn't bother to do it
I suspect a big part of it is the challenge to authority implied by exercising agency and choosing not to do something.
That and @Primaprimaprima's phrasing:
seemed more fun to just sit here and do nothing
Sounds more like something vaguely in the ADHD cluster than pure laziness. As @Rosencrantz2 said, the truly lazy thing to do is the minimum required effort to avoid getting hassled. Supposedly, for normies, the "completion" → get the check mark → dopamine, feedback cycle is stronger. Whereas, for others, the novelty, interest, attention, comprehension pathway is more motivating.
MollieTheMare
18d ago
Organic Maps on my phone
For what it's worth, I've had way better luck with OsmAnd. UI is eye-bleeding in comparison, but I did get used to it. I mostly use it as an offline backup, though. It's hard to beat Google Maps, if not for navigation, for real-time traffic and alerts.
I built the full version, and don't travel without grabbing the offline map for the region ahead of time now. I've been burned one too many times by Google deciding now is the time to drop its offline cache, or random airport SIMs dropping out in the middle of nowhere. I have considered paying for it just to support continued development.
MollieTheMare
23d ago
A private organization
Interestingly, they are only mostly-private. They actually hold a special congressional charter (36 U.S.C. §§ 30901–30908), and that charter specifically sets out their purpose (emphasis mine):
The purposes of the corporation are to promote, through organization, and cooperation with other agencies, the ability of boys to do things for themselves and others, to train them in scoutcraft, and to teach them patriotism, courage, self-reliance, and kindred virtues, using the methods that were in common use by boy scouts on June 15, 1916.
MollieTheMare
26d ago
Curious. It seems this court went considerably further than the one in Simmons-Harris v. Goff (Ohio 1999), emphasis mine:
It can be argued that implicit within this obligation is a prohibition against the establishment of a system of uncommon (or nonpublic) schools financed by the state.
Notice the 1999 court never said it does imply such a prohibition, only that it's possible to argue it does. It's a strange proposition, basically now saying that an obligation to provide X implies a prohibition on funding Y because "a" is singular. Or maybe they are leaning more on the funding substitution argument than the singular part.
Also, it's interesting that they have a Franken-system with "regular" public "common" schools, charter schools, and vouchers. Quite different from the English meaning of "public school," as in a private school attended by members of the public, as opposed to one obligated to admit and accommodate the most disruptive and least interested.
MollieTheMare
28d ago
Lemon squeezer. It's awesome, works great. Old concept, still perfect.
In my opinion, a regular squeezer is good, but the perfected model is the Chef'n FreshForce Citrus Juicer. Very rigid, acid-resistant, GFR-nylon handles and stainless steel pressing cup. The compound lever toggle linkage lets you produce unreasonable amounts of force. Dishwasher safe. Quite a bit more than your grocery store special, but small absolute cost for a design masterpiece.
The 10¼″ can do down to key limes and up to medium-large lemons. I like using it so much I considered buying the 12¾″, even though I hardly ever drink orange or grapefruit juice.
Yes, that's more or less what I was thinking of in my initial reply.
I assume so, if you used a sensible prompt.
Also, sorry, I made an unrelated edit after you replied. To expand on the variance swap replication, it looks like even the one-year term strip is crazy illiquid. Like, literally zero open interest on most nodes. Eyeballing the quoted mid IVs, though, @omw_68 could be right that the market is (at untradable mids) underpricing forward AI vol.
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