alchemist
1yr ago
I've taken a beating, down 20-25% or so I'd say, mainly due to being seriously overweight in the tech sector (company stock), compounded by generally being tech bullish. I have some diversification, including some energy funds, so that's helped a bit, but not a lot. Still I'd gone up a lot over the last N years, so I can't really complain.
I have bought in a bit more occasionally on the way down, and considering doing more, but it will be slowly and carefully, no 3x ETFs you madman! For various tax reasons, it generally makes much more sense for me to buy single stocks now, which sucks (broad ETFs is the way to go!) so I'm looking at things like INTC, GOOG, APPL, MSFT, AMD, MRNA, BTI, BRK.B (those last two as counterweights to the tech heaviness).
alchemist
1yr ago
I use uBlock Origins, which is very good for websites, I think, but doesn't seem to do anything for YouTube. Any recommendations?
alchemist
1yr ago
If you haven't read it, Scott's Contra Grant on exaggerated differences is a fascinating an enlightening read.
Short version: it's primarily different interests and options.
This frustrates me a lot, as someone who has watched Wheel of Time (absolute shit) and Rings of Power (kinda meh, but visually impressive).
I don't mind black elf -- he's in the army, army draws from all over the place, and he's kinda elven (vs most of the other elves, who look like roman senators in a cheap community drama, but with pointy ears). Black dwarf lady is potentially okay -- we can imagine different kingdoms, although that's not what they said, and we haven't seen the kids. The storyline for the dwarves is more engaging, which helps.
But the black hobbits (Harfeet) just doesn't make sense. Do genetics not hold any more? Do children not look like their parents? Do no men worry about cuckolding then? This changes a huge dynamic in the whole species! If genetics don't hold, can Harfeet have elves for kids? Dwarves, humans, sheep? I would say, even if we don't know genetics deeply, we have an intuitive sense (likely at least somewhat honed by the whole cuckolding thing) about kids looking like parents. "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" "Oh, you're the spitting image of your grandfather at that age". Apparently it's true across almost all cultures for there to be more comments made about how a kid looks like the dad than the mom (presumably to soothe fears). We've been breeding animals for longer. We know something is up if a kid doesn't look like either parent.
Or if genetics still hold (doesn't really work in RoP, where the mother with very broad black features has a very fair Irish child), does that mean that in isolated communities (like in Wheel of Time) the Maori family has been inbreeding for hundreds of generations? (As have the Chinese, Nigerian, Spanish and Celtic families?)
It just requires throwing out a whole lot, and you can't just say, "oh, you accept dragons, but not X" because it means the world doesn't make any sense. A big part of fantasy and science fictions, is asking "what if?" and following where it takes you. If you don't do that (or it immediately makes no sense), it's not a convincing story, it's just a stream of words or scenes (which kinda describes Rings of Power).
It's a bit like modern stories where a single phone call with a cell phone would solve the problem (often they are problems normal people have encountered). The story needs to address why that phone call wasn't made, or it won't be an engaging story. You're not a 'techno-fetishist' or something if you ask why a character didn't use their cell phone, you just want a somewhat consistent world!
alchemist
1yr ago
I know the feeling you mean, but, on the other hand, would have it been better if they'd just been spending more while they were still working, so had no savings, and now need to live frugally? You're basically punishing them (morally) for being financially prudent.
alchemist
1yr ago
Germany also has an immensely expensive healthcare system.
IIRC correctly, people visited doctors on average more than any other OECD country. I'm also shocked by how common, e.g. MRI devices are in Munich. In BC in Canada there are a few mobile ones that services the entire interior, and there are often month long waits for elective scans (too long, IMO, by the way). Near Munich I was able to get an MRI for my knee the next day.
So, there's at least some fat to be cut.
(In a further out there way, I think there's an unserviced niche of 'low-level' medical care -- basically advanced first aid clinics, where I wish we could have 'associate doctors' trained in 1/3 the time (basically advanced nurses) in clinics, as I think they could handle many 'standard' issues that GPs do (including taking blood for tests and administering vaccines. But that's a whole 'nother area)
alchemist
1yr ago
And for women it tends to be younger, even though they live longer in pretty much every country in the world (more male privilege!)
alchemist
1yr ago
Well said! I think the fact that the victim is so young is a big part of it.
Euthanasia is illegal in Germany, and so people need to go to Switzerland to do it, and it's pretty awful for everyone involved. They still do it. Some really want to, and I have trouble imagining something more that should be your right to decide over than your own death, if you want it (and considerable effort has been made to ensure it's not a passing desire).
alchemist
1yr ago
FWIW, a good friend had a relative do this in Canada, and while painful, it seemed to be a comparatively "positive" experience. They were terminally ill with cancer, however. I still consider a good thing they didn't need to suffer longer than they chose to.
alchemist
1yr ago
But she knew the path she was on was going to lead to hear death. At least in Canada, they ask you again before giving the final lethal injection, warning you there is no going back after it.
It seems she did successfully commit suicide, and in a way with a lot less terror than jumping off a bridge. Maybe (seriously) we should make people face that terror before they commit suicide (is that what you're proposing? "Show you really want it -- cut your hand off to prove it."), but I don't think so, personally.
alchemist
1yr ago
They seem to be painless. Speaking for fairly direct personal experience, you're essentially put to sleep, and then your heart stops. Direct witness reported seeing no distress (witness to Canadian euthanasia administrant).
alchemist
1yr ago
Men seem to be willing to self-identify as women when it comes to prison, but yeah, otherwise it does seem more women -- I wonder if groups of men to to control that more aggressively than women?
I guess you're trying to be generous, but it feels like you're taking it too far. I think you really overdo it -- not being obese shouldn't get people big points. Most women don't need to wear much make-up, if any, to still look okay. I don't think applying basic make-up is particularly hard, but perhaps I'm missing the complexity. Hair back in a pony-tail, halfway healthy, and you will be attractive to most men.
Most late teen girls basically can eat crap food and still not get fat (at least according to the older people I talk to now who talk about how they used to be able to eat anything).
(I think women do have a hard time finding someone who values them for more than just their sexual attractiveness, I don't want to downplay that at all, I just want to say in terms of easily getting attention, young women are generally "playing on easy mode" (much as I hate that phrase).)
alchemist
1yr ago
I tend to agree, but I think you may be taking them too much at face value. If they feel that attraction quickly, they'll also just say -- "I felt a deep connection, like we'd already known each other!" Maybe I'm just too cynical though, or projecting my own take on it -- i.e. I wouldn't want to jump someone I just found attractive, but if I found them attractive and felt something of a connection, I wouldn't need to to know them a long time to get physical -- that would in fact be part of 'getting to know them'.
alchemist
1yr ago
I'll throw my 2c in the ring with "While it commits a number of the same flaws, RoP is way better than WoT". I'd give RoP a 5 or a 6 / 10 -- it looked very good (except for the armor, which, except for Galadriel's, looked like fake plastic armor you buy for your kids, IMO), and had some nice scenes (Adar, Elrond & Durin). I hard the Harfoots though, and for me the main problem is nothing really had consequences -- we just flowed from one set piece to the next. Also, the diverse casting wasn't too damaging for RoP, in my opinion, except for the Harfoots, where it really makes no sense.
WoT was a 2 or 3 / 10, where a number of "The Message" things really destroyed the whole story (and underlying system of magic and source of tension in the book).
I don't think I'll be watching Season 2 of either, unless the family makes me.
If Amazon is smart, they hurry Season 2 out, as I think otherwise most people will turn their back on RoP.
alchemist
1yr ago
It didn't feel cramped that way -- full of life and stuff. It didn't actually feel cramped at all, just that it was filmed on a stage (especially Numenor), which is not good for your sense of immersion.
alchemist
1yr ago
I liked the improvisational aspect of that, but it also highlights the core of the shows problem to me -- there isn't really a story, there is a sequence of things that happened. If elves are ninjas that can use chains and twigs, how did they get caught? Why do they run into close-quarters and get disembowelled by the Warg, rather than using the spear in their hands as a spear. Arondir sometimes seems a master warrior and other times not, and the other elves mainly seem to suck (except for that one brief moment).
And then Arondir 'loses', but gets set free anyway (Adar), where he gets in a fight, but they get free anyway (running in the forest with Theo), where the Orcs surround his town and attack him (pre Mt Doom) ... but they get free anyway. It made it hard to care, because nothing that happened in one scene (Arondir captured, Bronwyn hit by an arrow, Halbrand bedridden with a gut wound, Whatsishisname blowing up boats, Mt Doom exploding, The Numenoreans going to middle earth) has no effect on the later ones.
So you can't really set any expectations or feel for a story. You can watch the pretty pictures, but that's about it.
alchemist
1yr ago
I'm glad to hear it works well, but in the stills I've seen, it looks so silly an obviously wiglike. (as do some of the white people's hair though).
alchemist
1yr ago
If you're talking Lost in Space (which fits), that daughter is actually adopted, and ends up meeting her father, who is black, so it works in-world quite well. It was weird at the beginning, I grant you.
RoP has no such excuses. I found it okay for the elf (in the army, people come from all over, and he was more elf-like than most of the community-theater-roman-senator elves anyway), but for the Harfoots it's very distracting and weird.
alchemist
1yr ago
Is that a thing in the South of the US? I never saw it growing up fairly poor in Canada, nor did I see it in when I lived in California.
alchemist
1yr ago
Why not?
They can get some points, but not big points, because most of the world manages it (especially, as you note, when you're under 30, and even slightly active). I also don't give big points out for brushing your teeth, combing your hair, or cleaning your ass after shitting. I don't think I'm setting that high a bar, although I recognize obesity does seem to be getting ever-harder to fight. (I also have some sympathy for people who's parents screwed them on the eating habits and metabolism front).
alchemist
1yr ago
Both, but they are separate.
Being obese is a pretty big hit (for most people, but there are always exception) to attractiveness. But the original point was how hard young women have it to be attractive, because they have to spend time and money on fashion, and doing make-up is hard, and not being fat is really hard. I was disagreeing with all of those, especially the last one, which is what caused this comment chain.
I think you could make an amazing adult series out of Malazan or the Black company, but the writing wouldn't be easy. The former is crazy complicated. The Lies of Lock Lamore could work too.
For kids ... I like someone else's idea of an animated series in the Harry Potter world. I haven't read them for a long time, but Dragonriders of Pern, Xanth, and the Riftwar saga seem good. A more modern source would be The Ranger's Apprentice series.
Apparently Percy Jackson was good, but very poorly done as a movie, so that would be an option too.
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