From the WSJ, Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years. It’s waaayyy too early to celebrate. Since 2010, homes prices are way up nationally. Such as the Bay Area: This WSJ story seems like data mining at its finest, and I don’t see how this is so newsworthy. Unless prices never… Continue reading The daily view 3/30/2023: Home prices fall, UK inflation, GOP, and the Metaverse/META

This excellent chart by Richard Hanania also explains why the student loan debt crisis is so intractable: Your typical worker in Japan is smarter and probably harder working than those in any other country. But they earn less than other nations, because they have an inflexible labor market. Picking “ job security” over dynamism, and… Continue reading Moloch and college tuition: why broken systems endure

I am getting kinda burned out of all the coverage of GPT-4 (and AI in general). I have never seen a story or topic dominate discussion and headlines as thoroughly and as long as with GPT. Maybe Jan 6th or the overturn of Roe v. Wade, but that was just a few days. This has… Continue reading The daily view: Being governor is not at all like being president

First there was Covid. There was the suspense of the possibility of the world coming to an end, and then the sigh of relief when it didn’t. And then the euphoria and exhilaration of the stock market, tech/start-up, and crypto surge that followed. The 2021 crypto surge was like a proletariat revolution of the masses… Continue reading The fall of crypto, and the permanent ascent of Substack and the ‘wordcels’

Eliezer Yudkowsky was recently on the podcast “Bankless Shows”, in which as the tile conveys in no uncertain terms, he argues that humanity is going to perish due to AI. Bankless is crypto podcast. It should change its name to ‘penniless show’ or ‘moneyless show’, because that is the likely outcome of anyone who invests… Continue reading Eliezer Yudkowsky: We’re All Gonna Die

It has been a few weeks since I updated about my BTC method. Despite BTC having recovered from $20k to $27k, it couldn’t be going better. I shorted BTC at $28.3k before the market open at around 6:00 AM PST. This was on the day of the FOMC meeting, which was yesterday. I also went… Continue reading Market Manipulation, Night Effects, and Huge Day for Method

In this post I argue that Tirzepatide and Semaglutide (also known as Mounjaro, Wegovy) are probably not worth it for therapeutic purposes. The small increase of expected life expectancy by treating mild or moderate obesity is not justified by the high, recurring costs of these drugs. On the other hand, if one desires to lose… Continue reading Tirzepatide and Semaglutide (Mounjaro, Wegovy) are probably not worth the money

Imagine waking up to the trending hashtags on Twitter “#trumparrest”, #trumpindictment”, or “Indictment Day”. Your heart races or sinks…it must be related to the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago, Jan 6th, or something to do with Russia? Or taxes? You’re thinking “this is it…it’s happening!” You hurriedly click the hashtag on the sidebar only to see… Continue reading Right again about Trump (so far)

Earlier last week Reddit suffered a major outage, which motivated me to write this post. Reddit, like a lot of the internet, has followed a trajectory of decline over the past decade or so. It’s tempting to want to blame the admins or political bias, and although those play a role, the main problem are… Continue reading The Reddit Mods/Moderation is Out of Control

This is funny (or sad, I guess, if you actually take his advice). Balaji has lost the plot. He has gone into full-blown shill/grifter mode: The BitSignal How do you ring the fire alarm on the internet?How do you show it’s not a false alarm?I am putting up the BitSignal.$1M in BTC to alert us… Continue reading Balaji goes into full-blown shill/grifter mode