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Snake Diggity

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Posts posted by Snake Diggity

  1. 4 minutes ago, Boss Hogg said:

    He strikes again alright.  
     

    I find the provocative nature of these kinds of moves fascinating.

    What’s the goal here?

    Really seems to be trying to alienate large swaths of people. 

    Yeah as well-intended as it is, it probably is not a politically savvy move.

  2. 28 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Finally, saw a big-ass Trump 2024 flag in the wild, out by Conroe.  Was beginning to wonder if they existed. Of course, it was a total white trash place, and Trump would never have anything to do with the person who lived there.

    Estimated Trump flags seen from hwy on route from Austin to Port O’Connor:

    2016: 23

    2020: 18 (75% leftovers from 2016)

    2024: 6 (4 of which are still up from 2016)

    • Hook 'Em 6
  3. Dana Brown has been GM for a little over a year.  He’s presided over one draft (early returns are very good), one trade deadline (where the only significant move was dictated by the owner) and one offseason (where the only significant move was dictated by the owner).

    Could he have done a better job with the meager resources he had to address the middle relief?  Maybe, but it’s been 2 games.  I feel pretty good one of the fringey arms (Scott looked fine that first game) he added will emerge.  And if Abreu isn’t suspended Houston wins at least one of those games, possibly both.

    Im stoked about Meyers and Javier.  I’m worried about Framber and Jose Abreu.  But it’s early.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  4. 11 hours ago, Daddy Fat Sax said:

     I like how this is brought up like I’m such a distasteful person.
     

    Let’s say I get 1000 negs. Easily 80% are from like 10-12 posters. So if 10 people here hate me I shouldn’t be able to post on the forum?

     

    I like talking about this stuff here, and I’ve helped other posters make money. I think my contributions to the site are a net positive. 

    The site has an ignore feature.  The fact that you circumvent that by continually creating new accounts makes you a very distasteful person in this arena.

    Also, color me extremely skeptical that anything you’ve ever posted has “helped other posters make money”.

    Kindly fuck off.

    • Haha 1
  5. 2 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

    Consider all the various asset classes. Stocks and bonds and the largest classes of investments. In a place where the government goes into a financial crisis, which class outperforms? The Federal Reserve is engaged in financial repression, you will have a negative real return on bonds. Stocks will suffer because the economy will be crushed, growth will die. Cash, it needs little explanation. If you wish to hold cash while the Fed prints a trillion in fiat every couple months, good on you. 

    Levered real estate is not a bad option. Debt values are fixed, rents depend mostly on nominal dollar salaries. Real estate will perform well, but you have to be levered before interest rates rise. It's a dicey proposition, but not bad at all.

    Gold has storage costs but it is a decent inflation hedge. But you are likely paying a 20% premium up front and you can't do much with it. Overall, I don't like it, but I understand it for purposes of diversification, it has a negative correlation with financial assets. 

    Bitcoin, however, is fixed in supply. You can buy stuff with it. There is no significant cost to buying or selling, and no storage cost. Maybe later we can get some interest. There is limited ability to pay for retail purchases, but that will change very shortly (at the very least, there will be a "Bitcoin" credit card where you pay the bill in Bitcoin). And it is new, people are buying it for the first time every day.

    It is the best asset class to buy and hold for the reasons I gave above. And the best thing is, a lot of people haven't figured that out yet. 

    Thats an interesting point.  I am not an expert and all the crypto bros say “no way” but I’m not convinced that the code can’t be changed in a way that undermines its value.  Buying Bitcoin is an act of higher faith than buying USD (or gold or stocks) imho.  I also look at how much the US is vested in the USD as the worlds primary method of exchange and the worlds reserve currency, and I don’t see them letting Bitcoin undermine that.

    People aren’t using Bitcoin to transact to any meaningful degree.  Its use as a currency is not at all reflected in its current price.  I think it’s current price simply reflects the fact that there was a shitload of capital out there with no reasonable place to put it; if Bitcoin’s price keeps going up or remains stable if/when the world economy goes into severe recession then that will be proven wrong to a large degree.

  6. 56 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

    Astros Opening Day roster:

    Valdez
    Javier
    Brown
    Blanco
    France 

    Caratini
    Diaz

    Altuve 
    Abreu
    Bregman 
    Peña

    Alvarez
    McCormick
    Meyers
    Tucker

    Dubón 
    Kessinger
    Singleton 

    Hader
    Pressly
    Martinez
    Montero 
    Bielak 
    Scott
    Mushinski

    Lineup kicks ass.  Bench is solid.  Rotation high variance.  Leverage relief kicks ass.  Middle relief very suspect.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  7. 54 minutes ago, FirstTimeCaller said:

    Serious question -- we have any evidence that big accounts have dumped coins in large amount? I haven't seen that and considering that BTC has gone from pennies to literally tens of thousands of dollars, it seems like it would have happened so far. If you were early and scooping up BTC for $5 a coin, would you not dump it at $1K or $10K? 

    From what I've seen, a huge chunk hasn't moved in a long, long time. I'm actually wondering if it hasn't moved because it simply can't (lost keys).

    https://blockworks.co/news/bitcoin-movement-three-years

    Is it a situation where people say there are 19 million coins mined but far, far fewer are actually able to even be sold? I honestly don't know.
     

    It is an odd thing.  Far different from USD or gold and any other financial instrument.  If more and more people are using it as currency and there’s no increase in supply, the price will continue to go up which seems like it would become severely deflationary.  If Bitcoin’s value is in its use as a currency, but its price continues to rise to the point that it cannot be used as currency…….

    Clearly a lot of people have made money on Bitcoin, and I have not made any, so maybe that means my opinion has no credibility.  I’m certainly no expert on blockchain or crypto.  But I still remain skeptical, if for no other reason than every single loud proponent of Bitcoin that I personally know is a fucking idiot.  I also believe that change control and government intervention are real risks to its value.

    My opinion is that Bitcoin is a store of value.  An alternative to inflating USD and overpriced stocks.  It’s having a moment.  I’m not going to try to time that and if Bitcoin continues to go up forever, I am comfortable continuing to miss out.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  8. 1 hour ago, usmc0331horn said:

    Phones

    Yeah, smartphones, social media, and the internet can be pegged as major source of most of the issues I listed.  

    Narratives propagated online breed a lack of resilience, empathy, and accountability.  

    The culture of excess and celebrity diminish the dignity of work.

    The unregulated Internet breeds disinformation and misinformation.

    And the 24/7 in-your-face nature of smartphones increases awareness of issues (climate change, war, inequality, etc.) and breeds a sense of powerlessness to address them.

    In terms of what I think might be achievable ways to address these issues, I think an anti-smartphone/socialmedia campaign and legal accountability similar to what happened with cigarettes and smoking would be good.  We also need to poor a fucking fuckton more money into public education.

    • Hook 'Em 2
  9. Top 10 list of crises causing this, in order:

    1. Resilience: this skews worse as you analyze younger generations.  This goes hand in hand with #2, and paired together is what I think is driving the woefully misguided anti-woke crowd.  A culture of victimhood has allowed people to justify wallowing in failure or defeat.  We need to teach young people that anything can be overcome, because it’s true, and even if it’s not true, believing that lie generally leads to a happier life than not.

    2. Accountability: this is a major problem for all generations.  I am not sure the cause, but our society does an epically poor job of holding people accountable for their behavior.  I think a lot of people’s unhappiness is bred from an external locus of control mindset and a lack of accountability for their own happiness.  We need to teach young people that they are in control of and responsible for their own happiness.  To be accountable is to be empowered.

    3. Empathy: I trace a lot of this back to the Internet and social media, but there seems to be a tremendous lack of empathy in our current society.  People seem to be more able than ever to block out how their actions affect others.  This spans all generations.

    4. Dignity of work: Working has gotten a really bad rap.  Our society glorifies people who inherited wealth more than people who work hard and aren’t wealthy.  Workers are viewed as suckers.  That has to change.  This problems spans all current generations including the Boomers.

    5. Disinformation: Media bias is a gigantic fucking problem.  Society went from less than a handful of sources of information, all of whom presented basically the same information, to infinite, contradictory sources.  Being unable to trust new information breeds a lot of problems that flow into this happiness metric.

    6. Healthcare:  our healthcare system is utterly fucked and almost no one has quality, affordable, convenient healthcare.  This is a tough nut to crack.

    7. Education: our education system is utterly fucked and middle and lower class young people are getting the major shaft.  Unlike healthcare, I believe money can easily address this problem.  A much lower student/teacher ratio and a much higher salary for teachers would go a LONG way to fixing this problem.

    8. Climate: it’s hot as fuck all the time and that makes people unhappy.  Also, thinking about societal collapse in the next 100 years because their grandparents and parents weren’t willing to make even moderate sacrifices has gotta be depressing as fuck for young people.

    9. Inequality: I think there’s a big gap and this issue is far less impactful than the ones above it on the list, but wealth consolidation is a major problem.  Access to capital is probably the biggest determinate in someone’s ability to achieve in our society.  It far outweighs other factors like talent and fortitude.  That has always been a problem in our crony capitalist society over the last 200 years, but it’s worse now than ever.

    10. Demographic: I think demographic trends are already causing problems, but this is more a forward-looking issue than something that is causing current unhappiness, and there’s actually a chance this could end up being a good thing if technology and migration are properly managed.  But there’s a worldwide shortage of young people relative to old people, and that’s a problem.

    Mass shootings didn’t make this list, even though I believe they cause young people a lot of unhappiness.  And even though I believe guns should be much harder to obtain and that our national priorities are totally out of whack on that issue, I do think if you solved #2, #3, and #7 on my list, you’d see a dramatic reduction in problems related to guns.

    • Hook 'Em 4
    • Like 1
  10. 2 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

    It’s Cum Rocket aka GRHorn. He’s a cancer the mods will not excise. 

    It’s ridiculous that users are allowed to get banned multiple times and just create another account and immediately continue doing the same shit that got them banned in the first place.  It renders the ignore feature useless.  A cancer on the site is a very good metaphor.

    • Hook 'Em 2
  11. Team has looked poorly coached and aside from Weaver it seems every player either regressed or didn’t take a reasonable step forward.  The program is on a downward trajectory, but Terry is extremely likely to get 3 full seasons as coach. The bar for next season:

    Miss the tourney: 2025-2026 hot seat (sweet 16 or you’re fired)

    6 seed or worse with Round of 64/32 exit: 2025-2026 is warm seat; better be a top 5 seed in the tourney in 2026 or you’re fired

    5 seed or better with Round of 64/32 exit: 2025-2026 is warm seat; better make the 2026 tourney or you’re fired

    Sweet 16: good job

    Elite 8: good job, here’s a moderate extension

    FF or better: great job, here’s a massive extension that makes you one of the 10 highest paid coaches in the sport for the next 5+ years.

  12. 18 hours ago, Frank Drebin said:

    Fast food is not cheap these days.  Other than occasional Chic Fil A, the cost plus the calories make it really easy to skip for me.

    I can literally order a pound of chicken fajitas that comes with sides for pretty close to the cost of Whataburger to feed our family of four.  And with the fajitas, there is usually enough rice, beans, and tortillas left over (and sometimes chicken), where I can get a couple work lunches out of it.

    Chic Fil A last night for my family of four (me, wife no pics, 8 year old, 5 year old).  $56.  There were 2 nuggets leftover.  Fml.

    • Hook 'Em 1
  13. 10 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

     

     

     

    Bitch out there sounding like Miss teen South Carolina “I personally believe that witch hunt such as the Saudi Arabia and Russia…and the demise of our country like the politically motivated…”

    • Hook 'Em 2
    • Haha 4
  14. 10 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

    Not sure this is accurate. SCOWI for example is no longer under GOP

     

    6 minutes ago, Js1 said:

    Yeah that one that is wrong. Michigan Supreme Court is also 4-3 Dem and one of the GOP is not running this year 

    I was taking all that from ballotpedia.  Looks like their SC data is wonky.

  15. State govt GOP control of swing states:

    PA: Senate

    WI: House, Senate, Supreme Court

    MI: Supreme Court

    GA: House, Senate, Governor, Supreme Court

    AZ: House, Senate, Supreme Court

    NV: Governor 

     

    Georgia is the only swing state where the GOP controls all 4, and Kemp hates Trump, so it’s unlikely shenanigans go easy for them even there.

  16. 5 minutes ago, BeardIP said:

    And he didn't even write it. Some ghostwriter hack did. Can you imagine if Trump actually did attempt to write something? Oof.

    It’s an easy/quick read, which I assume was partially Trump’s influence.  That’s about its only non-negative trait.  There’s not a single insightful point about business nor a single humanizing anecdote about Trump’s life.  If you come away from that book thinking anything positive about Trump, you’re a rube.

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  17. I read The Art of the Deal in 2007 during a binge of biographies I was going through.  I was moderately interested in Trump, mostly because I knew nothing about him and figured there had to be more to him than the person I’d seen on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in the 80s or on his reality shows in the aughts.  I got thru that book and blew a raspberry, thinking “that dude is nothing but an attention-starved trust fund baby who was born into enough capital to buy fame and purchase an unearned reputation.  A bankrupt business genius.”  It’s why I never ever considered him a serious threat to the presidency and figured if he did win he’d be totally uninterested in actually doing anything.  I totally underestimated how dangerous he was.  But this entire last 9 years I have been very confident that his flaws will undo him, as they have multiple times throughout his life; it’s just a matter of time.  I don’t know if that’s actually happening now, with apparent dwindling enthusiasm for his style, money and legal problems, and age-related decline. I’m scared to bank on it.  But it will happen, eventually.  And it will be very satisfying for me to watch. 

    • Hook 'Em 5
  18. 26 minutes ago, Goredho said:

    Well, shit, this in the bag.  I guess I can stay home in November.

    To me the wildcard is the nation states that benefit from a weakened U.S. with the means to influence the election. Obviously led by Russia.

     The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee investigation submitted the first in their five-volume 1,313-page report in July 2019. The committee concluded that the January 2017 intelligence community assessment alleging Russian interference was "coherent and well-constructed". The first volume also concluded that the assessment was "proper", learning from analysts that there was "no politically motivated pressure to reach specific conclusions". The final and fifth volume, which was the result of three years of investigations, was released in August 2020,[8] ending one of the United States "highest-profile congressional inquiries".[9][10] The Committee report found that the Russian government had engaged in an "extensive campaign" to sabotage the election in favor of Trump, which included assistance from some of Trump's own advisers.[9] 

    A 2019 report by the Senate Intelligence Committee[161] found "an unprecedented level of activity against state election infrastructure" by Russian intelligence in 2016.[162] The activity occurred in "all 50 states" and is thought by "many officials and experts" to have been "a trial run ... to probe American defenses and identify weaknesses in the vast back-end apparatus—voter-registration operations, state and local election databases, electronic poll books and other equipment" of state election systems.[163] The report warned that the United States "remains vulnerable" in the 2020 election.[162]

    Russia's path to victory in the Ukraine is through Donald Trump and conservative congress members that would stymie aid to Zelensky and leave NATO without a super-power's teeth.  They are going to go for broke in influencing this election, and as we've seen, you don't have to tilt the odds nationwide, just in a relatively small number of swing counties in a relatively small number of swing states.

    There are a few things working in Trump’s favor:

     

    Foreign influence: Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Iran all stand to benefit from a Trump presidency.  Thought: why aren’t NATO countries meddling in our election the opposite direction to cancel them out?

    Passion: Trump has fewer supporters than Biden but they are far more passionate about him.  His base is more solid, and they are willing to do more (including breaking the law) to help him win.

    Electoral college: Regardless of the overall numbers, there are only 6-7 states that matter.  Expanding the margins in safe blue states is meaningless.  Biden could lead the popular vote by 10 million votes but still lose if GA, AZ, and MI/WI don’t go his way.

    Supreme Court: this is less certain but a conservative court probably works in Trump’s favor if they end up deciding the election.

    • Hook 'Em 3
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