jmh

Karma: 825

jmh 24 Feb 2021 19:15 UTC
2 points
on: A No-Nonsense Guide to Early Retirement
A few comments on aspects I think under/not noted.
1. Always take advantage of any company matching program. If they have a good employee stock purchase plan that too can be free money. (But don’t put all your eggs in the company basket!)
2. People really need to think about what their spending will be during retirement. It will not be the same as during your working years. I think the comment about choosing where to live also factors in here.
3. We don’t really need to split our plans into working-retired in my opinion. For some (many?) maybe but choosing your career and who you work for or with should be considered. If you really enjoy what you do how is working really different from retiring? Or perhaps more relevant, how is working with 40+ years of experience and competence, and some of the perks that come with that, in an area and with a company you really enjoy? Moreover, negotiation around what flexibility one has, either hours or in locations is something to consider as one moves through their career as it relates to the retirement life they envision.
I think perhaps sometimes the retirement focus on the financial aspects only could miss some important aspects of that retirement as well as reduce the options set considered for accomplishing the more general goal of achieving those “golden years”.

jmh 23 Feb 2021 20:07 UTC
1 point
on: Media Bias
I’ve taken the view that generally we really don’t have news as we did in “the old days” (which itself is a bit of a myth as going back farther than what one might call the golden age of journalism/reporting − 60s/70s era perhaps—I think we’d see the same type of outcomes.). Generally I take most news or media outlets to basically be about opinion that is hung on a few facts. Fits right in with the view on biases and incomplete information (selected or just incomplete).
I also somewhat see this as a case of nature abhorring a vacuum. When we started up with the ²⁴⁄₇ outlets and added the increased speed of transmitting information (and reduced costs) I think the industry ended up with way more slack for the actual new information generated per unit time. Something had to fill the gaps. I think that also drove a dynamic related to (self declared?) expert personalities and all the talking heads we find.
That said, there probably is good value in knowing or at least being a bit familiar with the current framing and meme that are dominant in any given topic space. So perhaps there is news but just new on a slightly different margin.

jmh 17 Feb 2021 19:06 UTC
2 points
on: Are we prepared for Solar Storms?
You might need to narrow you question down by clearly defining just what you mean by “prepared”.
For example, we (most governments and international organizations) were not prepared to respond and protect people in general nor prepared with some fallback plan for continuing needed economic and social activity during the event. We muddled though and in many cases individuals and individual organizations figured out what to do.
However, if we look at what happened when Trump got sick maybe government was prepared to perserve itself. The was a recent story about how he was actually much sicker than let on, almost to the point of putting him on a respirator. That was the report and I did not attempt to verify so.… If that was the case then clearly we have something that works wonders for the virus—it’s just not something the general public is being offered.
We might see the same with regards to any big electromagnetic event that causes sever damage to power grids and electronic things we depend so much on in our 21st Century lives. One might think that power to key government, military and research facilities will have a different experience than say, payment platforms, Amazon or Google processing data centers or even your local power provider or gas stations.
To me the big wakeup call here is less about what social institutions like government can do or could be expected to do and much more about everyone realizing the nature of the world we do live in. It’s not safe, it’s not kind and caring and in the end it is very important for everyone to take that into consideration as they live their own lives. While I am not a doom’s dayer or survivalist I do think they get that aspect of living right.
In other words, I think people in general have gotten very complacent about the risky and unpredictable nature of our world. Adjustments on that margin will probably make the world as a whole a bit more robust than calls for government or international actions—not that such is not also needed but I think it only gets so far due to the inherent problems of that type of collective action.

jmh 16 Feb 2021 19:35 UTC
1 point
on: Remember that to value something infinitely is usually to give it a finite dollar value
I’m a bit confused by “you” in the claim. If we’re talking about individuals I’m not at all sure one must put a monetary value on something. That seems to suggest nominal values are more accurate than real, subjective personal values those monetary units represent.
In a more general setting, markets for instance, I think a stronger case can be made but for any given individual am not certain it would be required.
Broadening it out more, where multiple people are trying to work together to some ends I think would be the strongest case.

jmh 13 Feb 2021 18:47 UTC
1 point
in reply to: TAG’s comment on: Your Cheerful Price
Willingness or ability?

jmh 9 Feb 2021 0:26 UTC
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: Making Vaccine
Doesn’t this speak to your concern:
Spike 802-823cir: FSQ c LPDPSKPSKRSF c EDLLF ( Cys4, Cys17 disulfide)
IN TESTING, vaccine Generations 5, 6, 7, 8. 9
To preserve the loop structure present in the native conformation, we substituted cysteines for amino acids 4 (Ile>Cys) and 17 (Ile>Cys).
They perform the substitution to keep the shape that our immune system is looking for by recreating a disulfide bond that to form a loop with the same sequence the B-cells are targeting in the virus.
While I agree their expression was “potentially beneficial” (or close) it seems clear to me the point was our B-cells are bonding to that loop and if there are not other aspect in the larger peptide that lead the cell to that site for bonding, construction the loop via the disulfide bond they introduce logically should result in triggering an immune response.
I’m not sure why they would need to provide some type of citation for this, much less that they would even have a source for this specific application.

jmh 6 Feb 2021 22:33 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Stuart Anderson’s comment on: The Story of the Reichstag
That somehow doesn’t feel quite right—something of a different class of things, unless you’re saying that the general American perception now is we deserved the attack.
I would think perhaps the Vietnam War memorial might be a better case—still not quite the same (I might even go as far as to say something of a mirror image).

jmh 4 Feb 2021 20:17 UTC
3 points
in reply to: johnswentworth’s comment on: Making Vaccine
Would an alternative (and possibly easier) approach be to simply take some additional doses—it’s my understanding that you really cannot make yourself sick with this type of vaccine—over a week and then retest for antibodies?
If that still fails then consider figuring out how to perform your own mucus testing.

jmh 4 Feb 2021 19:29 UTC
3 points
on: Making Vaccine
Thanks for the write up! I started to do this myself but quickly found I was a bit confused on how to even order the peptides. I was expecting to be able to search product lines but.… Not really possible. So...is the process to simply identify some suppliers (not hard to find with Google) give them the amino acid sequences in the instructions and ask for a quote? (Hit that initial speed bump and have not gotten back to looking for phone numbers or customer support chat windows.)
Just a thought. So this doesn’t scale well for storage and shipping it sounds but production is pretty simply and materials seem to be fairly durable for storage (I don’t think the peptides decay quickly). If so, couldn’t the model be that a small lab at the many, many, many pharmacy (or at lest the big chains) stores make batches for the appointments they have scheduled. Given that the delivery method seem to be better (thanks for bringing that up—was going to ask) and that should take out a lot of the supply chain bottlenecks we have been seeing I would think. (Or once the transition and supporting setup/infrastructure locally is done.)
The other question, having taken this is there any concern about being required later to also take one of the officially blessed vaccines. This might be even more important is you don’t show the antibodies for some reason but have reacted to the vaccine. I don’t think I completely read the radvac white paper but don’t recall them having any section that might have spoken to that.
Again, great write up and contribution.

jmh 3 Feb 2021 2:20 UTC
2 points
on: The World is Full of Wasted Motion
One potential implication seems to be that if there are things I need to get done and an 80% level of done is acceptable then I can save a lot of time for things I really need to get 100% done.

jmh 3 Feb 2021 2:01 UTC
1 point
in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: The 10,000-Hour Rule is a myth
I think you have two aspects for the first cut: flavoring and cooking—maybe add visual presentation (which also is affected by cooking). Flavoring seem to be what a number here are talking about—salt, acid/spiciness, sweetness, bitterness/sharpness. For that I think just study the tongue and taste buds. Cooking is all about controlling the application of heat.
For the visual it will be balancing color and numbers (odd numbers seem to be more appealing than even numbers it seems), and a bit about shapes/patterns.

jmh 31 Jan 2021 16:08 UTC
1 point
in reply to: renato’s comment on: For those who advocate Anki
I’ll have to look into abilities to view and slow the playback. I do watch a fair amount of Korean language shows. Not sure if Viki’s interface includes that or if I can setup PotPlayer (VLC always causes some problem on my system that I’ve never figured out—and with all the options never willing to invest too much effort in solving) to stream the shows and take advantage of the suggestion.
Side note on watching the foreign shows. Since I’m also watching for entertainment value if generally have CC turned on. However, one things I have learned is I have to be careful about getting into the habit of reading and not really listening. When that happens I just hear English in my head and it starts drowning out the Korean! Turning CC off if I want to be in pure study/learning mode solves that but trying to be in that mode ²⁴⁄₇ is really hard on the brain ;-)
Thanks for the Lang-8 suggestion, will look into that as well.

jmh 31 Jan 2021 15:41 UTC
8 points
in reply to: AllAmericanBreakfast’s comment on: For those who advocate Anki
I think I missed that so thanks for the link.

jmh 31 Jan 2021 15:40 UTC
1 point
in reply to: femtogrammar’s comment on: For those who advocate Anki
I’m glad it not just me! ;-)
Just recently in a different setting someone claim Duolingo was not a great tool but I suspect that is dependent on the person. If she has not tried other learning sites she might take a look at TalkToMeInKorean.com—lots of free materials, a large set of books they have published, lots of YouTube videos and very personable teachers that keep things relaxed and generally fun. That has been my primary tool (their books and free materials) but still oh so slowly progressing.
I’ve never used Anki and not sure it will actually improve my performance with Korean (I pretty much replicate the spaced repetition myself) but some of the uses you’ve put it to offer something of a “doh!” moment about a broader use that might make it very worth my getting. Really liked the idea related to the insect experience.

[Question] For those who advocate Anki

jmh31 Jan 2021 0:01 UTC

19 points

14 comments1 min readLW link

jmh 19 Jan 2021 17:02 UTC
1 point
on: What is going on in the world?
Seems like a number of the items fall under a common theme/area. I wonder if focusing on them separately rather than perhaps seeing them as different context/representations of a common underlying source is best.
Basically, all the bits about failing governments, societies/cultures/institutions seem to be a rejection of the old “Private Vices, Public Virtues” idea and Smith’s Invisible Hand metaphor. So perhaps the questions might be what’s changed that make those types of superior outcomes from the individual actions that never aimed at such results no longer as effective.
Is there a common gear that is now broken or are these all really independent issues?

jmh 10 Jan 2021 3:15 UTC
3 points
in reply to: remizidae’s comment on: COVID-19: home stretch and fourth wave Q&A
I would say the ethical aspect comes from what you do after your effort to become infected. Since your intent is to become infected, your next action is to self-quarantine for (up to?) 14 days and test. Without imposing your quarantine after the infection attempt you are shifting some risks to third parties.
I assume your goal is to avoid the rush and get your immunity sooner rather than later and not wait until you are eligible for a vaccine. Perhaps an alternative would be to try the RadVac.org DIY vaccine and then test for antibodies.

jmh 10 Jan 2021 3:03 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Rob Bensinger’s comment on: COVID-19: home stretch and fourth wave Q&A
Thanks and I was not thinking of the cumulative/trade off value of the assessment. While I’m sure your “over a year” time period was purely illustrative, I would wonder about just what time interval one might want to apply for this type of budgeting approach for consuming your mCs.
For instances, it seems more reasonable (to me) to say “I want to limit my maximum risk of infection to 1%”. Then over some period of time I can sum up the mCs and make sure I keep that under the 10,000 budget defined. Over time then the early spend gets put back in the budget.
Any thoughts on that?

jmh 8 Jan 2021 19:33 UTC
5 points
on: Fourth Wave Covid Toy Modeling
In your model you seem to keep the R value constant at the 1.5 ratio (S$1 cell).
I’ve seen calculations regarding where herd immunity kicking in based on adjusting R given the percentage of the population with immunity (already infected). I was not completely sure how to try making that adjustment so took the % infected in row 2 as the base constant from which I then subtract from the other values in that column.
I didn’t look at the full impact but calculate an Adjusted New. For the most part the timeline runs the same—the adjustment seems to more one period earlier than your calculations. For example, the adjusted new peak is on May 28 where as the peak in your calculations occurs on June 4.
The big difference though is in magnitude. The peak infections for the new variant in your calculations was 7,325,028. In my adjusted new variant cases the peak was 5,370,409. That seems to be a significant difference.
I’m wondering if the adjustment I’m apply for some reason is not valid.

jmh 8 Jan 2021 17:15 UTC
1 point
in reply to: habryka’s comment on: COVID-19: home stretch and fourth wave Q&A
I’m wondering why you find a 70 in a million chance of getting infected as “quite a bit”? Or am I completely misunderstanding the microCOVID?

jmh

[Question] For those who ad­vo­cate Anki

[Question] For those who advocate Anki