Interesting Stuff from the Internet
Debunking Devin: "First AI Software Engineer" Upwork lie exposed! (youtube.com)
Most Common PIN Codes — Information is Beautiful
Most Common PIN Codes:
The PIN code "1234" is the most commonly used, followed by "1111" and "0000." These simple, easily remembered sequences dominate the list.
Patterns and Trends:
Many of the top PIN codes follow simple numerical patterns or repetitions, such as "1212," "2222," and "6969."
Birth years are also common, particularly those in the 1900s, reflecting a tendency to use meaningful numbers.
Least Common PIN Codes:
Less predictable combinations, such as "8068" and "8093," are among the least commonly used, indicating that more random sequences are less likely to be chosen.
Why Do So Many Maple Syrup Bottles Have a Tiny Little Handle? (mentalfloss.com)
The article by Ellen Gutoskey explores the curious design feature of many maple syrup bottles: the tiny, often non-functional handle. This design element, while seemingly impractical, serves as a skeuomorph—a design feature that mimics an older, functional element of an object to invoke familiarity and nostalgia. The tiny handle on modern maple syrup bottles is a nod to historical salt-glazed stoneware jugs, which had large handles for practical use. As maple syrup transitioned into a consumer product in the late 19th century, manufacturers began adding small handles to glass bottles as a marketing tactic to evoke a sense of tradition and nostalgia, despite the handle’s lack of functionality.
The 4% Rule, Trinity Study and Safe Withdrawal Rates Calculator - Engaging Data (engaging-data.com)
This 4% rule early retirement calculator is designed to help you learn about safe withdrawal rates for early retirement withdrawals and the 4% rule. Use it with your own numbers to determine how much money you can withdraw in retirement and how long your money will last.
Snippets from the Newsletters/ Newspapers/ Books
Kierkegaard about the virtues of walking. “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk,” Kierkegaard advised a friend in despair. “Every day,” he went on to say, “I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”
Hartmut Rosa writes perceptively about the drive for more: “To argue that modernity is driven by an increasing demand—higher, faster, farther—is to misunderstand its structural reality. This game of escalation is perpetuated not by a lust for more, but by the fear of having less and less. It is never enough not because we are insatiable, but because we are, always and everywhere, moving down the escalator. Whenever and wherever we stop to take a break, we lose ground against a highly dynamic environment, with which we are always in competition.”
Much of last year’s slowdown in inflation was because goods prices returned to their prepandemic trend. For inflation to get back to 2%, nonhousing services inflation has to drop to less than 3% from 3.5% now, and housing to around 3.5% from 5.8%. If inflation stays higher, Fed officials are likely to hold interest rates at their current levels, the highest in two decades, until they see more concrete evidence that the economy is slowing.
Job seekers, frustrated with corporate hiring software, are using artificial intelligence to craft cover letters and résumés in seconds and deploying new automated bots to robo-apply for hundreds of jobs in just a few clicks. In response, companies are deploying more bots of their own to sort through the oceans of applications. The result: a bot versus bot war that’s leaving both applicants and employers irritated and has made the chances of landing an interview, much less a job, even slimmer than before.
Keeping weight off after Ozempic is the next quest for researchers and companies. Many people who have lost weight using drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy put the pounds back on when they stop taking the medication. Finding a way to keep weight offcould fuel an even bigger bonanza than Ozempic and its immensely profitable cousins.
Just to confirm:
- Climate change is unprecedented risk
- Mass adoption of EVs is vital
- Adoption has slowed bc a lack of low-priced options
- US companies unable/unwilling to make low-priced EVs
- China is the global leader in low-priced EVs
- US to hit China with 100% EV tariffs— John Arnold
SITALWeek
a) It’s Not the Avocado Toast
In the US, the peak bolus of Millennial births started in 1989 and went on for a few years. BI has an interesting look at how folks aged 25-34 spent money in 1989 compared to how that cohort of Millennials is spending money today. Using BLS data (inflation adjusted to 2022 dollars) some interesting trends emerge on this three-decade time horizon. Overall, annual spending is up 8% to around $68K. What stands out most is how spending in many categories – such as apparel, entertainment, and even food – has dropped vs. 1989, thanks likely to technology, productivity, and globalization. A few categories have been the clear spending gainers, most notably health care and housing. Housing alone accounted for 66% of the net increase in spending, and adding in healthcare gets you to 95% of the net increase. Meanwhile, alcohol and tobacco spending declined dramatically. Surprisingly, despite recent inflation in food prices, overall food spend declined – largely driven by drops in dairy and meat pricing/consumption. What emerges is a clear picture of how the megatrends of globalization and productivity drove down spending, only to be more than offset by the hyperinflationary choke points of healthcare and apartment rentals/homeownership.
b) Market Paradox
I was reading this WSJ article about how the complex impact of GLP-1s is “befuddling” investors: just when you think some company is a victim of GLP-1 usage, you get proven wrong because they sign a partnership or find some other path to survival. This led me to contemplate one of the biggest paradoxes of the stock market. For most publicly traded companies, there are far more ways to live than die, more ways to grow than shrink, more ways to survive/adapt than stagnate. Even failing companies are often saved through M&A. Indeed, vanishingly few companies actually go away permanently; rather, they live on as some appendage of another company or slowly lose their market value. However, if you are an investor in those same companies, there are far more ways to lose than win versus a broad index. Therein lies the paradox: how could the positive trajectory of most publicly traded companies (manifest in a broad stock index) not make it easy to invest? Last week, Buffett made a comment related to this same subject that befuddled me. In indicating that Greg Abel, the head of the Berkshire energy businesses, should take over the books of public companies that Berkshire owns, Buffett said: “I would leave the capital allocation to Greg. He understands businesses extremely well, and if you understand businesses you understand common stocks.” Would that it were so simple. Buffet's own performance, as well as that of Berkshire's investment team, have lagged the S&P 500 over the last ten years. According to the FT, Buffet's stock picks rose 10.2% per year while the Berkshire investment team rose only 7.8% per year compared to a 12% return for the S&P 500 over the period. Compounding that underperformance over the last decade results in a wide lag in value creation. Berkshire Hathaway stock has even underperformed the S&P 500 for the last decade. The solution to this performance paradox is the key to being a successful long-term investor. Unfortunately, I don’t have a pithy answer or silver bullet; however, I do tend to think the solution lies far less in the choice of individual stocks and far more in how you own them, which comes down to portfolio construction and team processes – it’s critical to have frameworks and systems in place that let you learn from mistakes and continually improve decision making. (We’ve tried to address some common pitfalls and mental traps working against investors in our original paper and subsequent follow ups). Of relevance to this conundrum is an op-ed from Tyler Cowen that looks at how wrong economists’ predictions, from a book published in 1980, turned out to be. One salient takeaway is that we never really know which thing we should worry about, but we always worry too much in the face of the resilient systems of capitalism and democracy. I suspect humans’ innate pessimism and cynicism tend to adversely impact investment decision making despite evidence that optimism always wins long term. If we can overcome bias in the investment decision making process, there are more ways to win than lose.
I've been reading Benjamin Roth's The Great Depression: A Diary, and I was repeatedly struck by his timeless insights. The diary is a real-time account of the great depression. Here is one of my many highlights, "People look upon the stock market as a place to gamble and not to invest. In times of rising market the average American becomes over-optimistic: he invests his whole capital in common stocks of the most speculative variety; often extends himself on margin. Then when a slump comes he finds himself over-extended; no cash reserve to fall back upon; he becomes unduly pessimistic and sells at a loss."
fs.blog
"It’s not that we don’t have time. It’s that we don’t have time for the things that are really important. There’s always enough time to do what’s really important, but we get caught up doing things that aren’t important." — Larry Winget
Tree rings revealed that 2023 was officially the hottest year in the last two millennia.
With more cash and better credit, wealthy Americans are the only ones who can afford the electric vehicles currently on the market, which cost over $55,000 on average. A recent survey found that 83 percent of E.V. drivers in the United States had a household income above $75,000, which is the median in the country; 57 percent had incomes above $100,000.