Financial Literacy is Grounded in Emotional Regulation

One of my main social challenges : finding people who 

• (i) don't depend on money for happiness, who 
• (ii) know that they don't need money, who also 
• (ii) enjoy discussing how money works, and how to take lots of it from other people, just for fun.

1. The poor and diseased

Many people have strongly repressed emotions about what they would like to do, which they cannot do because they don't know how to do it without money. This causes them to spin off into one of two pathological directions :

• (a) they are depressed because they don't know how to make more money, or
• (b) they are manic about money because they don't know how to find happiness, without money

2. The rich and ignorant

Some people have lots of money, so they are in neither of the former categories. However, similarly because would not be able to be happy without it : 

• (c) they are foolish enough to spend money without realising that they would not know how to be happy without it, or
• (d) they have a fundamental anxiety about how to not lose money, which is a privileged version of (1,b)

3. Everyone else is simply happy

This is a rare privilege : to be able to be happy regardless of state of poverty, other disease, length of life, and the expectations of other people.

( This is a troll post, utilising some obviously unnecessary dichotomies. )

Economics : Study and Time

Over the past few days, I've had more than the usual number of conversations about what and why I am studying.

Common Question 1 : what do you want to do with what you are studying?

Common Question 2 : how does what you are studying convert to money?

Common Answer 1 : the point of studying something is invariably to understand it. The confusion arises where people have assumed that studying must have extrinsic goods other than intrinsic understanding, or they don't understand that most knowledge is monetisable ( see Common Answer 2 ).  

MOST COMMONLY, people have experienced studying to get a certification ... in which case they weren't actually studying, they were just doing whatever it took to get certified, they want the certification regardless of the understanding. Going to school doesn't mean you spent your time studying - I personally witnessed a load of my classmates NOT studying, but partying, and I didn't hang out with most of them for the reason that we were there for different reasons. A lot of people don't need to study - they just need to get certified, then they can get jobs which don't require actually haven't studied anything, as many jobs simply require persuading counterparties to agree to mandates, and outsourcing the ground work later.

Common Answer 2 : I can't think of many things that can't convert to money - the question is always one of political will ... do you even want to spend time making money? And invariably, I decided the answer is "sure, but only if you pay me to spend my time", otherwise I usually have better things to do with the limited time that I have, than make more money.

How to Cook Rice in an Automatic Metal Pot, without it Sticking to the Bottom

You need to use a scale to weigh the dry rice + water ratio and adjust the water at 5% intervals.

 It's 100% fixable based on your rice to water ratio.

The electronic circuit is fixed, and will stop the power at a specific temperature. 

If you have too much water, the bottom layer gets soft enough to stick.

If you have too little water, the overall rice is underhydrated.

You are looking for this target : the rice at the bottom starts to char ( brown ) before it gets sticky.

Happy trails :)

Why ETHBTC has devalued over 2024

From a forum. 

1Q24 rally : expectations were directional, with the entire asset class coming off lows ; expectations for ETH to overtake XBT were due to past 4-year cycle peaks where there was less competition for ETH.

2024 : market forces however delivered the message that the ETH, ADA ecosystems are under significant competition from others like SOL, AVAX, and others ; XBT doesn't compete with those, it competes with LTC, BCH.

2Q,3Q24 fade : so during a period of consolidation, XBT's market dominance has risen from 50+ to 60+ %, in a flight to safety, with everything else except SOL losing share.

This should tell you something. One must look closely at market dominance for the top 50 currencies to have the appropriate context. XBT is 50-60%, ETH is 10-15%, SOL is 3+%, etc. so during value-season, there is a shakeout to figure out fair-value. Now we are shifting from value-season to growth-season, where there will be a race to figure out max-value.

If in doubt about local phenomena, always zoom out to observe the universal context.

Notes : Climatology / Meteorology / Oceanography / Geology

 Scales ( horizontal distances, ref : Earth's diameter 12,7xx km ) :

• microscale : 0 km to 1 km, 0 days to 1 day
• mesoscale : 1 km to 1000 km, 1 day to 1 week
• meso-alpha : 200 km to 2000 km
• meso-beta : 20 km to 200 km
• meso-gamma : 2 to 20 km
• macroscale / synoptic : 1000 km to 10,000 km, 1 week to 1 month
• megascale / global : world-wide, many months, periodic climates

Clines : sloped boundaries between distinct zones :

• thermocline : temperature
• chemocline : chemistry
• halocline : salinity
• barocline : pressure
• baroclinic : surfaces of constant pressure intersect ( are not parallel ) with surfaces of constant density

Contour lines / Isometric lines / Isolines / Isoquants / Isarithms / Isogram / Isopleths : lines referring to points of equal value in some dimension :

• isobar : pressure
• isotherm : temperature
• isocheim : mean winter temperature
• isothere : mean summer temperature
• isohel : solar radiation
• isogeotherm : temperature beneath Earth's surface
• isogon : direction
• wind direction, in meteorology
• magnetic declination, in the study of Earth's magnetic field
• agonic line : zero magnetic declination 
• isoporic line : constant annual variation in magnetic declination
• isoclinic line : constant magnetic dip
• aclinic line :  zero magnetic dip
• isodynamic line : constant magnetic force
• isocline : slope
• rate of change in a population's size is zero, given a pair of interacting populations, in the study of population dynamics
• isopach : thickness
• isochor : volume
• isopycnal : density
• water density, in oceanography
• isobath : depth
• isobathytherms : depths of water with equal temperature
• isohaline : ocean salinity
• isoheight / isohypse : geopotential height
• isodose : absorbed radiation
• isoplat : acid precipitation
• isobels : sound pressure
• isoflor : biological diversity, often referring to a taxonomic group
• isophene : biological event time, such as flowering
• isophote : illuminance
• isohyet / isohyetal line : rainfall
• isohume : humidity
• isodrosotherm : dew point
• isoneph : cloud cover
• isochalaz : frequency of hail storms
• isobront : phase of a thunderstorm
• isotach : wind speed
• isopectic line : dates of ice formation
• isotac : dates of thawing
• isochasm : aurora occurence
• isopotential / equipotential line : electrostatic potential
• isochrone : drive or travel time
• isotim : transport cost from source of a raw material
• isodapane : equivalent cost of travel time
• isoquant : production quantity ( in the context of fixed inputs )
• isocost : usages ( in the context of fixed production costs )
• in radar image interpretation
• isodop : Doppler velocity
• isoecho : radar reflectivity
• level set : mathematical term for a full collection of points having a particular function's output value
• algorithms used to find boundaries after image segmentation
• edge detection
• level-set method
• boundary tracing
• active contour model
• indifference curve : economic pressure
• phase diagram : in thermodynamic studies
• hybrid contour : energies of : hybrid orbitals and pure atomic orbitals 

Also see :

• isosurfaces : would be to a 3-dimensional diagram, what isolines are to a 2-dimensional diagram
• chloropleth map : colours of an area represent a value in some dimension
• isallo- replaced iso- : when the line connects points whose values in some dimension are changing at the same rate
• isallobar : pressure changes
• anallobar : pressure increase
• katallobar : pressure decrease 
• for terrain contour lines :
• rule of Vs : stream valleys : 
• vee point indicates stream path
• vee points upstream
• rule of Os : closed loops :
• uphill on the inside, innermost loop is highest
• downhill on the outside, outermost loop is lowest
• exception : loop represents a depression : indicated by lines perpendicular to the depression, called hachures 
• spacing of contours :
• more than one contour line merging, indicates a cliff
• can be used to approximate stream gradients
• graphic design
• line weight
• line colour
• line type
• line marking 

Philosophy of Beauty

 There are two common reactions to beauty.

1. Some attach themselves to it, and treat it as an end-goal / high-priority in lifestyle strategy and operations.

2. Some recognise it as a tool for manipulating the first type of person.

Some people understand both, and can switch back and forth at will. Which do you think is the educated person?

Tempting Careers

I've always been tempted to work in something highly visible, like fashion, music, or architecture. Or in something reliably monetisable ... like, the usual stuff. Or in something that people can understand, like being an academic or public intellectual. But generally neither visibility nor monetisability nor intelligibility has been a big part of my career motivation, so I have done other things. I guess it is always down to goals, before strategy. And maybe values before goals.