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Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

reuters.com

31–40 of 49 posts

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#31
post #5

> like so many very successful and brilliant people Turing was wildly over-confident in his own analysis This is so common, yet most individuals that fall into this trap will never recognize it.

I thought that was a strange takeaway for the article to take. His analysis was correct . He was undone by a factor he didn't even contemplate. His confidence in his "analysis" was spot on. There's definitely a lesson here, but I would not call it over-confidence. If the bank had gone under, would that have been called over-confidence on the part of his friend? At some point, every mistake of any kind whatsoever is c…

[deleted]

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#32
post #3

Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later. Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew. It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is. I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important st…

> Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later.

A modern-day Turing would probably put his wealth in Bitcoin — and then lose his wallet password.

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#34
post #23
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story asserts the landmarks changed, but can't you pick landmarks that won't change? Better yet, use GPS and grab the Lat/Long.

You know about continental drift, right?

Can you elaborate this more? I know about continental drifts and I know they occur at a scale much larger than a tiny box. Does it have any effect on the small scale a tiny box would be buried in if we are not burying the box near fault lines?

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#35
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know about continental drift, right?

Can you elaborate this more? I know about continental drifts and I know they occur at a scale much larger than a tiny box. Does it have any effect on the small scale a tiny box would be buried in if we are not burying the box near fault lines?

Australia is clipping along at 2.7”/year (about 1/16 of a meter).

That doesn’t seem like much, but in a few decades your hole is going to need to be pretty big.

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#36

I worked on a farm in the former West Germany (BRD), before the re-unification, not far over the border from East Germany (DDR). The proprietor's family was leasing the historic farmstead. His family's original farm had been just over the border in the DDR, and of course appropriated by the government. At the point they learned the American occupiers were withdrawing and they would be in the Russian occupation zone,…

how has that silver been spent?

family silver, as in definition n. 4

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/silver

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#37
post #5

> like so many very successful and brilliant people Turing was wildly over-confident in his own analysis This is so common, yet most individuals that fall into this trap will never recognize it.

I thought that was a strange takeaway for the article to take. His analysis was correct . He was undone by a factor he didn't even contemplate. His confidence in his "analysis" was spot on. There's definitely a lesson here, but I would not call it over-confidence. If the bank had gone under, would that have been called over-confidence on the part of his friend? At some point, every mistake of any kind whatsoever is c…

Over-competence at the hiding game. ;(

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#38
post #3

Number one lesson: Don't bury stuff and expect to find it later. Seriously, folks. I grew up around a bunch of preppers and general outside-the-law folks. Burying things in ammo cans was kind of a pastime of a lot of people I knew. It's _really_ hard to find something like that a year or two later, even if you think you know exactly where it is. I've been the person wielding the shovel to dig up a box of important st…

Woof, this can be such a pain. One of the more common ones is the pump-out hatch for a septic system. In my experience, people usually do something like remember that it was on the cross-line between this tree and that tree, and that rock and this other tree. If you don't pump the septic as often as you're supposed to, the hole gets filled in, you forget, or maybe your markers have gotten shifted, and then it's miser…

Just look for the greenest grass!

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/432288.The_Grass_Is_Alwa...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKXkfOfhmE0

Re: Learning from Turing’s silver hoard (2016)

#40
This is a terrible analysis. Neither of the investing mistakes he supposedly made are applicable to his case. Nor was his method "intended to wring the last cent of profit out of a good trade over capitalizing more safely on his market prediction". He feared seizure! Losing a large proportion or all of your capital is not "the last cent".
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