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68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

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Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#211

Post by projektfu »

wpietri wrote: post #205
V-2 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's pretty clearly talking about creative work here, where the goal is to make new things. Isn't it a tautology then? If the goal is to make something you haven't before, then obviously it's accomplished the first time round, by definition. And in a broader sense, is it really true? Are debuts usually the best art pieces?

This seems to be veering into tiresome nitpicking and willful misunderstanding, but I'll give it one more go. I suspect you already understand that novelty is not the only goal of creative work, so I'm just going to go on past your first bit. Let me know if you truly don't get it. He didn't say that debuts are usually the best art pieces. One, you have the flow wrong. He's more saying that the best art pieces were de…

The flip side to your example is, of course, artists like Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim or Bernstein, all of whom produced good works in their youth but some of their best works as they gained more experience and developed more style.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#212

Post by ValentineC »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #171
GuB-42 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyanoacrylate (super glue) works best on fingers. So well in fact that it can be used as an alternative to stitches. Medical grade cyanoacrylate is a bit different (less irritant) but in an emergency, the regular household kind can be used.

Yeah, I added one to my first-aid kit just for really emergency emergencies. I also love cyanoacrylate because it stops sticking when you apply water to it. I don't worry about my fingers, because whenever I work with this family of glues, I just keep a glass of water on my workbench, into which I dip the fingers if I notice I spilled some glue on them. The glue immediately polymerizes, and you can pull/scratch it of…

> The glue immediately polymerizes, and you can pull/scratch it off.

Doesn't this also pull a chunk of your skin off?

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#213

Post by _they »

brlewis wrote: post #174
jerf wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Don't do that." The standard recommendations for buying a house, in my opinion, are recommendations for buying a house you can barely afford. I recommend buying houses you can comfortably afford, and put some extra principal payments in towards the beginning if at all possible. (Especially if you're just starting now-ish... I suspect the whole "but you could have put it in the stoc…

>I recommend buying houses you can comfortably afford This is great advice. In addition to paying less mortgage, the more affordable house is likely smaller, costing less to heat and maintain. I'd be really interested to see a TCO breakdown for various sizes and ages of house.

This is tough if you have children. I have no problem living in a 1200sq ft modest house, but they simply don't exist in good school zones in my area.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#214

Post by nocman »

ibiza wrote: post #151

> Buying tools: Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade... Strong "no" on this one. Always buy quality tools. These are priced at a premium, but unlike "inexpensive" tools will: • Do the job expected of them w/o creating a new problem • Be enjoyable to use • Last a long time (often, a lifetime)

I think there are a lot of variables in the decision on what point in the quality spectrum you chose when purchasing a tool.

Some cheap tools actually do well beyond a "good enough" job, and if you end up only ever needing to do that job once or twice, well "going cheap" can be a good move.

However, some cheap tools are complete garbage, won't even complete the job the first time you use them, and are thus a waste of money.

On the flip side, high quality (and generally more expensive) tools can pay for themselves many times over, but that depends very much on how much you use them. If you only use them once, and you know you'll likely not need it again, you might be able to sell the tool at a lower price after using it, but that may or may not be worth the time and hassle to you.

Also, there are many tools that are just so expensive they are out of a lot of people's price range in the first place.

I personally try to skew to the "higher quality" end of the range as much as possible. This is mostly because I tend to do a lot of things for myself, rather than paying for someone else to do them, and thus the chances that I will reuse a tool are quite high. And I've been burned enough times by cheaper tools, that I go that route far less often, and usually only because I have enough information on the cheap tool to decide it is worth it. Also, for me the cheap tool route is usually limited to those tasks that I am confident I am unlikely to ever do again (and those cases are rare).

In all of the above, I am thinking of physical tools. When it comes to tools in the form of software, I think there is even more variance. There are a fair number of "paying more == having better tools" scenarios, but there are also some very expensive tools that are complete garbage, and there are free and/or open source tools that do the job far better than commercial products do.

All this to say I mostly agree with the original tip, except I would not say "Start by buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find", but rather "Don't absolutely dismiss a tool because it is cheap, consider it if you think you will only rarely need it, and you have reason to believe it will adequately do the job."

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#215

Post by kangnkodos »

anthony_r wrote: post #100

> Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers. While true on credit, I would like to point out that the statement "something whose exchange value is extremely lik…

Investing in your primary residence should have a small return, but much less than investing in the market.

So from a purely dollars and cents point of view it makes the most sense to live with your parents forever, or find the smallest apartment in the worst neighborhood with the worst commute and the most roommates. But that doesn't make sense. So what does make sense?

Look at the opportunity cost of your house. What is your expected small return if you buy a large house vs. your larger return if you get a small apartment and invest the rest in the market? Remember to include all the cost of owning, taxes, maintenance, etc.

That difference, the opportunity cost, is what the decision to buy a house will cost you.

My opinion is that you should still go ahead and buy the house, knowing the opportunity cost. What are you working so hard for? A nice sized house, a car, vacations, money for retirement.

Don't buy a home so expensive that you can't save for retirement that you want or the vacation you want. Banks will let you borrow enough money to get yourself into this situation. It's up to you to figure out your whole financial picture, and buy a house that fits your income.

So go ahead and spend your money on those things, as long as they're in balance with each other. A balance that's right for you. Some people really want to retire early. Some people really want a large house. Each person has a different balance that's right for them.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#216

Post by jakear »

celticninja wrote: post #187
SloopJon wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The majority of my mortgage payment goes towards ownership of a product - my house For many (most?) people that's not true. Even ignoring that mortgage payments often include property taxes and/or private mortgage insurance, you can expect to pay more interest than principal for the first fifteen years or more of a thirty-year mortgage.

if I rent for 10 years or I pay a mortgage for 10 years, then at the end of the 10 years I have likely paid less in mortgage payments than I would have paid in rent payments. further if I sell my property then it is likely that I could recoup some or all of my mortgage payments, I definitely can't do this with my rent payments.

People always talk about how “you pay more in interest than principle for the first X years” but seemingly forget that you pay some principle always, versus never paying any principle renting. And in my area (Seattle), the rent vs. mortgage monthly prices aren’t all too different, but with mortgage you get some of it back, plus appreciation.

But I won’t fight too hard against people being pro-rent, as my family makes a good chunk of change off of them :)

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#217

Post by gowld »

anthony_r wrote: post #100

> Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers. While true on credit, I would like to point out that the statement "something whose exchange value is extremely lik…

It's also nonsense on its face. The point of credit is to smooth out expense over the useful life (depreciation) of an asset. Cities fload bonds to build roads. People take out loans to pay for cars. As long as you can pay off the debt approximately before the purchase depreciates, then credit and interest is a reasonable way to amortize cost. Waiting until you pay cash deprives you of the value of the asset -- which may be non-monetary. You can't eat money; it is currency for buying utility.

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#219

Post by gowld »

barbegal wrote: post #146
ivanche wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on! I once read that Warren Buffet doesn't recommend leverage greater than 1.4x and I can only say I agree fully. The fact that most of the people find 5x leverage "normal" is scary.

Yet Warren Buffet has made most of his wealth through either normal leveraging or leveraging using his insurance companies' float. https://www.nber.org/papers/w19681

> Yet

The very first paragraph says "we estimate that Buffett's leverage is about 1.6-to-1 on average."

Pretty close to 1.4

Re: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

#220

Post by projektfu »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #147
projektfu wrote: post #72

"Hire for aptitude, train for skills" is a very software development oriented view. Training on its own is difficult and most available employees outside of engineering don't have a habit of self teaching. I've done a lot better with experienced people in my hires in my profession.

I suspect you live in the US. "Train for skills" is much more common in other countries, although less common than it used to be. Those experienced hires didn't get to be experienced at zero cost to anyone - other employers enabled them to become experienced. Be a good employer and do your part of the process: train for skills (so that someone else can hire those people too)

Sorry about the other response. It was flippant like yours was, but two wrongs don't make a right.

The real issue is that in many industries you don't just walk into a top job with no experience. If I'm hiring a technician, it's going to be someone with experience because in this profession they will have started as a kennel keeper, then moved up to assistant, then started doing more technical work, usually as they are in technician school, and then they will be able to work as a registered technician. Sometimes experience can be almost equivalent to having school, although there are a few things that an unlicensed/unregistered technician cannot legally do.

All that experience is much more valuable than just the book learning, and you can't make up for it with a few months training.

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