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Comment Re:Offset? (Score 5, Informative) 94

China uses more coal than the rest of the world combined.

China gets a lower percentage of it's electricity from low carbon sources than the US does.

China is one of the highest per capita users of coal: higher than the US, UK, Japan, S Korea, Russia, India, and more than a hundred others

I think this is a great development, but it ain't green.

Comment Term vs Whole life insurance (Score 2) 94

It's a fucking scam? The life insurance company exists to make money. That requires paying out less than they take in.

Perhaps you are conflating term life insurance and whole life insurance. And even there, you are over generalizing.

Term life insurance is simple: you pay periodically and if you die they pay out. This not only isn't a scam, it's a sound idea for earners with dependents.

In whole life insurance, you pay a little more periodically and if you die they pay out. If at the end date (ie age 65) if you are still alive, you get a different pay out. This isn't inherently a scam either, but there are two problems with it: 1) the combining of plain old insurance with savings makes it less transparent and 2) in practice it is mostly sold by high commission salesmen.

In either case, the insurance company will invest the premiums to save for later payouts; this reduces the overhead of the risk pooling.

Advice: Get a term life insurance policy of a size to not leave your spouse and kids in the lurch if you die. When the kids finish college--- or at latest, when you retire--- let the insurance lapse. Save for retirement separately, mostly in a Vanguard S&P 500 index fund or similar.

Comment Re:Meaningless (Score 1) 74

You are barking up the wrong tree. Attendance is free for the poor and cheap for the middle class.

They have traditionally made it hard for middle class children to get in, but when they get in it is not expensive.

The return of tests helps poor and middle class kids because (some) kids of all classes are smart and that smartness most transparently comes through on tests.

Colleges a step down have much smaller endowments and can be quite expensive.

Comment Re:Am I the only one...? (Score 4, Informative) 94

I'll try and provide background.

Bonds pay dependable interest. Stocks pay dividends and usually return more than bonds but sometimes lose value. The traditional rule of thumb for retirement is 60/40: 60% stocks 40% bonds. The goal here is get most of the stock market's good returns with less volatility. Putting the stock portion in an index fund--- a fund with a large collection of stocks--- is another way to reduce volatility. The allocation of stocks in an index fun is determined by a formula, so these "passive" funds have low overhead. Passive funds tend to out perform actively managed funds after fees are payed.

Crypto speculation can be fun and potentially profitable. However, it is zero sum and does not throw off cash. Therefore it does not have a place in a retirement account.

Franklin Templeton is an investment company selling actively managed funds. This is ok, but index funds are generally better. Now they are encouraging their retirement account holders to speculate in crypto. This is bad advice: speculate in crypto if you like but don't think that is a sober plan for retirement.

Comment Re:Yes they do (Score 1) 68

If one wanted to dabble in "AI"....what would it take?

Could one download a model...and cobble together a decent computer with video cards, etc and start to experiment at home without costing an arm/leg?

Yes, depending what you mean by "dabble" and "arm/leg".

At the low end, your card(s) will be memory constrained, so something like $2k for a 24g card. This is not enough memory for the larger models, but it is usable for playing. Even a 12g card, if expectations are sufficiently limited.

Renting time in the cloud might be better--- fancier machines than that are a couple of bucks an hour.

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