From John Gruber:
“The Pentagon pegs the cost of the Iran War so far at $25 billion. Larry Ellison currently has a net worth of $220 billion. That’s just short of 9 Iran Wars. But since the start of the war on February 28, his net worth has grown $46 billion. That’s about 2 Iran Wars during the time of the actual Iran War thus far.”
Postscript. Today, apparently, Ellison’s networth is up $6b.
Very sad news from The Seattle Times.
“Even the wealthiest residents are having a rough time in the Seattle area’s real estate market.
Hitting the market at $85 million in 2022, Bruce McCaw’s Hunts Point mansion was once the most expensive home for sale in Western Washington. The telecom magnate and his wife, Seattle-area philanthropist Jolene McCaw, sold the home last week for $38 million — $47 million under its original asking price and $16 million under its assessed value.
. . . The home stands out among Hunts Point’s collection of luxury waterfront homes. The 12,600-square-foot mansion contains five bedrooms and 10 baths, while the property holds a beach house, a staff house, a cabana, a tennis court, a pool and plenty of space for a seaplane and a yacht.”
Related. I’m always frustrated when I buy a house only to learn afterwards that there’s not room for the seaplane and yacht.
The Feed, whose motto is “Food for Athletes”, is a newish, trendy, growing biz where more and more endurance sports kids are getting their fuel.
And if there’s any chance I might be a wee bit cool by association, I’m going to conform. So today, I received a text message from The Feed saying my most recent order of carbohydrate drink mix, energy gels, and engery chews had arrived.
Lo and behold, when I opened the front door, the big ass box looked like it had been chewed completely open by a colony of beavers. Even worser, the smaller box of 30 gels was also opened. And somehow three of the large gels had opened and were all over everything in the box. Resulting in one very large, very gooey mess.
Somewhere, there’s a colony of beavers absolutely ready to rip some trees apart and drag them into a stream. Right now, everything I ordered is in the kitchen sink waiting to be rinsed and dried.
No, this is not remotely equivalent to the challenges you’re dealing with today. I’m not seeking sympathy for what is ultimately an inconvenience. This is a story about the future having arrived too soon. Or more specifically, about how shit early AI customer service is.
I emailed The Feed. Told them what happened. Shared the pics for emphasis. Asked for a new box of gels. Seemed reasonable.
A minute later, “Matt-bot” replied:
The P.S. says Matt-Bot is better than a real live human being 87% of the time. LOL. The response I received falls squarely in the 13%. When they write that Matt-Bot is “designed for quick, complete resolutions” what they mean is we can employ far fewer people, lower our overhead, and increase profit margins for our shareholders’ benefit. At least in theory.
My fave part of the reply is the braindead closing, “Keep pushing”. Brah, all I was looking for was a run of the mill, “Very sorry for the inconvenience.” Well, and maybe a, “We’re committed to making it right. . .”
I switched from emailing an AI bot that strangely uses personal pronouns to emailing a human being. I wrote, “Really disappointing impersonal reply to my email and pictures about the gels arriving opened and getting over all the contents of the torn/opened big box.”
I have not heard back yet. Which is okay because I’d much rather have a slow, but thoughtful human reply than one from an uber-fast, weirdly impersonal AI customer service bot. I’m afraid, that in relatively short order, more deliberate, thoughtful, and humane responses may be a thing of the past.
From the “Keep Portland Weird” Facebook Page.
MAN ARRESTED AFTER BREAKING INTO A FAMOUS BOOKSTORE ON BURNSIDE AT MIDNIGHT TO FINISH A BOOK HE “WASN’T GOING TO BE ABLE TO SLEEP WITHOUT”
Leonard “Lenny” Whitaker, 67, of Portland, Oregon, was charged Tuesday with breaking and entering after slipping into a closed famous bookstore on Burnside through a propped emergency exit at 12:10 AM—all to finish the final 47 pages of a thriller he had been quietly working through in the armchair section for four straight afternoons.
According to the report, Whitaker discovered the book on day one, read for several hours, carefully re-shelved it spine-out for easy retrieval, and returned daily like it was a part-time job. On day four, he was politely asked to leave at closing with 47 pages left—at what he later described to officers as “an absolutely unacceptable emotional cliffhanger for a man my age.”
Details from the police report:
Located the book in complete darkness using his phone flashlight in under a minute (“muscle memory,” he claimed)
Returned to his exact armchair like a seasoned professional
Came prepared with reading glasses, a granola bar, and what officers described as “focus”
Finished the remaining 47 pages in 1 hour and 14 minutes
Re-shelved the book properly (alphabetically, no less)
Found seated calmly with the book closed in his lap, staring into the middle distance like he’d just unpacked something personal
When officers asked if he was okay, Whitaker replied,
“Yeah… I just thought it was going somewhere else.”
He declined to elaborate.
Officer Jenkins noted in the report, “He didn’t run. Didn’t panic. Just… needed closure. Honestly, we’ve all been there.”
The bookstore has declined to press charges, despite the abandoned granola bar wrapper, which management described as “mildly disappointing but understandable.”
The book has since been purchased by three customers. Whitaker has not returned.
He came for answers. He left with… complicated feelings.
Postscript: Alternative Title, “Powell’s Bookstore, Officer Jenkins, And Whomever Left The Emergency Door Propped Open For Whitaker For The Win”
The ICE versus electric car debate is driving me crazy. The debate is intensifying with gas prices soaring and Rivian just announcing it’s new, smaller, “more affordable” R2. The Model Y killer.
The mistake seemingly everyone is making is a tree-forest error. More specifically, all anyone can see is one tree, gas prices versus the price of electricity. The oft stated factoid is that if you drive 12,000 miles a year you can save about $1,200 annually switching to an electric car. To which I say, big whoop.
The electric car I recently sold depreciated close to $1,200 a month! Meanwhile, you’d have to use a magnifying glass to properly assess my new Honda Passport’s rate of depreciation.
Plus, states aren’t stupid, they’ve jacked up registration costs for electric cars since their owners completely sidestep gas taxes.
Repairing electric cars is way more expensive; as a result, insurance rates are considerably higher.
If you use a wide-angle lens and take the whole forest in, electric car ownership prob doesn’t even come close to penciling out. Put differently, what I spend at the pump in the Passport is inconsequential in the larger equation of car ownership.
The forest formula is as follows. Electric car depreciation + registration + repairs + insurance rates > Electric car gas savings + electric car reduced maintenance costs.
Or to borrow one of my favorite phrases from a friend, the cost of gas doesn’t move the needle. And yet, it’s all anyone talks about.
There’s still one good reason to go electric. To bolster your environmental bonafides, and thereby, get DanDantheTransportationMan off your back.
And so, as if you didn’t know it already, further evidence I am a knucklehead.
Meanwhile, back at home, the War President declares the affordability crisis is over.
Jessica Grose writing in the New York Times:
“On Thursday, a woman named Sharon from Minnesota called into C-SPAN’s ‘open forum’ to express her despair about the cost of living. ‘I’m 65 years old. I’m legally blind. I’m on disability. I went to my doc, and I lost 28 pounds in the last year. I did not need to lose 28 pounds. I did not try to lose 28 pounds. I lost the 28 pounds because I cannot afford to eat anymore,’ Sharon explained, speaking clearly even though she sounded near tears. Because of Trump administration cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and the high cost of groceries, gas and electricity, Sharon only allows herself $65 a month for food.”
From an excellent essay titled, “When A.I. Took My Job, I Bought a Chainsaw” by Brian Groh.
“In towns like mine, outsourcing and automation consumed jobs. Then purpose. Then people. Now the same forces are climbing the economic ladder. Yet Washington remains fixated on global competition and growth, as if new work will always appear to replace what’s been lost. Maybe it will. But given A.I.’s rapacity, it seems far more likely that it won’t. If our leaders fail to prepare, the silence that once followed the closing of factory doors will spread through office parks and home offices — and the grief long borne by the working class may soon be borne by us all.”
The O’Jays > Abba, but I digress.
I dig this story, “Gift to help cover tuition for students in lab medicine” for a few reasons. Mostly because the donors wanted to remain anonymous. Such a refreshing choice in this “look at me” day and age. I also like how targeted and thought out the gift is. There will surely be positive ripple effects. And of course, the recipients’ gratitude is heartwarming.
Then there’s this. “Michael and Susan Dell donate $6.25 billion to encourage families to claim ‘Trump Accounts’”. Not anonymous, and a very unfortunate name, but a staggering amount that compensates for both of those things.
Both are interesting in the context of this The Nation pod, “Liberal Philanthropy and the Fight for Democracy“. Sentence-long summary, “As powerbrokers of the elite, liberal philanthropists are averse to challenging ‘the systems that spawned them.'” One does not have to be as far left as the typical The Nation reader/listener to conclude that we’re far too dependent on the capriciousness (and ego) of the oligarchy for the infrastructure and safety nets we desperately need. What we need is the the dependability of a more progressive tax structure.
Yours truly just sold some AAPL purchased in 2011. The initial investment was small, but the shares appreciated over 2,000% in the fourteen years, resulting in a large sum. Which I will now gift to several nonprofits.
In revealing that, I’ve violated my fave philanthropic move, remaining anonymous. And, I’ve also sidestepped considerable capital gain taxes.
I can live with those demerits because I do not aspire to be in any pantheon of modern-day philanthropists. My aim is simpler. It’s to honor the memory of those who’ve been generous with me and to transmute the incredible luck I’ve had as an investor into tangible contributions to the common good.
After my last musing, SW, a close friend, texted me, “Please be more specific. I’m curious just how crazy you are.” Which made me smile.
The return text, “Where to begin?”
But then, I pressed pause. And thought about self compassion. And how I need to muster more of it given this most challenging chapter of my life.
And so I started to think about both sides of the ledger, the “irrational” and “rational”. The irrational mostly consists of what most objective observers would conclude is poor time/money decision-making. Meaning, I regularly do things that I could pay others to do for far less money than my increasingly limited time is worth.
But sometimes I just like popping the AirPods in, cranking up the Biebs, and washing my car in the driveway. Or washing the windows. Or cleaning the house. Which brings a documentary to mind about Japanese elementary schooling. When asked why young Japanese students clean their school at the end of each day, one Headmaster said, “Cleaning creates a calm and gentle spirit.” Love that. Sometimes there are less obvious, less tangible benefits to laboring yourself.
Without detailing the “rational” side of the ledger, suffice to say, there would be many more entries. In retrospect, I think I’ve done an extremely good job picking my parents, picking my in-laws, earning, saving, and investing. The first two highlight the role LUCK has played in my life. I wasn’t anywhere near perfect with respect to the other three, but I have made disproportionately more thoughtful decisions than thoughtless ones.
In my early twenties, when I was gifted some money from my parents for the first time, I had this deep-seated impulse to make the most of it. As an educator, I knew I’d never make bank. As a result, I educated myself about investing, and as our assets grew, we assiduously avoided lifestyle creep.
So much so, that family and friends get infinite amusement from teasing me about being too frugal for my own good. Yeah, I admit, often I am, but we still have lived posh lives, even by Western, late 21st century standards. And what my “friends” always fail to mention is that I’ve done a very good job growing our assets and taking the long view.
Which means now, we can pay for 24 hour care for The Good Wife without losing sleep. Which is a real blessing and one of the clearest indicators that my rational side has more than compensated for my irrational quirks.
For SW, here’s a lil’, lil’, on the quirk front. Yesterday, I traded in the Elonmobile for a new rig. I concede, I have a car prob, specifically, churning through them. The new rig comes in eight colors. I ended up with only my fifth or sixth fave color because it was the best deal I could find in Western Washington. By about $3k. I consciously told myself, configure the rig in whatever way will increase the odds of keeping it longer than my sad (sick) average. So I got the top trim, points for that. But deduct the same points for settling for a bottom-half color.
Also, SW, I spent way too many hours watching reviews, thinking about alternatives, and alternatives to alternatives, and then ultimately, interacting with dealerships.
Now, my “friends” are ripping me for being an ICE ICE Baby again. Mr. Fossil Fuel. A retrograde. To my many critics, take a number. Two of my fave “new car” texts today were, “He is milquetoast and has completely given up.” And “Your car matches UCLA’s performance” which was just mean.
Shifting gears, pun intended, I aspire to be more like my mom and wife, meaning way more generous. I took a baby step two weeks ago when I gave Olga a $3,000 (the money saved on the dud color?) bonus for being such an amazing help with Lynn over the last year. Because she lives check-to-check, it was like I had given her $30,000. As tough a Russian-Ukrainian woman as you’ll ever meet, at least on the surface, she broke down in tears.
So, forgive me if I cut myself some slack. Savings to soften the devastating blow of MSA. Savings to help the hijas and lighten others’ burdens. Savings to enable Olga to breath a little easier for a few months.
Just not enough savings for a bitchin’ colored rig.
I need help testing out the idea that I’m unique in that I’m keenly aware of the fact that a lot of my behavior around saving money is irrational. And yet, despite that keen awareness, the same irrational behaviors endure.
Most people, I think, are resistant to labeling any of their behavior irrational. They are convinced they’re entirely rational. Right?
I also have a strong suspicion that the outliers like me who are in touch with their irrationality are better at remedying their behavioral quirks. Correct?
Why, I wonder, does my money saving lunacy endure despite its obvious irrationality?
Pressing Pause 