104 entries from "Porto"

Stock Market Crash? Don’t Panic, Get Rich Instead

[US market historical downturn patterns include: 1) pullbacks of 5–10% every year, 2) corrections of 10–20% every 1–2 years, 3) bear markets of 20–40% every 5–6 years, and 4) crashes of 40% or more every 10–20 years.]

This effect makes the newsrack and the traffic light interactive; the newsrack, the newspapers on it, the money going from people's pockets to the dime slot, the people who stop at the light and read papers, the traffic light, the electric impulses which make the lights change, and the sidewalk which the people stand on form a system - they all work together.

the urban taxi can function only because pedestrians and vehicles are not strictly separated. The cruising taxi needs a fast stream of traffic so that it can cover a large area to be sure of finding a passenger. The pedestrian needs to be able to hail the taxi from any point in the pedestrian world, and to be able to get out to any part of the pedestrian world to which he wants to go. The system which contains the taxicabs needs to overlap both the fast vehicular traffic system and the system of pedestrian circulation.

The playground, asphalted and fenced in, is nothing but a pictorial acknowledgment of the fact that 'play' exists as an isolated concept in our minds. It has nothing to do with the life of play itself. Few self-respecting children will even play in a playground.

[In a natural city, play happens in a thousand places within the cracks of adult life. Children become full of their surroundings through play, unless they're in a fenced-off cage.]

[Putting a concert hall beside an opera house is almost never practical to either audience, and only a consequence of that simple-minded part of us which puts things with the same name in the same basket.]

[Theories describing leadership by 'the government' (rather than 'governments') expect it will rush to the rescue whenever the market 'fails' and rely on economists to advise when and how, without any concept of private individials to solve collective problems among themselves.]

Too much time on your hands

[Inventing your own module instead of using a pre-existing one increases your maintenance work down the line as well as the learning curve for new contributors who need to get acquainted with non-standard tooling.]

Even if you don’t reinvent the wheel, being very particular about various aspects of your project that aren’t really critical (say, code formatting) is mostly about marking your own territory. Behind the facade of enforcing quality standards, you are primarily asserting your ownership of the project and demonstrating this power to other contributors.

new to me: when the mind wanders while reading, skip ahead instead of going back

I commit myself to follow the set of rules we have devised in all instances except dire emergencies if the rest of those affected make a similar commitment and act accordingly.

Once appropriators have made contingent self-commitments, they are then motivated to monitor other people's behaviors, at least from time to time, in order to assure themselves that others are following the rules most of the time. Contingent self-commitments and mutual monitoring reinforce one another, especially when appropriators have devised rules that tend to reduce monitoring costs.

[Seeming simplicity is not equivalent to generality. Setting variables to a constant usually narrows the applicability of a model rather than broadening it.]

['I will if you will' becomes credible through monitoring that makes deviations visible.]

[Variables indicating benefits of proposed rules:]

1. Numbers of appropriators
2. Size of CPR
3. Temporal and spatial variability of resource units
4. Current condition of CPR
5. Market conditions for resource units
6. Amount and type of conflict
7. Availability of data about (1) through (6)
8. Status quo rules in use
9. Proposed rules

[Variables describing forecasted costs of changing the status quo:]

1. Number of decision makers
2. Heterogeneity of interests
3. Rules in use for changing rules
4. Skills and assets of leaders
5. Proposed rule
6. Past strategies of appropriators
7. Autonomy to change rules

[Variables describing resulting costs for monitoring and enforcement:]

1. Size and structure of CPR
2. Exclusion technology
3. Appropriation technology
4. Marketing arrangement
5. Proposed rules
6. Legitimacy of rules in use

[Variables affecting internal norms and discount rate:]

1. Appropriators live near CPR
2. Appropriators involved in many situations together
3. Information made available to appropriators about opportunities that exist elsewhere

[Better to view institutional choices as informed judgements about uncertain benefits and costs as opposed to mechanical calculation.]

whether grazing areas are used to produce milk or wool or meat can affect the ability of the appropriators to learn more rapidly about adverse conditions, should they arise. Milking occurs daily, and variations in yield are rapidly apparent to the herders. Wool is sheared less frequently, but the quality of wool is immediately apparent to those who herd sheep. The quality of meat produced for market is monitored less frequently and may not even be known by herders. Consequently, the quality and timeliness of the information that CPR appropriators obtain about their resource vary according to how a resource unit is used, as well as across resource types. The problems of groundwater pumpers in obtaining accurate and valid information about the condition of their CPR are more daunting than those of herders, regardless of the final products of herding activities.

[In a setting where external government has little effect on internal choices, the likelihood of appropriators adopting rule changes positively relates to whether:]

1 Most appropriators share a common judgment that they will be harmed if they do not adopt an alternative rule.
2 Most appropriators will be affected in similar ways by the proposed rule changes.
3 Most appropriators highly value the continuation activities from this
CPR; in other words, they have low discount rates.
4 Appropriators face relatively low information, transformation, and enforcement costs.
5 Most appropriators share generalized norms of reciprocity and trust that can be used as initial social capital.
6 The group appropriating from the CPR is relatively small and stable.

The typical assumptions of complete information, independent action, perfect symmetry of interests, no human error, no norms of reciprocity, zero monitoring and enforcement costs, and no capacity to transform the situation itself will lead to highly particularized models, not universal theories.

1. [Define clear boundaries for the resource and who can share in it.]
2. [Proportion the sharing based on local conditions.]
3. [Empower those affected by the rules to modify them.]
4. [Monitor with stakeholders who are accountable.]
5. [Sanction those who violate rules with gradual escalation based on context and severity.]
6. [Prepare low-cost local conflict-resolution mechanisms in the event of disagreement.]
7. [Recognize the right to self-organization without challenge from external authorities.]

Irrigation rotation systems, for example, usually place the two actors most concerned with cheating in direct contact with one another. The irrigator who nears the end of a rotation turn would like to extend the time of his turn (and thus the amount of water obtained). The next irrigator in the rotation system waits nearby for him to finish, and would even like to start early. The presence of the first irrigator deters the second from an early start, the presence of the second irrigator deters the first from a late ending. Neither has to invest additional resources in monitoring activities. Monitoring is a by-product of their own strong motivations to use their water rotation turns to the fullest extent.

personal rewards for doing a good job are given to appropriators who monitor. The individual who finds a rule-infractor gains status and prestige for being a good protector of the commons. The infractor loses status and prestige. Private benefits are allocated to those who monitor.

Because the appropriators tend to continue monitoring the guards, as well as each other, some redundancy is built into the monitoring and sanctioning system. Failure to deter rule-breaking by one mechanism does not trigger a cascading process of rule infractions, because other mechanisms are in place.

The first step is that the village forester marks the trees ready to be harvested. The second step is that the households eligible to receive timber form work reams and equally divide the work of cutting the trees, hauling the logs, and piling the logs into approximately equal stacks. A lottery is then used to assign particular stacks to the eligible households. No harvesting of trees is authorized at any other time of year.

[It was considered reasonable for the land violations detective to demand cash and sake from infractors and use it for their own enjoyment. In addition to those penalties, contraband harvest was confiscated along with equipment and horses, the latter two only retrievable by paying a fine to the village.]

Maribel La Canija: Mediterráneo

many 'typical/cliche' progressions but nice surprise resolutions, crunches, and resolutions. timefeel includes triplets. bass solo has this "suspended in the air" feeling i tend to seek out.

KNOWER: It's All Nothing Until It's Everything

deadly intricate rhythmic precision juxtaposed with smooth flowing head-banging melody.

Open Source Power

in an open software culture whose central ethos is continuous iteration and improvement made possible by openness, our licensing stack and its ingrained principles are apparently immutable.

GreenPilled: How Crypto Can Regenerate The World

[Turn endeavours for change into a multiplayer coordination game where participants can all win by collaborating before, during, and after.]

The genius logic of the NATO phonetic alphabet

[Although commonly known as the 'NATO phonetic alphabet' and for 'military use', it's really a 'spelling alphabet' invented by the ICAO for flight communications and with pronunciation improvements formalized by NATO.]

[Alfa and Juliett are spelled unconventionally to minimize oral misreadings in other languages.]

[Quebec is uncoincidentally on the list because the primary researcher was based in Montreal.]

A Fun Product Business for People Who Love Their Community

[Create a pocket-sized 'community passport' that's valid for one year with offers from at least 20 participating local businesses in a specific niche (like coffee, ice cream, beer, books, music) and price it at $1 per business; promote to local community groups and media or influencers in that niche.]

📢 Introducing Really Good Business Ideas

The search landscape is changing with generative AI (e.g., ChatGPT). A newsletter lets me keep my content gated from these tools in order to preserve the value of my work.

The Benefits of Bubbles

[Current AI investment is dominated by GPUs, which deprecate within years and are superseded quickly; the more speculative spending goes here, the less likely this bubble leaves us with potent foundation for cheap use over the long-term.]

The first thing to understand is that there are probabilities at work. A trader with 55% winning days will average two or three 5day losing streaks per year and probably one 6day losing streak. A 6 day losing streak is enough to make the best trader feel like a complete moron. But he isn't. It's just probability

[Markets with bearish sentiment without many positions is primed to fall as new entries reflect their perspective, whereas with many positions is more st risk of reversal as there may be no one left to sell.]

['Buy the rumour, sell the fact' refers to markets pricing in an event ahead of time and then reversing when it takes place. Often the moment of a news release is the apex of this sentiment and you may notice counterintuitively that good news getting priced in over time ends up reversing on its announcement]

Instead of gyrating back and forth for a while before finding equilibrium, the market now finds equilibrium very quickly after the release of economic data. Hedge funds and banks use regression analysis before the data release to estimate how far each asset should move on various outcomes and they execute trades via algorithm at the moment of release. They will buy or sell until all asset classes are approximately in line with where history suggests they should be and this will happen in microseconds. There is nothing left on the table for the human traders because all the liquidity in the market is hoovered by the bots in the first few microseconds.

[P&L targets remind you of the point where your job is done and so to book profits rather than increase leverage.]

[If the average moves on two instruments are respectively 1.2% and 0.6%, you wouldn't want the same position size in both.]

[The market only cares about how economic data releases compare to expectations; so not in relation to last month or year but rather the median awaited by economists and traders.]

[When markets react to old or random news, focus more on what's happening rather than whether it makes sense.]

[If you backtest and find an optimal moving average that worked in the past, that doesn't guarantee success in the future. Better to pick what fits your timeline granularity.]

How Bible Sales and Chipotle Explain the Economy

Automation erases the “training ground” work that once created experts. When machines do the junior tasks, no one learns the senior ones. Apprenticeship collapses. CEOs, driven by short-term preservation, hype AI as salvation because it buys them another quarter.