February 22

12:40 Capitalism 102.

NVidia stock grew today 16%, after it announced last quarter revenue went up 22%, believe it or not. As a result its capitalization rose today some 277 billion to almost 2 trillion and together with AMD it dragged the whole market up 2%, in a high flat type rally, continuing the spiraling inflation that started last November.

However, this does not reflect in dividends and it breaks the laws of the Universe. You cannot have 22% increase in revenue without that reflecting in profit and/or dividends which are kept symbolic (4 cents for an 800 dollars share). Yeah it is obvious they don't pay dividends, profit from price raising is much greater than that. Reinvesting? That should reflect in the assets. 

As for how they pick the time for announcing quarterly revenue, that is an entirely different story. Or maybe the same.

I wouldn't have written this at this hour if i was not awakened @noon and kept awake after 3 hours of sleep (was up all night) by the people upstairs. One person, much lighter than those who generated the stumps left again on an electric bike, in the opposite direction as for the shorter distance to complex entrance, possibly through the park. It had his/her face covered with something black, like in a pretty obvious black face role playing.

3:30 PM. No i did not buy AMD stock last night. I bought a mini PC which was on sale to replace the old Lenovo AIO 300 Celeron i'm struggling with because of low speed.

5:40 As i said in past, i once took 2000 dollars of a credit card and opened an Ameritrade account and after a few days of doing transactions "on paper" that is imaginary, to see how skilled i am, i started buying and selling literally. I believe anybody can open an account with no or little money and do just that. It is exciting to say the least.

According to what i did on paper, i should have made 50-100 dollars a day. The are no fees per transaction, but there is a limit of 3 day trades (buying and selling the same stock within five days for accounts under 10000 dollars). If you had more than that you could do unlimited day trading.

How it works. You sit there, pick a stock and watch the price. When you think it is good for you, you click. You have of course to calculate the number of shares you buy cause they are not shown in dollars, however the software won't let you go over your capital LOL.

Or you can post an offer and the system will buy the stock for you at that price if it ever goes there. Of course you can only buy in the limit of the number of shares offered by a seller. The other way around. You could ask for a price and will be notified when your stock was sold. It is very very simple actually (there are more complicated types of transactions like short selling, etc.).

But of course it did not work out. I was usually picking stocks of dying pharma startups (a patent and a a few studies usually with up to 10 people) which are so many, with 100-200 millions capital which prices were fluctuating a lot, sometimes predictable by using the provided algorithms (free thinkorswim software provided by Ameritrade).

However. My feel was some entities with a bit more money than mine, or simply malevolent were starting to manipulate the price as soon as i got in.

How is that possible. You could open two Ameritrade accounts, make an offer on one and buy it with the other. After you raise the price enough, you reverse the operation. Is that simple. If you own a lot of that stock, the price will go higher and you can sell it all in the end. But that is just an example.

I believe Ameritrade will see what you did and shut your accounts. But you could do it with a friend or a few friends and they will not catch you.

But the big money don't use Ameritrade, they go and buy and sell on the floor or simply with supercomputers hooked on market's computers that use automated algorithms that can do thousands of transaction a second and those obviously are not limited in number of day trades LOL

There is an easy way to detect stock manipulation if you look at the volume of transactions. If the volume is low and the price goes up and down significantly that means there is a possibility of such manipulations.

I was looking today at the volume of trades of NVidia (sells with red, buys with green bars at the bottom of the graph). In the millions of shares, x800, that is a few billion dollars each time, especially at the beginning of the day. Today NVidia went up 277 billions in capital. More than that. Most of the price hike happened overnight during the so called after hours trading (or pre-market, after 4 PM Eastern time), when usually there is a very low trading volume. Capisci?

But does that capital exist or is available for NVidia to buy anything like supply or pay dividends or do anything with it? The only time when they could do this is when they first went public and sold that stock. After that, it caught a life of its own. There is absolutely no link between the corporation and its activity and that market capital, which became a Ponzi scheme. Pretty much like and stock on the stock market.

There is absolutely no link between economic activities of corporations that do not pay dividends and their stock traded at the stock exchanges. For that reason it is wrong to talk about how well the economy is doing based on market indices.

7:55 And yes, you could call your congressman and tell them to make high frequency computer algorithm AI trading illegal, after hours trading illegal, circular ownership illegal, buy back illegal. Bring back the traders on the floor. What it was made for. Make America Great Again.

Cooking Pan

It may sound ridiculous. Writing a blog post about cooking pans. Out of frustration i don't know what to buy to replace mine that are long done. Or about frying eggs. One of the easiest jobs a kid could do. Really. Then let me confess. It challenges me every time. It surely throws me off of my continuous immersion in the reality of my blogging, history, semantics and politics.

I bet everybody fell in love when the teflon coated pans when they came out. I mean, for a while. Cause after a few months usage, they start to stick as well. A little at first, and as they stick more you kinda get used to. My guess is by heating it up, scrapping it even with a gentle nylon scrapper or spatula, the teflon loses the smoothness of the surface. Theoretically it should work up to 500 degrees. Usually, you use it at around 400. But at that temperature thermal stress is not negligible.

In fact thermal and chemical expansions are some of the greatest forces in our immediate universe. Even if they had the same expansion thermal coefficient (how much materials expand with heat), teflon as any plastic is way less thermally conductive than the metal base, and will heat and expand less. Teflon coated pans are a dual material assembly and that is their weakness.

The pans are submitted to a lot of stress during their lifetime especially by heating/cooling cycles, chemicals found in foods that break down while heating, making it very corrosive for the coating. When tiny microscopic cracks appear at the surface, the pan is done. Food like egg whites will enter the cracks and stick on the surface. But will still work, somehow.

Then it becomes a source of trouble, questions and mental improvisation. What setting should i put the knob at? How much oil or butter to cook an egg? Should i heat the pan first? Should i heat it after washing?

Then the news about toxicity of teflon hit. They had to think of something else. 2008, the year when teflon pans were banned in Europe, 2014 in the US. But guess what. When i did a search on Amazon on non stick pans, first results were the teflon ones. PTFE without harmful PFOAs, they say. Non toxic teflon that is. Whatever.  The same disadvantage though. Won't last long.

Then (modern) ceramic pans came out in... 2008. Surprisingly, non-sticking as promised. For a while usually longer than teflon. Until the ceramics loses its shineness and develops microscopic cracks where the food sticks. Same reasons. Thermal, chemical and mechanical stress (scrapping, scrubbing, abrasive dishwasher detergent, name it). But it will be years before that happens. 

But when you accidentally forget on the burner on high and overheat a pan, the pan is done. It usually changes shape and would not stay flat on the burner anymore. But still keep on cooking in it maybe for years or until it eventually catches permanently brown patches with a layer of carbon from decomposing and burning stuff that won't com out even when scrubbing with a sponge using semi-wet baking soda (Most powerful scrubbing method by me).

But it's not until you can't cook an egg in a pan you won't give it up. Reasons. You got used to it. They are quite expensive to buy them more than once a few years. Every once in a while the eggs will come out nicely which will de-motivate you. If you use butter and keep temperature low, like the dial at 3 with a (glass) lid on top, it will take 4-5 minutes but the eggs won't stick no matter how bad the pan is. Thinking if a new one is not more toxic than one that is coated with burnt food. Laziness. Forgetfulness. So today i got to that point. Went on Amazon and got confused with the choices.

Then i started to ask myself google. What kinda pans chefs use in real life at restaurant. Stainless steel pans, came the answer. Stainless steel was invented in 2013, and it does not rust by reason of having a relatively high content of chromium in it. Which develops on the surface an oxide layer that protects the iron base of the alloy from being oxidized (rusted) by the oxygen in the air. That of course is constantly being scraped by usage. Is that good for your health? Who cares? I don't go to restaurants other than fast foods and they fry the burgers on carbon coated by usage stove tops when they don't heat them in the microwave.

The main reasons chefs don't use coated pans are the same as above and that can be summarized in a word. Fragile. They won't last more than a few days in that environment. But in the google answer, there is an indication. Chefs will keep, locked, a number of ceramic pans for... cooking eggs.

So i think i got my answer, and writing down everything i knew helped me as well. It looks like i'm moving more and more my decision making processes within the blog where all my friends are.

But when i read about toxicity of pans, i heard some manufacturers use cadmium to make the colors of the pan brighter, to make them more marketable of course. Still the same reckless, useless, irresponsible profit making drive. On Amazon some ceramic pans are voluntarily marked as cadmium free to be more attractive. So where that marketing strategy led them to?

The part with the toxicity of teflon i didn't know about until today made me again dream of the day when after asbestos, lead, teflon and now cadmium, they will ban cellular phones as well. They all came out of convenience and as profit makers. I mean, you add a bit of lead in gasoline and make it way better. You spray coat an aluminum pan with a bit of teflon and make it way better etc.. You pull your phone out of your pocket anywhere and make a call or check your email etc..

Thinking. We all share the profits cause corporations pay taxes on profit and the profit gets reinvested and creates new jobs. In China though. Look at that chart, the revenue section and compare individual and property taxes with corporate taxes.

September 27

Feelings of missing time... (You'll see when you rich 61). I skipped one day, kept writing on 26 without realizing it was 27 and  now it's 28. Moving the stuff here.

2:16 It all started a few years ago when i was curious about something. I wrote a blog post about US budget, not knowing at the time that it will become one of my major objects of study, for Romanian budget that is. But i just saw in the news something that caught my attention for the first time, though it happens every year. The issue of the debt ceiling.

Let me introduce you first to the concept of annual budget. Every year US President is required by law to submit to Congress a budget for federal spending, based or maybe not on federal income (Spending cannot be greater than income, right?). Then Congress details it on numerous commissions and approves the budget and the budget becomes law after being signed again by the President.

From the smaller graph in upper left above one must also realize the difference between contributions to federal budget made by individuals vs contributions made by corporations. First question of course is why spending (outlays) does not equal income (revenue). The difference is called deficit and it represents the sum that government must borrow every year by "increasing the debt ceiling" and for more clarity it is done towards the end of the year because by then the amount becomes more obvious because budget has two parts, Mandatory spending, which are known at the beginning of the year (fixed) and Discretionary spending (variable) which are not (though there are forecasts), and i think i answered my question i had in mind: If everything, income, spending, is "designed" at the beginning of the year and it is voted and signed into law by the President at the beginning of the year, then why every year by this time they realize they don't have the money they voted for?? Cause the part of deficit for Mandatory Spending is known at the beginning of the year and the rest can be forecast more or less precise, i believe by this time there should be adjustments only and less drama (talking about government shutdown etc.).

4:03 I found a better fix for dog poos. I pour borax on them (and then somebody removes them i think to make room for new fresh ones). I went to pick garbage from lawn and plug some holes (building was surrounded by smoke) and pour borax on poos and a number of Japanese women, dressed either as islanders (Japan is made of islands also) or Latinas. As soon as i finished they left in the same time.

8:00 As soon as weather got colder, Robinho_od upstairs is doing loads of laundry a day and pumps the vapor in the basement with the clogged pipe and because it is cold now, water condensates on other side of the floor striped of insulation (has fallen) and the upper part of the floor made of fiberboard facing inside is bulging, with one to two inches in places around the couch and desk.

8:26 Alles klar, herr kommissar? Aprobați mai repede miniștrii lui Cîțu și lăsați-i să-și vadă de treabă până la sfârșitul anului bugetului, ca ei să ne dea PNRR-ul, cândva, pentru ceva proiecte cu borne. Am găsit PNRR-ul, tot ce e concret sunt cei 434 de km the autostradă până în 2026 (când nu se va mai găsi nici măcar vreo amintire din monștrii lui Cîțu), și 500 MW solar și eoliene. 12,7 km de metrou, la 30-50 milioane de euro/km, de 2-3 ori mai mult decât un km de autostradă, din ce am văzut până acum, un km de autostradă în România costă 20 milioane euro (bineînțeles, cel mai scump din lume, în Bulgaria (aceeași UE, același MCV, aceleași vize) au făcut cu 2-3 milioane, dar prin ei înșiși), cu 29 miliarde s-ar putea construi 1450 km autostradă, care de departe este prioritatea cea mai mare. 300 km cale ferată modernizată? Cu 300 milioane de euro (0.3 miliarde) s-ar putea reabilita (recompacta) complet sistemul de căi ferate din România de 10 mii km.

9:36 I took the cardboard cover from the back of the fridge so many times on and off and wiped it from dust with a wet microfiber rag until i damaged it and bought online a new one. However, it is aftermarket, only half thick and has some sort warning instructions printed with an ink that flies when the fan blows through the small holes. When i installed it i saw the compressor is not aligned with the fridge but it "stands out" so you have to bend the cardboard cover to make it fit. Can't take it off completely because of the ultrasound from the capillary tube next to the expansion valve, (hissing, ringing in the ears, the reason is made of cardboard is to absorb those). And i got in trouble again. All day i felt irritation in my eyes, throat, nauseated and sleepless (a new one). I tried with my finger in a corner and saw ink was coming off. I removed it and googled for the composition of ink. Now i remember the day when the mailwoman gave it to me personally, when she came around with her vintage van, at least one week ahead of scheduled delivery time. Got it. Ink is for writing. Ninja humour that is (forgot to say, many times i found pens on the ground next to smoking holes)

Walmart. I bought it from Walmart. It came one week earlier.

11:59 Poc Poru, sau altă fațetă a PNRR?

September 1

12:06 Wake me up when September comes... Lăsați acum PNRR-ul, Ministerul Transporturilor de exemplu are alocat prin Bugetul de Stat anul acesta până la 30 miliarde lei sau 6 miliarde euro din care a cheltuit deja 2-3. (De ce nu vine Ministrul Transporturilor să facă o dare de seamă a banilor, ce s-a cheltuit și pe ce, ce mai urmează anul acesta).

7:11 Ultimul lucru ce l-am pomenit în ziua precedentă a fost "Space Opera", au venit imediat cu ceva. Nu știu, totul seamănă cu o discuție de copii, când fiecare vrea să arate că știe sau poate mai mult pe un subiect.

Apropo de space opera, chiar acum mi-a picat o fisă. Numărul de la camioneta mea care mi-a fost dat tot așa "la rând" este CL 76277. 76 to 77. Sincer, mi s-a părut o pierdere de timp să caut informații despre scientologie. Iată că aproape fără să vreau am dat peste ceva informații. O pagină scrisă de Hubbard însuși, scriitorul Sci Fi transformat în profet și fondatorul acestei religii, pe un site de pe la începutul internetului, secretele dezvăluite la acordarea OTIII (al treilea grad din cele 8 parcurse în cadrul bisericii), în care vorbește despre Xenu și o federație de 76 de planete, pagină pentru care o tipă a fost dată în judecată de această biserică. Teegeeack, adică Pământul, ar fi planeta nr. 77? CL este de la Crater Lake, un lac imens în vârful unui... vulcan în sudul Oregonului.

Ce chestie. Ieri am vrut să pun un video de pe vremea lui Băsescu, când am văzut o zvastică ca și logo al celui ce a încărcat video-ul, ce apărea în colțul din stânga sus. Azi vreau să pun un video despre sărbătorirea de către Scientologie a obținerii statutului de religie devenind astfel o organizație scutită de taxe (Xenu, taxe) și văd că cel care a încărcat video-ul și-a pus numele de user Angry Gay Pope. Puțină psihologie inversă, peste tot. Pun video-ul oricum pentru că lumea trebuie să știe despre această religie. Temutul IRS sau Internal Revenue Service este agenția americană care se ocupă de strângerea taxelor și care uneori face "audit-uri", adică verifică formularele plătitorilor, în mod aleatoriu. Xenu, dictatorul galactic, a folosit pretextul taxelor pentru a aresta un mare număr de tetani și a-i aduce pe Pământ unde au fost uciși, acum 75 milioane de ani.

7:15 Ce vroiam să mai spun. Oricât s-ar certa între ei, oricât de mult ar devia de la subiect, guvernarea unei țări se reduce la strângerea taxelor și administrarea banilor strânși, adică a bugetului. Exact despre asta însă, vedem foarte puțin în media. Vedem discuții infinite adică scandaluri pe cifre derizorii, de obicei câteva procente din cifrele reale de la ministere.

Aceste cifre, din motive destul de clare, nu se discută niciodată. Nici de dreapta, nici de stânga, nici de socialiști, nici de legionari, nici de Rareș Bogdan nici de Codrin Ștefănescu. Pentru că e vorba de cele aproximativ 40 miliarde de euro care i-am calculat eu odată că dispar anual de la buget.

O anecdotă de la Crater Lake. Am fost odată cu Angela, oare prin ce an, în jur de 2000, cu Nissan-ul, la Crater Lake, de două ori în două zile. Am stat în Motel 6 la Klamath Falls (am fost acolo iar anul acesta, același motel, dar mai dărăpănat). Ca să mergi din Klamath (denumire indiană, ca multe din SUA) Falls la Crater Lake trebuie să treci pe lângă Klamath Lake, un lac de șes, tot așa, imens. Deci în prima zi după amiază ne-am dus cam în grabă, pe înserate, eu obosit, nu am văzut mare lucru și am decis că mergem încă o dată a doua zi. Deci când ne-am întors la motel după prima vizită, am trecut seara iar pe lângă Klamath Falls, pe o lungime a drumului cam de 10 mile. Adică vezi lac în dreapta vreo 10-15 minute. La un moment dat, tot cerul s-a acoperit de țânțari. Era ca ceața, nu mai vedeai soarele sau apusul mă rog.

Am oprit să văd ce se întâmplă, am crezut că poate trece. Tot norul acela de țânțari s-a aglomerat în spate lângă țeava de eșapament, pentru că țânțarii erau atrași de bioxidul de carbon (așa găsesc ei "victimele") și se vedeau roind în lumina roșie de la frână. M-am temut că îmi vor înfunda radiatorul, ceea ce s-a și întâmplat, parțial. Bine, am scăpat de acolo, după câteva mile de condus prin norul de țânțari, a doua zi dimineața la motel în parcare am curățat cât am putut radiatorul și ne-am dus iar la Crater Lake. Acolo, într-o parcare, o japoneză a venit lângă mașină, nu spunea nimic, se uita la bara din față, care din grena (culoarea mașinii) devenise verde și avea aspectul unui covor. Oare țânțarii aceia simbolizau tot așa tetanii din Scientologie, la fel ca praful de lemn roșu de aici?

9:14 Apropo, ziele acestea, adică ieri, am luat iar o doză bună. Luni a fost fum, am fost lemn pur și simplu, mai ales a doua zi. Nu am mai ținut cont și am mers peste chips-uri de mai multe ori, ca să tot înfund o gaură de sub ușă care se desfunda mereu și de unde eu cred că ieșea fumul. După 3-4 încercări, gaura nu s-a mai desfundat, fum nu a mai fost în schimb am cărat pe pantofi praf din acela în casă care s-a răspândit peste tot. Azi am dat cu furtunul pe scări și în fața ușii, apropo, cred că a apărut iar fum.

10:17 I am very irritated by the dust. Had lots in my hair when i took a shower. Not receiving yet the mole sticks, prompted by the smoke, i went to Home Depot and bought 3 cans of Great Stuff Pest Block. Cheaper then other versions of the same product, it does not contain pesticides, as the name might suggest. It's just an expanding foam that i thought i could squeeze in the mole holes. But won't use it now thinking of returning (bought it as the result of another decision made under the influence of smoke this morning), now i'm waiting for the sticks. Cause if i fill the holes with foam, how is the sound from the sticks going to propagate? BTW, here comes the smoke again.

2:07 I installed one of the sticks already, made a tool out of a metal broom to dig the hole. The fridge was full of dust under, redwood irritating dust, could not just wait for a few more hours, today is Wednesday, the blowers are coming again. Hope i will have time to hose the stairs after they finish and before the guy upstairs is coming.

Thinking about an operatic voice. My insurance, Progressive, didn't call me yet with an estimate or an offer, it took the car to their "in network" shop about a week ago, it's been 11 days since the accident.

2:36 Nebăgarea de seamă (eram atent ptr. dvs.); Către ei: În scandalurile voastre mizerabile, nu terfeliți și Constituția.

5:12 Just filled the truck. 12.9 gallons for 320 miles. He didn't overfill, i watched. That is the way that needle goes now, two lines over the top. 200 miles on freeway, rest in city, almost 25 mpg.

7:00 I just can't believe how loud those kids are yelling in the backyard. They awoke Angela who yelled back at them.

11:46 Never heard of in the west. Flying on a kite to set the enemy's castle or camp on fire. Interesting the toponym, always been wondering of Naga in Japanese has the same meaning as in Hungarian or Nguen in some Aboriginal Australian languages. But that was not what i was searching for. What i was searching for was how ninja employ children to do their work.

What happened today defies any imagination. They got a kid, probably selected out of thousands, who screams much more than any other kids. I can hear him in the complex, but sometimes he comes to "play" here in the backyard, next to the building where he used to live. He did this for years, i think he's getting older now and starts to understand, but still does it. The screams. When that happens, i call it audio terror. Cannot do anything, interrupts everything. Of course he does it when the man upstairs is not squeaking or the man in the next building is not speaking on the phone. Each at his turn. There is something that reminds me of that scream. A synthetic scream from a semi-synthetic song. Listen to this. Imagine some kid doing this all afternoon next to your windows.

Today he awoke Angela after about half hour of sleep. She needs her afternoon sleep because at night she watches TV until she relaxes enough to can sleep. It was the perfect storm, got the estimate from the in network shop (assigned by insurance), without an offer though. Over 14 k for this?