mircea_popescu: Also, he had hired some sales staff (all TDV readers) and all of them were emailing me telling me that what Ken had just done was crazy and he was trying to get them to sell a property that wasn't owned by GGC without any real details even about the property, how much water or water rights it had and whether it could be rezoned! They all said they were going to quit but Ken had begun to move forward and market it."
mircea_popescu: "A few months passed and there wasn't too much developing when I got an email from someone (not even Ken) in June of 2013 that he had just committed to purchase a property with secure water rights near the initial property for over $6 million... and it had to be paid in full within three months!
mircea_popescu: ingenuity, yes. they're about as ingenue as a 9 year old girl.
mircea_popescu: fucking children. where are ye buffett with your "the incredible productive assets and unlimited human ingenuity existing in America". show them to me baby. what productive ?
mircea_popescu: now he's spilling the beans. he couldn't do this post that same day.
mircea_popescu: and the bonus being that for all this time HE LIED ABOUT IT
mircea_popescu: Ken told me it wouldn't be a problem and he'd get it fixed. And, while I had already begun to market the property I was generally okay in knowing that the four founders had bought a large piece of property that, at worst, they could live on and/or resell and no one would get very hurt from this mistake.
mircea_popescu: Very quickly after the purchase of the property I received an email from Ken that there was a lot of errors and the property not only can't be rezoned for 3,000 lots but only for 12! And, it had no water rights for much more than 12 livable units!
mircea_popescu: 50-50s ar for the qualified people in question. there is NOTHING, nothing at all, no benefit, zero, zilch, gulch for the guys with the "idea" or the "vision". fuck your vision and get lost, it's not worth a cupful of piss.
mircea_popescu: e plan was for us to bring in qualified people to help us develop the property as I brought in the marketing interest for lot purchasers. "
mircea_popescu: "I was assured that the property could be rezoned (at least somewhat) and that it had water rights and I returned to North America and Ken and I agreed we would be 50/50 partners on the deal (with a certain percentage for Cobin and his partner and for the founding investors) and I told Ken that I had no time nor qualification to operate or manage a real estate development so he would be the Managing Partner and that th
mircea_popescu: listen kids. a) this isn't how any business works ; b) "totally normal" is no argument ; c) don't be this loser. don't be the 9 yo kid telling the tall tale about how you "nearly" got into a fist fight with the bad boys that ruined your sunday clothes.
mircea_popescu: Excited by the property and the potential I decided to trust Ken on his knowledge of how to do real estate deals and we then raised the money with four key investors who we still to this day call "the founders". All were TDV readers and they were excited about the potential.
mircea_popescu: By that point I had had enough. "I don't do business that way," I said, and nearly got into a fist fight with Ken Johnson over it. However he and the others all assured me that this was "totally normal" in the real estate business to do... and over time they, and especially Ken, talked me into doing it. Ken told me, "this is how the real estate business works."
mircea_popescu: Everyone at the table told me that it was a "sure thing" which I found preposterous. But then, Cobin, his partner and Ken started talking about putting a down payment on the property with a "rubber cheque". They were essentially saying that we would give the owner a cheque that had no real money backing it and then raise the funds to buy the property.
mircea_popescu: We sat down for dinner in Santiago with John Cobin and his partner who had brought us the property and that's when things started to get strange. Cobin and his partner had some bizarre plan to zone a few thousand acres with 3,000 lots including golf courses, hotels and all manner of grandiose things. They actually had a business plan that went into the billions of dollars in revenue.
mircea_popescu: except instead of addressing the lordship, they swindle innocent old people, the traditional victims of psychopathic piano salesmen.
mircea_popescu: "I first wrote about La Estancia as being "Galt's Gulch" in 2011. I went on to talk throughout much of early 2012 about how exciting I found the concept and how I would like to do one myself." fucking preachers without a church, teenaged boys trapped in sagging old bodies trying to get patrons to carve them a parish.
The20YearIRCloud: Yeah, not on the rez
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud yeah, but not on indian land.
mircea_popescu: the more annoying you are to larger groups of people, the less advisable it is to go into a fucking ravine. stick to the town, everyone's annoying there.
mircea_popescu: why do they hide in well populated urban areas ?
mircea_popescu: why the fuck do you think feminists don't go to hide in utah on a farm ? perhaps because they don't want to end up on the receiving end of the stick, like the mormons ?
mircea_popescu: but these are all practical considerations. i wouldn't do this even as a banal every day person.
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud and without an army.
mircea_popescu: im not paying someone to move ~there~
The20YearIRCloud: in the sticks in a somewhat economically hostile country without quality advisers/professionals to help guide decisions
mircea_popescu: hardy pioneers mosty died there.
decimation: my spindy-sense was tingling when I went to their website a few months ago and they had no details whatever
mircea_popescu: for the record, i agree with both negative estimates. it is incredibly stupid to go out in the fucking sticks, if you're on a budget.
The20YearIRCloud: recently they have
mircea_popescu: i had no idea they had good drama.
mircea_popescu: http://dollarvigilante.com/blog/2014/8/27/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-on-galts-gulch-chile.html if anyone cares
mircea_popescu: it just occured to me : the berkshire bets happen just as it crossed the 6 months threshold.
The20YearIRCloud: but it isn't in the cards for 5 years ors o
decimation: yeah the one that was a total scam
decimation: ownership would assist in the embellishment
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: it seems that this could be a 'marketing opportunity' for a real estate baron
mircea_popescu: well that's that, you've got an aesthetic preference :)
mircea_popescu: let's work this another angle.
mircea_popescu: well, maybe. i dun see it, but then again, each his own castl.e
The20YearIRCloud: And from what i've personally seen, working with people who buy, own ,maintain , manage, get divorced, declare bankrupcy, have their house burnt down, find radon/asbestos/lead paint, that overall real estate isn't a bad investment for your common guy
mircea_popescu: the magical "just one house" position is fiction, nonsensical etc.
mircea_popescu: if you can't be bothered to own multiple, rent.
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud that's not the mindset. merely that owning one house is more hassle than its worth
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: how would you plan to keep the 'raw land' if you don't have an army to help you?
The20YearIRCloud: But , if you're in the mindset that everything is going to collapse imminently, then there's few good investments outside of raw land, weapons and food
The20YearIRCloud: Well, since data was collected, it shows itself to be a relatively good investment (not the best mind you) but one that's pretty decenty
The20YearIRCloud: And, when you look back on real estate prices in the US from 1880-1920, it still was a pretty stable pricing trend
The20YearIRCloud: and even then, real estate is local based on state law/local laws, the laws I encounter here in ohio are completely different than CA or NY
mircea_popescu: or at least made, da fuck knows what's it like there anymore.
The20YearIRCloud: The total spending of the us realestate sector for lobbyists vs the others is pretty slim
decimation: also the market is extremely distorted by USG, which is run by real estate agents and lawyers, who all want to get their piece of the pie
The20YearIRCloud: That's the case with virtually any industry that's on comission
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: many real estate agents don't make jack shit, only the good ones make $$$
mircea_popescu: sure, i could. what diff does that make! i'll just buy the living separately from investment
decimation: THe question: does he want to live in his savings account/lotto ticket?
mircea_popescu: the fact that i can live in it is about as much a consideration as the notion i could fuck my bonds.
decimation: There's no doubt a man needs shelter
The20YearIRCloud: then what assets do you suggest that you can live in?
decimation: The thing that the '10 year rule' fails to capture is the opportunity cost of leaving for better opportunities elsewhere, whatever that may be
mircea_popescu: so you make a commitment to a house that exceeds the commitment you make to the woman in question.
The20YearIRCloud: And a majority of couples in the US no longer marry
The20YearIRCloud: And the data says that home ownership is pretty beneficial to the holder as long as they can hold it for 10+ years
ben_vulpes: <decimation> 'owning' your home is partially renting from the government, partially speculation on mortgage bonds, and partially a 'ticket' to future 'wealth' << fucking bril
The20YearIRCloud: I know countless people who are now sitting on near a million dollars of real estate because they own their home and a few others
mircea_popescu: nah, for the first time buyer.
mircea_popescu: well he keeps bringing the "we don't have X here". something he's gotta have, what is this, ohiostan ?
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: do you think owning your own home is an awesome deal for the median guy?
mircea_popescu: cuz you know, i can't be bothered to know in that level of detail, cuz my head is otherwise full.
decimation: The20YearIRCloud is trying to be that 'someone else', not harry homeowner specifically
mircea_popescu: to this point there may be exceptions, but i'm not discussiong 1988 elm street, akron, ohio.
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud but my point isn't to any one specific thing. my point is, there's so much nuttery, and so much complexity involved, that in general you're better off letting someone else eat it.
The20YearIRCloud: it's hard for homeowners, but with us we have so many properties the insurance company insures all ours as tenant occupeid, whether they're vacant or not
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: don't you need to have an inspector come by before you rent?
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud what happens if you don't get your triannual inspection for electric wires ?
The20YearIRCloud: and the risk factor is quite low when you look at broad groups of data for occurance rates. If it was high then there'd be no one doing management or landlording
The20YearIRCloud: case law in my state is quite favorable to the homeowner for accidents caused on-site
mircea_popescu: thw work is still there, even if you piecemeal it away.
mircea_popescu: just because you can "buy umbrella insurance" doesn't mean it's not there.
decimation: mircea_popescu: in the us you can buy "umbrella insurance" for such a possibility
mircea_popescu: by th time you're done with that, it should be clear why it's not the headache you want.
decimation: 'owning' your home is partially renting from the government, partially speculation on mortgage bonds, and partially a 'ticket' to future 'wealth'
The20YearIRCloud: Depends on the house
The20YearIRCloud: the management aspect is pretty easy, not very time consuming. The problem is for an outside manager, the income you can charge is quite low
mircea_popescu: decimation there used to be this thing that you're not a real woman if you give good head
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud no, for administering real estate.
decimation: mircea_popescu: there's this thing in American culture that you aren't a 'real person' if you don't 'own' your home
mircea_popescu: there's this... can't be your own car mechanic. it's just not worth it.
mircea_popescu: re the houseowning discussion : house market is commodified. carrying the cost of inventory makes no sense whatsoever, unless it does. and if it does you want the economies of scale and 100s of unit.s
decimation: asciilifeform: I'm pretty sure the warez book I linked above is a shitty translation
asciilifeform: 'With an *ugh!* and a groan, and a kick of the heels, / Death comes quiet, or it comes with squeals...'
gernika: mircea_popescu: agreed. not a viable outcome for employees. Although in my case they kept our product alive until it was killed in a second acquisition so it was sort of a semi-acquihire. Still a complete waste of money.
assbot: Falkirk Wheel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
mircea_popescu: no idea why they keep doing it
mircea_popescu: gernika: I made more consulting for a firm based out of Minnesota than I was working at the big name tech company that acquired a startup I had worked for. So yeah. Fuck startups. << acquihires are usually pitiful affairs that rarely work
decimation: mircea_popescu: my understanding is that the narrowboats are popular with chums who 'pub crawl' on water
decimation: asciilifeform: my favorite quote from "in the first circle": "A familiar figure in many prison research establishments, Professor Chelnov, an old mathematician arrested seventeen years ago and who, when he had to fill in a form, put down his nationality not as 'Russian' but as 'zek', had applied his mind to many inventions, from the direct flow boiler to the jet engine, and had put his heart and soul into several of them."
mircea_popescu: decimation well that all depends. they're exactly what advertised on tin
asciilifeform: they're pestilential cesspools
assbot: The ZEK Crew » EXHIBITION ZEK (2012)
asciilifeform: mircea_popescu: believe or not, the canals here are also preserved. though i bet the neighbours wish someone'd fill them in.
mircea_popescu: decimation: The20YearIRCloud: in the UK they still have most of their canals, you can rent a narrowboat and cruise them: http://www.waterwaysholidays.com/ <<< i did this.
mircea_popescu: they don';t distinguish
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: and not 'zajec' or the like ?
decimation: I find learning another language to be a good way to find out how I am ignorant of things that millions of children know
asciilifeform: ^ more or less known to everyone who speaks the langauge
decimation: "Originally the abbreviation stood for zaklyuchyonny kanaloarmeyets (Russian: заключённый каналоармеец), literally "incarcerated canal-army-man"."
decimation: зэк" and "зек", zek (both pronounced as IPA: [ˈzɛk]). The word is still in colloquial use. "
decimation: the wikipedia says that there's an even deeper meaning derived from the beginnings of the gulag system: "A memory of the canal is also preserved in the Russian language, in the words "zeka", "zek, z/k" for "inmate". In Russian, "inmate", "incarcerated" is заключённый (zakliuchyonnyi), usually abbreviated to "з/к" in paperwork, and pronounced as "зэка" (IPA: [zɨˈka], "zeh-KA"), which gradually transformed into "
decimation: the canonical book on the topic: http://klassix.net/keith/Kindle%20Backup%202-20-11/documents/First%20Circle,%20The%20-%20Alexander%20Solzhenitsyn.txt
The20YearIRCloud: are my kids candidates for the poster prize thing?
mircea_popescu: The20YearIRCloud: zeks? Are those like zergs? << gulag prisoner labor in soviet research.
mircea_popescu: kakobrekla i was going to give it to him slowly, but danielpbarron had to go all teenager hormonal on the nice ppls.
kakobrekla: its useless that coin. some btc fan late to the party. and we wont use litecoin that is made to supposedly solve that supposed problem because you cant really smoke 'lite'.
gernika: mircea_popescu lol seems to be better than other things I've tried
decimation: we've been derping about some technical stuff, gernika, ben_vulpes and I were talking about the silly-con valley employment scam
mircea_popescu: anyway, i mostly came back for the lsdcoin discussion
gribble: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mana | Mana is the founder of Malice Mizer, one of the most well known Japanese visual -kei bands. He is responsible for discovering the all poppular Gackt...
decimation: I thought that definition 2 of the urban dictionary is what you were going after
ben_vulpes: see now i'm in this horrible place where i *think* i know when you've made a mispelling, but then i double guess, then...
mircea_popescu: each of the genes that could occupy a spot.
gribble: wn: allele n 1: (genetics) either of a pair (or series) of alternative forms of a gene that can occupy the same locus on a particular chromosome and that control the same character; "some alleles are dominant over others" [syn: {allele}, {allelomorph}]
mircea_popescu: the alele elite. fun to say
decimation: mircea_popescu: but they 'spend' billions of 'money'?
mircea_popescu: if you recall, they failed for years before it even could be powered on
decimation: totally agree, you never 'own' anything in the us
ben_vulpes: sure, but if the point is to eventually own it free and clear and not pay rent, property taxes still count as rent.
decimation: plus many of them bought & were screwed on homes
decimation: people younger than 40 are seeing how much their parents bought into the 'housing is infinite wealth' idea and they see how they were screwed
ben_vulpes: breaking news: my little brother just got knocked off his bike
gernika: then there's the fact that when your house goes up in value, so does everyone else's, so its not like you can sell it and buy a bigger house. And if you don't buy another house with the proceeds of selling your house, you pay a lot of taxes.
decimation: ben_vulpes: don't forget the usg 'subsidy' of mortgages
mats_cd03: i was under the impression selling homes is a matter of finding bagholders
ben_vulpes: tell me - how do you book those expenses, and how do you tally the ROI?
ben_vulpes: and when you sell your house, do you account for all of the property taxes you've paid over its lifetime? the repairs made? the endless time spent fixing it?
decimation: in taleb's antifragile, Fat Tony would have said that the chumps wouldn't believe you if you told them
decimation: gernika: indeed, unfortunately there's no undergrad class on how not to be a chump
The20YearIRCloud: anymore around here people just use the canals for fishing
gernika: decimation which is no compensation for giving up the flower of your youth for corporate america sadly
decimation: gernika: I've noticed that it's a common pattern in today's economy: kid goes to work for borg-firm, gives up his flower of youth, and then later finds employment profiting on the idiocy he witnessed earlier
gernika: I made more consulting for a firm based out of Minnesota than I was working at the big name tech company that acquired a startup I had worked for. So yeah. Fuck startups.
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: in the UK they still have most of their canals, you can rent a narrowboat and cruise them: http://www.waterwaysholidays.com/
The20YearIRCloud: and it's so funny because the canal is so freaking small
assbot: White SeaBaltic Canal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
decimation: The20YearIRCloud: see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea%E2%80%93Baltic_Canal#Commemoration
The20YearIRCloud: decimation: that method works great! (1/50th of the time)
decimation: lol there you go
ben_vulpes: which, i guess, is why they come to me. "please write some not shitty software. i'll pay you 1.25x market just so i can keep the paper and the software and not have to manage the zeks."
ben_vulpes: i don't really buy that part decimation. the people who do rounds easily understand the problems of shitty software, and are loath to hire zeks at sub market wages.
gernika: definitely the way to go IMO
decimation: meanwhile hire some 'zeks' and pay the half the median wage for their salary, in exchange for some vague promises of stock
decimation: imagine you just convinced your daddy's golf buddy to give you $100mn in seed money. you are now the 'bitcoin ceo' of your own startup! how do you make your 'idea' work? rent the talent that your roommate from stanford used for his startup!
ben_vulpes: is running a consulting shop and sucking dollars out of shartups a short on the bezzle market?
kakobrekla: asciilifeform no cigar on the .su but i did inject them with JS turning warning the visitors.
gribble: Error: I am not seeing this user on IRC. If you want information about a registered gpg user, try the 'gpg info' command instead.
gribble: BTC-E | This order would exceed the size of the order book. You would sell 191.29848 bitcoins, for a total of 77860.4017 USD and take the price to 0. | Data vintage: 66.5407 seconds
gribble: BTC-E | A market order to sell 100 bitcoins right now would net 40860.7184 USD and would take the last price down to 405.9010 USD, resulting in an average price of 408.6072 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 60.6819 seconds
gribble: BTC-E | This order would exceed the size of the order book. You would sell 191.29848 bitcoins, for a total of 77860.4017 USD and take the price to 0. | Data vintage: 33.1611 seconds
gribble: Bitstamp | A market order to sell 1000 bitcoins right now would net 415085.0852 USD and would take the last price down to 407.0000 USD, resulting in an average price of 415.0851 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 0.0463 seconds
gribble: BTC-E | A market order to sell 10 bitcoins right now would net 4108.8243 USD and would take the last price down to 410.4270 USD, resulting in an average price of 410.8824 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 0.0005 seconds
gribble: (market sell [--fiat] [--market <market>] [--currency XXX] <value>) -- Calculate the effect on the market depth of a market sell order of <value> bitcoins. If <market> is provided, uses that exchange. Default is Bitstamp. If --currency XXX is provided, converts to that fiat currency. Default is USD. If '--fiat' option is given, <value> denotes the size of the order in fiat.
gribble: (market sell [--fiat] [--market <market>] [--currency XXX] <value>) -- Calculate the effect on the market depth of a market sell order of <value> bitcoins. If <market> is provided, uses that exchange. Default is Bitstamp. If --currency XXX is provided, converts to that fiat currency. Default is USD. If '--fiat' option is given, <value> denotes the size of the order in fiat.
gribble: (market sell [--fiat] [--market <market>] [--currency XXX] <value>) -- Calculate the effect on the market depth of a market sell order of <value> bitcoins. If <market> is provided, uses that exchange. Default is Bitstamp. If --currency XXX is provided, converts to that fiat currency. Default is USD. If '--fiat' option is given, <value> denotes the size of the order in fiat.
ben_vulpes: can one model the effect cross-exchange?
ThickAsThieves: to the core!
gribble: Bitstamp | This order would exceed the size of the order book. You would sell 112732.42 bitcoins, for a total of 4941219.5228 USD and take the price to 0. | Data vintage: 162.7177 seconds
gribble: Bitstamp | A market order to sell 10000 bitcoins right now would net 3671722.1909 USD and would take the last price down to 270.1200 USD, resulting in an average price of 367.1722 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 162.5575 seconds
gribble: Bitstamp | A market order to sell 2000 bitcoins right now would net 817749.7190 USD and would take the last price down to 400.1300 USD, resulting in an average price of 408.8749 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 153.0889 seconds
ben_vulpes: thanks, TheNewDeal
gribble: Bitstamp | A market order to sell 10 bitcoins right now would net 4219.4919 USD and would take the last price down to 421.7300 USD, resulting in an average price of 421.9492 USD/BTC. | Data vintage: 142.6649 seconds
gribble: (sell <amount> <thing> [at|@] <priceperunit> <otherthing> [<notes>]) -- Logs a sell order for <amount> units of <thing, at a price of <price> per unit, in units of <otherthing>. Use the optional <notes> field to put in any special notes. <price> may include an arithmetical expression, and {(mtgox|bitstamp)(ask|bid|last|high|low|avg)} to index price to mtgox ask, bid, last, high, low, (1 more message)
assbot: NEVER trust the autorouter | Teespring
asciilifeform: when these people do design boards (i have seen this, believe or not) it's typically done by a kid with w4r3z cad proggy.
decimation: asciilifeform: this is largely the case even in electrical engineering labs
asciilifeform: why bother with pcb routing / etching / subcontracting when monkeys will run cable forever
asciilifeform: wasn't hard to dredge up, either.
asciilifeform: they use racks and racks of off-the-shelf golden toilet modules and kilometres of cabling
asciilifeform: if any of the humble labs i worked in / toured/ invaded are anything to go by - none of the postdocs design pcb - why??
decimation: apparently they have too many bezzlars/postdocs to do more physics
asciilifeform: and if anyone is using it for serious work, they are using a patched version and aren't sharing
asciilifeform: situations like this are more interesting than appear on surface - because they make it abundantly clear that no one really gives a flying fuck if the thing works or not
decimation: I think that CERN are contributing to kicad these days
asciilifeform: the fucker doesn't even refresh the screen correctly under a perfectly ordinary linux/x11
decimation: supposedly the kicad autorouter has been improved
asciilifeform: after several weeks of 'doctor it hurts when i do that / don't do that' i threw in the towel.
assbot: Logged on 11-06-2014 02:35:54; decimation: what part failed - the autorouter?
decimation: this rings a gong for those interested in jumping off the crapware wagon: use kicad
asciilifeform: i bet all the other turdmeisters are ripping their hair out 'why didnchaithinkofthat'
decimation: asciilifeform: apparently altium is going to release a 'free' version of their windows crapware
kakobrekla: asciilifeform seems like they only do live fetch when its time to pull an address. anyway, what would be the gain doing that - i fail to see?
mircea_popescu: it's a coin specific to the industry. plus platform.
mircea_popescu: as thestringpuller reports, it's gone.
decimation: well, there's nothing like putting a national flag on your pirate ship
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: feed'em something interesting (let's say mismatched delimiters) & then fetch their turd a few msec after.
asciilifeform: kakobrekla: the .su folks are scraping from an identifiable box / ip range ?
decimation: mircea_popescu: yeah that's pretty much the idea. it's amazing that such a seemingly 'approximate' algorithm can be made arbitrarily precise through iteration
assbot: CORDIC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
mircea_popescu: the dongs closet ?
decimation: asciilifeform: no, just wanted to fyi for the readers
TheNewDeal: a short novella by thenewdeal
kakobrekla: so i listened bits of that podcast - you need to read all the logs. twice.
tokyopotato: yeah buddy, we compost everything in the PNW
mircea_popescu: make sure you ecologically dispose of the old interwebs