I'm not sure what you do to your cd's, but I have maybe 500-600 and they all still play. Keep in mind some of those cd's were purchased in 1983, so over 40 years old. The jewel cases on some are busted, the cd's are fine. And scratches on the plastic side are not a problem unless very very deep. It is the aluminum side you need to be careful with. The laser focuses on the aluminum.

And how do I know, because I ripped them all about a year ago into a massive collection on a pair of redundant HDD's so I could play them more easily. The classical stuff I have in particular is easier to find. Say I'm looking for something I know was done by Cleveland Symphony but can't remember how I filed it since it was the cd had a collection of composers.

except a bank is fdic insured. If they clusterfuck themslves, I still get my money after a day or so. I don't think the btc exchange offers me that protection. I can't think of the name anymore, but there was a case last year or year before where a money service app that people thought was a bank, but was not. They went into bk and the customers lost money.

I've probably gotten close. Remember chocolate covered coffee beans. I'd get hyper on those. I've always consumed pretty heavy amounts of caffeine either thru tea (plain no sugar iced tea is great), coffee or in college, Mt Dew. I drink tea basically until I go to sleep. No issues. One time though on a ski trip I drank like 5 cups of coffee at late dinner with friends. For the first time in my life, I experienced sleeplessness. Very unpleasant.

I was thinking the same. Sort of the perfect control group. I actually thought Mormon's banned all drinks with caffeine, even cokes etc.

I agree with you to a point. I'd say since the early 1900's when monopolies started getting attention and women started clamoring for a vote, the get out of jail free card by the elite started taking a hit. And by the 1960's to around 2000, I'd say uniform treatment continued to improve. Since the 2000's its been downhill. The current trajectory we are on will get us back to the feudal system in short order. Part of that I think is the decline of old media. Would we have a watergate today as just one example. Lutnick resigning would indicate some power left in old media. The Brits just canned McSweeney over old media investigation.

Or Canada, many areas in Ca suffer that kind of cold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... The population centers are not as bad though. It is mid Canada and some western areas that get the cold along with of course, northern Canada.

Not sure it would be enough power but from the summary, "CATL says its discharge power at -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit) is three times higher than that of lithium ion phosphate batteries. " So the Na has 3X the power output at -30C. Granted if Li is down to say 1% @-30, 3X is only 3%.

They are becoming more common. Anker uses LiFePO4 in their solix f3000. 3KWh and you can add a couple more 3KWh to it I think. https://support.ankersolix.com... I got one last year, those things are heavy. 90lbs. Thank god for wheels.

posting about crypto. I'd argue the real reason it is tanking is the meme crowd is all over ai. There was a time throwing the word crypto in you annual report got you a 50% stock bump. Now it is ai in the annual report.

And the perceived adult value of crypto continues to get hammered. https://gizmodo.com/south-kore... I've just never heard of a bank doing something this stupid. And yet you hear some lame brain story about crypto every month or so.

You're being a bit disingenuous I think. Consider the prior trump tax bill also had a sunset. It is the way it is done. It keeps the CBO numbers better.

But I'm not sure, are you really advocating that we should just let the people in the income gap between medicaid and can afford insurance ,die? You may be on medicare now and don't care, I don't know. Oddly, once you cross 65, somehow the consensus is you made it, so affordable health insurance for you.

I was self employed for many years and can say, as you near medicare age (65) that health bill skyrockets. I am healthy so went with high deductible, and even with that it was 8K/yr several years ago. I've had friends not so healthy with 20-30 grand a year in premiums. Now if you say make 60/yr, that puts you over that magic threshold of subsidy, so you are looking at 40-50% of your income to pay health care premiums to stay alive. Your alternative and most take it is to drop coverage. And then society gets to pick up the bill from your ER care, because you went bk from the 300K bill from the hospital for the flu. Or they die if society is lucky eh?

But I can't afford a movie about Barron. Melania has already been done. And the story could be about how he saved the Russian woman in the UK from the bad boyfriend. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/22... Although it could be dicey as to why the prez's son is hanging with Russian women. Like father, like son I guess could be the angle there.

Someone with a few mil to spare might want to think about it if they need a big tax break. I just want 10% of the tax break you get as a royalty.

KPMG is just hoping on the "wow, we use AI, call us for your accounting needs". Reminds me of when everyone was saying they used crypto. "Look at us, we cool."

It was QE. Money got cheaper after they printed a bunch. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/se... The short story is from 2020 to today, M2 went from around 15T to 23T. That is an extra 8T sloshing around looking for a home. Result: bubbles.

Can't find it at the moment, but I thought dollar was down around 20% relative to the "basket of currencies".

Wow, sometimes the truth hurts eh?