Storypost | 2021.11.07

Friendsgiving

Beirut beer pong fire night

After a covid year off, Friendsgiving returned to San Marcos where we squeezed eight families into a not-particularly-code-compliant VRBO. The last part isn't all bad; it meant there was a 30' waterslide and we could play Danger Pong.


Erin booked the patio at Pure Project for her hubby's 40th, complete with drink poker chips and Urbn pizza.

Pumpkin carving knife Halloween

Since FG landed on Halloween weekend, the kids carved pumpkins and trick-or-treated each of the bedrooms in the house.

Halloween

Halloween costumes Tour de France crash WallStreetBets fuckboy

We spent actual Halloween strolling the neighborhood with Mom. Since we missed the Cooley party, we kind of half-assed the costumes.

Halloween costume Tour de France crash lady allez opi omi

Jes's costume was borderline in poor taste, particularly for cycling enthusiasts such as myself. If this doesn't ring a bell:

Tour de France crash lady allez opi omi

Having a suit, sunglasses, and hair gel, I decided to celebrate another one of 2021's signature themes by costuming as the so-called WallStreetBets Fuckboy:

WSB WallStreetBets fuckboy with diamond hands

Well, I also have diamond hands, but needed to order a red tie and diamonds *for* my hands.

Halloween costume WSB WallStreetBets fuckboy diamond hands

There were a few other WSB memes I considered - a Wendy's bag, an ape costume, an ornamental gourd - but I simply didn't have enough hands.

Halloween costumes WSB WallStreetBets diamond hands

I made up for the lack of physical referential content by being as in-character as I could. Guh.
Investing

Squid Game I also dealt in futures

AnotherDegenerateFKAnotherDegenerateFK What if the stock market is a game set up by some old guy who used to enjoy trading when he was young?

On the subject of WSB...

A YOLO

Borderlands Infinity Pistol load screen Vladof

Well, not really a yolo, more like an attempt to buy the hype. NPR had told me that this season's Supreme Court agenda has a lot of guns and reproductive rights. Investing in the latter isn't super straightforward, but in the case of the former, it looks like an NY gun group is suing to get universal CCW.

In their case heard Wednesday, the New York gun group argued that the language of the Second Amendment - securing "the right of the people to keep and bear arms" - refers to two separate rights. To "keep" arms is to be able to own them, while to "bear" arms is to be able to carry them, they argued.

The most recent major Supreme Court decision on guns came more than a decade earlier in District of Columbia v. Heller, when the court held in a 5-4 ruling that the Second Amendment protects the individual right to carry a gun for self-defense inside the home.

Roberts said Heller's precedent would be the "first thing" he would look to when considering this case. "We, I think, generally don't reinvent the wheel," he said.

So, a couple things. First, I have a sinking suspicion the 'generally' qualifier was purposeful - like "we're gonna overturn Roe v. Wade" purposeful. Second, while the DC v Heller reference seems to indicate Roberts understands a distinction between self-defense in the home and in public, the rest of the article made it at least a toss-up.

Borderlands door mat god blesses this house my ak protects it

Also, it's somewhat mind-boggling that the Constitution would protect the right to carry in public as critical self-defense but I can't, say, put an eight foot wall around my house. But I digress into what happens if this thing actually goes through.

Anyway, my YOLO was RGR, SWBI, and OLN. In the (investing) best case, SCOTUS says, "CCWs for all" and these tickers go to the moon. Either from hype or a real arms race. In the worst case, the perma-bull market keeps pumping. Well, that's the worst case in this market, in reality this news has coincided with RGR earnings which weren't so good for share price.

SEC report

SEC report GameStop GME meme stock WSB
Great to see the term "meme stock" appear in the SEC report on GME/Citadel/RH. Kind of disappointed they didn't mention stonks tho.

Disrupting

TSLA makes no sense to my boomer brain. Zac
Zac
P/E is almost 400.
Chris
Chris
Inflation + meme value + years ahead of other automakers in electric.
Still doesn't justify the cap.
But that is the timeline we are in.
I would like [employer] to become a meme company.
Maybe you should be more Musky.
We should just let Musk be our CEO.
*memelord
I'm sure he could do it part time and just say some crazy things to push the stock higher. Zac
Zac
And our actual CEO could continue running the company.
Chris
Chris
Seems like a great new model, CEOaaS.
Boomerkrieg retrospective

January 6 Washington Post article tunnels Guy Fawkes

Staying with some of the drama out of DC, I read through the WaPo investigation of the January 06 Boomerkrieg. It's not short and contains a lot of information that should be familiar to people who have followed this saga.

That said, the article offers some interesting perspectives from DHS personnel, DC police, and a few of the insurrectionists.
GBES

Del Mar Sky Deck

The Gentleman's Beer Exploration Society also returned to action at the Del Mar Sky Deck. It's a neat place for food and drink.
D850

Nikon D850 Smallrig frame flash sync cable

I bought the Smallrig rail system for the D850. It has a bunch of attachment mount points that are mostly used for video. Still, it's nice for off-camera flash and affixing the camera strap at the top and bottom of the right grip.

It turns out I needed to upgrade my DNG converter, but it took some looking to find older versions that work with Win7.

http://download.adobe.com/pub/adobe/dng/win/DNGConverter_12_4.exe

This one worked and it looks like based Adobe keeps them all in that directory.
Taco

3rd generation Toyota Tacoma oil filter wrench

The time came for the new Taco's first oil change under my ownership. I was a little confused when the K&N filter was just the filter element and some gaskets. I guess this model has a reusable filter housing. As usual, the last shop overtightened the filter.

3rd generation Toyota Tacoma TRD skid plate in box

Oh yeah, and changing the oil requires removing the skid plate. Never again, I ordered the TRD skid plate with oil change access.

3rd generation Toyota Tacoma TRD skid plate mounted

Being OEM, the TRD plate went on without drama. The only thing that caught me out was that the TRD skid plate bolts don't attach in the same place as the stock plate. The TRD plate uses bolt holes that are already used to connect subframe pieces. No big deal, but one of the bolts was a bit tight and I kept worrying the frame piece was somehow under mechanical load. Probably just corrosion.

Oh yeah, folks on the forums stressed using lower-than-spec torque on the bolts. It's definitely better to be safe than sorry for this part.
Fantasy

Death knocking meme NFL running back injuries Derrick Henry

My fantasy season peaked around week four.
No code

Processing language rocket example

There hasn't been much solo gaming or coding in the past couple weeks, but I used some nap/stroller time to go down wiki rabbit holes for generative art. Some bookmarks:
Neural networks deep learning artbreeder character designer
It's rare to find deep learning samples that are representative of actual results, but Artbreeder demonstrates some cool GAN stuff.

On the subject of GANs (which I haven't yet tried), this guy had a post with advice on training them. To summarize:
I hope I didn't screw any of these up when I transcribed them. Anyway, coding soon.
The homefront

Backyard veranda structure horizontal slats redwood terrace

Getting the occasional construction session in.




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