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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2500 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: May 24, 2017

Over time, as the public's appetite for extraordinary investment opportunities continued to grow, the claims of these bubble companies grew equally extraordinary. No regulatory oversight or specialist review was needed at the time, so claimants began to pitch companies which claimed they would achieve: "the making iron with pit coal", "the transmutation of quicksilver into a malleable fine metal", "the making of rape-oil" and, of course, "a wheel for perpetual motion".

At the height of the madness, the most famously ethereal company of the bubble promised, without irony, "a company for carrying out an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is".

I'm sick. Been sick. This is what having a kid is - every summer cold, rhinovirus, sniffle and cough within a hundred miles alights upon your house like a vulture. On the plus side, we can do obnoxious shit like check pulse-ox. On the minus side, we sometimes have to do obnoxious shit like check pulse-ox.

Being sick - and having no major projects left prior to shipping off for the summer - means that I can sort of do nothing for a little while. As it turns out I'm very bad at doing nothing. I watched like five episodes of Silicon Valley yesterday and felt insufferably guilty. I was stoked for a minute there because the last short film I have on the docket washed across the transom yesterday at "90%" but upon watching it it's at like 40%, 50% done. I won't be able to touch it for several months.

The ECM for my motorcycle landed in Germany this morning. It will hopefully get diagnosed by Monday, and then I will most likely spend $600 on a used one, which will make its way this way probably two days after I leave for LA. So on the plus side, I'm keeping the mileage low on the beastie. On the minus side, it's because I've been able to ride it once in the past two years. Kinda sucks.

But really?

I've got 2200sqft of medical-dental in a plum of a market. I got through the marriage-destroying act of moving interstate (twice), the family-destroying act of a major commercial build-out, the grind of post on a feature and I even got the novel off to the agency. I actually don't have any major task hanging over my head for the first time since 2013.

I built a car in high school. Cut down the frame rails of a Scout 800, put a Chevy 400 in it and put a Triumph TR-7 on top. Took me years. Delayed college a year. Drove it a thousand miles to my uncle's house and landed at 2am Friday, with move-in at college to begin Sunday afternoon. Camped out until a reasonable hour, went to my uncle's house, took a shower and slept all day. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, first time in four years, spent Saturday drinking Diet Coke and watching a Johnny Quest marathon. It was fucking sublime.

I'm no longer good at Johnny Quest marathons. Wondering if I should mow the lawn.





steve  ·  2500 days ago  ·  link  ·  

wow... I never saw ETH hit 221... I've only seen it in the 189-195 range.... crazy times.

user-inactivated  ·  2500 days ago  ·  link  ·  

sigh

kleinbl00  ·  2500 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Coinmarketcap averages the going rate on every exchange it considers valid. Thus, right now, the spread on ETH is everywhere from $12,888 (ARC/ETH on Livecoin, whatever that is) to $39.36 (WINGS/ETH, also on Livecoin, at a volume of $8). Crypto is not an efficient market and there are probably thunderously amazing arbitrage opportunities at the moment. So while Coinmarketcap can assert that ETH hit $221, It hit that mostly in Korean Won, which may or may not have more than a little to do with fluidity across the Korean border and the current plunge the Won is making against the dollar. Fortunately none of these markets are regulated, the parties on both sides are anonymous and the whole ecology is vulnerable to software exploits, social engineering and good, old-fashioned securities fraud.

    Given the chance, investors will rationally jump at the opportunity to be the second greatest fool, and to promote long-shot schemes over modest and humble endeavors.

The South Sea Bubble blew up no less than Isaac Newton and I reckon he's smarter than me. I view the whole spectacle with an unhealthy amount of distrust.