Post Race!

[wes4dbt]

It's funny because they are very quick to tell you about the 500x return they got on a penny stock they dropped $10k on but conveniently leave out 50 other stocks they completely bombed on.

Actually, if you made 500x 1/50 times you would be doing really good. That's a 10x profit. lol

I never thought I could predict stocks. I stuck with mutual funds. Now, at my age, it's mainly fixed income.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I wouldn't suggest it for speculation. It's probably better as a backup to cash holdings in high-yield savings, then CDs, and after that gold. Yet gold tends to be more liquid than mid-term CDs and it has outperformed them all. As far as I can tell it has done better than much of the stock market in 2025, which itself has been running high.

Nothing says the gains can't all be lost down the road though, as with anything.

Silver looks like a mess though. So much volatility there.

Silver always seems to be a mess. The one (relatively) nice thing about silver is that it is relatively easy to hold the physical metal. Getting an appreciable amount of gold comes with a real security risk, but silver is valuable...just not THAT valuable. You could keep it under your bed without being too concerned.

[Shaggy Hiker]

With gold, I assume you are buying gold shares rather than chunks of the actual metal that you have to store in a vault. The latter seems pretty messy, unless you already had the vault for other reasons....like keeping your booze away from raccoons.

[Shaggy Hiker]

When I was down in Florida, my landlady told me about somebody breaking into her house. They apparently sat on a valuable coin collection while drinking up all the wine in the house, after which they were kind of done with the robbery. They never knew the coins were there.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Isn't this true for all non fixed income investments? The problem with fixed income is they basically just pace inflation and sometimes not even that. So your not really growing your investment. The good thing is you never lose money. So, Yeah that does take the stress away.

Bonds and some stocks give you some return (interest or dividends) while also varying in price as the markets move. Gold does the varying in price without those returns. A 5% bond will still return 5% even if the face value has dropped. It kind of provides a way to feel good about it while also having a way to feel good or bad about it.

And then there are funds...

[dday9]

Actually, if you made 500x 1/50 times you would be doing really good. That's a 10x profit. lol

I was being hyperbolic, I don't know the numbers lol

[dilettante]

Gold is pretty value-compact though.

A new truck costs about a truckload of silver (ok, maybe 3 to 4 monster boxes of Eagles). That's a lot of space and a lot of weight. Like 120 to 160 pounds!

Yet a single tube of gold Eagles would be far more than enough.

Burying silver in the back yard would be nuts. Gold is almost practical though, even if you spread it out in several caches. You could buy some copper rounds cheap to make non-ferrous decoy caches too if you are paranoid about metal detectors.

[wes4dbt]

Damn metal detectors!!! That's why I have to always remove everything metal from body before I bury it in the back yard. What a pain in the butt.

[Shaggy Hiker]

You bury your body in the backyard...frequently?

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's a whole lot easier burying somebody else's body.

[Peter Porter]

Damn metal detectors!!! That's why I have to always remove everything metal from body before I bury it in the back yard. What a pain in the butt.

Orthopedic implants can't be detected, so you are safe burying that... um... raccoon.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I went for a walk today, as the weather was pretty nice. In fact, it was perhaps a bit TOO nice. I was sweating more than I should have been, so I stopped to sit on a bench. Unfortunately, I was immediately inflicted with a case of COL and was unable to leave the bench for about an hour. During that time, I found out that "Stuart" was well known in the community for being unusually outgoing. Everybody in the area had encountered him. Several people in the area apparently fed him. I was both told that, and had ample evidence weighing me down.

[wes4dbt]

I couldn't break your code. What every the infliction I hope it's gone and that you didn't over feed Stuart.

[Shaggy Hiker]

The COL?

[Peter Porter]

I went for a walk today, as the weather was pretty nice. In fact, it was perhaps a bit TOO nice. I was sweating more than I should have been, so I stopped to sit on a bench. Unfortunately, I was immediately inflicted with a case of COL and was unable to leave the bench for about an hour. During that time, I found out that "Stuart" was well known in the community for being unusually outgoing. Everybody in the area had encountered him. Several people in the area apparently fed him. I was both told that, and had ample evidence weighing me down.

I have cases of overwhelming laziness almost everyday. Well, after work.

So did Stuart pay you a visit by the bench you refused to leave, keeping you there a few minutes longer than you planned?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Stuart, of course, is a cat. I was sitting on the bench, he decided to sit on me. It did keep me there several minutes longer than I had planned.

[Shaggy Hiker]

He likely would have kept me there for several more hours, but eventually I had to evict him.

[wes4dbt]

The COL?

That and I didn't know if "Stuart" was an animal, person or something else.

Stuart, of course, is a cat

My guess was a squirrel or a homeless person.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Might be a homeless person...would probably eat a squirrel, but Stuart is a cat, and COL is a TLA for Cat On Lap.

[Peter Porter]

My AI's short-term memory tests from a day ago:

Running STM integration tests...
[test_stm_influence] OK (diff=4.98219)
[test_stm_override_ep] OK (avg=10)
STM integration tests completed.

Running STM + Semantic integration tests...
[test_stm_semantic_combined] OK (avg=10, fidelity=1)
avg_r=10 (episodic baseline=0.00999999, semantic mid=2, stm strong=10)

[test_stm_leakage_clear] OK (avg_with_stm=10, avg_after_clear=0.267355)
[test_stm_capacity_eviction] OK (oldest evicted, size=3)
[test_stm_interaction_stability] Cycle 0 OK (avg_with_stm=5, avg_after_clear=0.606708)
[test_stm_interaction_stability] Cycle 1 OK (avg_with_stm=5, avg_after_clear=0.606708)
[test_stm_interaction_stability] Cycle 2 OK (avg_with_stm=5, avg_after_clear=0.606708)
STM + Semantic integration tests completed.

[Peter Porter]

Today I successfully tested it's long-term memory:

Running Phase 2.2 LongTermMemory tests...
[test_ltm_basic_store_retrieve] OK
[test_ltm_stm_integration] OK (avg_with_stm=10, avg_after_clear=4)
[test_ltm_persistence_cycles] Cycle 0 OK
[test_ltm_persistence_cycles] Cycle 1 OK
[test_ltm_persistence_cycles] Cycle 2 OK
[test_ltm_consolidation_basic] OK (ltm.size=3)
[test_ltm_query_by_concept] OK (score=1)
[test_ltm_query_blended_reasoning] OK (avg=8.20001)
[test_ltm_similarity_query] OK (closest=concept_A)
[test_ltm_update_concept] OK
[test_ltm_delete_concept] OK
[test_ltm_persistence_save_load] OK
[test_ltm_weighted_aggregation] OK (avg=5.63142)
Phase 2.2 tests completed.

[Peter Porter]

After I harden long-term memory, and all previously added modules, I'll add it's ethics and safety module.

[wes4dbt]

Might be a homeless person...would probably eat a squirrel, but Stuart is a cat, and COL is a TLA for Cat On Lap.

If you know what COL means, your post makes perfect sense. lol

[Shaggy Hiker]

My posts ALWAYS make perfect sense....just depends on how drunk you are.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Not me, of course. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

[dday9]

Nobody has submitted a battleship contest yet

[Shaggy Hiker]

Posting is just down everywhere. Not even an AI battleship....or CGI, like the movie?

[Shaggy Hiker]

This is the stressful time of the year for me, and that hasn't changed just because I'm retired.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Cooking, coding and errands. It has even cut into my exercise.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Though I guess running around is a form of exercise, so long as I do it literally.

[wes4dbt]

Cooking, coding and errands. It has even cut into my exercise.

You cooking Christmas gifts???

I'll take Banana Nut Bread or Brownies. Surprise me.

[Shaggy Hiker]

It's all fudge. Some is relatively healthy, some is not, but it's all fudge.

[wes4dbt]

It's all fudge. Some is relatively healthy, some is not, but it's all fudge.

Never mind. Not a fan of fudge. Been so long since I've had any that I can't remember why.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Technically, I'm not even sure if what I made counts as fudge. It depends on what defines fudge.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Wikipedia states that fudge is a type of confection that is made by mixing sugar, butter, and milk.

Those three ingredients, or some form of each, is found in every form of fudge that I make. It's everything else that creates the variety. I always thought that fudge tended to be chocolate, but that's not the case. It's certainly not the case for the fudge that I make, though some are chocolate.

[Peter Porter]

Nobody has submitted a battleship contest yet

I'll try to have mine up tomorrow. I've been programming it since I told you, but had alot of distractions.

[wes4dbt]

Been having fun the last couple of days. My granddaughter broke the fuel filler door off of my van. You wouldn't that was a big deal. But it seems the whole van is built around that door. To remove it you have to remove the back seats, remove the inside panels, then various other thing just to get to it. But the van is 28yrs old and they don't sale new ones anymore. I've found used ones but there is no way I'll ever match the paint. This van has always been kept in a garage and the paint is like new (only has 37k miles).

So I thought first I'd try epoxy. My son and I rigged it up and applied epoxy. But I learned later epoxy doesn't cure well in cold weather, so I went back and setup a space heater to blow hot air on for a few hours. Checked this morning and it was a little better. Don't think it's going to last but for now I have a fuel door on the van.

[dday9]

That's better than the fuel filler doors in some of the newer vehicles. They don't have "caps" like they used to, instead the door itself acts like a vacuum to seal the gas line.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I have a cap.

[Shaggy Hiker]

You might try JB Weld. It probably has the same curing issue in cold weather as any other epoxy, but at least you can make it look bad, too.