Bogleheads.org

knightrider wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:48 pm

rob wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:44 pm Sometimes a phone is not the camera you need... I know that's not popular. There are lots of options depending what your doing but the trick attachments to phones are not a solid answer.

Here's an example of something I took with my cell phone/Nikon method:

The biggest issue with this picture is that it is one giant light leak. That’s what all the haziness is. Maybe try wrapping the whole thing up with black gaffer tape.

A super zoom camera will do what you want much better than what you’re currently using. It’s doubtful you can get one that’s fully functional, with a good battery, for $30-50, though.

Don’t have over $250k in gains in a single year.

What you’re doing is called digiscoping. A quick google turns up several digiscoping adapters for phones. I have no idea how well or badly any of them work. I suspect there are some optical limitations that you’re going to have trouble resolving without throwing some money at the problem. The people I’ve known who were into this always got results that were interesting, but not satisfactory, at least to my eye.

Sounds like they used a targeted phishing attack to steal session credentials, an attack type that’s at least a decade old. If you’re logged into an account and click on the link, game over. The main defense is to not click on links. It's well-known not to click on email links if you're not sure of the sender. I was wondering about other situations. Suppose for instance you are searching for a product and arrive at a website you're not familiar with. Is it potentially unsafe to click there on the link to the product or is that different from an email link? Basically any untrusted website is a potential malware vector. And even on trusted websites, there’s a long history of the ads being malicious. That said, modern browsers sandbox each br...

I think the key phrase for the OP is "I don't have to worry". Other people can worry about what-if financial disasters, but I find threads like this refreshing. At some point the bigger worry should be running out of time. Failure mode here is going to work at McDonalds for 10 years at 56. I will let you decide how unpleasant that is. I highly doubt the McDonalds part. I've never met a former millionaire who's investments went to near nothing and is forced to work at near minimum wage for 10 years. I read a blog post once about someone FIRE'ing and had to go back to work, but if I recall correctly got a software engineering job -- not a job at McDonalds. How many people who are 55+, who haven't worked in a decade, have you ever h...

The other outdoor chores can be hired out, but if I wasn’t capable of getting the mail, I think I would also be considering moving to someplace more amenable to aging in place.

dknightd wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 11:33 am

Wannaretireearly wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:56 am
Sounds fantastic! In tech (in the US) we do not have that option at all to my knowledge.

You might be underestimating your options.

I knew plenty of people who worked part time when I was in tech in the US. It can be done if that’s something someone wants to do. It’s not the norm, but it also isn’t that hard to accomplish.

Harry Livermore wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 9:47 am Being active an fit is not a guarantee for a long life, but it sure seems to stack the deck... so regardless, if you keep hiking and climbing you have an excellent chance at being a healthy old person!
Best of luck!
Cheers

I play in a 50+ basketball league. The current oldest active player is 97. There are plenty in their 70’s and 80’s who are traveling the world, hiking, biking, and living high quality lives. My 82 year old teammate just got back from a medical mission in Ghana. The commonality is that they’re physically active, and most of them have been physically active throughout their lives. It isn’t like someone active turns 70 and all of a sudden they’re doomed to spend the rest of their lives on a Rascal scooter.

gavinsiu wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 6:37 am The following is the best explanation of what happened.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ASfMqrE0ISg

1. Use phishing to deliver malware script.
2. Malware script runs as user so can decrypt cookie db that stores session token.
3. Decrypted session token is copied.
4. Using vpn. Attacker logged in from Canada to bypass geolocation check.

2fa won’t help because the site thinks you are already logged in.

I wonder one way to mitigate this would be to log out of the site. Doing so should invalidate the session token.

Not being logged into the site when he clicked the link would be a mitigation, yes. Not clicking the link to open an unexpected pdf would be even better.

A golf cart for an 80x80 yard plot of land?

Wannaretireearly wrote: ↑Sun Mar 26, 2023 3:57 am 45 months. That scares me. Enough to keep me on a path to start utilizing those months the way I want (I cannot now).

Bottom line: The window is very short where you control your own time 100% AND you are in 100% good health. Doesn’t this scare others? Losing my dad before 60 made this very real for me….

I think if this were what was keeping me awake at night, I would be making changes *now* to make my life closer to what I want it to be. The idea that the ability to live life the way I want is some sort of on/off switch predicated solely by whether or not I have a job seems kinda sad.

I think the key phrase for the OP is "I don't have to worry". Other people can worry about what-if financial disasters, but I find threads like this refreshing. At some point the bigger worry should be running out of time. This relies on a lot of assumptions I wouldn't be comfortable making for such a significant decision because the failure mode of this decision is really unpleasant. Failure mode here is going to work at McDonalds for 10 years at 56. I will let you decide how unpleasant that is. I highly doubt the McDonalds part. I've never met a former millionaire who's investments went to near nothing and is forced to work at near minimum wage for 10 years. I read a blog post once about someone FIRE'ing and had to go back to w...

KlangFool wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 7:02 pm Folks,

I am not interested in starting a debate on whether there is a future for CS. My question to OP and to an extension, OP's son is this.

Are you limiting yourself and your future by going to an undergraduate degree in CS?

Would an engineering degree open more doors for you? Robotic, drone, biomedical, and so on.

Over the next 20 to 30 years, would you know what you will be working on? What foundational undergraduate degree will help you to go further?

KlangFool

I’ll ask it from another direction. Why would he limit his future career by choosing EE?Everything is done in software now.

Printer ink is one of the most expensive substances on earth.

What is probably happening is since you don’t use it often, the ink dries, and your printer has to go through a self cleaning cycle pretty much every time you print. What self cleaning means is that it squirts a huge amount of ink through the print heads to clean them out. Since HP makes its money on the ink, not on the printer, there’s no attempt to be economical with your ink.

I solved the problem years ago by going to the FedEx store and paying by the page the rare times I needed anything in color.

We have had a family with two toddlers camp next to us who left before bedtime. Terminal child unhappiness was the diagnosis. We were very glad they left. The crying was getting on our nerves.

A kid like that will be successful wherever he goes. Fingers crossed for CMU.

Sounds like they used a targeted phishing attack to steal session credentials, an attack type that’s at least a decade old. If you’re logged into an account and click on the link, game over. The main defense is to not click on links.

Just to chime in on the future of computer science bit, with chatGPT being the elephant in the room. Computer science has a bright future. It’s software engineering that doesn’t. They have been predicting the end of need for software devs for decades. Bold prediction, it will NEVER EVER happen. Let's revive this discussion in a 100 years. This. Spoiler alert for all the doomsayers: software engineering is much more than simply writing functions. The code is often the easy part. People have been predicting the demise of software engineering in favor of some automated thing or another at least since I was in college in the 80’s. Making software faster and easier to write has caused the opposite to happen. There’s more software and more softw...

carne_asada wrote: ↑Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:42 am As someone who hires lots of CS majors for a well known megacorp. Both Purdue and Pitt would be considered equivalent from a candidate quality perspective and frankly we stopped caring where candidates went to school years ago. Nearly everyone gets an interview and has an equal shot.

Everyone gets an equal shot, but grads from some schools do better than grads from others, both on the interviews and once they get hired.

Also, not everyone ends up working for a megatech. I suspect Purdue has a better CS recruiting pipeline among the companies that aren’t just trying to scoop up every warm body who can pass a coding interview.

ram wrote: ↑Fri Mar 24, 2023 6:48 pm For an EV what is the equivalent of AAA bringing a gallon of gas to you because you ran out of gas.

How often do you actually run out of gas?

For me, it was when I was in college in the 80’s, driving an ancient VE Rabbit with a broken gas gauge.

You can get anything you want, they still do sell regular ICE cars. But my ten year old hybrid Ford C-Max gets 43 MPG and accelerates faster than my old 28 MPG Mazda3 (which was no slouch either).

In 250k miles, you *might* need to change the battery once, or you might not, but over the course of 250k miles, you’ll save at least $10k on gas.

Some of the NY state parks are really interesting and have have excellent camping. I think my favorite was Watkins Glen, but Glimmerglass was nice too. Especially if you like baseball.

The problem with cutting it too close is by the time you find out you don’t have enough, you’re often not in a position to do anything about it. A lot of people *can’t* get a job as a Walmart greeter to make ends meet at age 70, because the illness that has caused their medical expenses to balloon out of control has also made them too disabled to work.

It’s hard to imagine that happening when we’re in your 40’s, but increasingly likely to happen as we mature.

I think you’re okay, barely. I would be more comfortable if you were doing this on a higher spending amount, because there would be more fat to cut if either the market doesn’t cooperate, inflation is more than expected, or (most likely) medical expenses are more than expected. I’d like to point out that at age 59, I’m suddenly spending about $14k/year on healthcare, after years of perfect health, and I expect that to continue for the rest of my life. Getting cancer does that.

One thing I would point out, though, is that if you’re planning on spending the equity in your house, you’re not actually at 23x. You’re at more like 27x.

I went through much the same throughout my 30 year tech career. I bounced from being an IC software developer to first level management, to first level management of a team in a different technical area, back to being an IC for a different type of company, to being an IC in a new area (cyber). The first part of my career, the changes were all about career building. The last few years, the changes were about seeking out things that were interesting and fun, without any thought about my career. Of course, when I did that was when my career actually took off in a meaningful way, but I digress… I really enjoyed doing the cyber work. It was what got me out of bed in the morning. In about the last five minutes of my working life, AI/ML became the...

AnnetteLouisan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 6:21 pm I think they are stylish and cute.

Safety in the land of SUVs? Questionable.

Not a lot of big SUV’s in Seattle. Too hard to park there.

retire2022 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:11 pm With the time, effort, and cost of materials cream and fresh ingredients, it is cheaper to buy high end ice cream than to make them.

The deal with gelato though, is that it’s best served freshly made. You can’t do that with something you get at the store and bring home.

Also, there’s the experience of making it yourself, using ingredients for your own garden.

Someone asked me the other day what my favorite brand of ice cream is, and my honest answer is my own. It’s just better.

I make a *lot* of ice cream, frozen yogurt, etc. I have a Cuisinart ICE-21. It’s pretty much the standard for home ice cream makers. Consumer ice cream machines churn slower than commercial machines, so homemade ice cream is usually pretty dense. I suspect you would have a hard time telling the difference between gelato made in a “gelato” machine, and the ICE-21. The ICE-21, since it has a freezer bowl instead of a compressor, is a *lot* cheaper. It’s also quicker to churn than most compressor machines, smaller and easier to store, and if you keep the freezer bowl in the freezer, you can use it whenever you want. It doesn’t require several hours to cool down before use like a compressor machine will. If I were just getting into gelato makin...

The mega tech companies all recruit at Purdue. I wouldn’t worry about its midwestern location from that perspective.

Again, I know nothing about Pitt, other than its location, which seems like a more interesting place to live than rural Indiana. I’ve never been there for recruiting, and never knowingly worked with a Pitt grad.

You can ask each university what companies recruit CS grads from the school. It might give you some insight you don’t have now.

Unless you have a pension or planning for your retirement spending to be significantly less than your current spending, you’re a bit behind on retirement savings. With one kid out of the house in 3 years, I would just stay the course and get some money saved.

I would also start diversifying out of the vested company stock, but that’s a separate issue.

If a better alternative appeared, I would invest in that. Right now, something better coming would be a black swan.

Otherwise, I just invest in a three fund portfolio according to my asset allocation.

It probably helps that I waited to retire until I had enough money to deal with contingencies. Having money in the bank makes it easier to deal with her market noise.

Wait. It says they’re working on it. It’s been taking what, 3 months for non-expedited passports to come? You still have at least a month and a half.

The software people I worked with who came from Purdue were solid engineers. Two thumbs up, would hire again.

I don’t know anything about Pitt, sorry.

UpperNwGuy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 10:11 am What is CS?

Computer Science.

Balance bikes weren’t really a thing when ours were that age, but that’s what I would do now.

We just waited until the kids were older, gave them scooters to learn balance on, and got them regular bikes once they mastered the scooters, at maybe 8 or 9.

As a gross generalization, people who live in areas with good MA plans can save a lot of money by using a MA plan. People who don’t, do better with a Medigap plan. I don’t know what plans look like where you are, but wife’s MA plan (Southern CA) is $0 premium, $0 deductible, most copays are $0, and she has a $2300 OOP max. The only way she could really hit her OOP max is with multiple week long hospital stays in the same year. It’s the same HMO she had when she was employed, and she’s always been happy with the providers and care. If she had Medigap, the premium would be more than her OOP max is now. Also anecdotal, but I was a super healthy athlete, until I got cancer one day at age 59. Now I don’t meet anybody’s underwriting standards. Th...

OP, I don’t see that this has been asked. What does your wife think of the idea?

If I were raising two young kids, and hubby came home proposing that he quit work and we could live for the rest of our lives on 30% less than the small amount we live on now…I would not be happy.

greg24 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:34 pm

investor_power wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:23 pmLol you want to quit work because your employer is asking you to come back to work? Employees these days....

It is truly amazing how many posters willfully ignore the fact that 83% of the department was laid off, and focus their anger on WFH.

The anger should be directed at the company.

OP’s anger does seem to be most focused on the fact that some others at the company are still able to work from home, and he isn’t.

Anyway, yeah, it’s probably time to leave this company. But there’s a wide range of possibilities that exist in between staying at a terrible job and quitting forever, undercapitalized, in your 30’s with young kids at home.

David Jay wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:06 am One rainy day in that space with small children will change your mind about any of the tiny solutions.

We had a trip in 2018 where we had significant rain 66 of the 91 days we were on the road, including the tail ends of three different hurricanes. We were very glad to have a place that was comfortable to stay inside all day.

And yeah, not having to use campground bathrooms and showers…ewww.

Hacksawdave wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:26 am

kchico wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:10 pm
Our portfolio is essentially my 401K and everything else on a single stock.

So, you have $284K in the 401k and all the other accounts are in a single stock. Does this single stock also happen to be your employer that is at the center of discussion? This one holding represents 84% of your portfolio.

Even worse than that. TSLA.

UpperNwGuy wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:55 pm I was in a similar situation in my mid 30s. My solution was to find another job and work another 25 years. I recommend that solution to you.

I found myself in almost the same solution in my late 40s. My solution was to find another job and work until 61.

I had eight jobs in a 30 year career. The longest I was at any one place was 7 1/2 years. There’s always another job out there. The idea that “welp, this job didn’t work out after ten years, so I’m never gonna work again” is baffling.

retiredjg wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 5:49 pm I think people who are "driven" to the RV life don't really need the rental "try-out". These people know who they are.

For people who have never considered it before, like our original poster, I'm not sure that jumping in feet first with a large outlay of money is a good choice. Now, if original poster said "I've been mulling this over for months and just can't get it out of my mind", I'd say "go buy something and give it a whirl".

Renting was useful for us to figure out what type of RV we wanted. If we had just gone out and bought something, we would have spent a lot of money buying and selling the wrong thing repeatedly.

If this was so easy and risk free, why wouldn’t they just keep the property in their portfolio and pocket the money themselves?

kchico wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:27 pm

rob wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 7:16 pm I don't see any way this works to be honest....

So Bogleheads don't use the 4% SWR?

Not at age 38, with young kids at home. 4% is a SWR for a 30 year retirement.

Retiring at 38 because you have a bad job is a pretty extreme move. Most people just go out and find a new job.

Some returns can’t be e-filed. Yours is one. Just print it and buy a stamp.

rockstar wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 11:50 am I’d get one with a shower. That’s really the step up from tent camping.

Being fully self contained and not having to depend on campground bathrooms (or nature) is a very big deal.

You may not need all the features, but they tend to come with all the features, whether you want them or not. That all has a cost, and is why stuff is so expensive. I mean if you want no bathroom, no water, and a minimalist kitchen, that sounds a lot like a tent to me. Well, what does one want? The problem with cars, houses and RVs is that it is so tempting to buy more than what you need. Is a fiberglass egg basically a hard sided tent? Sure. Ours doesn't even have a AC, but it does have a heater. The point of RVing in our case is to spend time outside, not inside. For my wife it is important to have a reliable good and dry bed. So the add ons are not that important. Since Scamps are so simple they tend to hold their value pretty well. We ...

If you’re just looking to get up off the ground, a pop up trailer is probably going to give you the best bang for buck. Friends we travel with have one. They’ve been everywhere in it. It’s not luxurious, but plenty of space for a family and they can tow it with their midsize SUV. The problem with anything in the “small RV” space is that they all have to have the same stuff in them as larger RV’s, except in miniature, to fit it in the small space. Which makes it expensive. Often, the small ones are more expensive than larger ones for that reason. The problem with a pop-up is durability, which is sub-par. The roofs are known to leak after a few years. I will modestly disagree with the small RV point. Do you need all of the features of a larg...

As far as snorkeling review websites or some such, no, I haven’t found anything all that useful. It seems like a miss and there would be a market for a site like that. Part of the problem is that a lot of the best snorkeling sites *are* only really available by boat. And also, it’s the tour operators that buy ads on websites. So there’s that.

For others in a business/professional environment where you have to wear nice shirts each day, Wear a cotton undershirt that feels good on your skin and then a non-iron dress shirt over that. In those sorts of environments where I'm not sweating, I will wear the shirt two or three times before having it laundered. When I remove it, I hang it back up at the end of the line so I'm not wearing it back to back. Wear and wash the undershirt as normal. This. In an office environment, at least in cooler weather, if you’re wearing a cotton t-shirt, you should be able to wear the dress shirt for a couple of days before laundering. Just don’t spill anything on it. Personally, I just left the ironing board set up all the time, and ironed the shirt I ...