Sybil_Fleming's recent activity

  1. Comment on In Queso Fever: A movie about cheese dip in ~food

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    "A light-hearted documentary exploring the birth and popularity of cheese dip in central Arkansas." I found this documentary via a podcast:...

    "A light-hearted documentary exploring the birth and popularity of cheese dip in central Arkansas."

    I found this documentary via a podcast: https://www.southernfoodways.org/gravy/mexican-ish-how-arkansas-came-to-love-cheese-dip-gravy-ep-32/

    There’s a dish you’ll find at every kind of restaurant in Little Rock, from the pizza places to the burger joints: cheese dip. How did it become so beloved in Arkansas? And what does cheese dip reveal about the state’s past—and present?

    1 vote

  3. Comment on At least forty-four Fort Bragg soldiers died stateside in 2020 — several of them were homicides. Families want answers. But the Army isn’t giving any in ~life

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    A podcast interview with the author of the article is available:

    A podcast interview with the author of the article is available:

    https://soundcloud.com/hellofawaytodie/unlocked-fort-bragg-murder-swamp
    This is an unlocked Patreon bonus episode -- to hear more like it, sign up at www.patreon.com/Hellofawaytodie

    Warning: this episode contains strong depictions of intimate partner violence, murder, and fatal drug use

    This week, we're speaking with Rolling Stone journalist and Army veteran Seth Harp on the topic of a string of murders and unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg, NC. Did you know a Delta operator murdered a Green Beret in front of his family and no charges were filed? Did you know an enlisted soldier in the 82nd was beheaded while camping and no investigation was conducted for almost a year? Whatever's happening there is grim, and Seth has a lot to say about it.

    7 votes

  5. Comment on Feeding an ebook addiction in ~books

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    I'm always adding books to my Pocketbook Inkpad3. Standard Ebooks - This site was posted on Tildes before and it's a great project that takes public domain books and cleans them up. Archive.org -...

    I'm always adding books to my Pocketbook Inkpad3.

    1. Standard Ebooks - This site was posted on Tildes before and it's a great project that takes public domain books and cleans them up.
    2. Archive.org - Has literally millions of books scanned and OCR'ed, in addition to whatever the community uploads. They also have a library borrowing mechanism through the Open Library for copyrighted works. Additionally, they're one of the canonical mirrors for the public domain Librivox audiobooks.
    3. Ebooks Directory - This site has tons of entries to freely available textbooks and fiction.
    4. Libreture's DRM-free bookshop list - This was also shared on Tildes before. Who wouldn't love a huge list of digital bookstores that have no DRM.
    6 votes

  6. Comment on History is marching in ~humanities.history

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    The documentary is composed of seven parts. The first introduces dialectic materialism and Marxist criticism of capitalism. The second part is a historical overview of post-WWII developments,...

    History is Marching is a feature length documentary analysing the rise in tensions between major powers across the globe over the course of 2018.

    The documentary is composed of seven parts. The first introduces dialectic materialism and Marxist criticism of capitalism. The second part is a historical overview of post-WWII developments, especially the rise of neoliberalism. The third, fourth, and fifth parts examine the geopolitics of American, European, and British imperialism in the face of crisis, especially the possibility of war. The sixth part highlights the connection between the current system and climate change. And finally, the seventh part states the case for socialism/communism.

    The full script for the documentary is available at https://medium.com/@jrbml.public/script-history-is-marching-3abe1a486f53

    2 votes

  8. Comment on Does anyone know of any good budgeting tools? in ~finance

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    For strictly budgetting purposes the envelope method can be used in meatspace. Basically, you come up with a budget for your cash flow and set aside the physical monies in labelled envelopes (i.e....

    For strictly budgetting purposes the envelope method can be used in meatspace. Basically, you come up with a budget for your cash flow and set aside the physical monies in labelled envelopes (i.e. groceries, transportation, gifts, savings, etc), thereby gaining a mini-budget for each category. The physical aspect is pretty important since humans are better at conceptualizing with concrete objects and it acts as precommitment to the previously determined spending limits.

    Otherwise here are some thoughts on software that I've tried (all targeted at Americans). For more, check out this Wikipedia list of personal finance software.

    Ease of use, total privacy loss:

    • Mint - You register an account and then they ask for your bank/investment account credentials (banks really do not like this). Thereafter, Mint scrapes all the transaction data and categorizes it for you. You get nice charts and Intuit (the owner of Mint, and one of the biggest reasons why tax filing in the U.S. is horrific) gets your data to target credit offers!
    • Yodlee - It's like Mint, but has slightly less conflict of interest because its corporate parent is trying to sell subscriptions to financial advisers.
    • Personal Capital - It's like Mint, but focused on tracking net worth and they try to upsell you with their Robo-adviser wealth management service (which is really only useful if you have potential tax gain/loss harvesting).

    Manual data entry, slightly better privacy:

    • You Need a Budget (YNAB) - It used to be a standalone desktop app but now it's a subscription software service that requires your data to be stored encrypted on their servers. It has somewhat of a learning curve since it is based on the envelope method. Since it is designed to track cash flows I don't think it really tracks net worth (if you need/want that).
    • Google Spreadsheets (argument also applies to Excel) - Eventually you will see a nice spreadsheet being shared somewhere like /r/personalfinance or /r/financialindependence and you will get the idea to copy it. This could be a drain because of the amount of upkeep required to keep things sane/up-to-date. Also, using a spreadsheet as a database is probably a bad idea.

    Manual data entry, private:

    • Gnucash - One of the more popular open source personal finance desktop apps. Features double entry accounting and custom reports.
    • skrooge - Another open source desktop app, slightly easier to use than Gnucash
    • Plain Text Accounting - Somebody shared this on Tildes but the majority of things seem to be CLI-based and require double-entry accounting. HLedger was way too complicated for me but I can see the advantages of having scriptable CLI tools and all the data in plain text.
    13 votes

  9. Comment on Good domain registrars? in ~comp

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    I use Njalla to register and manage my personal domains. It was founded by one of The Pirate Bay founders, Peter Sunde, and here's what he had to say: Of course, since it promises anonymity there...

    I use Njalla to register and manage my personal domains. It was founded by one of The Pirate Bay founders, Peter Sunde, and here's what he had to say:

    “Njalla is needed because we’re going the wrong way in society regarding people’s right to be anonymous. With social media pressuring us to be less anonymous and services being centralized, we need alternatives,”
    ...
    “All key parts of the Internet need to have options for anonymity, and the domain name area is something which was never really protected. At best you can buy a domain name using ‘privacy by proxy’ services, which are aimed more at limiting spam than actually protecting your privacy.”

    Of course, since it promises anonymity there are some questionable users and the Njalla blog is full of the same childish humor that TPB used to have. Therefore, one may want to avoid Njalla for its profile-raising nature.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Which are your top five computer programs? in ~comp

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    I could never wrap my head around configuration for beets or the other command line stuff so I use Quod Libet and manage my collection manually (tagging with MusicBrainz Picard, flac compression...

    I could never wrap my head around configuration for beets or the other command line stuff so I use Quod Libet and manage my collection manually (tagging with MusicBrainz Picard, flac compression for archival, transcoding to opus for streaming, moving files to NAS, backups, etc).

    MusicBee was my music player and library management tool back when I still used Windows.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    Katanagatari, like other NisioishiN adaptations, is very much a "talking heads" kind of show where it takes a while to build up. Don't skip the "next episode preview" at the end of episode 3 or...

    Katanagatari, like other NisioishiN adaptations, is very much a "talking heads" kind of show where it takes a while to build up. Don't skip the "next episode preview" at the end of episode 3 or you'll miss out on something a lot of other watchers miss.

    2 votes

  13. Comment on How tarot and astrology helped me cope with my depression in ~health.mental

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    I believe the convention is to use trigger as the top level tag, per the wiki page.

    I believe the convention is to use trigger as the top level tag, per the wiki page.

    2 votes

  14. Comment on The hidden dangers of the great index fund takeover in ~finance

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    The WSJ article is talking about investors' choice in ETFs (securities, not brokers) being biased in favor of the biggest index fund managers because there are low fees, high liquidity, and little...

    The WSJ article is talking about investors' choice in ETFs (securities, not brokers) being biased in favor of the biggest index fund managers because there are low fees, high liquidity, and little risk of closure (ETF closures can incur unfavorable taxes). In essence it's creating a feedback loop where the big get bigger (bigger = lower fees due to economy of scale).

    Usually the brokers (aka account custodian) don't care which ETFs the investor chooses to buy so long as they're making money (from deposit interest, trading fees, upselling active funds or management services, administrative fees, etc).

    4 votes

  15. Comment on The hidden dangers of the great index fund takeover in ~finance

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    Broad market Index funds usually own shares in hundreds if not thousands of companies across many industries (and sometimes nations). There is no way for a retail investor to vote meaningfully at...

    Broad market Index funds usually own shares in hundreds if not thousands of companies across many industries (and sometimes nations). There is no way for a retail investor to vote meaningfully at that scale, so they often appoint the fund manager as their proxy voter to represent their interest.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on The hidden dangers of the great index fund takeover in ~finance

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link Parent
    I must prefix my response with this: Despite the concerns raised in the article, broad market index funds are one of the greatest instruments for retail investors. I can think of two responses (I...

    I must prefix my response with this: Despite the concerns raised in the article, broad market index funds are one of the greatest instruments for retail investors.

    I can think of two responses (I don't work in finance and I do the boglehead strategy of buy-and-hold indexes):

    1. Purchase funds from another, smaller .financial institution. (e.g. Charles Schwab offers its own low-fee index ETFs.) This comes with the same risk of "not enough oversight" and additional illiquidity (thus higher spreads when buying/selling).
    2. Funds that use different strategies (e.g. Active funds, "ESG" funds, etc). These come with a significant risk of under-performance and closure if they don't have enough assets to become/remain profitable.
    5 votes

  18. Comment on The hidden dangers of the great index fund takeover in ~finance

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    On a somewhat related note, the Wall Street Journal took a look at how smaller ETFs are struggling to gain inflows as more and more investors flock to big ETF players like Black Rock and Vanguard...

    On a somewhat related note, the Wall Street Journal took a look at how smaller ETFs are struggling to gain inflows as more and more investors flock to big ETF players like Black Rock and Vanguard for the perceived quality of their securities.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Sybil_Fleming
    Link
    I'm rewatching Concrete Revolutio ~A Superhuman Fantasy~. It's a story about superhumans, monsters, and aliens set in alternative post-WW2 Japan and told non-linearly. Common themes include war,...

    I'm rewatching Concrete Revolutio ~A Superhuman Fantasy~.

    It's a story about superhumans, monsters, and aliens set in alternative post-WW2 Japan and told non-linearly. Common themes include war, justice, equality, prejudice (against non-humans), ethics, and unintended consequences. And it has some nice fights occasionally.

    2 votes