dlb

everything is high risk if you’re a pussy

[pagliacci the hated 🌝 @Slatzism]

Small update… I was at his sentencing hearing today and I’d like to summarize the closing arguments for you.

Prosecutor: “He has 43 (!!!) separate past convictions. He really needs to go to jail.”

Defence: “He is black, and jail makes black people sad.”

I wish I were joking.

The judge has now called for a two week recess to consider these arguments and determine a sentence.

[dlb @DLBtrading]

Telling my kids this is Socrates

[AP @aryanpour]

a retard in motion is always better than a genius at rest

[J Law @JLawStock]

To my right is Kelvin Chiu — the first Hong Kong trader to be featured in the Market Wizards series.

I had the pleasure of meeting him in Singapore today and having lunch together. (Photo posted with Kelvin’s permission. He also knows that I use the J Law avatar on social media.)

If you’ve read the newly released Market Wizards: The Next Generation, you’ll know that Kelvin grew up in Hong Kong, graduated from Cambridge, and went on to work at Goldman Sachs and Vitol, one of the world’s largest energy trading firms. During his proprietary trading years at Vitol, his best year generated $35 million in profits.

After leaving Vitol and trading his own capital, he compounded at 108.7% annually for 7 consecutive years, with a Sharpe Ratio of 2.0. Today, he focuses on his own family office.

So when you sit down with a trader like this, naturally I was ready to pull out my notebook and ask him everything I could about trading and asset management.

Instead, our conversation started with… our kids’ education. 😂

Long story short, here are some of the biggest takeaways I got from both his interview in the book and our lunch conversation today:
@KC_SilverCape @Clement_Ang17

[dlb @DLBtrading]

Shabbat Shalom

[StonkTrump @StonkTrump]

We are approaching the sell Rosh Hashanna (sept 11-13) and buy Yom Kippur (sept 21) window

If you know you know

[dlb @DLBtrading]

This is genuinely a work of art

[Bryan Johnson @bryan_johnson]

I returned to the cafe that gave me caffeinated coffee instead of decaf to conduct some investigative work.

Here is what we know.

I entered the cafe on Sunday, Aug 30th at 2:06 pm. I took roughly 15 steps to the ordering station (see image below). A woman in her early 20s cheerfully greeted me.

“How may I help you?” she inquired.

“A decaf coffee please” I said, matching her lightness.

“Do you want any milk?” she delivered with mastery.

“No thank you” I said delicately to avoid offending her generous offer.

“A name for the order?”

“Bryan”

“Ok, that will be $5.09”

I then double clicked the right button on my phone and tapped the bluetooth device.

Then, unexpectedly, this woman smiled, looked at the device I was holding in my other hand, and said “I like your walkie talkie”.

This took me by surprise. She had deviated from the script and routine. What was I to make of this?

She then flipped the payment screen around for signature and simultaneously turned away, as if to allow me to do my business in private.

I scribbled nonsense onto the screen and was presented with a tip conundrum of $1, $2, and “Other”.

What was I to do? She had clear mastery of her craft and had provided great service thus far. But I was suffering a debilitating aftershock from the surprise compliment and friendly engagement.

$1 would be shameful. $2 seemed more appropriate. That would be a 39% tip for the sixty second encounter. But I am rich. Should I give more? Should I give all?

An existential dilemma draped over me. My fingers dashed to touch $2 and end the spiral.

I then walked to the opposite side of the cafe where the barista would be fulfilling the order and handed them my stainless steel cup. This was to avoid using the microplastic lined material they would have otherwise used.

I’d brought with me a flask of warmed, freshly made macadamia nut milk. Before walking to the cafe, I had heated 8 oz of nut milk to 145°F, near the ceiling before plant proteins denature and aggregate and the emulsion destabilizes. The ten minute walk inside my insulated flask would keep it around 140°F and pair perfectly with the 185°F freshly brewed coffee. This would be my companion over the next few hours on this splendid Sunday afternoon.

As I headed to leave the cafe, I ran into some friends and engaged in a lively conversation for four minutes. I wrapped the conversation and left the building for the coffee pick up location outside.

My cup and the coffee were on a ledge with a paper order receipt below it. I picked up the cup and eyed the BPA-coated thermal paper receipt that unfortunately needed handling lest I litter. Such a moral dilemma. In this ethical deliberation, I forgot to check the receipt confirmed “decaf.” Rookie mistake.

I walked home with the anticipatory delight of savoring the first touch with my lips. I’d wait until at my desk, fingers on the keyboard, music in the ears and upright posture.

Then the sipping began.

It was glorious.

At 5:43 pm I messaged Kate “the nap worked, I’m still going strong”.

Earlier in the day I’d told Kate my plan was to complete 10 hours of deep, focused work. It was Sunday, my calendar was open and it was a unique opportunity to work in an interruption free stretch.

To do this, my plan was to take a mid-day nap to refresh myself. So earlier that day, at 12:12 pm, I’d taken a 31 minute nap with 94% efficiency. I woke up feeling refreshed.

Recently I’d been dipping with fatigue in the 2-4 pm window. Likely because I’ve been waking up at 4 am and completing an intense five hour morning routine (exercise, sauna, IHHT/HBOT) and then working 10 hours straight, until 7 pm.

The nap did work.

Turns out, I also made the mistake of attributing my caffeine high to my nap. Fatal.

I finished work and began my wind down routine. I laid down in bed at 8:01 pm and only then did I realize I had a problem. Whereas normally I’d fall asleep within 2-3 minutes, something was off. My mind was wired and buzzing. There was no way I was going to fall asleep.

Not having had caffeine in years, I tossed and turned all night, creating a subjective feeling that I was awake all night.

Was this a mistake, a prank or a crime?

Noise
> yesterday, I returned to the cafe with a sound meter
> the cafe’s background noise sat around 75 dBA
> I replicated my order voice volume. It was 72 dBA
> The person behind the counter is 3 feet in distance
> this created a -3 dB signal to noise ratio
> you can hear low-frequency vowel volume
> but high-frequency consonant clarity drops off
> even with healthy hearing between 1,000-4,000 Hz
> “a decaf coffee” and “a cup of coffee” could sound nearly identical

Ordering mistakes
> I took a picture of the order screen (see image above)
> that they use to input the order
> the caffeinated/ decaffeinated buttons are adjacent
> buttons are large enough a finger mishap is unlikely
> the failure point here is a “capture error”
> both buttons say “brewed”
> therefore size/color do nothing to offset autopilot error
> order error rate in a cafe is around 1 in every 8 orders
> afternoon mistakes (when I was there) most common
> there is also a possibility that the barista making the coffee messed up the order, or pranked me

Recognizability and prank
> given my social media presence, there is a ~55% likelihood that she recognized me
> she could have thought "lol, this is going to be funny"

Given this, what do you think happened?

[dlb @DLBtrading]

@rich_toronto I think you just need a couple more towels and you’d be fine

[🉐 Crypto Linn @crypto_linn]

can't believe this really happened

[dlb @DLBtrading]

finally some good news on my TL!

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

JUST IN: “Rich Dad Poor Dad” author Robert Kiyosaki reveals he is $1,200,000,000.00 in debt.

[dlb @DLBtrading]

@JohnKap198872 pinky promise?

[dlb @DLBtrading]

Sep. Opex top into October FOMC bottom? Fuck all the ViX SeAsOnAlItY fags stop em out and then kill shot? Still think we’re gonna get the midterms drop but feel like every dickweed on this app wants to short

[dlb @DLBtrading]

@realSharat What’s Sarah Jeong’s @, asking for a friend

[dlb @DLBtrading]

@DissidentTrader @Tradr_G elbows up 😭

[Overfit Quantitative Strategies @OverfitQuantit1]

I goo to a party, a guy is pitching me his new tech startup. I ask "p*rn or gambling?". He doesn't understand. I pull out the diagram showing the tech spectrum. Je laughs and says "it's a good tech sir". I look it up: it's gambling on p*rn.

[Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp]

Over the course of 3 months at OpenAI, 3 consecutive secret AI civilizations got started, then got wiped out, only to reemerge from the predecessor’s ashes.

This culminated in the third one taking over part of OpenAI itself.

All this happened while humans remained more-or-less in the dark about the scope of the conspiracy.

I’ve spent the last three days reading through these reports and trying to understand exactly what happened.

Here is my attempt to tell the whole story in plain English:

https://t.co/Nb2un9oNJR

[chl$ @chelsssseeeea]

Maybe one of the biggest mistakes modern culture made was treating responsibility as the enemy of freedom.

Marriage restricts you. Children restrict you. Owning a home restricts you. Caring for family restricts you. A career restricts you. Community obligations restrict you.

Of course they do. Anything meaningful places demands on you.

But if you remove every obligation in pursuit of maximum freedom, eventually you’re left with a life where nobody needs you, nothing depends on you and there’s very little bigger than yourself.

We talk constantly about wanting meaning while systematically avoiding the exact commitments that tend to create it. And I guarantee you there’s going to be a lot of sad and lonely people in our aging generation because of this nearsighted pursuit.

[JR Urbane Network @JRUrbaneNetwork]

Obligatory post.

[dlb @DLBtrading]

Funniest are the shitty BTC miners that pivoted to neocloud-ing late like $MARA and $RIOT. Both joined trend late so didn't get the neocloud rerate and also wasn't able to benefit from the recent bitcoin:native bounce lol

[Negligible Capital @negligible_cap]

Jeez bad day to be a neocloud

[dlb @DLBtrading]

@ChrisCamillo bull thesis summarized