Daily "Check In" Thread For Us

[yankees60]

You’re cracking me up.
I suppose there’s no chance of me finishing the book before you do. It’s short, anyway.
I got a copy of Slow Horses book 5 in the mail today and switched to that. I’ll use my new-found techniques on it.

Your response served as a reminder to open that book NOW! I've done ENOUGH of my other things so it will be my reward for staying disciplined!

[yankees60]

You’re cracking me up.
I suppose there’s no chance of me finishing the book before you do. It’s short, anyway.
I got a copy of Slow Horses book 5 in the mail today and switched to that. I’ll use my new-found techniques on it.

Finished the book. Give it a B+.

Different than the two books I used in 1966 to 1968.

Much of the first section would be helpful for either students or business people who needed to learn / retain the information.

At this point for me almost all my reading is of pleasure.

I'd never preview any of my reading materials because I love the surprise factor when reading and much of that would go away via previewing.

In my particular case - which is different than most - there was a not of value to me (not saying it would not be for others) until I got to the Perpheral section.

That was something totally new for me. As, was most of the rest of the book.

Once I finished reading that section I went through the rest of the book, extremely quickly not reading every word.

That is somewhat how I will read an investing / personal finance book that I want to end up studying.

Like Bernsten's 2nd edition Four Pillars of Investing.

I flew through it in two days but did read every word. But that gave me a first familiarity with all that was on it.

Then I read it again in the next two days (had to take two days each time because I did have some softball games).

But this time it was much more slowly as I was deciding what to highlight.

Then for future study of the book I could just read all the highlighted sections.

But this was for a book I wanted to study and learn and retain.

The book I'm currently reading is Melania, which is better than I thought it was going to be.

But I'm just reading that for pleasure so I will be reading every word in the remainder of it but at maximum speed. I have about 50, 60 other library books piled up to read and each day eats up when they become due.

But getting back to this reading book.

It definitely covers all the basics though I disagree when it said you won't increase your vocabulary via simply reading. I did no vocabulary drills. Just looked up every single word I did not know. Sometimes the same ones 8 or 9 times until I finally learned them. Plus, I was already learning their meaning in context, which I would think is way more powerful than any other vocabulary drill.

So good find on your part.

I will go back to the Puerperal and from then on reading in a more slowly, studying fashion and do the drills that I believe will be helpful in increasing my reading speed.

[dualstow]

Much of the first section would be helpful for either students or business people who needed to learn / retain the information.

Yeah, I skipped the exercises in Part I, and the advice there could’ve been reduced to a couple sentences, but still helpful.

When I started reading the novel, I found I was missing things, so I went back to my my old way. I especially like to read dialogue word for word, ignoring speedreading advice to eliminate subvocalization. Especially when there’s new British slang to pick up.

But the tips I’ve learned so far were already helpful for an essay I was reading in ‘Foreign Affairs.’ I hope to get back to the speedreading book and finish it over the weekend.

[dualstow]

Frankly, I’m offended that I had to find out from bogleheads that you switched to the new computer.

Edit: someone stole our pumpkin tonight. Boooo

[Smith1776]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

[dualstow]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

It was a much quieter night on our block this year than most even though the weather was fine..
(It was Nov 1 that was rowdy, with noisy teens and the pumpkin theft from our steps).

A friend of mine in another part of the U.S. lamented that they had fewer kids around this year, too.

[Smith1776]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

It was a much quieter night on our block this year than most even though the weather was fine..
(It was Nov 1 that was rowdy, with noisy teens and the pumpkin theft from our steps).

A friend of mine in another part of the U.S. lamented that they had fewer kids around this year, too.

Yeah, kind of crazy that it seems like a universal thing this year.

One sign that I've become more of a "boring" adult:

This year I thought about the amount of candy kids got per hour during trick-or-treating and tried to calculate roughly what wage they would be earning based on the value of the candy. Then figured it was way more efficient to just buy a box of candy from Walmart.

And I thought... nah, don't go there. Hahahaha.

[dualstow]

You didn’t give out plastic bitcoin “coins”?

[Smith1776]

One satoshi per child!

[yankees60]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

I'm in a rural area. My property is 0.39 acres. I bought my house April 30, 1982. In all that time the only activity I ever had was the kid next door coming by on October 31, 1984.

In this area they tend to have things at night at downtown businesses.

[yankees60]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

It was a much quieter night on our block this year than most even though the weather was fine..
(It was Nov 1 that was rowdy, with noisy teens and the pumpkin theft from our steps).

A friend of mine in another part of the U.S. lamented that they had fewer kids around this year, too.

Yeah, kind of crazy that it seems like a universal thing this year.

One sign that I've become more of a "boring" adult:

This year I thought about the amount of candy kids got per hour during trick-or-treating and tried to calculate roughly what wage they would be earning based on the value of the candy. Then figured it was way more efficient to just buy a box of candy from Walmart.

And I thought... nah, don't go there. Hahahaha.

One nice thing I remember about Halloween - and I grew up in an area of Rhode Island completely different from where live now, intense suburbia with tons of houses in walking distance - was that I got a ton of candy and my parents always remained uninvolved, letting me consume as much as I wanted whenever I wanted to.

[dualstow]

Did anyone else get a complete dearth of trick-or-treaters this year??

Almost no kids this year...

I'm in a rural area. My property is 0.39 acres. I bought my house April 30, 1982. In all that time the only activity I ever had was the kid next door coming by on October 31, 1984.

In this area they tend to have things at night at downtown businesses.

Studies show that .99738 of Vinny’s posts have very specific dates and statistics in them.
I can’t figure out Smith’s post. “Almost no kids?” Smith, did you mean 0.013 x last year’s?

[Xan]

Studies show that .99738 of Vinny’s posts have very specific dates and statistics in them.

But... the extra game in 1978 was on October 2, not October 1.

[yankees60]

Studies show that .99738 of Vinny’s posts have very specific dates and statistics in them.

But... the extra game in 1978 was on October 2, not October 1.

It was a "very specific date", albeit off by one day, going by memory...

[Xan]

Studies show that .99738 of Vinny’s posts have very specific dates and statistics in them.

But... the extra game in 1978 was on October 2, not October 1.

It was a "very specific date", albeit off by one day, going by memory...

I'm just giving you a hard time, Vinny, it's very impressive.

[dualstow]

It’s impossible to create a playlist in VLC on an ipad. Impossible.
That’s it. that’s the tweet post.

[Smith1776]

As much as I am grateful for VLC it definitely has some quirks and frustrating things about it.

The 200% volume thing in particular is weird.

[dualstow]

As much as I am grateful for VLC it definitely has some quirks and frustrating things about it.

The 200% volume thing in particular is weird.

What do you use it on? Macbook?

[Smith1776]

As much as I am grateful for VLC it definitely has some quirks and frustrating things about it.

The 200% volume thing in particular is weird.

What do you use it on? Macbook?

Both Windows and Mac.

[yankees60]

Here is your Halloween story that I just read in my newspaper today.

https://recorder.com/2025/10/30/hallowe ... ers-falls/

The male grew up in the house next to me.

A few days after I bought my house in April 30, 1982 I drove into my garage and this 10 year old kid who I'd never seen before was it. It was him.

At some point he left the house next to me. Then he came back with his wife and started a family. Some years later they moved to this property described in the article.

I've never seen it and did not know about it until I read about today.

Says they got 100 people showing up for Halloween.

It was him who was the who showed up at my house on October 31, 1984, the only time anyone has come to my house for Halloween.

[dualstow]

Wow, they didn’t even give you credit for inspiring them

[Jack Jones]

It was him who was the who showed up at my house on October 31, 1984, the only time anyone has come to my house for Halloween.

You made that big of an impression? What kind of candy did you give him?

[yankees60]

It was him who was the who showed up at my house on October 31, 1984, the only time anyone has come to my house for Halloween.

You made that big of an impression? What kind of candy did you give him?

NO memory of that!

[dualstow]

Don’t be shy, Vinny.
Vinny privately told me that he gave the kid 2 candy corns, a tootsie roll, and one of those mini kitkat bars, which constitutes 0.083% of the candy he’d prepared for the neighborhood. Had he known that this was going to be the sole bell-ringer, Vinny would have upped that to ten candy corns, five tootsie rolls, and 2 kitkat bars.

He purchased the items on October 25, 1:31pm after picking up 27 lbs of cat food and whatever mice eat.

[yankees60]

Don’t be shy, Vinny.
Vinny privately told me that he gave the kid 2 candy corns, a tootsie roll, and one of those mini kitkat bars, which constitutes 0.083% of the candy he’d prepared for the neighborhood. Had he known that this was going to be the sole bell-ringer, Vinny would have upped that to ten candy corns, five tootsie rolls, and 2 kitkat bars.

He purchased the items on October 25, 1:31pm after picking up 27 lbs of cat food and whatever mice eat.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!