Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Yeah. Finally.

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Years ago, ZH was my hero. Their voice – – and it was a loud one – – said the kinds of things I wanted to say. They used to think crypto was idiotic, that stocks were overvalued, that Goldman Sachs was the anti-Christ (more specifically, a vampire squid), and they did it all without politics.

These days, every single thing is reversed. They WORSHIP Goldman Sachs. They are permabulls to the Nth degree. They think crypto is going to save the world. And, as for politics, their comments section is like a national Klan convention.

A tidbit of this was experienced earlier today, when they were cheering on Bitcoin’s ascent, while they mocked any skepticism about its imminent lifetime highs.

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The Vision Thing

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When I first saw the introduction of the Apple Vision Pro, I was truly amazed. It was such a beautifully-crafted reveal. The most serious flaw, of course, was its price – – $3500 — which is about seven times what a brand new Meta Quest goggle setup from Mark Zuckerberg will run you. It looks like the world of developers has also decided that, yeah, the product is a total BOMB and they won’t bother making software for it.

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Off the Tracks

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Half a decade ago, I wrote a post declaring that, thank goodness, the ill-conceived High Speed Rail project in California had finally been cancelled, having been approved by voters way, way, way back in 2008. Well, I’m not sure what happened, but the cancellation got cancelled, and they’ve continued throwing billions into this money pit.

As an update, here’s how much is ready to use, 16 years after its approval. The open tracks are in green. If you’re having trouble seeing any green, don’t worry, your vision is fine.