2020, the year I found sobriety.

Just before midnight on December 31, 2019, alone on my couch with a free pour of Jameson in hand, I made a decision to quit drinking. Just until our second baby was born, she was due in February.

What if I had to, you know, drive my partner to the hospital in the middle of the night and couldn’t because I was a little drunk? I was at least a little drunk every single day.

There were logistics to figure out this time, I would have to get our then 3 year old to a friend’s house. Someone to look after the dog. Go over the checklist. Make sure everything was in the hospital bags. Don’t forget the infant car seat.

I couldn’t just stop by saying so, I’d tried that before and couldn’t make it stick. I needed a plan, a script to follow.

I replaced my nightly ritual of drinking with learning fiddle tunes on the mandolin. Watching Netflix and scrolling through my phone were things to accompany my drinking. In about a week I was able to do things on the mandolin that I’d wished I could do for years. That felt good.

My husband’s family history is complicated (on both side), to say the least.

Recently, he grew curious and wanted to learn more about his maternal grandfather—which was quite a force of nature.

Here’s a pretty long thread ⬇️

His maternal great grandfather was from a samurai family, so wealthy enough at the time to study at Todai and to become a judge. He got married, had 2 sons and then found nothing better to do than abandoned wife & kids to ran with a mistress and go do business in Manchuria.

Suffering from financial hardship, his ex-wife (from a merchant family) had to sell one of her son to another family.

She kept my husband’s grandfather with her, and remarried.

His grandfather received some good education, luckily, and studied at Meiji university.

The grandfather dreamt of becoming a prosecutor. But when he graduated, all the exams got cancelled—Japan was at war and the administration had no time to overview tests. He missed his one chance, and had to settle with becoming a public servant.

He married another descendant of a samurai family—my husband’s grandmother, an admirable lady and a nurse who had come from Gifu to Tokyo at 18.

They both were hardworking folks, who came from wealthy families who lost all their wealth in a fast changing world.

The IPP deal is in final stages.
last week two separate meetings took place by energy and finance teams - one with the PM (on overall reforms of energy sector). The other was with the COAS - specifically on IPPs deal and CD. 1/9

Based on these meetings and IMF's nod, yesterday a proposal is shared with 50 IPPs - pre-94, 94, 2002 and 2006 policy to pay the accumulated CD to materialize IPPs MOUs into agreements. IPPs wanted (out of Rs400-450 bn dues) 1/3rd in cash and 2/3rd in PIBs in a go 2/9

Govt proposed the same in three instalments - 1/3rd in Jan,1/3rd in Jun &1/3rd in Dec. Here IPPs have to sign the agreement based on 1/3rd immediate settlement (within it 1/3rd cash and 2/3rd PIBs) and rest on promises.
But the govt promises are not honored- that is why CD is 3/9

IPPs are mainly on board. Hubco thinks that settlement will take place with some give and take. @MManshaOfficial is saying that we are on board for larger country's interest - and we can use this money for fresh investment. One can safely say that the deal is done. 4/9

Its clearing the existing stock of debt on old IPPs - last time it was done in 2013 - now the whole energy chain may pay dividends- energy stocks at #PSX are rallying today. The elephant in room is 2015 onward projects. Nothing on it yet. 5/9

My 21 stocks for 2021:

Smallest to largest...
$IRBT
$UPWK
$FVRR
$RDFN
$BYND
$ETSY
$TDOC
$ZG / $Z
$PINS
$ROKU
$MO
$MELI
$ISRG
$SQ
$SE
$PM
$CRM
$DIS
$BRK.B
#Bitcoin
$AMZN

Bonus baskets:
$ARKG
A basket of the @chamath alphabet SPACS ( $SPCE, $OPEN, $IPOC, $IPOD, $IPOE, $IPOF)

iRobot ($IRBT) – Ceiling: So much optionality in home robotics + AI to boost growth. Floor: Premium brand, profitable, good balance sheet.

Upwork ($UPWK) and Fiverr ($FVRR) – Marketplaces that win as freelancing and the gig economy take off. Upwork has more sales now, but Fiverr has more recent growth.

Redfin ($RDFN) and Zillow ($ZG/$Z) – Disrupting traditional real estate agents with optionality to extract value in all aspects of the home buying/selling process.

Beyond Meat ($BYND) – Aggressively building distribution and brand for its plant-based meat (similarly impressed by Impossible Foods, but it’s private). The traditional meat industry is a trillion-dollar space.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗢𝗣𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 𝗧𝗛𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗗-𝟮
So we had discussed a few pointers in the previous thread about options,its time now we discuss further implications and applicability in this thread which will help you in NEW YEAR.
Let’s go and dive into the world of options trading.

-The amount of decay can be measured by theta. This is why you can be right on stock price direction and still lose money. The time decay portion of the option price overpowers the directional move in the underlying stock price.

-During result days due to the heightened uncertainty, there is opportunity for options sellers because of the expensive premium. When entering into an earnings trade, it is optimal to initiate the trade as close in time to the event as possible.

-Keep some cash on sidelines. This would help in adjustments,margin expansion,face losses and also during new opportunities which suddenly arise. A lot of people do the mistake of going all in and regretting later.

-Everything in trading has a trade off.

Unlimited profit comes at the expense of low probability of profit. Give up some profit potential, and you gain a higher probability of profit.
-By using portfolio beta weighted delta, you can accurately gauge your overall portfolio risk. If your portfolio is leaning too far in..

Tunde Thomas (alias Tunde Gentle), 45, died about two weeks ago from heartbreak. The two kids from his marriage were indeed fathered by a man without scruples or conscience, the current MD of FCMB, Adam Nuru who was his wife’s boss (MD) in FCMB. Tunde’s wife, Moyo Thomas
#thread

(Nee Ojo), a useless an unconscionable adulterer was engaged in an office romance with her MD, a relationship that was well known throughout the organization as the lack of shame and decorum in both lovebirds made them to get carried away and to throw caution to the wind.

FCMB, an organization without proper rules or governance looked the other way while the open and unprofessional romance was going on between the MD and a subordinate staff of the same organization, a married woman.

The MD, Adam Nuru, who was supposed to be the chief

Governance Officer and Chief Image Maker of FCMB spared no thought for the husband of this lady who was bringing up his (Nuru’s) two children while thinking they were his. He also did not think of the organization he was leading while engaging in this foul conduct, the

scandal with which no ethical organization would want to be associated.
Tunde was so in love with & attached to his wife & children that he spent most of his resources on them. He took them to London & Dubai on holidays. He also spared no penny in putting them in the best schools

IS HISTORY ALL TRUE SERIES: when even the #Calendar isn’t❓

THE REAL ACTUAL SOLAR CALENDAR:
*Based on the noble science of #Astronomy; the sister science to #Geometry, #Mathematics and the “almost” lost numerical science mysteries. Which was mastered in

“ancient” times, but is close to forgotten, in these “modern” days. Go figure❗️😄☦️

Navigation of the oceans was man’s first real great step of personal evolution, here on earth. The earliest of discovered sciences; #astronomy; allowed men to navigate through

routes to known territories; or to discover new ones, by the endlessly reliable positions of the stars and constellations, in the night sky. Hence; much diligent study, over who knows how many epochs, and great civilizations; was an esteemed scholarly pursuit. And led to a vast

understanding of the mechanics of our solar system, as well as the natural cycles of our planet, that even we; in this so-called Information Age “high civilization, don’t often know even exists any longer. A decay of common knowledge, in our “modern” educations, actually.

#Calendars have come and gone In the last few thousand years; motivated apparently by the politics of the day, or personal whim even, by the rulers of the moment; which somehow stuck, from there, and has hardly ever been questioned again.

I am in the market for positive, optimistic articles about Brexit - it may not be how I’m feeling but I’m sure I’ve missed things + want to avoid confirmation bias so I’m opening my mind, + this seemed like a good place to

Elliott argues that ‘the UK has deep, structural economic problems’ - true, but correlation is not causation: we look in vain for an argument that these problems are caused by EU membership and/or that membership is preventing them being tackled

The argument would be stronger if Elliott could show that other countries in the EU faced similar structural problems, but he doesn’t + I don’t think he could - the EU manages to incorporate a wide range of economic models, + regional inequalities vary hugely between EU countries

He does not attempt to acknowledge + explain the boom in inward investment in UK manufacturing in the last few decades, one of the few economic positives for ‘left behind areas’, though that may have been hard without referring to single market membership + European supply chains

‘Brexit means that those farmers who want their fruit harvested will now have to...pay higher wages or invest in new machinery.’ Maybe they will (but I’m not convinced) but this would have unintended consequences eg higher prices for healthy food

🇬🇧 Happy Independence Day patriots 🇬🇧

Its Day 1 outside the #EU so we wanted to remind you of all the things Remainers told you would happen on #Brexit day.

Never in the history of political movements has one side fibbed so spectacularly and (at times) hilariously.

[THREAD]

[1] How are you all feeling today...down there?🍆

Well please be careful because now we've left the EU we are all due waves of super gonorrehoea.

Wrapping yourself in the #EU flag and putting #FBPE in your bio is the only known

[2] Are you hungry? Well get used to it.

We were fed (excuse the pun) stories as late as November 2020 that #Brexit would lead to 60% reduction in haulage meaning 'months' of food shortages.

[3] Forget those foreign holidays unless you fancy swimming the Channel.

As late as October 2020 we were told that all flights would be grounded.

Both sides quietly agreed to contingencies in December. Quelle

[4] In March 2020 as COVID hit Europe, we were told the only way to obtain ventilators was by joining the #EU scheme. We refused and Remainers screeched that the Government was putting Brexit over breathing.

The EU scheme obtained...zero...ventilators.

Ok. I began this journey because of Pizz'gat3, deehate cabal, Trump etc. Now it has led to RH- bloodtypes, (of which I am one). This is another rabbit hole, and suddenly close to home. Joining the dots of info I have read so far, other RH- stories and my own history (pt1)

-putting aside all of the theories of Nephilim, reptilians, aliens, etc. I think I was an experiment as a child. I was adopted by a military person and had an extremely traumatic and abusive upbringing. Watching trans videos has made me remember how I was forced to dress (pt2)

in boy clothes as a child. My hair was always cut off short. My sister wore all of the pink clothes, long hair & ribbons. I had the blue, the dungarees, the shit hacked off hair cut, and was given marbles, train sets, and racing cars to play with. I was effectively a tomboy (pt3)

This remained with me through to this day. I am still largely interested in male activities. But I did get ridiculously into pink and all girly things, to the point of now being awake and realising it is childish and mkultra programming. I was sexually and physically abused (pt4)

I also wonder, as I have medical issues and was given meds my whole life and only ever visited military hospitals & medical healthcare in my childhood, what meds was I given? I do have an extremely strong physique for a female. It is often commented on how unnatural it is (pt 5)

Hello, friend. It is the last day of the year & I have a few words for you. You had a good year & I am proud of you. You adjusted your entire life to get through a plague & pandemic & you did so w/little to no help from our Government. You switched gears, started new jobs, began

new projects & new home businesses. Some of you became homeschool teachers, & others became primary caregivers. You learned to bake, cook, clean, shop online, & manage your way through Zoom. You did so much & because we were all "In it", no one really was available to shout your

praises. Well, I am. You are awesome. You stayed being a good friend, even when you told your friends you would not gather. You constantly told friends & relatives to wear a mask, social distance, wash hands, don't gather - even when they no longer wanted to hear that message.

And you know what? You worked part-time to help elect your primary candidate & then most of us had to switch to supporting a different person but you rallied for the good of.. all of us, & you phone banked, texted, attended zooms, & gave money to get Biden/Harris elected. I know

you also struggled w/loneliness, grieved deaths, broke up, argued, became depressed, missed sleep, stopped exercising, & retreated from.. life. That is okay. You are okay. As my Teenlet said in all your youthful wisdom: Daddy, these are the days we will be talking about forever

A short thread on what I think is particularly useful intuition for the application of computational statistics.

Deterministic methods, like variational Bayes, utilize _rigid_ approximations. Ultimately these methods try to find the best way to wedge an approximating solid into the desired solid. If the two shapes are close enough then you can get a good fit.

But this rigidity also means that the approximating solid can't always contort to fit into the desired solid. If the two shapes don't match up well enough then we will end up in lots of awkward configurations no matter how hard we push.

In particular it's hard to quantify how good the fit of the approximate solid into the desired solid might be without knowing the shape of the desired solid already, which isn't possible in practice. This is one reason why these methods have such limited empirical diagnostics.

Stochastic, methods, on the other hand, utilize more fluid approximations that are able to take the shape of their container given enough time. In this respect we can think of them like a liquid or gas filling the desired shape.

This is an English translation of @Shiva__1's pinned thread in Marathi. Was thinking of doing this for sometime. Think this is the right time as events which happened the other day have been really triggering, and this is exactly how I feel. Here goes. 1/19

I've honestly had enough, so now it's about time I said this out loud.

•We as a society have routinely backstabbed our fellow citizens belonging to the Muslim community.• 2/19

When I was a kid, dad used to take me to Sambhaji Brigade and Seva Sangh meetings. It was in these meetings that we learned the real history of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

So far, the Brahminists have always distorted this history and spread falsehoods to 3/19

sow Islamophobia for their personal benefit, when the real story is completely different.

A lot of Muslims used to speak at and attend these meetings. And whenever I listened to or interacted with them, I sensed a very apologetic tone in their voice. 4/19

It was almost as if they were trying to say, "We Muslims are good people. Look at our contributions in history. Please don't misunderstand us. Please see us as your own people." 5/19

I've been reading the wonderful book "Cell Biology by the Numbers" (https://t.co/rLzAiv32Dq ). Here's a thread of striking things I learned from the book (or related reading)

1. In terms of raw genomic information, human beings are
unimpressive. Many plants & amphibians, for instance, have larger genomes. We're not so much the genomic crown of creation as a cul-de-sac of creation.

I haven't checked, but this graph suggests it may be possible to have a pet snail more genetically complex than you. Or keep (be kept by?) a houseplant that's more genetically complex

2. In fact, the herb Paris japonica has the largest known genome, ~150 billion base pairs, about 50x the human genome. The lungfish has more than 100 billion.

3. What are Paris japonica and the lungfish doing with all that genomic information? No idea! But what a great question!

As we bid farewell to 2020, while it has been a difficult year for so many, one positive has been the steps forward we have made in space exploration.

Here is my top ten..

1/ @SpaceX launched astronauts to space for the first time on May 30.

@AstroBehnken and @Astro_Wheels became the first two astronauts to ride aboard Crew Dragon.

It was also the first time that @NASA astronauts had launched from US soil since July 2011.

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 2/ NASA’s Perseverance rover was launched to Mars.

Due to land on the Red Planet on Feb 18 2021, the mission – hunting for past signs of life- will last a year and also has the first helicopter to ever be flown on the planet!

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 3/ Phosphine gas was claimed to be detected on the planet of Venus.

This could be exciting as it could mean simple life might exist on the planet.

But there is still a lot of debate around this

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 4/ Water ice was confirmed on the surface of the Moon.

Studies also showed it is more common than first thought, with water ice identified on the Moons sunlit surface.

Potential here is huge for future Moon explorers.

Another year is going to finish. 2020 has left us with fewer military events in the Syrian military conflict. Reflecting the enormous influence of the regional powers in the country, where the end of the war is still far away due to political blockade that has led to a stalemate

As we saw during the last days of 2019, #SAA had begun #Op_Redemption3 in order to retake M5 highway. After a small hiatus during the first weeks of January, Russian-Turkish negotiations failed & #SAA restarted the offensive by opening three axis S. #Idlib, S. #Aleppo & its city.

12 days before the restart of military advances #SAA had already liberated Maarrat al-Numan town & big parts of S. #Idlib countryside. However, the advance didn't stop & one week later #SAA liberated another stronghold, Saraqib, reaching M4 highway & joining with S. #Aleppo axis.

With rebel defenses totally collapsed #SAA continued advancing along M5 hihgway towards the outskirts of #Aleppo city. By the middle of February, #SAA liberated all western districts expelling all rebel groups from the area & fully securing provincial capital of any rebel attack.

All indicated offensive had finished. Nevertheless, #SAA begin #Op_Redemption4 in order to retake M4 highway. During the seven first days #SAA managed to capture important areas in Jabal Zawiyah & Shahshbo. All indicates another important rebel collapse was going to take place.

A conversation with the great Ben Katchor.

"The thing is, wealth doesn’t corrupt you just criminally, it also corrupts your tastes. You don’t look at things, you don’t study things, you become, you know, an

On America's 'Data-Driven Defeat in Afghanistan'

"They mistook war as a matter of process, when its nature is ruled by

On Our collective Deathwish.

"The true defining characteristic of American political society at present isn’t widespread violence from either the left or the right, but a propensity for dramatic overreach combined with utter

On The New Truth.

"And so the new argument proceeds, burying contrary evidence in unmarked graves while erecting new religious monuments and shrines at which the growing number of the faithful pay

On the deadly new regime of total information control.

"Perhaps the most messed-up thing about the case of the purged Google doc is that no one seems to care that it happened, aside from those publications that celebrated the monopolist’s