Frugaldoc's journal

[bookworm]

Welcome back!

[Scordatura]

I've been looking forward to your return.

How are your physical goals coming along? Anything changed for you after your winter patrol (in general)?

I'm convinced that mental regurgitation is an arms race to decide who gets scarce positions. I think it happens everywhere to a degree, and serves as a (very) imperfect proxy for decision making prowess. It's basically what job interviews are, plus a vibes check.

Hope you're well.

[bookworm]

Other than these things, life goes on. My portfolio took a hit but as it is a fairly diversified, risk parity style portfolio, it hasn't done too badly. I have even had to sell some gold to reduce my exposure.

What resources did you use to construct your portfolio?
Mine kind of morphed from indexing into a risk parity one after reading a lot of Portfolio Charts and Harry Browne's on PP.

[Veronica]

Veronica- so sorry to hear about your job loss. What's next on the horizon? Yes, the ERE mindset will help for sure.

Promotion board meets in a few weeks. I do hope I pick up 0-5; not because I am status conscious but rather there a great number of tools I know that may pick up rank this year and I want to be on equal footing with them.

Atta boy! Great stuff. Wishing you a pleasant surprise come promotion day.

As for me, I'm withdrawing a bit from public life while I explore my options.
All I can say at this point is that I'm willing to eat crow and learn for a while, and I'm still committed to finding a way to make an honest living helping bring new medicine to market in an ever changing landscape.

[AxelHeyst]

And it is nice to hear the voices and stories of some of the contributors on the forum. Makes me feel like, "These are people I would enjoy hanging out with even if my life seems to be much different than theirs."

You'll be stationed in CA this September I think? You should swing up to ~Oregon for Fest. Would love to see you there (and if you sign up now you can reserve your spot for only $399.99!!!1). Welcome back to the board anyhow after your break, I always enjoy your updates.

[frugaldoc]

I have sat down nearly 15 times over the last few weeks to write something in this journal but then couldn't motivate myself to do so. It wasn't for lack of things to say, but rather not knowing how to frame anything I was going to say into a cohesive framework. So, first let me start off by responding to some people.

@AH- I would love to attend the Fest assuming it doesn't conflict with some ultrasound training I have the same month. I think it would be awesome to meet some of you. And I apologize about my quip regarding FIRE influencers trying to sell things. It had nothing to do with your book. I haven't read it yet but hope to once my book buying moratorium is finished.

@Veronica-I commend your commitment. I think living by a committed ideal will lead you to much more satisfaction than any other course of action. And being able to step back and return to learning mode is a superpower. I am working on my "Philosophies of Medical Education" handout I will give to residents when I get to my next assignment as faculty. Maintaining a "beginners mind" is so important, especially as an attending physician or well-established researcher.

@Scordatura- no real progress on the physical front. In a few hours I will be going onto the ship to start my final week as SMO. The incoming SMO arrived this weekend and I will be turning over to her this week and then be bonged off the ship on Friday. I think I have the department in great shape to turn it over. I am really proud of my team and what they have accomplished over the past two years.

I just got back from a trip stateside last week. I was in Minneapolis amongst other places for a CME conference. First, I strangely felt a little culture shock. I have become used to the quiet, well-mannered behavior of the Japanese. In the US it seems like you must be loud and obnoxious just because you can. Also, it seems like sports betting has taken over the mind of the young American male. Many of them seem glued to their phones wagering on any number of things.

But the big take away I learned from that trip was....I actually like having ever increasing responsibility. This may sound a little elitist but when I walk around, I see the vast majority of people have little responsibility, except for perhaps their children. Now having children is a great responsibility but there is no one there to make sure you do a good job. Only in the most egregious cases do you get fired from that job. I suppose a more accurate statement is that I like having responsibility with accountability. So perhaps, punching out of the rat race isn't for me. But the ability to live cheaply and accumulate assets has allowed me live truer to my values instead of constantly sacrificing them as one typically does in many status games. Anyway, I am rambling, and this entire paragraph probably sounds like a load of poppycock.

@bookworm- like you, Harry Browne was my introduction to risk parity style portfolios. Do you listen to the "Risk Parity Radio" podcast? There is great information there. I honestly haven't settled on a grand, unifying portfolio. I run various portfolios but with mostly the same ETFs so they could be collapsed into one if need be. The main difference between portfolios is international exposure. I run a Golden butterfly portfolio, a separate levered GB portfolio, and then my main portfolio which is:

VTI 15% (I would like to switch this to DFUS if possible)
VXUS 15%
AVUV 15%
AVDV 15%
GLDM 15%
EDV 15%
BOXX 10%

I don't use EDV in the GB portfolios. I used a zero-coupon bond fund in the above portfolio to give a little more juice for the squeeze since it is only 15%. LT bonds are the portion of the portfolio that give me the most trouble, but I continue to stay the course.

[frugaldoc]

I recently finished the book "Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture". If a book gets me to change my habits, then I believe it is a worthwhile read. I have long lamented that I don't enjoy music as much as I used to. It has become a commodity that is frequently playing in the background as I putter around my home. I rarely sit and listen to it in an engaged manner. I think I understand why now after reading this book. So, I am going to try to break free of the ever-present recommender systems that surround us. It is time to give up the streaming services (not that I subscribe to many). I also planning on getting rid of my Amazon Echo with this upcoming move.

I bought a new phone when in the US. My nine-year-old 1st generation SE iphone was getting almost unusable. All my young staff were almost embarrassed for me when they would see me pull out my tiny phone. They seemed very excited and supportive when I announced I finally had a new phone. Then there were the inevitable groans when I showed them my 'new" refurbished 3rd generation iPhone SE. It seems amazing to me, and I only paid $300 compared to the $1000+ they pay every two years.

[Jean]

What do you use for music?
I use plain youtube (not youtube music). And very often, i get very good recomandations that lead to discovery and long sessions of purely listening.
I also like to search for wathever phrase i have in mind, because it often leads to music i like very much.
I never use autoplay.

[ertyu]

Starting here, a collection of whole album recommendations:

ETA: an additional feature is that if your hardware is old, they can't push all the AI bs on you. And the AI bs is bs: it requires more specs to deliver the same level of performance as "dumbware" while making you think less.

[frugaldoc]

@Jean: I am going to start trying to use physical media more and listening to curated radio programs (some of them over the internet).

The author of Filterworld raises many issues with the way we are exposed to content now via recommender engines. I would recommend the book but here are some of the points I remember:

1. The act of having to physically acquire music (an LP, bootleg tape of a concert, a hard to come by classical CD) made one more invested in the listening experience. One sat and listened to the music attentively, pondered the lyrics, read the liner notes with great attention. Now that is mostly gone.
2. Recommender systems are one big averaging machine. There is a story in the book about a band whose most popular song on Spotify (by a large margin) is a song the band believes doesn't represent them at all; was written more as a parody of popular musical tropes of the time. But if you search for that band, that song will appear at the top of the list. Being at the top of the list, that song gets more plays and further entrenches itself in the algorithm.
3.Artists (or creators) are creating content that serves the algorithm. Netflix has recommended producers start shows with a gripping, dramatic scene since people, on average, make a decision on whether to continue watching a show within the first seven seconds. Musical works are getting shorter as well. 30 seconds of play on Spotify gets an artist paid (albeit not much) so there is an incentive to make songs shorter.

I am going to start doing that old school thing of actually asking people for recommendations. And I am also going to start listening to curated programs of music that can expand one's horizons and educate one at the same time. The DJ Paul Cavalconte (New York's WFUV) is recommended in the book. I am going to try to catch his Sunday night program. There are also streaming services for music that are less algorithmically driven, such as Idagio, for classical music.

Who knows, this may be a short-lived experiment, and I quickly fall back into the warm embrace of the algorithm.

[black_son_of_gray]

I am going to start doing that old school thing of actually asking people for recommendations.

So, if I may ask: what kind of music are you into?

Or, I might ask this a different way: describe the kind of music you often find yourself drawn to...but without mentioning a particular artist or album. (In a way, it's kind of like asking someone to describe what an 'apple' tastes like, but without referencing other fruit. It's hard!)

E.g. personally, I often enjoy music that has a prominent, distorted, thrumming bass line. Bass with 'texture'. I can't put into words exactly why, but I might call that a 'greasy' bass. As a result, I get a lot of kicks from genres like funk, or electro, or even organ music. I also like a lot of syncopation or layered complexity so certain kinds of classical music or EDM scratch that itch really nicely. Or, I'm a sucker for ethereal high-flying female vocals with haunting or melancholic lyrics. Enter singer-songwriters of a certain vintage, some bluegrassy stuff, vocal trance, etc., etc.

[Henry]

Or, I'm a sucker for ethereal high-flying female vocals with haunting or melancholic lyrics.

Cocteau Twins

[chenda]

ethereal high-flying female vocals with haunting or melancholic lyrics.

Christina Novelli, Bo Bruce,

[frugaldoc]

I would say that my favorite genre would be sacred vocal, particularly renaissance and baroque choral music. I do love me some Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. But there is a lot of orchestral music that I enjoy. For more modern music, I like songs with meaningful lyrics that prompt an emotional reaction. As someone who has always had a keen interest in World War I, the songs "The Green Fields of France" and "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" always give me chills when I sit and listen to them in a quiet, contemplative mood. For more modern music, I feel like my musical tastes were frozen around 2012: Mumford and Sons, Metric, The Killers, etc. Maybe because that was the year I experienced a period of such insane joy who's likes will never be seen again.

I will check out all of your recommendations. Thanks!

[frugaldoc]

It has been strange not having much to do this week now that the ship is gone and I have no responsibilities right now other than to make my presence known once per day. Last week was more difficult than I anticipated; very bittersweet. When you take an organization (small or large) and rebuild it to a high performing group of people it can be hard to say goodbye. The strike group admiral was down in medical last week getting a tour and as I watched one of the Corpsman proudly present our triage bay, I turned to the CO and said, "It's hard to give it up, isn't it?" He said, "Yes it is. Very hard." Lord knows he has much more responsibility than I do but I think I felt some of what he must feel when he moves on from a command.

And then the admiral, sneaky bastard that he is, says "Now I am going to ask to see part of your department that no one probably asks to see, so could you take me to the morgue." At that point I went "Of f*ck". The morgue tends to be the place things go to when someone can't find a home for an object. Every few months I had to have Senior Chief bust some heads to clean it out. But I'll be damned, it was a clean as could be. Not a stray box in sight.

[frugaldoc]

The movers are coming in a few days, so I have been doing some light packing. They will pack everything if I let them but sometimes I like to pack a few things myself just so I make sure they are carefully packed. I took the opportunity to do a book purge even though many of these books I have not read and some are investing books that weren't exactly cheap. But I decided to say to hell with sunk cost and get rid of a book if it was something I didn't think I would get around to reading/rereading in the next year and could easily reacquire (e.g. books like Atomic Habits).

There are a handful of older books that my late grandmother bequeathed me that I cannot let go of just yet. Some of them I have read and found quite charming but know I would have never discovered them had she not given them to me. Others are of some minor historic curiosity. One book is "Beginnings in Agriculture" published in 1911. It is an interesting and detailed text and if you gave the book to 99.5% of the population it would be completely new information to them. However, the opening paragraph struck me as showing how much the US has changed in 110 years.

"This book is designed for the purpose of introducing the study of agriculture into the seventh and eighth grades of our elementary schools. It may also meet a need in some of the smaller high-schools and in ungraded special and private schools. When the pupil comes to well-developed high-school work, he will need a more detailed and specific text."

Of course, what followed was more detailed than many high schoolers could currently comprehend, let alone 7th or 8th graders.

[Scordatura]

Those sneaky bastards, admirals. Crafty. Wily, even.

Ever read any Joel Salitin? He makes a very similar point regarding the lowering of agricultural education in the States. And every time I think about it, I think about reviving the family tradition of the domestic garden. Both my father and his father were obsessive fiends regarding those, and planted massive domestic gardens. In my teenage years I was voluntold to help, and I swore to myself no more picking green beans. Not one bean more. I think my oath has loosened slightly at this point, but green beans still aren't my favorite.

I know I'm late to the party regarding the music conversation, but what strikes me, is if you're specifically looking for depth and quality of your time with music, a musical education may serve you better than changing how things are recommended to you or changing the media on which you listen to. Things like learning to play an instrument, learning music theory analysis, learning the histories of famous songs, etc. I'm not at all telling you that you shouldn't run the experiment, please do, but I use algorithm recommendations for speed. By the time individual recommendations have gotten their pants on in the morning, the algorithm has done ten laps around the neighborhood. What I do find useful is going into other people's spaces (think car rides, work radios, and home radios) and just seeing what they're listening to. It often isn't based on what I already like, which is real discovery.