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  1. photoguy

    FIREcalc - Has it measured up all these years?

    If you look at MC papers that try to model the impact of current conditions (i.e. US market PE and bond yields), I think to maintain the same 5% failure rate, you need to drop the withdrawal rate by maybe 0.5 - 1%. I don't remember the exact number and of course it depends on the specific study.
  2. photoguy

    FIREcalc - Has it measured up all these years?

    You just described the difference between conditional and marginal probability. You might think that a conditional probability is always better because it's accounting for more factors, but this isn't always the case. Especially when you don't have much data. Bottom line is that you'll never...
  3. photoguy

    iMac 21 inch

    The hard drive in my wife's 2012 iMac is dying so I just ordered an 500gb 850 evo. Boy have SSDs come down in price -- it was only $150. I could buy 4 of them and make a blazing fast raid working disk. The iMac is the one with the thin bezel so for now, I'm not going to take it apart and just...
  4. photoguy

    iMac HD Backup

    For my data, I use rsync from the command line to backup to 3.5" drives which are stored unconnected. Maybe about 4tb base size. 2 copies unconnected + 1 copy offsite. When I want to make a backup, I just pop it into a USB drive dock. I use CCC to make bootable clones of just the boot drive on...
  5. photoguy

    iMac 21 inch

    I've been thinking about doing this for my wife's iMac. Did you use a USB3 case or TB? and how fast was the SSD. Re the original post. I'm very happy with my 5k iMac. Main reason I've been on mac's is that it gives me unix plus all my photography programs. Trackpad with gestures is far superior...
  6. photoguy

    Will narrow HI networks keep you from ER?

    I'd start by looking at this list: https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-issuers-participating-in-the-individual-health-insurance-marketplace/ and examine states with the most issuers. Then narrow it down to where you might live in each state and go on the exchange. For longer...
  7. photoguy

    US continues the decline in Retirement Happiness

    +1 There's a huge difference in social mobility in Can vs US. I suspect many of the factors that lead to increased mobility also cause can to score higher in the OP study.
  8. photoguy

    How much is enough?

    Seems like a reasonable guideline but in practice this is not really that concrete for a 40 year old. The issue is that many retirement expenses are backloaded into old age. Especially medical and long term care. At 40, you might spend nothing more than premiums.
  9. photoguy

    Kitces: Monte Carlo simulations overstate fat tail risk

    That depends on the particular study and you would need to dig into the implementation details to check. I'm pretty sure there a bunch that don't assume independence.
  10. photoguy

    Transitioning to USB-C

    I don't even know what are the major cable brands. If I go to amazon and type in USB-C, I've never heard of the companies that show up. They all sound like fly-by-night companies to me. That's interesting. I didn't think it was possible due to the design of the plug.
  11. photoguy

    Transitioning to USB-C

    I can't say that I'm a fan of usb-c. The whole issue with bad cables is just a nightmare. I'm never getting back the time I spent figuring out what was safe and wouldn't fry my phone. On laptops, I'd rather have MagSafe. Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
  12. photoguy

    cheapest way to have AT&T cell in Canada

    There are a bunch of prepaid plans you can get in Canada. The one that seemed to be the best was 7-11s speakeasy plan. Bu good luck getting a sim. Tried multiple store and they were sold out with no clue when they would get more in. How the heck can you run out of sim chips? Also couldn't order...
  13. photoguy

    Stock Pickers - Jason Zweig

    It's in the paper, somewhere near the end. Paraphrasing the argument against being able to pick the skillful manager who outperforms goes something like this: 1. there are say 100 managers that have outperformed the market 2. but under random guessing, we'd expect 95 managers to outperform the...
  14. photoguy

    Stock Pickers - Jason Zweig

    I read this paper (the actual paper, not the summary) a long time ago. It's a good paper and interesting read. It also explains why simple comparisons such as benchmarking ones portfolio against the S&P 500 is not the right thing to do. As I recall, they did have evidence for a small amount of...
  15. photoguy

    Are we allowed to talk about it yet?

    Do you know what was the mechanism for reduced premiums? I'm struggling with this because if there's a fixed amount of health care that is needed, separating people into different buckets shouldn't change the overall and average cost. Did they deliver less healthcare on net? or were they...
  16. photoguy

    Why Warren Buffet won the bet

    The reason the hedge fund manager lost is because he is statistically illiterate. From what I read, he bet on an average of hundred of funds (each of which might hold a huge number of stocks). No surprise then that he gets basically average performance but with the anchor of huge expense ratios...
  17. photoguy

    Won the Game, take low risk path with $$?

    I didn't remember the timing well so I went back and checked. The 10-year tips hit 3% in late 2008 and there were multiple times it was between 2 and 3% from 2003 to 2008. 30-year tips was above 2% as recently as 2011.
  18. photoguy

    Won the Game, take low risk path with $$?

    That's pretty much how I see it as well. But I wonder at what real return for TIPS would I prefer that approach? At one point in my investing career TIPS were returning 3% real.
  19. photoguy

    Considering valuations when investing

    Although I'm a big believer in valuations being predictive (in a statistical sense) of future returns, I don't actually use this information much. Why? because regular rebalancing with set percentages already trims highly valued assets and increases investments in "cheap" assets. The only times...
  20. photoguy

    Photographer's Corner - equipment

    I noticed that some places still have the canon ipf5100 for sale even though it has been discontinued. But this is quite a large printer. As far as I can tell, the only options are Epson P5000, P800 and 4900 (replaced by p5000, will be discontinued soon?) and canon pro-1000 (and the...
  21. photoguy

    Photographer's Corner - equipment

    One more thing about the Sony - the sound is terrible in the case so if you want to record audio as you go in and out of the water (like kids playing at the pool) the GoPro is probably better. Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
  22. photoguy

    Photographer's Corner - equipment

    I was looking at the go pro but decided instead to get the sony fdr-x3000. Big advantage is the optical stabilization which works at 4k. Not as good as using a gimbal but it works very well. I've been very happy with it. A few things to note: (1) the sony has a different form factor which you...
  23. photoguy

    Photographer's Corner - equipment

    I'm also starting to look for 17" printers since I sold my z3200 due to moving. I haven't really done much research on this yet, but if you want roll support isn't your only option the epson? Also I thought the canons have a ridiculous limitation of only 24" max print length. In the past, I've...
  24. photoguy

    I'm freaking out over health insurance

    It looks like in CA, the cost of diagnostic imaging can vary from patient pays full cost (bronze) to a flat copay of varying amounts (silver & up): https://www.coveredca.com/PDFs/2017-Health-Benefits-table.pdf I had not realized there was that big a difference between bronze and silver.
  25. photoguy

    I'm freaking out over health insurance

    Was this a specialized/non-standard test? Under Covered California, I thought diagnostic imaging was a flat copay amount.
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