* Acronyms, abbreviations and Slang Frequently Used on the Forum *

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Here's one I don't know, from a post by Uncle Mick today:

"At 12 years into ER - more concerned with asset allocation to get my Norwegian widow cut along with proper asset balance to run the slot between reasonible inflation effects and damping SD enough so I don't scare myself enough to pee my pants - 2002 dip was thus normal market fluctuation."

SD?

SD = Standard Deviation = volatility?

More challenging is trying to understand the rest of Mick's sentence .

 

[unclemick]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Short answer -  what Vanguard came out with in the Target Retirement Series changing asset mix gradually as you age. Old rule of thumb - 110 minus your age in stocks or variations of the theme.

Norwegian widow cut = current yield of an overall portfolio.

SD = hand calculated total portfolio standard deviation based on SD's for each asset class and it's percent in a total portfolio - courtesy a T Rowe Price guest Phd at a New Orleans Chapter AAII meeting (??circa late 80's early 90's??). Didn't know about MPT or correlations, let alone rolling correlations among asset classes in those days.

The older you get - the less you want the portfolio to swing up and down in market value - so you can take more as you approach the end game - die with your last dollar so to speak.
But as you throttle back on stocks you are losing expected growth for that asset class versus anticipated inflation versus a shortening span time(life expectancy) - running the slot as the length of slide shortens. As a side insurance - current yield of the portfolio is what you take if you really have to batten down the hatches.

Since I often don't explain myself to myself well - perhaps some other posters can take a shot at it.

heh heh heh heh - I'm assuming everyone understands the pee your pants part. Right?

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Got it, Mick. Thanks.

What scares me most is that it makes perfect sense to me. I been hanging around here too long .

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

heh heh heh heh - I'm assuming everyone understands the pee your pants part. Right?

 

[Meadbh]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Standard deviation! It's a measure of volatility.

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

"Hairball":  A block to rational decision making.  They're complex intellectual, emotional...and/or sometimes physical claptraps, the origin of which probably cant be determined.
http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?topic=8643.msg157507#msg157507

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

"Avocado" and "Harvest Gold":  http://early-retirement.org/forums/index.php?topic=7004.msg126291#msg126291 (see small print).

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

"Ted":  1.  A former poster, very knowledgeable about the market and investments, but who did not suffer self satisfied ERs gladly, and who left after saying:  "So if you don't like my negative comments about people who want to drop out of the workforce, maximize their social security benefits and reduce their taxes, and then claim that they are doing the rest of the country some sort of favor, screw you."
             2.  CFB's dog. 

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

"Day of the Jennifer":  February 27, 2006.

Symbol of the day: 

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *



I'd like my dog moved up to #1 in the definition, please.

I also wouldnt define hairball as a block to rational decision making. Its more a construction that produces a particular decision with very limited actual logical decision making or factual consideration. Sometimes those 'decisions' are perfectly rational. Much of the time they're the only decisions the hairball owner is going to find acceptable.

Consider the packrat. They'll never use all that stuff they keep. They dont even know where any particular item is. But getting rid of it is stopped by a hairball that tells them that the item has value and keeping it around might be useful some day. There are probably 50-100 incidents and experiences that constructed that hairball.

Now if you want some real fun, wrap a hairball around a serious compulsion...you get serial killers, shopaholics, people with 100 cats and the folks living among 6' tall stacks of newspapers. Oh yeah, and politicians.

We're all joined by the lack of a common hairball...the one where our personal value is tied up in a job or what we do. We missed building that one or were able to overcome it.

Like I said...liberating, wasnt it?

 

[Nords]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

I also wouldnt define hairball as a block to rational decision making.  Its more a construction that produces a particular decision with very limited actual logical decision making or factual consideration.

heu·ris·tic
Pronunciation: hyu-'ris-tik
Function: adjective
Etymology: German heuristisch, from New Latin heuristicus, from Greek heuriskein to discover; akin to Old Irish fo-fúair he found
: involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods <heuristic techniques> <a heuristic assumption>; also : of or relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques that utilize self-educating techniques (as the evaluation of feedback) to improve performance <a heuristic computer program>

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

"Semantics": The difference between Martha's Hairball definition and CFB's, i.e.,
"block to rational decision making" versus "construction that produces a particular decision with very limited actual logical decision making or factual consideration."

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Nope, not semantics at all. A hairball does not block rational decision making, it simply determines what the reaction to a particular stimulus is and may prevent the mind from receiving and interpreting new data.

Thus the hairball effected person may produce a perfectly rational decision. Its just that the decision may have had nothing to do with the facts and data presented, and no actual decision making process may have occurred.

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

I understand what you are saying, but I still think it's semantics. Though it's your word so you get to decide the definition.

Rational to me means reasoned, logical, and based on fact. If you have a hairball, it acts to block decision making based on reason, logic and evidence. So I don't think the hairball effected person can produce a perfectly rational decision.

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/thesaurus?book=Thesaurus&va=rational&x=0&y=0

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

In re:

"Day of the Jennifer"

Ma Gawd, Marfa!

Woody Allen had a skit on this 'subject' (?) in his movie, "Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex But Were Afraid To Ask" [yeah, he bought the movie rights--and only used the title...HOWEVER...]. The disgraced veterinarian winds up in the gutter, drinking a bottle of Woolite. One of the all-time classics.

(Now back to our regularly-scheduled madness.)

El Gitano

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

I understand what you are saying, but I still think it's semantics. Though it's your word so you get to decide the definition.

No, and yes.

Rational to me means reasoned, logical, and based on fact. If you have a hairball, it acts to block decision making based on reason, logic and evidence. So I don't think the hairball effected person can produce a perfectly rational decision.

Weeeell...according to the research, once you've got a hairball, you're going to give an answer constructed on the basis for building the hairball. That may very well be reasoned, logical and based on fact. However, no current analysis of the presented facts may have been made.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

On hairballs, rational decision making and the like...

In medical decisions (at least from an ivory tower view), preferences and values tend to predominate (called "unilities" or "impacts"). But, they found a way to arithmetically factor them in so that they are no longer "rational" or irrational, they just "are." Only if they are based on a clear and acknowledged. misunderstanding of circumstance are they "corrected."

Each decision maker assigns a score to every foreseeable outcome. As an example, most would agree that death is often the worst outcome, while complete cure is the best. In between, things like losing a leg, loss of ability to speak, etc. are placed somewhere in between. On a 0-to-1 scale, they all find their place and create a quantitative profile unique for every patient. So, losing a leg may be horrific for a 55 year old accountant, but even more horrific for  23 year old ballet dancer as an example. Not right or wrong, just elsewhere on the scale.

Throw in a pinch of evidence about likelihoods and benefits from the best research data available, and you can come up with the "right" decision for that patient. "Right" means the decision most likely to reflect that patient's preferences, risk tolerance, value system, etc.

Maybe we should look at what we mean by rational. It's relative.

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

What if the ballet dancer is so afraid to lose her leg that she refuses what is necessary to save her life?  Maybe that is rare in medical decisions, but biases can shut down rationality. There are the people who do not want to interfere with God/nature and refuse medical care. I suppose that is fine for the one refusing the care for themselves, but what if it is for their children?

My husband has a friend who believes carbon 14 dating to be a scientific mistake at best and a conspiracy at worst.  This is because it doesn't fit with how he reads the bible.  OK for him, but he wants to educate children to have the same biases as he does.

I do like the scoring system for outcomes.  I recall you suggested that here for retirement decisions.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

What if the ballet dancer is so afraid to lose her leg that she refuses what is necessary to save her life? 

But who can judge on her behalf what is right and wrong for her? In cases of minority, incompetency, clinical depression or other psych impairment, etc. there are other duties of course, but barring that all one can do is fully explore all the relevant issues and even confront those decisions that seem counter to the "reasonable person" test.

It's a stretch in this example, but bear with me:  let's suppose this dancer came from 3 generations of prima ballerinas, was engaged to a world class ballet dancer, and knew almost no other form of reward. Say she had few other skills, and felt that pursuing dance was her calling according to her religious advisors, and that her whole marriage was built around it. Say she had a probable offer pending from the big ballet company possibly in a year or two... her family and few friends were counting on her to be famous, etc. etc. etc.

There are "irrational" subjective components to the definition of "rational" I guess .

 

[Martha]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Yes, we are not Vulcans. We do not make decisions solely based on logic.

 

[justin]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Yes, we are not Vulcans. We do not make decisions solely based on logic.

Speak for yourself Martha!

Justin the Vulcan.

\\ //
\\ //
\\//

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

Absolutely, although some people like to think they're making a sound vulcanlike decision on something.

I just try to avoid using the word 'irrational' when referring to someone or they're decision process, although that term might be factually correct.

Its not that they're suffering from some mental deficiency. It is what it is.

 

[justin]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

CFB,

Martha's inability to see that the distinction between her definition of "hairball" and your defininition of "hairball" goes beyond mere semantics is itself a hairball.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

That thought had already occurred to me, but I thought it imprudent to discuss marthas hairball in a public forum.

 

[Rich_by_the_Bay]

Re: * Acronyms Frequently Used on the Forum *

I just try to avoid using the word 'irrational' when referring to someone or they're decision process, although that term might be factually correct.

Agree.

And I'd even take it one step further: "factually correct" may be applicable to the evidence-based components of a decision. But as to questions like, "how bad is it if I lose my leg,", the only "correct" answer is that of the individual decision maker.

Two deciders using the exact same facts can come to two different decision, each correct for themself.