arch_8ngel

Yeah, my son's private pre-school follows all city school schedule changes (i.e. snow days or hurricane closures) so almost certainly falls under this umbrella as well. Haven't seen a message from them yet, though, surprisingly.

Whelp, the governor just shut down all of our K-12 in the state for the next 2 weeks.

I have a 6 year old (in kindergarten) and a 3 year old (in preschool). Given the extremely low risk to kids in that age group...and the general unsupervised hygiene...I accept the high likelihood that they will both eventually end up with it, just like every other cold virus they bring home from school. Best I can do is to have them wash their hands while at home and keep them out of contact with the elderly until this thing passes. School shutdowns are probably way more disruptive than they are helpful (something like 40% of nurses have school-aged children).

With the flu that is definitely true. Worldwide, no babies have died from covid-19, at all. None. (no children under 10 years old, in fact)

No children under 10 have died. Not clear whether any in that age group have required hospitalization, though. General consensus is that children are, by and large, safe (though can become carriers).

I'd be inclined to think the same thing, but they've survived a spotty history with norovirus outbreaks, and once coronavirus is normalized (i.e. people collectively decide that the risks no longer warrant quarantine or economic shutdown) I have a hunch that the same types of people that current gravitate towards cruises will continue to do so. Regarding average age -- I've never looked into it, but it wouldn't surprise me AT ALL, if the average age of cruise goers was fairly static (i.e. as people get older, they may tend toward cruises over other more active vacations), and it isn't like people stop aging into the target demographic. That said, it wouldn't surprise me at all if at least one of the major players collapses while the crisis is on-going, and I certainly wouldn't want to make a bet as to which ones will survive.

You should find a modern picture of the trading floor. It is pretty vacant in recent years (a far cry from the popular movie scenes of the 80's)

I know where the day market breakers are set, but I thought I had read that overnight/pre-market was handled differently with a 5% down hard limit (trading doesn't stop, per se, just no trades are allowed below the limit). Maybe I misunderstood what I read about it, though, since previously I would have thought it had the same breakers as daytime trading.

Same on Monday wasn't it? (Hitting the overnight limit at 5% down before instantly hitting the daytime first beaker at 7% down) I guess that one might have just barely stayed off of the overnight limit, though.

Definitely agree that breakers are probably outmoded with the amount of algorithmic and basket trading taking place. (Though having a daily limit probably does matter) This week is probably the first real test of how all of the algorithms behave, in concert, when breakers are hit. I do control design as part of my work, so there was some morbid curiosity as to whether any of the algorithms were going to "wind up" while the pause was in force and the blast to a lower level when it lifted. But regardless, when we hit the overnight limit down AND hit the breaker in moments of opening...it is probably going to be a bad day (then do it at least twice in one week!)

Best comment I read about this company is that every major institution is already locked into teleconference infrastructure with the bigger names and had been for years. Zoom evidently is trying to entice with free offerings, but have limited ability to penetrate the institutional/corporate space that has existing contracts. Can the stock go up because people believe it should due to teleconference being fashionable? Yes. But is it a great company with great fundamentals, with any kind of moat? Not from what I have read, though I could be wrong.

Anyone want to place bets on when they admit that Trump has covid-19? Evidently the Brazilian president and his press secretary both tested positive following their close-quarters meeting with Trump (after Trump supposedly refused to be tested following HIS contact with multiple people that were at least presumed-positive following CPAC)

I gather that was canonical in the books, but I don't recall it ever being mentioned in the movies themselves. And whether it is canon or not, it is a really dumb plot device, when for all intents and purposes, in every other movie power for ships appears to be an unlimited resource. EDIT: part of my problem with it, is that all of the other "bad physics" in these movies you can generally hand-wave away as advanced technology that we can just pretend "works". But when something that clearly is not a problem in "real" space is the crux of the entire movie, that just seems like a sad lack of ideas.

(1) Marry Poppins Princess Leia -- missed a perfectly good opportunity to let the character die in a dramatic fashion (2) the entire plot point that spaceships need fuel to maintain cruise speed in space... it is one thing to have bad space physics, it is another to make it your entire "mcguffin" (3) needlessly bad decision making by all characters

There is almost no way they aren't a dividend-trap at this point. They are going to have a terrible year along with the entire hospitality industry. But at least hotels are essential for business travel, once that picks back up -- but cruises are a totally unnecessary purchase.

Looks like you're right. I played them in arcades as a kid, and since that was contemporary to AD&D (early/mid 2nd edition) that was just what stuck in my head. (also, probably because all of the SSI gold box games were AD&D, specifically)

Willow (arcade) always deserves a nod as an excellent arcade game that never had console release. If you have multiple players, Quartet is another good one. Does Zaxxon have a compelling console release? If not, that one is a pretty unique shooter. The two AD&D beat-em-ups are probably better played on their re-release from a few years ago. (has acheivements, save games, etc)

Gold is essentially flat compared to the January average of 2020, having blown off both of it's recent increases. Would have been more stable than holding stocks since January, though, and it is still up a healthy amount against the beginning of 2019.

Things will get worse before they get better. (1) we still have no clear idea how widespread the virus is in the USA (due to lack of testing) (2) Italy is on track to have their cases multiply to the point of exceeding the official (fake) numbers from China (3) we're only just getting started with event closures and college shutdowns in the USA -- once this extends to public schools it is going to be ridiculous (4) airlines and hotels are about to be on genuine life support, if they weren't already -- to go along with that, all of the collateral business that goes along with big events simply isn't going to happen in the short-term (5) this is before we even get into the concerns of this thing dragging into mid-year or having a second wave in the fall that somehow disrupts the democratic convention or even the election And we're probably a year out from a functional, safe, vaccine distributed at scale. We're only 25% off the top... it can go way down from here, especially considering how quickly it went up over the last couple of years.

We hit that breaker earlier in the week on way less-bad news than what transpired last night. I'm guessing we bump into the 13% down breaker, as well. Whether we END the day that low is another matter, but shutting off European trans-atlantic flights for a month is probably perceived as more severe short-term news than the oil war between Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Wouldn't be the first time Ford reduced their dividend...

You have until April 15th to fund your Roth for 2019, so any money you can stuff into it before that date make sure you allocate to LAST TAX YEAR to take advantage of the extra space, in case you find yourself able to max out 2020 contributions prior to April 15 2021.

Not saying they don't, just that the "McGuffin" for Ep8 is particularly bad.

Maybe it was only 1/4, but the amount of space seemingly devoted to movies was enormous. And yes, they have good coverage on TVs and any other electronics. Pretty much every other major retailer in that sector has been wiped out, leaving you with the VERY limited options of Target or Walmart as your alternatives for in-person buying. I just don't buy enough of that kind of stuff anymore to really care about the physical retailers, since any deal I get is more likely to be online. Though BestBuy does price match AND runs some pretty good sales of their own -- I just don't have a car big enough to hold the size TV I'd be buying next, so it is going to be getting shipped no matter what

I understand PART of how Best Buy exists, because sometimes you need computer equipment RIGHT THEN, and they are the best available option in most cities. But that is a pretty small segment of what they do, so it IS pretty hard to understand how seemingly 1/3 of their floor space can be devoted to disc-based movies, for instance.