Both Wealthfront or Betterment are not banks but offer high-interest cash accounts that are FDIC insured. I've been curious what would happen if your money disappears from one of these high-interest cash accounts since they are technically not banks.
Reading through Betterment's disclosure acknowledges the scenarios for potential loss. While the deposits are stored through their program banks, you're guaranteed up to $2mm in FDIC insurance. So if those banks go under, your money is as safe as it would be anywhere else.
What I did not know is that FDIC insurance doesn't apply while money is being _transferred_ between accounts (SIPC insurance apparently applies here).
Neither Wealthfront nor Betterment appear on the FDIC’s own list of insured institutions, so my guess is that if something wrong your money could disappear between the cracks, as in the example in the article.
There are very strong guarantees of that not to happen.
Wealthfront and Betterment are tiny compared to others, but share the same field with the big players who have interest to not make people scared shitless.
It is the fast and loose, innocent because proving guilt is an effort, fintech I am sacred of: crypto, binary options etc.
The whole point of Bitcoin was to not need banks. You can be responsible for your own money. You can use a secure hardware wallet (with backup seed in a secure vault) and not have to worry about FDIC insurance. But most people seem to prefer risking all their money with an unaccountable third party over these relatively easy security measures. So now we have uninsured crypto banks. I get how this happened but it's kinda sad.
> The whole point of Bitcoin was to not need banks.
I don't know man the fact that 0.0000000000000001 quectoseconds after the first bitcoin was mined all of the techbros set up exchanges so they could cosplay as Gordon Gekko while rubbing their nipples and moaning "arbitraaaaaaaaage" kinda calls this into doubt.
Anyone who thinks the typical consumer has the ability to operate/secure/assure a bitcoin wallet to a level equivalent to or better than a bank is delusional: there are crypto founding fathers who have been burned.
To exercise great opsec, one would have to be a psychopath. Most folks aren't, hence at least in the US, banks aren't allowed to excuse themselves by customer's lack of opsec ("regulation E").
The effective monopoly that banks has gotten isn't free to them, even if they do try very hard to avoid paying the cost asked.
That's excellent! I'm looking forward to seeing that. I'm curious how the "pixel-streaming" works in terms of what protocol is used and what technologies are used on the browser-side.
Thank you, interesting talk! I'm curious if the technologies used for streaming video games (e.g. something like moonlight) can be used for low-latency and high-fidelity streaming of applications or desktops within containers.
If a Canadian living in US is on a TN status and is on disability for a serious illness when employment is terminated, what options are there to stay in the USA for the duration of the disability?
A few comments here have mentioned that MacBook touchpad development is tied to iPhone touchscreen R&D. This might be stating the obvious, but could a similar effort be made by leveraging Android touchscreen R&D and code for Linux? [1]
Virtual Retinal Displays (VRD) have been around for a while (1). More recently entering the consumer market. I didn't see the article mention the Avegant Glyph (2)
Avegant just has you looking at a DLP "screen". There's nothing special or magic about it. Each mirror/pixel you look at is either reflecting laser light or not reflecting laser light.
For (2), it looks cool but there’s no way to order it and the website doesn’t look updated since it won that award at CES 2017. I’ve seen so many of these headsets over the years that exhibit at CES and then are never heard from again. I’ll believe it when I see it in real life.
Gave this a try and it looks very promising. It would be great if GraalVM was integrated to extend the polyglot support to JavaScript, Ruby, R, in addition to Java, Groovy, Kotlin, and Clojure.
I'm on a day 4 of a water-only fast and have completed a two-week medically supervised fast as well as many other shorter fast.
As an anecdote, I can say water-only fasting in combination with a high nutrient density plant-based diet has helped me overcome some serious allergies and other health conditions. As an added bonus, I've lost 65 pounds from my peak weight over the last few years and my weight has been stable. It's not a panacea, but I've found it to be a net benefit.
For those interested in a deeper dive on the benefits of water-only fasting and diets that try to mimic its benefits, as well as time-restricted feeding, see:
Valter Longo, Ph.D. on Fasting-Mimicking Diet & Fasting for Longevity, Cancer & Multiple Sclerosis [1]
Dr. Valter Longo on Resetting Autoimmunity and Rejuvenating Systems with Prolonged Fasting & the FMD [2]
Dr. Satchin Panda on Time-Restricted Feeding and Its Effects on Obesity, Muscle Mass & Heart Health [3]
Dr. Satchin Panda on Practical Implementation of Time-Restricted Eating & Shift Work Strategies [4]
Thanks for the transcripts! I'm extending my fasts to a minimum of 5 days from now on as, from what I've understood, the immune cell turnover appears to really start kicking in on day 4 and 5.
Given that Dr. Longo promotes a diet that contains some calorie intake (~500 daily), why did you decide on water only fast? I am trying to choose between those two options myself.
I've completed a few water fasts before I came across Dr. Longo work. The main reason he created the FMD is because they couldn't get people to volunteer for a water-only fast and then compliance was an issue. I'm now used to water-only fasting and hunger goes away completely by second or third day. I've heard anecdotally that hunger doesn't subside as well for everyone on the FMD as you're still eating, but haven't tried it myself.
This is the first time I'm working intensively during the fast (I worked through the weekend) and I've been incredibly productive. I also prepared really well: I was eating more than a pound of dark leafy green a day for the last month (in two high micronutrient smoothies for breakfast and lunch) and I used a sauna everyday for the week before the fast. I feel better today than I have in a long time, my energy is excellent.
That's not to say there aren't any side effects, I had some pretty bad lower back pain which made getting to sleep last night difficult, but I've come to expect it and it comes and goes throughout the day usually starting on the third day. I occasionally have some heart burn as well, but it hasn't been as bad this time. My first fast was the most difficult, but it was medically supervised at the True North Health Center in Santa Rosa, California. They supervise in-patient water-only fasts up to 40 days.
Thanks! Dark leafy greens make total sense, but why sauna is good before the fast? Also how long and how frequent your fasts usually are? 5 days 4 times a year as Dr Longo suggests or something else? BTW I did FMD twice and the feel of hunger doesn't go away. I also suspect this happens because of the constant food intake.
I had a recent flare up of my condition and sauna helps to alleviate the symptoms and shorten the duration. Water fasting also helps and this is the first time I have tried sauna before fasting. Perhaps coincidentally, this is the water-fast I've felt the best on. I don't fully understand the underlying mechanisms but there's some amazing research on how hyperthermic conditioning initiates a whole cascade of physiological adaptations which are partially mediated by heat-shock proteins, increase of growth hormone, and improving insulin sensitivity. For more information on benefits of hyperthermic conditioning, see:
As for duration, 3 to 5 days, though from now on I'm likely to do minimum 5 days fasts as after reviewing Dr Longo's research the immune benefits and increased autophagy appear to really kick in on the 4th and 5th days. Frequency, I would say I average 3 to 4 times a year. This frequency just happens to coincide with Dr Longo's recommendation as I only more recently came across his research.
Thanks for sharing that you also noticed that the hunger doesn't go away on Prolon.
Valter Longo's work has shown that fasting causes a destruction of immune cells that get renewed from progenitors (absent the autoimmunity) after the refeeding phase. The mechanism has been shown to help with an animal model of multiple sclerosis called experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
It's a very elegant, most likely conserved mechanism that may generalize to virtually all diseases of autoimmunity and not just multiple sclerosis. However, that obviously needs to be proven clinically before you can say that and it might take a while.
Also, the conversion of animal research to human has another challenge: rodents have a faster metabolism. To have any hope of recapitulating those type of effects, you really have to go a while without food.
There seems to be a more medically safe way of probably tapping into mostly identical effects though, which is a "fasting-mimicking diet." Ultra low calorie, fits a specific macronutrient profile.
I was initially pretty concerned about the safety of water-only fasting. It appeared so extreme. After spending two weeks fasting with others who are either ill with different conditions or very healthy, I realized that it's relatively safe given good medical supervision.
When fasting on my own, I haven't fasted longer than 5 days, and I know what to watch out for now:
- I check my blood pressure and heart rate every morning
- I get up very slowly (as you can get light headed and fall if you're not careful)
- I bathe without taking a hot shower or submerge my body in hot water as this can lead to low blood pressure as well.
Some people are allergic to so many things, with such sensitivity, that nearly all foods contain some percentage of something they're allergic to (even if it's only trace amounts). In that case, consuming nothing but water effectively assures a food allergy-free experience for the duration of the fast. If they're allergic to things found in water as well, then I'm not sure what the best solution is.
