Software & electrical engineer. Lover of craft. Luxury jar opener with opinions.
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In many countries using this type of money melting a coin down for its content was a crime. So it's not something no one ever thought of. It's this:
One of my favourite Harry Potter loopholes doesn't even involve magic. It involves exploiting the Muggle economy.
Hagrid tells us there are 17 Sickles to a Galleon. Sickles are silver, Galleons are gold. Simple enough.
Except gold and silver don't have a fixed exchange rate in the Muggle world. Their market value fluctuates constantly. Before 1900, the gold-to-silver ratio averaged around 16:1, which is pretty close to the wizarding world's 17:1 rate. Throughout much of the twentieth century, however, it averaged around 45:1.
See where this is going?
Wait until the market heavily favours gold. Melt your Galleons down and sell the gold in the Muggle world. Use the money to buy as much silver as possible, then take that silver to Gringotts and have it converted into Sickles.
Finally, exchange those Sickles for Galleons at the fixed 17:1 rate.
Congratulations. You've potentially turned a small pile of wizarding gold into a much larger pile of wizarding gold, simply by exploiting the difference between Muggle market prices and Gringotts' fixed exchange rate.
No Dark Arts. No Horcruxes. No elaborate schemes.
Just precious metals, a fixed exchange rate and a wizard who understands arbitrage.
The real question is why nobody in the wizarding world seems to have built an entire financial empire around this.
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I have programmed my own LLM
(source: xkcd.com/221/)
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California Cost of Living Crisis coming up on its 200 year anniversary. (Also Boston wines have apparently always been bad.)
Reading "Two Years Before the Mast" --1835 account of being sailor on merchant ship out of Boston into California
Most people read it for the description of life at sea, which inspired Melville, but the last 1/2 of the book is about a California that was then part of Mexico.
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Two deaths before the age of one. Then two more Chinese landlords. Though from different parts of China.
I think this site is trying to tell me something.
anyhumanever.com
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I got an elite, literate Cantonese man in 1690 from Lingnan near Macau. His father was a landlord of a 850 person village but he wasn't the heir. He lived into old age and had a mansion. He got married at 19 and had children.
Whoa- this is the most fantastic pedagogical tool I’ve encountered in as long as I can remember (which is a helluva high bar, considering who I live with).
I’m so excited to have my 6yo play with it! And you all should too.
anyhumanever.com/
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I'm going to be interested to see the retros. Was there some common weakness here or is it all just a coincidence?
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It is by will alone I set my post in motion.
It is by the juice of Elon that posts acquire views, the views acquire likes, the likes become attention.
It is by will alone I set my post in motion.
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Startups are becoming a standard elite career path. Whether this is good or bad has yet to really be shown. But we're likely reaching the Wall Street phase of wealth and power.
the Thiel Fellowship should raise the grant and make dropping out socially uncomfortable again. if your parents immediately love the idea, the commitment isn’t consequential enough
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I wasn't particularly impressed by Aschenbrenner's writing, ideas, or investing. What am I missing about him that makes him a 'prodigy'?
@tylercowen & @ATabarrok don't need more acclaim, but look at this *2019* grant list. Alice Evans (great new book coming). Jason pre-Progress foundation. Saloni/Sam pre-Works in Progress. *17 year old* Aschenbrenner. Tyler's "how to spot talent" book clearly "self-recommending"!
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So seriously did the San Fransiscans go about their stealing that an AI researcher, having stolen a small GPU and hidden it under his fleece, suffered it to tear out his very brain with its RLHF and DPO, and died upon the place, rather than let it be seen.
In Sparta, boys were encouraged to steal food but were beaten if caught
The penalty wasn’t for stealing, but for stealing badly enough to get caught
The same applies to AI writing
For sure, use AI. But you’ll be penalized if you use it badly enough to get caught
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