Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Dude, we ain't neither of us got no theory. I'm a mechanical engineer that never once had a bio class. I can't have a theory, just have a hope that you can't get it again. Mathematically the ship thing seemed too explainable by the margin of error. And plus, if people were getting reinfected at some high rate, we'd know for sure. But that isn't theory, it's reasoned hope.

I got one theory in this: I can run without a mask and not infect people, especially if I stay away from them. Oh, wait, one more, my other theory is my practice is fucked for the foreseeable future.

Hire a couple young bankruptcy specialists and put them to work. They're cheap, as they usually work at small firms. Just make sure you get ones who know Ch. 11. Lots of guys do 7s and 13s, but not so many do 11s.

If you can find a freak who knows Ch. 9, I think those cats might see some business. However, I have never met or even heard of any lawyer who knows how to do those.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I'm good friends with one of the people you guys are attacking. Way up the food chain there.

Small world. I've shot the shit about those claims with this person over drinks.

Not me, I have not been involved in this particular aspect, as I don't personally buy it. They tried to draft me for this team numerous times but I always found a reason to skate out.

That being said, I am not sure JNJ had the most sound defense strategy. It was as if was concocted by lawyers looking for a billing extravaganza.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Hire a couple young bankruptcy specialists and put them to work. They're cheap, as they usually work at small firms. Just make sure you get ones who know Ch. 11. Lots of guys do 7s and 13s, but not so many do 11s.

If you can find a freak who knows Ch. 9, I think those cats might see some business. However, I have never met or even heard of any lawyer who knows how to do those.

I got a B+ in bankruptcy. I think I am qualified.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

No. None. I live in a cave, on Mars.

School teachers will not be furloughed (at least not here). They threw a fit when NJ suggested making them work for the summer. Professors will lose loads of jobs. But they've not grasped that reality yet. They expect Big Education is coming back just as it was before because they've had such a stranglehold on consumers, and had such pricing power, for so long. They can't conceive of a reality where they don't get tenure, paid sabbaticals, and raises year after year. Those are worries of the lowly adjuncts.

ETA: Regarding your last point about how things will stay the same, here's Scott Galloway on the popping of the education bubble: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020...f-college.html

You can hear Galloway and Kara Swisher discuss it in depth on Pivot, their podcast (which is very entertaining and almost always fucking awesome): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000474333555

To be clear, I think there are big changes coming to education. I do not think there are big changes coming to cities and workplaces overall.

Nationally, there will be significant teacher layoffs. Why would the GOP let a crisis go to waste?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Not me, I have not been involved in this particular aspect, as I don't personally buy it. They tried to draft me for this team numerous times but I always found a reason to skate out.

That being said, I am not sure JNJ had the most sound defense strategy. It was as if was concocted by lawyers looking for a billing extravaganza.

Yeah, it doesn't look terribly organized. Why no MDL?

The other J&J debacle, the Risperdal case in Philly, was amazing. $8bil in compensatory and punitives, slashed to $6.8mil by trial judge. How's that for a generous jury? All because the drug gave male adolescent users man-boobs. Reason 2047453 Philly cannot have nice things: Juries in town have the average IQ of carnival workers.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

To be clear, I think there are big changes coming to education. I do not think there are big changes coming to cities and workplaces overall.

Nationally, there will be significant teacher layoffs. Why would the GOP let a crisis go to waste?

Commercial office r/e has a bleak future. It's costly and largely unnecessary. It was facing a reckoning before the pandemic and now finds itself struggling to articulate a reason for its existence.

It's not going to disappear, of course. There will always be offices of some sort. But it will shrink, considerably. Those who don't need it and are adaptive will embrace work from home culture. Those old farts who couldn't innovate to save their asses (banks, law firms, various stagnant corporations) will hold onto office palaces, but pare their footprints.

No conscientious manager takes on a long term fixed cost he can avoid. If I'm running a consulting firm, or a financial firm, and you offer me the choice between: (1) A lease of a small, flexible area for staff to meet as necessary which compliments their working from home; or, (2) An expensive lease that requires staff to commute to work 9-5 at something they could do as if not more efficiently from home (possibly alienating them or causing them to work for competitors who allow work from home arrangements), which do I choose? Do I even have an option? How am I not compelled to select option 2?

ETA: Retail comm r/e is even more fucked than office comm r/e. On the positive side, however, commercial warehouse space is going to do phenomenally well as the shift to online consumption accelerates. Glory days for big box developers and builders.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Yeah, it doesn't look terribly organized. Why no MDL?

They tried but there are clever ways around it. Won't disclose more than that in a public medium.

The other J&J debacle, the Risperdal case in Philly, was amazing. $8bil in compensatory and punitives, slashed to $6.8mil by trial judge. How's that for a generous jury? All because the drug gave male adolescent users man-boobs. Reason 2047453 Philly cannot have nice things: Juries in town have the average IQ of carnival workers.

Full stop. I had one of those referred to me personally. The mutants at my law firm wouldn't take it, so I sat twisting in the wind and it went elsewhere. These motherfuckers do absoutely nothing but reject cases so they don't have to do any work, so yet another reason not to commute in.

NB anyone with a brain knows you don't let any case get to a Philly jury. That's why they bifurcate. A lot. If you're in, you write a check.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Commercial office r/e has a bleak future. It's costly and largely unnecessary. It was facing a reckoning before the pandemic and now finds itself struggling to articulate a reason for its existence.

It's not going to disappear, of course. There will always be offices of some sort. But it will shrink, considerably. Those who don't need it and are adaptive will embrace work from home culture. Those old farts who couldn't innovate to save their asses (banks, law firms, various stagnant corporations) will hold onto office palaces, but pare their footprints.

No conscientious manager takes on a long term fixed cost he can avoid. If I'm running a consulting firm, or a financial firm, and you offer me the choice between: (1) A lease of a small, flexible area for staff to meet as necessary which compliments their working from home; or, (2) An expensive lease that requires staff to commute to work 9-5 at something they could do as if not more efficiently from home (possibly alienating them or causing them to work for competitors who allow work from home arrangements), which do I choose? Do I even have an option? How am I not compelled to select option 2?

ETA: Retail comm r/e is even more fucked than office comm r/e. On the positive side, however, commercial warehouse space is going to do phenomenally well as the shift to online consumption accelerates. Glory days for big box developers and builders.

Like "the robots are going to take all the jobs," this sentiment has been going around for a long time and has yet to materialize. My guess is that people actually like having somewhere to go, with the added benefit of that place not containing the wife, kids and dog, will overcome. As it has up until now.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

a new, very large (over 70,000) and apparently well-designed antibodies (serology) study from spain suggests that about 5% of spaniards have been infected with covid. As in the united states, prevalence varies greatly by region, with a high of 14.2% in soria province and 11.3% in the madrid region all the way to under 2% in asturias, the canaries and the north africa enclaves of ceuta and melilla. Two key takeaways. This study suggests that roughly 90% of cases go undetected in official government tallies and that the true infection mortality rate is 1.1%. We’ll return to this topic later. But the 90% number is notable since it is broadly in line with other serology studies which show a ‘true’ prevalence of infection usually in the 10x to 12x range compared to official tallies.

tpm

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Commercial office r/e has a bleak future. It's costly and largely unnecessary. It was facing a reckoning before the pandemic and now finds itself struggling to articulate a reason for its existence.

It's not going to disappear, of course. There will always be offices of some sort. But it will shrink, considerably. Those who don't need it and are adaptive will embrace work from home culture. Those old farts who couldn't innovate to save their asses (banks, law firms, various stagnant corporations) will hold onto office palaces, but pare their footprints.

No conscientious manager takes on a long term fixed cost he can avoid. If I'm running a consulting firm, or a financial firm, and you offer me the choice between: (1) A lease of a small, flexible area for staff to meet as necessary which compliments their working from home; or, (2) An expensive lease that requires staff to commute to work 9-5 at something they could do as if not more efficiently from home (possibly alienating them or causing them to work for competitors who allow work from home arrangements), which do I choose? Do I even have an option? How am I not compelled to select option 2?

ETA: Retail comm r/e is even more fucked than office comm r/e. On the positive side, however, commercial warehouse space is going to do phenomenally well as the shift to online consumption accelerates. Glory days for big box developers and builders.

I'm thinking about building a home office in the back yard. I've been working out of my dining room for two months now. It's been fine as a temporary thing. But, I'm pretty sure that if we go back, it'll be staggered, few day a week thing or a series of waves where we go back for awhile, come in for awhile. Having a better set up makes sense. Local ordinances allow for the construction of sheds less than 200 sqft without a permit, and it's looking to be a $7-10K build to convert a prefab shed into a cool-ish building that works as an office/studio with electricity/ac. I imagine a lot of the prefab places might get an uptick in business in the coming months.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Adder

Like "the robots are going to take all the jobs," this sentiment has been going around for a long time and has yet to materialize. My guess is that people actually like having somewhere to go, with the added benefit of that place not containing the wife, kids and dog, will overcome. As it has up until now.

The robots are taking all of the jobs. I am dictating this to you right now through my very best assistant, called an iPhone.

The jobs which automation has “created,“ which you like to cite in opposition are generally not high-paying.

As to your final point, having a place to go is increasingly becoming a luxury. Businesses don’t pay for luxuries for staff. Particularly when they are run by private equity and MBAs.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

I'm thinking about building a home office in the back yard. I've been working out of my dining room for two months now. It's been fine as a temporary thing. But, I'm pretty sure that if we go back, it'll be staggered, few day a week thing or a series of waves where we go back for awhile, come in for awhile. Having a better set up makes sense. Local ordinances allow for the construction of sheds less than 200 sqft without a permit, and it's looking to be a $7-10K build to convert a prefab shed into a cool-ish building that works as an office/studio with electricity/ac. I imagine a lot of the prefab places might get an uptick in business in the coming months.

I do almost everything from my home office. I have a satellite office, and I had a local office, but why bother? I was wasting money.

I’ve been offered rentals, including sharing assistants, from firms. Sounds desperate if you ask me. Sounds like they’re spending too much on rent.

Also, why would I want to dress in corporate casual clothing, and hang out with a bunch of shlubs, when I can work in surf shorts and a T-shirt? I’ve been wearing jeans to meetings for years now. I think the only creased pants I own go with suits and tuxedos.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The robots are taking all of the jobs. I am dictating this to you right now through my very best assistant, called an iPhone.

The jobs which automation has “created,“ which you like to cite in opposition are generally not high-paying.

If we're going to have this exchange again, wouldn't be more fun not to feign ignorance of everything that everyone here has said before on the subject? Asking for a friend.

Lots of great jobs are being created. They tend to get created in places like the Bay Area, Austin and New York City, rather than places like Allentown, Detroit or New Orleans.

As to your final point, having a place to go is increasingly becoming a luxury. Businesses don’t pay for luxuries for staff. Particularly when they are run by private equity and MBAs.

I have been thinking about this, and I'm not sure it's right. It's one thing to take a well-functioning company and move to a distributed model where everyone works from home. It would be quite another to build a company where people are rarely in the same space together. In the first, you get trade on the relationships and culture that you built. In the second, you have to figure out how to create those things without a lot of good interpersonal contact.

It's like moving from the Bay Area/Austin/NYC to Allentown/Detroit/New Orleans. You get to do it once and you get to trade up when you do it, but it doesn't work the other way around.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

If we're going to have this exchange again, wouldn't be more fun not to feign ignorance of everything that everyone here has said before on the subject? Asking for a friend.

Physician, heal thyself.

Lots of great jobs are being created. They tend to get created in places like the Bay Area, Austin and New York City, rather than places like Allentown, Detroit or New Orleans.

Okay. I should not have assumed you would assume I was talking nationally.

I was talking nationally. Nationally, tech displaces at a rate many multiples of that at which it creates. It also creates tons of shit "gig" jobs like Uber, Doordash, etc., which are not comparable to real jobs that come with benefits and living wages.

You've ignored mountains of data on those points every time we've had this discussion.

I have been thinking about this, and I'm not sure it's right. It's one thing to take a well-functioning company and move to a distributed model where everyone works from home. It would be quite another to build a company where people are rarely in the same space together.

The conversation about whether companies can be incubated or built remotely is a different one than the conversation about existing companies moving to partial work-at-home structures to save money.

I happen to agree with you. You can't start up a company without gluing together a team that works collaboratively, and that requires an office and people working together.

In the first, you get trade on the relationships and culture that you built. In the second, you have to figure out how to create those things without a lot of good interpersonal contact.

I don't think you can build a company remotely. (I say this as someone who visited and met the folks at YCombinator back in its Boston days when it was first becoming a juggernaut.)

It's like moving from the Bay Area/Austin/NYC to Allentown/Detroit/New Orleans. You get to do it once and you get to trade up when you do it, but it doesn't work the other way around.

How is that a trade up?

ETA: Start-ups will need offices. But as you know from the locations of many incubators, these aren't located in the high rent commercial locations where swanky office "palaces" are found. Sure, once they're well funded, they might get swanky space.

The comm r/e I'm talking about is the super-pricey poorly designed space you find in city centers. The gleaming towers uncreative corporate sorts think they need to occupy to be legitimate.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Lots of great jobs are being created. They tend to get created in places like the Bay Area, Austin and New York City, rather than places like Allentown, Detroit or New Orleans.

2015 called. It wants it's "Detroit's status" back.

I have been thinking about this, and I'm not sure it's right. It's one thing to take a well-functioning company and move to a distributed model where everyone works from home. It would be quite another to build a company where people are rarely in the same space together. In the first, you get trade on the relationships and culture that you built. In the second, you have to figure out how to create those things without a lot of good interpersonal contact.

Seb's a sole firm, right Seb? We are really not getting the ideas we once got from meetings. Of course there were wasted time meeting, but actually there seem to be more now.