Joel Gross's Blog

I saw Tustin Buick GMC Dealer was selling a truck at a good price for $45,000 online. I called in and only after about 15 minutes of discussion that I find that they have a mandatory price markup of $3,000 on every vehicle apparently for their “accessories package”! Watch out!

The whole covid pandemic has had me completely reassess the way I’m living my life. I decided that living in Los Angeles is too high of risk for me. Over the next 10 years I think there is a 1 in 10 or a 1 in 5 chance that a black swan event happens.

A black swan event could be a worse virus, war with China or another country, the rise of true AI, civil war, or many other risks.… read more “Massive Personal Changes”

I just subscribed tonight to look at big truck reviews like the F350. There is none for that size of truck. Further, I tried the Consumer Reports “deal” tool for vehicles and discovered the deals give higher prices than what the dealer posts on their website.  I am extremely disappointed in what Consumer Reports has become.

I ran into a strange bug in my application I am building:

When I saved a datetime of 2020-04-09 06:30:00 to the database it would convert to 2020-04-09 13:30:00, 7 hours different. Why?

First, I checked that MySQL, Python, and my Windows environment were all using Pacific time. Yes, they are. Everything shows the same time.… read more “Python Datetime, MySQL & Django – Weird Bug”

David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) Tweeted: NEWS: Graphic video appears to show Ahmaud Arbery, 25 of GA., whose family says he was out for a run, confronted by 2 men who shot him dead saying they thought he was a burglar. A prosecutor wants a grand jury to decide whether the men should be charged. https://t.co/kEYYJW7UlM https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/1257737290786443266?s=20

Have you ever wondered if you can sell your house yourself without paying the 3% fee to a real estate agent?

I have. Now I am actually doing it! Below I will share with you what steps I have done so far and what the results have been.

For every $100,000 in house value you are selling, you will lose $3,000 to a real estate agent.… read more “Selling My House By Owner – Step By Step Guide in 2020”

https://ncase.me/covid-19/

Unless we want to starve to death because of broken supply chains, we need to reopen the world now… https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-produce-rots-in-the-field-one-florida-farmer-and-an-army-of-volunteers-combat-a-feeling-of-helplessness–one-cucumber-at-a-time/2020/04/30/6230c3ae-842b-11ea-a3eb-e9fc93160703_story.html

We are not operating in a vacuum. The world needs to reopen, or far more people are going to die of other causes. Only one in six people who usually would be diagnosed with cancer or diagnosed in the last two months. The additional cancer deaths were going to see alone are going to outstrip the virus.… read more “Reopen California”