What happened today in our stock markets
Today President Trump threatened a “massive increase” in tariffs on Chinsee goods and the markets took a major dive.
Here’s Nasdaq at 2:52 PM EST. Nasdaq was worst hit:
I asked Google what happened?
I believe insiders in Washington are loading up on cheap shres.
Over the weekend, we’ll hear it all been solved — they’ll buy our barley, we’ll buy their rare earths.
There’s a broad range of suffering stocks to buy this afternoon. I like semiconductor makers, like NVDA, AMD, TSM, AVGO, MRVL .etc.
They should bounce back strongly on Monday. That’s it.
You must install one of these in your home
It will turn the water off in your house before you are about to have a massive flood.
Amazon calls it “Moen Flo Smart Water Monitor and Automatic Shutoff Sensor, Wi-Fi Water Leak Detector for 3/4-Inch Diameter Pipe, 900-001”
You’ll need a plumber. To buy it, cllick here.
Endless amusement with hearing aids
My readers have chimed in with their favorite hearing aids. All pricey. And all different.
My readers (and everyone else in this great counrty) believe something is worth what they paid for it.
Translation: the more pricey, the better. $7,000 hearing aids are obviously 35 times better than my $200 ones which I bought on Amazon.
My readers’ favorite brands range all over the place from Opticon to Costco, from Phonak to Jabra. The more expensive hearing aids come with an audiologist, nice offices, endless “adjustments” and all facets of ultra-heavy duty marketing/sales. Also called bullsh*t. (I have to do that * because many corporate IT departments dump my blog into the garbage if I use one of the verboten words.)
If they paid big-time, my friends love audiologists. But many say you can make your adjustments via the app, which you get for free from the AppStore.
Everyone and their uncle has a desk-drawer full of alive, dying and dead hearing aids. No one has ever bought just one pair and been happy forever. Some people (like me) get off on searching the Internet for the latest and greatest. They are not disappointed. The Internet is full of happy antiguities (old people) smiling widely, ostensibly because they can now hear their grandchildren. As a matter of note, I don’t need to hear my two American grandhildren. They always say the same thing, “Papi (that’s me), please buy us ice cream.”
In case you’re wondering, ice cream now costs more than Starbucks.
My dear friend, Frank Derfler, who was chief technologist at PC Magazine before he retired to the swamps of Florida, wrote me:
Dear Harry, No such thing as the hearing aid you want. It’s physics.
Even if the earbuds have megacomputer processing power, they can’t “dig” voices out of the background noises of greater intensity and often the same frequency as the buzz in the restaurant.
BUT.. here you go, Harry. Here is the invention you want:
What we all need is the ability to create a very low power voice network that will reach across the table. Each of your dinner partners wears a small microphone. The microphone can look like a pearl or a pin or any item that size. Tiny. The microphone broadcasts to your earbuds and, if desired, the paired earbuds of anyone else at the table. (A simple code system keeps them from linking with any unwanted device).
No, it doesn’t help you hear the waiter. But, it does make each of your other dinner partners easy to hear.
Yes, each dinner partner has to cooperate. Wearing gownless evening straps? Put it in your hair. Yes, they have to be charged. But the system would deliver fabulous results.
Now, go find somebody to make it.
— Frank
That’s it. Skip the hearing aids for now. Install the water flow thingee. Your insurance company will probably give you a discount for having installed one. And you’ll save endless days of dealing with builders, plumbers, sheetrockers, electricians, and insurance company children.
Note
+ There are 8 billion people in the world. Yesterday I wrote 8 million. That was not ChatGPT’s hallucination (AI word for mistake). That was my own eyesight. First my hearing. Now my seeing. All on the fritz.
In case you missed the best cartoon ever:
See you soon — Harry Newton
