Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Bubble Burst or Belch?

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UNRELATED PREFACE – – Mille grazie for the wonderful feedback from the prior post about the comments section. Your feedback was super-helpful (particular Tyler’s). Rest assured, almost NOTHING is going to change about the comments system. I honestly just have two or three tiny “housekeeping” tweaks I want to do. Really the only “change’ I was thinking about wasn’t even a change, but simply to offer a alternate means to look at the comments are a continuous stream, as opposed to being beneath a post. But the existing manner would still absolutely be intact! Again, thank you. Now, on to my late night random thoughts……….

The recent selloff in Bitcoin garnered a lot of media attention. I enjoy an objective viewpoint (unlike equities, in which I am shamelessly bearishly biased), because I don’t trade cryptos, so allow me to offer an observation about the following chart……..

bitcoin

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Everybody’s Talkin’

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As the Slope of Hope approaches its 13th birthday, it’s important to note that one of the most important aspects of the site – – indeed, probably THE most important aspect – – has been the comments section. Whereas the comments is an afterthought on most sites, or perhaps garners a handful of remarks for every post, Slope has gathered up literally MILLIONS of comments during the course of its lifetime (only about 10% of which are BDI telling us to blow him).

One of the oddities of Slope, which has almost become a meme, is how folks will have discussions and comments that have absolutely nothing to do with whatever post I’ve created. I was reminded of this when I did the prior post, which is a reflective, mildly-humorous post that should garner a lot of feedback, memories, and banter. Instead, people just kept talking about whatever they were talking about. That’s fine by me, but it leads me to a question that’s been on my mind……….. (more…)

Ah So………

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In these incredibly racially-sensitive times, I was reflecting upon how the commercials I saw on television when I was a kid would never see the light of day in more modern times. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the racist-against-black commercials were pretty much gone (Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s notwithstanding) but Asians were still boxed into some fairly ridiculous forms. Here’s one everyone remembers:

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