This is one of many examples of the media taking a study and trumpeting grand conclusions that aren't supported by the data, or if they are, ignoring contradictory studies and potentially confounding variables (which might well have been discussed at length in the actual study). The problem isn't so much that these meta-analyses are being done- they might well be worthwhile to read for scientists looking for additional research topics, but the fact that they are being reported as if the grand council of science has weighed the evidence and come to a final definitive conclusion. This tends to undermine public trust in science. Worse, you see it in reporters who supposedly focus on science reporting. The problem is the media is in the business of attracting eyeballs, and an accurate report about one of these meta-analysis studies wouldn't attract many.
I just don't see how $43 is remotely realistic within 5 years. The distance between San Francisco to San Jose is about 30-40 miles depending on how direct you are able to fly (restricted airspaces such as the area around SFO may limit this). Taking into account take off and landing, let's call it a 15 minute trip. A five seat helicopter burns about 30 gallons per hour. Jet A currently runs about $5 a gallon, of which you will need approximately 7 gallons. So that's $37.5 in just fuel. That leaves basically nothing for the amortized cost of the vehicle, hangering costs, cost of pilot or amortization of R&D for automated tech, regulatory costs, maintenance, general overhead, or profit for the operator. Let's ignore a five seat helicopter and use costs from a tiny two seat training helicopter- this writer calculated $300 operating costs and he was piloting the craft himself:
So where are the savings coming from over a traditional helicopter? Let's say you cut out the pilot with AI (a BIG if that has zero chance of becoming a reality in 5 years)- that still doesn't get you close to $43 (see post about Robinson ownership above). It's clear you have to go electric to make that happen. But even if you assume fuel cost is zero too, you are still over $43 for a 15 minute flight for even the smallest most efficient helicopters (that are also vehicles few would likely to be eager to fly in). Essentially, you have to assume the vehicle will have level 5 autonomy, be electric, almost completely maintenance free, and constantly flying so as to incur almost no storage fees. EVEN THEN, $43 is going to be tough. Going back to the Robinson example: a very basic and tried and true design- An R44 is a nearly $500,000 proposition- and that doesn't include optional extras like air conditioning. How is a cutting edge electric autonomous air taxi going to be produced for substantially less? You are going to need a LOT of $43 rides before your autonomous air taxi's cost is amortized. Say the profit per ride is a generous $10- you'd need 50,000 rides to break even. And again, there's no room for any other expense in that budget.
You'd need a pretty decent income stream to afford a TriBeCa studio in the first place- landlords in NYC won't even approve you if you don't make 40x rent, which would be $2,500 minimum (more like $3,500 for most) in that neighborhood. So you are talking about "cash strapped" folks making $100k+.
Cash may still be holding on (and probably will in some form or another for many many years), but it is in steady decline. The circumstances where cash MUST be used have fallen to near zero.
I disagree it is even great for private-private exchanges. For small transfers (like a group paying at a restaurant), I rarely have exact change, meaning you end up owing or someone owes you. For large transfers, it means physically going to the bank and the security risk of carrying a large amount of cash. I'd much rather have someone use an electronic payment service in such circumstances.
Personally, I use cash maybe about once a month. If big brother wants you, cash won't save you, especially it becomes a rare thing to pay in cash.
Really? I find cash much harder to budget with. With electronic payments, what I spent money on is immediately logged into my statement. I can pull up and see how much I spent on groceries, or fuel, or whatever rather than just knowing I spent $XX.
Uggg... no I do not think that modeling is the same thing as predicting something. Look, I actually DO financial modeling as part of my job. I understand both its uses and limitations. Again, I posted in frustration with political arguments which DO equate a model run with a scientist's prediction of the future.
No, I'm beginning to think it is you that does not understand my comment. Oh well, agree to disagree I suppose.
To be clear, the reason I made the comment is that I am tired of people pointing to incorrect predictions made by scientists in the past as evidence that scientists today don't know what they are talking about. I'm not necessarily accusing you of doing that, but on the topic of climate change, such arguments are extremely common.
No, I understand full well what modeling is. Your statement :
"Next time someone talks to you about modern climate catastrophism being reality rather than a result of almost certainly inaccurate modelling process, remind them of the opposite outcome of best scientific consensus on global warming's impact on world hunger and how it wasn't just wrong. It was the worst kind of wrong - it was the diametric opposite of what actually happened."
As I pointed out, there were models that predicted a certain impact on hunger as a result of global warming. But that wasn't the "best scientific consensus on global warming's impact" as you stated. The scientific community did not coalesce around these models as being necessarily accurate, and in fact recognized the inherent limitations in the predictions they made.
I don't think there was ever any sort of scientific consensus in the 1990s that there would be mass desertification and starvation as a result of global warming. Were there models that predicted that? Sure, but it was recognized as a risk- not a certainty.
2010/11 was a very different experience, but one that can't really be repeated. In those days, streaming was still very much a niche, and Netflix could get streaming rights relatively cheaply to a wide variety of relatively recent releases. Part of the reason why they've started creating their own content is because they had to- many of the studios didn't want to play ball once they realized where Netflix availability was headed. Personally, I think they do a very good job. Not everything is great (far from it), but it's rare that I can't find something worth watching.
It's too bad that they got rid of reviews, but a quick google search on my phone serves that purpose just as well.
I think the key difference between Netflix and Prime is that Prime will buy up the rights to complete and utter garbage, but Netflix sets a floor. For example, Prime has a huge selection of 70s/80s B/C movies and stuff that appears to be a small step above an undergraduate film major's first project. Netflix may have movies that are not "good" or remotely current, but most were at least shown in mainline theaters when they came out (Netflix originals excepted). Netflix also has a much more robust original content pipeline.
Really not too surprising. Prime for most people is really just a nice little add on to expedited shipping they would otherwise pay for. Netflix has to stand on its own as a streaming service. I don't blame Amazon for buying up a ton of really cheap streaming rights to fill out their collection. Besides, some of the 70s B movies are so bad they are hilarious.
The average life span of a 60 year old was never 72. The increase in life expectancy over the last 100 years or so has largely been the product of declining infant mortality and the elimination of many childhood diseases through vaccination (Measles, Polio, etc.). Heck, you can read texts from ancient Greece that talk about 80 years as a normal life span.
The people complaining about a box cover with a woman on it are a vocal, but ultimately small minority. If you are actually playing the multiplayer portion of the game (which is 95% of what people buy BF for), the actual "intrusion" of some women characters is hardly noticeable other than the screams if you are playing sniper or medic. You might recall that BF1 had female snipers as well and nobody gave a rat's behind. Nor is EA's reaction to the "scandal" a big part of it. The vast majority of buyers aren't paying attention to nonsense the blow-by blow.
No, the reason people aren't buying BFV is the same reason people don't go see a flop movie: it's just not the greatest product. Mind you, I think BFV actually has a lot of potential, but months after release it still feels like a beta game in a lot of ways. It still has very few maps, many bugs, and uneven game play. Important details were overlooked. For example, it's almost impossible to keep teams properly balanced (no autobalance or easy team switching), so 90%+ of games are lopsided victories/defeats (not particularly exciting).
The renewed focus on squadplay by limiting ammo and allowing squad revives is great in theory, but in practice people still don't play together that well. I can't tell you how many times I've jumped up and down in front of a support teammate asking for ammo and gotten ignored. It's not EA's fault that people don't play as squads, but it is their fault for not anticipating that. People anonymously matched from a server don't immediately form coherent teams- most of the time only one or two members of a squad has a microphone and tying to type to squad members is just not useful in real time. In the event you do have a coherent squad to play with, you end up with the lopsided victory scenario, as you are probably the only squad playing as intended.
While people may not really be thinking about all of these things explicitly, it all adds up to the fact that people who've played the game don't feel like they had fun. When their friends ask how BFV is, they say "it sucks," and their friends don't buy the game. That's why it's not selling- ignore the politics.
I have to say that the Balkanization tends to work out pretty well for oddballs like me who don't watch much mainstream stuff. Most of my movie/TV watching is foreign and independent films and I don't watch live sports except for non-Nascar auto racing (Formula 1, WRC, WEC, etc.).
It used to be, to find anything worthwhile on TV I had to subscribe to the super duper gajillion channel package. Even then, it was hit or miss because you never know what would be broadcast when you were free to watch. With streaming, I can subscribe to Neflix and a few specific streaming channels relevant to my interests and be more than happy for a very small monthly outlay. It's not like Netflix was ever a hub of blockbuster films- even now they mostly only have blockbusters if there is an upcoming sequel the studio wants to promote. If I really want something more mainstream, I can always purchase a-la-carte on Amazon.
Lossless really isn't particularly meaningful in the days of modern encoding. Try doing a blind listening test between a lossy but reasonably high bitrate (256kb+) and lossless file (there is free software to allow a random selection between the two). I think you will find it impossible to tell the difference. I couldn't as a classically trained musician listening on a moderately high end set of studio monitors with a dedicated headphone amp. If you are jamming out in your car with a factory audio setup, I GUARANTEE you can't tell the difference.
Hmm... I remember playing Doom on a 386. It ran at about 5fps, which was enough for me to get through the whole "shareware" version I loaded up on 3.5 floppies.
The article talks about millenials as business owners, but then goes on to talk about "startups" which are not really thie same thing. When people talk about "startups", they are talking about the kinds of business that are funded by Angel investors, VC, and the like, which are formed with the hope of one day becoming a public company or being bought by one. These days, such business are usually in the tech industry or some offshoot thereof.
But the vast majority of small-businesses are just that and always will be. We are talking about things like restaurants, dry cleaners, auto repair shops, and the like. The fact that young people aren't forming small business enterprise has little to do with anything happening in silicon valley or other tech centers.
We aren't really that special. Human nature is just like animal nature- humans want opportunities to flourish. Like animals, humans will migrate to more optimal environments if conditions dictate. People often cite the mass migration from Europe to the Americas. This happened because the Americas had a great deal of arable and sparsely populated land- effectively under-utilized habitat. Humans are perfectly willing to suffer temporary hardship and risk in exchange for significant economic opportunities.
What humans DON'T do is move to a harsh and dangerous location in absence of any economic incentive. THAT'S why nobody is going to move their family to Antarctica. Currently, there is no known economic opportunity in Antarctica relevant to most individuals. It may contain some significant natural resources, but none have been definitively identified as economically recoverable. But, if we discovered an unlimited supply of unobtanium, you'd see the old international agreements ripped up and a boomtown spring up within a few years.
Likewise, we won't colonize Mars until some economic incentive to do so is identified. People may EXPLORE out of romantic desire (really just a hunt for resources), but they do not colonize until such resources have been identified.
As a pedestrian, I have been nearly struck WHILE IN A CROSSWALK by a car rolling a stop sign many times. I have been yelled and honked at by drivers WHILE I WAS A PEDESTRIAN for legally crossing the road. As a driver, I have come close to hitting a car that blithely blew threw a read light. I have come close to being hit by a car many times as they barrel at way over the speed limit on narrow streets. Things are so bad on my street that the city (not some vigilante group) has had to install extra speed bumps to slow speeding drivers now. I have not had any accidents or even near-accidents with cyclists, and I have a perfect driving record. I am crazy enough to ride a bicycle in the city where I live, but I would like more dedicated bike lanes, especially off street.
What's the problem? Different types of vehicles have different needs and are competing for road space that was often not designed for the needs. People don't magically become better or worse people because they take command of a machine, but the rules we create and the way we enforce them can have a drastic impact on behavior.
Until as such time as the police start enforcing traffic laws, and drivers stop driving without insurance or a license, I have no doubt that uninformed anti-bike screeds such as yours will continue to find accepting ears. Are cars faster and safer than bikes? Sure, but that doesn't take into account the externalities that they cause, like increased pollution and congestion. Motorcyclists do that to, but in general they are more efficient than cars AND the licensing requirement is more stringent. Yes, I drive a car too, even in the city. Are you nuts?
That's a good point. I should clarify I only rebalance my 401k and Roth accounts. The fees for doing so are effectively nill. In a taxable account, you can manually "rebalance" by simply adjusting how you invest new money.
Yes. Technically true, but as far as Moscow was concerned the border of the USSR was THEIR border from a security standpoint. It's also worth noting that Georgia was annexed into imperial Russia in the 19th century, so it has in the past been considered part of Russia.
Do yourself a favor. Ignore the financial adviser and just open an account with Vanguard or Fidelity. Put 70% of your money in a total stock market index, and 30% in a total bond market index. Rebalance annually (i.e. reallocate so you don't drift too far from 70/30). That's literally all you need to do. The financial industry wants you to think it's complicated so they can skim fees for "managing" or "advising."
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of many examples of the media taking a study and trumpeting grand conclusions that aren't supported by the data, or if they are, ignoring contradictory studies and potentially confounding variables (which might well have been discussed at length in the actual study). The problem isn't so much that these meta-analyses are being done- they might well be worthwhile to read for scientists looking for additional research topics, but the fact that they are being reported as if the grand council of science has weighed the evidence and come to a final definitive conclusion. This tends to undermine public trust in science. Worse, you see it in reporters who supposedly focus on science reporting. The problem is the media is in the business of attracting eyeballs, and an accurate report about one of these meta-analysis studies wouldn't attract many.
I just don't see how $43 is remotely realistic within 5 years. The distance between San Francisco to San Jose is about 30-40 miles depending on how direct you are able to fly (restricted airspaces such as the area around SFO may limit this). Taking into account take off and landing, let's call it a 15 minute trip. A five seat helicopter burns about 30 gallons per hour. Jet A currently runs about $5 a gallon, of which you will need approximately 7 gallons. So that's $37.5 in just fuel. That leaves basically nothing for the amortized cost of the vehicle, hangering costs, cost of pilot or amortization of R&D for automated tech, regulatory costs, maintenance, general overhead, or profit for the operator. Let's ignore a five seat helicopter and use costs from a tiny two seat training helicopter- this writer calculated $300 operating costs and he was piloting the craft himself:
https://www.aneclecticmind.com...
So where are the savings coming from over a traditional helicopter? Let's say you cut out the pilot with AI (a BIG if that has zero chance of becoming a reality in 5 years)- that still doesn't get you close to $43 (see post about Robinson ownership above). It's clear you have to go electric to make that happen. But even if you assume fuel cost is zero too, you are still over $43 for a 15 minute flight for even the smallest most efficient helicopters (that are also vehicles few would likely to be eager to fly in). Essentially, you have to assume the vehicle will have level 5 autonomy, be electric, almost completely maintenance free, and constantly flying so as to incur almost no storage fees. EVEN THEN, $43 is going to be tough. Going back to the Robinson example: a very basic and tried and true design- An R44 is a nearly $500,000 proposition- and that doesn't include optional extras like air conditioning. How is a cutting edge electric autonomous air taxi going to be produced for substantially less? You are going to need a LOT of $43 rides before your autonomous air taxi's cost is amortized. Say the profit per ride is a generous $10- you'd need 50,000 rides to break even. And again, there's no room for any other expense in that budget.
https://xkcd.com/678/
You'd need a pretty decent income stream to afford a TriBeCa studio in the first place- landlords in NYC won't even approve you if you don't make 40x rent, which would be $2,500 minimum (more like $3,500 for most) in that neighborhood. So you are talking about "cash strapped" folks making $100k+.
Cash may still be holding on (and probably will in some form or another for many many years), but it is in steady decline. The circumstances where cash MUST be used have fallen to near zero.
I disagree it is even great for private-private exchanges. For small transfers (like a group paying at a restaurant), I rarely have exact change, meaning you end up owing or someone owes you. For large transfers, it means physically going to the bank and the security risk of carrying a large amount of cash. I'd much rather have someone use an electronic payment service in such circumstances.
Personally, I use cash maybe about once a month. If big brother wants you, cash won't save you, especially it becomes a rare thing to pay in cash.
Really? I find cash much harder to budget with. With electronic payments, what I spent money on is immediately logged into my statement. I can pull up and see how much I spent on groceries, or fuel, or whatever rather than just knowing I spent $XX.
Remember the guy who ran for NYC mayor on the sole platform of "The rent is too damn high!" Perhaps he should move San Francisco?
Uggg... no I do not think that modeling is the same thing as predicting something. Look, I actually DO financial modeling as part of my job. I understand both its uses and limitations. Again, I posted in frustration with political arguments which DO equate a model run with a scientist's prediction of the future.
No, I'm beginning to think it is you that does not understand my comment. Oh well, agree to disagree I suppose.
To be clear, the reason I made the comment is that I am tired of people pointing to incorrect predictions made by scientists in the past as evidence that scientists today don't know what they are talking about. I'm not necessarily accusing you of doing that, but on the topic of climate change, such arguments are extremely common.
No, I understand full well what modeling is. Your statement :
"Next time someone talks to you about modern climate catastrophism being reality rather than a result of almost certainly inaccurate modelling process, remind them of the opposite outcome of best scientific consensus on global warming's impact on world hunger and how it wasn't just wrong. It was the worst kind of wrong - it was the diametric opposite of what actually happened."
As I pointed out, there were models that predicted a certain impact on hunger as a result of global warming. But that wasn't the "best scientific consensus on global warming's impact" as you stated. The scientific community did not coalesce around these models as being necessarily accurate, and in fact recognized the inherent limitations in the predictions they made.
I don't think there was ever any sort of scientific consensus in the 1990s that there would be mass desertification and starvation as a result of global warming. Were there models that predicted that? Sure, but it was recognized as a risk- not a certainty.
2010/11 was a very different experience, but one that can't really be repeated. In those days, streaming was still very much a niche, and Netflix could get streaming rights relatively cheaply to a wide variety of relatively recent releases. Part of the reason why they've started creating their own content is because they had to- many of the studios didn't want to play ball once they realized where Netflix availability was headed. Personally, I think they do a very good job. Not everything is great (far from it), but it's rare that I can't find something worth watching.
It's too bad that they got rid of reviews, but a quick google search on my phone serves that purpose just as well.
I think the key difference between Netflix and Prime is that Prime will buy up the rights to complete and utter garbage, but Netflix sets a floor. For example, Prime has a huge selection of 70s/80s B/C movies and stuff that appears to be a small step above an undergraduate film major's first project. Netflix may have movies that are not "good" or remotely current, but most were at least shown in mainline theaters when they came out (Netflix originals excepted). Netflix also has a much more robust original content pipeline.
Really not too surprising. Prime for most people is really just a nice little add on to expedited shipping they would otherwise pay for. Netflix has to stand on its own as a streaming service. I don't blame Amazon for buying up a ton of really cheap streaming rights to fill out their collection. Besides, some of the 70s B movies are so bad they are hilarious.
The average life span of a 60 year old was never 72. The increase in life expectancy over the last 100 years or so has largely been the product of declining infant mortality and the elimination of many childhood diseases through vaccination (Measles, Polio, etc.). Heck, you can read texts from ancient Greece that talk about 80 years as a normal life span.
The people complaining about a box cover with a woman on it are a vocal, but ultimately small minority. If you are actually playing the multiplayer portion of the game (which is 95% of what people buy BF for), the actual "intrusion" of some women characters is hardly noticeable other than the screams if you are playing sniper or medic. You might recall that BF1 had female snipers as well and nobody gave a rat's behind. Nor is EA's reaction to the "scandal" a big part of it. The vast majority of buyers aren't paying attention to nonsense the blow-by blow.
No, the reason people aren't buying BFV is the same reason people don't go see a flop movie: it's just not the greatest product. Mind you, I think BFV actually has a lot of potential, but months after release it still feels like a beta game in a lot of ways. It still has very few maps, many bugs, and uneven game play. Important details were overlooked. For example, it's almost impossible to keep teams properly balanced (no autobalance or easy team switching), so 90%+ of games are lopsided victories/defeats (not particularly exciting).
The renewed focus on squadplay by limiting ammo and allowing squad revives is great in theory, but in practice people still don't play together that well. I can't tell you how many times I've jumped up and down in front of a support teammate asking for ammo and gotten ignored. It's not EA's fault that people don't play as squads, but it is their fault for not anticipating that. People anonymously matched from a server don't immediately form coherent teams- most of the time only one or two members of a squad has a microphone and tying to type to squad members is just not useful in real time. In the event you do have a coherent squad to play with, you end up with the lopsided victory scenario, as you are probably the only squad playing as intended.
While people may not really be thinking about all of these things explicitly, it all adds up to the fact that people who've played the game don't feel like they had fun. When their friends ask how BFV is, they say "it sucks," and their friends don't buy the game. That's why it's not selling- ignore the politics.
I have to say that the Balkanization tends to work out pretty well for oddballs like me who don't watch much mainstream stuff. Most of my movie/TV watching is foreign and independent films and I don't watch live sports except for non-Nascar auto racing (Formula 1, WRC, WEC, etc.).
It used to be, to find anything worthwhile on TV I had to subscribe to the super duper gajillion channel package. Even then, it was hit or miss because you never know what would be broadcast when you were free to watch. With streaming, I can subscribe to Neflix and a few specific streaming channels relevant to my interests and be more than happy for a very small monthly outlay. It's not like Netflix was ever a hub of blockbuster films- even now they mostly only have blockbusters if there is an upcoming sequel the studio wants to promote. If I really want something more mainstream, I can always purchase a-la-carte on Amazon.
Lossless really isn't particularly meaningful in the days of modern encoding. Try doing a blind listening test between a lossy but reasonably high bitrate (256kb+) and lossless file (there is free software to allow a random selection between the two). I think you will find it impossible to tell the difference. I couldn't as a classically trained musician listening on a moderately high end set of studio monitors with a dedicated headphone amp. If you are jamming out in your car with a factory audio setup, I GUARANTEE you can't tell the difference.
Hmm... I remember playing Doom on a 386. It ran at about 5fps, which was enough for me to get through the whole "shareware" version I loaded up on 3.5 floppies.
The article talks about millenials as business owners, but then goes on to talk about "startups" which are not really thie same thing. When people talk about "startups", they are talking about the kinds of business that are funded by Angel investors, VC, and the like, which are formed with the hope of one day becoming a public company or being bought by one. These days, such business are usually in the tech industry or some offshoot thereof.
But the vast majority of small-businesses are just that and always will be. We are talking about things like restaurants, dry cleaners, auto repair shops, and the like. The fact that young people aren't forming small business enterprise has little to do with anything happening in silicon valley or other tech centers.
We aren't really that special. Human nature is just like animal nature- humans want opportunities to flourish. Like animals, humans will migrate to more optimal environments if conditions dictate. People often cite the mass migration from Europe to the Americas. This happened because the Americas had a great deal of arable and sparsely populated land- effectively under-utilized habitat. Humans are perfectly willing to suffer temporary hardship and risk in exchange for significant economic opportunities.
What humans DON'T do is move to a harsh and dangerous location in absence of any economic incentive. THAT'S why nobody is going to move their family to Antarctica. Currently, there is no known economic opportunity in Antarctica relevant to most individuals. It may contain some significant natural resources, but none have been definitively identified as economically recoverable. But, if we discovered an unlimited supply of unobtanium, you'd see the old international agreements ripped up and a boomtown spring up within a few years.
Likewise, we won't colonize Mars until some economic incentive to do so is identified. People may EXPLORE out of romantic desire (really just a hunt for resources), but they do not colonize until such resources have been identified.
As a pedestrian, I have been nearly struck WHILE IN A CROSSWALK by a car rolling a stop sign many times. I have been yelled and honked at by drivers WHILE I WAS A PEDESTRIAN for legally crossing the road. As a driver, I have come close to hitting a car that blithely blew threw a read light. I have come close to being hit by a car many times as they barrel at way over the speed limit on narrow streets. Things are so bad on my street that the city (not some vigilante group) has had to install extra speed bumps to slow speeding drivers now. I have not had any accidents or even near-accidents with cyclists, and I have a perfect driving record. I am crazy enough to ride a bicycle in the city where I live, but I would like more dedicated bike lanes, especially off street.
What's the problem? Different types of vehicles have different needs and are competing for road space that was often not designed for the needs. People don't magically become better or worse people because they take command of a machine, but the rules we create and the way we enforce them can have a drastic impact on behavior.
Until as such time as the police start enforcing traffic laws, and drivers stop driving without insurance or a license, I have no doubt that uninformed anti-bike screeds such as yours will continue to find accepting ears. Are cars faster and safer than bikes? Sure, but that doesn't take into account the externalities that they cause, like increased pollution and congestion. Motorcyclists do that to, but in general they are more efficient than cars AND the licensing requirement is more stringent. Yes, I drive a car too, even in the city. Are you nuts?
Did you sell on the crashes? If you bought and held a broad-market index fund for decades, you should be WAY up.
That's a good point. I should clarify I only rebalance my 401k and Roth accounts. The fees for doing so are effectively nill. In a taxable account, you can manually "rebalance" by simply adjusting how you invest new money.
Yes. Technically true, but as far as Moscow was concerned the border of the USSR was THEIR border from a security standpoint. It's also worth noting that Georgia was annexed into imperial Russia in the 19th century, so it has in the past been considered part of Russia.
Do yourself a favor. Ignore the financial adviser and just open an account with Vanguard or Fidelity. Put 70% of your money in a total stock market index, and 30% in a total bond market index. Rebalance annually (i.e. reallocate so you don't drift too far from 70/30). That's literally all you need to do. The financial industry wants you to think it's complicated so they can skim fees for "managing" or "advising."