u/DoughSeagull

My dog is really old and not doing well. The vet basically said we’re at the point where it’s about keeping him comfortable now.

He’s been with me for almost 13 years, so this has been awful. He’s tired, barely wants to move around, and mostly just sleeps near me. I’m trying to keep things calm for him.

I told my family found out how bad it’s gotten, and now everyone wants to come over to say goodbye.

At first I understood. They’ve known him for years too. But then it started becoming this whole thing. My mom wanted to come. Then my sister wanted to bring her kids. Then someone mentioned taking pictures with him one last time.

That’s when I snapped.

I know they love him too, and I’m not trying to act like their feelings don’t matter. But he’s exhausted. He doesn’t need a bunch of people coming in, crying, touching him, taking pictures, and making the whole house stressful.

I just want his last days to be quiet.

My family thinks I’m being selfish and that I’m taking away their chance to say goodbye. My sister said her kids grew up around him and deserve closure.

Maybe I am being selfish. I just feel like at this point, it should be about what’s easiest for him, not what makes everyone else feel better.

Am I wrong?

was looking through accelerometer data from CNC milling runs, comparing good and bad toolpaths.

The Z-axis looked like the obvious channel to monitor because it had the highest vibration energy. But in bad runs, its RMS only moved from about 1024 to 1081. That is roughly a 5% increase.

The Y-axis told a much clearer story. Healthy RMS was around 195, but bad runs jumped to about 305. That is a 56% spike on the axis you might ignore because the numbers look smaller.

Kurtosis was even more useful. In good runs, X and Y were around 6.5. In bad runs, they dropped closer to 3.5. So the failure was not just "more vibration". The vibration pattern changed.

Main takeaway: do not just watch the loudest axis.

For this run, Y-axis RMS and kurtosis were better signals than raw Z-axis energy. Also, thresholds need to move over time as the machine wears. Static models will age badly.

I went through Apple's historical SEC cash flow data, and the clearest takeaway is this:

Apple throws off huge operating cash, then sends most of it back to shareholders.

Investing vs. financing
Apple's investing activities mostly include:
- CapEx
- purchases, sales, and maturities of marketable securities
- acquisitions
This section shows how Apple spends on long term assets and manages its investment portfolio.

Apple's financing activities mostly include:
- share repurchases
- dividends
- debt issuance and repayment
This is where Apple's capital allocation really shows up, especially the buybacks.

Cash flow reconciliation

Using the latest full year in the dataset:
- Operating cash flow: $118.25B
- Investing cash flow: +$2.94B
- Financing cash flow: $121.98B

That gets to a change in cash of about -$0.79B, so the standard cash flow identity holds:
CFO + CFI + CFF = change in cash

In other words, Apple's operating cash was basically absorbed by financing outflows.

A few patterns that stand out

1. Buybacks dominate the story Repurchases are much bigger than dividends and have become the main use of cash.
2. Operating cash flow is huge and steady Apple had a step-up around 2021, then settled into a very high but more stable range.
   3**. Investing has become less of a drag** Earlier on, Apple was putting a lot of excess cash into securities. More recently, investing is more neutral and sometimes even a source of cash.
3. Apple is in distribution mode The company is not using most of its cash for major expansion. It is using it to return capital.

What an Excel model needs
To reproduce this properly, the model should have:
- years across columns
- separate operating, investing, and financing sections
- consistent sign conventions
- linked schedules for working capital, CapEx, debt, dividends, and buybacks
- a cash roll check: Beginning Cash + CFO + CFI + CFF - Ending Cash = 0
- a balance sheet tie-out so ending cash matches reported cash

Takeaway
Apple's cash flow statement is less about growth spending and more about capital return. If you use it as a modeling template, the key is not just forecasting operating cash correctly. It is showing where that excess cash actually goes.