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statementlou · 6 months

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i feel like i can talk to you about this because you have rational opinions. so louis bought a starbucks coffee at the airport and the fandom on twitter are eating him alive, calling him evil and wishing he goes to hell. i’m disappointed since starbucks is on the list of brands to boycott but i feel like this reaction is too much? someone even said jay would be disappointed in him, but people said that was taking it too far. i don’t know, i love louis and i’ll keep supporting him and his music but the fact he can be a careless millionaire is disappointing

1. thank you sweetie I would boop if I could 2. oh my god it's a fucking cup of coffee and if people think that's the worst thing Louis, a multi millionaire, has ever done financially they need a reality check! His money will be handled by bankers who are putting it into all kinds of evil fucking shit that he won't even know about, it's actually very hard to know or control that and there is no way trying is even on his radar. That's a passive thing and not on purpose; but the fact that people don't bother to know about that or care really speaks to how performative this kind of online approach to activism is, that they only care about image rather than effect (the effect of his investments would be easily thousands of times more than any number of coffees or even of the promotion Starbucks might get from him holding it.) But furthermore buckle in cause you hit a nerve: Starbucks isn't even an actual organized boycott target as concerns Palestine because THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT financially! The official BDS movement calls for boycott of very specific and pointed targets of which Starbucks IS NOT ONE it's literally just an online trend which is not the same as an actual boycott to materially impact a target! Losing them money is always great, they are a crappy union busting small business killing corporation, but it has zero direct effect to help Palestinians unlike supporting the meaningful boycotts called for by BDS. I don't think Louis has decided to buy starbucks because he has this analysis, but to me it's a pretty important point. Him crossing an actual picket line (playing Israel, playing Eurovision [lmaoooo that thought tho], waving an Israeli flag god forbid) would be a very different situation and something that would trouble me so the distinction matters to me. But I get that to people on twitter, that's what they feel like he has done. To which I would say...

There are so many fewer ways to help Palestine than we would wish, and it's SO hard to deal with feeling so powerless right now in the face of such horror, so I love that people feel so strongly about doing whatever they possibly can. But worrying about consumer spending, even on BDS targets, is perhaps the least effective of the things a person can do. Note that BDS boycotts do not mostly focus on asking people not to buy things; they list the products that are especially complicit, but the main work of the movement is to get large investors (corporations, public institutions, whole governments) to divest from the companies targeted because that actually hurts them enough that it becomes less profitable to continue to collude with Israel than to drop them as clients. Consumer spending is not enough to do this. It's easy and doesn't require doing actual work but it's basically virtue signaling, not organizing. Just NOT doing something (yes including voting) is not enough! I personally choose not to give my money to certain corporations because it feels bad to me and I can't stomach doing it, even if they never notice me doing it. But if I was running out of fuel and the only nearby station was a Chevron, I would spend a few bucks there and not beat myself up about it because it will have zero impact on their overall profit reports but a LOT of impact on my life. And if I was in the airport for the second time in mere days after circumnavigating the globe and playing a massive show and doing press and fan service before even having time to adjust time zones and about to get on another flight to another country I might buy a fucking coffee from whatever coffee shop was in there too! But Louis isn't me and I'm gonna be real honest I would be real surprised if he KNEW there was a boycott or gave a shit- he is not a political activist! It's reasonable to be disappointed if someone behaves not how you want them to, but just in general responding to being disappointed in people by lashing out at them is... not it. Not useful, not rational, and not actually an okay way to act to other people. Louis is an awesome sweet caring person who I believe tries hard not to have a negative impact on anyone directly and who cares very much about others; if that's not enough for someone to be a fan of him, okay then they should not be a fan of him! But warning: they're not going to be able to be a fan of anyone else either. No one is pure and perfect... maybe that energy would be better spent trying to make a meaningful difference in the world, and a great first step in that IMO is to recognize and challenge your inner cop. The better world I want to live in doesn't include policing other people, not on twitter and not anywhere.

#anyway just read the BDS link!#I'm pretty sure starbucks dont even have stores in israel. this whole 'boycott' is such a fucking waste of energy istg DO SOMEtHIGN USeFUL #comrade louis.... or not lol #to be clear... that tag is a bit of a joke to me. he's a fucking millionaire! the rich are not our political saviors!#he cares and he tries and he is better than 99% of people. but he is not john brown okay #if people had class analysis wrt to capitalism rather than just image concerns... well. it would be better.#palestine #long post #sorry :(#starbucks discourse

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sgiandubh · 11 months

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Tools of the trade

Came home an hour ago from a reception I literally fled (busy week in this respect, unfortunately). And I kept being internally nagged during the short taxi ride, by what is probably at least this season's Anon. Landed in @bat-cat-reader's inbox with regard to Marple's most recent innuendo:

I had to know more about this, since I had no idea such deep diving tools were now available for pretty much everyone. Here's the gist of how it works, in pics and a quick review:

What Snoopreport promises its subscribers is to basically keep them posted on the targeted accounts' online behavior patterns...

... without the need to publicly follow them on Insta (sounds familiar?)...

...leaving no trace (zero accountability, because it uses only public data: this can be interpreted differently, in a different legal system/context, since several European countries, as I already discussed, have more protective legal provisions for a person's right to his/her own image)...

... at minimal costs (I suppose the most cost-effective, if we assume this is one of the used monitoring tools, would be the small business pack, allowing the super sleuth to track 10 different accounts, for peanuts):

A review of this product I have checked here (https://www.techuntold.com/snoopreport-review/) points out the obvious Achilles' heel of this app. Snoopreport obviously does not work for private accounts:

Which brings up a logical question: could the (in)famous 'resource' be S's private Insta account, in which case it would be very difficult for the sleuth to admit stalking it? Is it even technically possible to stalk a private Instagram account and remain unseen?

The answer to the latter is yes: other actors of this apparently very lucrative market, such as Glassagram (https://glassagram.com/), do not have Snoopreport's scruples and monitor even private accounts.

I think this is pretty self-explanatory and to be honest, it gave me the chills:

Serious reviews (https://www.techuntold.com/glassagram-review-spy-instagram/) are raving about this one, calling it the best app on the market, mainly because you can save all the snooped content on your own device:

... and the price, for stalking (their own choice of vocabulary, not mine, for once) an unlimited number of accounts is reasonable:

Best of it? They've been around since 2017.

In a nutshell: is it legal? it would seem so, in the US, not so sure about the UK/EU. Is it moral? It's up to you to decide what to think of a firm which has no problem admitting to encouraging stalking (but hey, don't listen to the nutcase here, huh?) and uses completely different real-life situations (infidelity, kids' monitoring) to assert its legitimacy and utility.

What I mean by this very long and illustrative post is this: you do not need inside sources/information to have one day the idea of crossing what is obviously (at least in my book) a red line. You just have to be able (lots of free time), willing (asserting power over a very thirsty and not so digitally skilled audience) and voilà: a Super Sleuth is born.

It is one thing to analyze and speculate, based on open sources, to your heart's content. It is a different affair altogether to obsessively monitor someone, with so much detail and personal (& financial) investment, over a substantial period of time. I will die on this hill and you will never change my mind on this one.

Is the emperor naked? I wouldn't venture speculating. What I do know, is that this emperor is a very, very sad one.

#fandom

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butchgtow · 7 months

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Introduction to Armchair Activism

Current feelings about the state of radblr.

Fundamentals

"Yes, Everyone on the Internet Is a Loser." Luke Smith. Sep 3, 2022. YouTube.

An activist movement can be a place to build community with like-minded people, but action is its foremost purpose, not community. To allow yourself and other activists to remain effective, you are obliged to abandon your personal dislikes of other individual activists. Disagreements are worth discussion, but interpersonal toxicity is not.

Connect with in-person community and do not unhealthily over-prioritize online community. Over-prioritization of online community is self-harm.

Luke is a loser, but his channel is teeming with entry-level digital literacy information and advice pertaining to healthy use of technology for us cyborgs.

"Surveillance Self-Defense: Tips, Tools and How-Tos For Safer Online Communication." Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Hackblossom, outdated, is discontinued. The EFF project Surveillance Self-Defense is up-to-date, comprehensive, and follows personal educational principles of simplicity and concision.

To learn more about general (not focused solely on personal action) cybersecurity, visit Cybersecurity by Codecademy and Cyber Security Tutorial by W3Schools. Both contain further segueways into other important digital literacies.

Direct recommendation: Install and set up the linux distribution Tails on a cheap flash drive.

Direct recommendation: Develop your own home network security schema.

Direct recommendation: Always enable 2FA security for Tumblr, disable active / inactive status sharing, and learn to queue reblogs and posts to protect against others' interpretations of your time zone.

Direct recommendation: It's both possible and relatively simple to host your own instance of a search engine using SearXNG.

Zero-Knowledge Architecture.

As a remote activist (even if also a hybrid activist), none of your action should be taken on, using, or interfacing with non-zero-knowledge-architecture services. Tumblr is, of course, a risk in and of itself, but you should not be using services provided by companies such as Google, Microsoft, or any others based in or with servers hosted in 13-eyes agreement nations.

Search for services (email, word processor, cloud storage) which emphasize zero-knowledge architecture. Businesses whose services are structured as such cannot hand over your data and information, as they cannot access it in the first place. If they cannot access the majority of your metadata, either - all the better.

Communications for Armchair Activism

"Technical Writing." Google.

Contained within the linked page at Google Developers, the self-paced, online, pre-class material for courses Technical Writing One, Technical Writing Two, and Tech Writing for Accessibility teach activists to communicate technical concepts in plain English.

"Plain Language." U.S. General Services Administration.

Plain language is strictly defined by U.S. government agencies, which are required to communicate in it for simplicity and quick, thorough comprehension of information.

"Explore Business Law." Study.com.

Extensive courses are offered to quickly uptake principles of business law such as antitrust law, contract law, financial legislation, copyright law, etc. Legal literacy is often the difference between unethical action of a business and its inaction. Legal literacy is also often the difference between consideration and investment in your policy idea and lack thereof.

"Business Communication." Study.com.

Now that you're able to communicate your prioritized information, you may also initiate writing with bells and whistles. While other activists care most about the information itself, business communication allows you to communicate your ideas and needs to those who you must convince worthiness of investment to and win over.

Logic.

Learn it through and through. Start with fallacies if you're better at language and work your way backwards to discrete mathematics; start with discrete mathematics if you're better at maths and work your way forwards to fallacies, critical literacy, and media literacy. State that which you intend to state. Recognize empiricism and rationalism for what they are. Congratulations: you are both a mathematician and a law student.

Economic Literacy for Armchair Activism

"Microeconomics." Khan Academy.

"Macroeconomics." Khan Academy.

The globe operates on profitability. Women's unpaid labor is a massive slice of the profitability pie. While it's possible to enact change without understanding all that drives the events around you, it's impossible to direct or meaningfully manipulate the events around you beyond your scope of comprehension.

Understand economics or be a sheep to every movement you're active in and to every storm that rolls your way.

#masterpost #armchair activism #remote activism #hybrid activism #cybersecurity #literacy #digital literacy #women in tech #radical feminist community #mine

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tomblomfield · 4 months

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Taking Risk

I just spent a week talking with some exceptional students from three of the UK's top universities; Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College. Along with UCL, these British universities represent 4 of the top 10 universities in the world. The US - a country with 5x more people and 8x higher GDP - has the same number of universities in the global top 10.

On these visits, I was struck by the world-class quality of technical talent, especially in AI and biosciences. But I was also struck by something else. After their studies, most of these smart young people wanted to go and work at companies like McKinsey, Goldman Sachs or Google.

I now live in San Francisco and invest in early-stage startups at Y Combinator, and it's striking how undergraduates at top US universities start companies at more than 5x the rate of their British-educated peers. Oxford is ranked 50th in the world, while Cambridge is 61st. Imperial just makes the list at #100. I have been thinking a lot about why this is. The UK certainly doesn't lack the talent or education, and I don't think it's any longer about access to capital.

People like to talk about the role of government incentives, but San Francisco politicians certainly haven't done much to help the startup ecosystem over the last few years, while the UK government has passed a raft of supportive measures.

Instead, I think it's something more deep-rooted - in the UK, the ideas of taking risk and of brazen, commercial ambition are seen as negatives. The American dream is the belief that anyone can be successful if they are smart enough and work hard enough. Whether or not it is the reality for most Americans, Silicon Valley thrives on this optimism.

The US has a positive-sum mindset that business growth will create more wealth and prosperity and that most people overall will benefit as a result. The approach to business in the UK and Europe feels zero-sum. Our instinct is to regulate and tax the technologies that are being pioneered in California, in the misguided belief that it will give us some kind of competitive advantage.

Young people who consider starting businesses are discouraged and the vast majority of our smart, technical graduates take "safe" jobs at prestigious employers. I am trying to figure out why that is.

___

Growing up, every successful adult in my life seemed to be a banker, a lawyer or perhaps a civil engineer, like my father. I didn't know a single person who programmed computers as a job. I taught myself to code entirely from books and the internet in the late 1990s. The pinnacle of my parents' ambition for me was to go to Oxford and study law.

And so I did. While at university, the high-status thing was to work for a prestigious law firm, an investment bank or a management consultancy, and then perhaps move to Private Equity after 3 or 4 years. But while other students were getting summer internships, I launched a startup with two friends. It was an online student marketplace - a bit like eBay - for students. We tried to raise money in the UK in 2006, but found it impossible. One of my cofounders, Kulveer, had a full-time job at Deutsche Bank in London which he left to focus on the startup. His friends were incredulous - they were worried he'd become homeless. My two cofounders eventually got sick of trying to raise money in the UK and moved out to San Francisco. I was too risk-averse to join them - I quit the startup to finish my law degree and then became a management consultant - it seemed like the thing that smart, ambitious students should do. The idea that I could launch a startup instead of getting a "real" job seemed totally implausible.

But in 2011, I turned down a job at McKinsey to start a company, a payments business called GoCardless, with two more friends from university. We managed to get an offer of investment (in the US) just days before my start date at McKinsey, which finally gave me the confidence to choose the startup over a prestigious job offer. My parents were very worried and a friend of my father, who was an investment banker at the time, took me to one side to warn me that this would be the worst decision I ever made. Thirteen years later, GoCardless is worth $2.3bn.

I had a similar experience in 2016, when I was starting Monzo, I had to go through regulatory interviews before I was allowed to work as the CEO of a bank. We hired lawyers and consultants to run mock interviews - and they told me plainly that I was wasting my time. It was inconceivable that the Bank of England would authorise me, a 31 year old who'd never even worked in a bank, to act as the CEO of the UK's newest bank. (It turned out they did.) So much of the UK felt like it was pushing against me as an aspiring entrepreneur. It was like an immune system fighting against a foreign body. The reception I got in the US was dramatically different - people were overwhelmingly encouraging, supportive and helpful. For the benefit of readers who aren't from the UK, I hope it's fair to say that Monzo is now quite successful as well.

___

I don't think I was any smarter or harder working than many of the recent law graduates around me at Oxford. But I probably had an unusual attitude to risk. When we started GoCardless, we were 25 years old, had good degrees, no kids and supportive families. When fundraising was going poorly, we discussed using my parents' garage as an office. McKinsey had told me to contact them if I ever wanted a job in future. I wonder if the offer still stands.

Of course, I benefitted from immense privilege. I had a supportive family whose garage I could have used as an office. I had a good, state-funded education. I lived in a safe, democratic country with free healthcare. And I had a job offer if things didn't work out. And so the downside of the risks we were taking just didn't seem that great.

But there's a pessimism in the UK that often makes people believe they're destined to fail before they start. That it's wrong to even think about being different. Our smartest, most technical young people aspire to work for big companies with prestigious brands, rather than take a risk and start something of their own.

And I still believe the downside risk is small, especially for privileged, smart young people with a great education, a supportive family, and before they accumulate responsibilities like childcare or a mortgage. If you spend a year or two running a startup and it fails, it's not a big deal - the job at Google or McKinsey is still there at the end of it anyway. The potential upside is that you create a product that millions of people use and earn enough money that you never have to work again if you don't want to.

This view is obviously elitist - I'm aware it's not attainable for everyone. But, as a country, we should absolutely want our smartest and hardest working people building very successful companies - these companies are the engines of economic growth. They will employ thousands of people and generate billions in tax revenues. The prosperity that they create will make the entire country wealthier. We need to make our pie bigger, not fight over the economic leftovers of the US. Imagine how different the UK would feel if Google, Microsoft and Facebook were all founded here.

___

When I was talking with many of these smart students this week, many asked me how these American founders get away with all their wild claims. They seem to have limitless ambition and make outlandish claims about their goals - how can they be so sure it will pan out like that? There's always so much uncertainty, especially in scientific research. Aren't they all just bullshitters? Founders in the UK often tell me "I just want to be more realistic," and they pitch their business describing the median expected outcome, which for most startups is failure.

The difference is simple - startup founders in the US imagine the range of possible scenarios and pitch the top one percent outcome. When we were starting Monzo, I said we wanted to build a bank for a billion people around the world. That's a bold ambition, and one it's perhaps unlikely Monzo will meet. Even if we miss that goal, we've still succeeded in building a profitable bank from scratch that has almost 10 million customers.

And it turns out that this approach matches exactly what venture capitalists are looking for. It is an industry based on outlier returns, especially at the earliest stages. Perhaps 70% of investments will fail completely, and another 29% might make a modest return - 1x to 3x the capital invested. But 1% of investments will be worth 1000x what was initially paid. Those 1% of successes easily pay for all the other failures.

On the contrary, many UK investors take an extremely risk-averse view to new business - I lost count of the times that a British investor would ask for me a 3 year cash-flow forecast, and expect the company to break even within that time. UK investors spend too much time trying to mitigate downside risk with all sorts of protective provisions. US venture capital investors are more likely to ask "if this is wildly successful, how big could it be?". The downside of early-stage investing is that you lose 1x your money - it's genuinely not worth worrying much about. The upside is that you make 1000x. This is where you should focus your attention.

___

A thriving tech ecosystem is a virtuous cycle - there's a flywheel effect that takes several revolutions to get up-to-speed. Early pioneers start companies, raise a little money and employ some people. The most successful of these might get acquired or even IPO. The founders get rich and become venture capital investors. The early employees start their own companies or become angel investors. Later employees learn how to scale up these businesses and use their expertise to become the executives of the next wave of successful growth-stage startups.

Skype was a great early example of this - Niklas Zenstrom, the co-founder, launched the VC Atomico. Early employees of Skype started Transferwise or became seed investors at funds like Passion Capital, which invested in both GoCardless and Monzo. Alumni of those two companies have created more than 30 startups between them. Matt Robinson, my cofounder at GoCardless, was one of the UK's most prolific angel investors, before recently becoming a Partner at Accel, one of the top VCs in the world. Relative to 15 or 20 years ago, the UK tech ecosystem is flourishing - our flywheel is starting to accelerate. Silicon Valley has just had a 50 year head start.

There is no longer a shortage of capital for great founders in the UK (although most of the capital still comes from overseas investors). I just believe that people with the highest potential aren't choosing to launch companies, and I want that to change.

___

I don’t think the world is prepared for the tidal wave of technological change that’s about to hit over the next handful of years. Primarily because of the advances in AI, companies are being started this year that are going to transform entire industries over the next decade.

It doesn't seem hyperbolic to say that we should expect to see very significant breakthroughs in quantum computers, nuclear fusion, self-driving vehicles, space exploration and drug discovery in the next 10 or 20 years. I think we are about to enter the biggest period of transformation humanity has ever seen.

Instead of taking safe, well-paying jobs at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, our young people should take the lead as the world is being rebuilt around us.

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kanmom51 · 2 years

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I see the "Jimin gave Dior their highest stocks" argument circulating on Twitter and on Tumblr. Wanted to add my two cents: Stocks don't work that way. One single person being named brand ambassador won't influence stocks in a mega way. Not even our bestest, cuty-sexy-lovely It-boy.

Two things:

a) what influences stocks is quite complex and it's difficult to pin it down to just one factor and trying to determin what impact that one factor had b) Dior's stocks have been pretty good since September last year. And the rise in stock since Jimin was named brand ambassador wasn't that high. That's not because Jimin being brand ambassador wasn't impactful. Because it obviously was. But again, stocks are a bit more complicated than that. Also during times of crisis, luxury brands are always quite successful, since rich people usually aren't affected by those times of crisis. Sucks, but that's how it is

Still Jimin being brand ambassador is a highly successful move for both sides. Jimin holds a lot of brand power. He gets Dior a lot of recognition and gets people to shop Dior products. And of course since the new money is in Asia, naming a big asian celebrity as brand ambassador is a very clever move. And right now Jimin is one of the most famous celebrities. People can be pressed about that all day long. Won't stop the Jimin effect and won't stop people from running into Dior stores, lol (and maybe soon Tiffany stores?). And like clockwork, everyone shading Jimin for being lazy just dug their own graves. When I see people complaining about Jimin being lazy, it majorly pisses me of. But I also know I just need to sit back and wait for Jimin to do his thing. Chefs kiss.

Very well said. I completely agree.

Saying JM being announced ambassador for Dior has their stock at an all time high is so very simplistic and kinda wrong.

It is very possible that the announcement itself, on the day, caused a spike in the stock price, that would be a momentary influence, nothing more.

Just like @guacamoli-avocadorado mentioned, the stock market and stock prices are much more complex than that. Many more influences, inside brand influences and outside world influences, other stock markets are at play here. For instance, a fall of the Wall Street stock market will influence other stock markets all around the world and stocks in those markets, even if they have zero to do with Wall Street will most likely take a hit.

I would like to add some more though.

Yes, stock prices are important to assess a company's worth, but at the end of the day, the success of a brand is not in it's stock prices.

It's in the profit it makes selling their products. Cost versus income, as simple as that. The more the brand is profitable, the more successful it is. The more profit there is to divide out as dividends to their shareholders, the happier the shareholders are in it's management.

Cost and profit.

And JM is a cost, probably a very big one, but he's also an unbelievable investment for Dior. The buying power JM holds is immense, not only in the Asian markets but add to that international Army.

I mean, just go online to see how many Army have been out on shopping sprees buying Dior products all because JM was announced as ambassador. Buying clothes he wore, bags he carried, make up he had on.

Now that's buying power, and that's also a good investment.

JM is a money maker, and that's why they snatched him, Mr. brand reputation king.

Talking about brand reputation rankings, JM no. 1 and JK no. 3 - when are we finally going to be hearing who snatched JK up, eh? I guess it's all about timing, cause we know these deals are months in the making. But it sure is coming.

Dior did more than good to land JM. Good business is what it was, and every JM hater out there, well, boo to you you idiots. JM is the king, case in point.

JM might have done that by mistake, but that's exactly what the haters deserve. Instead they got a little of the very famous JM/JK Karma.

And those sounds, the screechers calling JM lazy, those sounds were silenced. Boy's been working non stop, recording, filming, shooting, being cooed by Dior from the second the solo path was announced.

This same claimed lazy JM is in tip top shape, able to move his body, do things that no other member of BTS can, not even our super fit, Mr. boxing and exercising all the damn time Jungkook.

You aren't able to control your body like that by being lazy. And that's just the latest example.

JK has spoken about what a hard worker JM is, how he admires him for it. But you know, Jikook are scripted, so probably doesn't mean a thing, right?

Yoongi said it too, but again, he's BTS, it's all a falsehood they are trying to sell us.

Then how about Taeyang then? Is he part of the BH JM propaganda machine?

I think you all know my thoughts about it, right?

I'm just as pissed as you @guacamoli-avocadorado.

Hell, JM, as per usual, quietly, humbly, shows them all exactly who he is, what he's made of and what he's worth (if only we had access to that ambassadorship contract for Dior - my guess is a shit ton of money).

And folks, believe me when I say this is just the start.

Stream Vibe.

#Jimin #JM #JM Vibe #JM Dior #PJM1 #PJM1 is coming #JM the king

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mariajmajesty · 1 year

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People are just miserable, with a lot of unnecessary hatred and illogical thinking and their own feelings that they keep projecting as universal truths onto the members' personalities. There's a line when fun speculation about a member's debut song verges beyond,into a war of who's right and who's wrong and what's his sexual identity. Because a woman can not be opposite to a man in a mv without them fucking. (Tell me you hate women without telling me you hate women).

People have zero patience and are chronically online and no thought processes before feeling insecure over the most insane of issues. I read someone say they can't support both jikook as individual artists if jk "makes out/fucks" a woman in his new song. What utter nonsense is this. Have all logical people left this platform?

Also music is a creative process. Just because kpop industry has normalised album releases by groups on a yearly basis doesn't mean this is the normal frequency of how things happen elsewhere. Isn't this the whole point of the break? That they get to chose which stories they want to tell as individuals and at their own time (which anyway is already time bound given then 2025-26 return) - why are people calling them 'lazy' for this! Let them take their time. This was similar BS that jimin was also accused of last year.

This is a mess of my thoughts but God the jikook tag pisses me off nowadays so much, but apparently I am a masochist.

It's not just the tag it's everywhere in all fandom spaces..people have lost their minds and act like children and are invested way too much, projecting and hating and always find things to complain about. Thank god i'm busy rn and logging in just to catch up because the stuff i'm reading is 90% crazy talk nowdays that aren't even worth the time

#anon

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shubhbank · 4 months

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Join our journey as PARTNERS! Together, we'll navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and build a future defined by innovation and success.

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talabib · 1 year

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Master the Market: Proven Strategies to Beat the Stock Market and Build Wealth

Key Point:

Thanks to the internet, you don’t need to be an expert to invest your money smartly; all the necessary tools and stock data are online. By using these tools, some specific calculations and knowing how to spot a successful, profitable company, you will be in a prime position to make the right investment choices and steadily build your wealth.

For most of us, the stock market is basically a no-fly zone: it’s too complicated, and too dangerous. Let the experts handle it, we say.

But that’s a shame, because there is a way that anyone can make money in stocks. This post teaches you the key indicators for that right, wonderful business that could change your life.

Contrary to popular myths, you don’t have to be an expert to be a great investor, and it is possible to beat the market.

It’s common knowledge that you'd be remiss to invest without consulting a financial expert, right? Well, the notion that managing money demands both time and expertise isn’t exactly accurate.

You don't actually need to have depth of knowledge and all the tricks of a professional financial adviser. You just need a few good tactics.

Fortunately, today the internet has the tools and knowledge you need, at minimal costs. Information and tools such as stocks’ histories and statistic calculators can make a lot of the work easier for you. For instance, websites such as MSN Money, Yahoo! Finance and CNN Money have data on thousands of stocks and investment calculators.

Thanks to technology, these tools are actually far more accurate than anything experts had ten years ago. Aside from these tools, you also need to know that you really can beat the market. To do so, you must sell stocks for far more or buy for far less than their real market value.

Yet, according to the prominent Efficient Market Theory (EMT) you can’t do this, as everything that can be known about a company is already figured into the price. Thus, stock prices can’t be too high or low. But this is wrong.

Many of us recall the bubble in the nineties, where, contrary to EMT assumptions, prices were far above their real market worth for some years, only to plummet dramatically afterwards. Additionally, Warren Buffett showed that at least 20 investors were able to beat the market for over 20 years.

So cast aside the myths of expert help and an unbeatable market because, thanks to the internet and the strategies in this post you can make great investments yourself.

The popular strategy "diversify and hold" is not nearly as safe as it's cracked up to be.

You've heard the formula, “diversify and hold” a million times; it's supposedly the safest way to invest in the stock market. But it’s also problematic.

First, it would’ve failed for approximately more than half of the last century. Let's examine how a long-term, diversified portfolio would have performed between 1905 and 2005: it would’ve had a zero rate of return between 1905 and 1942, 1965 and 1983 and from 2000 to 2005. That's 60 out of 100 years!

What you should do instead of ‘diversify and hold’ is improve your security by keeping track of all your stocks — which you might not do if your portfolio is diversified, as it would take a lot of time and effort to monitor how all your stocks are doing. Also, it's unlikely that you would thoroughly comprehend the dynamics of all the businesses you're investing in. This would result in you not being able to react as quickly to save your portfolio from losses, as you would if you only invested in fields you understood.

Say you’re a pharmacist, and you receive a Red-Hand letter warning you about a drug’s serious, unexpected side-effects. You’ll know this letter will result in considerable losses for a pharmaceutical company and therefore sell your shares immediately. Whereas if you were clueless about pharmaceutical companies, you wouldn’t know about the pending losses until it’s too late.

The truth is, if you diversify, whatever happens to the market will happen to you. You should know that whenever a large amount of money is withdrawn from the market, mutual funds decline in value, investors withdraw even more money and values drop even faster. This could happen when all the baby boomers take out the money they invested for their retirement.

Only invest in a business you understand and you’d like to own.

If you were to buy a business, rather than stocks, would your criteria for doing so be any different? Shrewd investors only invest in a company they’d like to own in the long term, so thinking about buying stocks as if you were to buy the company will guide you towards investing carefully.

When you consider buying stocks, you probably think it’s easy to get out quickly if the company is doing poorly. You could therefore be tempted to opt for a risky business, pay too much attention to one promising growth-rate in an average business, or even lose money in a market bubble.

If you were to buy the whole company, however, you’d be far more cautious. You’d carefully weigh its performance, history and management against other companies and, in doing so, make far better decisions.

To make even better decisions on investments, it’s also wise to invest in a sector within your field of interest, as you’ll already be knowledgeable about it.

If you work in IT, for example, you’re in a far better position to invest there than someone who doesn’t. You’ll know about the different providers, their strategies, the quality of their products and so forth.

Also remember that investing in a business means you’re essentially voting for it to continue with its work.

Say you’re researching some highly profitable stocks to fund your child’s education. Would you purchase those stocks if the company is making a chunk of its profits by exploiting children in Bangladesh? As a smart investor, probably not.

Know that your investment will have an impact, and you’re making a statement of where you choose to invest.

There are good criteria for a company's ability to stand its ground.

Like moats around a castle, certain assets protect a company against competition and inflation. When investing, it’s a good bet to choose companies with one or more of these “moats.”

So what exactly do moats do? A moat enables a company to dominate a market, increase its prices to keep up with inflation and produce enough profit to expand.

There are many different kinds of moats. Some moats may be intangible competitive advantages, like a patent or a trade secret that makes direct competition really tough, or even illegal. For instance, Pfizer had a patent for its hugely successful Viagra, therefore other companies weren’t permitted to copy the product. As a result, Pfizer faced no real competition for sexual enhancers.

Another kind of moat could be a strong brand that customers identify with or are extremely loyal to. Coca Cola, for example is an incredibly stable and powerful brand and its customers will often choose its soft drinks over others.

A moat can also mean having products that are cheaper or easier to buy. For instance, Walmart is so immense that it’s in a powerful position to bargain with its suppliers. In doing so, it can sell goods at very competitive prices.

Another moat could be when the product itself isn’t really affordable, but switching to another is a real hassle. Take Windows, for example. Many people use it even though they hate Microsoft. But it’s easier to stick with it because so much software is exclusive to Windows and if they changed to another operating system, they’d have to change all their software, too.

Lastly, some companies’ moats entail exclusive governance over a market due to a legal privilege. For example, the utility PG&E has a legal monopoly to provide power in its area.

Steady businesses have competitive advantages.

We’ve now seen what moats are and how they can help businesses become extremely successful. But how can you know if a company has one? Well, you can be sure that a company has a moat if they score well on five specific indicators for a minimum of ten years.

The best indicator of a wide moat is return on investment capital (ROIC) over at least a ten year period. ROIC is the rate of return a company makes from the money it invests in itself in a year. For example, say you invested $20 in stamps and then later sold them for $30. Your profit would be $10. The ROIC is the profit divided by the total you invested, which in this case would be 50 percent.

Be aware that a company that generates high returns could draw so many competitors that a good position in the same market becomes difficult to secure and therefore none are able to make decent returns. Unless, however, the company has a wide moat.

Therefore, if a company can hold onto a ROIC of at least 10 percent for ten years, it’s likely beaten out its competitors, which now means it has an advantage.

Another good way to gauge a wide moat is by the growth of a company’s equity. Equity is the amount of money that would remain if a company sold all of its assets and cleared all of its debts.

If a company’s equity increases by 10 or more percent for at least ten years, it’s an indicator that it has enough money to invest into its expansion, which also puts the company in a solid, competitive position.

Some competitive advantages are easy to spot.

Let’s turn to three other ways to tell if a company has a moat, all of which are straightforward calculations.

The first calculation is figuring out if they’ve had at least a 10 percent increase in earnings per share (EPS) for approximately ten years.

Say three friends start a restaurant. Their EPS would be the restaurant’s net income divided by three. So if the store makes $60,000 net income, the EPS would be $20,000.

Then let’s say in 10 years, the EPS rises from $20,000 to $160,000. To calculate the restaurant’s EPS growth rate, first calculate how many times 20 needs to double in order to reach 160. So, 20 doubles to 40, then to 80 then to 160. So it doubles three times over the ten years, averaging around three years to double each time.

Now apply the Rule of 72. Divide 72 by the average number of years over which the figure doubles once. The restaurant’s ten-year-EPS growth rate would be 72 divided by three, which equals 24. Twenty-four percent would be the restaurant’s moat, and thus its competitive advantage.

You can also calculate when a sales growth rate consistently increases over ten percent. For example, Garmin’s sales rose from $100 million to approximately $800 million from 1995 to 2004, meaning it doubled three times over nine years, or once every three years. If we apply the rule of 72, we see that 72 divided by three equals a 24 percent sales growth rate. Clearly, Garmin had a wide moat.

The last calculation is the free cash flow growth rate. If this is consistently over 10 percent, this means profits turn into cash.

Free cash flow is operations cash minus capital expenditure, or the money that can be invested into expanding the company.

Garmin’s free cash flow grew from $40 million to $130 million in seven years, meaning it doubled just less than twice in seven years, or once every three and a half to four years. If you divide 72 by four, which equals an 18 percent sales rate, we see that Garmin was highly profitable.

For a smart investor, a company is only promising if the CEO is driven and owner-oriented.

When you’re considering which company to invest in, you can always refer to those Big Five criteria in the charts. But there’s something else that’s worth noting; how effective is the CEO you want to entrust your money to?

You need to opt for an owner-oriented CEO. They’ll make smart long-term decisions and inform the shareholders on what they need to know.

As a shareholder, you’ll need to know if there are any problems or you won’t be able to respond appropriately.

A good owner-orientated CEO will announce if it’s been a very bad year, and try to give a reasonable explanation. Likewise, an owner-oriented CEO will refrain from actions that temporarily increase the stock price but do harm to the company in the long term.

Picture an executive who owns a lot of shares trying to make the stock price rise so he can cash out. That executive doesn’t care about the business down the line, or about your shares.

You should also look for a CEO who is driven, as he’ll put in a lot of effort to ensure the company remains profitable. CEOs like this aim for big goals and they’ll remind their employees of those goals. A company with such a manager is well set to generate more and more company value, which is ideal for your investment.

For instance, when Darwin Smith bought out Kimberly-Clark, it was a mediocre company. But he pictured it as the best paper-products business in the world. He worked for 20 years toward this lofty goal, transforming and expanding the company. Twenty-five years after Smith took over, Kimberly-Clark was the world's number-one paper-based consumer-products company and had brands like Kleenex under its wing.

Knowing if a CEO is driven and honest equips you to make a sound estimate of a company's value.

Demand a big margin of safety.

Remember when we said that the Effective Market Theory is wrong? Here’s why: contrary to the theory, price and value aren’t the same thing, and the key is to buy when the difference gives you an advantage. A stock’s price is what you pay, whereas its value is based on the money a business generates over time.

Stock value can be a little tricky to gauge, as it’s based on a business’s future EPS and price/earnings ratio. However, there are tools and places to assess value online, such as Sticker Price Calculators.

Markets are inaccurate in the short term. For instance, at the close of the nineties, prices for gold, silver and copper dropped dramatically. Yet, the real value of metals wasn’t diminished; we’d need them eventually, so some savvy investors bought shares cheaply. Then, in the early 2000s, demand rose again, which increased share prices and those smart investors made a fortune.

What you should do is demand a large margin of safety. A margin of safety (MOS) is the value, minus the price.

A good margin of safety should be half the value of an investment. For example, in 2000, Dell’s value was estimated at $40/share, and so was its market price. That’s a fair price with no margin of safety.

As a smart investor, its price would need to be no higher than 50 percent of its real value, or $20, before you decide to buy.

Only a year later, Dell’s price fell to $20/share, while the stock’s value increased, so its MOS reached 50 percent. That would have been the right time to buy.

The MOS rule will provide you with great returns, and if there’s a bubble, it will prevent you from losing all your money.

A good MOS is not to be overlooked; in 2000, every NASDAQ stock that crashed had a stock price which was higher than its value.

Action plan: Be smart about checking the stock market.

Don’t work up a nervous sweat checking the market numerous times a day. The best time to check the market is when it’s closed, and, even better, at the same time each night. Doing so will give you the most consistent data.

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sir-klauz · 2 years

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(Gerard Way, by me. Black ballpoint, red fine-liner. 🖊🩸 )

Soo I’ve not posted much OC character stuff of recent as I’m still writing the second chapter of The Lord of Wet and Pyro Princess Adventures (Genshin Ayato x Diluc fanfic I’m having a lot of fun with as I’m back in ~Genshin playing mode~ since I invested a bunch in the game and it’s also the Lantern Rite time of year again, a favourite of mine).

I’ve had a request to finish my WattPad Kaze fanfic too, which I’ll try and deliver but I got kinda stick in the basement scene lmfao as writing Zero as a top is so odd for me even though I Want It to happen.

I’ve wanted to get out some Kaze stuff as not as many people post it anymore and I’ve realised there’s still a big fandom community for Vampire Knight which is excitingg! I might move it over to Ao3 once I have time.~

I’ve been a little busy planning and “making the art” and custom credit card designs as well as payment plan ideas not too mention considering setting up an Etsy or Fiverr or somewhere people have more access to than pixiv as setting up my regular posting on my pixivFANBOX and trying to build a schedule for Saturdays whilst juggling my physical/mental health and transition as well as parenting and socialising more. Basically I want a gallery of stuff to trickle out rather than doing it every week under pressure rather than when it comes to me, as whenever I have pressure to deliver I lose my imagination and just feel like it’s a chore so avoid it. I’m sure other creatives can relate!

Likewise I’m sitting back and reading again to unwind again and haven’t caught up with everything I’m reading yet but I’ve got numerous things In The Works I’m taking more time on rather than rushing out chapters such as:

• The NYE one shot for Orange Juice in the Studio~

• Chapter 3 “A Date In The City” of Orange Juice in the Studio, essentially the ~teaser~ Aquarium and ice cream parlour date where I finally introduce supporting character into the actual story who works at the parlour! I don’t know when I’ll be introducing Mama but they are on the horizon for sure. I’m currently busy researching real locations in Valencia and I’ve never been so I don’t have in person reference and am sourcing that online. I’m also researching top LGBT+ hang out locations/clubs in the city to make appearances in the storyline.

• ORANGE JUICE IN THE STUDIO CHARACTER INFO SHEETS!!! Exciting.

Here I’ll give lots of what you need to know about OC and Reader! I’m wondering if I should not make one though for Reader or ask for engagement from my actual readers of Who Reader Is To Them, as well, the whole point of the character is to depict You as a reader, and those who relate to what I write can get on board. I will make a mock up one for sure and be loose with it as a rule! Or leave out absolute details like “star sign” or height or something.~

• Beginning work on the AU “HorrorLand! The Isle of Marionettes”! This will be about the Orange Juice OCs. As you can tell, it’ll be slightly gory horror fiction, somewhere to express my love for horror and things but not canon. Just a little fun.

• Designing what will be in my monthly newsletter which only Bronze subscribers will get for yours truly to enjoy!

• Weekly updates to my pixivFANBOX, with my manga style art specifically. My pixivFANBOX is for my manga art style only, my other types of art can be found on zer0comicz IG, and Zer0 Comics on Facebook, or posted on here. This is my official name for my freelance illustration/comic business.

• I’ll try getting some new commissions up I’ve got of OC and Reader on here and/or on @crimsonyoukai , if not that, I’ll make some mock ups on PiCrew whilst I’m doing my own.

• Tiered FANs will be getting The Monthly Marionette+, this begins after the first month of being a patron on Bronze, Silver (to be set up) and Gold (to be set up). I’ll announce when the newsletter is starting to air!

You can get early teasers for chapters of OJITS posted on my pixivFANBOX as well too on Bronze tier, I’m not posting teasers so much on here anymore until I’ve aired it for protection of my work etc.

My Ao3 profile for writing updates!

Any queries or questions or anything you’d like to know in general or what you may like to also see from me, please feel free to drop them into my Ask Box!

I have commissions open for art likewise. Each custom piece is £5, £10 for more detailed works, which I offer postage for the original or a print. Tattoo designs are £25 each.

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909hold · 2 years

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Why does Digital Marketing Matter?

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#909holdings #digital agency #marketing online #web development #website design

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