JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

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What short term investment should CO throw some coin at?

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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:42 am I'm letting go of the rent vs own thing because some people here don't have a choice
Ouch, methinks I resemble that remark.

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odyssia76
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by odyssia76 »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:42 am I'm letting go of the rent vs own thing because some people here don't have a choice, but owning is the better option in 95 percent of all cases.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Owning a home is definitely a lot better than Tdarcos makes it out to be, and in plenty of cases it's the smart choice. But 95%? Nah. There are lots of cases where it's not a good idea, depending on age, lifestyle, finances, etc. Buy one when you're pretty sure you're done bouncing around life as a young person, maybe starting a family, and are pretty sure you're going to live in the same place for a good long time.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

odyssia76 wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:44 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:42 am I'm letting go of the rent vs own thing because some people here don't have a choice, but owning is the better option in 95 percent of all cases.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Owning a home is definitely a lot better than Tdarcos makes it out to be, and in plenty of cases it's the smart choice. But 95%? Nah. There are lots of cases where it's not a good idea, depending on age, lifestyle, finances, etc. Buy one when you're pretty sure you're done bouncing around life as a young person, maybe starting a family, and are pretty sure you're going to live in the same place for a good long time.
It's 95%, not a single percentage point more or less and also you owe me an apology for being wrong about bitcoins.
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Tdarcos
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Tdarcos »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 5:17 pm
odyssia76 wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 2:44 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:42 am I'm letting go of the rent vs own thing because some people here don't have a choice, but owning is the better option in 95 percent of all cases.
I'm sorry, but that's just not true. Owning a home is definitely a lot better than Tdarcos makes it out to be, and in plenty of cases it's the smart choice. But 95%? Nah.
It's 95%, not a single percentage point more or less and...
And 96% of all statistical percentages are made up on the spot.
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Correct. Finally.... Togetherness
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odyssia76
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by odyssia76 »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Nov 24, 2021 5:17 pm you owe me an apology for being wrong about bitcoins.
I wasn't wrong. It's the cyrpto-weenies who are misusing/misunderstanding the word. They can call something "non-fungible" all they want, but that does not make it true. Crypto currencies are definitely fungible - the fact that each Bitcoin (for example) has its own unique serial number (or whatever) doesn't mean they aren't fungible. For example, barrels of crude oil are fungible. Bushels of wheat are fungible. If you spray paint a serial number on a barrel of oil, or micro-etch a number on each kernel of grain, they still meet the definition of fungible. Fungibility has to do with equivalence, not uniqueness. If you don't believe me, just look up the deffinition. They are all pretty much the same, but this one I think makes it most clear:

https://financial-dictionary.thefreedic ... m/fungible

Crypto weenies are not known for their communication skills.
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Posting this here because I gotta tell someone besides my wife. Just signed client number 5 and it's fucking huge. This company is started by a guy who co-founded the biggest software company in it's industry, exited when it was worth 3 billion. His co-founder flew with Shatner on Bezos' penis rocket then died in a plane crash. This could be huge for me. So FU Odyssia.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Congratulations! Can you ask him if he's renting?
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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

I only have one share, so who cares, but man did I ruin things with Netflix, haha.

Bought it at 660. (Actually put my request in at 650 but my piece of shit stock website takes days to make a trade go through.)

It's down to 373 now. On the other hand I should be buying.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:37 am I only have one share, so who cares, but man did I ruin things with Netflix, haha.

Bought it at 660. (Actually put my request in at 650 but my piece of shit stock website takes days to make a trade go through.)

It's down to 373 now. On the other hand I should be buying.
Remind me not to ask you for investment advice.

Seriously though, when did you buy? I bet the fact that there are a gazillion streaming channels now including the networks who pulled most of their shit off Netflix is what happened. Sorry to hear about your share, sad.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

It's one share, doesn't matter. Also this is a pretty bad year for stocks so far!!
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Jizaboz
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Jizaboz »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 8:02 pm Also this is a pretty bad year for stocks so far!!
Yeah, I'm currently at -33$ for the year on my eTrade account. A few stocks may go up a lot that are in the toilet I have. Others I want to sell as soon as it gets to a little over what I bought it for. So far buying 2 stocks in Boeing during the initial Coronamania panic was the only big profit last year.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

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Tdarcos
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Tdarcos »

I have a suspicion a number of these so-called streaming services are going to merge together, or restore their content where it used to be. It's one thing to provide videos to a streaming service and collect royalties, or to put up all the overhead and expense into designing your own. Once it's discovered that, after expenses, they're making less money, they'll go back to the old arrangements, or some of them are going to merge with each other.

There is a condition, called "subscription burnout," in which you get nickeled and dimed - or rather, 4.99d and 9.99d - for yet another streaming service that its owners think carries the greatest content there is, that the public is screaming for. But people are not going to take every streaming service around, people get sick of everybody holding out their hand for a tip. Sooner-or-later, people will get to maybe two, or possibly three services, then decide that when they can buy Netflix or Amazon Prime for $12 a month, why should I pay $5 or $10 for something that has a small fraction of the content as one of the larger services?

My guess is, some content provider looks at Netflix, sees how well they're doing, and think they can make that kind of money. Well, they won't. Your shit isn't worth a larger amount per available item, than a major full-service streaming platform. People did not cut the cord and drop $200 a month cable or satellite TV bills to have to pay $300 a month to get things à la carte, they did it because the price is way too high, and because cable and satellite companies are run by morons.

There's another reason, and for that you have to be tuned into the industry. I watched a presentation on YouTube, given at a technical conference, where the former lead developer at Netflix described the architecture and operation of a streaming service that serves millions of requests. You have to build a robust network, and make sure it's fault-tolerant. This means you need good people to design and code your systems. Next is deployment, how do you get your video to the customer? Well, you have two choices: (1) rent cloud service provisioning from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM or someone else, or (2) build out your own network. The first gives you flexibility for quick and easy options to spin up more servers as demand rises, but after a while the costs become astronomical, Building your own server farm is crucial if you get above a certain size because there is a point where your costs for renting cloud support will become much more than if you built it yourself. But any way you look at it, either you have a huge cost for cloud leasing, or a large capital expenditure to install equipment.

These hidden costs are going to rear their ugly head when they find out how much it is costing either in cloud fees, or in hardware and communications charges. This will become very clear once someone does P&L calculations, and determines how long before the break-even point, if there ever will be one.
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Tdarcos wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 1:46 pmThere's another reason, and for that you have to be tuned into the industry. I watched a presentation on YouTube, given at a technical conference, where the former lead developer at Netflix described the architecture and operation of a streaming service that serves millions of requests. You have to build a robust network, and make sure it's fault-tolerant. This means you need good people to design and code your systems. Next is deployment, how do you get your video to the customer? Well, you have two choices: (1) rent cloud service provisioning from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM or someone else, or (2) build out your own network. The first gives you flexibility for quick and easy options to spin up more servers as demand rises, but after a while the costs become astronomical, Building your own server farm is crucial if you get above a certain size because there is a point where your costs for renting cloud support will become much more than if you built it yourself. But any way you look at it, either you have a huge cost for cloud leasing, or a large capital expenditure to install equipment.
If anyone on THIS SITE needs an explanation of cloud computing I'd be surprised.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Casual Observer wrote: Fri Jan 28, 2022 7:36 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:37 am I only have one share, so who cares, but man did I ruin things with Netflix, haha.

Bought it at 660. (Actually put my request in at 650 but my piece of shit stock website takes days to make a trade go through.)

It's down to 373 now. On the other hand I should be buying.
Remind me not to ask you for investment advice.

Seriously though, when did you buy? I bet the fact that there are a gazillion streaming channels now including the networks who pulled most of their shit off Netflix is what happened. Sorry to hear about your share, sad.
(I did buy a share at 660 or so, 664 to be exact, I think.)

Today was the first day in a while where it wasn't all descending into hell. I should just not bother looking for a year, but, well.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Also, Netflix uses a very stupid system for employee appraisals. Lemme see if I can find it, but first, if you ever feel hopeless because most political writing is bad, most sports writing is bad and most video game journalism is bad, here is some TECH writing:
People find the Netflix approach to talent and culture compelling for a few reasons. The most obvious one is that Netflix has been really successful
The person that wrote that is so stupid they think that Netflix's "approach to talent and culture" is compelling because they have been successful, which is inane circular logic. Yaaay they made it so we don't have to drive to Blockbuster in the snow, it doesn't mean they do anything else right.
One day I was talking with one of our best engineers, an employee I’ll call John. Before the layoffs, he’d managed three engineers, but now he was a one-man department working very long hours. I told John I hoped to hire some help for him soon. His response surprised me. “There’s no rush—I’m happier now,” he said. It turned out that the engineers we’d laid off weren’t spectacular—they were merely adequate. John realized that he’d spent too much time riding herd on them and fixing their mistakes. “I’ve learned that I’d rather work by myself than with subpar performers,” he said. His words echo in my mind whenever I describe the most basic element of Netflix’s talent philosophy: The best thing you can do for employees—a perk better than foosball or free sushi—is hire only “A” players to work alongside them. Excellent colleagues trump everything else.
I won't get into why this is stupid. Yes, I will. They found some workaholic and think he will be a workaholic for the next 40 years for them.
When Netflix launched, we had a standard paid-time-off policy: People got 10 vacation days, 10 holidays, and a few sick days. We used an honor system—employees kept track of the days they took off and let their managers know when they’d be out. After we went public, our auditors freaked. They said Sarbanes-Oxley mandated that we account for time off. We considered instituting a formal tracking system. But then Reed asked, “Are companies required to give time off? If not, can’t we just handle it informally and skip the accounting rigmarole?” I did some research and found that, indeed, no California law governed vacation time.

So instead of shifting to a formal system, we went in the opposite direction: Salaried employees were told to take whatever time they felt was appropriate. Bosses and employees were asked to work it out with one another.
"Unlimited PTO" is anti-employee and stupid, it exists only to not have that PTO "on the books", and it is stupid that anyone cares about PTO "on the books." I am letting go of the fact that these geniuses think 10 vacation days was something worth ever letting others know about.
We model ourselves on being a team, not a family. A family is about unconditional love, despite, say, your siblings’ bad behavior. A dream team is about pushing yourself to be the best teammate you can be, caring intensely about your teammates, and knowing that you may not be on the team forever.
Oh go fuck yourselves.
We have no bell curves or rankings or quotas such as “cut the bottom 10% every year.” That would be detrimental to fostering collaboration, and is a simplistic, rules-based approach we would never support. We focus on managers’ judgment through the “keeper test” for each of their people: if one of the members of the team was thinking of leaving for another firm, would the manager try hard to keep them from leaving? Those who do not pass the keeper test (i.e. their manager would not fight to keep them) are promptly and respectfully given a generous severance package so we can find someone for that position that makes us an even better dream team. Getting cut from our team is very disappointing, but there is no shame. Being on a dream team can be the thrill of a professional lifetime.
Again, go fuck yourselves. "Working here is the thrill of your professional lifetime" - ope, we had you on Qwikster where now you're viewed like the 2008 Detroit Lions?

It is for these reasons that I bought a share, psychopathic companies always "win". The crazier shit they do, the more I will invest.
the dark and gritty...Ice Cream Jonsey!

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AArdvark
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by AArdvark »

What do these team players do? I mean I see a lot of rhetoric about productivity and stuff, but what do they DO?

THE
PUSHING DATA?
AARDVARK

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Amazon is doing either a 1 to 10 split or 1 to 20 split. Which I'd get in on if they didn't murder all those employees of theirs during the tornados.
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Casual Observer
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Casual Observer »

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:29 pm"Unlimited PTO" is anti-employee and stupid, it exists only to not have that PTO "on the books", and it is stupid that anyone cares about PTO "on the books."
It's worse than that, it's a scam and hard dollar grift by the employers, a loophole Netflix sorta admitted in your quote, I've gotten many likes on linkedin for this opinion. When a company with regular PTO fires someone or lays them off, they have to pay them for all the days off they didn't use, almost like it's the severance that they don't want to pay anymore. If a company with "unlimited pto" fires someone, what do they get? Squat. Combine this with the fact that ALL tech companies shame and threaten you for taking vacation in practice no matter what their "people first handbook" or whatever they call it now says. I've seen more tech folks fired after a vacation then any other time. Fuck being an employee forever, I actually realized that it was working under those pieces of shit that was killing me.

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Ice Cream Jonsey
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Re: JC Denizens' Investment Advice??

Post by Ice Cream Jonsey »

Casual Observer wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:29 pm
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Wed Mar 09, 2022 6:29 pm"Unlimited PTO" is anti-employee and stupid, it exists only to not have that PTO "on the books", and it is stupid that anyone cares about PTO "on the books."
It's worse than that, it's a scam and hard dollar grift by the employers, a loophole Netflix sorta admitted in your quote, I've gotten many likes on linkedin for this opinion. When a company with regular PTO fires someone or lays them off, they have to pay them for all the days off they didn't use, almost like it's the severance that they don't want to pay anymore. If a company with "unlimited pto" fires someone, what do they get? Squat. Combine this with the fact that ALL tech companies shame and threaten you for taking vacation in practice no matter what their "people first handbook" or whatever they call it now says. I've seen more tech folks fired after a vacation then any other time.
And it comes out to a few thousand bucks per person when that person leaves. Considering the unpaid (salary) overtime some percentage of these people put in, it's pathetic that companies are engaged in such greasy endeavors.

If you have a decent human as your manager then "unlimited PTO" may work for you! But the last thing managers can be trusted with is understanding the difference between "I am taking this time off" and "I want to take this time off" so the bank of PTO makes it clear - it isn't a request.
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