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sojourner

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hubskier for: 2405 days

recent comments, posts, and shares:
sojourner  ·  2373 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Was The Last Ride of the Elephant Princess about the Weinstein brothers?

How do you know?

sojourner  ·  2378 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Today's Writing Prompt: This Is What It's Like

This is what it's like

To walk away and not look back

sojourner  ·  2390 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Banks Raise Red Flags on US Economy

Yes, them and a bunch of others have been pounding the drums for a bit. I think some are talking about the sky falling down because they're selling gold and silver. I think some can see the system is unwieldy, but are don't have the skills to see exactly when it will topple. (For example, some years back Gerald Celente, a respected forecaster, noted that he was wrong about when because how was he to know about the schemes, band-aids, duct tape and QE that they would come up with to hold things together.)

Then I started hearing similar rumblings of a catastrophe from more mainstream folks.

I think it's like Martin Armstrong says. I think a lot of people are only looking domestically, ignoring the greater world economy when they make their predictions.

sojourner  ·  2390 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Banks Raise Red Flags on US Economy

The guys at ZeroHedge and other places are expecting shortages in the US, similar to what's going on in Venezuela.

sojourner  ·  2398 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Typing the Technical Interview

That was hilarious. And the other interviews were, too!

sojourner  ·  2401 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski prototypical API is here

When I go to the http://api.hubski.com/ page, I can't access unless I log in again? And it's an unsecured page? No https?

sojourner  ·  2402 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry

Hmmm...

With all the data storage available nowadays, and with the ability to identify a person using browser information, operating system, etc, gleaned from a person browsing, I wonder if someone isn't simply just building (or building upon) a central storage/database which advertisers and interested parties can access to determine which customer may be visiting their site?

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Apple blocking ads that follow users around web is 'sabotage', says industry

I wonder how advertisers and sites will try to circumvent or otherwise reach and target iOS and High Sierra users?

Curious to see how it ends. As taxes rise, people with money and resources tend to leave. ... Does this mean these states are going to start looking like Detroit?

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How To Buy A Goat When You're Really Poor? Join A 'Merry-Go-Round'

Wow.. So, in creating and participating in these merry-go-rounds, you are funding another person's success, in addition to contributing to your own.

I think it's especially interesting considering how much is typically given to organizations "helping" others. What other changes might come about by eliminating the "middle man" in those situations?

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Update: You must be this thoughtful to post to Hubski

After searching the thesaurus for variations of promote, endorse, support, vote, highlight and coming up with bupkus...

Maybe you should just invent a word. Orange (suggested in another comment) may be too generic.

I keep coming back to playing with the name of the site. Hubski. Hub-and-spoke is the system used to design many airports. Hubski reminds of an airport, where ideas come to land, takeoff, etc. So maybe Taxiing or Add To Runway (or something like that) ...

Hatch? (an opening of restricted size allowing for passage from one area to another.)

Hub-and-spoke is

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: New to Hubski? Old to Hubski? Can't post? Come on in, let's discuss.

The Primer seems to be truncated ...

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: You might not need javascript

Hate JavaScript (such ugly, unwieldy code!), but there are some things on that site that don't work with JavaScript off.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why there are few african programmers

Cultural, how?

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What Makes People Vote Republican? (2008)

What makes people vote Democrat? I'd like to see the author write that article. I think the author does enough exploring and explaining that he might be able to explain that kind of voting to Republicans.

I was so disappointed in the reaction of Democrat-voters that I talked with during and after the election. I remember conversation about Hillary keeping and deleting emails from her server. I can understand why some Democrat-voters wanted to give her a pass. What still makes no sense to me is how many of them seemed unable to understand why people voting Republican might have an issue with what she did. That's only one example.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How the World’s Most Interesting Man Befriended the World’s Most Powerful Man

You know, the part about meeting a president was ... long. And cute. Oddly enough, what I wanted to know more about was the author's life, past and current.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Does anyone know anything about personal finance stuff?

Resources...

First the fine print. I don't have a lot of money, nor a lot of knowledge or understanding about finance or business. I have been reading more to increase my knowledge.

___

Real estate. (I read the comments thus far and agree with you; I would not invest in the Bay area.) From the professionals, I hear "look at 100 deals, buy one." So, in your situation, I might look for housing in nearby states. There is a lot of investment in the Seattle area, which means that the surrounding suburbs will also get a bump. I would look for similar situations in nearby areas, and start making a habit of attending open houses to get an idea of the deals to be had. It's experience of evaluating deals which is going to increase your confidence.

I would not make it a huge thing. I think after you've seen 10-20 houses, you'll get an idea of which houses/deals you should get more details about.

___

Investing in the Market.

Trickier.

"You Can Be A Stock Market Genius" by Joel Greenblatt. Written in mostly English (meaning so laypeople can understand). Talks about how to take advantage of certain stock market events. I think following the tips in the book will increase your confidence.

"One Up One Wall Street" by Peter Lynch. Again, written for laypeople. Recommend reading; unsure I recommend buying it. Reading this increased my knowledge and confidence, but it's not the kind of book that I keep going back to.

https://armstrongeconomics.com. Martin Armstrong is someone consulted by governments and corporations to help them manage their financial concerns. He has a lot of information on his site about money, finance and economics (which I'm beginning to understand are very different things). His site is not so much for laypeople. Still, if you want a better sense of how the pieces fit into the whole, I recommend deep delving into the content on his site.

https://capitalistexploits.at/. This guy has a blog and podcast and sells an insider service. It's not cheap (for me), but it may be for you. From what I've read of his blog and heard on his podcasts, I get the feeling that you might find his services useful. What I notice about him is that he seems to be looking very long-term, world-wide, doing his research and thinking through things in a way I don't hear from many touting financial services. This guy's style is a teacher. You might not be hands-off, but have enough hand-holding such that you aren't adding too much complexity to life.

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Investing in Businesses.

Know very little about this, and this might be too complex for your goals.

If you do, I would follow the real estate rule of looking at 100 business for each one you invest in.

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Talking to Finance people.

I get the feeling you are talking to people about buying their services. Suggest learning more differently. For those people you find who have a passion for it, invite them for coffee or lunch and let them talk. I think you'll learn more from them than you ever will from a sales pitch.

___

Mindset

David Bowie said that when he first started, he wanted nothing to do with the money side of music because he felt like it would be too distracting. Then, I guess after a few mishaps, he took control and started to learn about it and realized that it was a lot less distracting and incredibly beneficial to understand the financial side.

___

Cashflow 101.

It's a game created by Robert Kiyosaki. There are definitely people in your area who meet up regularly (check meetup.com) to play the game. You will find some people there passionate about finance (or at least interested). You'll learn quite a bit. One thing I learned while playing the game with others was to not only look at the numbers for the deal, but to read the card and understand what the details of the deal were telling me. These are the same details you'll encounter in real life.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Seven Days of Heroin - This is What an Epidemic Looks Like

The USA (and other countries) used to send opium to China.

Later, it was cocaine to the USA.

The USA is in Afghanistan. The production of opium in Afghanistan keeps rising.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: These Women Entrepreneurs Created A Fake Male Cofounder To Dodge Startup Sexism

The nice thing is that with the internet, you don't even have to hire a guy, which is what some used to (and still) do.

Begs a thought. Do people feel like they have to talk differently to women than they do to men? Males and females can have different ways of communicating. When the VCs talk to Keith, do they feel more comfortable phrasing their questions? Interesting, though, that the women are still the ones responding as both themselves and Keith. This seems to indicate that the VCs are interpreting the responses from "Keith" differently than the responses from the owners.

sojourner  ·  2403 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: This Tiny Country Feeds the World

Wow. The gains they've made are impressive.

I wonder if encouraging the world to consume less meats will make it easier to meet the goal of feeding so many more people.

sojourner  ·  2405 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The great nutrient collapse

Vitamins added to food are often not in a form that the human body can make use of. Heck, vitamins not added to food are often not in a form that the human body can make use of.

Also, vitamins added are vitamins discovered. There are all sorts of nutritional aspects of food that known vitamins don't address.