Was not expecting to hear "shut the fuck up you fucking corporate bootlicking simp" from Louis Rossman of all people. He's pissed and rightly so.
I'm generally pretty anti-piracy but it's getting harder and harder to rationalize the act of paying for things through legitimate channels when customers are punished in the oh-so-many ways Rossman described. Disney think this is a "GOTCHA" moment that will absolve them of legal responsibility for someone's death at one of their theme parks, but this is an absolute PR disaster for them.
It's honesty pretty bleak to see companies like Electronic Arts and Activision consistently top the sales charts by releasing the same game every year.
Said this before on Reddit in the past, but there are lots of consumers who have no taste in video games whatsoever. They don't give a shit about anything but FIFA/Madden, Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, and that is the reason why we have predatory shit like Ultimate Team and Shark Cards in $70 AAA titles.
I have a hypothesis that all the good people with a moral compass left Reddit in disgust over the API changes, and effectively being forced into using the official Reddit app. What remains of Reddit are the sociopathic assholes.
At this point filing a multi-million dollar lawsuit against OceanGate will be like trying to extract blood from a stone.
What tangible assets do OceanGate really have left to pay Nargeolet's estate? Their CEO (the maverick aerospace engineer who thought he was 'revolutionizing' the submarine industry by cutting corners) is dead, their only active submersible imploded, their reputation has been tainted by the fact that they've been selling billionaires what is effectively a carbon fiber coffin waiting to implode, and any angel investors have probably pulled out harder than a porn star on the verge of climax.
Even then, they may not even have a case. IANAL but in an age where every single tech and gaming company has been pushing through class action waivers and forced arbitration clauses in their Terms of Service, I get the feeling that any attempts at suing OceanGate will be thrown out of court by the waivers each passenger had to sign.
There is a sense of irony in people celebrating this disaster on social media because it means "five less billionaires in the world." No, this is potentially a massive L for us commoners, because it shows just how much corporate greed can destroy lives. If the rich can be screwed this badly by an unregulated corporation, imagine what corporate giants can do to people who can't afford lawyers.
Disclaimer: I work in accountancy (Commercial Finance) but my advice should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Diversify your investments. Have savings across multiple bank accounts so that the unlikely event where one bank fails doesn't wipe out your financial wealth., and overall don't put your eggs in one basket.
Currently, the best ROI/passive income you'll get is from corporate bonds. A cursory glance at the Hargreaves Lansdown website shows me quite a few corporate bonds and gilts that have a voucher rate (% return each year) of over 8 percent. Do bear in mind that a bond is a loan instrument where the ROI is based on both the maturity date (the date you get paid back plus interest) and the overall risk of the debt.
Another good option is to invest in high dividend yield shares or ETFs. These can offer superior returns on investment to the interest you'd get from a savings account.
Avoid day trading or swing trading unless you 100% absolutely know what the fuck you're doing. Unlike what many YouTube 'gurus' claim, making a living off the stock market requires a high amount of starting capital to see any kind of tangible ROI, plus sophisticated stock trading software and knowledge on how to exploit trends.
Same goes for penny stocks (i.e. the FTSE AIM All Share market.) You can make some rookie gains from it. Many of the companies listed on this index are oil/gas/mineral exploratory firms that are likely not going to see any kind of profit unless they strike it big, find a new oil well, lithium mine, etc and get the necessary contracts and investment to extract those resources. They're penny stocks for a reason.
Side hustles. For example, I have two friends that are karaoke DJs and they get gigs where bars pay them to host nights. Bookkeeping is another one, but you really are going to have a lot of competition in that respect, and you will probably need the right qualifications to do it.
Screw crypto. At best cryptocurrencies are speculative assets that are scarce and expensive because the very nature of how their blockchains were designed make it take exponentially more effort to mine a new coin. At worst, they're used to launder criminal proceeds (Monero is a good example of one where the blockchain is encrypted.) NFTs are even worse.
Nothing. I theorize that the good people who looked at Spez with disgust left Reddit. I'd rather not have the power tripping cucks who made Reddit bad come here
A couple of years ago i would say that a month of tinder gold or whatever isn’t the worst idea ever. Right now it totally is. It still probably maybe helps, but it’s just not worth the money. You can swipe more and get seen more and that might still be true, but your subscription doesn’t change the fact that the women you like get thousands of likes and you just go under or are lucky as fuck
I think it's more like the online dating space has been enshittified by one company buying out most of its competition and then jacking up prices. Hinge are owned by Match Group, who also own Match.com, Tinder, POF, Okcupid, The League and a few others. All of these are now overglorified Tinder clones that adopted the same 'swipe left/right to match' formula.
Also I suspect there may be some kind of shadowban on my account. Apparently this is a thing frequently mentioned on /r/SwipeHelper, /r/HingeApp and /r/OnlineDating, and the only way people have gotten past it is fully deleting their accounts, waiting a few months and then registering afresh. If that is the case and my profile is being obfuscated for whatever reason (maybe because I recently reactivated it after going dormant), then that would make Hinge X blatant false advertising.
If i were you i would shoot my shot at karaoke, and just do dating apps on the side
I mean... I would, but I don't really approach women that I find attractive (mainly fear of rejection, or worse, or I know for a fact that they're not single), and the only attention I seem to get is from gay guys and the occasional lady old enough to be my grandma. As I'm not into either, it can make me uncomfortable at times.
The main group chat I'm in mainly consists of middle-aged men and women. I'm also friends with two DJs who host evenings at various pubs which I often attend. Some of our regulars either already are professional singers, or have the talent to be.
I wouldn't exactly say I'm a good singer and when people say I've got a good voice, I feel like they're either being nice, or they're drunk and easily impressed. I've definitely improved compared to when I first started doing this, to the point where I don't quite hate the sound of my own voice anymore and there are some go-to songs that I can sing somewhat well. I really do want to take professional singing lessons and improve my voice to the point where I could be like a siren. Maybe that would have been a better investment than a dating app.
Probably the best compliment I got was when I went to a Central Bristol pub for a Christmas karaoke eve. The place was packed and about half the pub was cordoned off for a pre-booked work Christmas party. I sung Poison Arrow by ABC (one of my go-to songs) and on a part of the second verse which I legitimately belted out loudly, I audibly heard one of the guys in the work crowd go "Fuck me..." in astonishment. I left that place soon after, both because they were inundated with requests, and to get away from an Aussie lady who I met previously, she was living in a homeless shelter and was spending her eves scrounging off other guys in that place.
Was not expecting to hear "shut the fuck up you fucking corporate bootlicking simp" from Louis Rossman of all people. He's pissed and rightly so.
I'm generally pretty anti-piracy but it's getting harder and harder to rationalize the act of paying for things through legitimate channels when customers are punished in the oh-so-many ways Rossman described. Disney think this is a "GOTCHA" moment that will absolve them of legal responsibility for someone's death at one of their theme parks, but this is an absolute PR disaster for them.