I use the safari reader view mode as well. It is decent, but the black/grey setting with white text still looks a bit off.
I prefer the Evernote 'simplified article' mode through safari or chrome extentions. It provides a simplified article, background colour similar to HN, and enables highlighting and brief comments.
That being said, the safari one works fine. I use it for 99% of articles, and on the 1% I go back to Evernote if I want to save the article, make a couple of highlights, or leave a comment.
many (most?) podcast apps have 'skip' buttons that allow you to set (say, 15 or 30 second) increments. if you have your podcatcher downloading mp3's of the shows, you can control what you listen to
It's interesting to see the degree that opinions have changed in time, the contrarian relationship between economic expectations and economic performance, and other fear mongering issues that don't tangibly affect people's quality of life. For the latter, these include National Security, Terrorism, Immigration, Government Satisfaction, Budget, ... really most of this stuff.
I wonder how the graph would look if the same question was posed to a set of 'experts'. Say a set of economists at top business schools, or really a spattering of economists from reputable universities.
My suspicion is the issues would suddenly become much more consistent. Especially with a focus on institutions, economic growth, tangible quality of life metrics, and efficacy of government redistribution programs among others 'real' measures.
It's not to say that fears over government functioning, or the economy, or morals are irrelevant - these factors shape how we perceive the world and subsequently how we feel. This graph displays how resilient we are to these emotionally charged 'issues'. The average poll respondent will likely continue following the general sentiment from media, conversations, etc. Meanwhile, tangible issues will continue to be acknowledged by a very small sliver of the population.
These sorts of results make me cynical of voting in general. Our current system with the electoral college, special interests, lobbying, advertisements etc. is already a clusterfuck. Ignoring experts opinions and focusing on emotionally charged issues is probably worse off for the country as a whole.
I, for one, am glad that voter preferences currently represent the preferences of elites when it comes to contentious issues. (see Martin Giles' Affluence and Influence). Our 'every person gets an equivalent vote regardless of education for the minority that actually votes across varying demographics with messed up electoral colleges and voting districts and advertising influences' ... system seems inefficient to me. While a dystopian future of 'educated elites' controlling voting isn't the answer, neither is an equivalent, electoral college based system. It encourages appealing to the lowest common denominator, and a whole lot of people are unintentionally voting against their own interests.
So why not short the stock? You will likely have to wait until after the IPO and may pay an arm and a leg for the privilege with limited initial float, but it's entirely up to your discretion. Even more appealing if snapchat does well on the first day of trading.
If you are as confident as you sound you may want to pay the 10 % annualized to short some shares, especially if it pops after the IPO.
I tend to get annoyed when people have extremely overconfident predictions yet don't act on them. Just responding to your parent comment, it's hard to tell how bullish your actually are on SNAP from a brief paragraph. I'm bullish also but won't touch the thing unless it gets into territory similar to GPRO.
Not bullish at all on SNAP at current valuations. It needs to drop significantly (i.e. more like an $7-13bn valuation, with good growth, and preferably $700MM-1bn in revenue) before I will consider buying in.
There are plenty of stocks out there with sufficient potential upside that I don't need to use leverage (either by borrowing at high interest on margin, or by borrowing and shorting expensive shares). Borrowing at low interest rates I will consider, but probably only for stable dividend shares.
I'm 90% certain that this won't be a killer IPO, if you look back 2 years after it floats. But there are sufficient interesting companies out there for me not to care about how it does, either way. Just putting it on my 'to watch' list.
Other sources [1] estimate the impact on Yahoo's core business, after subtracting out Alibaba's stock movements, at about $1.3B. On a $4.8B deal, that's about 27%.
The drop seems excessive to me, even taking into account BABA's daily performance. Bought some shares but didn't bother hedging against BABA so it's essentially an investment in BABA and baby arb, would definitely look into more serious hedging if I were managing more capital.
If buying IP means that you're buying a codebase so full of security holes that it'll likely result in a billion dollars worth of lawsuits in the future, a billion dollar drop in valuation is rational even if the existing valuation is negative.
Consider how one sometimes says "the chairs in the building are valued higher than the stock"--like, it's so low that the actual stuff they have is worth more than that even after liabilities.
How do you set this up in IB? I have a decent amount of long positions that this seems really useful on (especially since they will be selling float regardless)
Honestly, I think less about the future of crowdfunding, and more about the future of companies like Kickstarter (in context of their recent choice to become a public benefit corporation and other community-and-civic-minded choices they've made as a business). Setting that precedent, holding themselves accountable to their community, and enabling other communities to follow in their footsteps is VERY important, I think. That's what I'm thinking about lately.
He's wonderful! He left awhile after me, and perhaps our motivations were similar, but we still talk occasionally and I think very highly of him. Genuinely great person.
What kind of systems do you guys use for time tracking, priority organization, and achieving goals/finding meaning? I've flittered around with various systems, but never settled on anything. (Planning out my week in advance, time tracking from 15 minute intervals to morning intervals with what I have during the day, to do lists organized by urgent+important // important // urgent // neither, etc. It can be overwhelming, but I strongly suspect a system that makes me cognizant of my behavior, decisions, and where I am adding/finding the most value is superior to having no system at all.
I've found that a rough version of GTD has really helped me focus on "getting things done" when I feel i need structure because I am pulled in many different directions.
Don't worry about all the self help material, it really is a simple workflow:
From an overall "how to think and act effectively" philosophy, the original is still the best IMO: "The Effective Executive", by Peter Drucker, written in 1967. It contains very simple ideas, but I've found them to be tremendous life lessons on how to do the right things, rather than just doing things right.
I prefer the Evernote 'simplified article' mode through safari or chrome extentions. It provides a simplified article, background colour similar to HN, and enables highlighting and brief comments.
That being said, the safari one works fine. I use it for 99% of articles, and on the 1% I go back to Evernote if I want to save the article, make a couple of highlights, or leave a comment.