TRACKS:
ThisThat-_I_ll_Give_It_Back_To_You
Moojo - Secret ID (Bazaart Edit) V5
Diddy feat. Keyshia Cole - Last Night (Peredel Remix)
THE RAIN SONG (JEWELS REMIX)
I DONT CONTROL - LAZARE V1
Marten Lou, Isidoros - Better Days (Extended Version)
Bate Forte (Original Mix) - Sasson (FR), Bar
Francis Mercier, Frigid Armadillo, Luedji Luna - Uiara
! Ta Ta Ta - &friends, Byanni (Extended)
Ankhoï - No Sleep
! Notwithoutfriends - SUGAR +EQ FIX 1
Alex Twin ft Nicolae Voiculet - The Lonely Shepherd (Original Mix) [Master]
Sleeping Rough (Sparrow & Barbossa Re-Shape)
Fka Mash & Biishop - In The Crowd[m]
CUT OFF - &ME
Quentro & Tuna - Amores Deviles (Extended Mix)
Ankhoï - After All Nightshift
Thondiz - Sidi Sidi
Pagez & C-Mart - Workah
WOMACK & WOMACK - Teardrops (Chris IDH EDIT)
Love me Back (Raffa Guido Remix)
Tripolism_ GoodTimes(ExtendedMix)[Ultra]
Siina - KU LO SA (Master v1)
! Ankhoï - Sandiya
! ARYMÉ & Osfur - Alegria (Chris IDH remix)
4A - SOMMA, YUMA - All 4 U (master)
Michael Jackson - Billy Late Jean (Moojo edit)
Moojo - Oui (FINAL MASTER)
Moeaike - I knew i wanted you Master v7 @ JB
! SIS - Jolene
! Rafael & Guy Katch - Stop (V1)
! Moojo, Demayä, Arkadyan - Despedida
Alex Wann - Mayne
Sparrow & Barbossa - Si te Vas
moojo, rampa-ID
Pegate a mi - Lucca Saettone
Bleeding Love (&friends & Lilya Mandre)
Finesse (Antdot Remix)
Miishu, Emmanuel Jal - YUMA feat. Nyadollar (Francis Mercier Remix)
Tal Fussman - Pace
Tal fussman - The royal
Tal fussman - Freedom Defines House
Tal fussman - Even Rome Wasn't Built In a Day
KU LO SA - Oxlade (SIINA EDIT)……
FOLAMOUR 2A - VOYAGE (Antdot remix) DJMASTER V1
Juan Yarin - Sun WLimiter
Peaty, Soldera - Niafunke
In and Out of Love (Rivo Remix)
Choujaa - Nyu Bi Woni
Raffa guido - Preguntas
Water (Kiko Franco Remix)
Yamil - Amonunde………..
Yamil - Cotonú
Yamil - Nimbe
Water (Kiko Franco Remix) MSTR V3
Flume - Never Be Like You (DUMAA edit V4)
TRAVIS SCOTT - BUTTERFLY EFFECT (&ME EDIT)
&ME & Time - Not Alone (Dorian Craft Edit)
Diplo - Fortress (Rampa Remix)
Amr Diab - Nour El Ein (Ikerfoxx (ES) Remix)
Beyond us (Alex Wann remix)
Worst Enemy (Tato Remix) master v1
Marasi - Sweet dreams
Kabza de Small - Imithandazo (David Mackay Remix)
Tyla - Water (Yaacov Remix)
Raffa Guido - Yo ma Love
PEATY - Ouda (Extended Mix)_MST1
Maz & VXSION feat. Temper Trap - Amana's Sweet Disposition (Claes Sommer Private Edit) - 10A 123 BPM MSTR
Peaty - KILOSA (Afro Melodic Mix)-1
Ah Ya Alby (Ajna & Samm Edit)
Frankey & Sandrino - Memories
Lil Yachty - Ive Officially Lost Vision Tim Engelhardt Edit
Moeaike - Bo Bom
&friends, Joseph (CH) - Jackie Brown (1)
Samm (BE) & Ajna (BE) – Move V2
CamelPhat - Home (Kenshò Remix)
Yost Koen - Since 80 (DEMO MSTRD)
9A - garden city remix MITA RMX
MOOJO, DA CAPO FEAT. TABIA - WHAT U DESIRE (VOCAL MIX) 117
Âme - Mifune (Dixon's Accoustic Edit)
Caiiro - No One
Moojo - I Want Your Soul
Soweto (Lazare & Sachaaa Retouch)
KIKO FRANCO - DAY N NIGHT (EXTENDED MIX) 126
Aytiwan_&_Kaudron_feat_Nes_Mburu_Es_Vedra_Chaleee_Remix
Super Flu Feat. Malive - Loira
Victor Alc, Kimehra - Alma v2 mst02
Dodi Palese - Abracadabra
2 Andy Bros - Honey
markuss - Coldplay - Viva la vida (Markuss edit)
Hoax (BE) & LaLisa (FR) - Say My Name (Extended Mix)
Doja Cat x Badbwoy - Paint the town red x The Light (Dorian Mercier Edit)
Lorris - One (Lorris Rivoli -BlackOut- Edit)
Jackson 5 - I Want You Back(Moojo Edit)
Echoes (Peaty & Peace Control Remix)
GO LOW RAMPA EDIT
Meera - No Space
Meera - Blomst
Maesic & Samson - Rimiti

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53705565346_2803792de3_b.jpg
Vera v dividende ki naj bi bile “imune” proti padcem trgov se je rodila pred desetletji v ZDA. Ameriški "plemenitelji" so takrat "ugotovili" da naj bi bilo vseeno kakšni so kapitalski dobički kadar delnica izplačuje visoke dividendne donose. Zato so take delnice na veliko priporočali upokojencem. Firma VectorVest še dandanes trdi sledeče:
“Dividends are particularly valuable in retirement because they provide a consistent stream of income that can help cover living expenses. And, unlike bonds, dividend stocks offer the potential for capital gains as well as income. That means your portfolio can continue to grow even as you withdraw money from it.
https://www.vectorvest.com/blog/retirement/how-to-retire-on-dividends/#:\~:text=Dividends%20are%20particularly%20valuable%20in,you%20withdraw%20money%20from%20it.
Pa je to kar trdijo “plemenitelji” tudi res?
Prvič: dividendni donosi niso garantirani in jih lahko podjetje kadarkoli ukine.
Drugič: Dividendni donosi (dividend yield) niso isto kot izplačane dividende (dividend payout). Dividendni donos je izračunan v odstotku. Delnica vredna 100$ bo ob 10% dividendnem donosu vlagatelju izplačala 10$ na leto. Če pa cena delnice pade bo posledično ob istem dividendnem donosu padla tudi količina izplačanih dividend. V tem primeru bo celoten donos delnice oškodovan dvakrat: prvič zaradi nizkega ali celo negativnega kapitalskega dobička, drugič pa zaradi manjših izplačanih dividend.
Vzemimo naprimer delnico GNL (Global Net lease incorporated). Delnica ki je imela maja 2024 15.11% dividendni donos je bila 30. junija 2015 vredna 26.52$; 6. maja 2024 pa samo 7.28$. Deset tisoč $ vloženih v delnico GNLa junija 2015 je v manj kot 9. letih padlo na 7144.62$ (celoten donos minus 28.55%)
Nasprotno pa je delnica ETFa VOO ki pasivno sledi indeksu SP500 v istem časovnem razdobju narasla od 188.04$ na 474.72$. Ker izplačane dividende zavisijo od cene delnice je ob minimalnem dividendnem donosu 1.36% deset tisoč $ vloženih v delnico VOO v istem časovnem obdobju naraslo na 29435 $ (celoten donos plus 194.35%):
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53705565346_2803792de3_b.jpg
Kadar boste v bodoče srečali “plemenitelja” ki vam bo vzhičeno razlagal da je “iznašel” nekaj povsem “novega” - npr vlaganje v “imune” delnice z visokimi dividendnimi donosi - se spomnite na zgornji primer. Če bi kdorkoli resnično “iznašel nekaj novega” bi v to vlagal sam, ne pa podtikal drugim.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dividendyield.asp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku_WKSCBJCA

Zdravo folk! Če se kdo spomni od lani, smo organizirali socialni projekt, kjer damo prostor osebnim zgodbam brezdomcev, narkomanov, invalidov, LGBT+ posameznikov in drugih stigmatiziranih skupin v družbi.
Si želiš malo izzvat svoje predsodke ampak kot pravi asocialni redditor sigurno ne prideš na event? Letos si nekatere osebne zgodbe lahko prebereš kar iz kavča in sicer tukaj. Med njimi je tudi nekaj poezije.
Sicer pa vse, ki ste zainteresirani, da bi zgodbe slišali v živo in se v majhnih skupinah pogovarjali z našimi stigmatiziranimi gosti bo v ponedeljek 20. maja ob 17.00 potekala živa knjižnica v Kavarni Pritličje v Ljubljani.
Si del skupine posameznikov, ki je deležen predsodkov in bi rad sodeloval v projektu? npr. duševne bolezni, avtizem, revščina, prostitucija, priseljenstvo? Za spletno stran še vedno zbiramo osebne zgodbe, pa tudi poezijo, oddaš jo lahko anonimno pod psevdonimom ali imenom na bzconkraj@gmail.com, preko istega maila pa nas lahko tudi kontaktiraš če bi rad sodeloval kot govorec oz. "knjiga" na dogodku!

So to start, when I play HC I have my system, and I use it. I have a West Coast Zone Block Scheme playbook I created using Mike Shanahan's as a base, and throughout the years that is what I've ran. Updating it from time to time, but the fundamental core of my playbook was 25-30 runs a game with a work horse RB, zone stretch plays in singleback or Near, setting up the play action boot rollout. And for the last 8 or 9 years, It's the only offense I've used. Until this weekend.
This last weekend I was drinking my morning Coffee watching broncos press conference about bo nix, and at the end of the interview YT recommended me the 2006 Rose bowl game, Texas vs USC. (The greatest college football game of all time) as I watched the game on my iPad, inspiration hit me & dusted off my PS3.
For the First time ever in HC I created a College offense. As my Base playbook I used Michigan spread, Knowing how dominant Hammermill is, I decided to use his simple 75 play playbook. I added a single back two TE set to his book, about 15-20 plays in this formation, and added some shotgun passes as well. In total my playbook is 115 plays, which in contrast is rather limited compared to my 160 play westcoast book.
My defense is typically a 3-4 man pressure based off of Wade Phillips playbook. As a Broncos fan, when I play HC I try to recreate the two best era's of Denver Broncos football. Mike Shanahan's offense with Wade Phillips no fly zone defense. In the theme of new-to-me-playstyle, I used the 3-3-5 Mustang and added 14 plays in a 3-4 front. 89 plays total, The 3-3-5 is completely foreign to me, but I did know it requires 2 strong safeties and a single high free safety that is a true centerfielder. the 3 down lineman need to be big & strong, essentially 3 nose tackles
I like to create back stories to my coach, as much as Madden and Head Coach are Football games, to me I play them Like an RPG as well. where did my coach come from, what is his background and how did he become a head coach. etc
"Dom Mastroianni aka 'the Maestro' is a Guru, specializing in getting the best out of his players. He took Ole Miss on a miraculous run in the SEC. Not exactly a mad genius on either side of the ball, his specialty is helping his players maximize their potential. Leader of Men and Motivator."
With my playbooks & lore set, I I took over the 49ers, A team I've never used before. My 50k coach points were to be saved until just before the preseason, where I'd buy Charm > Motivator and have 5k left over to put into performance. as part of my lore after acquiring motivator, I will max out performance to level 4 before buying other skills.
My first move as head coach was to trade for Vince Young & Reggie Bush, two guys who I hoped would become stud's in Hammermills playbook. Coupled with me watching the 2006 rose bowl and rush to motivator on my skill tree, I felt good about what these two could do. No other trades were made. I signed Free agent Eugene Wilson & Stacey Andrews.
As the draft came along, I wanted to target guys who were extreme athletes and use the potential boost of motivator to increase their intangibles and overall ability. Since I was using motivator so early, I gave up most of my 2009 draft to collect players who had great combines and measurables, I wanted to have 8 or 9 very solid picks and turn these players into superstars and maximize their potential.
My Draft went as followed
Limas Sweed, VY's teammate at the university of Texas - 1st Round
Martellius Bennet TE - 2nd Round
Desean Jackson WR - 2nd Round
John Greco RT - 3rd Round
Tom Zibikowski SS - 3rd Round
David hale LG - 4th Round
Zack Bowman CB - 4th Round
Steven Justice C - 5th Round
Peyton Hillis FB - 5th Round
Hank Smithers DT - 6th Round
Frank Okam DT (converted LE) - 6th Round
Darrell LongBottom DT - 7th Round
Sweed, Bennet, and Zibikowski are 3 guys I never draft. But sweed is 6'5 and with his potential boost he can reach a 99 speed, 95 catching. His injury rating is still bad, but not as bad. Zibikowski and bennet had similar changes, bennet is now a 96 potential speed with his 6'7 frame. a matchup nightmare. between him and vernon davis's measurables there isnt a single linebacker who can matchup with them.
The preseason was just as much me learning the playbook as they players. My first regular season game was a nail bitter, 37-34 victory over the cardinals that came down to the wire. Vince young finished 22-31 with 345 passing yards and 4 TD's. Reggie Bush 13 Attempts 74 yards, 2 catches 28 yards and 93 return yards. I wrapped up my season last night and went 8-8. My typical first years are 10 - 12 wins and playoff birth.
But the new challenge of learning both a defense and offense playbook with entirely new players has been a shot in the arm for me. The most fun i've had playing this game in a long while. I apologize about the long blog post, & if you made it this far thanks for reading. I've got a firm grasp on the michigan spread offense which features alot of option plays & overall I'm very excited for the start of this next season.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/MediumGrouchy5547
Originally posted to TrueOffMyChest
I found my sister who disappeared from everyone more than 15 years ago after she ran away from home
Trigger Warnings: abandonment, depression, self-harm, eating disorder, possible mental health issues
Editor’s Note: TCA stands for trastornos de la conducta alimentaria which translates into “eating disorder”
Rastafarian: a religious movement
Original Post: April 26, 2024
I'm really happy and confused and I really don't know if I can talk about this with friends and family but I need to share my experience with someone because I missed my sister. I don't need or want any advice since no one really knows the situation to be able to give a good advice without assuming things they don't know and it's weird to read people talking about my sister like if they know what she lived, I just want to share this and I know a lot of people have had experiences like this too so maybe someone can relate.
When I was 10 years old my older sister who was 22 at that time disappeared after leaving a note to our parents saying that she's okay and just wants to start over her life.
My sister was always a lonely but outgoing person, she always told me that she enjoyed solitude from time to time and noisy things took away from her quality of life because tbh it was loud LOUD where we lived and it was annoying even for me (we lived in a dangerous neighborhood so it wasn't too safe and she hated not being able to go for a walk at night or do things at night alone), she was depressed and I remember seeing her suffering from severe anxiety attacks, she used to hit herself to stop them and she had a strong TCA that triggered those things. She suffered from other mental issues as well and talked freely about that, she talked about those things in front of me and these are things that leave a mark on you.
She was the favorite of the whole family although mi parents never out pressure on her, they always let us do our life (my brother who was 19 at that time knows that, my sister was the golden child), my grandfather always made it clear that she is his favorite granddaughter, even now. She was the calm but funny kind of person, she was the closest to my parents and uncles so when she disappeared from one day to the next no one understood what was going on.
Even my sister had never traveled alone except to go to work and she always notified my mother that she was okay for safety reasons. She left a long note clarifying that she doesn't want to be searched but she loves us. It was a big blow for the family, I remember my mother wanting to report to the police but they said that my sister was not a minor and the note said that she left by her own so they can't do anything.
In a way, my other brother knew that this would happen at some point, since our sister mentioned a lot that she wanted to leave everything and go live in the countryside or become a nun and live in a calm place without any worries but nobody took her seriously about that. She was always the kind of person who did things without telling anyone, she liked her solitude sometimes even if she was always friendly.
The first months and weeks were strange, it wasn't that she had passed away but that she disappeared because she wanted to, I remember my mother missing her because they always shared the afternoons together.
I also missed her a lot, Even years later my family missed her and at Christmas or her birthday someone would always say "maybe she'll show up now" or we would wonder how she's doing or if she was alive.
Back to the present. I'm on vacation in the south of my country (This part of my country is very expensive for a tourist and I am the only one in my family who was able to come now that I am an adult), it's a place full of villages and while I was exploring I came to a place where they sold typical handicrafts of the place.
While shopping I can swear that the first thing I saw was my sister looking at some crafts on a shelf, she looked more adult but obviously I recognized her instantly, we are really similar after all.
I didn't really knew how to react after so many years and I didn't know how she would react, but I went over and said her name. What I didn't expected was that she would smile instantly when she saw me and called me by my nickname. I thought she had escaped because she didn't wanted anything to do with the family even if in the note she said she loves us, but she was greeting me as if nothing had happened.
She told me that she didn't expected to see me there and asked me if I was on vacation, she said that the village used to be not so touristy but now more people started to go and many villagers opened stores for the tourists. I was upset, I was angry with her for leaving us and pretending that nothing happened but I couldn't react so I just asked her if she lives in that town and she said yes, It's a place filled with old people.
We talked for a few seconds, she asked me what I'm studying and if everyone at home is okay, she told me I'm taller and thinner. Then she gave me a kiss on the cheek and told me that if I have a few days off I can go visit her but she doesn't have a cell phone so she told me that she's almost everyday there. My sister also told me to send hugs to our parents.
I'm confused and full of questions about her, she doesn't even wants to hide, she didn't looked or talked to me like someone who wanted to run away from something and hide. She was just happy to see me and happy to know that we were all good.
But I also feel resentment for her when I think about all that our parents and grandparents suffered when she disappeared, making my mother feel that she was a bad mother because she couldn't protect her.
But I'm ambivalent as I'm also happy to know that she's okay and that she doesn't hate me or the family but I'm also confused, Her behavior wasn't that of someone who is hiding or who doesn't want to know anything about her past, she was just happy to hear about us.
Edit: I'm sorry but there are people who clearly don't read the post, there are literally people saying that I didn't even knew my sister and commenting as if they knew her and taking things for granted about her life, there are even people saying that they don't understand why I'm 'angry' (it's just a feeling, a normal feeling, it's not that I hate her and I will treat her badly, god. Nor will I talk to my family without talking to her first, at what point in the post did I say that I'm going to expose her? I'm never going to treat her badly either because I have no reason to do so, It's crazy how half the comments draw silly conclusions) with my sister when i literally say it up there, even if my English is bad because it's not my first language, just read the post before you want to get a few likes for some unnecessary advice.
Additional Information from OOP on his sister’s note

OOP: My sister in the note said that she loves our parents, my brother was 19 when our sister left and he himself knows how much our parents loved and supported her when she was having a hard time with herself but the outside always affected her badly.
I was ten years old but I wasn't a baby and I remember what the family dynamic was like, I remember the feeling of my family, my parents are not narcissists and my sister loved them and they love who's my sister, she just had her own problems.
How could a parent miss the idea of their children? There's not a day when my parents don't miss everything about my sister, they miss sharing the day with her, my father even missed when she was cranky. My parents always let us go our own way and I can assure you that they never pressured us to be what they wanted us to be, I don't even know what they want us to be.

Relevant Comments
Mil1512: Is your sister neurodivergent?
With the hitting herself when struggling with anxiety and enjoying solitude.
I'm neurodivergent and my family live in another country. I honestly forget to talk to them most of the time and only really do because my mum messages me first. If she didn't we just wouldn't talk. Not due to any hate or anything, I'm just happy doing my own thing.

OOP: She's not. My sister had a lot of self-destructive behaviors and hurting herself was one of them when she felt 'fat', she also had eating disorders and panic attacks because of that. I don't remember too much but she did other things to not eat besides hitting herself, she was very open about her TCA and yes, she has a diagnosis from a professional.
My sister was always in touch with my mother and everyone in text, she always used to keep in touch when she was going out until the day she left, now she doesn't even have a phone. In her note she just said that she wanted to leave everything

mikuzgrl: It almost seems like the sister has been in contact with someone for a while and thinks news is being passed back and forth.

OOP: I never thought about that but I don't think so, seeing how my parents miss her I think the first thing the family would do would be to at least tell my father that she is okay :/

 
Can people just stop with the aggressive messages? Weirdos: May 1, 2024
I understand that many reflect their personal traumas in this site, but I literally received passive-aggressive messages calling me idiot or even telling me that I would hate my sister if she were neurodivergent or claiming that my parents abused her.
What's wrong with y'all? Go to a psychologist and stop reflecting your unresolved traumas in the story of a person you don't even know. Go out and touch grass and talk to a real person instead of literally sending private messages like that.
I didn't asked for any advice and just wanted to share my story because that's the point of that subreddit, but many took it the wrong way and decided to turn something positive into a way to fight.
I don't even understand why out of nowhere I started getting those kinds of messages or if someone share that post on a weird place.
 
Editor’s Note: TLP is trastorno límite de la personalidad which translates into Borderline Personality Disorder
Update: May 7, 2024
On sunday I finally found my sister again, she was selling things in the park with other stands, all of them are rastafari, not hippies or a sect. I walked over and she greeted me just as happily, we talked a couple of things and my sister told me that she doesn't have a cell phone so it was impossible for her to tell me that she wouldn't be there on Saturday.
I spent the afternoon with her at her stand and after that we went to her house, she lives alone (and sometimes with her friends). We talked for a while and at one point she broke down and hugged me, saying she was trying to stay calm all this time and didn't knew how to react because she didn't wanted to make me cry too bc she remembered that I was really sensitive but she couldn't hold it anymore. We cried and talked a lot.
My sister was tired of people, she said that our house was her safe place but hated the idea of having to work everyday and I didn't wanted to study anything, she was our parents' golden child, so they let her do whatever she wanted, but she knew that at some point she had to make something of her life. She was tired of how stupid and empty everyone was, of the politicians, of the TV showing empty things, of the noise everywhere outside when she wanted peace, even sleeping in our home was stressful for everyone because of the noises outside during the weekends when she wanted to be alone to smoke and listen music (tbh, In my memories as a child I didn't remember the obvious smell of joints that my sister had all the time)
That added to the pressure that society put on her to be physically perfect make her want to leave everything behind.
She didn't wanted to die but realized that my parents were miserable when they saw her being miserable, this is something I didn't know, but my sister said that our father had two jobs to be able to pay for her psychologist and medication, also my father used to spoil her a lot with the only food she eat without guilty. Running away was like dying symbolically.
My sister says that although our parents always supported her, she felt like a failture for not being able to improve and always relapsing, she felt bad to see our father working so hard and also wanted to live according to her spiritual mentality, free from all that is toxic in society.
All of those things make her ran away from everything, she felt like a burden and also didn't wanted to live a life working and miserable like everyone.
Sis told me that she never contacted us because she doesn't wants to have a cell phone and a trip to our province is too expensive to her because it's basically going from one end of the country to the other.
She hates capitalist society with all her soul and doesn't even have a TV. My sister said that she is much better now away from the city. My sister told me that she wants to talk to our parents but doesn't knows what to say and we don't want to give them parents a shock since our dad was sick a few days ago and is recovering from dengue.
I'm writing this with her beside me and doesn't understand what's the point of this site (The last social network she used was fotolog in 2007) but said that she doesn't mind if I post this. She wanted to write something but said she doesn't like writing in English haha
My sister was reading the comments and wants me to clarify that she never suffered any kind of a abuse, she has a lot of friends and never had any problem with anyone but likes to be alone from time to time to meditate.
And she's not neurodivergent (She said her behavior was normal because of her TLP), suffers from ED, borderline personality disorder and see a psychologist twice a month.
During her adolescence, the blogs Ana and mia were trendy, her friends had that 'aesthetic' and she was popular in fotolog (according to my sister, at that time it was taken as an aesthetic and even a book about that was really popular between teens, maybe someone from my country knows Abzurdah?). She hated going out when she felt fat, she couldn't have imperfections like cuts on her arms so she hurt herself with a rubber band when she overate, something she read in those blogs. Now she's in a good weight but it took her really long to not relapse again. It's been a long recovery for her and once you're anorexic you never stop being anorexic, she's always afraid of relapsing.
So that's it for now, we don't know how we're going to talk with our parents without making them freak out. And also my sister after seeing the comments on the post saw other reddit posts and said that her life is definitely better without a cell phone, she says that things like fotolog was the beginning of all evil haha
Relevant Comments
OOP on his sister being involved with Rastafari

OOP: Idk how it is in other countries to be honest, my sister doesn't live in community and there are no camps, she's one of the few who has a house because most of them prefer to travel around the country.
I really think it's impossible for them to be 100% Rastafarian here tbh because we are from South America and the Rastafarian community here is obviously totally different from the REAL Rastafarians, they just follow most of the philosophy
Edit: for example, my sister doesn't consider herself Rastafarian but she share some points of the philosophy they have, I don't know how the rest of them thinks

 

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

Bryan and Bo often say “There’s get wealthy behaviors and there’s stay wealthy behaviors.”
Lots of content has been created describing the get wealthy behaviors such as follow the FOO, save 25%, be disciplined about purchase decisions, practice risk management, etc.
But I haven’t seen a lot that describes “stay wealthy behaviors.”
Is there any content (video, blog articles etc) from them that outlines what their view of these stay wealthy behaviors actually are?
Or do they simply focus on pushing people to become clients before they divulge that information?

In today's digital age, graphic design surrounds you, from the billboards that dot the highways to the sleek interface of your favourite app. It's an art form that combines creativity with strategy, aiming to communicate ideas and messages through visual content. Whether it's a vibrant logo that captures the essence of a brand or an infographic that breaks down complex information, graphic design is at the heart of visual communication.
As a career, graphic design offers a canvas for innovation and expression, blending art and technology to create compelling designs that inform, engage, and persuade. In South Africa, where the creative industries continue to bloom, graphic design plays a pivotal role in the business landscape, driving the creation of digital and print media that resonate with consumers. If you're intrigued by the power of visual storytelling and considering a career in this dynamic field, understanding the fundamentals of graphic design is your first step towards unlocking your creative potential.

Key Takeaways

• Understanding Graphic Design: Graphic design is a vital form of communication that merges art with technology to effectively convey messages and ideas. In South Africa, it is not only a burgeoning career path but also key in visual storytelling, crucial for brands and information dissemination.
• Core Elements of Graphic Design: Successful graphic design relies on fundamental elements like typography, colour theory, and layout/composition. Mastery of these components is essential for creating visually engaging designs that communicate effectively.
• Specialisation Areas: Graphic design in South Africa encompasses various specialisation areas including branding, packaging design, and digital design. Each area offers unique opportunities for creativity and innovation.
• Graphic Design Tools and Software: A mix of traditional tools (e.g., pencils, markers) and modern software (such as Adobe Creative Suite and Sketch) is necessary for contemporary graphic design. Familiarity with these tools is crucial for both creativity and efficiency.
• Pursuing a Career in Graphic Design: With the right education and skills, numerous career opportunities open up in advertising, digital design, publishing, and freelancing. South Africa offers a range of courses and programs, like those at Oakfields College, tailored to equip aspiring designers for the industry.
• The Importance of Continuous Learning: Staying updated with the latest design trends and technologies is vital for a successful career in graphic design, highlighting the importance of ongoing education through short courses and professional development.

Understanding Graphic Design

Graphic design stands as a pivotal form of communication, blending art and technology to convey messages and ideas effectively. In South Africa, where the creative industries are burgeoning, graphic design emerges as a compelling career pathway, offering endless opportunities for innovation and expression. This section delves into the essence of graphic design, its fundamental components, and why mastering these concepts is crucial for aspiring designers.
Graphic design is more than just aesthetics; it's about solving problems and communicating ideas visually. It combines various elements such as typography, images, colours, and layouts to create engaging designs that capture attention, inform, and sometimes persuade the audience. Whether it's a branding campaign, a website design, or product packaging, every piece of design communicates a story to its viewers.

Core Elements of Graphic Design

Firstly, understanding the basic elements of graphic design is essential. These elements include:

• Typography: The art of arranging type, which is a crucial aspect of design. It's not just about choosing fonts; it's about creating readable and appealing text that enhances the message.
• Colour Theory: Colour plays a vital role in graphic design. It can influence mood, convey messages, and even affect purchasing decisions. Understanding colour theory helps in choosing the right palette for your projects.
• Layout and Composition: How elements are arranged on a page determines how effectively the design communicates. Good layout and composition bring balance, guide the viewer’s eye, and ensure the design is aesthetically pleasing.

Specialisation Areas in Graphic Design

The field of graphic design in South Africa is diverse, with several areas of specialisation, including:

• Branding and Visual Identity: Creating a visual identity for brands that communicates their values and distinguishes them from competitors.
• Packaging Design: This involves designing attractive and functional packaging that stands out on the shelf while protecting the product.
• Digital Design: This encompasses website design, mobile app design, and social media graphics, among others.

For those looking to pursue a career in graphic design, South Africa offers a variety of courses and training programs. From comprehensive graphic design courses to short courses in South Africa, aspiring designers have access to some of the best graphic design courses available. These programs cover the fundamentals of design as well as the latest trends and technologies, preparing students for successful careers in this dynamic field.

History of Graphic Design

Tracing the origins of graphic design takes you back to the dawn of human expression, but its professional identity and terminology began shaping during the 20th century. The term 'graphic design' itself was coined by William Addison Dwiggins in 1922, marking the official separation of design as a distinct profession which encompasses typography, visual arts, and page layout for the purposes of marketing, advertising, and informing.
In South Africa, graphic design has weaved its unique thread through the country's rich tapestry of cultural diversity. Emerging from a background of traditional art forms and evolving through the apartheid and post-apartheid eras, today's South African graphic design scene is a vibrant mix of traditional African elements and modern digital artistry. This blend offers a distinct flavour to South African design, making it recognisable on the global stage.
The evolution of graphic design in South Africa closely aligns with technological advancements and educational progress in the field. Institutions like Oakfields College play a pivotal role in shaping the new generation of graphic designers through comprehensive graphic design courses and short courses in South Africa. These programs not only equip students with the necessary skills in traditional and digital design but also incorporate critical thinking and strategy, preparing them for a successful career in the industry.
Moreover, South Africa has embraced the digital revolution in graphic design, with many designers and agencies placing a strong emphasis on digital mediums. This transition has not only expanded the scope of graphic design in the country but also opened up a plethora of opportunities for designers to innovate and create with global reach.
Whether you're considering a career in this dynamic field or simply have an appreciation for the art form, understanding the history of graphic design, especially within the South African context, enriches your perspective of its impact and potential. For those looking to dive deeper into this industry, seeking out the best graphic design courses in South Africa is a solid first step towards mastering the craft and contributing to its ongoing story.

Key Principles of Graphic Design

Understanding the key principles of graphic design is essential for creating visually compelling and effective designs. These principles serve as the foundational guidelines that ensure your work communicates the intended message to your audience, especially within the South African context where cultural diversity and historical background profoundly influence visual communication.

Layout and Structure

The layout and structure form the backbone of graphic design. Utilising layout software, designers position text, images and incorporate features such as columns and advertisements to achieve a balanced and visually attractive product. For instance, in crafting layouts for newspapers, magazines, or books, the arrangement dictates how readers process information, making it crucial to guide the audience through the design in a logical sequence. South African designers must be adept at using tools like InDesign to create layouts that not only look good but also respect the cultural nuances and readability preferences of the local audience.

Typeface Design

Creating or selecting the right typeface is key to conveying your design's intended tone and personality. Each font carries its own weight and style, impacting how text is perceived. Original fonts designed for specific digital applications, including websites and adverts, must be readable, scalable, and aesthetically pleasing. South Africa's rich cultural tapestry offers an opportunity for typeface designers to explore unique font styles that reflect local heritage and language diversity, enhancing the global richness of typeface design.

Colour Theory

A fundamental component of graphic design, colour theory explains how colours interact with each other and the effects they have on the viewer. The right colour palette can evoke emotions, communicate messages, and influence actions. In South Africa, with its vibrant landscapes and diverse cultures, colour holds significant importance. Utilising colour effectively requires understanding local cultural differences and preferences, ensuring designs resonate with the intended audience while achieving the desired impact.

Web Page Design

The digital realm offers vast opportunities for graphic designers to express creativity and innovation. Designing the structure and appearance of websites demands a combination of layout skills, colour theory application, and typeface selection. Graphic designers often create PSD or AI files that are then converted into functional websites. In a South African context, where digital access and consumption patterns vary widely across different demographics, designers have to be strategic in their design decisions, ensuring accessibility and responsiveness across devices.

The Role of Graphic Design in Various Industries

Graphic design, with its profound ability to communicate visually, plays a pivotal role across various industries. Its significance in the South African context, driven by cultural diversity and a unique historical backdrop, cannot be overstated. As you explore the vast landscape of graphic design, you'll discover its application in marketing and advertising, digital design, publishing, and entertainment and media. Let's delve into how graphic design shapes these industries and the opportunities it presents for aspiring designers, especially those considering enrolling in graphic design courses or short courses in South Africa.

Marketing and Advertising

In the competitive market of South Africa, graphic design serves as the backbone of successful marketing and advertising campaigns. Designers craft compelling visuals that not only grab the attention of the target audience but also convey the brand's message effectively. From creating eye-catching advertisements to designing sophisticated marketing materials, graphic designers ensure that a brand stands out in a crowded marketplace. Engaging visuals in billboards, flyers, brochures, and digital ads are all testaments to the creativity and strategic thinking of graphic designers. With the best graphic design courses in South Africa, you can unlock your potential and help brands tell their stories compellingly.

Digital Design

The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and graphic design is at the heart of this transformation. In South Africa, where the digital economy continues to grow, the demand for skilled graphic designers who can navigate web page design, UX/UI, and social media content creation is on the rise. Digital design focuses on crafting user-friendly and aesthetically pleasing online experiences. Whether it's through website design, mobile app interfaces, or engaging social media posts, graphic designers play a critical role in shaping how brands interact with their audiences online. By pursuing short courses in graphic design with a focus on digital applications, you're setting yourself up for a rewarding career in this dynamic field.

Publishing

The publishing industry in South Africa, which includes books, magazines, newspapers, and catalogs, relies heavily on graphic design to attract and retain readership. Publication designers work closely with authors and publishers to create layouts, choose typefaces, and select images that enhance the readability and appeal of printed materials. The goal is to create visually attractive publications that communicate content effectively, whether it's for educational, informational, or entertainment purposes. graphic design course that specialise in publication design can provide you with the skills needed to excel in this sector.

Entertainment and Media

Graphic design's influence extends into the entertainment and media industry, creating unforgettable visuals for films, television shows, video games, and music productions. Designers collaborate with directors and producers to craft branding, promotional materials, and visual effects that define the aesthetic of a production. In South Africa, where the entertainment industry is vibrant and diverse, graphic designers contribute to the cultural fabric by creating artwork that resonates with both local and international audiences. Short courses in South Africa focusing on graphic design for entertainment and media can launch your career in this exhilarating field.
The role of graphic design in various industries is immense, offering vast opportunities for creative expression and professional growth. Whether you're interested in marketing and advertising, digital design, publishing, or entertainment and media, graphic design courses in South Africa can equip you with the necessary skills to thrive in these exciting fields. Explore the best graphic design courses and embrace the journey toward becoming a prominent designer in the industry.

Graphic Design Tools and Software

Embarking on a journey in graphic design, you'll discover that it's not just about creativity but also about the tools and software that bring your ideas to life. Whether you're interested in pursuing one of the best graphic design courses or just starting to dip your toes into this vibrant field, knowing the right tools is essential. In South Africa, where the design landscape is as diverse as its culture, having a toolkit equipped with both traditional and modern instruments is key to making your mark.

Traditional Tools

Before the digital age took over, graphic designers relied heavily on traditional tools to conceptualise and create their artwork. These tools weren't just instruments; they were extensions of the designers' hands and minds, allowing them to manifest their visions into tangible forms.

• Pencils and sketchpads are indispensable, even today, for quickly jotting down ideas or sketching preliminary designs. These basics enable you to freely express your initial concepts without the constraints of software interfaces.
• Rulers and stencils aid in creating clean, precise lines and shapes, ensuring that your work maintains professional standards of accuracy.
• Markers and paint allow for the exploration of colour and texture, adding a unique touch to logos or illustrations that digital means might not fully replicate.

Mastering these traditional tools can give you a strong foundation in the principles of graphic design, a necessity highlighted in short courses across South Africa.

Modern Software

As technology advanced, the realm of graphic design expanded, introducing a suite of modern software that has become indispensable to today's designer. This software not only enhances efficiency but also opens up infinite possibilities for creativity and collaboration.

• Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, is the cornerstone of professional graphic design. These applications offer powerful tools for image manipulation, vector artwork creation, and layout design, making them a staple in graphic design courses.
• CorelDraw Graphics Suite provides robust vector editing capabilities alongside layout and photo-editing tools, tailored for versatility in various design tasks.
• Sketch has become a go-to for web and mobile interface design, with its intuitive vector tools and simplified interface, making it a popular choice for those specialising in digital design.

Each piece of software brings its strengths to the table, and in a competitive field like graphic design, knowing your way around them can set you apart. Best graphic design courses, particularly those offered in South Africa at esteemed institutions like Oakfields College, cover an extensive range of these modern tools, preparing students to meet industry demands.
Engaging with both traditional tools and modern software equips you with a versatile skill set, crucial for navigating the diverse graphic design landscape in South Africa. Whether you're aiming to excel in branding, digital design, or any other specialization within the field, harnessing these tools will be key to your success.

Pursuing a Career in Graphic Design

Graphic design, a field that artfully combines text, images, and concepts to communicate ideas, offers a myriad of career possibilities. In South Africa, where the digital and creative industries are rapidly expanding, pursuing a career in graphic design can be both fulfilling and lucrative. Let’s delve into how you can embark on this exciting journey.

Educational Pathways

Your venture into the world of graphic design begins with the right education. South African institutions, including Oakfields College, offer comprehensive programmes that cater not just to the theoretical aspects of graphic design but also to the practical, hands-on experiences necessary for success in the industry.

1. Graphic Design Courses: You'll find a range of options, from diplomas to bachelor’s degrees. These courses cover fundamental principles such as typography, layout design, and colour theory, along with modern digital design tools. Oakfields College is renowned for its focused curriculum that prepares you for the real-world challenges of a graphic designer.
2. Short Courses in South Africa: If you're looking for a more flexible learning path or wish to specialise in a particular area like web design or digital marketing, short courses can be invaluable. These programmes are perfect for staying abreast of the latest trends and technologies in the graphic design realm.
3. Best Graphic Design Courses: When selecting a course, consider institutions that offer a balanced mix of theory and practical application. Courses that include internships or work placement opportunities, like those at Oakfields College, are particularly beneficial as they provide real industry experience and a chance to build a professional network.

Career Opportunities

After equipping yourself with the necessary knowledge and skills, a diverse range of career opportunities awaits. Here's a glimpse of what you can expect:

1. Advertising and Branding: Companies constantly seek talented graphic designers to create compelling advertising campaigns and develop strong brand identities.
2. Digital Design: With the digital age in full swing, careers in web design, user interface (UI) design, and user experience (UX) design are in high demand. Designers with skills in creating visually appealing and user-friendly digital spaces are highly sought after.
3. Publishing and Print Media: Despite the rise of digital media, there's still a significant need for designers in the publishing industry. From magazines to books and newspapers, graphic designers play a crucial role in layout and visual storytelling.
4. Freelancing: For those who prefer a more flexible work environment, freelancing offers the freedom to choose projects that align with your interests and expertise. Platforms such as Behance and LinkedIn can help you showcase your portfolio and connect with potential clients.

‍
Graphic design is more than just an artistic endeavour; it's a pivotal element of South Africa's creative landscape. With its rich history and evolving nature, the field offers a vibrant pathway for those looking to make their mark. Through institutions like Oakfields College, aspiring designers have access to comprehensive training that covers everything from fundamentals to advanced specialisations. Whether you're drawn to branding, digital design, or another niche, the opportunities in this dynamic industry are vast. Embarking on a graphic design career not only allows you to explore your creative passions but also to contribute significantly to the digital and creative sectors. Remember, your journey in graphic design is not just about mastering tools or techniques; it's about shaping visual narratives that resonate. So, if you're ready to dive into this exciting field, the time to start is now.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the significance of graphic design in South Africa?

Graphic design in South Africa plays a pivotal role in the communication industry, blending visual communication with digital technology to produce effective branding and marketing strategies. Its significance lies in its ability to convey complex information and ideas through creative and visual means.

What are the core elements of graphic design?

The core elements of graphic design include layout, typeface design, and colour theory. These elements are crucial in creating visually appealing and effective designs that communicate the desired message to the audience.

What specialisation areas exist within graphic design?

In South Africa, graphic design specialisation areas include branding, digital design, advertising, publishing, and freelancing. Each area focuses on different aspects of visual communication and offers unique career opportunities.

How has the history of graphic design evolved in South Africa?

The history of graphic design in South Africa has evolved from traditional print media to incorporating digital mediums. It reflects the country's rich culture and history, with institutions like Oakfields College playing a significant role in training the next generation of designers.

What role do institutions like Oakfields College play in graphic design education?

Institutions like Oakfields College in South Africa play a crucial role in graphic design education by offering comprehensive courses and short programmes that equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge in graphic design principles, tools, and software.

What are the essential tools and software for graphic designers?

The essential tools and software for graphic designers include Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign) for creating and editing visuals. Knowledge of these tools is critical for producing high-quality design work.

How can one pursue a career in graphic design in South Africa?

Pursuing a career in graphic design in South Africa involves obtaining the necessary education through courses and programmes offered by reputable institutions like Oakfields College. Building a strong portfolio and gaining experience through internships or freelance projects are also important steps.

What career opportunities exist in graphic design?

Career opportunities in graphic design in South Africa are abundant and include fields such as advertising, digital design, publishing, and freelancing within the expanding digital and creative industries, offering a dynamic and rewarding career path for aspiring designers.

Dziękuję wszystkim za przybycie.
Z ciekawości chciałem dać szansę kuchni wegańskiej ale nie mam pojęcia jak się za to zabrać.
Czy macie jakąś godną polecenia książkę kucharską lub blog? Najlepiej książkę w formie fizycznej tak żeby można było ją postawić na blacie i zachlapać.
No i będę potrzebował źródła składników bo z tego co zdążyłem się zorientować w zwykłych sklepach typu Lidl czy Kaufland próżno szukać czegoś innego niż kartofle i ryż.
W mojej mieścinie jest dokładnie jeden sklep ze zdrową żywnością ale tam próżno szukać czegoś innego niż kartofle i ryż "BIO". Czyli zostaje import z internetu.
Wszelkie dodatkowe porady mile widziane. Na temat oczywiście.

This post is the first of (at least) 3. I’ve been writing it for a few days now, so it’s pretty long. Some parts are a little repetitive, but this stuff is complicated (for a reason) and I really want people to understand how it works. Clarity is important to me because 1) I want to know when I’m wrong, and 2) obscurity and complexity are pretty much the only things supporting the House of Cards.
Oh and I hate to ask but - even if you just read the TLDR (or can’t read all) but think the post is at least worth looking at, please upvote. I’ve seen the power of the bots and all the words are scary to begin with. Save the award money for more GME 🚀🚀
//

TLDR:

APs, like Citadel, use ETFs to provide liquidity. When there are lots of buyers (GME in January), it’s their job to make sure those buyers have sellers to reduce volatility. Yes, stopping squeezes is a large part of their job. They do this by buying ETF shares and selling the GME inside. BUT the SEC has made a series of exemptions for APs that allows them to sell ETF shares up to 6 days before depositing the securities needed for creation. It’s selling before buying, and not locating shares to borrow. That’s naked shorting, up to 50,000 shares at a time. And the securities needed for deposit within 6 days, the ones naked shorted? They go unreported as part of bona fide market making. That’s where (some of) the shares are. In this post, I go looking for them.
//

ELIA:

ETFs trade on the market like stocks, but they actually represent some proportion of underlying securities. Authorized Participants (APs are big banks and Citadel) trade ETFs in groups of 50,000 shares called “creation baskets” - and these creation baskets can be exchanged with the underlying securities in the ETFs proportions. (lol it’s actually anyproportion, but more on that later)
For an AP: 50,000 shares of ETF = “creation basket” = 50,000 shares of underlying securities.
They’re interchangeable, for a small fee.
This process allows APs to profit from arbitrage: the process of creating or redeeming creation baskets to profit from differences in an ETF’s market price and the Net-Asset-Value (NAV) of the securities underlying it. A presentation given at Wharton (linked below) showed that APs can make higher and more “predictable” returns by exploiting an exemption that allows them to sell ETF shares that they do not own up to 6 days before purchasing the securities needed to create them.
This is effectively short selling via ETF, and they are legally exempt from locating a valid share to borrow. So it’s naked short selling via ETF.
Also, the shares deposited (short, naked, or otherwise) for ETF creation are not recorded on the APs books, so any short interest involved in arbitrage will not show up in FINRA numbers. Per the Securities Act of 1933.
However, as the presentation explains, evidence of this activity would include creation of ETF shares without redemption, particularly in ETFs that are more liquid than their underlying securities. cough, GME, cough
This would result in consistently increased ownership in the ETF, so evidence of this process can be found in ETF ownership anomalies.
I discuss this data and more, which ultimately suggest, in my opinion, overwhelming evidence of heinous levels of naked short selling across multiple securities, systemically linked through these ETFs and hidden by bona fide market making arbitrage provisions. Due to liquidity, or lack thereof, and GME’s 60+ ETFs, it was the perfect target for this activity. This is why GME is the black hole.
Whoopsie
I argue that Citadel and friends tried bankrupting GME with this system by hiding naked shorts and FTDs across these ETFs, hoping to dilute share price all the way to bankruptcy. I discuss mechanism behind this, HFT’s role, how BoA, GS, and JP got involved, how RC pretty much handed Citadel’s balls over to BlackRock, and what all the footprints left behind might reveal about the scope of this whole thing.
Spoiler, they’re fucked^fucked
//

Preface

(( I’m skeptical by nature. Like any tool, skepticism isn’t inherently good or bad - it’s just useful. In some cases more than others. ))
As a disclaimer, not only am I not a financial advisor. 6 months ago I had virtually no financial background whatsoever. The entirety of my relevant knowledge has come from months of independent research and personal interviews. I believe it’s fair to say I have a proficiency for puzzles and a nose for bullshit - and the dynamic between the two has served me well in the past.
I attempt to discuss an incredibly complex system here, the depth of which I’m certainly ignorant to. I decided the “Great Wall of Text” approach just was too much. Plus, I’ve been so close to putting things together for such a long time, I’m eager to have it reviewed. So I’d like present the story as soon as possible it to encourage more apes to dig deeper into this stuff.
I’m sure many of you have years of experience beyond me, but I’ve gone to great lengths in trying to understand the mechanics and regulations at a granular level - as well as their context in the events we’ve hodled through - so I hope you’ll at least give me a chance. I really hope you can correct me where I’m mistaken. I’ll try to answer all questions I can in the comments. I just like to figure stuff out.
It took months of notes and connecting dots to put this together, and I’ll eventually discuss mechanics and examples of arbitrage, creation/redemption, liquidity provisions, ex-clearing, synthetic options positions, gamma-delta hedging, disclosure laws, exemptions, Repos, RRPs, APs/MMs/BDs, FTDs, ETFs, ETNs, and all the regulations supposedly governing this whole fiasco. I try to stick to the official facts and documents, and I hope you glance at the sources I linked.
I’ll try keeping it to 3 chapters, though. This post will be the first - on ETF Arbitrage and it’s importance to GME.

Introduction

The true beginning of this story has been diligently and beautifully covered in the last few weeks by , , Dr. T, Wes Christian, and more. It starts with greedy and malicious short sellers making fortunes at the expense of companies, their employees, and their shareholders. This problem has existed for decades but was able to scale around 1990 - with the emergence of High Frequency Trading (HFT), Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and Options trading. Together, they allowed shares sold short and FTDs to essentially be scattered in various places, as this 2019 video and this 2013 SEC risk alert explain.
I urge you, at some point, to look closely at both of those. Based on everything we’ve seen, I believe they are very pertinent and I’ll be leaning heavily on them to explain my reasoning.
ETFs and options trading allow short positions in many individual securities to aggregate, roll forward, and be dispersed (and hidden) in index funds and derivatives. This is, effectively, refurbishing FTDs to manipulate the supply and drive price down. The potential consequences of this scheme was forewarned in 2006 by Patrick Byrne when his company, Overstock, was victimized by this process. Byrne worked with Wes Christian in 2006 to bring attention to the issue, but traction was soon lost in 2008 when a… more immediate disaster… popped up.
In the 2000’s, High-Frequency-Trading (HFT) began dominating the markets. Citadel, possibly the world’s largest HFT trading firm, AND FRIENDS got involved when realized that “predictable” returns can be made through ETF arbitrage.
Index funds like ETFs hold securities in certain proportions to track some index. To an Authorized Participant (AP) like Citadel, ETF shares are traded in baskets of 50,000, and they’re exchangeable with securities in the proportions of the ETFs holdings. This is called creation (buying shares and creating ETF) and redemption (redeeming ETF for shares inside).
If there are differences in an ETFs trading price and it’s Net-Asset-Value (NAV), even for a fraction of a second, this is a profitable opportunity for an AP. If NAV > ETF price, then the 50,000 underlying securities are worth more individually than as an ETF. APs can buy ETF, redeem ETF shares for its underlying shares, then sell for a profit. If NAV < ETF price, APs can create ETF shares by depositing the underlying securities into the ETF fund, which provides the AP with ETF shares to sell for profit.
APs are also allowed to sell ETF shares up to 6 days before creating them, as explained in the linked video. This is effectively a short position, and *because there is no supply limit for ETFs (and ETF creation/redemption has less regulation than in short selling equities) this can theoretically be repeated and hidden in perpetuity.
And they don’t even need a locate. This is essentially legal naked shorting renamed providing liquidity.
So, for example, if the AP has reason the believe the NAV will decrease within 6 days, they can redeem ETF shares and delay creation, hoping to profit from the decreased NAV. The video calls this “directional short selling” - basically a euphemism for legal naked short selling.
In most cases, this process is effective in reducing volatility by moving the “noise trading” into various ETFs. GME, clearly, is not most cases. I don’t think the system considered what happens when there are more shares owed than should be owned.
But does this really even happen? Or to a significant degree? From the Wharton presentation:
“ Directional short selling is the strongest indicator of both short interest percentage and FTDs in ETFs. “
This was likely practiced in a number of stocks. Or entire ETFs, such as XRT, which the presentation shows as having 77 million 13F (institutional) owners in 2017, despite only 11 million shares outstanding…
I argue that GameStop was the crux of Wall Street’s arrogance. I argue that existing data indicates naked short selling attempts to send GME into a death spiral by rolling at least double the number of outstanding shares in derivative short positions and FTDs, effectively diluting share price by inflating supply.
This would’ve been high-risk/high-reward with GME, because it’s 70 million shares outstanding is so small compared to other targeted companies. Blockbuster had 220 million. AMC has 450 million.
With such limited supply, these “refurbished” (rehypothecated, rolling) FTDs can be more effective in driving price down. However, if the “bankruptcy death spiral” fails, covering years worth of these positions gets very violent.
Why? Well the supply is comparatively low to begin with, and the creation/redemption process during the death spiralactually syphons real shares from GMEs float (I’ll explain how that works below). So the arbitrage process has moved a portion of the (already small) float into ETFs, and each share covered simultaneously increases demand and reduces supply. At some point, GME’s liquidity becomes bone dry because so many of it’s actual shares were converted into ETF shares.
Demand for GME keeps rising, but supply is already zero. Demand drives the price up, lack of liquidity drives the price up, APs scramble to find ETF shares, further increasing demand and decreasing ETF supply. However, this time, providing the GME to cover shorts adds no extra supply, so the price for anything containing GME goes vertical. The whole process starts feeding on itself in reverse, and I argue that this has already begun.

Chapter 1: ETF ARBITRAGE

The Game

Blackrock’s explanation
I’m the context of ETFs, arbitrage is simply profiting from the price difference of a security and an ETF containing that security. ETF shares trade on the market at market price, like an equity stock, but an ETF share actually represents an aggregate total of many stocks in a set proportion. The aggregate value of these equities in that proportion is called the Net-Asset-Value (NAV).
ETF shares don’t always trade at their NAV. When this happens, there is a potential for profit because 50,000 shares of the ETF == 50,000 shares of the underlying securities in price, but Authorized Participants (APs) can exchange them nonetheless for a small fee. APs are usually big Banks and Market Makers (MMs): JP, Goldman, BoA, oh and Citadel.
This “exchange” is done through a process called creation and redemption. APs, exclusively, are allowed to do this, and APs are usually big Banks and Market Makers (MMs): JP, Goldman, BoA, oh and Citadel. For example:
Blackrock’s ETFs (iShares) are generally rebalanced 4 times per year: at the end of February, May, August, and November. So if GameStop goes to $350 in January after being balanced around $16 in November, the list I mentioned above (and more) can buy IWM, IJR, IWN, IJT, and all the other ETFs that GME is a portion of, break them open into their individual shares (this is done in 50,000 share baskets called Creation Units) and sell the GME inside. Because the ETFs proportioned GME at a $16 dollar price, the ETFs trading price didn’t go up as much it would if GME were proportioned in real time. NAV =/= ETF trading price, so while GME is rising, 50,000 ETF shares are cheaper than the 50,000 shares they’re redeemed for, because of the GME inside.
Why are they allowed to do this?? According to the SEC, the answer is… Liquidity Oh, and somehow also efficiency and transparency.
//
Let’s take a step back for a second. So some portion of GME’s 70 million shares are purchased by ETF funds, like BlackRock’s iShares, in order to issue the first ETF shares. Then, APs come in and either 1) put some of those GME shares back or 2) take more out, based on the NAV of the ETF. Now, and this this important, because APs PROFIT from volatility through arbitrage, they have an incentive to favor creation over redemption.
If, as an AP, you buy the shares from the market (or just naked short them), and have them trade as ETF instead, you decrease supply of the security. This increases volatility, which creates more opportunity for arbitrage - i.e. more opportunity for profit. AND if you have more shares for creation/redemption, you have better control over the prices of both the ETF and it’s securities.
Did I mention that Citadel is the world’s largest HFT firm?
Anyway, there is a very strong incentive to take shares from securities and have them trade as ETF instead. And I’d argue that at some point, the “providing liquidity” excuse becomes void, because the AP was the one who diminished the liquidity in the first place.
//
Well what happens when an 7% of an ETF contains shares of a company you intend to bankrupt?
This 2019 Presentation at Wharton, as linked above, briefly talks about XRT. I’ve linked it a few times now, pleasewatch or save that video.
The presenter notes that the example is extreme, and I’d say it’s borderline heinous. The SPDR fund had issued ~11 million shares of XRT in 2017, but the 13F filings added up to 77 million shares. There had been 66 million shares created, but not redeemed. AP’s have the exclusive ability to create shares, and in 2017 the settlement period was 2 days instead of 6…
The presentation also discusses an AP’s exemption allowing them to sell ETF shares up to 6 days before depositing the required securities into the ETF fund to create the basket. The presenter discusses certain cases where ETFs are more liquid than their underlying securities, like GME, and the ETF shares seem to be continually created without ever being redeemed. This led to XRT.
So of those 77 million XRT shares, say 6 % were GME (not sure exactly what it was at the time but it’s 6.75% now). That represents 4.62 million shares of GME trading in XRT baskets. That represents almost 10% of GME’s reported float, from this one ETF alone.
And where are these shares reported, exactly? I’ll let BlackRock tell you:
** “any securities accepted for deposit and any securities used to satisfy redemption requests will be sold in transactions that would be exempt from registration under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “1933 Act”).” **
As I’m sure you guessed, they’re off the books.
//
To recap:
When institutional investors and retail investors place bids for ETF shares, APs (banks and citadel) can sell ETF shares that they don’t have to “provide liquidity”. Then, within 6 days, the AP must deposit the sold securities into the ETF Fund.
BUT!
APs can (and have been known to) profit from expected decreases in the NAV of the ETF by waiting up to 6 days to deliver the shares. Until settled, this is a naked short position, and it’s not reported in the short interest. Oh and one more thing,
GME is in over 60 ETFs. Go to “Top ETF” under “Ownership”. 68 listed ETFs right now. An AP can short XRT today, and settle by shorting IWM next week, then GAMR, then XRT again, then IJR…. you get the picture.
//
And it keeps getting worse.
How exactly do you think this creation/redemption process is carried out in, say, Citadel? Is there a creation/redemption department with a few dozen people monitoring all these ETFs, the underlying securities, the NAV, and the incoming orders - looking for price discrepancies? A few hundred people? Just Ken-bo? Is Kenny G the Michael Jordan of arbitrage?
Nope. Citadel is all about HFT. It’s algos.
From Investopedia in 2020 -
“Another way these [HFT] firms make money is by looking for price discrepancies between securities on different exchanges or asset classes. This strategy is called statistical arbitrage, wherein a proprietary trader is on the lookout for temporary inconsistencies in prices across different exchanges. With the help of ultra fast transactions, they capitalize on these minor fluctuations which many don’t even get to notice.”
So, to be clear, Citadel, the world’s largest HFT firm by ~20x the AUM of second place - the very same firm that clears over 50% of RH’s trades and gets almost as much total trading volume as the entire NYSE, does the vast majority of that volume with lines of code, stuffed into thousands of black boxes in some fortress in the middle of nowhere… They buy yachts with this creation/redemption system. Do you think these lines of code secure a locate when they short shares to “provide liquidity”?
(( Side note on another gem from that link:
“HFT firms also make money by indulging in momentum ignition. The firm might aim to cause a spike in the price of a stock by using a series of trades with the motive of attracting other algorithm traders to also trade that stock. The instigator of the whole process knows that after the somewhat “artificially created” rapid price movement, the price reverts to normal and thus the trader profits by taking a position early on and eventually trading out before it fizzles out.”
So yeah, no wonder we’ve had dozens of days with insane swings that ended up within 2 percent of open. Those RH orders pile up on Ken’s computers and he can basically execute them however and whenever he’d like. I digress. ))
//

GameStop

Back to GME in January. Ryan Cohen stepped in and at one point, GME did almost 200 million volume in a day. As buy orders come in, market makers like Citadel had to add liquidity from somewhere. After all, GME’s 70m shares outstanding pales in comparison to most other stocks in XRT, and just in general. AMC has 450m. NOK has 4.7 billion.
So in a perfect world, these HFT algos buy ETF shares from the market, redeem them (often from BlackRock, who owns iShares, or StateStreet who distributes SPDR ETFs), and sell the GME. Remember - the number of ETF shares outstanding can fluctuate, but not GME (without shorts or moves from GameStop), so this would reduce the total number of shares of the ETF and restore the shares of GME that the process had originally depleted.
So unless I’m mistaken here, keeping in mind Citadel itself clears almost the same volume as the entire NYSE - to provide liquidity and decrease volatility as buying pressure go up (aka delay the MOASS), should be buying ETF shares to put the GME back. So ETF ownership should decrease as they’re bought up and broken apart. If the ETF ownership stays the same, the extra liquidity is more likely to be short positions, naked or otherwise (to be covered the next day or who knows when).
Well, somehow, from January 15-March 31, ETF institutional ownership went up.
//

Here they are

I did some math.
I used FINRA numbers and the official ETF issuer’s websites (SEC requires them to provide this) to find 1) total shares outstanding today in May (from issuer), 2) institutional ownership from Jan and March (FINRA), 3) the percent GME (issued), and 4) who bought shares (and who did NOT buy shares).
I looked at about 30 of GME biggest ETFs are picked out the ETFs with the most shares floating around. These account for the majority of total volume. Here are some of the standouts, as of, May 31:
IWM - (0.44% GME) - 300m shares outstanding and 345m institutional ownership.
345m IWM shares represents 1.5m GME shares.
IJR - (1.15% GME) - 629.7m shares outstanding and 444m institutional ownership.
1.15% of 629.7m shares is 7.24 million shares of GME.
FNDX - (1.01% GME) - 128.55m shares outstanding and 100.4m institutional ownership.
Another 1.3 million GME.
last but not least
Wedbush back at it again with GAMR - (1.42% GME) - 70.77m shares outstanding and 190,000 institutional ownership.
Another million.
Honorable mention goes to XRT, with 15 million institutional owners holding a total 1 million GameStop shares, though XRT has only 9m shares outstanding.
Adding up just the ETFs I looked at, there are over 20 million claimed owners GME via ETF
That 20m number doesn’t even include retail ownership in ETF, short interest, “family offices” (like Archegos) that don’t have to report their positions to the SEC, any shares from ivestco ETFs (they have many shares outstanding but no reported GME weight despite owning GME, per fintel), or any trades settled in ex-clearing.
It also excludes short positions extended by options and other derivative instruments, which I’ll talk about in the next post.
This is just the tip of the Glacier.
Even the at 20 million at face value means that, as of May, there is a float sized chunk of GME trading as ETF shares.
I’d estimate, just through the ways around regulation that an ape can find on the internet, the number is at least twice that. Byrne mentioned that it could be closer to 5x the reported numbers.
When Ryan Cohen simultaneously mapped GameStop’s future and gobbled up 9 million shares, I think shorts piled into ETFs, particularly BlackRock’s iShares. They got a glimpse. In light of this, I think it’s very telling that they hodled. Hodled Citadel, by the balls, that is.
Oh, and somehow, almost every ETF I looked at miraculously increased in shares outstanding and institutional ownership 2020-2021, even from Jan to March. Despite the fact that the NAV was consistently higher during those periods…
Among the buyers were Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs…
So who were the sellers?

1. Back on 74 (Betical and Arper Remix)
   
2. Bo Bom (Alan Dixon Remix)
   
3. Location (DARREN: and JOSEPH (CH) Remix)
   

"Brewdog 老闆詹姆斯瓦特 (James Watt) 辭去執行長職務
蘇格蘭啤酒巨頭 Brewdog 的老闆將辭去公司執行長一職。
詹姆斯·瓦特表示，他將擔任新設立的「隊長兼聯合創始人」職位，並保留其在公司的股份。
他的職位將由首席營運長詹姆斯·阿羅 (James Arrow) 接任。
2007 年，瓦特先生與馬丁·迪基 (Martin Dickie) 在阿伯丁郡弗雷澤堡共同創立了蘇格蘭啤酒廠和酒吧集團。
Brewdog 負責人被指控行為不當
Brewdog 放棄員工的實際生活工資
Brewdog老闆在金罐賽中支付了50萬英鎊
瓦特先生在聲明中表示：「在我執掌 BrewDog 期間，有高潮和低潮、起起落落、瘋狂的成功和難以置信的艱鉅挑戰。
“當我回顧過去 17 年時，我最大的感受就是感激。”
Brewdog 現在在世界各地擁有啤酒廠和酒吧，但仍保留其位於阿伯丁郡埃隆的總部。
近年來，瓦特先生的任期一直充滿爭議。
該公司因其行銷活動和工作場所文化而面臨批評。
該公司的前員工在 2021 年的一封公開信中指責該公司在企業內部存在“恐懼文化”，對初級員工持“有毒態度”。
蓋蒂圖片社 Brewdog 罐蓋蒂圖片社
該公司以其精釀啤酒和IPA而聞名於世
2022 年，幾名前 Brewdog 員工在 BBC 披露調查中指控瓦特先生有不當行為。
瓦特先生的律師表示，這些指控是錯誤的。 Ofcom 駁回了有關 Brewdog 和瓦特先生受到該計劃不公平對待的投訴。
今年 1 月，Brewdog 透露將不再以實際生活工資僱用新員工，而是支付較低的法定最低工資，隨後也遭到了強烈反對。
去年，該公司與啤酒巨頭百威啤酒成立合資企業，進軍中國市場。
Brewdog 的營收在 2022-23 財年增長至 3.212 億英鎊。
公司董事長艾倫·萊頓 (Allan Leighton) 表示，「很少人能完成」瓦特先生所取得的成就。
他說：“我特別高興他將繼續向董事會提供他的洞察力、創造性天才和活力。”
瓦特先生將由詹姆斯·阿羅 (James Arrow) 接替，後者於去年 9 月被任命為首席營運官，為瓦特先生的繼任者做好前瞻性規劃。
他此前曾擔任 Boots Opticians 的董事總經理。
在此之前，他在 Dixons Carphone 工作了十年，擔任電子商務、貿易、營運、銷售和轉型方面的高階職位。
道格拉斯署名
很難想像詹姆斯·瓦特會長期放棄他的釀酒夢想。繼續留在董事會並作為聯合創始人和隊長，詹姆斯·阿羅將很難跟隨和控制他。
瓦特的不懈活力和熱情驅使他的一些員工對他的管理風格進行非常強烈的公開批評，同時也不斷激發新產品的想法和雄心壯志——以令人震驚的方式推廣它們，並贏得忠誠的“朋克”社區“他建立起來是為了喝啤酒並投資它。
他表示，他希望「繼續打造出色的新創公司」並自己創辦新企業，並「繼續幫助 Brewdog 打造令人驚嘆的業務」。
如果他能夠退一步，那麼就會留下一個更傳統的團隊和方法來增加公司的產量以及全球酒吧和酒店組合。
他們還希望 Brewdog 在能源價格上漲、供應鏈中斷和貿易快速擴張的推動下經歷了三年的重大虧損後重新獲利。
去年從 Boots Opticians 聘請的新任首席執行官以及領導阿斯達、合作集團和皇家郵政的董事長艾倫·萊頓 (Allan Leighton) 可能會希望專注於為股市上市做準備。
由於市場狀況不佳以及執行長面臨的爭議，這一進程被推遲了很長時間。
今年晚些時候，另一個最後期限即將到來，這可能有助於解釋為什麼詹姆斯·瓦特現在也有更多時間「旅行和冒險」以及「花更多時間與家人和親人在一起」。
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqqn1r4plqxo
—
今日亞馬遜優惠（聯盟）- https://amzn.to/3FeoGyg
成為天主教徒將為您永恆的命運奠定堅實的基礎。天主教信仰代表了人類所有相互競爭的哲學中最複雜、最一致、最完整的思想體系。這是名副其實的人類思想大教堂。天主教會教導說，上帝如此愛我們，以至於祂派遣祂的獨生子為我們的罪而死，並為我們的救贖而復活。透過相信耶穌基督為我們的主和救主，我們可以接受上帝的恩典並與祂永遠生活在天堂裡。 - https://www.vaticannews.va/en.html
瑪麗亞電台大中華區（中國大陸、香港、澳門、台灣） - http://www.voiceofmary.org.mo/ - 「瑪麗亞電台是聖母的禮物。透過節目編排、每一份社論產品以及我們所有的活動，我們必須成為帶有強烈瑪麗亞印記並呼籲皈依的祈禱和福傳的電台。 （利維奧神父）
瑪麗亞電台回應耶穌不斷的邀請：「你們往普天下去，向萬民傳福音」（谷16:15）。
我們節目的主題是：
禱告;
呼籲轉變；
傳福音；
人類和社會的形成；
來自教會和社會的新聞。
VisitMalta：取得馬耳他之旅所需的所有資訊！預訂門票、發現新的遊覽地點、發現令人驚奇的事情等等！ - https://www.visitmalta.com/
免責聲明：本網站僅供參考，不應被視為法律[健康、稅務、職業]建議。我們對因使用本部落格而可能產生的任何損失、損害或責任不承擔任何責任。本部落格無意取代專業醫療建議。本部落格所表達的觀點可能不代表主持人或管理階層的觀點。
https://www.reddit.com/SinoMaltaNews
http://sinomaltanews.freeforums.net/
"
"Brewdog 老板詹姆斯·瓦特 (James Watt) 辞去首席执行官职务
苏格兰啤酒巨头 Brewdog 的老板将辞去公司首席执行官一职。
詹姆斯·瓦特表示，他将担任新设立的“队长兼联合创始人”职位，并保留其在公司的股份。
他的职位将由首席运营官詹姆斯·阿罗 (James Arrow) 接任。
2007 年，瓦特先生与马丁·迪基 (Martin Dickie) 在阿伯丁郡弗雷泽堡共同创立了苏格兰啤酒厂和酒吧集团。
Brewdog 负责人被指控行为不当
Brewdog 放弃员工的实际生活工资
Brewdog老板在金罐赛中支付了50万英镑
瓦特先生在一份声明中表示：“在我执掌 BrewDog 期间，有过高潮和低谷、起起落落、疯狂的成功和难以置信的艰巨挑战。
“当我回顾过去 17 年时，我最大的感受就是感激。”
Brewdog 现在在世界各地拥有啤酒厂和酒吧，但仍保留其位于阿伯丁郡埃隆的总部。
近年来，瓦特先生的任期一直充满争议。
该公司因其营销活动和工作场所文化而面临批评。
该公司的前员工在 2021 年的一封公开信中指责该公司在企业内部存在“恐惧文化”，对初级员工持“有毒态度”。
盖蒂图片社 Brewdog 罐盖蒂图片社
该公司以其精酿啤酒和IPA而闻名于世
2022 年，几名前 Brewdog 员工在 BBC 披露调查中指控瓦特先生有不当行为。
瓦特先生的律师表示，这些指控是错误的。 Ofcom 驳回了有关 Brewdog 和瓦特先生受到该计划不公平对待的投诉。
今年 1 月，Brewdog 透露将不再以实际生活工资雇用新员工，而是支付较低的法定最低工资，随后也遭到了强烈反对。
去年，该公司与啤酒巨头百威啤酒成立合资企业，进军中国市场。
Brewdog 的收入在 2022-23 财年增长至 3.212 亿英镑。
公司董事长艾伦·莱顿 (Allan Leighton) 表示，“很少有人能完成”瓦特先生所取得的成就。
他说：“我特别高兴他将继续向董事会提供他的洞察力、创造性天才和活力。”
瓦特先生将由詹姆斯·阿罗 (James Arrow) 接替，后者于去年 9 月被任命为首席运营官，为瓦特先生的继任者做好前瞻性规划。
他此前曾担任 Boots Opticians 的董事总经理。
在此之前，他在 Dixons Carphone 工作了十年，担任电子商务、贸易、运营、销售和转型方面的高级职位。
道格拉斯署名
很难想象詹姆斯·瓦特会长期放弃他的酿酒梦想。继续留在董事会并作为联合创始人和队长，詹姆斯·阿罗将很难跟随和控制他。
瓦特的不懈活力和热情驱使他的一些员工对他的管理风格进行非常强烈的公开批评，同时也不断激发新产品的想法和雄心——以令人震惊的方式推广它们，并赢得忠诚的“朋克”社区“他建立起来是为了喝啤酒并投资它。
他表示，他希望“继续打造出色的初创企业”并自己创办新企业，并“继续帮助 Brewdog 打造令人惊叹的业务”。
如果他能够退一步，那么就会留下一个更传统的团队和方法来增加公司的产量以及全球酒吧和酒店组合。
他们还希望 Brewdog 在能源价格上涨、供应链中断和贸易快速扩张的推动下经历了三年的重大亏损后重新盈利。
去年从 Boots Opticians 聘请的新任首席执行官以及领导阿斯达、合作集团和皇家邮政的董事长艾伦·莱顿 (Allan Leighton) 可能会希望专注于为股市上市做准备。
由于市场状况不佳以及首席执行官面临的争议，这一进程被推迟了很长时间。
今年晚些时候，另一个最后期限即将到来，这可能有助于解释为什么詹姆斯·瓦特现在也有更多时间“旅行和冒险”以及“花更多时间与家人和亲人在一起”。
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqqn1r4plqxo
—
今日亚马逊优惠（联盟）- https://amzn.to/3FeoGyg
成为天主教徒将为您永恒的命运奠定坚实的基础。天主教信仰代表了人类所有相互竞争的哲学中最复杂、最一致、最完整的思想体系。这是名副其实的人类思想大教堂。天主教会教导说，上帝如此爱我们，以至于他派遣他的独生子为我们的罪而死，并为我们的救赎而复活。通过相信耶稣基督为我们的主和救主，我们可以接受上帝的恩典并与他永远生活在天堂里。 - https://www.vaticannews.va/en.html
玛丽亚电台大中华区（中国大陆、香港、澳门、台湾） - http://www.voiceofmary.org.mo/ - “玛丽亚电台是圣母的礼物。通过节目编排、每一份社论产品以及我们所有的活动，我们必须成为带有强烈玛丽亚印记并呼吁皈依的祈祷和福传的电台。” （利维奥神父）
玛丽亚电台回应耶稣不断的邀请：“你们往普天下去，向万民传福音”（谷16:15）。
我们节目的主题是：
祷告;
呼吁转变；
传福音；
人类和社会的形成；
来自教会和社会的新闻。
VisitMalta：获取马耳他之旅所需的所有信息！预订门票、发现新的游览地点、发现令人惊奇的事情等等！ - https://www.visitmalta.com/
免责声明：本网站仅供参考，不应被视为法律[健康、税务、职业]建议。我们对因使用本博客而可能产生的任何损失、损害或责任不承担任何责任。本博客无意取代专业医疗建议。本博客所表达的观点可能不代表主持人或管理层的观点。
https://www.reddit.com/SinoMaltaNews
http://sinomaltanews.freeforums.net/
"
"Il-kap ta’ Brewdog James Watt iwarrab mir-rwol ta’ CEO
Il-kap tal-ġgant tal-birra Skoċċiż Brewdog għandu jwarrab mir-rwol tiegħu bħala CEO tal-kumpanija.
James Watt qal li se jmur għal pożizzjoni li għadha kif ġiet maħluqa ta’ “kaptan u ko-fundatur” u jżomm l-ishma tiegħu fil-kumpanija.
Ir-rwol tiegħu se jittieħed mill-uffiċjal kap operattiv James Arrow.
Is-Sur Watt waqqaf flimkien il-birrerija Skoċċiża u l-grupp tal-pubs fi Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, fl-2007 flimkien ma’ Martin Dickie.
Il-kap ta’ Brewdog akkużat b’imġieba mhux xierqa
Brewdog jabbanduna l-paga reali tal-għajxien għall-impjegati
Il-kap Brewdog iħallas £500,000 f'bottijiet tad-deheb
Fi stqarrija s-Sur Watt qal: “Matul iż-żmien tiegħi fit-tmun ta’ BrewDog, kien hemm quċċati u baxxi, up u downs, suċċessi tal-ġenn u sfidi iebsa oerhört.
""Meta nħares lura lejn l-aħħar 17-il sena s-sentiment kbir tiegħi huwa wieħed ta' gratitudni.""
Brewdog issa għandu birreriji u pubs madwar id-dinja iżda żamm il-kwartieri ġenerali tiegħu f'Ellon, Aberdeenshire.
Il-mandat tas-Sur Watt kien ikkaratterizzat minn kontroversja f’dawn l-aħħar snin.
Il-kumpanija ffaċċjat kritika għall-kampanji ta 'kummerċjalizzazzjoni tagħha u l-kultura tal-post tax-xogħol tagħha.
Id-ditta kienet akkużata minn eks ħaddiema f'ittra miftuħa fl-2021 li kellha ""kultura ta 'biża"" fin-negozju b'""attitudnijiet tossiċi"" għall-persunal junior.
Getty Images Brewdog bottijietGetty Images
Il-kumpanija hija magħrufa mad-dinja kollha għall-birer artiġjanali u l-IPAs tagħha
Fl-2022 diversi ħaddiema ex-Brewdog akkużaw lis-Sur Watt b'imġieba mhux xierqa f'investigazzjoni tal-BBC Disclosure.
L-avukati tas-Sur Watt qalu li l-allegazzjonijiet kienu foloz. Ofcom ċaħdet ilmenti li Brewdog u s-Sur Watt ġew trattati b'mod inġust mill-programm.
F'Jannar, Brewdog ffaċċja wkoll reazzjoni wara li żvela li mhux se jibqa' jimpjega persunal ġdid fuq il-paga reali tal-għajxien, minflok iħallas il-paga minima legali aktar baxxa.
Is-sena li għaddiet, id-ditta espandiet fis-suq Ċiniż f'impriża konġunta mal-ġgant tal-birra Budweiser.
Id-dħul ta’ Brewdog kiber għal £321.2m fis-sena finanzjarja 2022-23.
Iċ-ċermen tal-kumpanija Allan Leighton qal li ""ftit wettqu"" dak li għandu s-Sur Watt.
Huwa qal: ""Ninsab kuntent b'mod speċjali li se jkompli joffri l-għarfien, il-ġenju kreattiv u l-enerġija tiegħu lill-bord.""
Is-Sur Watt se jiġi sostitwit minn James Arrow, li kien impjegat bħala uffiċjal kap tal-operat f'Settembru li għadda bħala ppjanar bil-quddiem għas-sostitut tas-Sur Watt.
Preċedentement kien direttur maniġerjali ta' Boots Opticians.
Qabel dan, huwa qatta 'għaxar snin f'Dixons Carphone, fejn kellu rwoli għolja fil-kummerċ elettroniku, kummerċ, operazzjonijiet, bejgħ u trasformazzjoni.
Byline Douglas
Huwa diffiċli li timmaġina lil James Watt jċedi għal żmien twil fuq il-ħolma tal-birra tiegħu. Jibqa' fuq il-bord u bħala ko-fundatur u kaptan, se jkun att iebsa għal James Arrow biex isegwi u jikkontrolla.
L-enerġija u l-entużjażmu bla waqfien ta’ Watt, li wasslu lil uħud mill-istaff tiegħu għal kritika qawwija ħafna u pubblika tal-istil ta’ ġestjoni tiegħu, kontinwament qed iqanqal ideat u ambizzjonijiet - għal prodotti ġodda, għal modi skandalużi kif jippromwovihom, u biex tikseb il-komunità ta’ ""punks"" leali. ""bena biex jixrob il-birra tiegħu u jinvesti fiha.
Jgħid li jrid ""ikompli jibni start-ups meraviljużi"" u jibda intrapriżi ġodda tiegħu stess, kif ukoll ""ikompli jgħin lil Brewdog jibni negozju aqwa"".
Jekk jista 'joqgħod lura, dan iħalli tim u approċċ aktar konvenzjonali biex ikabbar il-produzzjoni tal-kumpanija u l-portafoll globali ta' bars u lukandi.
Huma jridu wkoll li Brewdog jerġa 'lura fil-profitt wara tliet snin ta' telf sinifikanti, immexxi minn prezzijiet ogħla tal-enerġija, tfixkil fil-katina tal-provvista u espansjoni rapida tal-kummerċ tagħha.
Il-kap eżekuttiv il-ġdid, mikrija s-sena li għaddiet minn Boots Opticians, u ċ-chairman Allan Leighton, li mexxa Asda, il-Grupp Kooperattiv u Royal Mail, probabbilment se jkunu jridu jiffokaw fuq it-tħejjija għal float tal-istokk tas-suq.
Dak ilu jittardja għal żmien twil minħabba kundizzjonijiet ħżiena tas-suq, u l-kontroversji li ħabtet lill-kap eżekuttiv.
Skadenza oħra għal dik in-newl aktar tard din is-sena, li tista 'tgħin biex tispjega għaliex James Watt issa għandu aktar ħin ukoll għal ""vjaġġar u avventuri"" u ""jqatta' aktar ħin mal-familja u l-maħbubin"".
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqqn1r4plqxo
—
L-Amazon Deals tal-lum (Afljat) - https://amzn.to/3FeoGyg
Li ssir Kattoliku jagħtik pedament sod għad-destin etern tiegħek. Il-fidi Kattolika tirrappreżenta l-aktar sistema ta’ ideat kumplessa, konsistenti u kompleta fost il-filosofiji kollha tal-umanità li jikkompetu. Huwa katidral veru tal-ħsieb uman. Il-Knisja Kattolika tgħallem li Alla tant iħobbna li bagħat lil Ibnu l-waħdieni biex imut għal dnubietna u jqum mill-ġdid għas-salvazzjoni tagħna. Billi nemmnu f’Ġesù Kristu bħala Sidna u Salvatur tagħna, nistgħu nirċievu l-grazzja t’Alla u ngħixu miegħu għal dejjem fis-sema. - https://www.vaticannews.va/en.html
Radio Maria Greater China (Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan) - http://www.voiceofmary.org.mo/ - “Radio Maria huwa rigal mill-Madonna. Permezz tal-programmazzjoni, kull prodott editorjali, u l-attivitajiet kollha tagħna, irridu nkunu radju ta’ talb u evanġelizzazzjoni b’impronta Marjana qawwija u sejħa għall-konverżjoni.” (Fr. Livio)
Radju Marija jwieġeb għall-istedina kontinwa ta’ Ġesù: “Mur fid-dinja kollha u ħabbar l-Evanġelju lil kull ħlejqa” (Mk 16:15).
It-temi ewlenin tal-ipprogrammar tagħna huma:
Talb;
Is-sejħa għall-konverżjoni;
Evanġelizzazzjoni;
Formazzjoni umana u soċjali;
Aħbarijiet mill-Knisja u mis-soċjetà.
VisitMalta: Ikseb l-informazzjoni kollha li għandek bżonn għall-vjaġġ tiegħek lejn Malta! Ibbukkja biljetti, skopri postijiet ġodda biex iżżur, sib affarijiet aqwa x'tagħmel u aktar! - https://www.visitmalta.com/
Ċaħda ta' responsabbiltà: Dan is-sit huwa għal skopijiet informattivi biss u m'għandux jitqies parir legali [saħħa, taxxa, professjoni]. Aħna m'aħniex responsabbli għal kwalunkwe telf, ħsarat, jew obbligazzjonijiet li jistgħu jinqalgħu mill-użu ta 'dan il-blog. Dan il-blog mhux maħsub biex jissostitwixxi parir mediku professjonali. Il-fehmiet espressi f'dan il-blog jistgħu ma jkunux dawk tal-host jew tal-maniġment.
https://www.reddit.com/SinoMaltaNews
http://sinomaltanews.freeforums.net/
"

Among the tech blogs that I follow for my day job is a legal tech blog that featured this today:
May 10, 2024 ~Read Online~ 194 ChatGPT wants to make you horny?! Brainyacts #194 It’s Friday.
Let’s get to it.
Lead Memo~ AI Trend: Apps for matchmaking, platonic friendships, managing motions, and getting horny
In today’s Brainyacts: To read previous editions, click ~here~. Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder of Bumble, has proposed that the future of dating could lie in the hands of artificial intelligence. According to her, AI agents could act as "dating concierges," interacting with each other to assess compatibility and recommend potential matches, saving users time and effort. How Bumble Will Use AI to Create Healthier Relationships This unique approach has sparked a lively debate, with some welcoming the idea as a time-saving solution for finding quality connections, while others question the authenticity and effectiveness of such a system. As the world of dating continues to evolve, the role of AI in our romantic lives remains a topic of fascination and speculation. I thought I would share a sampling of the spectrum of AI apps related to relationships - fake or real.
Dating? As I shared above, why not have your AI self message their AI self first to see if the real you should even bother with the real them? Huh? Well, it sorta makes sense. Here is more on Bumble’s ~AI-dating concierges~ that will message each other on a human’s behalf. ~Related apps:~ ~https://nomi.ai/~ - an AI companion with memory and a soul~https://kindroid.ai/~ - an AI friend with a voice, looks, and personality~https://replika.ai/~ - an AI companion who cares
Fighting? Ok, so we may already be in a relationship but struggling to get along or understand each other. Meet ~Angry Girlfriend~ - an AI-powered relationship simulator that walks straight men through gamified versions of common conflicts with wives and girlfriends. For a peek inside the experience, follow along with ~Nick Rishwain as he interacts with the app~. Others like ~Relish~ analyze communication patterns to give couples personalized relationship advice. ~Maia~ helps couples work through fights, have conversations, and find date night ideas.
Horny? Yup, it happens and ~OpenAI~ is exploring how to 'responsibly' make AI erotica and porn

Discover the real-life struggles of a client grappling with non-responsiveness from their soon-to-be-former spouse and co-parent in Angela's latest blog.
https://koenigdunne.com/speak-to-me-the-cost-of-poor.../

Updates from previous post Here

1. Saw Gerrera has gone accelerated, he will be removed from the following list.
2. Captain Tarpals is now farmable on Cantina 2-A.
3. Gungan Phalanx in now available in Chromium Packs and Shipments. Farming node window June 5, 2024 - June 19, 2024

Character Release Dates
June 21, 2023 - Captain Rex (Dark Side 3-F)
June 29, 2023 - Jedi Knight Cal Kestis "Seasonal" Journey Guide Event
July 5, 2023 - Taron Malicos Conquest Reward (Conquest 11)
July 13, 2023 - Princess Kneesaa (Light Side 5-C)
August 10, 2023 - Scout Trooper (Fleet 5-C)
August 31, 2023 - Captain Drogan (Cantina 6-F)
September 26, 2023 - Dark Trooper Moff Gideon Conquest Reward (Conquest 8)
October 19, 2023 - Paz Vizsla (Light Side 4-A)
November 16, 2023 - IG-12 and Grogu (Fleet 2-C)
December 1, 2023 - Darth Bane Conquest Reward (Conquest 5)
December 7, 2023 - Kelleran Beq (Dark Side 2-E)
December 21, 2023 - Bo-Katan (Mand'alor) "Seasonal" Journey Guide Event
February 8, 2024 - STAP (Cantina 7-F)
February 22, 2024 - Boss Nass (Dark Side 8-D)
March 7, 2024 - Captain Tarpals (Cantina 2-A)
March 12, 2024 - Queen Amidala Conquest Reward (Conquest 2)
March 28, 2024 - Gungan Boomadier (unfarmable)
April 11, 2024 -Gungan Phalanx (unfarmable)
May 2, 2024 - Jar Jar Binks "Seasonal" Journey Guide Event
Additional Information
Conquest (HARD, 4M+ GP)
Conquest 1-3 - Unit is the "Primary" reward in crates; can earn 90 shards from crates. Unit is available to purchase for 525 conquest currency for 5 shards from the wandering scavenger in Sector(s) 2-5; can earn 20 shards from wandering scavenger. Conquest Pass can be purchased for ~$10; can earn 20 shards from conquest pass. Maximum shards that can be earned each conquest is 130.
Conquest 4-6 - Unit is the "Secondary" reward in crates; can earn 30 shards from crates. Unit is available to purchase for 475 conquest currency and/or 600 crystals for 5 shards from the wandering scavenger in Sectors 2-5; can earn 40 shards from wandering scavenger. Additionally unit is available in Conquest store for 475 conquest currency and/or 600 crystals per 5 shards. Conquest Pass can be purchased for ~$10; can earn 30 shards from conquest pass. Maximum shards that can be earned each conquest is 100.
Conquest 7-12 - Unit is available to purchase for 475 conquest currency for 5 shards from the wandering scavenger in Sector(s) 1-5; can earn 25 shards from wandering scavenger. Additionally unit is available in Conquest store for 475 conquest currency and/or 600 crystals per 5 shards.
Conquest 13 - Unit is no longer available from the wandering scavenger. Unit is available in Conquest store for 475 conquest currency and/or 600 crystals per 5 shards. As soon as Conquest 13 is completed the unit will no longer be available in the Conquest store after the next store refresh. After the conclusion of Conquest 13 unit will be immediately available in Proving Grounds going forward.
Road Ahead March 2022 post: Here
"Conquest Character shards will not be accelerated when these units move to their final farm locations."
Proving Grounds

1. Must not already own the unit at 7*
2. Must not already own enough shards to 7* the unit
3. Once you obtain the unit at 7* or have enough shards to 7* the unit, they will no longer be accessible. This is not meant to be a source for Shard Shop Currency, this is an opportunity to get characters that were once exclusive to Conquest.
4. Requires Relic 3 units
5. Players must have 4M Galactic Power to attempt the event
6. Events are available monthly; players can earn 20 shards for each unit available to the player. The event can be refreshed two times for 2200 crystals per refresh. The max shards per unit per month is 60 for 4400 crystals.
7. The $29.99 USD (or local equivalent) Conquest Pass Plus allows for an extra day of Proving Grounds. The event will open during the last 24 hours of Conquest.

Proving Grounds Post: Here
Ultimate Journey

1. Need Galactic Legends at Relic 7 to participate.
2. Rewards 300 Legend Tokens per win.
3. Can refresh up to two additional times for 250 crystals/attempt.
4. Event is available once a month (after conquest. runs the same time as Proving Grounds)
5. Previous Conquest characters are available in the Legends Tokens tab in Shipments, this tab refreshes weekly. (Friday reset)
6. Character shards are available at 2 (300 Legend Tokens), 8 (1,200 Legend Tokens), and 20 (3,000 Legend Tokens).

Accelerated Rate Farms
Shard Economy Change Post From November 10, 2020

1. Original Rate characters are made up of New and Exclusive characters. Generally, this set includes those characters exclusive to Raids, Journey Guide, Territory Battles, and certain high-value currencies. This also includes all Ships blueprints.
2. Accelerated characters are typically those found on Nodes and in various Stores.
3. New Marquee characters will launch as Original Rate characters, and move to the Accelerated list approximately 1 year after their release. (eg The Mandalorian will move to Accelerated in April/May 2021)

Character Release Cadence
Release Cadence March 20, 2018

1. All units (characters or ships) released through Marquee events will move to the Chromium Packs or Fleet Packs (whichever is appropriate) and Shipments approximately four to six weeks from the first day of the unit’s Marquee event.
2. From the day the unit moves to the Chromium Pack or Fleet Pack, and Shipments, approximately four to six weeks later the unit will move to a location in the game.

Greetings shinsekaiyori before I begin my criticism of this show there are certain things I must confess firstly I did finished the series I gave up just after the 7 minute mark of episode 22 (for reasons I will divulge in more detail later but in brief my complete and utter aberration of all human characters in this series. Neither have I read the visual novels and I never will. I also confess that a large part of my watching the series to the point I did was to make this blog.
Let us start with Tomika-sama.
Whenever I see her name the quote that springs to mind is one from The Last Emperor in a scene while Puyi is interrogated and a one of the interrogaters states
"We already know you, we know all about you. We know you are a traitor, you are a collaborator, and you are a counter-revolutionary"
This is what I think of Tomiko. This is due the dissonance I see in the series between what the government of FLNW is and how the characters address it. As from my understanding the government of FLNW is supposed to be good overall despite as we shall it being quite plainly evil. This as you should have been able to indicate relates to the Board of Education and its policy of purging children. In conversations it is stated that Tomiko does not have power over the Board of Education, except in cases related to the main characters obviously. The purpose of the BoE is of course to prevent fiends and karma demons. Yet this series demonstrates that in it's quite blatant child-murder it goes beyond that killing both Saki's sister and members of the school that do not attain sufficent talent in controlloing their cantus.
Will all these people become karma demons or fiends, the series, I believe, did not clarify this clearly enough so my interpretation is that the BoE is simply purging children who are not talented enough for their society based around their use of cantus magic, essentially child murder on the same line of the Nazis and the disabled. And Tomiko considering she worked with for this government for 170 years appears to be largely ok, which I believe treats child murder too casually. The Greater Good. The series of course does not address the issue raised at the start of the BoE simply killing children for poor cantus abilities. Indeed, the reason I almost enjoyed the first few episodes was the hope that the BoE was the overall villian and that they would suffer "Infinite Hell" at the end not Yakomaru. Tomiko of course saves Saki and Satoru from execution by the BoE but of course did not care enough for the propable tens of thousands of child not good enough to exist in this society.
But yet we are supposed to like this character complicit in this system which I believe we are led to believe is good. Child murder is good.
I shall now move onto the series weird jusitification of imperialism.
The first question I ask, is Yokamoru supposed to be evil, as I confess he is the only character I actually loved in this series and a large part of why I abandoned this series is because I gave up all hope for the victory of his rightous cause (my favoriate moments of these series were the attacks by queerats on the townspeople and their deaths to the non-actual fiend, I gave me such cathartic joy)
"Peace and Co-operation" are I remember the motto of the board of inter-species/tribe cooperation I do not care enough to remember the whole name as they may well as be the Board of Genocide. Considering their actions. The motto of lesser evil comes to mind when I think of the board its role to main peace is built upon the threat of genocide any tribe which attacks another. This I believe falls into the category of greater evil.
Before I expound on this point I inquire whether this board is even justified to do this. This series shows Queerats technological surpassing humans and arguably are superior to them. Are we therefore to support the inherit justification of the authority of a board that kills more then it ever could save in an actual war. If queerats are supposed to be inferior to us it human intervention the equivalent of Jane Goodall massacring the Kahama community in the Gombe Chimpanzee war or if they are supposed to be a similar intelligence to humans and their intervention the equivalent of genociding certain Maori tribes during the Musket Wars because starting war is bad and therefore the only way to prevent it is systematic exterminaition.
When two queerat tribes go to war the victorious tribe kills the queen and the young are enslaved and adult workers massacred. The Board of Genocide ended this as whenever one tribe attacks another the attacking tribe is systematically extermination. Firstly, I abhore how casually the series treats this so casually. But does this actually save more queerats lives than if they were given free reign as if the tribe is genocided more tribes will emerge and move-in and what if they fight and another genocide takes in. It is at risk of creating a new system of victory through duplicity as if one tribe can falsely accuse another of attacking and considering how gun-ho the board appears to be this does not seem too difficult it can get the board to exterminate their enemies for them and move in. Essentially this whole system appears to be creating a new even darker system of violence than before that does not even spare the babies. Which the show I believe implies the human government does not massacre their own children but also tens of thousands more of the queerats! Horray Peace and Cooperation attained through genocide.
This leads to my control point. Why I hate every single human character in this series they do not change this system or acknowledge its faults they appear to believe it is good despite being drensed in blood.
This relates to the fact I love Yakomaru. I believe in every single action he was justified. He was the greatest of queerats bringing parliamentary democracy which is a far better system then the human government the child-murdering genociding theocracy. Considering queerats have shown the potenial to surpass human beings and humans announced their intention to genocide him and his people. I believe considering queerats outnumbered and being equal to humans were therefore justified in their quest to end this imperialist, colonialist, genocidal, system of human government. Indeed according to the utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" it was better that the the government and its subjects perish to allow the surpassal of humans by queerats. As if not for cantus they were superior to the human species in every way.
This is why I cannot sympathise and only abhor every human character they are all collaborators in possibly the worst system of government I could have even thought of. And I abhor the ending reading it via wikipedia, that this horrific system of governance is maintained. This series manages to greater good child murder that is morally repugiant on every conceviable philosophical level. It is quite simply abhorrent and disgusting morals underlie this series that my moral fibre commands to me condemn.
There are so many all other issues I could savagely critique this series on but to save both your and my time dear reader I shall list them in brief below. Please note that allow this I openly confess is largely a rage post but I am genuinely curious how you so members of the subreddit and therefore likely to have enjoyed this series will react to my criticism, as I believe this may be one of those series which most people will enjoy but due to my personality I feel nothing but hatred towards. Though to end this rant on a positive note this animation is admirable.
The series use of same-sex relationships
The characters of Mamoru and Shun
Rat Vietnam
The soundtrack simply only having four songs
Kiroumaru, what is he supposed to be
The characters weird support of insane queerat queens
Parliamentary democracy is bad actually
Tldr. Glory to Yakomaru, the villains won

SEO is one of the most impactful growth channels available to solopreneurs. When leveraged properly, it’s a cheap, sustainable, and very cost-effective way to acquire users. It is one of the rare channels that compounds over time and pays dividends for years after you publish. At the same time, SEO is somewhat of an obscure topic. Most founders I talk to do not have a clear understanding of how to grow with SEO and, most importantly, do not see how the right SEO strategy can contribute to their revenue.
Some players in the SEO industry overcomplicate things and use a lot of unnecessary jargon to seem smart. My goal is to help you understand.
I noticed that when it is not clear exactly what has to be done with SEO, solopreneurs try to do everything. As with most things in life, the Pareto Principle applies to SEO as well. You have to learn to identify 80% of the things you will have to ignore and prioritize the 20% of things that will bring the most results.
I hope that this article will help clarify things for you. The aggregate value of organic traffic is in the trillions, and it would be a costly mistake to overlook this distribution channel. Solopreneurs doing SEO have to prioritize a lot, and this guide will teach you how to identify the efforts that will lead to the most results and put your sales on autopilot.
After reading this mini-essay, you’ll stop using Ahrefs to measure your SEO success and start using your Stripe Dashboard instead.
Originally published here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/seo-solopreneurs-nick-cretu-ofrsf/

Part 1: SEO Strategy vs SEO Tactics

Did you notice that SEO topics have become trendy lately? Even if you’re not following the SEO space, you’ve probably noticed some information spillover from niche site owners. After the latest updates, the traffic for many niche sites tanked, and a lot of bloggers are on the verge of losing their businesses. Some solopreneurs are skeptical about spending time on SEO after seeing how niche bloggers were affected by the previous updates. They have the impression that SEO is a volatile channel.
Whenever a new core algorithm update is rolled out, it leads to a lot of fuss. Search engines will always be changing and adapting to new realities. You can argue that Google does a bad job, but one thing is clear: satisfying users is the core part of Google’s business. If Google fails at that, there will be unsatisfied demand in the form of users who are searching for things and can’t find them. If Google fails, these users will probably flock to a different search engine, like Bing.
While search engines change, user needs don’t. As long as someone is in the market for a no-code website builder, he will search for that on a search engine. When SEO is done the right way instead of trying to find loopholes in algorithms, you can safely ignore the updates. Staying up to date with the best SEO practices is great, but you have to always focus on the end user’s search experience. That’s one of the best ways to be immune to algorithm updates. Satisfy the user, not the algorithm. Search engines are just a medium through which your users will find you.
Getting visitors to land on your website organically is one of the best ways to get consistent traffic. It’s the type of traffic that is earned, not purchased. It shows that you’re moving in the right direction. It’s cheaper than the alternatives. That’s why it makes sense to figure out how SEO works. Google won’t magically send tons of traffic your way just because you have a website. Without a strategic understanding, you’re just hoping for luck and neglecting customers who are looking for your product but can’t find it.
Now, if you’re a solopreneur doing SEO, you’ve probably already explored SEO resources. Also, you’re a generalist rather than a specialist. You have no one to delegate tasks to, so you take care of coding, marketing, and sales. That means you need to dig deep into how SEO can benefit your business.
Why? There’s always the tradeoff between coding and marketing. You’re constantly juggling coding and marketing — two hats, one head. You need to invest some time in figuring out the impact of SEO on your bottom line. How will SEO lead to more sales and growth? What goal do you want to achieve?
You will always have a reason behind launching a new feature or making a change to the landing page copy, so you should have a ‘why’ behind your marketing efforts as well. Otherwise, SEO might not be the best use of your resources, and you’d be better off spending that time on coding or talking to users.
Nearly every time, solopreneurs spend too much time refining tactics and never think about strategy. Keyword research, technical SEO, and link building are all tactical aspects of SEO. Yet, strategy is far more important than execution. Focusing on tactics without a strategy is like building a house without a plan. No sane builder would do that.
Execution without strategy might boost traffic, but will it open wallets? Can traffic directly impact your sales and growth? Probably not, unless the traffic is qualified. Traffic alone is a vanity metric. Measuring the success of your SEO efforts by traffic and clicks is like judging the success of a paid campaign by the total budget spent.
The biggest SEO successes in SaaS came from a good strategy. Take Zapier, Shipbob, Canva, and many other startups. If you want to come up with a strategy that will lead to a high SEO ROI, you should forget everything you’ve learned so far and start from the bottom up. Start from the end of the user search journey, when he fills in the card details on your website, and reason to the top.

Part 2: Is keyword research dead?

Most SEO strategies usually begin (and end) with keyword research. The typical workflow starts with buying a subscription to one of the popular SEO tools, auditing your website, and checking out what your competitors rank for. Then, you choose seed keywords with low search volume and low keyword difficulty, or, if you are lucky, keywords with high SV and low KD. After that, you write content to target these keywords. Some solopreneurs even resort to advanced techniques, like Schema Markup and entity SEO.
If you notice, revenue considerations are nowhere to be found. A critical piece of the puzzle is missing: how does this strategy, if your site were to rank as planned, lead to the user purchasing your product? Are you even targeting the right user? Is the user who is searching for this keyword likely to be in the market for what you are selling? If not, is he facing a problem that he is currently unaware of, and as soon as he lands on your website, will he realize that he needs your solution?
This workflow seems like a bad strategy to sell anything. It might work if you are making money from simply ranking and getting clicks. If that is not the case for your website, you are probably sacrificing a lot of time and effort for a low impact on revenue and growth, time that would be better spent on product and sales through X, Reddit, and LinkedIn. You are just hoping that the visitor who reaches your website happens to be your ideal user.
When you are factoring in compounding, this approach is even less efficient. Compounding happens on top of the principal and monthly contributions, so it is important to get the principal right. With great content, the more pages that get indexed and ranked by Google, the more queries you will show up for in SERPs. Your goal is to make sure that all of your SEO efforts are aligned with your revenue goals.
Content can sell for you while you sleep. Treat publishing content on your website as you would treat sales. Or, even better, as you would treat hiring and deploying an SDR. Similar to a good salesman, the right content sells when you are busy building. A good SDR will usually approach sales with a specific buyer profile in mind, and unless he can offer something valuable to the end user, he will not outreach.
Let’s say that you’re developing a new tool to build many websites. You’ve tried no-code tools or coding, but you got frustrated when you had to do the same tasks over and over again. So you decide to launch a new tool that allows users to create, customize, and deploy boilerplates to save time on repetitive tasks.
You see demand and understand that you’re close to the Product-Market Fit. Indies are likely to come up with very niche ideas (for example, the product described above, the ideal customer would be another indie hacker, somebody who needs to launch dozens of websites and validate multiple ideas). When a customer becomes aware of your solution and discovers that it solves a problem he didn’t know he had, you’ll know that you’re reaching PMF.
Anyway, your product is growing because you’ve launched in public and you’re spending hours on social media talking about your solution. You are aware that your growth from Twitter, LinkedIn, and Reddit is constrained by either your follower count or your reach, and it doesn’t get easier over time. Social media algorithms are highly volatile, and the cost of acquisition (time spent on these platforms necessary to acquire another user) will grow over time.
Eventually, the easiest-to-reach customers will be acquired, and your efforts will have diminishing returns. Since you don’t want to spend hours promoting your product on third-party platforms, you realize that you need a new source of acquisition that will work for you while you’re busy building. That channel happens to be SEO; it’s a one-off investment that scales well. A blog post can stay on your website forever, but you have to consistently engage and post on social media to reach people’s feeds.
What typically happens in this case is that solopreneurs do their homework and research the best SEO practices. After reading a dozen playbooks and ultimate guides, they’ll audit their website with a tool, analyze competitors, do keyword research, and find the best queries to rank for. Then they’ll start writing content for these queries and monitor the results.
I’m not sure how exactly such a strategy can lead to growth. First, you’re not getting any new insights; you’re just getting the existing information that you already knew. Using this approach, you can identify thousands of keywords that you’d like to rank for, but your time is constrained. It will take a lot of blog posts to cover all the keywords, and your content will be difficult to scale. It will be quite time-consuming to do the work to rank for these keywords. Second, you’re essentially shooting in the dark, hoping the right customer stumbles across your site.
If you’re in a space where you already have competitors, that is, there is existing demand for a given solution, the most valuable keywords are likely to be dominated by incumbents. If such is the case, you’ll have to move to the long tail queries. Moving down to find low competition keywords means also less search volume and traffic.
The premise of the long tail strategy is that when you rank for these queries, you’ll get many clicks on aggregate. The biggest risk of a long tail strategy is that Google will rank articles that target middle tail queries for long queries as well, so there’s no moat. An incumbent could rewrite an article that was ranking well for medium-tail keywords and aim to satisfy the long tail queries as well, and your position will not be defensible.
This strategy might still be effective for acquiring traffic, if traffic alone is your goal. But your time will be spread for possibly lower clicks. You’re still optimizing for traffic, not for conversions. Most popular SEO tools lack the capability to map keywords and queries according to their stage in the sales/marketing/search funnel.

Part 3: How to come up with the right SEO strategy

A strategy focused on revenue will always start from talking to your users. Let’s say that after chatting with several of your happy users, you get several insights. First, most of your users are technical. Second, most of your users want to own their code, so they’re not interested in no-code or low-code builders. Third, some users are indie hackers, so they need your tool to launch dozens of websites to validate their products.
Now, the question is, what would this buyer profile search on Google when confronted with the problem your product is solving? We can easily dismiss most queries related to no-code. Suppose that you’ve identified in your user interviews that your users were searching for solutions for reducing time spent on setup and configuration. They were searching for queries like ‘How to automate development environment setup?’, ‘Quick start templates for Next.js blogs’ and ‘Automating SEO setup for static sites’.
There’s little to no data on these queries, yet there are people who search for them. In fact, this buyer profile is located further down in the search funnel since he’s searching for solutions to mitigate his frustration. What we did here is take users who were satisfied by the product and simply asked them what they searched for before coming across the solution. It’s safe to assume that even though they didn’t know that a solution already existed, they happily paid as soon as they discovered it. This buyer profile is looking for specific queries, and using keyword research tools would have never led to these insights and results.
The best way to do SEO is by learning from users, mapping their buyer personas to content, and understanding what they want at each stage of their search funnel, then extrapolating insights and user empathy to content. When you’re doing SEO to sell a product or a service, user empathy beats data. When you’re informed about the user’s needs, you can translate that knowledge into keywords and distill the keywords into topics to write about.
Keyword tools often underestimate traffic for low-volume searches. You’ll notice that there is little to no competition for the queries that come from user conversations.
The thing is that you want to avoid competition as much as possible. Great distribution channels are unlocked by steering clear of crowded waters. Don’t forget that incumbents are now spying on indie hackers. There have been several instances of spying and stealing indies’ progress documented on X. An older website with more authority and more resources can easily outrank you on long-tail queries when you become a real threat.
If everything you do in SEO is not focused on helping users who would likely become your paying customers, your efforts are not as effective as they could have been.
Hypothesizing who your buyer persona is should precede any keyword research. Most solopreneurs make the same mistake and start their keyword research, and the only data they look at is monthly search volumes and keyword difficulty. Monthly search volumes are irrelevant for their business. Volume and traffic are the wrong metrics. This workflow tells you nothing about who your users are and where they are on their search journey, and the information you get is mostly noise since you’re focusing on the wrong metric and totally forgetting to optimize for user intent.
If you want to avoid wasting time on SEO, prioritize exactly the type of blog posts that will help you monetize your offering. SEO is always about competing with other websites, and it is pretty much a zero-sum game. If one website gains visibility, a click, and a purchase, another one will not. That’s why you need to match content with buyer personas; you need to discover the characteristics that affect what and how your users search. You won’t find this data with keyword tools that literally anyone who can afford the subscription can access. Your competition will have no advantage.
Here’s how you can formulate an SEO strategy:

1. Try to brainstorm all the uses for your product. Who are your potential users? Simply because your product exists doesn’t mean users will search for it. You might want to target different users with specific needs, and it would make sense to SEO-optimize your landing pages for the specific problems they have, instead of just describing your solution.
2. Ask yourself how your potential users could search depending on where they currently are in the funnel. Keyword tools can sometimes help with filtering and grouping keywords by intent, but that’s a job for humans. You’ll have to do all the heavy lifting here and hypothesize. For example, users will be searching for solutions to their problems at the top of the funnel, but might search for a specific brand and pricing the closer they are to the bottom of it. Where in the funnel is your ideal user, and what is he searching for?
3. Come up with content type ideas for each specific stage of the search funnel. For example, determine which content satisfies the intent of bottom-funnel queries. If your user is searching for price + brand, a long-form piece of content won’t be helpful.
4. What actions do you want ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu users that land on your website to take? If a user is in ToFu, the appropriate CTA might be to encourage him to read more. If he’s in BoFu, maybe he’d be inclined to explore a trial or purchase. You should come up with funnel-specific CTAs for users that reached your website and help them progress to the bottom, to make a purchase, and measure the conversions at each stage.

There’s a simple question to ask yourself that will drastically improve your conversions from SEO: Will landing on this page help the user get closer to a purchase?
What is he looking for when searching? If you’re a SaaS and your buyer is at ToFu, will this lead him to read more on your blog? If he’s at BoFu, will the user navigate to the pricing page? With SEO, the user reaches your page after searching and getting to SERPs.
There should be something valuable for the user on the other side of the click, something that helps him get closer to purchasing from you. Content will only lead to meaningful growth when it’s part of your ideal user’s quest for finding information that will help him solve his problem on Google.
Only after you do all these steps can you start formulating a strategy and executing it. Only after you have a clear picture of what you have to do and how you can write legitimately engaging content. Your audience wouldn’t need to be convinced to read it; even more, this type of content is highly valuable, unique, shareable, and can help acquire backlinks. As you write and publish more content, you’ll gradually acquire data and a user base to learn from, and you’ll genuinely discover what your users want. This way, you’ll be able to scale better and faster.
With this approach, you can show readers how your product is the best solution on the market without slapping them in the face with it.
After you have a clear SEO roadmap in front of you, you can proceed to implementing tactics. But never forget that SEO visibility is just a means of selling your product. The product is the seller.

Part 4: Short Guide on Zero Search Volume Keywords

Specific consideration for indies: if you’re building an entirely new product, you’re entering a space where the first companies that enter the market generate demand, including search demand. There was no search demand for no-code builders before the first no-code builder entered the market. In this case, keyword research is very limited. You will find no data on any keywords, but your website can generate new queries and dominate them.
Whenever I can’t find any data for a specific keyword, I get excited. That means that I have stumbled across an opportunity that other users, who rely too much on keyword tools, are unaware of.
Zero volume keywords are the long-tail keywords that have no traffic according to keyword research tools. Remember, keyword data is accurate to an extent. In my experience, Ahrefs has been the most accurate tool, but tools like Semrush, Moz, and Ahrefs collect their data from Google and clickstream data providers, who are collecting their data from browser activities. Even Google tends to overestimate or underestimate search volumes.
I’ve seen many instances where pages were getting 100x more clicks than predicted by tools.
There are three main sources for this type of queries:

1. Forums (Reddit)
2. Social media
3. Sales calls
4. Private conversations with users
5. Slack and Discord communities
6. Google’s autocomplete suggestions
7. Related searches
8. People Also Ask
9. Exploding Topics

Part 5: How to write the first 30 blog posts that will drive MRR

This is a short playbook on DIY SEO that will keep your blog running for the next half of year or more, if you will publish one blog post every week. All you’ll have to do is find out your ideal customer profile, understand their thought process & the words their use, and map your content to each stage of the search funnel.

Step 1: Reachout & Listen

Talk to 10–20 of your ideal users. If you can’t sample your existing user, you should do some cold outreach. Just ask them for 15 minutes of their time, and tell them what you are building. You’ll probably face some rejection, but getting a few of them to talk will suffice.
When talking, try to avoid projecting your assumptions and biases on the user. Instead, actively listen and keep the conversation going to reveal their stories, experiences and frustrations. If you’re doing this through a call, I highly recommend recording and transcribing the meeting. There’s a handful of tools that do that, such as fireflies or Aiko.
Your main goal is to get your customers to describe their thought process and search journey. Try to steer the conversation towards:

• Frustrations & problems
• How & where they searched for a solution
• If they are founders, show genuine interest in their daily founder-life
• What are tools/solutions/SaaS they are already using
• What other similar solutions have they purchased
• How & why they bought other products or services previously

Step 2: Search for feedback for similar solutions, if any, on social media, forums and communities

Raw feedback is usually the most informative, simply because only the extremes are prompted to spend their time on leaving feedback. 99% of reviews are left by 1% of users who are either extremely happy or unhappy with the product, they are the most vocal critics and supporters.

Step 3: Ideate your personas

After you have completed the first 2 steps, you can proceed to creating your buyer personas. Since you’re dealing with SEO, the only relevant characteristics are those that shape the way your ideal users search. Demographics and job position are irrelevant. Here’s what you should look for:

• Words and Phrases Used: The specific keywords or phrases the persona uses in their searches, which can help to match their language and queries.
• Usage Scenarios: Specific situations or contexts in which the persona uses the product, which can drive targeted searches for features, troubleshooting, or optimizations.
• Decision-Making Factors: What factors are most important to them in making a decision based on search results, such as trustworthiness of the source, price, quality, reviews, case studies or testimonials.
• Product-Specific Keywords: Identifying the specific terms and phrases that are closely related to the product and how these terms are used in search queries.
• User Journey Stage: Understanding at what stage of the user journey the persona typically uses search.
• Competitive Product Awareness: Whether the persona is aware of and searches for competitive products or alternative solutions.
• Technical vs Nontechnical: The level of technical knowledge the persona has.
• Usage Scenarios: Specific situations or contexts in which the persona uses the product, which can drive targeted searches for features, troubleshooting, or optimizations.
• Search Result Preferences: Whether the persona prefers quick answers, deep-dives, user-generated content, or direct links to products.

Step 4: Write for each funnel stage

The search funnel, similar to the buyer journey, has 4 stages of awareness, and you should write content for each. Here’s an example for the boilerplate generator we previously talked about:
Unaware: Reducing boilerplate code in React-based projects
Problem-aware: Automating repetitive Next.js setup tasks like SEO, TypeScript configurations, and TailwindCSS integration
Solution-aware: Tools for pre-configuring Next.js projects with SEO, TypeScript, and TailwindCSS
Product-aware: [BRAND]’s automated Next.js boilerplate generator for quick setup with SEO, TypeScript, and TailwindCSS

Step 5: Check for low hanging fruits

The easiest low hanging fruit is stealing branded traffic from your competitors, if they underserve their users.
Targeting competitor keywords is a smart move to engage buyers actively comparing options. These buyers are already considering solutions like yours but may need a nudge to choose your product. Here’s how you can use these keywords:

• Competitor A vs. Competitor B: Jump into these discussions. Offer your product as a fresh alternative. It’s a chance to showcase why you’re a better choice.
• Competitor vs. You: Directly address comparisons between your product and your competitors. Make it clear why you stand out.
• Alternatives to You and Competitor X: Position your product as a top alternative. Highlight unique features or better value.
• Common Issues with Competitors: If a competitor falls short in an area where you excel — like if Gong struggles with Google Meet integration — highlight this. Use it to your advantage in your content.‎

You don’t have to be a brilliant SEO to grow your SEO revenue if you truly understand your users. You just need guidance from someone with SEO expertise to steer your strategy in the right direction and explain the best approaches for your specific case (tactics).
Founders often forget that user empathy is the goal of the content. Just doing SEO ‘by the books’ will not magically lead to growth.
Think of your blog as more than just a task. It’s your chance to become an authority online. Talk with your customers. Understand their journey. Each blog post can solve one of their problems. Do this, and you’ll quickly have 30 posts up.

P.S.: AI tools, SGE and the future of SEO

Consider this scenario, which might be familiar to many of you: You perform a search, click on a result, read a bit, then navigate back to try another link. Soon, you realize that the content is nearly the same as the first. Frustrating, isn’t it?
When we rely solely on tools like ChatGPT, we’re essentially getting a repetition of existing information, structured by what’s statistically prevalent. It’s not helpful; it’s not insightful. Similarly, when we use advanced AI-based writing tools, we often end up repeating the same top-ranking content. This isn’t just a redundancy issue — it also impacts how content ranks on search engines.
Generally, you should avoid treating AI tools as content writers, for many reasons. The main reason is that AI can only create cookie-cutter content that brings no genuine value. Even if you manage to rank it, it won’t convert.
AI tools are excellent at assisting human writers and enable a one-person team that has a good understanding of how SEO fits with the growth strategy. But they are terrible at writing content end-to-end.
If you’re using the same prompts and platforms as your competitors, why expect your content to stand out? When it’s time to publish, what makes your piece unique?
If two articles cover the same new topic with similar optimization, Google will favor the one that brings something extra — unique insights or key points the other lacks. Besides, why would anyone want to read your AI-generated content if there’s the option to get the same quality of output by directly asking ChatGPT?
Nonetheless, AI will soon change how we think about SEO. Why? SGE. That’s why you need to future-proof your SEO strategy. The models behind ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini work like a black box without providing a clear explanation about what input contributes to the output, but AI will revolutionize top-of-funnel SEO as we know it.
If you’re in the US, you’ve probably already seen the new search generative experience by Google. They are adding a search box at the top of search results for many queries, taking valuable real estate and satisfying those queries without a click. Google just takes available information on the web and answers the query like a chatbot.
It’s unlikely that SGE or chatbots will kill SEO. Why? For most queries, users need context and choice. That’s also one of the reasons why Siri hasn’t replaced search. If a user’s query requires choice, that choice is easier to make when shown visually. If LLMs will start offering this choice, instead of just follow-ups, it will slowly turn into a search engine. For many queries, users want to use search engines instead of endless follow-ups with an LLM chatbot. Users want links and context.
However, SGE is likely to dominate most informational queries well, especially when the query can be answered in one phrase without having to navigate to the source link of the website. After SGE launches for everyone, websites that targeted informational queries will likely see the traffic for the respective pages tank to zero. Users won’t need to scroll below the generative box if it answers their question well.
Besides making sure that you write your content for a specific buyer persona, one of the best ways to hedge these changes is to focus on middle-of-the-funnel queries, the consideration stage of the buyer’s journey. At this stage, the audience is considering their options and might not be thinking about your product yet. The goal here is to guide them toward wanting to buy, making sure they’re a good fit for what you offer, and moving them further down the sales funnel.
Your MoFu content marketing should be engaging, informative, and tailored to what the buyer is looking for. They know what they might want but aren’t ready to buy just yet. Mid-funnel content should build on the knowledge they already have, providing deeper insights.
Ultimately, you want to lead them from just considering to deciding to purchase.

By now I'm sure we've all heard the news about the upcoming price increase. Every time this happens, there is a lot of heated discussion about the cost of 40k as a game and hobby. After today's post, I became curious about how the price of 40k has changed over time in relation to general CPI inflation (the % change to the price of a general basket of goods and services in a given country). Here's what I found and what it seems to indicate.
DATA TABLE LINKED HERE Direct if you want to bypass the imgur interface
TLDR: What the Data Seems to Say

• Most kits I was able to source data for showed price increases below (often far below) the cumulative rate of inflation over the years.
  
• The exceptions, where price increases outpaced cumulative inflation, seemed to hit large units (Wraithknight, Trygon, Hemlock) the hardest. There are a few exceptions to this pattern (the Farseer, Tactical Marines). I wonder if they just realized that, since people often only buy one of these units they can psychologically justify a higher price for them? Hard to say for sure.
  
• GW seems to try to keep "core" infantry kits as close to the $50/$60 marks as they can, rather than raising them further to match inflation. Their unwillingness to go above $60 with the 1ksons Rubrics/Terminators/Sorcerers from 8 years ago stood out to me. I'd guess that they do this to keep the entry point into an army lower, so they can then make their money on character models and more expensive centerpieces.
  
• GW seems to use the release of new sculpts as an opportunity to break psychological price barriers (see the Genestealer jump over the $50 mark with the new kit). This has happened with other units as well, I'm sure you can name a few.
  

So, is GW Price Gouging?

• GW's Net Income EXPLODED in 2017 and the years to follow (https://stockanalysis.com/quote/lon/GAW/financials/cash-flow-statement/). 2017 was the launch of 8th edition 40k, and 3 years after former CEO Tom Kirby left the company. While we have seen price increases, they don't appear to have exceeded the rate of inflation across the broader economy (at least for a typical army with a variety of unit types)
  
• GW's annual reports show that, since 2017, they have grown their number of retail stores worldwide. Yet those retails stores make up a smaller percentage of total sales in 2024 than in 2017 (and no, online isn't picking up the slack). The biggest growth area is sales through 3rd party retailers. This suggests a massive growth of sales through local game stores, outstripping the (substantial) growth GW has seen with its own storefronts and online store.
  
• Subreddit stats and google trends all show an explosion of interest in 40k starting roughly in 2018-2019 and continuing at a very high rate up through today.
  
• All of this together seems to imply that GW is managing to grow their profits by greatly expanding their customer base and by raising prices to "chase" inflation as much as they can without pushing past it on aggregate (with a few exceptions on a model by model basis) to avoid breaking psychological pricing barriers for customers. In the future I may attempt to recreate the cost of realistic army lists at different points in the game's history to see how much the cost of playing has really grown over the years.
  

Reading the Chart
The "Price" column lists the MSRP of the unit in the stated year (bolded). You'll then see the current MSRP from the GW web store for that same kit or equivalent, and the % increase in the MSRP between the two prices (highlighted GREEN if it undershot inflation, YELLOW if it matched it, and RED if it overshot inflation). To the right of that is cumulative inflation in the relevant country (mostly US CPI data, but some BoE data) from the year of the original price sample up until today, 2024. I list the source and some notes further right. I will provide the source links below in this post.
Limits of this Data

• This data does not reflect how many models you needed to play the game in any given year. Army sizes ebb and flow across editions. In 6th/7th, for example, it was far more common for people to play 1850 games simply because 2000 points was too unwieldy. You had to put down a lot more STUFF for some armies to reach 2000 (remember 35 point rhinos? remember FREE rhinos?!)
  
• Some armies will always be relatively cheaper to buy/play due to the required number of units (see: Custodes). This data can't really capture that.
  
• 40k was already an expensive hobby 10 years ago, so the fact that price increases may be undershooting inflation doesn't mean it's cheap by any means!
  

Where I got my Data
40k "news" blogs like Spikeybits and Bell of Lost Souls post pricing information about new releases frequently, and have been doing so for a decade at least. I was able to find a variety of articles from as early as 2013 with data for models that exist in the game to this day. I also found an archived Livejournal where some guy attempts to do some price analysis on iconic units much further back than that, and I picked out the prices of kits that still exist today.
HERE IS A LINK TO A PICTURE WITH THE URLS OF MY SOURCES, I CANNOT LINK SPIKEYBITS OR BOLS HERE IT SEEMS
Mods, if the above image is still a rules issue let me know and I will remove it. I just want my sources to be accessible.
Thanks for reading!