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Advice for getting into graduate school

2012.02.28 19:16 feralparakeet Advice for getting into graduate school

This subreddit is for anyone who is going through the process of getting into graduate school, and for those who've been there and have advice to give.
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2024.05.22 01:51 According-Balance874 AITAH for telling my mom she is making my highschool grad party about her?

For context I 18yF have not had the smoothest time during highschool, i have struggled with numerous mental health issues and trauma and i’m very proud that i actually am graduating. My mom on the other hand doesn’t believe in mental illness and has never helped me through anything i’ve been thru. She is a good mom i will say and most of the time my best friend, but when it comes to my senior year she made it about her.
Ex;When prom came around she begged me to go so she could have pictures to post on her facebook, i refused because i had switched to our online program at the school given i had 1 credit left. I mostly did this because all of my friends did too and i essentially didn’t like anyone at my school, also to work. She cried over it when i said why wouldn’t i just go hangout with my friends than pay 1000’s of dollars just to be miserable.(Again she made it about her)
My mom peaked in highschool and was popular and did dance and had LOTS of friends, i like to keep to myself and don’t enjoy school tied sports although i did play sports growing up outside of it.
It is now the last week of my senior year and i graduate on saturday, i am very proud of myself and excited although i’m dreading the party. When we began planning on about march-april she began making invitations, i had told her i only wanted our family and my friends and maybe some extra people i care about. She decided to invite 60+ people of which i have either only met once or never have without me knowing. They are all her friends or friends of friends, i mean seriously this is MY GRAD. She even decided to buy decorations in the color she wants. I’m very privileged to be able to have a grad party but it’s being over done quite a bit. I told her numerous times over the past month i didn’t want a huge party because i get overwhelmed in that setting but she invites them anyways, i didn’t want it to be huge just a small celebration with people i actually know. It has now turned into an old people soirée instead of an 18 year old grad party. Also, i have to change my playlist i made (6 hours long) because she doesn’t want her people to think of our family badly when if i just invited the people i wanted we wouldn’t have this issue and i could fully be myself. AITAH for being upset about this ??? Help me out please 😭
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2024.05.22 01:50 MathIsArtNotScience Review of Program from a Graduate - C Track

I saw someone else did something like this recently and thought that I might have something to add to the discussion to help people figure out whether they think this program is right for them, or for people currently in the program to help them plan out classes.
My background is very heavy in statistics and finance (I'm an actuary), so my grounding in calculus, statistics, linear algebra, and business topics was considerably better than most of the other people I interacted with in this program. Conversely, I'm sure my programming skills were probably about average or maybe a little bit below compared to someone with a more targeted background towards those skills.
I started in Fall of 2020 and just finished up this month, Spring 2024. I started out just taking one class a semester and never changed up that plan, would highly recommend doing the same if you're working full time alongside; there's no reason to rush this program. I got a 4.0 GPA overall, although I never really stressed that much about it and definitely did not shy away from "harder" classes in order to bolster GPA. I did this to learn, not to get good grades. The classes I took, in order (my memory of some of the earlier ones might be a bit jumbled as so much time has passed):
  1. CSE 6040 - I mentioned how my programming background was weaker relative to my mathematical background. However, reflecting on my experience in this class, it was probably still pretty strong. This class is focused on generalized programming skills, you don't really get into the analytics and modeling that much; it's more of a primer on things like functions, recursion, computer memory management, etc. It's been a few years, but I don't remember struggling with this class at all, and most of the concepts covered (object oriented programming, things like byte encoding, hexadecimal forms, recursion, etc.) were things I was already familiar with in another programming language (this class was in Python) or was relatively easy to pick up. From what I remember, the assignments were auto-graded and you had unlimited attempts, not to mention the fact that most of the prompts were to produce some predetermined result... and, as long as you were able to verify that your code produced that result, you got full points. I didn't miss a single point in this entire class. I believe there were "final exams" which were really just timed window coding assignments much like the homework, and you could do the assignments at any point during a 4-day window or something like that.
  2. ISYE 6501 - This class was R-based and focused on basic analytics models. The material was much more applied than 6040. Similarly, the material was not difficult, and I was familiar with a lot of the basic models already (such as GLMs) from having worked with them in my job. The grading was done on a peer-grading framework; based on who anonymously is assigned your homework to grade, you can get someone who's a stickler for every point on the guide, or people who are a bit more lenient. I never really worried much about how things were graded in this class; yeah, I did miss some points arbitrarily, but nothing that made that much of a difference. If you generally put in the work and understand the material, your peers will recognize that. I found this a bit more interesting than 6040 because, rather than a deterministic "right answer", there was some more creativity implied here to solve each problem. There was a final project for this class where you walked through a hypothetical analytics problem and explained how you would go about solving it. I found this an interesting thought exercise and enjoyed this class. The pacing felt a little fast, as you basically had an assignment due each week, but the assignments were small. Like 6040 I found this class to be quite easy but I didn't 100% it due to the peer grading thing.
  3. MGT 8803 - I almost applied to be exempt from this class, as my background intersects a lot with the material. The accounting and finance modules for this class literally did not teach me anything new. Supply chain was new for me and I found it interesting. I'm trying to remember what the other module was. I think it was marketing? I didn't like it. Overall I found this class quite easy for the aforementioned reasons, however I've heard from a lot of the other folks without business backgrounds that this class was pretty tough so take my opinions with a grain of salt. Taking this in the summer cut out one of the modules, normally there are 5 but in Summer there are 4. I figured this made sense to take during the truncated semester because I was unlikely to cover that much new material, and it turns out I was right about that. Each module lasted 2 weeks (I think in a normal semester it lasts 3) and has a timed multiple-choice test at the end. A lot of people didn't like this format compared to ISYE 6501 and CSE 6040; I'm not really sure how else this material could've been covered. This class was OK, the material is not really that deep but it's a pretty good primer on a large number of business topics.
  4. ISYE 6740 - The first class I took that was actually pretty challenging, which makes sense considering the first 3 courses were just the basic core. This is pretty much an intro to machine learning as a discipline, and the first time I remember digging into academic papers that discuss some machine learning topic and attempting to recreate the results (this is something we did a lot in the more advanced classes going forward and incidentally now that I have graduated is probably one of the best ways to go about learning a new topic). I remember this class as having a format similar to ISYE 6501/CSE6040 in that you had large programming assignments to do, as well as open-book "exams" which were really just timed programming assignments. Assignments are not auto-graded; TA's review each one and thus the assignments have much more of a focus on explaining your findings than producing the exact expected output (unlike 6040). Some of the theory questions have you applying complicated matrix algebra rules that I'm not surprised a lot of people struggled with. The TA responsiveness in this class was pretty good from what I remember, but your mileage may vary. I remember getting 3 weeks to do each assignment but I also remember not thinking that was a lot of time, these assignments are very extensive, have many parts, and take a long time to get through. Like with 6040 I ended up not missing a single point in this class but I did find it difficult and spent significantly more time working on it than in prior classes, probably 10-15 hrs a week, give or take.
  5. ISYE 6644 - I was familiar with maybe 50% of the material we covered due to my extensive statistics background, however I was not aware of the exact mechanics of random number generation or the concept of a batched mean, for example. I remember this class having several "check your understanding" quizzes that focused on the mathematical foundations. Didn't struggle with this much in terms of difficulty and found the material very useful. Setting up custom simulation environments is very useful and arena is pretty cool even if it's unlikely you'll ever use it. Some assignments feature similar tools in Python (simpy). There might have been some coverage of R in this as well, or at least the accommodation for people that wanted to use it. There was a project for this class, but you didn't have to come up with the topic on your own, you could pick from a list, and you could do your project on your own if you wanted (which, given the option, was always the choice I made, due to the inherent randomness in picking the right members of a group). However you can do a group project if you want.
  6. MGT 6203 - The first of the classes I took that required a group project. I recommend you are proactive in putting together groups in situations like these, posting threads on Ed/whatever the forum is as soon as the class begins. My group was alright; not everyone in it was great, but we had enough going overall to make up for the weaker group members. The project has some arbitrary guidelines from what I remember - you need to put together a midterm report and video presentation that is no more than ~2 minutes long or something like that (if it's 2:01 you get penalized) and the final report is 5 minutes or less, and everyone in the group needs to speak. I honestly don't remember much else about this class, it was pretty forgettable, but not horrible. Not overall that difficult, another business class so a lot of topics I was already familiar with, but there was more new here than in 8803.
  7. CSE 6242 - Another class with a group project. Again, I was proactive, and again, overall, my group was... okay. Some people who were really good, some who were... not. This class is characterized by a lot of assignments that are autograded, like 6040, but the assignments are a bit more difficult. Overall not that difficult with the exception of the D3 assignment, but that's more due to the fact that I'm not really sure how the autograder works for that; it tries to determine based on some internal structure of your html code whether or not you're fulfilling the requirements. I got a perfect score on all of the assignments, and they give you the chance to score over 100% on I believe either assignment 1 or assignment 2. A lot of people bombed the D3 assignment (I think it's assignment 2) but still did well in the class because it's not that hard to do well on everything else, so keep that in mind. This class does a great job of exposing you to a lot of new technologies, but there isn't that much depth to it. That's not really the point of this kind of class though, it equips you with the tools to explore things deeper if you so choose.
  8. ISYE 8803 - I was a big fan of this class. It's taught in MATLAB but you can use Python if you so choose, you'll see in reviews of this class that you should really just use MATLAB since a lot of the sample code etc. is not in other languages, so that's what I did. However, they must've recently added Python and R code for sample solutions, so feel free to use what you want. MATLAB was interesting, there were parts of one assignment I also used R for (grouped lasso in R is a lot more straightforward). This class is all about high dimensional data and representing it in a more simplified and comprehensive way, think about something like sonar which might have datapoints separated by milliseconds and thus a very dense representation of a signal captured over a short period of time. After ISYE 6740, I found this to be the class that taught me the most up to this point.
  9. CS 7642 - Taking this class in summer is kind of rough. There's 6 homework assignments that are autograded, similar format to CSE 6040. There are 3 projects which are much larger programming assignments for which you'll write papers explaining methodology, results, etc. These projects take a while, particularly project 3. I did well on projects 1 and 2 and decently on 3, although I spent the most time on 3 by far; it involves reinforcement learning to simulate a soccer environment and train agents how to play against an AI developed externally. The AI baselines are hard to beat, and I didn't manage to beat them, but I wrote a decent paper explaining what I did. The final exam for this class should be dropped as it doesn't add value to the class, people regularly score extremely low on it, the average score in the class was something like a 45%. I scored a bit lower than average but still got an A in the class because it was heavily curved. Reinforcement learning is a very interesting topic, though, and I would highly recommend this class as a primer on the material. It's probably a good idea not to take it in the summer, though.
  10. CS 7643 - This class was pretty difficult but I still think 6740 was tougher. The material is extremely dense. There are parts of programming assignments that are autograded, but also short answer portions that are reviewed by TAs. Grading on those were pretty subjective. This is the only class I can remember really needing to discuss things with TAs to understand what was being asked a little better. Unfortunately, the TAs in the semester I took this weren't the best. They seemed more concerned with unintentionally giving away a bit too much information in any of their responses. I can understand this, but it came off as intentionally opaque most of the time. There was a group project for this course as well, and my group was excellent, probably the best experience I had with a group in this program. I can imagine how much this course would've sucked if I would've had a mediocre/bad group. Based on discussions with my group, some of the grading seemed highly arbitrary, with some TAs grading similar responses to the same question differently. Like I said above, though, I never really worried about this. I never once in this program ever disputed a grade, and I continued with that in this class as well.
  11. CSE 6748 - Practicum and final class. For this class you get to choose between a number of pre-determined Georgia Tech sponsors, or form your own project for your own employesome external entity. It was a lot more work to do this, so I just went with one of the pre-determined GTech ones. I really enjoyed this one, I had constant communication with the sponsor as I developed my project and came up with something that I was quite proud of. I wanted to explore a natural language processing task, so I picked a project that I thought would allow me to do this, and was very satisfied with the result. There's a number of videos you have to watch that explain some overarching aspect of analytics that were pretty interesting as well, you can watch all of these in a single day and then focus on the project if you like. It's possible to finish the entire semester's work in just a few weeks, I was able to do the entire project and write the final paper in about a month's time, at which point I coordinated with the sponsor to tailor the work I did to a format that they would be able to implement for their business problem if they wanted to.
I can't comment on the job placement prospects of this program, as I just finished it and was actively employed the entire time I was in it. As an actuary there's not much this program does that my exam certification process didn't in terms of career prospects. However, it did position me much better within the context of the expanding role of data and analytics in insurance going forward, and also opens me up to similarly mathematical roles with a firmer grounding in big data and also some business elements (quantitative finance/data science roles). There were also things I learned in this program that I was able to apply directly to my day-to-day work. If you're considering this program, I would recommend you think about a few things:
  1. I'm pretty shocked at how many people I saw during my program who didn't really think that much about why they're doing this. I get that the barrier to entry is low, but it's a serious commitment if you're actually trying to graduate. Most of the people who start this program don't finish, so consider whether you're ready to spend almost 4 years going to school part-time, or if you're able to double up on classes for some of the semesters. Most of the people I know in the program doubled up at least once, I never did but I was never in a hurry. If you must double up, don't make it your first semester. Dip your toe in the water, see how it is, and then reassess. But, above all else, think about why you want to do this, and use that as your guiding goal to bring you through to the end.
  2. Something I tended to see pretty much without fail in most of my classes - a lot of the graduate students in this program spend way too much time worrying about minute, particular details that don't really matter. Maybe it was just my philosophy that I would probably never dispute a grade, or that I was never really that concerned with getting a perfect GPA, etc. but I was always marveling at what I saw asked in Ed posts. People would ask whether they could use a certain programming language for an assignment, what packages they were allowed to use, would post screenshots of bugs and ask for TA's to help walk them through it, etc. Generally, without fail, the TAs would respond along the lines of: use whatever programming language you want, as long as you can display your output/submit it in a way that we can verify by running ourselves, we'll make the effort; use the debugger to step through your code to find the problem; etc. Generally, in most cases, the assignments and questions are designed in a way to teach you something, to get you to realize/understand some pattern or data concept that has some underlying logic that makes sense. For example, the idea of saliency maps on image processing takes the 3-channel RGB color pixel shading representation of an image and condenses it into a single channel, and, as a result of that, loses some resolution in suggesting parts of the image driving a model result that might be different depending on the channel; i.e., an image with a very heavily blue-shaded part that detracts from a certain result, but with a red-shaded part somewhere else that increases the probability of the modeled result. This was part of a conceptual question on how saliency maps differed from other pixel influence attribution methods in Deep Learning, and is part of what you should logically understand since it reduces the channels of the image representation from 3 (R, G, B) to 1 (usually grayscale). I think people tend to run to the TA the second they have difficulty with something and don't stop for a second to think it through, one exercise I might recommend is to consider: if you ran into this problem out in the world and you didn't have a TA/managesome other authority figure to explain the answer to you, what do you think it might be? Does the answer even matter? If it still matters and you have no idea how to solve it, maybe then you can go to the TA.
  3. In every single group project I worked on, we had an initial planning session where we determined the scope of what we wanted to do. For most of the projects, this was an essential deliverable in addition to the final paper. However, in almost every case, someone in the group was always playing some game of runaway scope where they kept on wanting to add methods/questions to exploration beyond what was initially planned in ways that I intuitively knew would be impossible to manage in just one semester. I often had to say something along the lines of "if we have time we'll do that" or "when we write up our paper, we can put that in the avenues for future exploration section" or something similar. It turns out that we never had time to look into these things, and our initial scope was usually well-defined considering the time we had. I'm not sure why this was always so front-and-center in my focus, maybe since I used to work in consulting and project budgeting/scoping is so unbelievably important in that context. Whatever the case may be, understand that you won't be able to change the world every time you do a project. Make some incremental improvement, reflect on the results, and then include some notes in a "potential avenues for future exploration" section. I was pretty surprised at how many people had so much trouble putting the pencils down at the end. I can practically guarantee that, for the classes where I did a project on my own, I probably did substantially less work than other individual groups for precisely this reason. In general, you probably don't have to do as much work as you think you do.
So, would I recommend the program overall? Absolutely. It's not perfect, I found some of the formats annoying - CS 7642 has no business having that final exam, it adds nothing to the class at all, is arbitrarily extremely difficult and the class is good enough and complete enough with the removal of that exam that its inclusion to me appears to be the result of some arbitrary quota somewhere. I also don't really like the group project format and profoundly disagree with the reasoning that GTech and most other academic institutions give as to why group projects are even good or necessary, however I do acknowledge that from a logistics and resource standpoint it's unmanageable to grade individual projects for every single person in a given class and group projects do decrease the number of papers that TAs will have to read. Considering the scale of what GTech has managed to do, and how many students enroll each year, I'm surprised the program is as well-managed as it is. Yes, it does require a lot of self-teaching, but in most cases you can actively engage with TAs multiple times a week if you're struggling with topics and from what I've seen they were very responsive.
Anyways just wanted to give my perspective as someone who just finished this program and still thinks it's worthwhile despite its flaws.
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2024.05.22 01:32 Moist_Help943 Most evil thing you did to a person in the past couple of years?

I regret this ofc and it was wrong, Some kid kept on hating on the special needs kids because they got all the attention and help while he didn't (he did not have special needs). I was rly pissed off after no one did a thing and a special needs friend of mine was crying. So I went into his school account by finding the username and password using a key logger on a pc I let him borrow, Wrote nasty messages abt him to make him think he was hacked and whatnot. I know it was wrong and I regret it and no one should do this. He ended up moving before I apologized. Do whats best to anyone out there, revenge aint the way for petty beef.
TLDR: got into his school account and destroyed files, wrote messages on his pc because he bullied people
submitted by Moist_Help943 to teenagers [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 01:28 Skettalee TinyCam Pro no asks to Link wyze account....

I dont know what else to do, ive searched google for an answer but before I do a support ticket im going to ask you guys if anyone knows about this.
I know wyze has been asking me to setup 2Factor auth but I had done it a while back and then i couldn't for some reason sign into my wyze cameras using TinyCam Pro.
I have always had an NVidia Shield as well as an older Dell Precision computer Running MemuPlay Android Emulator with Tinycam pro running on both of them. But Today my maine screen (the computer with the emulator) it signed off for some reason and now it asks me to Link Wyze : Link the app to your wyze account [CANCEL / LINK]
If I push Link to sign in and it acts as if its connecting to a sign in webpage but just goes to black and i cant do anything except close the program that I've found to get out of that, and therefore I can no longer see my cameras. I thankfully atleast for now still have it visible on my NVIDIA Shield but that thing is way in my room on a tv. I need to get this working asap. Anyone else have this problem and know the work around for it? Thanks in advance! I will also be doing a support ticket for it, but think I might get the answer way faster with some of you guys and all the shit yall know! I actually already have a ticket out for support for another issue that has yet to be corrected, man Wyze has been loosing so many de·mer·it (points) with me Im really starting to rethink who I have my security setup with.
submitted by Skettalee to Wyze [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 01:22 Low-Conversation3548 Would like some advice on how to cope with life drastically changing

Hello! For context, I am new to Reddit and don’t know if I am posting this in the right place. I am a 25f who is at her wit’s end with no direction because of everything that has happened to me in this past year (2024). Ever since I was a teenager I have been a hard worker - working retail, restaurant, and even at schools (sometimes two or three jobs at once) in order to save up enough money to move out of my parent’s house - because I genuinely needed OUT due to all the household pressures being put on me as the oldest of 7 siblings. At 23, I was finally able to accomplish my goal and found a teeny apartment about an hour and a half away in a decent town and I was ecstatic! Unfortunately, I was paying off student loans from my Associates degree as well as Culinary degree because my parents refused to file FAFSA and since I was a dependent, I got zero money from them (which I never expected or asked for anyways) or from the government to help me through school. If I’m being frank, it’s been really rough since I moved out. Luckily I have a very supportive partner (we don’t live together) who also reminds me that I was not okay, mentally nor physically, while living with my family and sometimes we have to choose the lesser “evil” or in this case if I prefer being mentally stable over somewhat financially stable. Within the past year my health, however, has gone unexpectedly downhill. I’ve been hospitalized 4 times since February and was even sent into Medical Leave from my full time job since I could not physically work anymore. I can’t drive, have developed extreme anxiety and PTSD due to my health (towards food, my life changing drastically from being very active to not even being able to stand up quickly or jog from one side of the house to another), and have been diagnosed with many things from countless doctors. My chronic illnesses have left me completely helpless. And I now have more worries and stress than I have ever had before. I just found out this semester that my Pell Grant for Summer 2024 won’t pay my full summer tuition after it had paid for my last two semesters in order for me to finish my Bachelors, I just got a ton of ER bills in the mail as well as from my Cardiologist, Gastro, Rheumatologist, and Neurologist from all the tests they have been and still are running on me, and I still have two more tests scheduled next month and July that I am debating if I should even do it because of how much money it’s going to cost me. All this with a grand total of $2000 as of right now in my name. Since I left work, seeing my bank account deplete due to bills and rent and just day-to-day expenses is completely wrecking me and I don’t know what to do. I’ve applied to hUNDREDS of at home jobs and I have hobbies I even tried to make money from… but nothing is working. The only thing getting me through is the free therapy sessions my school offers for being a student. I feel like I’m spiraling at every moment and that sometime soon Im just gonna poof! Disappear! Because it’s all just so much. Nobody around me knows about any of this either because I’ve kept it all in. Honestly, I figured typing this all out would help to organize things in my head a little bit better! My hope is that somebody will help guide me to any programs, job listings, or even give advice on how to cope through all of this since I don’t really have anybody in my life to help me. Thanks for reading, if you got this far, and I hope things are looking up for you fellow human :)
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2024.05.22 01:22 TechShayde So someone got access to my account email and password and has been on a hacking spree

Someone got into my accounts, my Facebook, My emails and even my reddit, i wake up one day to see my Facebook logged out of my phone, then when i log in it says that my account was disabled for violating community guidelines due to a linked Instagram account that I've never seen before, i log into reddit to see comments that this account has made taking about choking women, what's funny is that reddit was able to detect that my account was hacked and locked the hacker out enabling me to recover it but facebook AKA META!, the multi billion dollar company was not, it gave me 0 options to recover it, even from a friends account its only option through the help center is to tell my friend that i should log into my "Hacked" account that is disabled to appeal it.....
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2024.05.22 01:08 Current-Carrot6051 Paramount: Deal Rumors Aside, What About The Operations? Can The Company Turn A Profit?

Paramount: Deal Rumors Aside, What About The Operations? Can The Company Turn A Profit?
May 21, 2024 2:41 PM ET
Summary
Paramount Global remains my worst investment, but I still believe in its potential for success.
Paramount's "lack of scale" is not the reason for its underperformance as it spends about as much on content as industry leader Netflix.
Paramount's loss last year was largely the result of one-off writedowns, both domestically and internationally. These losses will not repeat going forward.
Paramount's streaming operation suffers not from lack of scale, but an abundance of overload waste, which may be alleviated under new management.
The sports slate remains best-in-class, and CBS is still the leader in broadcast scripted. CBS Television City in Los Angeles, Ca, USA. JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) (NASDAQ:PARAA) remains my worst investment. Let's just get that clear from the start. I said two years ago it was madness not to buy Paramount. That was wrong, wrong, wrong. The fact that I recommended against buying the new Warner Discovery at the same time, and heeding that warning saved a lot of money, makes me feel a little better, but not much.
And no, the fact that Warren Buffett made the exact same mistake as me doesn't help much, either. Mr. Buffett and I are about to part ways, anyway. He is now completely sold out of Paramount, while I am hanging in. Yes, I am still buying. Get all the ribbing out of your systems, and then read on.
Although a few rounds remain to be played in the game, it is no longer inconceivable that none of the various deal permutations that have been put forward for Paramount will pan out, and that it will continue as an independent company. Essentially, Redstone will block a deal with Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO) and Sony Group Corporation (SONY) and the 'B' shareholders will litigate a Skydance deal to death.
Because so many Seeking Alpha articles are already offering a blow-by-blow analysis of the deal talks - and I absolutely encourage you to read them - I wanted to turn back for just a minute to a more in-depth look at Paramount's actual operations. If it stays independent, can it turn itself around?
Scale Is Not The Issue I'm angry. Usually, when an investment goes wrong, I can manage to be philosophical or even dispassionate about it. Risks of the trade, can't win 'em all, pick your maxim.
But this one is really getting to me. I'm sure part of that is simply the sheer amount of my portfolio that has suffered - I bet a lot more on Paramount than I did on my typical investment, so sure was I that it had the tools needed for success. Fortunately, some of my other media investments have worked out much, much better, or I'd really be hurting. In fact, my Netflix buy has repaired all the damage my Paramount buy has done.
Still, I'm unusually angry, partly because of the sheer amount lost. But it's also that I still don't believe there is anything wrong with Paramount, at its core. It has become quite commonplace to speak of Paramount's "lack of scale" as the reason for its apparent impending demise, or at least subsumption. But I would still argue that that isn't born out by the numbers. Paramount spent roughly $16 billion on content in 2023, the same total as 2022, when $4 billion of it was spent on streaming. That is only slightly less than Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) which leads the industry in market cap and performance, if not in spending. While the gap with other studio peers is larger, I'm not sure spending at Netflix levels equals a "lack of scale."
What's more, a lot of that extra spending by other traditional industry players like Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) and The Walt Disney Company (DIS) is not spending that investors should necessarily cheer. As I've explained before, Paramount's lower spending total is almost entirely accounted for by its far more profitable approach to sports rights; a lot of that extra spending that Disney and Warner are doing isn't particularly profitable or even sensible.
What then, does account for Paramount's underperformance?
Stock Performance That depends on which underperformance you're talking about. First, the stock price. Paramount cut its dividend in spring 2023. That announcement, with its Q1 earnings, was enough to cause half of the past-year decline in a single day. Paramount went from $21 to $16 with the dividend cut and was still at $16 as late as December.
Since then, the other half of the decline has reflected the increasing evidence that Paramount is more or less ready to throw in the towel, and intends to be a distressed seller to another studio or private equity firm soon. More specifically, it is actually Shari Redstone, who exercises control over Paramount through her 77.3% share of Paramount's Class A voting stock, who is ready to call it quits. The perception that she has no leverage and will be forced to accept a fire sale offer has driven the stock lower.
Operations All that, however, merely explains the stock market decline; what is the operational explanation for Paramount's troubles? The company reported a $600 million loss for full year 2023. How is it that one of the Big Five movie studios, with the most popular of the Big Four broadcast networks, the most popular show on cable (Yellowstone) and the only profitable sports slate in American television, can't make money?
Accounting Element First, we need to acknowledge that there are some accounting factors in that 2023 loss. Paramount took a "programming charge," i.e., a write-down of the value of programming assets, of roughly $2.4 billion in Q1 and Q2 last year. That is money that would ordinarily be amortized over a period of years - it's mostly streaming originals, which Paramount usually amortizes over a 4-year period - that instead saw its red ink taken all at once. Had it been amortized normally, Paramount would have reported an operating profit of roughly $1.2 billion, more or less identical to 2022, instead of reporting an operating loss of the same amount.
Still, that write-down reflects the fact that the content isn't performing well, so those losses were always going to happen, and they're quite real; the accounting change is simply a timing issue. So Paramount is operationally deficient, even if perhaps not quite as operationally deficient as this one-time write-down makes it look. We cannot dismiss Paramount's operational issues by putting them down to accounting distortions.
TV Scripted Content Difficulties Paramount did not break down the programming charge, but outside reports have about half of it owing to the integration of Showtime in Paramount+ as a single service. It's not entirely clear which side of the ledger those losses are coming from; one of the less understood things about merging services is that it potentially makes content on both sides less valuable as it is replaced by more popular content from the other side. Showtime's Q1 2023 viewership was very top-heavy, with just two shows, Yellowjackets and Your Honor constituting 30% of all viewership. Presumably, those two shows reduced the value of some Paramount+ existing content while the rest of Showtime's library may have suffered from competition with P+ content.
Regardless of the exact source, Paramount's content is not performing. That's a little surprising considering that, as I said, CBS content is actually quite popular on the linear side. In fact, in the earnings call following the annual report now-former CEO Bob Bakish reported that CBS had the top 16 scripted programs and 18 of the top 20 in the first week of post-strike broadcasts. Paramount has disclosed in the past that CBS content makes up roughly half of the viewership on Paramount+; and this is despite the fact that P+ isn't even the sole beneficiary of CBS content; roughly $600 million per quarter of Paramount's licensing revenue comes from CBS shows as well.
One possibility that I perhaps did not consider sufficiently was the chance that the unique characteristics of CBS would make it harder for that channel to transition to streaming than its other broadcast peers. CBS is the most popular of all broadcast networks, but that popularity owes disproportionately to more elderly viewers; in the demo, it is actually Comcast Corporation's (CMCSA) NBC which takes the top crown.
With elderly viewers both less appealing to advertisers and less likely to make the transition to streaming, it is perhaps not so surprising that CBS is continuing to perform well on linear but having trouble translating that to streaming.
International Shortfall The damage isn't through yet, either. Paramount disclosed that it took another $1.2 billion impairment charge on content in the first quarter. This one has to do with the international side; a few years ago Paramount commissioned 150 new, original international shows and movies to try to boost international growth. Now, Paramount reveals that even international consumers spend no less than 90% of their time streaming Hollywood content; the local originals aren't doing very much for growth or retention.
About the only good thing that can be said about this complete and utter debacle is that it is a one-off; unlike Paramount's US content spending, which is ongoing and therefore must be made more efficient if Paramount is to survive and thrive, Paramount is gradually exiting International production. In fact, to help cover the losses on its international originals it is selling its share in Viacom18, the network that formerly served as Paramount's onshore operation in India, to its partner Reliance for a little over $500 million.
Where Are The Children? Yet another factor is children's programming. While many have essentially written off Paramount's entire cable channel group, and I agree the prognosis for MTV and Comedy Central is rather grim, I have argued that Nickelodeon remains a real asset, as one of the top two children's channels in linear TV. I believed that would be a powerful subscriber acquisition tool, alongside sports, as the streaming transition continued.
It hasn't worked out. Surveys consistently show the Big 3 for parents with children are Netflix, Disney, and the third is Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) of all things. Neither Paramount+ nor Warner Discovery's Max make the cut, despite ownership of top children's linear platforms/libraries Nickelodeon and Looney Tunes, respectively.
The prognosis here isn't entirely grim. Paramount has reported that half of their streaming subscribers touch kids' content regularly, so clearly Nickelodeon does mean something to the subscribers. It's possible it helps with retention, even if it doesn't drive acquisition. Paramount owns the number one brand for pre-school kids, Paw Patrol.
Paramount has shut down the separate Noggin streaming service and will presumably be amplifying the kids content on P+ as a result, so perhaps this trend will yet turn around. With so many other things going wrong, though, the inability to make kids content more central to the strategy is a painful blow.
The Mismanagement Of Streaming I suspect, however, that Paramount's single biggest defect over the past few years has been the competency of its management. In a streaming world, success hinges overwhelmingly on the efficiency with which a content budget is deployed. That efficiency, in turn, requires avoiding the trap of "overload," something cable doesn't have to worry about but which can kill a streaming service.
What Is Overload? In brief, overload is when a streaming service spends money on content that appeals primarily to those subscribers who were already subscribed and intending to remain subscribed, even without that content. Because revenue does not increase with more viewership, such spending is essentially wasted money. I have been arguing for several years that some economic models of streaming profitability fail to take account of this significant element.
Paramount seems to have had a lot of overload in the last few years. Specifically, its single most broadly appealing piece of content is the NFL, which Paramount is an anchor broadcaster for. Because NFL fans are accustomed to spending upwards of $100 a month on cable just to watch the NFL - over 10% of cable subscribers say that the NFL is the only reason they're still subscribing - Paramount's $6-$12 a month fee for streaming really doesn't need anything more than NFL games to attract these 40-50 million fans.
The Earnings Jaw-Dropper And yet, it seems that's where a lot of the extra streaming money has been going. On the Q2 earnings call last year, CEO Bob Bakish, watching the stock price steadily decline, seemed to be eager to reassure he had a handle on the situation and began describing some of the changes he'd be making. It started out well enough, really; he told investors that NFL viewers churn drops dramatically if they also engage with entertainment titles, which is what you'd expect.
But then, he stunned me and I expect just about everyone listening when he said, "we probably need to do less for [the NFL viewer] in the fall, and more outside the fall because we can rely on the NFL." Compounding the almost Looking Glass-feeling, he then went on to reassure everyone he would be "fine-tuning" the content strategy to address that point in the years to come.
It was, frankly, stunning. Both me and I suspect just about every analyst who was modeling Paramount had just assumed it went without saying that of course, any entertainment content targeted at retaining NFL viewers should drop in the other half of the year when the NFL wasn't playing on TV. My own calculations of the profit margin on CBS's NFL deal had always incorporated that.
And while that was bad enough, it also raised the concern that a management team that didn't understand that going in might have put a lot of other overload in other categories as well. Suddenly, it wasn't so hard to see how the best-scripted shop with the most profitable sports contracts was having trouble making money. Double-loading for 50 million households would be a major drag on the financial performance for streaming.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel Despite all of this, I still think there are bright spots in the Paramount picture, even without a merger. Its operations, as well as its merger discussions, don't seem to lack potential.

1: My Usual Paramount Bull Argument: Sports Profits

One thing that continues to go right is sports content. A few years ago, I wrote that Paramount was a strong contender to become a sustainable streaming business because it had the only profitable sports slate in the business. The stock hasn't gone where I wanted it to go, but that is the one part of my thesis that has been definitively borne out. In fact, many now say that it is CBS's sports deals, at least as much as Paramount's film/TV studio, that the prospective buyers of Paramount are after.
I've covered these in other articles already. The March Madness deal runs until 2032 and the NFL deal runs until 2033, although the NFL has an opt out after 2029 that it will probably exercise given the utterly ludicrous bids the NBA is receiving, so the last four years of that deal might have to be chopped off the profit projections. Even so, Paramount can probably generate $1.25 billion a year in profit just off of those two deals for the next six years.
Those are probably the biggest, but it doesn't stop there. Almost every sports deal Paramount has is profitable. For all the flak management has deservedly taken, Paramount continues to show discipline and focus on sports. You won't find Paramount throwing $2.5 billion a year at the NBA's 'B' package, which is more money than the NFL gets for its 'B' package despite having 10x the viewership.
For all its many, many missteps, a Paramount that can just manage to stay afloat long enough for some of these ludicrous sports bets at other companies to blow up may yet find itself with cards to play later in the decade.

2: Recouping Write-downs Via Preferred Conversion

Another small boon has been the official conversion of the preferred shares. The Paramount mandatory convertible formerly trading under the PARAP ticker was capped at 0.85 shares per common share. Given the initial price of the convertible at $100 per share, that effectively means that a preferred share that was carrying a $100 liquidation value has just been converted into 1.1765 shares of a common stock currently trading around $12. A total value per preferred share of around $14.
And they sold for $1 billion, so that's basically $860 million back into the common equity that management was able to get at the peak of the boom. That actually repairs almost all of the red ink from Paramount's doomed international originals push on its own.

3: An End To Streaming Waste

Finally, a lot of the waste in streaming may soon be ending. Bob Bakish was finally fired a few weeks ago, and while I never want someone to lose their job, he frankly had looked overmatched for a while. Bakish was a lifetime cable executive who seemed to be having trouble making the transition to a streaming-world mindset. Frankly, if I knew about it in 2021, the CEO has no business fine-tuning it into the strategy in 2023.
With international originals no longer draining the coffers and overloaded entertainment programming shifted to months of the calendar where it can be more productive, streaming may yet turn the corner.
Investment Summary I recognize fully that each fall in Paramount stock makes my bullish optimism seem ever more out of step. I do believe, however, that Paramount's failures are more failures of execution than lack of scale or structural disadvantage. Paramount CEO Bob Bakish simply wasn't up to the job. Ironically that wasn't what got him fired; Bakish was almost certainly fired for opposing Redstone's plan to enrich herself at the expense of other shareholders, probably the most competent thing he did in the last few years of his whole tenure.
Paramount has everything it needs to be successful; profitable sports contracts, which is just unbelievable in this day and age, a thriving scripted TV operation, and a viable, if recently somewhat mismanaged, streaming service. An end to overload waste, the continued exploitation of its favorable sports slate, throttling back unhelpful international originals and boosting kids content engagement may yet produce a different streaming picture going forward. Should older viewers start to get more comfortable with streaming going forward and following their favorite programs to Paramount+, that would just be icing on the cake.
It's been a depressing ride the last few years, but I'm sticking with Paramount.
submitted by Current-Carrot6051 to ParamountGlobal2 [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 01:08 spanksforskanks MN GI BILL HELP

Has anyone successfully used their Minnesota G.I. bill for tuition at Capella? I have been having nothing but difficulty is getting the applied to my account. I have been told that because it state benefits, it is handled through their financial aid office versus their military education department. I am several weeks into my cycle and I have not received any form of payment. Every time I try to contact the financial aid office they don’t know how to help me and just say that they will escalate it yet. I never receive a callback. The second part of my question is because I am doing the flex path, I have completed enough courses in my building session to be considered full-time. I have been trying to reiterate to them that I need my full-time status in order to receive the $3000 from the state of Minnesota for the semester versus the 500 for part time. They do not seem to know how to help me with this aspect either. I submitted a form requesting a change in enrollment status once I completed my two courses within the first week of the program. They denied my form and said that because I’m not eligible for the federal program, they will not be processing this request as the only reason enrollment matters is because of the Pilgram so I do not feel that they are understanding my needs or knowing how to help me and at this point, I’m going to finish my educational program before getting a resolution to this..
submitted by spanksforskanks to CapellaUniversity [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 01:04 Obsequium_Minaris Ballistic Coefficient - Chapter 13

First / Previous / Royal Road / Patreon (Read 12 Chapters Ahead)

Together, Pale and Kayla dragged the mage back to the cave they'd been using for shelter, barely managing to get him inside before the snowfall began again. Pale tied his hands behind his back and his legs together using some paracord she had in her pack, and the two of them stood over the man, staring down at him.
"What now?" Kayla asked. "Do we wait for him to-"
Pale cut her off by bringing the stock of her shotgun across the berserker's face. He reeled from the strike, suddenly catapulting awake, his eyes wide as several of his teeth came spilling out across the stone cave floor. He coughed, spitting out a glob of blood before fixing her with a harsh glare. Smoke began to rise from his palms, but Pale stopped him by putting the barrel of her gun flush with his crotch.
"Unless you want to lose something, I'd suggest keeping your magic under control," she threatened. "Because if I pull this trigger, there isn't a healer alive who'll be able to give back what you'll lose."
The man snarled at her, but the smoke curling up from his hands stopped all the same. He spat out more blood. "The fuck am I still alive for?"
"I think you know exactly what you're alive for. Now, are you going to play nice and tell us what we want to know, or am I going to have to force it out of you piece by piece?"
The mage grinned at her, showing off a mouth full of missing teeth and liquid crimson. "You really think I'd betray my brothers like that?"
"Last I checked, your brothers are all dead," Pale said absentmindedly. "But still, I was hoping you'd pick the hard way; I needed to relieve some stress."
She let her shotgun hang from its sling, then drew her knife. With her free hand, she grabbed one of his fingers, then positioned the blade at the tip.
"Last chance to offer up what you know," she threatened.
The mage barked out a laugh. "Fuck off. You really think I'd ever-"
His bravado suddenly gave way to an agonized scream as Pale forced the blade of her knife underneath his fingernail. He thrashed in agony as she twisted the knife before roughly yanking it free, taking the fingernail with it. She held the disembodied nail up to him, then flicked it away.
"Have I made my point?" she said evenly. "Because last I checked, you've still got nine fingers and ten toes, not to mention a variety of other things I could poke at and prod at and cut off. And when you run out of those, I can just start skinning you bit by bit."
"Fuck you…" he breathed through gritted teeth. "I'll never-"
She took another fingernail for his troubles. Idly, Pale was aware of Kayla flinching with every scream that erupted out of the man's throat, but that didn't bother her.
Kayla had specified no death, but that didn't mean she couldn't make this hurt like hell.
She again positioned the knife at one of his fingertips, only for him to give a weak, shuddering, pain-filled cough.
"W-wait…" he croaked.
"I see your tongue has been thoroughly loosened," she surmised, though she didn't dare to move the blade even a millimeter away from his next finger.
"What do you have for me?"
"I can give you our leader's name."
"And?"
"What do you mean, and? He doesn't tell us anything, he just pays us and feeds us, like any good leader should."
Pale's expression narrowed. "You had better give me something more substantial to go on, otherwise I have no reason to keep you around."
"Pale-" Kayla began, only to fall silent when she held up a hand. Reluctantly, Kayla backed down, though she continued to look on with concern as Pale's grip around her blade turned white-knuckled.
"Tell me something useful," Pale demanded. "Unless you want to see exactly how much pain I can commit to before I get bored."
"Okay, okay!" the bandit growled. "Fine… our leader's name is Sven Greymane, the warrior-king of the northern isles. He's the one who ordered us to attack certain towns on this continent."
"Is that why you sacked some and completely bypassed others?"
He nodded. "Yes. That was all part of the plan – he'd give us locations to attack, pay us in gold and food to attack them, and then let us keep whatever valuables we wanted afterwards."
"And did he tell you why he only wanted specific locations attacked, while others were to be spared?"
The mage shook his head. "No, and we knew better than to ask questions given how good of a deal it was."
Kayla suddenly stepped forwards. "One of those towns was my village," she growled. "Your friends captured several people, including my father, and took them back to the northern isles."
The mage leaned in, squinting to get a better look at her, before finally shrugging. "I don't know anything about that."
"Liar," Pale hissed.
"It's the truth. I wasn't involved with the attack on any Beastkin town."
"Of course, you'd say that," Kayla said through gritted teeth. "You're worried about what will happen to you if you admit to us here and now that you had something to do with it."
"Don't know what else to tell you. I had nothing to do with the attack on you and yours, and I didn't take any Beastkin slaves."
"Enough of this," Pale snapped. "How long do we have to find her father?"
The bandit cracked a wide grin at her. "You're probably already too late. If the girl's father is anything like her, then he's already been deemed to be useless as a slave – too mouthy for his own good, and mouthy slaves don't last very long among my people."
A vein pulsed in Kayla's forehead as she clenched and unclenched her fists. "Answer the question," she demanded. "Assuming he isn't murdered before we can get there, how long do slaves typically last while with your people?"
"Depends on the slave. Men tend to last longer, provided they're young enough and in good health. Of course, he was taken in the first place, so I assume that someone saw some value in him, at least enough to want him for themselves. Now, that only accounts for a berserker warrior having a bad day and killing someone as a result. If he's unlucky, he'll succumb to the elements before long." The mage shrugged. "It wouldn't make any sense for us to spend all that time capturing and enslaving someone only to let them die so soon, unless they just so happened to be a massive pain in the ass."
"So you claim," Pale said dismissively. "What else do you have for us?"
"I've told you enough," the man grunted. "Now hurry up and let me go."
"And why would I do that?" Pale demanded. "So you can go back to robbing and killing the innocent? Is your life really worth the lives of the people you'd kill if we let you go?"
"It is to her." He motioned towards Kayla, who was staring at him and trembling as she bit her lip, deep in thought.
Pale's eyes narrowed. "Kayla."
Kayla jumped slightly at the sound of her name being called. She hesitated for a moment before letting out a sigh. "...You should let him go."
"You know I can't do that, Kayla. If we let him go, he'll just go right back to doing what brought him here. Either we end this here and now and prevent him from taking more innocent lives, or he goes on for however long it takes for someone else to put him down."
"I know!" Kayla spat. "It's just… I don't know what to do… I don't want to be responsible for someone's death like this…"
"I understand that, but this is war," Pale insisted. "Death is an unavoidable part of that."
"What do you mean, war?" Kayla asked, horrified at the prospects of what Pale had just suggested. "You… you really are a soldier, aren't you? That's why you're doing this – it's a chance to do what you were made to do…"
"War is in my nature," Pale insisted. "It is why I was created. You are correct that this is a chance to fulfill my prime directive, but not in the way that you think." She turned her gaze back towards the bandit. "I need to get off this planet and back into the war I left behind before it's too late to save my creators. If killing this man will get me there faster, then I will not hesitate to do that."
"But… you can't know that killing him will help with that," Kayla pointed out. "He's just one man…"
"Every second spent debating his existence is one not spent working towards my ultimate goal. I ask for your input on what to do with him because I value your opinion as my ally, and do not wish to alienate you by leaving you out of major decisions such as that, but that does not mean I will not try to make you see reason when I think you are about to make a terrible decision." Pale sheathed her knife and hefted her shotgun. "You are concerned with the loss of innocent life, yes? Well, letting me kill this man will save an untold number of them. Is his life really worth all of theirs?"
"You can't think of it that way! He's still a person, too!"
"He is," Pale agreed. "But as far as I am concerned, his right to life is now forfeit, as he used it to torture and murder other people."
The bandit suddenly burst out laughing. "Listen to you two! You're honestly debating whether or not to take a life. How quaint, not to mention innocent. Consider me entertained."
Pale bashed him with the stock of her gun once more, knocking a few more of his teeth out in the process. As he coughed on blood and bone shards, she turned back to Kayla.
"See reason in this," she implored. "Letting him live means-"
"I know!" Kayla interrupted. Her wolf ears flattened against her skull, and in a quieter voice, she repeated, "...I know."
Her tail lashed behind her, and finally, she shook her head. "...I was willing to fight for you," she said softly. "I tried to convince you that you weren't just a killing machine – that you had a sjel, and that it was worth something. And maybe I was right. But even if I was… even if you're not just a killing machine… you seem dead-set on trying to be one. And if that's what you want, then who am I to stop you? Do what you want with him, Pale; after all, it's what you were programmed to do."
Kayla turned and marched out of the cave. Pale watched her go, waiting until she was completely gone before acting.
A single gunshot split the night.

Special thanks to my good friend and co-writer, Ickbard for the help with writing this story.
submitted by Obsequium_Minaris to HFY [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 01:02 Ur_Anemone Why was my face stolen for a dating profile?

Why was my face stolen for a dating profile?
When Mandy Appleyard discovered that her photograph was being used by a stranger online, she began a personal quest to find out how it had happened
…I was annoyed — but first things first. I would need to contact Match, explain the mess and have it investigate then report back: simple. Except that contacting Match as a non-subscriber was a challenge beyond my capabilities. I pored over the website. “Match does not have a customer support phone number … Please be aware that there are fake customer support numbers posted on various websites, none of which are affiliated with Match.” My blood was boiling by the time I read: “Profile checking: all ads and photos are checked individually before they are published.” What? My photos certainly hadn’t been checked or they wouldn’t have been published on a false profile for millions of people to see.
I asked my friend if he could message Clare5432 to tell her we were on to her. He kindly did so, but came back to me within minutes to say she had blocked him. “Would you contact Match then, and complain on my behalf?” I asked him. “Get them to take it down?” He did that, and Match took the profile down within hours. I assumed, naively, that was the end of the story…
Knowing my face had been used to create a bogus dating profile, I was irritated that someone had stolen my picture and at least part of my bio to sell themselves under false pretences. Terrible things happen on the internet, which from some angles looks like a cesspit of fraud, depravity and deception. What had happened to me wasn’t the crime of the century but it felt decidedly icky.
Things were about to get worse. In January another male friend phoned me to say he was on Match and had seen my profile on there. He knew I wasn’t online dating so he was immediately suspicious. I realised we were on familiar territory when he sent me a screenshot of “Wendy, 63, in Wakefield”. It was the image of me that had been used last time, with a profile that described an outdoorsy free spirit. My pal immediately contacted Match on my behalf and straight away it took the profile down.
When this happened for the third time, earlier this month, I was livid. A male friend of a friend said he’d been reading my profile on Match the night before and really liked it. “Great picture of you too,” he messaged. I told him I wasn’t on Match and asked him to send me a screenshot. He hasn’t — and now seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. I can only assume “my” image and profile are still up there for the world to see and exploit.
So I now know that my identity has been stolen by online dating scammers at least three times, although it could be 1,003 times for all I know. I’m made aware of the theft only when someone I know happens to stumble across it and takes the trouble to alert me.
“Don’t you feel just a bit flattered that someone has used your picture? They must think you’re attractive to have bothered!” a friend suggested. The answer is that I don’t. No part of me is flattered, instead I find it deeply creepy. It feels like a trespass on my life, a theft over which I have no control, an invasion of my privacy that makes me feel queasy but which I can’t stop happening again. And again.
I posted on Facebook that I was looking for advice on how to close this fraud down once and for all, hoping someone in my online social media community would have an answer. They did — but not the one I was hoping for. A journalist friend said this probably wasn’t a lone woman using a false profile as romantic bait. Instead, she suggested, it was more likely to be the work of an industrial-scale scam where gangs of people in “fraud factories” (often in north Africa and southeast Asia) create false profiles on dating sites using stolen photos and false information. They then contact potential victims. Over time the conversations become more intimate and personal as the scammer builds trust with their target.
The targets are often vulnerable people in their fifties, sixties and seventies, perhaps new to dating after long marriages that have ended in divorce or bereavement, sometimes lonely, invariably trusting. Low-hanging fruit, in other words, for the wily thieves who groom them, telling them how beautiful and desirable they are, forge a speedy romantic connection then ask for money — a little to begin with, a lot later on…
These scammers commit a fraud, the false profile is reported and shut down, but the con artists immediately set up a new false profile using the same pictures — and on and on it goes.
Sadly there are a thousand iterations of this scenario: coercive controllers who manipulate vulnerable people into believing they have found love. They send photographs, gifs, songs and poems during their “courtship”, telling their victims they are surgeons or spies, Nasa physicists or retired army colonels. They send (stolen) pictures of their children, their luxury home, their fast car, then one day start asking for gift cards, crypto, or money to buy heart surgery or a flight home.
The people perpetuating these cybercrimes are often doing so because they have been trafficked and trapped. Sixty Kenyans were rescued from “fraud factories” after the customer service jobs they applied for in Thailand turned out to be a cover for cybercrime. One woman had been promised a monthly salary of £675 but ended up targeting Americans by creating enticing profiles on Tinder, Instagram and Facebook. “They fall in love with you and you can tell them about cryptocurrency. You start stealing from them,” the 31-year-old woman said, describing in Swahili how she was forced to work in a vast call centre-like hall with hundreds of people of many nationalities…
All of which brings us back to my predicament and how I’m being made to feel complicit in these grubby scams. My face is being used to deceive trusting people who could be fleeced of everything. The victims of a serious and organised crime repeated over and over again but which remains outside the victims’ control. I’m the frontwoman for online activity that may be illegal or dishonest. If it’s neither of those things it’s still plain embarrassing, because I have no idea what the person using my image is saying or doing.
Someone who knows exactly how this feels is Christian Gerhard Boving, a Danish doctor who says scammers have been using photos of him for years to target victims online. “Suddenly all these pictures were stolen by scammers using them to hit on innocent people around the world. They are cruel, sophisticated and evil people doing this.”
Boving has called on companies such as Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to do more. “There should be verification of every new profile being created, like you have to verify yourself with a passport or driving licence, so you know it’s a real person behind the profile,” he says. Perhaps social media companies could use AI to trawl for photographs they know have been stolen and used before on fraudulent accounts — mine and Boving’s, for starters. Certainly the companies running dating apps should make it easy for non-subscribers such as me to contact them with a complaint.
The problem is getting worse, the latest figures showing that reports of romance fraud have risen by almost 60 per cent over four years. Action Fraud, the UK’s centre for fraud and cybercrime, says dating apps are a common place for scammers to find their victims. The top five platforms they use are Facebook, Plenty of Fish, Instagram, Tinder and Match.
As a journalist I like to think that I’m pretty savvy in the ways of the world, but stealing my credit card is one thing; stealing my face is something else. I’m tempted, next time this happens (and I have no doubt there will be a next time), to join whichever dating app is responsible and strike up a conversation with my alter ego. Let’s see where that takes me. Watch this space — and this face.
submitted by Ur_Anemone to afterAWDTSG [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 00:53 Good-Picture-7952 Demystifying Success: Tereno Forbes and the Art of Financial Mastery

Hey Reddit community! Today, let's delve into the fascinating world of financial management and leadership with a closer look at the remarkable journey of Tereno Forbes. Strap in, because this is a tale of dedication, expertise, and the relentless pursuit of excellence.

The Rise of Tereno Forbes

Tereno Forbes isn't just another manager – he's a force to be reckoned with. With a background that spans property management, construction, maintenance, healthcare services, and administration, Forbes brings a wealth of experience to the table. But what truly sets him apart is his unwavering commitment to achieving results that exceed expectations.

A Visionary Leader

Forbes isn't content with mediocrity – he's a visionary leader with a keen eye for innovation and efficiency. Whether he's leading financial and accounting programs or overseeing large-scale budgets and projects, Forbes consistently delivers cost-effective solutions without compromising on quality.

Mastering the Art of Financial Management

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In the grand tapestry of success, Tereno Forbes is a shining thread – bright, bold, and unyielding in the face of adversity. With a passion for excellence and a dedication to making a difference, Forbes continues to inspire and uplift those around him, proving that true success is not just about reaching the top, but about bringing others along for the journey. So here's to you, Tereno Forbes – may your star continue to rise and illuminate the path to greatness for generations to come.
submitted by Good-Picture-7952 to theonlineforum [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 00:22 Key_Emergency7507 Post Grad Diploma in Accounting or Second Bachelors of Commerce?

Hi everyone,
I'm from Canada and would really appreciate some advice on how to best move forward with accounting. I have an unrelated bachelors degree (biology) that I just completed, but have recently realized that I do not want to work in the biology field due to the limited opportunities.
I've been looking into accounting, with my university offering a post graduate diploma that would cover the PREP courses needed for entry into the CPA PEP program. However, this post grad diploma wouldn't have a co-op option, which worries me a bit because I see that a lot of the time co-op students get offered a full time position at accounting firms.
My question is, do you think I should enroll in the post grad diploma, or should I instead enrol in a second bachelors in business in order to get co-op experience and have a better chance of finding an entry level position?
I have zero accounting experience currently. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
submitted by Key_Emergency7507 to Accounting [link] [comments]


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submitted by Brilliant_Maddy to Statisticshelpers_ [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 00:11 Baby_Yoda1000 Is there a way to see which programs went unmatched on the NRMP?

I believe it would be useful to see which residency programs had unmatched positions. I read that this information is available with an NRMP account. As an M3 student heading into M4, I don't have access to an NRMP account yet. Is there another way I could obtain this information?
submitted by Baby_Yoda1000 to medicalschool [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 00:06 micheal_pippen “Incognito Market” Owner Arrested for Operating One of the Largest Illegal Narcotics Marketplaces on the Internet

“Incognito Market” Owner Arrested for Operating One of the Largest Illegal Narcotics Marketplaces on the Internet
This mothefucka is cooked. Incognito was one of the big boys on the darkweb. I never really used it much but had an account for awhile. If you were selling or buying from them we recommend you clean up your traces.
Rui-Siang Lin Used the Identity of “Pharoah” to Operate Incognito Market, Which Sold More Than $100M of Illegal Narcotics to Customers Around the World
Rui-Siang Lin, also known as Ruisiang Lin, 林睿庠, Pharoah, and faro, 23, of Taiwan, was arrested today in connection with his operation and ownership of “Incognito Market,” an online dark web narcotics marketplace that enabled its users to buy and sell illegal narcotics anonymously around the world. Lin was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport on May 18, and will be presented in Manhattan federal court before U.S. Magistrate Judge Willis later today.
“Drug traffickers who think they can operate outside the law on the dark web are wrong,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “As alleged, Rui-Siang Lin was the architect of Incognito, a $100 million dark web scheme to traffic deadly drugs to the United States and around the world. The long arm of the law extends to the dark web, and we will bring to justice those who try to hide their crimes there.”
As alleged in the complaint and the indictment, Incognito Market was an online narcotics bazaar that existed on the dark web. Incognito Market formed in October 2020. Since that time, and through its closing in March, Incognito Market sold more than $100 million of narcotics — including hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamines. Incognito Market was available globally to anyone with internet access and could be accessed using the Tor web browser on the “dark web” or “darknet.” Lin operated the Incognito market under the online pseudonym “Pharoah” or “faro.” As “Pharoah” — the leader of Incognito market — Lin supervised all of its operations, including its employees, vendors, and customers, and had ultimate decision-making authority over every aspect of the multimillion-dollar operation.
“As alleged, Rui-Siang Lin operated a sophisticated and dangerous online narcotics marketplace through which he profited millions of dollars at the community’s expense,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “The dedicated prosecutors from the Southern District of New York and our law enforcement partners will pursue criminal actors regardless of whether they operate on street corners or in the dark corners of the internet. The so-called ‘dark web’ is not a safe haven for those who seek to break the law.”
“For nearly four years, Rui-Siang Lin allegedly operated ‘Incognito Market,’ one of the largest online platforms for narcotics sales, conducting $100 million in illicit narcotics transactions and reaped millions of dollars in personal profits,” said Assistant Director in Charge James Smith of the FBI New York Field Office. “Under the promise of anonymity, Lin’s alleged operation offered the purchase of lethal drugs and fraudulent prescription medication on a global scale. The FBI is committed to targeting and dismantling all criminal enterprises, especially those whose leaders distribute illegal substances on the dark web.”
“As alleged, Rui-Siang Lin’s brazen operation resulted in the illicit sale of over $100 million in narcotics, including those that were mislabeled and later found to include deadly fentanyl,” said Special Agent in Charge Ivan J. Arvelo of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New York. “The defendant’s greed and disregard for others was further demonstrated by his alleged extortion attempt during the platform’s final days. The El Dorado Task Force’s Darkweb and Cryptocurrency Task Force leverages cutting-edge techniques to target even the Internet’s most savvy criminals. HSI New York, in coordination with law enforcement partners, remains resolute in its commitment to protecting the public from individuals utilizing dangerous means to make a profit.”
“The arrest of ‘Incognito Market’ owner Rui-Siang Lin is a result of the continued working relationship the DEA has with our law enforcement partners in targeting individuals who use the dark web as a marketplace to promote the sale of illicit narcotics,” said Special Agent in Charge Frank A. Tarentino III of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)’s New York Division. “Mr. Lin’s alleged actions of putting profits before public health were not only reckless and dangerous, but unconscionable. We will continue to make sure those who hide behind a keyboard and use the dark web to profit off lives face justice.”
“The FDA is committed to continuing its work to disrupt and dismantle the illegal sales of drugs on the dark web, where such sales far too often have tragic consequences,” said Special Agent in Charge Charles Grinstead of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI) Kansas City Field Office. “We will continue to monitor, investigate, and bring to justice those who misuse the internet in a quest for profits with reckless disregard for the risk to public health and safety.”
“This arrest underscores the dedicated, ongoing efforts of law enforcement to identify and dismantle illicit drug networks operating from every shadowy recess of the marketplace,” said Commissioner Edward A. Caban of the New York Police Department (NYPD). “I commend our NYPD investigators and all of our state and federal partners for their unwavering commitment to public safety.”
Incognito Market was designed to foster seamless narcotics transactions across the internet and across the world and incorporated many features of legitimate e-commerce sites such as branding, advertising, and customer service. Upon visiting the site, users were met by a splash page and graphic interface, which is picture below:
https://preview.redd.it/8drkg58tqu1d1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0cbec6731907f37812f45ca0ec4122445b5d995
After logging in with a unique username and password, users were able to search thousands of listings for narcotics of their choice. Incognito Market sold illegal narcotics and misbranded prescription medication, including, heroin, cocaine, LSD, MDMA, oxycodone, methamphetamines, ketamine, and alprazolam. An example of listings on Incognito market is below:

https://preview.redd.it/5c549kg1ru1d1.png?width=624&format=png&auto=webp&s=0292200ad4851e20832997586f1c270c842ae0c8
Listings included offerings of prescription medication that was advertised as being authentic but was not. For example, in November 2023, an undercover law enforcement agent received several tablets that purported to be oxycodone, which were purchased on Incognito Market. Testing on those tablets revealed that they were not authentic oxycodone at all and were, in fact, fentanyl pills.
Each listing on Incognito Market was sold by a particular vendor. To become an Incognito Market vendor, each vendor was required to register with the site and pay an admission fee. In exchange for listing and selling narcotics as a vendor on Incognito Market, each vendor paid 5% of the purchase price of every narcotic sold to Incognito Market. That revenue funded Incognito Market’s operations, including paying “employee” salaries and for computer servers. Lin collected millions of dollars of profits from Incognito. To facilitate these financial transactions, Incognito Market had its own “bank,” which allowed its users to deposit cryptocurrency on the site into their own “bank accounts.” After a narcotics transaction was completed, cryptocurrency from the buyer’s “bank account” was transferred to the seller’s “bank account,” less the 5% fee that Incognito collected. The bank enabled buyers and sellers to stay anonymous from each other. The bank’s graphic interface is picture below:

https://preview.redd.it/5geh77heru1d1.png?width=398&format=png&auto=webp&s=454cbec17a02083f40d7186882bfc215b81ff63f
If convicted, Lin faces a mandatory minimum penalty of life in prison for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise; a maximum penalty of life in prison for narcotics conspiracy; a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for money laundering; and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiracy to sell adulterated and misbranded medication. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
The FBI, HSI, DEA, FDA-OCI, and NYPD investigated the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ryan B. Finkel and Nicholas Chiuchiolo for the Southern District of New York are prosecuting the case.
This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-drive, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at www.justice.gov/OCDETF.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
submitted by micheal_pippen to Learn_How_To_Scam_Now [link] [comments]


2024.05.22 00:04 BenzCR huge credit card debt due to Young Living

I’m currently in deep cc debt sh*t due to my YL business. We live in a place where not everyone uses credit cards. So, I have let my downlines use my cc for their enrollment kits, Essential Rewards and enrollment of their own team members.
In the beginning, I was able account for everyone’s IOU to me, until I met a potential builder that I felt will be my ticket to reach Royal Crown. Her family’s is relatively well off because she’s a SAHM she doesn’t have a big cc limit. So I let her use my cc liberally. Trusting that she will pay me religously.
In the beginning, it all went well because she had great contacts because of her husband’s business. I was able to qualify for incentives trips because of all the people she’s been recruiting under her.
Eventually, the payments for my cc stopped coming. Then, I heard she and her family have moved out of the country.
I’m now left with this huge cc debt that I’m trying to make ends meet. I’m a professional accountant but I’m now selling shitty skincare via LIVE Facebook and TikTok channels so I can get extra income apart from my trickling YL commissions. **face palm* what happened to me?
My upline is no help, she let me go into this rabbit hole without any advice to take it slowly. She’s a lawyer but so greedy. She will edify you to heavens and but when it comes to situations like this— she goes incognito. She encouraged me to support this builder because of her potential but now doesn’t have any sound advice of my predicament. Manipulative and gaslighting at its finest.
I’m glad for this channel where I can vent out and hopefully others learn from me.
submitted by BenzCR to antiMLM [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 23:58 Jim-Panzy Quick question about stolen, then sold items.

So, this has been eating away at the last few remaining braincells I have left for months, (the good news is that I should be a vegetable by noon tomorrow. yay!) ever since my account was “hacked”… I use quotes because I really don’t think they had to do much to get in. 2 point verification must mean that steam gives you 2 “rad points” for signing up, allowing them to treat your account like a house that has a “free candy” bucket on halloween… because it sure as sugar doesn’t stop theives!
Let me get to the freakin point before I start ranting about something else unrelated!
What is the actual reasoning that steam gives for not reimbursing items that are stolen/traded/sold? **To be double clear, I’m not asking what the BS con artist line they feed us is when it happens, I’m basically asking what legal loophole do they use, or how can they get away without reimbursement when
A. I actually have one account (out of who knows how many involved) who was in on the theft without a doubt! Because they showed up in my friends list right before it happened, and I literally don’t accept friends I don’t know in real life… there are 3 legit people there!!! (worst case scenario, the items are digital, so they can just copy/paste)
B. the account buying has at least a 50/50 chance of being in on the theft. How could they set up a sale for items they didn’t yet have, yet sell them all within a few minutes of getting into my account?
C. So to explain above, I happened to catch my theives in real time, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to as far as contacting someone - customer service doesn’t exist, nor is there any “emergency freeze” for your account should you notice anything happening (I spammed the shiz outta them with whatever button I could find that even resembled “help”, which I think stopped a lot more loss!)
So to sum it up, I’d say there’s an insane amount of negligence on their part, and I think for over 10 years I did about as good as one could to prevent anyone in, yet it happened! Has nobody ever called the better business bureau, or tried a class action with this? Because it’s mind blowing that these con artists are #1 with how little thought they put behind 90% of their actions, and never address the most important things like security, but will sink lord knows how much money into …a store facelift?!?! Are you pulling my wang-jobber?!
I’m getting just as enraged now as when it happened, someone has to have a worse story than this, but I don’t know if I should hear about it?
Help Dear Abby!!!
submitted by Jim-Panzy to SteamScams [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 23:54 hsibz I'm pretty sure my grandmother is being catfished

My grandmother was showing me some stuff about Matt Rife and it was on Telegram. She was showing me how the person she was texting said that they were deeply in love with her despite the age gap. (My grandmother is 66 iirc and Matt Rife is 28.) This person was really into getting to meet my grandmother. Like 3 accounts on Facebook sent her a friend request. Does anyone know what's going on? I'm pretty sure this is a scam.
submitted by hsibz to MattRifeGossip [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 23:52 Then_Marionberry_259 MAY 21, 2024 WCU.V WORLD COPPER PROVIDES CORPORATE UPDATE

MAY 21, 2024 WCU.V WORLD COPPER PROVIDES CORPORATE UPDATE
https://preview.redd.it/91jp4nzfpu1d1.png?width=3500&format=png&auto=webp&s=f522daba037da1ca5b6878afe946ddaa26ae1817
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 21, 2024) - World Copper Ltd. (TSXV: WCU) (OTCQB: WCUFF) (FSE: 7LY0) ("World Copper" or the "Company") is pleased to provide a general corporate update regarding the Company's assets and direction.
Zonia Project Update
Going forward the Company will be focusing its efforts on the Zonia Project ("Zonia") as our flagship asset, with the aim of working to advance Zonia to a bankable feasibility study and then proceeding into construction and production.
Given the current global copper supply deficit, management's belief is that the short-term solution to the copper supply crisis will come from smaller more efficient copper operations, which are cheaper to build and have less environmental impacts. Recent events in the sector have shown that major mining companies are hesitating to take on very large-scale, high capital intensity projects by looking for partners to share the risk and costs, or by targeting smaller assets and innovative or conventional leaching technologies.
Zonia fits into these new copper market dynamics perfectly offering a viable smaller scale and lower cost operation that can be permitted and constructed in half the time required on average to develop new larger concentrate mines. Being a past producer, Zonia's mineralization is pre-stripped resulting in a 1:1 strip ratio for our new operations, and it has power and water on site.
We recently announced the formation of a Technical Advisory Committee that will play a lead role in the proposed development and construction of the Zonia mining operation. Derek White and Joe Philips have joined us as advisors at World Copper. Derek is an industry leader in the copper sector having developed and built several copper mines. As the former CEO of KGHM International he built the Sierra Gorda mine in Chile and the Carlota mine in Arizona. Most recently he completed construction of the Premier Gold mine in BC. He is a consummate mine builder. Derek will guide the World Copper team in taking Zonia down the path to production. Joe Philips brings a wealth of mine building experience having lead construction on 14 mining operations in 11 different counties. His upgrading and expansion of the SX-EW plant for Tres Valles in Chile will be of particular importance to our Zonia development process.
Our seasoned team are looking to put the asset into production within 3 to 5 years and at a quarter of the costs of conventional concentrate operations. Zonia is uniquely positioned with a strategic location in Arizona allowing it to supply the domestic US refined copper market, which is currently in dire need for US-manufactured cathodes, Zonia has the potential to become a net-zero facility benefiting from low energy consumption, favorable energy mix and emission compensation returns.
World Copper has adopted a two-phase plan to move the Zonia project down the production track. Phase one would target only the portion of the project located on private land. Phase two will target copper mineralization located on non-private land so that it could be permitted for future inclusion into the anticipated mine plan. To satisfy the parameters of a bankable feasibility study Phase one will move to convert a major portion of the inferred resources in from the PEA to indicated resources. This will most likely entail an infill drilling campaign. Other Phase one programs will include environmental studies, land and water use permits, metallurgical studies, mine planning, engineering, financing modelling and construction planning.
Phase two programs will comprise primarily of permitting the BLM land (non-private) that surrounds the Zonia private land, environmental studies, and some exploration drilling. Our BLM lands are 3 times the size of our private land package and have the potential to increase our copper resource exponentially. These phase two programs will be initiated in parallel with the phase one activity as the timeline to receiving exploration and mining permits for these areas are longer.
Zonia's historical preliminary economic assessment (PEA) in 2018 concluded that the economics of the project are excellent and gives World Copper the assurance to advance the project through feasibility. The historical PEA outlines an open-pit, copper-oxide heap leach project with a 9-year mine life and favourable economics. The base case uses a $2.00/lb designed pit shell with a grade cutoff of 0.17% total copper. The PEA was prepared by Global Resource Engineering Ltd. ("GRE") of Denver, Colorado, in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) NI 43-101. GRE reported on the scoping-level capital and operating costs, and project economics associated with the potential development of the Zonia copper oxide project. The full report entitled "Preliminary Economic Assessment, NI 43-101 Technical Report Zonia Copper Project Yavapai County, Arizona, USA" with an Effective Date of March 22, 2018, and an Issue Date of April 17, 2018, is available on SEDAR+ or can be downloaded using this link.
The preliminary economic assessment is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves; there is no certainty that the preliminary economic assessment will be realized.
The updated mineral resource estimate for Zonia (see news release dated February 23, 2023), includes 75.7 million short tons grading 0.30% total-copper (Indicated Resources) containing 450.5 million pounds of copper and 122.0 million short tons grading 0.24% total-copper (Inferred Resources) containing 575.4 million pounds of copper, which is a significant expansion of the historical resource estimate.
Further information on Zonia's updated resource estimated can be found in the technical report entitled "National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report: Updated Mineral Resource Estimate for the Zonia Copper Project Yavapai County, Arizona USA" dated December 20, 2022 and dated effective September 1, 2022. Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. Inferred Mineral Resources are that part of the Mineral Resource for which quantity and grade, or quality, are estimated based on limited geologic evidence and sampling, which is sufficient to imply but not verify grade or quality continuity. Inferred Mineral Resources may not be converted to Mineral Reserves. It is reasonably expected, though not guaranteed, that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with continued exploration.
The Company is also currently reviewing additional assets in the United States. The United States has declared copper a critical metal, and it is a consistently mining friendly jurisdiction. 4 US states were listed in the top 10 most attractive jurisdictions globally by Fraser Institute (that included Arizona with rank #7). Both the Department of Energy and the Department of defence have created funding programs for copper and other critical metals. By shifting focus to US copper markets World Copper will have a new captive and supportive potential pool of interest.
Escalones Project Update
Escalones remains the largest undeveloped copper oxide deposit in Chile and is one of the most desirable copper projects in the sector. Further drilling at Escalones is needed in order to advance the project, and this drilling will also assist in de-risking Escalones. The Company is currently in discussions with the Chilean authorities for drilling permits and to better understand the next steps in formalizing the directives under the new sanctuary of nature established by presidential decree (see news release dated January 23, 2024).
Loan Extension
The Company has also, subject to TSX Venture Exchange ("TSXV") acceptance, entered into a loan extension agreement (the "Extension Agreement") made as of May 18, 2024 with E.L. II Properties Trust (the "Lender") for loans assumed by World Copper in connection with the merger with Cardero Resource Corp. by plan of arrangement in January 2022 in the aggregate amount of CAD $1,958,019.88 (based on a CAD - USD exchange rate of 1.3570 as of February 29, 2024) (the "Loans"). Pursuant to the Extension Agreement, the Loans will bear interest at a rate of 8% per annum compounded quarterly, and the due dates for the Loans will be extended by two years.
The Company has agreed to issue the Lender in aggregate 6,419,737 non-transferable bonus common share purchase warrants (each, a "Bonus Warrant"), each exercisable to purchase one common share of the Company at an exercise price of CAD $0.305 per share for a period of two years, subject to acceptance by the TSXV. All securities issued pursuant to the Loans will be subject to a hold period of four months and one day in Canada from the date of issuance.
As the Lender is a trust owned and controlled by Robert Kopple, who is a director of the Company, the transaction constitutes a related party transaction pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61 101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). The Company is relying on Sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101 for an exemption from the formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements, respectively, of MI 61-101, as, at the time the Extension Agreement was entered into by the Company with the Lender, neither the fair market value of the subject matter of, nor the fair market value of the transaction exceeded 25% of the Company's market capitalization.
Strategic Marketing Agreement
The Company also announces that, subject to TSX Venture Exchange acceptance, it has entered into an consulting agreement with Upcountry Strategy Ltd. ("Upcountry") of Cobble Hill, BC, whereby Upcountry will provide advice to the Company's board of directors and senior management on public company administration, the development and implementation of a marketing strategy for the Company and the review of potential strategic opportunities. The term of the agreement with Upcountry is for six months, effective May 2, 2024, and may be terminated at any time, by either party, with 30 days written notice. Upcountry will receive a consulting fee of USD$600,000 to be paid over 90 days. As of the date hereof, to the Company's knowledge, Upcountry (including its directors and officers) does not own any securities of the Company and has an arm's length relationship with the Company.
Qualified Person
John Drobe, P.Geo., a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this news release and has approved the disclosure herein. Mr. Drobe is not independent of the Company as he is the Chief Geologist of the Company.
ABOUT WORLD COPPER LTD.
World Copper Ltd., headquartered in Vancouver, BC, is a Canadian resource company focused on the exploration and development of its copper porphyry projects: Zonia in Arizona and Escalones in Chile. Both projects have estimated resources with significant soluble copper mineralization, and they boast exciting potential to expand the resource base. The company is dedicated to sustainable practices and leveraging technology to develop safe and productive mining operations in stable, mining-friendly jurisdictions.
Detailed information is available at World Copper's website at www.worldcopperltd.com, and for general Company updates you may follow us on our social media pages via Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors of
WORLD COPPER LTD.
"Gordon Neal"
Gordon Neal President & Chief Executive Officer
For further information, or to schedule a Zoom meeting with Management, please contact: Gordon Neal or Michael Pound Phone: 604-638-3665 E-mail: [info@worldcopperltd.com](mailto:info@worldcopperltd.com)
For all Public Relations inquiries, please contact: Nancy Thompson Vorticom, Inc. Office: 212-532-2208 Mobile: 917-371-4053
Follow us:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldCopperLtd Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorldCopperLtd LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/worldcopperltd
Neither TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and U.S. securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein including, without limitation, the results of the PEA, the ability of the Company to advance Zonia into production, the potential production from and viability of Escalones and Zonia, the potential tonnage, grades and content of deposits, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves and the anticipated business plans and timing of future activities of the Company are forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: "believes", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "estimates", "plans", "may", "should", "would", "will", "potential", "scheduled" or variations of such words and phrases and similar expressions, which, by their nature, refer to future events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. In making the forward-looking statements in this news release, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including without limitation, that the Company will receive all necessary approvals required to develop Escalones as outlined in the PEA, that the assumptions in the PEA are reasonably accurate, that market fundamentals will result in sustained copper demand and prices, the receipt of any necessary permits, licenses and regulatory approvals in connection with the future development of the Company's projects in a timely manner, the availability of financing on suitable terms for the development, construction and continued operation of the Company's projects and its ability to comply with environmental, health and safety laws.
Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, requirements for additional capital, actual results of exploration activities, including on the Escalones Project and Zonia, the reasonability of the economic assumptions at the basis of the results of the PEA for Zonia, the estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, future prices of copper, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, lack of investor interest in future financings, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays in obtaining governmental approvals (including TSXV acceptance), permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, risks relating to epidemics or pandemics such as COVID-19, including the impact of COVID-19 on the Company's business, financial condition and results of operations, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, title disputes, the timing and possible outcome of any pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, as well as the risk factors described in the Company's annual and quarterly management's discussion and analysis and in other filings made by the Company with Canadian securities regulatory authorities under the Company's profile at www.sedarplus.ca.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements in this news release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise required by law.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/209980

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2024.05.21 23:50 speedierone [SOUSN] South Sun Industries - Sov Null - US/EU TZ

SOUSN is seeking players with a sense of humour, crazy stories, and a mutually-shared hatred for Blood Raiders. We’ve been evolving successfully for the past 2 years, and we need more fresh blood to bring us to the next stage of our development.
If you’re new to null, we have a good degree of experienced pilots and a wealth of custom-made guides to give you a leg-up in your first couple of weeks. Our team is willing to help you achieve whatever goals you seek!
We are looking for:
★ Well-rounded, comms-active pilots with an interest in Industry, PvP and PvE
★ Self-starters with whacky ideas and a sense of adventure
★ Friends who simply want to talk nonsense and chill with a crazy bunch of dudes
Our perks:
★ Regular corp-focused content, industry projects & mining fleets
★ Corp-owned industry stations
★ Corp-exclusive mining ship delivery service
★ Corp-exclusive inter-regional hauling service
★ A dedicated mentor program for new members
★ Plenty of PvP opportunities (including SRP)
★ Full access to some of the best player-owned markets in the game
★ Monthly competitions and free starter packs for newbros
★ Thriving community that extends into the real world
★ A friendly, organised and no-drama group that puts player needs first
Our requirements:
★ A working mic
★ Full ESI registration
★ Discord (corp comms) & Mumble(alliance)
★ Omega account
★ Minimum of 5m SP and 3 months of in-game history
We operate in the EU & US time-zones, and are particularly looking to grow our US & AUTZ population.
Any potential applicants should start by completing a short questionnaire via a ticket on our Discord, following which a member of the leadership team will start a chat with you. Please allow up to 24 hours for a response (though we do try to respond immediately).
submitted by speedierone to evejobs [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 23:45 SpecialSuggestion28 Taylor Swift Tickets Facebook scam

I've been scammed on facebook while looking for taylor swift tickets for Dublin... feel very stupid. This woman Amy Joyce promised legitimate selling and refund if the sale didn't go though. I was very sceptical throughout and she sent me a picture of her Denver Drivers licence, I took a risk. She initially said to send 400e to someone called "Thomas" via Paypal - friends & family (I never use PayPal and I didn't realise the problem with this...) then another 200e as the tickets couldn't be split up, so 600e for 4... then said she wanted another 350e for service charge. I refused then and she got angry. I demanded my money back - 600e and someone else, her "friend - Miley Leaks" sent me over 800e back. I said this was incorrect and wanted to send the extra 250e back to her. She gave me a different account to send the extra money back to. I thought that was it but now I've gotten a request from "Miley Leaks" for the 800e to be sent back to her for the tickets she didn't receive, lodged a complaint with PayPal about me.... It seems like Amy is using different PayPal accounts to con people into sending money and refunding money. I'm stuck now and no idea what to do. I've some screenshots and brought the situation to PayPal and facebook but it's so stressful and I'm so annoyed at myself!
Any idea how I can help myself in this situation? I'm afraid I've been hacked now too!
submitted by SpecialSuggestion28 to Scams [link] [comments]


2024.05.21 23:44 ArminLeeFreecss JMike is not Flavio

JMike is not Flavio
JMike made a post on Facebook stating he is not Flavio and also provided proof. Flavio stated that JMike would be his spokesman but JMike denies this. Translation:
Hello everyone, I introduce myself to you all as JMike_324 (I can provide evidence if you wish) and I really feel that I need to speak up about this. I want to make it clear that I EXIST, I am not Flavio, you can check my profile, I am NO ONE’S SPOKESMAN and I haven’t had any contact with Flavio in many days. I suggest not to believe everything he says, his statements fall into absurd contradictions and if you’re really curious, don’t make up any theories, ask me directly and it will be my pleasure to clear it up for you. I really don’t want my name to be involved in this because of internal disputes between Flavio and Jesús. My only goal was to help the Lost Wave community to find the song and it’s done. I admit that I was, effectively, a victim of the ignorance and that I didn’t reach out to the original composers first to upload the demo (I thought that Flavio was the composer but he wasn’t). I hope to have cleared your doubts with this and I repeat, I will gladly answer to any inquiries you may have.
Flavio’s comment (I’m not sure who he is answering to): You’re literally the most clever person in this whole group, you’ve been the one who has been the most on point despite all the obstacles I put you all through. Don’t worry, I’ll reveal all the necessary information soon, I’ll just wait for the right time. Keep an eye out for JMike’s accounts, he will be my spokesman.
Flavio’s second comment (replying to Santa X Na, who I think is Diego): You know I support you and exclusively you, bro. I know you didn’t have a choice but to use Jesús’ ambition because of the distance you’re in at the moment, it’s just funny how he wants to take credit for a melody you created before the existance of Bad Influence and that I took charge to make it known at the time that he was no longer in tue band when he himself said that he disliked your voice lmao. JMike followed the livestream, just tell Jesús to stop telling lies about me or I will tell truths ahout him. The people of this group don’t know who they’re following yet. And I’ll accept the beers when you’re back, they’re on me haha.
submitted by ArminLeeFreecss to LaCancionDeAlicia [link] [comments]


http://rodzice.org/