Top 10 Best Money Making Apps (Android/iPhone) 2021
Top 10 Best Money Making Apps (Android/iPhone) 2021
10 Best Money Making Apps For Android in 2020
20 Best Android Apps That Pay You Money and Gift Cards
24 Best Money Making Apps for Android/iOS (2021)
8 Best Apps to Make Money with Your Android Phone
10 best money making apps for Android - Android Authority
what is the best android app to make money
what is the best android app to make money - win
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BB -- Blackberry AWS -- Amazon Web Services IVY -- Intelligent Vehicles Yo. I don't actually know if this stands for anything QNX -- Quick-Unix perhaps? It's a Unix-like embedded microkernel RTOS (real-time operating system) EOY -- end of year PT -- price target SP -- stock price EV -- electric vehicle SoC -- System on a Chip IoT -- Internet of Things TL;DR: Blackberry ($BB) is almost daily announcing new partnerships and new clients for their software, including new deals with companies that are just now or just this year launching autonomous vehicles that run on QNX software. The big kahuna of all these deals is BB's recent partnership with Amazon to go 50/50 into BB's software IVY, a scalable cloud-connected software platform designed for intelligent vehicle data gathering and data sharing. With Amazon's Jeff Bezos stepping down, and Andy Jassy filling his shoes, who was the CEO of AWS, BB will have some very firm support behind Amazon's new CEO. BB and Amazon are having a webinar Feb. 23rd about their partnership and IVY, which should be a strong catalyst moving forward. IVY beta earnings are projected to begin impacting BB's Q3 or Q4 earnings beginning in November this year, with IVY fully being integrated around the 2023 timeframe. Through a lot of reading and analysis, I believe BB has a four-tiered business model dating back as far as 2013 when BB's CEO John Chen was hired to begin the massive BB turnaround process. Tier 1 was development of QNX and IVY, lasting from 2013 to today and onward, however, Tier 2 overlaps Tier 1. Tier 2 was customer acquisition, primarily distributing their secure software in QNX, SecuSuite, Spark, and AtHoc. They secured 37 automakers during this time, including 9 of the top 10 automakers, over 106 governments from around the world, including all of G7 governments and 18 of G20 governments, as well as 77% of Fortune 100 companies, including partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu, IBM, LG, Samsung, and others. Well if they have such an incredible market share, why are they so undervalued? The answer is that QNX was not the end-all-be-all product. It was the base that the rest would be built on. Particularly IVY, which is the real money-maker. Tier 3 is IVY beta, and Tier 4 is IVY distribution and subscription revenue streams. So why is IVY the big deal and not QNX? They are both big deals, but QNX was never designed to be the money-maker. They are charging a one-time fee per vehicle use. There is a bigger goal here, to secure their clients as their customers for the bigger product in IVY. They also need QNX is to be a secure system in order for IVY to be trustworthy and reliable. And it certainly is secure. QNX has ISO26262 certification, as well as US government clearance, NSA clearance, and CIA clearance. The US government uses QNX and Blackberry products. Just let that sink in. That should tell you something about its security. Anyways, IVY will be used in autonomous vehicle level 4 and level 5 communication (note that QNX is level 5 certified... it has a business moat just in its security level and clearance), as well as EV and gas vehicle data collecting and AI-powered data synthesis. See below for more details on IVY. Wrapping up this TL;DR, BB is going to do well this year as IVY unfolds, but will do even better in the next 2-5 years. I have a PT of 25 by EOY and a PT of 80 by 2023 EOY, and a PT of 160+ by 2025 EOY TL;DR: TL;DR: BB go up, but go slow for now because IVY revenue not here yet, but big fast later. Make big monies, BB is the future tech that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc will be building upon in the EV and IoT market
FAQs:
1) Why is Blackberry stock price going down? A: A few possible reasons. One, as of today the whole market is down. BB is connected to overall market swings as most companies are. Two, there may be some market manipulation by bearish financial institutions as there are a lot of calls expiring on 2/19. I would expect that BB SP to be volatile between $11 and $14 between now and then, and to move upwards after 2/19 and especially after 2/23 (Amazon + BB webinar). Three, there are bearish investors who still think BB is a phone company and don't understand the underworkings of BB's business strategy, their software, their patents, or their partners. Their revenue has been affected by coronavirus and has not been particularly phenomenal so far this year. 2) Should I invest now or later? A: First off, I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions. Invest at your own risk. In my opinion, BB will see a large SP growth by EOY, anywhere from 50% to 150% growth by EOY. While revenue will likely not increase much this year, the partnership with Amazon and news regarding IVY will likely create new floors for their SP much higher than the current SP right now, at around the $12 SP 3) What's stopping competitors from building a similar product and hurting BB's business? A: There's a lot of reasons why BB has a huge moat right now. One, notice the partners that BB has with QNX. They've got all the big boys working them, aside from Apple and Tesla. Seeing as SpaceX runs on QNX, and seeing that Apple was trying to make a deal with Hyundai that did not go through, I think it is still possible that either Tesla or Apple or both companies could also make a deal with BB to use QNX as their OS system. BB worked to develop their QNX embedded microkernel OS for the last eight years or so. Anyone trying to step into the game now is far too late. Apple has the best chance of all companies, as it has its own OS and Apple knows security very well, but this still requires an entirely new system in order to work in the EV sector. Also, Apple announced recently that they would be developing their own EV, although they did not give much details beyond that statement. The likelihood that they are both working on the hardware and software side of this thing is slim given the large number of difficulties that come with certification as it relates to the cybersecurity software space. Regardless, I would suspect that either Apple or Tesla is the most likely to be competitors in this space, but neither company has successfully completed a certified OS system, particularly for the emerging sector of autonomous EVs. Tesla is currently building a Linux-based system that is having a lot of difficulty in passing certifications such as ISO26262, a struggle that has been ongoing for years now. They may achieve a product that passes these safety regulations and certifications, but the question remains whether this will be in time as the EV and autonomous market picks up speed, and whether competing companies would even be interested in using their product. In fact, any car company is unlikely to develop their own OS software because none of their competitors would be likely to use it. BB is the perfect business to license since it is not competing in the hardware sector for the EV market. This argument can also be used for Apple if they are also building an EV. 4) Why is BB's revenue so low if they have so many customers and partners? A: QNX has been licensed so far as a one-time purchase, per vehicle or IoT using their software. IVY will be a subscription-based software that also includes a one-time purchase. Thus, BB's revenue streams are somewhat unimpressive currently, but they are playing the long game. If my hypothesis is correct, it is John Chen's goal to lay low as software is developed and customer relationships are built. It's the same with the book market. It's the sequel that makes all the money, not the first book. QNX is just the first book of a series looking to hook in its customers with low costs before hitting 'em with the strong follow up in IVY. Additionally, in order to build a competitive business moat, it was to their advantage to not forewarn any competitors of their involvement and plans. Consider John Chen's work as a CEO in his last business Sybase. Chen worked as the CEO of Sybase for 10 years. For the first 7 years, the SP remained at around $10 a share. Three years later, the SP was at $100 a share. I suspect he is implementing a similar model with Blackberry. Chen joined Blackberry in 2013. BB stock actually dropped for most of the last 7 years, resting at a stock price of around $5. Now BB is at $12 a share. I would not be surprised if BB reaches $50 two years from now.
Blackberry Clients and Partners Automakers: Honda, Audi, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Bentley, Lamboghini, Byton, Mini (cooper), Toyota, Subaru, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Nio, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Kia, Land-Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Jaguar, Visteon, Skoda, Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Continental, General Motors, Baidu, Motional Other: Denso, Aptiv, Bosch, Panasonic, Harman, Bugatti, LG, Vodafone, Bell, Carahsoft, CACI, Telus, iSec, KPMG, Tableau, Qlik Major: Amazon, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, Li Auto, NVIDIA, Canoo, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, IBM, LG, Samsung Major Investors: PRIMECAP, Hamblin Watsa, Ontario Teachers’ Pension, Vanguard, Harris Associates, ETF Managers Group, Wells Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, Kahn Brothers Advisors, Norges Bank Investment Governments: Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marthinique, Mauritania, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, USA, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Blackberry Current Revenues:
BlackBerry Revenues: How Does BlackBerry Make Money? -- Trefis This display the biggest bearish argument to BB. Until IVY begins producing new revenue streams, BB is likely to not exponentially increase revenue streams, but only sustain moderate YoY growth
Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:
see "Blackberry (BB) Stock News Analysis | What I need to say..." by Financial Live by LEYA on the forbidden video website The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal
Image This is an interesting one to be sure. Facebook was being evil, like the do, and were caught using a number of BB patents. They settled in February, and the day that the settlement was finalized, John Chen (BB CEO) tweeted reminding everyone that BB is used on the ISS https://twitter.com/JohnChen/status/1358853064153784321?s=20 Well, the connection and speculation here is that Blackberry is going to the moon, and that the settlement is rather significant. Someone else also dug out some information in Facebook's most recent 10-K, specifically a portion for a 'non-cancelable contractual commitment' of an amount of $7500 million dollars. That's 7.5 billion btw. We don't know how big the settlement is, but it is worth noting that BB's entire market cap is 7.5B. I highly doubt that a settlement would reach such lofty numbers, but it could be possible that FB settled for some initial amount of $1B or so, as well as $1B in reoccurring payments over several years. We won't know until March 15th actually, so stay tuned.
Blackberry New Partnerships
Within the last few weeks, Blackberry has announced a stronger partnership with Baidu (China's Google), as well as their involvement with Baidu choosing to use QNX for their autonomous vehicles that will be hitting the road, as early as this year and next. BB has also announced their involvement with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which will use QNX for their autonomous vehicles. Motional will be partnering with Lyft to use autonomous vehicles to begin serving customers and will be deploying their vehicles in 2023. It was also announced that QNX will be working with AOSP (Android Open Source Project), as well as announcing yesterday that QNX Hypervisor 2.2 is now released, which is what allows Android and Linux to run on top of QNX. A sum-up of all the recent news on $BB
Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:
Just read this post. It's quite revealing: Great Day for BB despite stick dipping. TL;DR: Amazon could have easily bought BB. Why didn't they? Well, all the big players are interested in this EV and IoT emerging sector. This is the new wave of technology that will dominate the market. First we had the dot.com boom, then the cell-phone and smart-phone market, and now we have the autonomous EV and IoT market. If Amazon were to buy BB, they would have to submit a tender offer. This would be a red flag to all the big players that Amazon were trying to buy up the best security out there. It would be a bidding war that could result in a double-digit multi-billion dollar buyout. It was much more to their advantage to create a secret alliance with BB and establish a 50/50 partnership, whose contract includes exclusivity for their use of IVY. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. This is where the importance of QNX lies. BB will be able to pull the rug out from any company that chooses to use something other than IVY. No IVY, no QNX, no EV. It will be a package deal where IVY is the big money maker. All other companies will have to build from the ground up or be forced to license QNX and make their money off of other sectors, such as the infotainment sector, as Google has already begun to do with the Ford deal. When this deal happened, the other big boys wet their pants realizing they needed to get into this space, and fast. Microsoft partnered with Cruise/GM. Apple tried to partner with Hyundai, who was so flattered, they may have initially said yes or indicated so, before realizing that they were already partnered with BB, so it was a no-go. Not sure if that is fact or fiction, but it is an interesting proposal.
Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:
Alright, so what's the deal with IVY? Why is it going to be so profitable? Why is IVY the real money-maker, while QNX has been used as the customer-acquisition software tool? Check out this picture: Image For one, IVY is designed for real-time communication between EVs or other IoTs. Autonomous driving level 5 requires vehicles to communicate with one another. This is where IVY comes in. IVY connects the different software components of an EV (which presumably are running on QNX), as well as harvesting data on those systems. The data used can be distributed for a wide-variety of uses, including, but not limited to, automakers and suppliers, app developers, consumer services, smart cities, EV charging providers, insurance companies, and vehicle maintenance providers. All of these different sectors will be willing to pay subscriptions for these data services, as well as the automakers and IoT makers who will also be willing to pay subscriptions for IVY. For instance, IVY can help share information between vehicles that will allow for a car detecting ice roads in one area so that other cars using IVY can take a different route. This results in less crashes, which helps the automakers. Insurance companies can use data from all these different data points as well, allowing them an inside-view of their clients. The list of what is possible here is inexhaustible. As for price points, the subscription models for multiple outside companies wanting to use the data will be create huge revenue streams for BB. With Amazon as a 50/50 partner, and with their resources and strategic management, BB will be poised to be the foundation in security and data sharing for the entire EV, and somewhat of the IoT market (the IoT market has more competitors for sure) see "Is BlackBerry Stock Undervalued?" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website see "Roadmap to $180 a share (BlackBerry Stock)" by Wealthy Mindset on the forbidden video website
Revenue, revenue, revenue...
Blackberry is poised to be an industry leader in EV, government, and IoT security and data sharing with products such as QNX, IVY, Spark, and their other software products. Stock price will likely stay somewhat stunted until IVY revenue begins picking up. It is possible that more announcements and marketing related to IVY will make this growth more rapid. In my opinion, either way BB over the next 5 years will 10x. The question is whether you want to get in now at $12 / share or two years from now at $40 a share or something similar, assuming that either way this stock is going to push for that 100B market cap (it's currently at 7B). There will be bearish analysts that will continue to say that Blackberry is a worthless company until those IVY revenue streams begin to come in. It is also possible that a realistic competitor may emerge within the next three years, such as Tesla or Apple. But if Apple is seeking to create its own EV product, then both companies will have a hard time finding any way to license their software to any other company. It remains possible that Apple and/or Tesla may strikes deals with BB as well in order to be able to produce autonomous vehicles and get a bite of that market share
Really, no competitors?
Well it's called a business moat for a reason. As we have recently seen, QNX is working with AOSP, and so clearly, they are not to be worried about. Tesla is not a true competitor as their OS product is not certified yet, and has demonstrated difficulty in doing so, and additionally, other automakers will not want to benefit their competitors by using their product. A third-party non-auto-maker will be much more desirable. Other companies such as VxWorks, have a lot of to prove both in security and certifications, as well as producing an OS product that is compatible with an emerging autonomous level 5 EV market. QNX's embedded microkernel RTOS is very much unique in this regard. This type of system allows for real-time processing and power distribution, while protecting the system from attacks. In an embedded microkernel system, if one part of the system is attacked, the whole system will not shut down, in layman's terms. This is essential for the security of any high-risk product that is built upon an underlying software that controls that different components of the system.
Conclusion:
All eyes are turned towards Blackberry right now. People want to know what this deal with Amazon will look like, how it will work, what they will focus on, (will Amazon also use this system for a fleet of delivery drones? hmmm), what the revenue streams will look like, what are their projections, what markets and sectors are they targeting, what are their future goals, what will Amazon be doing on their end, etc, etc. The Amazon + BB webinar may answer some of those questions, or maybe they won't. Time will tell (Feb. 23rd, specifically -- here's a link to sign up and watch: Next-Gen Vehicle Architectures Unlock Unprecedented Opportunities for Automakers). Also look out for that FB settlement numbers on March 15th, and Q4 earnings March 31st. I don't expect Q4 earnings to be particularly interesting unless they include the FB settlement numbers. Could those numbers instead be put into Q1 earnings for 2021? Possibly. Initially IVY beta is expected to begin being released late this year. I will also be looking forward to see how Apple and Tesla respond in the coming months. Ultimately, BB is a long-term play, but is poised to dominate this emerging industry with the partnerships and security focused software they have secretly been building. Now if only the could do something about their logo, some rebranding would be nice... This is not financial advice, just my own opinions. I am not a financial advisor nor a professional. I own 14k shares in Blackberry, as well as options (10x 8/17/21 20c BB). Do your own DD and fact check me as well
LPT: You should know that WhatsApp is changing their privacy policy so that they can harvest more of your personal data. They Will share your harvested personal data with Facebook and whoever they decide to. This change is in effect from February 2021. Signal pm and Telegram are good alternatives.
Their privacy policy change which will come into effect from February, if you don't accept their new policy, you will be prevented from using WhatsApp. The data they collect to share will include your private messages. They mention that the "sharing" is just between sender and receiver but then they reference this section again to cover themselves from a dispute. Why do you think that is?
You share your information (including messages) - We access, preserve, and share your information described in the "Information We Collect"” section of this Privacy Policy above if we have a good-faith belief that it is necessary - and may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’ (Speaking about what they share with Facebook and who they want. Your messages fall under "Information We Collect".) This particular part is also concerning about banner advertisements having a chance to one day suddenly pop up on the app. Facebook is notorious for ads. We still do not allow third-party banner ads on our Services. We have no intention to introduce them, but if we ever do, we will update this Privacy Policy. They are going to use your data to help them make money through you. -helping you complete purchases and transactions, and showing relevant offers and ads across the Facebook Company Products; (Facebook company products refers to things like Oculus Headsets and their other partners whom have their own Privacy Policies) They expect you, the consumer to review amendments to this policy change If for some reason they don't notify you, what about all the other times they made minor adjustments since the Facebook acquisition and did not notify you. They know this policy change has lots of critical changes hence why it pops up over WhatsApp when you opened it recently. We may amend or update our Privacy Policy. Please review our Privacy Policy from time to time. How to delete your WhatsApp account . This comes as a major inconvenience as backing up messages won't be easy and waiting for friends to shift will take awhile but what is the cost of Privacy I ask you.Theyclearly shouldn't be the ones setting that price. Ever since WhatsApp stopped requiring annual/monthly subscriptions, we should've been worried.
Signal Private Messenger is your best bet as an alternative to WhatsApp. Signal Private Messenger preserves if not enhances your privacy protection. They're also both free to my knowledge. Signal Private Messenger is maintained by donations. Signal Private Messenger's Frequently Asked Questions
Friday 1/29/21 GME Expiry Date Means Nothing. Don't buy into the hype - shorts aren't just afraid of this Friday. Come down the rabbit hole with me.
Note: I am mostly summarizing the aggregate of explanations currently floating around about the 1/29/21 option expiry date. I don't claim any knowledge. This is not investment advice. Do your own research, don't invest what you can't afford to lose, and if something feels wrong it probably is. TL;DR: This isn't about options (yet), it's about shares, and Institutional Investors are playing a dangerous game by convincing us (some of y'all have bought in without realizing it) that a magical short squeeze has some 3-day time limit, that Friday is somehow the end game, and are hoping that when investors don't see a $5,000 short squeeze by next week they will fold and take their gains at a "reasonable" double-digit stock price. Don't believe them. They can survive through mid-late February before the true short squeeze smashes upward. And I'll be ready. I like this stock and believe in it's long term potential, and I think it's undervalued. THESIS: If institutional investors can (1) convince retail investors to sell stock at low prices and (2) convince their lenders to wait, then the 0.01% get richer. JUSTIFICATION: There is so much public sentiment (passion, enthusiasm, excitement, anger, whatever) surrounding short (~1 day) price movements*, and Friday's expiring options (these are also end of month contracts), that it seems like big clever money may be trying to artificially create a sort of bear trap for shareholders. Whatever happens in the next week or so (crest to $700? crash to $60?) almost means nothing in the long term, but could fool investors into giving these guys CHEAP ways out of their 140% float short interest positions. Remember, these are people who have been dumping tons of money for a long time, shorting the stock when it was in the single digits. They've been hoping for a GameStop bankruptcy, and manufacturing one as best they can. IT'S DIFFERENT THIS TIME: Remember the VW infinite squeeze, where we saw weeks of crazy price movement before the actual peak. And that is a mild case, as most of the shares were held by an entity with legal, competitive, and strategic reasons and obligations forcing them to hold shares and artificially reducing the float, or available shares for trading. This reduced supply caused the short squeeze. However, this time around we've got a huge short interest, much much larger by comparison than that from VW's 2008 peak, to the tune of 140% of shares available for trading (float). They've massively overreached, and are going to pay the price for that. But they haven't yet. SO YOU'RE SAYING THERE'S A CHANCE: This time, however, if the big dogs can shake shareholders hard enough, weak links break and paper hands fold and a fantastic long term play starts to seem out of reach. The market manipulation wins. DARE TO BELIEVE: Unfortunately for the shorts, GME has real long term prospects to revolutionize the gaming industry for consumers, and now has the attention and potential equity momentum (if they play it smart, which I think the new leadership will) to make this a reality. From that link above:
In GME's case the rise in the stock price itself will likely result in fundamental improvements to the underlying economic metrics of the company.
I believe. However, if the shorts can fight, sneak, manipulate, and otherwise adjust the share price down this week then they start to see light at the end of the tunnel. They make 2-3 week plans for doing the same thing. For them, prices don't have to bottom back out, they just have to convince enough people to sell that they buy thrmselves a few weeks before a short squeeze really takes them all under. *Some of this price movement is shorts covering, but much is actual legitimate investment between retail investors and other institutional investors who have seen the light. Remember, TSLA didn't get to where it is because one company made some bad short positions. But if GME shorts can convince everyone that a 3-day squeeze is all they get until GME crashes to some "normal" level, then they win. Everyone getting hyped about Friday is playing into their hands. Yeah maybe some will need to take gains after a Friday pop, but a smart long-term hold position on GME is what they're really afraid of. And I want to be a shareholder in GME's future, as many wanted to be with TSLA. And sure, maybe if everyone else thinks that way too, there may be an incidental short squeeze that wrecks the uber wealthy in mid-late February along the way. Again, I am not claiming to be knowledgeable or insightful, just commenting my best guesses. Nobody knows the future. This is not investing advice. 🚀
My uncle left me a shifty little bar in his will. The employees here sleep in the backroom.
My uncle was an odd, lonely man. That one guy you try to avoid at family reunions, the one nobody knows too well but loves to talk about nonetheless. I think he liked me best because I never really enjoyed badmouthing him. I wouldn't say we were close, but we tolerated one another. At least that's how it was when I was little, we never bothered to stay in contact. I forgot about him by the time I left home. That's why the news of his death caught me completely by surprise. Uncle Mack was alone in his apartment when he had a heart attack causing cardiac arrest. He fell unconscious and died within minutes. Then there was me at the time. I had just flunked out of college and the only thing I was actually good at was playing video games. When I was contacted by Mack's lawyer, I was even more shocked. Mack had left me three things: a box of sorted letters addressed to me, all the money he used to own, which to me was a lot, and his bar–the one he had inherited from his father and had worked at all his life. I'll be frank, I had no idea what to do with the bar but I knew from the very start I'd take it over. I felt kind of honored–this had basically been Uncle Mack's entire life and he was giving it to me of all people. Sure, from what I knew there hadn't been many friends or loved ones in his life to choose from, but it was still flattering to me. Once I read the first letter, I was even more convinced. "Hi Giulia, If you're reading this, my bad eating habits have probably caught up to me. Or maybe someone killed me, who knows. As of me writing this, you're fifteen years old. You were the only one to talk to me at the family reunion today. Not for long, but more than just an awkward hello. I notice these things and I appreciate it. That's why I'm trusting you with the most important task anyone in this family is ever going to offer you. You are going to take over my bar. Besides, knowing you, you're not gonna have much of a career anyways, so you might as well. Once you're done reading this, please go to the bar at your earliest convenience. Take the box of letters with you and stash it away somewhere there. It has some valuable advice you're gonna need down the line. In fact, you will need to read the second letter right after your arrival. You'll find my employees are a bit special. Anyways, I hope you're doing alright, however this letter finds you. You're a good kid, Lia. Always have been. Besides, the only person you could possibly disappoint by screwing this up is dead so there's no pressure to impress. Sincerely, Your Uncle Mack." I wiped my eyes. They had actually gotten a bit watery while I was reading the letter. I folded the letter and tucked it back into the box before grabbing my coat and bag. Mack's bar was a train ride and a thirty-minute walk away from my parents' place, which is where I was residing at the moment. I figured I would probably have to look for a place close to the bar if I really would start working there full time. When I finally arrived at the establishment, it looked almost exactly the way I had expected. It was just another wall in the row of buildings on the street off to the side from the inner city's market square. A large, bright red double door with a neon sign reading "The New Saloon" above it. It would probably glow if I'd find out how to switch it on. At least I hoped it would glow. It felt weird, unlocking the door and opening it for the first time, all on my own. Entering and looking around inside felt even weirder. The New Saloon was your typical old-style dive bar. Even completely empty it looked overcrowded. The fabric of the cushion seats was stained and frayed, the walls behind and in front of the counter were plastered with neon beer signs and large framed photos of people I didn't know, some were even in black and white. The floors were dirty and my heels stuck to them when I walked further in. This place was small, shabby and smelly and I loved it. It was so strange but I suddenly just felt like this bar was mine, and that I needed to take care of it and protect it. Remembering what Mack had told me in his first letter, I pulled the second one out from the box and unfolded it. "Hi Giulia, If you're reading this, you're probably at the bar for the very first time! How do you like it? Let me guess, it's ugly and gross but it instantly started growing on you? Don't worry, it's about to get a lot weirder. You'll find the entrance to the backroom behind the counter. The lightswitch is on the inside of the wall, make sure to turn it on before you head inside because there's stairs leading down right behind the door. It's a death trap. Once you're in there, stand in the middle of the room. Stay away from the walls. You may then say out loud the following words: Spirits of this house, by the power of the spell that has bound you I command you to serve. You'll see what happens next. Whatever happens, keep in mind you can order them around. When all the work is done, simply tell them to go back into their room. You've got this. Sincerely, Your Uncle Mack." I frowned. That was odd. Was this the prelude to some kind of joke? I walked over to the door behind the counter and pressed down the handle. It swung open with a loud creaking noise and I began to grope around for the lightswitch. A single light bulb down in the backroom came flickering on and I proceeded down the rickety wooden stairs. No bannisters. Risky, especially with the shoes I was wearing. By the time I had reached the middle of the room, my heart was already beating faster than it should. Still, if this was a prank, Mack had been planning it for over five years, and I was not about to ruin it. Besides, no one was watching anyways. I cleared my throat. "Spirits of this house…" I began, a giggle swinging along in my voice. "By the power of the spell that has bound you I command you to serve." Nothing. Not a single sound for five whole seconds. I looked around the room. It was completely empty, except for a single door in the wall across from me. Maybe I had been supposed to say it in whatever room was behind that one? Just as I was about to walk over to it, a loud noise came from one of the walls to the side. I spun around to find that it had cracked open. Bits of it were beginning to crumble to the floor as the tear widened. I stared at it with my mouth agape, frozen in place and incapable of comprehending what I was seeing there. From the crack, a set of long, bony pale fingers reached out into the room, gripping the inside of the wall. My throat was too dry to produce a proper scream, but I couldn't contain a gasp as I staggered backwards until my back met with the other wall behind me. It was then that I felt cold palms rubbing against my neck and hands closing around my shoulders from behind. This time, I shrieked. I whirled around again only to see that there was a hole there too, long, skinny arms slowly moving forward from it, grabbing at me, searching for me. I glanced around the room frantically. Holes had opened in basically every spare spot. I counted four sets of arms pulling themselves out into the light, followed by similarly slender upper bodies. By the time I finally thought to run back up the stairs and save myself, the people from inside the walls were standing in the backroom, fully emerged from their dark hideouts. I didn't risk another look at them. When I finally reached the top stair, I dashed back into the bar and slammed the door shut behind me. I pressed myself up against it just to keep standing. My knees had grown weak beneath me and I was panting heavily, my mind racing. Then I heard them; slow, light footsteps making their way up the staircase and stop on top of it. I heard calm, steady breathing coming from the other side of the door. I tensed up and shifted my weight on my feet, leaning up against it to keep whomever was in there from getting out. I was sure this person would start to try pushing it open, but to my surprise, nothing happened. Instead, a voice rang out from inside. "Excuse me, who are you exactly?" It was a man's voice. I had expected something like a growl, or a hiss, or the groans of some decomposing zombie, but this was distinctly more articulate. It sounded almost polite. I didn't know what to do other than respond. "Giulia," I stammered. "Giulia?" The man sounded surprised. "What about Mack? Wait, if you're here…" He sounded quite sad now. "Mack's dead, isn't he?" "Yes," I replied quietly. "His heart stopped." "That's… good God." He fell silent and I heard him utter a shaky sigh, almost like a sob. "I'm sorry, would you give me a moment? I need to tell the others." "Go ahead," I murmured. "Nevermind, they heard us. So, will you let us out now or…?" "Who are you? Why were you in there?" "We work here, actually. My name is Andrik… I do most of the organizing here. I take care of the accounting, our profits, our spendings; I place the orders on most of what we need. Back here with me, I've got Bo, who is our bouncer, and Danika and May, both waitresses." "You work here?" I repeated. "And you live in the walls? After your shift is over, do you just go down there and melt into the room or what?" I couldn't help but let out a nervous chuckle at the mental image. This was just too absurd. At least I was breathing normally now. "Pretty much, yes." I shook my head. "What are you?" "Well, to explain that you would have to go exactly a hundred and twenty-two years back so it's a long story," Andrik replied. "All you need to know for now is that if you let us out, we'll get the bar up and running right away. We've been working under Mack ever since he took over this place though, so you'll have to excuse us if we're a bit gloomy." "No, that's fine," I muttered, slowly turning away from the door and carefully pulling it open. The man in front of me was of normal height, slender and looked to be in his thirties. Despite being dressed in jeans and a simple black t-shirt with the bar's name printed on it in white, swirly letters, he had a very official look to him. Maybe it was the way he stood, straight as a rod with a friendly yet matter-of-fact smile on his face. "Thank you," he said. Turning back to the room, he raised his voice. "You heard it everyone, Mack might be gone and while that's a downer, our work isn't over; so get yourselves up here and let's get this going again!" His tone carried the flat motivation the coach of a youth sports team might have. Three more people emerged from the backroom, all dressed exactly like Andrik, all of them that same content little grin on their lips. They walked by me offering polite greetings; the first one, a large, bulky guy giving me a curt nod and the two women that followed smiling brightly. The girls were a little younger than Andrik, maybe in their late twenties. Both had blond hair hanging down their shoulders in wavy pigtails. That first night the bar was open, I merely watched the backroom people work, following them around while they ignored me. It was eerie. They looked almost like automated mannequins, going about their routine by sticking to preplanned paths; like there were set directions painted somewhere I couldn't see. I soon began to notice other distinctive attributes about them. None of the people from the walls had fingernails. I saw it on the waitresses when they reached for the cups handed to them, on Andrik when he scribbled down notes. However that was not the only thing off about them. All those little details in their faces, the kind of thing you'd normally never pay attention to–they didn't add up. For example, their eyes didn't lign up. One was always slightly lower than the other, just enough for someone to notice. Their nostrils would differ in width and one of the girls' pinky fingers was the same length as her ring finger. Had I not known that they had just crawled out from the backroom walls, I would have chalked these harmless little oddities up to simple, inconspicuous deformities, but knowing what I knew, it made my skin crawl with uncomfort. I soon found out that Andrik did most of the talking for them. Bo rarely ever said a word, and all the waitresses did was whisper amongst themselves, giggle and chat with the patrons. Eventually, Andrik waved me over to him behind the counter. "Alright, to give you a rundown of the place, we have a cash-only system. We rely on our local clientele, but once in a while someone new comes by and then we try and keep them around, obviously. Here's some of our regulars." He pointed at a lady sitting in a corner, weeping over an empty glass of whiskey. "That's Shauna. Comes here whenever she can, only ever orders whiskey. Will not stop crying." His finger wandered over to an old, short man with an almost disproportionately large head and short white hair. He was sitting at one of the tables as well, talking to two younger women who seemed very much out of place. "That's Tommy. He's likely to start fights but he drinks a lot and tips very generously. Bo throws him out a lot but he's very easy on him, so don't worry." He finally nodded towards a tall glass of wine standing lonely on the counter right in front of us. "And this is Irene. She can't pay but she's always welcome. She's very nice and she's been here ever since Mack's family started this business." "Andrik, there's nothing there." The pale man threw me a confused glance. "What do you mean, she's right… oh! Of course. Don't worry, you'll start seeing her with time. Either way, for now there's actually not much for you to do except read up on barkeeping once you get the chance. However you should start getting acquainted with the regulars. After all, the owner of The New Saloon will always be part of the reason why people come here." He paused as his mouth started to twitch into an almost guileful grin. "I have a feeling they're going to love you." I retreated into the ladies' room for a quick break. I sat down on one of the toilets and buried my face in my palms. I had no idea what was going on or what I was supposed to do. Andrik had made himself pretty clear when it came to the instructions he'd given me, but all of this was so surreal I seriously considered the possibility of me having suffered some kind of blow to the head and dreaming it. I spent the rest of the night standing behind the counter and observing their every move. Andrik kept to my side mostly, looking at me with the kind of suspicion I probably had in my eyes as well. I couldn't figure him out. I accidentally-on-purpose walked by the waitresses who were talking to each other in hushed voices, picking up on small bits of their conversation. "Her blood is weaker than his. Do you think she's–?" "We shouldn't take any chances. Remember what Mack did when we tried to test him?" "I do, but this could be our chance to have some fun." Her words sent chills down my spine. Remembering Mack's letter however, I decided this was not the time to show I was frightened. "You're going to do no such thing," I chimed in from behind them. "I don't care what you are but I promise I'll find a way to make this whole thing very uncomfortable for you guys if you try to pull any kind of weird crap on me." The looks they gave me were worth my initial doubt. They seemed shocked that I had listened in on them at all, let alone spoken up. I glared at them, holding their gaze and ignoring the trembling of my legs. Their heads lowered, they marched off. When the bar began to clear out and we got ready to close down for the night, I told the four of them to clean up. Of course I helped, but I made sure never to lose sight of a single one of them. I felt like they were wild, hungry animals, waiting for their chance to pounce on me. Whenever I looked up from the rag I was wiping the countertop with, I would find one of them staring at me. By the time we were done, the place really did look a lot more welcoming. It certainly was cleaner, despite the four workers' angry faces spoiling the mood. We carried the cleaning supplies back into the small storage chamber next to the employee restroom before I went to open the backroom door for them. "Okay everyone, good job today! Thanks a lot, now back inside!" I called out, almost enjoying the feeling of authority as they came trodding towards me and made their way down into the dimly lit basement single-file. Andrik was the last one to cross the threshold. Right before descending the staircase, he turned to face me once more. "You were keeping a close eye on us," he said quietly. "That's clever. But you're going to need to keep it up and… let's see how long you'll last. Who knows what might happen." He gave me a sly wink with the one eye that was a little lower on his face before following his co-workers. I watched from the top of the stairs as they leaned up against the walls. It was almost as I had expected; their bodies seemed to melt into the holes they had come from, sealing them shut and not leaving so much as a thin crack. Lacking a better option, I stayed at a nearby inn that night. As bizarre and frightening as all of this had been, I got out of it unscathed. The bar workers and I would end up coming to blows in the future though, more than once. And I wouldn't always be that lucky. X Part 2: one of the regulars had a doppelgänger Part 3: My bouncer and I got beaten up by a little girl. Part 4: The regular who never stops crying. Part 5: Appreciate good employees.
As an extension to my DD yesterday, lets make sense of todays psy-op
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I do not recommend any position here. Everything here is speculation and my personal opinion and not to be construed as factual in any way. I may not be correct on some of my numbers. Do your own research before making a play. Link to previous DD: https://www.reddit.com/GME/comments/lgo0f9/im_going_to_ely5_the_situation_were_in_from_a/ So I'm at the point where I don't even care about the data, all I really care about right now is studying their moves (i.e. psychological attacks) and reading the chart. It's best of we keep things as simple as we can and not over analyze things. So, what happened today? Today, there was a small blip up and down in the morning, a consistent, steady pattern to the peak, and a steady pattern back down. Volume was higher on the upswing than the downswing, and the downswing happened 15-20 minutes after the news was released that Fidelity exited their position. As a side note, on WSB all GME talk was concentrated to one non-stickied thread and the "new rage" is all about weed stonks. Lets break this down into key points (bold is TL;DR): 1) I suspect the price action today was completely controlled by the shorts. Just looking at the price action with no other context, it just looks fishy. The way I am reading the chart is they are progressively covering, and shorting, and covering again as to not build buying momentum against them. Then at 1:07, release some "bad news" about Fidelity, give it 15-20 minutes to spread to the plebs, and then start to drop the price to trick people into selling. But if you look at the volume on the downswing, ain't nobody selling. It is a pathetic attempt to shake people. Here is what the chart today looks like: just look at the smooth line up, and the smooth line down 2) The changes to WSB today are obvious. So after the bad news comes out for the hedgehogs in the form of SI, they need to up their control of WSB to help stop the bleeding. So they pump weed stocks and SNDL and quarantine GME to one non-stickied thread. Hopefully the dumb money will sell now! 🤡 3) The Fidelity article is fake news, literally. I might not be 100% accurate here, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong and I will amend this post and/or provide sources. But what I understand is that the data referenced is included in the Jan 29th FINRA report for SI. Also, it is incredibly misleading because Fidelity actually increased their stake. Really, this is old news and irrelevant and they are grasping at straws by bringing this up. Honestly, it's kind of pathetic. EDIT: sauce- https://www.reddit.com/GME/comments/lh75kf/about_fidelity_13gs/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share 4) AMC and GME are continuing to follow the same pattern. This isn't something I care to follow too heavily, but I noticed that the AMC chart was a little less concise as the GME chart. I suspect there is more liquidity in AMC which would account for a less linear rise and fall. More evidence of manipulation. 5) GME is inversely following SPY. This is indicative of rebalancing to finance their GME position. This tells me they are bleeding. Here are the two charts, see for yourself: GME SPY 6) Liquidity is bone dry. I highly recommend purchasing level 2 data if you can, because the tape tells a story that you won't get through any other means. The bid/ask spread is always wide and even the smallest amount of buying volume sends the stock flying. If you watch the tape, you can literally see when and where they are defending the price from exploding. Everytime they do this, they dig their hole deeper. Low liquidity is the most bullish sign for the squeeze there is. If a big dick buyer comes in tomorrow or Friday then the gamma squeeze would be epic and the shorts would be fuk. Side note that just by looking at the 1 minute chart, you can see the lack of liquidity. The damn chart looks like a crypto chart with tons of near-0 volume doji candles. That is the gist of it. Overall, their desperation is palpable but it is so easy to diagnose. It also seems like they are in complete control of the price, but we are in complete control of the shares. So, where do we go from here? Well, it still stands to reason that the shorts want to report a good SI from Fridays settlement date. However, they probably know that a large amount of covering will cause the price to skyrocket very quickly. So that is the conundrum the shorts are in. My prediction is one of two things happen: 1) Shorts attempt a controlled cover to 100-200 and liquidate a lot of other positions to fund a short attack to keep the price as low as they can. 2) Shorts say "fuck covering" and continue to try to keep the price low and manipulated. If this happens, February 24th is a key date. What am I doing? I am holding on to my shares obviously, and today just added 3/19 500c/800c spreads (cost basis $39) and 3/19 550c (cost basis $110). My thought being that if they continue to kick the can down the road, GME earnings might prove to be a catalyst. Please poke holes in my reasoning and challenge my thoughts. I want to be wrong.
Romney names Trump as the main cause of the terrorism at the Capitol. r/Conservative pulls put all the stops to defend their dear leader, blames Romney and the rest of the GOP for the violence.
I am 32/Canadian and had a very high paying career that had a short shelf life. During my high producing years I wanted to move out of Canada to another country where I could save as much as I could for my future because I knew my income would not last forever. "Abroad" was a weird term form me. Despite being Canadian and having lived most of my adult years in Canada I felt like everywhere was abroad for me. I was born in one of the poorest countries of Europe and lived there until I was 17 years old. The country has come a long way today but when I go back I never fit in. I definitely feel more connected with Canada than the country I was born in. I think a big reason why I focused so hard on work was to never get back to the level of poverty I grew up as a child. Think of North Korea and Venezuela in one combo. In 1997 there was a complete lock down due to civil war and my family was lucky enough to survive because we had a vegetable garden and chickens. If you left your home you could be shot/robbed or worse be killed from stepping on a mine. The city was covered in them. The other reason was that women got treated like second class citizens where I was born and my childhood was a living hell where I wasn't even allowed to walk on the street alone (even after they took out the mines), talk to members of the opposite sex or have any friends. Dating was not a concept and if they know you are "dating" you have to immediately get engaged and then married and have children or else you are a "whore". I always had a bubbly personality when I was young, I liked to act, dance, and really liked learning. I was also interested in entrepreneurship and got a full scholarship at York University to study business but to my parents a woman is not suited for business and they pushed me to study molecular biology instead. I hated my University years. I battled depression and never really saw a future for myself with biology. I ran away from home at 19 and asked my local university what help was there for someone like me that wanted to start a business. To my surprise they were very helpful and told me about grants and loans I could apply to get started. My first business was face painting and entertainment for children's birthday parties and events. I remember I got a $5000 loan and it seemed like so much money at the time. It helped me buy my first car and get started. I grew my business from just me to having 10 employees, having permanent booths in theme parks and festivals in Canada. It was hard work but I loved it. During the time I was still in university and most of my work was summeweekends so it worked out ok. I remember I was growing more and more fed up with my studies and walked out of my last exam with a smile feeling absolute freedom. I never finished my degree and I was so ok with it even if I was one exam away from graduation. I didn't care about the crazy amounts of student loans I had accumulated. All I wanted was to grow my business and make money. It gave me that thrill that sitting in a lab using a microscope never did. One day I became curious about online streaming and after having a few drinks with a friend I made an application on a popular site (at the time). The site was more like webcamming but you were allowed to do whatever you wanted on cam as long as there was no guys. I didn't think much of it because I was doing well with my other business. At the time I had a rocky relationship with an ex bf and decided maybe going online and flirting with men would make me feel better about my break up. Then saw this email about the site I had previously applied had accepted my application. I did my first stream completely clothed, having fun and chatting with people. I made $4.00 usd which was shit but I had so much fun doing it so I started researching the industry more. After a few more streams I decided this had a potential to be something big and I decided to make a business plan and focus on it entirely. I was constantly doing 10-12h on cam and loved to come up with new creative ideas to entertain people. I went from making $4.00 my first day to making just shy off a million dollars a year. The money was not the focus but being the best at what I did was. During my high earning years I knew I had to save and plan for my future. Most of the other performers would have one good month making $150,000 then disappear and not be relevant again. I don't know how I managed to last in the industry for over 8 years, but I am greatful that my hard work was combined with luck and being at the right place/right time. I moved to Mexico when I was 26 years old. My life in Mexico was great the first two years. I was dating someone that was super supportive with my work schedule. It was the honeymoon phase. We would always eat out and enjoy nice places and expensive travel. I was always frugal with everything else but vacations and experiences. Looking back my mistake was that I paid for everything and my bf at the time felt used to this cushy life that ended up expecting it. He was bad with managing money too and had a lot of debt which stupiditly I ended up paying off. During this time I had bought various income properties in central Mexico (in a retirement village) and the agreement was that since I was making more money with my online business which required long hours on cam, my ex was supposed to take care of property management. At first he was engaged then ended up not so pationate about it. I felt used and underappreciated. When I realized all this I was pregnant with our child. He told me he was unhappy living in a retirement village and wanted to move to a bigger city in Mexico. I told him we could try it out because it would offer more opportunities for our child as well. That's where things went downhill. He constantly ignored me and refused to help with chores in the house. I had a high risk pregnacy so I couldn't do much myself either. After a few months he ended up cheating and experienced a mental break down, trying to commit suicide. I was crushed. I didn't know what happened and despite my efforts to send him to get the best medical help in the country he never was the same. I really wanted to help him get back on his feet again because I thought we were a team for life. I was wrong. He ended up leaving the country one day when my son was only a few months old and has not been back in over 3 years. I have never heard back from him and I don't know if he's dead or alive. I was crushed and myself experienced a complete burn out from work/personal loss at the time. Physically I became ill too and dropped down up 42 kg. I knew I had to do something about it because I had a son to take care of. Looking back at it now it was an amazing opportunity for me to realize there was more to life than work. It helped me realize that I should have not provided everything just because I loved someone but let them provide and create on their own. If they refused I had to know they were using me as a wallet and to not get involved. RETIREMENT It's been one full year since I have been completely off work. It happened in 2020 out of all years. Before I tried to work on and off but my love for my job wasn't the same. I can say I feel much less stressed than I did years ago. My health is better and my sleep schedule is so much better than it was before. For the first time I now feel more Integrated in Mexico and I don't think I am missing out much not living in Canada. Where I live it's safe, it has a high quality of life and there's a lot of international business around. Not that I want to open a new business here but I think it's important to be surrounded by other people that have seen more of the world and are also successful. On top of that I have always felt like a hybrid of many cultures and being surrounded by people that have moved around the world means that we get to be hybrids together and they understand me better than say someone that lived in Canada/USA all their lives and never left the country. Mexico has many bad things as well but no county is perfect. Choosing the right location to live in Mexico is very important to not be affected a lot by the bad things. The pace of life is also much more calmer than in Canada and the US. This can be bad if you want to start a business here but it's a good place to be during retirement. Also people are a lot less "offended" from things and I find it's easier to make friends than it was in Canada. My general perception of Canada was that people in Canada are very helpful to strangers but much colder if you want to have a meaningful friendship. Of course there are exceptions but that was my experience. One thing I did not like about the western culture is the victim mentality that the youth of today are embracing. If they can't get something they usually blame the government for not doing enough for them. Some women blame men for "the patriarchy" and some Canadians blame foreigners because 'they took away their cheap homes and they can't afford real estate' Having lived in a real "shit hole" country where women get treated like crap I want to remind you that Canada and the US are the land of opportunities compared to most of the world. Success is not guaranteed for anyone but all the information is free in English for you to look up and use it to your advantage. You don't even have to learn a second language to access it. Being a woman or a minority gives you the same legal rights as everyone else if not more sometimes. I don't think most western feminists know what it's like to live in a muslim country. My point is: Westerners are not grateful enough for what they have. Complaining is human nature so of course it happens in Mexico but the majority know that their government won't do shit for them and they focus on what they can do as an individual. This can be bad too wich is reflected in the general sentiment Mexicans have for public property but that's another problem I won't get into. Overall i am happy where I have come in my journey. I know I haven't got it all figured out despite having a 4.5 million net worth I don't feel complete being 100% retired. I am currently building real estate in Mexico, investing in stocks and excercising to keep me busy. After things open up I will travel more but the urge to have everything figured out which I experienced immediately once I stopped working is less. Also: It's lonely at the top: I like to think of myself as an easy and approachable person, however I think having a different upbringing and dedicating and reaching high levels of financial success at a very young age, makes relating to most people not as easy. I think humans form stronger bonds when they share and solve similar problems together. That's why I lurk in this forum from time to time. It makes me realize at the end of the day I'm not alone. A lot of the questions that get asked here on a daily basis are questions that I ask myself all the time. The funny part is that no one has the answers, I don't either and the more I live the more I realize that the answers don't matter. The only realisation I have so far is: The key to being rich is living in the moment, enjoying the company of your loved ones and being greatful for what you have. Don't let your brain trick you into overthinking and stay away from the compulsion to use fatFIRE calculators all the time. Just get out for a walk instead and leave your phone at home. We could be hit by a car tomorrow and none of that shit matters as much as you think. Edit: since many have asked the country was Albania. I responded here how I ended up in Canada: https://www.reddit.com/fatFIRE/comments/lh30x8/my_expat_fatfire_journey_abroad_long/gmwn401?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
Megathread: Many are now migrating to Signal as a result of WhatsApp updating their terms and privacy policy
Hello everyone! We've recently started to receive lots of similar posts as a result of recent news regarding WhatsApp updating their terms and privacy policy, which will take effect on February 8thMay 15th, 2021. Any WhatsApp users who do not accept these changes will be blocked from using the service. As a result, many are now migrating to Signal. We’ve decided to make this the designated thread for all things related to this topic. Here is a direct link to Signal's terms and privacy policy (last updated May 25, 2018). Don't worry, it's not very long. For those wondering where Signal's revenue comes from: "We are a 501c3 nonprofit. We're not tied to any major tech companies, and we can never be acquired by one either. Development is supported by grants and donations from Signal users. https://signal.org/donate/" Some related media coverage:
What is the best way to migrate from WhatsApp to Signal?
How to convince WhatsApp contacts to install Signal?
What are some pros/cons of Signal compared to WhatsApp?
What are your most missed features from WhatsApp?
How do some features work differently in Signal compared to WhatsApp?
We will be updating this post as events unfold. Be safe, and always remember the human. Edits 1–38: A brief summary of events, by day: Wednesday, January 6:
WhatsApp informs its users that they are updating their terms and privacy policy.
Thursday, January 7:
Elon Musk tweeted "Use Signal". Five hours later, the Signal team tweeted that verification codes were being delayed due to the surge in new people wanting to join Signal.
Some people mistakenly invested in some random stock called 'SIGL', to which Signal tweeted: "Is this what stock analysts mean when they say that the market is giving mixed Signals? It's understandable that people want to invest in Signal's record growth, but this isn't us. We're an independent 501c3 and our only investment is in your privacy."
Someone asked Signal whether usernames would be coming this year, to which they replied: "According to the office Magic 8-Ball, 'SIGNS POINT TO YES.'" They also shared a tip for how to easily migrate group chats from other apps to Signal: "Drop a group link into your former chat app of choice like you're dropping the mic on the way out."
The team is currently taking a break from answering questions in the AMA, but will be back in that thread on Monday (Jan. 18?), so there is still time if you have any questions for them!
There were still some registration delays. Signal said that carriers were "making adjustments on their side to keep delivering verification codes as quickly as possible."
Facebook bought ads in order to promote Facebook Messenger when people searched for 'Signal' in the App Store. Signal's developers tweeted: "Facebook is probably more comfortable selling ads than buying them, but they'll do what they have to do in order to be the top result when some people search for 'Signal' in the App Store. P.S. There will never be ads in Signal, because your data belongs in your hands not ours."
Sunday, January 10:
The Signal team tweeted: "Even though we're still breaking records, verification codes are back in the groove. Delivery delays have been eliminated across multiple cellular providers, so things should be more ASAP when you join the app."
They then tweeted: "We continue to shatter traffic records and add capacity as more and more people come to terms with how much they dislike Facebook's new terms. If you weren't able to create a new group recently, please try again. New servers are ready to serve you."
Elon Musk tweeted that he donated to Signal a year ago and "will donate more."
Monday, January 11:
Signal raised the group call limit from 5 to 8! Reuters also reported: "The number of new users installing messaging app Signal every day is on track to cross 1 million, putting it closer to levels seen by larger rival WhatsApp [...] About 810,000 users globally installed Signal on Sunday, nearly 18-fold compared with the download numbers on Jan. 6, the day WhatsApp updated its privacy terms, according to data from research firm Apptopia." 🚀
Some people were still mistakenly investing in some random stock. Signal's developers tweeted: "Update: Although the growth rates may look similar, this stock symbol still has absolutely nothing to do with us. We're an independent 501c3 nonprofit, but you can donate here to invest in your privacy: https://signal.org/donate/" 📈
Signal announced that they are going to be rolling out chat wallpapers, an about field for your Signal profile, and animated stickers in a few days, as well as media auto-download settings and full-screen profile photos for iOS users (to match Android).
Moses Tsali released a music video titled "Hit Me on Signal", filmed at the SpaceX Headquarters! 🎵
Tuesday, January 12:
Our tiny unofficial community (signal) is now rocketing up Reddit's Top Growing Communities leaderboard. Last week, we were somewhere around #21.1k. Earlier today, we were at #135, right below AnimalsBeingBros. As of this writing, we're at #90 and have already passed ThatsInsane, which is insane! 🤯
Signal's Brian Acton is now doing interview after interview with Indian mass media companies. Here is one with NDTV, where he talked about "Signal's India plans, its donation-only business model, and what makes it different from WhatsApp." 🇮🇳
By now, many of our community members had submitted their own badges and profile pictures that they had placed in WhatsApp to show that they were moving to Signal. Inspired by this, Signal decided to tweet some of their own in multiple different languages. 🌍 Here is a blank template!
Our community has now climbed all the way up to #61 on Reddit's Top Growing Communities leaderboard!
Signal's Android app started with 10M+ installs on the Play Store on January 5, and it has now passed 50M+!
u/Crazy-Lizard submitted an amazing collection of images (both in English and German) that you can set as your WhatsApp Status to convince your family & friends to switch to Signal, using an educational approach! This quickly became our top voted post of all time!
Thursday, January 14:
Our community is now placed at #48 on Reddit's leaderboard! We've now made it into the top 50, with big names like sports, Jokes and reactiongifs. We have zoomed right past all other software-related communities in terms of popularity. Only apple and leagueoflegends remain above us!
Acton has now said that they are aiming to add 100-200 million more Signal users in India alone over the next two years.
Signal's founder, Moxie Marlinspike, has now tweeted: "If you've ever considered applying to work with us at Signal, now is a great time to get involved! We're just over here working on a plan to power the western hemisphere with the heat from our servers: https://signal.org/workworkwork/"
Our wonderful community has now helped translate u/Crazy-Lizard's educational WhatsApp Status images into Slovak, Czech, Portuguese (PT), Finnish, Turkish, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), Italian, French, and Dutch! Get them here!
Friday, January 15:
Our Reddit leaderboard saga continues! We've now reached spot #40, right between HolUp and PersonalFinanceCanada. 🇨🇦 We also made a list of posts in which our members can discuss Signal reaching the #1 spot on the App Store/Play Store in their own country. 🏆
Signal tweeted: "We are so grateful for the outpouring of support from everyone who is contributing to Signal's ongoing operation and development. We're a 501c3 nonprofit and we couldn't do this without you. If you are on the fence about donating, you can give in here: https://signal.org/donate/"
WhatsApp announced that they are going to delay the updating of their terms and privacy policy by three months due to the backlash. They were originally going to take effect on February 8th, but will now take effect on May 15th.
Someone asked Edward Snowden (u/SuddenlySnowden) if he knew whether "Telegram is more secure and less influenced by corporate money than Signal". In reply, Snowden tweeted: "1) The consensus of the infosec community is that Telegram is significantly less secure than @SignalApp. 2) Signal is an independent non-profit with a $50m endowment—they can't be meaningfully influenced by money for a very long time. Telegram is a standard private company."
The Signal service went down for about a day as the Signal team needed to add more capacity. They tweeted: "We have been adding new servers and extra capacity at a record pace every single day this week nonstop, but today exceeded even our most optimistic projections. Millions upon millions of new users are sending a message that privacy matters. We appreciate your patience."
Signal's Moxie Marlinspike tweeted that they are now working on a group chat feature that will allow only admins to send messages in the group!
Saturday, January 16:
signal is now at #26 on the Top Growing Communities leaderboard! If we had been included the curated "Top Growing Communities in Tech" leaderboard, we would be placed at #4, right between technews and TechNewsToday. We are flaming hot right now! 🔥
At last: "Signal is back! Like an underdog going through a training montage, we’ve learned a lot since yesterday — and we did it together. Thanks to the millions of new Signal users around the world for your patience. Your capacity for understanding inspired us while we expanded capacity." 🙌
In response, Snowden tweeted: "Everybody can get back to uninstalling #Whatsapp now." 😄
Sunday, January 17:
Our community's climb on Reddit's leaderboard appears to be leveling off. We're now at #22 overall and "#3" in Tech, right after apple and technology, which isn't half bad actually! 🤔 Let's see if things begin to pick up again after Signal starts rolling out those new features they promised on Monday.
Wednesday, January 20:
The initial hype is now clearly dying down, but our community's daily growth rate is still much larger than it was before WhatsApp made their announcement. Today we crossed 40k members! 🎉
Friday, January 22:
Signal has now started rolling out chat wallpapers, an optional "about" field for Signal profiles, and the first official animated sticker pack to all beta testers! As always, the developers are now gathering feedback on the Signal Community forum. If you're a beta tester, check out our right-hand sidebar to get your own flair!
Saturday, January 23:
Chamath Palihapitiya promised Signal a $10M donation if they could keep all of their own messaging infrastructure and copy WhatsApp's entire UI in order to get the whole world on board as easily as possible. Signal replied: "Hopefully there are a lot of people out there who don't need us to look exactly like their ex in order to fall in love, but you could help us make it possible for Signal to support 10M themes — one of which might look familiar enough for anyone who has a "type"..."
Signal also launched their first ever "global marketing campaign," using the cheapest billboard they could find somewhere in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It says: "No personal data was bought or sold in the creation of this video." #WeKnowNothing 🤣
This campaign is starting to get serious! Signal just tweeted a more polished video ad, featuring Taraji Henson and ending with a shot of the same billboard. 👏 They are now here on signal as well, requesting photos of the billboard! 📸
Welcome to all newcomers, but also THANK YOU to all of our regular contributors who have shown up to sort by new, answer questions, and provide help! ⭐ As a reminder, this is an unofficial Reddit community (or "subreddit") that is run by the user community. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by the Signal Technology Foundation or Signal Messenger LLC.
BB -- Blackberry AWS -- Amazon Web Services IVY -- Intelligent Vehicles Yo. I don't actually know if this stands for anything QNX -- Quick-Unix perhaps? It's a Unix-like embedded microkernel RTOS (real-time operating system) EOY -- end of year PT -- price target SP -- stock price EV -- electric vehicle SoC -- System on a Chip IoT -- Internet of Things TL;DR: Blackberry ($BB) is almost daily announcing new partnerships and new clients for their software, including new deals with companies that are just now or just this year launching autonomous vehicles that run on QNX software. The big kahuna of all these deals is BB's recent partnership with Amazon to go 50/50 into BB's software IVY, a scalable cloud-connected software platform designed for intelligent vehicle data gathering and data sharing. With Amazon's Jeff Bezos stepping down, and Andy Jassy filling his shoes, who was the CEO of AWS, BB will have some very firm support behind Amazon's new CEO. BB and Amazon are having a webinar Feb. 23rd about their partnership and IVY, which should be a strong catalyst moving forward. IVY beta earnings are projected to begin impacting BB's Q3 or Q4 earnings beginning in November this year, with IVY fully being integrated around the 2023 timeframe. Through a lot of reading and analysis, I believe BB has a four-tiered business model dating back as far as 2013 when BB's CEO John Chen was hired to begin the massive BB turnaround process. Tier 1 was development of QNX and IVY, lasting from 2013 to today and onward, however, Tier 2 overlaps Tier 1. Tier 2 was customer acquisition, primarily distributing their secure software in QNX, SecuSuite, Spark, and AtHoc. They secured 37 automakers during this time, including 9 of the top 10 automakers, over 106 governments from around the world, including all of G7 governments and 18 of G20 governments, as well as 77% of Fortune 100 companies, including partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, NVIDIA, Intel, Qualcomm, Baidu, IBM, LG, Samsung, and others. Well if they have such an incredible market share, why are they so undervalued? The answer is that QNX was not the end-all-be-all product. It was the base that the rest would be built on. Particularly IVY, which is the real money-maker. Tier 3 is IVY beta, and Tier 4 is IVY distribution and subscription revenue streams. So why is IVY the big deal and not QNX? They are both big deals, but QNX was never designed to be the money-maker. They are charging a one-time fee per vehicle use. There is a bigger goal here, to secure their clients as their customers for the bigger product in IVY. They also need QNX is to be a secure system in order for IVY to be trustworthy and reliable. And it certainly is secure. QNX has ISO26262 certification, as well as US government clearance, NSA clearance, and CIA clearance. The US government uses QNX and Blackberry products. Just let that sink in. That should tell you something about its security. Anyways, IVY will be used in autonomous vehicle level 4 and level 5 communication (note that QNX is level 5 certified... it has a business moat just in its security level and clearance), as well as EV and gas vehicle data collecting and AI-powered data synthesis. See below for more details on IVY. Wrapping up this TL;DR, BB is going to do well this year as IVY unfolds, but will do even better in the next 2-5 years. I have a PT of 25 by EOY and a PT of 80 by 2023 EOY, and a PT of 160+ by 2025 EOY TL;DR: TL;DR: BB go up, but go slow for now because IVY revenue not here yet, but big fast later. Make big monies, BB is the future tech that Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc will be building upon in the EV and IoT market
FAQs:
1) Why is Blackberry stock price going down? A: A few possible reasons. One, as of today the whole market is down. BB is connected to overall market swings as most companies are. Two, there may be some market manipulation by bearish financial institutions as there are a lot of calls expiring on 2/19. I would expect that BB SP to be volatile between $11 and $14 between now and then, and to move upwards after 2/19 and especially after 2/23 (Amazon + BB webinar). Three, there are bearish investors who still think BB is a phone company and don't understand the underworkings of BB's business strategy, their software, their patents, or their partners. Their revenue has been affected by coronavirus and has not been particularly phenomenal so far this year. 2) Should I invest now or later? A: First off, I'm not a financial advisor, these are just my opinions. Invest at your own risk. In my opinion, BB will see a large SP growth by EOY, anywhere from 50% to 150% growth by EOY. While revenue will likely not increase much this year, the partnership with Amazon and news regarding IVY will likely create new floors for their SP much higher than the current SP right now, at around the $12 SP 3) What's stopping competitors from building a similar product and hurting BB's business? A: There's a lot of reasons why BB has a huge moat right now. One, notice the partners that BB has with QNX. They've got all the big boys working them, aside from Apple and Tesla. Seeing as SpaceX runs on QNX, and seeing that Apple was trying to make a deal with Hyundai that did not go through, I think it is still possible that either Tesla or Apple or both companies could also make a deal with BB to use QNX as their OS system. BB worked to develop their QNX embedded microkernel OS for the last eight years or so. Anyone trying to step into the game now is far too late. Apple has the best chance of all companies, as it has its own OS and Apple knows security very well, but this still requires an entirely new system in order to work in the EV sector. Also, Apple announced recently that they would be developing their own EV, although they did not give much details beyond that statement. The likelihood that they are both working on the hardware and software side of this thing is slim given the large number of difficulties that come with certification as it relates to the cybersecurity software space. Regardless, I would suspect that either Apple or Tesla is the most likely to be competitors in this space, but neither company has successfully completed a certified OS system, particularly for the emerging sector of autonomous EVs. Tesla is currently building a Linux-based system that is having a lot of difficulty in passing certifications such as ISO26262, a struggle that has been ongoing for years now. They may achieve a product that passes these safety regulations and certifications, but the question remains whether this will be in time as the EV and autonomous market picks up speed, and whether competing companies would even be interested in using their product. In fact, any car company is unlikely to develop their own OS software because none of their competitors would be likely to use it. BB is the perfect business to license since it is not competing in the hardware sector for the EV market. This argument can also be used for Apple if they are also building an EV. 4) Why is BB's revenue so low if they have so many customers and partners? A: QNX has been licensed so far as a one-time purchase, per vehicle or IoT using their software. IVY will be a subscription-based software that also includes a one-time purchase. Thus, BB's revenue streams are somewhat unimpressive currently, but they are playing the long game. If my hypothesis is correct, it is John Chen's goal to lay low as software is developed and customer relationships are built. It's the same with the book market. It's the sequel that makes all the money, not the first book. QNX is just the first book of a series looking to hook in its customers with low costs before hitting 'em with the strong follow up in IVY. Additionally, in order to build a competitive business moat, it was to their advantage to not forewarn any competitors of their involvement and plans. Consider John Chen's work as a CEO in his last business Sybase. Chen worked as the CEO of Sybase for 10 years. For the first 7 years, the SP remained at around $10 a share. Three years later, the SP was at $100 a share. I suspect he is implementing a similar model with Blackberry. Chen joined Blackberry in 2013. BB stock actually dropped for most of the last 7 years, resting at a stock price of around $5. Now BB is at $12 a share. I would not be surprised if BB reaches $50 two years from now.
Blackberry Clients and Partners Automakers: Honda, Audi, Jeep, Mitsubishi, Ford, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Bentley, Lamboghini, Byton, Mini (cooper), Toyota, Subaru, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Nio, BMW, Porsche, Lexus, Kia, Land-Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Buick, Jaguar, Visteon, Skoda, Chevrolet, Nissan, Acura, Continental, General Motors, Baidu, Motional Other: Denso, Aptiv, Bosch, Panasonic, Harman, Bugatti, LG, Vodafone, Bell, Carahsoft, CACI, Telus, iSec, KPMG, Tableau, Qlik Major: Amazon, Google, Sony, XPENG, XPEV, Li Auto, NVIDIA, Canoo, Microsoft, Intel, Verizon, Qualcomm, IBM, LG, Samsung Major Investors: PRIMECAP, Hamblin Watsa, Ontario Teachers’ Pension, Vanguard, Harris Associates, ETF Managers Group, Wells Capital, Arrowstreet Capital, Kahn Brothers Advisors, Norges Bank Investment Governments: Albania, Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Czech Republic, DR Congo, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Malta, Marthinique, Mauritania, Mauritus, Mayotte, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Turkey, USA, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Vatican City, Western Sahara, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Blackberry Current Revenues:
BlackBerry Revenues: How Does BlackBerry Make Money? -- Trefis This display the biggest bearish argument to BB. Until IVY begins producing new revenue streams, BB is likely to not exponentially increase revenue streams, but only sustain moderate YoY growth
Blackberry Analysis Regarding Infotainment and Google and Ford Deal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIrjrNYR3Lw The media recently picked out a story that left out a lot of pertinent information, making it seems that BB lost Ford as a client. This is not true. QNX is designed to be a SoC. This means that other operating systems, such as Linux or Android, can be easily added to QNX. It is in fact encouraged. The Ford and Google deal was simply announcing the Ford would be using Android as their infotainment system. I believe that BB was never intended to try and be the predominant entity for all software systems in EVs or IoTs, but the backbone that connects all together, and to protect all components in a secure system. Autonomous EVs and even regular EVs in general would not be possible without a secure system protecting the product, as is true with IoTs. This is also why things like US Fighter Jets run on... you guess it, QNX. Ford is still using QNX. It is simply also now using Android that is running on top of QNX more commentary on this: Analyzing Blackberry Bear Argument - Case No. 1: Ford Deal
Image This is an interesting one to be sure. Facebook was being evil, like the do, and were caught using a number of BB patents. They settled in February, and the day that the settlement was finalized, John Chen (BB CEO) tweeted reminding everyone that BB is used on the ISS https://twitter.com/JohnChen/status/1358853064153784321?s=20 Well, the connection and speculation here is that Blackberry is going to the moon, and that the settlement is rather significant. Someone else also dug out some information in Facebook's most recent 10-K, specifically a portion for a 'non-cancelable contractual commitment' of an amount of $7500 million dollars. That's 7.5 billion btw. We don't know how big the settlement is, but it is worth noting that BB's entire market cap is 7.5B. I highly doubt that a settlement would reach such lofty numbers, but it could be possible that FB settled for some initial amount of $1B or so, as well as $1B in reoccurring payments over several years. We won't know until March 15th actually, so stay tuned.
Blackberry New Partnerships
Within the last few weeks, Blackberry has announced a stronger partnership with Baidu (China's Google), as well as their involvement with Baidu choosing to use QNX for their autonomous vehicles that will be hitting the road, as early as this year and next. BB has also announced their involvement with Motional, a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, which will use QNX for their autonomous vehicles. Motional will be partnering with Lyft to use autonomous vehicles to begin serving customers and will be deploying their vehicles in 2023. It was also announced that QNX will be working with AOSP (Android Open Source Project), as well as announcing yesterday that QNX Hypervisor 2.2 is now released, which is what allows Android and Linux to run on top of QNX. A sum-up of all the recent news on $BB
Rumor: Blackberry Buyout? Here's why that's not happening:
Just read this post. It's quite revealing: Great Day for BB despite stick dipping. TL;DR: Amazon could have easily bought BB. Why didn't they? Well, all the big players are interested in this EV and IoT emerging sector. This is the new wave of technology that will dominate the market. First we had the dot.com boom, then the cell-phone and smart-phone market, and now we have the autonomous EV and IoT market. If Amazon were to buy BB, they would have to submit a tender offer. This would be a red flag to all the big players that Amazon were trying to buy up the best security out there. It would be a bidding war that could result in a double-digit multi-billion dollar buyout. It was much more to their advantage to create a secret alliance with BB and establish a 50/50 partnership, whose contract includes exclusivity for their use of IVY. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. This is where the importance of QNX lies. BB will be able to pull the rug out from any company that chooses to use something other than IVY. No IVY, no QNX, no EV. It will be a package deal where IVY is the big money maker. All other companies will have to build from the ground up or be forced to license QNX and make their money off of other sectors, such as the infotainment sector, as Google has already begun to do with the Ford deal. When this deal happened, the other big boys wet their pants realizing they needed to get into this space, and fast. Microsoft partnered with Cruise/GM. Apple tried to partner with Hyundai, who was so flattered, they may have initially said yes or indicated so, before realizing that they were already partnered with BB, so it was a no-go. Not sure if that is fact or fiction, but it is an interesting proposal.
Blackberry IVY + AWS Partnership:
Alright, so what's the deal with IVY? Why is it going to be so profitable? Why is IVY the real money-maker, while QNX has been used as the customer-acquisition software tool? Check out this picture: Image For one, IVY is designed for real-time communication between EVs or other IoTs. Autonomous driving level 5 requires vehicles to communicate with one another. This is where IVY comes in. IVY connects the different software components of an EV (which presumably are running on QNX), as well as harvesting data on those systems. The data used can be distributed for a wide-variety of uses, including, but not limited to, automakers and suppliers, app developers, consumer services, smart cities, EV charging providers, insurance companies, and vehicle maintenance providers. All of these different sectors will be willing to pay subscriptions for these data services, as well as the automakers and IoT makers who will also be willing to pay subscriptions for IVY. For instance, IVY can help share information between vehicles that will allow for a car detecting ice roads in one area so that other cars using IVY can take a different route. This results in less crashes, which helps the automakers. Insurance companies can use data from all these different data points as well, allowing them an inside-view of their clients. The list of what is possible here is inexhaustible. As for price points, the subscription models for multiple outside companies wanting to use the data will be create huge revenue streams for BB. With Amazon as a 50/50 partner, and with their resources and strategic management, BB will be poised to be the foundation in security and data sharing for the entire EV, and somewhat of the IoT market (the IoT market has more competitors for sure) Analysis on IVY Analysis on PTs
Revenue, revenue, revenue...
Blackberry is poised to be an industry leader in EV, government, and IoT security and data sharing with products such as QNX, IVY, Spark, and their other software products. Stock price will likely stay somewhat stunted until IVY revenue begins picking up. It is possible that more announcements and marketing related to IVY will make this growth more rapid. In my opinion, either way BB over the next 5 years will 10x. The question is whether you want to get in now at $12 / share or two years from now at $40 a share or something similar, assuming that either way this stock is going to push for that 100B market cap (it's currently at 7B). There will be bearish analysts that will continue to say that Blackberry is a worthless company until those IVY revenue streams begin to come in. It is also possible that a realistic competitor may emerge within the next three years, such as Tesla or Apple. But if Apple is seeking to create its own EV product, then both companies will have a hard time finding any way to license their software to any other company. It remains possible that Apple and/or Tesla may strikes deals with BB as well in order to be able to produce autonomous vehicles and get a bite of that market share
Really, no competitors?
Well it's called a business moat for a reason. As we have recently seen, QNX is working with AOSP, and so clearly, they are not to be worried about. Tesla is not a true competitor as their OS product is not certified yet, and has demonstrated difficulty in doing so, and additionally, other automakers will not want to benefit their competitors by using their product. A third-party non-auto-maker will be much more desirable. Other companies such as VxWorks, have a lot of to prove both in security and certifications, as well as producing an OS product that is compatible with an emerging autonomous level 5 EV market. QNX's embedded microkernel RTOS is very much unique in this regard. This type of system allows for real-time processing and power distribution, while protecting the system from attacks. In an embedded microkernel system, if one part of the system is attacked, the whole system will not shut down, in layman's terms. This is essential for the security of any high-risk product that is built upon an underlying software that controls that different components of the system.
Conclusion:
All eyes are turned towards Blackberry right now. People want to know what this deal with Amazon will look like, how it will work, what they will focus on, (will Amazon also use this system for a fleet of delivery drones? hmmm), what the revenue streams will look like, what are their projections, what markets and sectors are they targeting, what are their future goals, what will Amazon be doing on their end, etc, etc. The Amazon + BB webinar may answer some of those questions, or maybe they won't. Time will tell (Feb. 23rd, specifically -- here's a link to sign up and watch: Next-Gen Vehicle Architectures Unlock Unprecedented Opportunities for Automakers). Also look out for that FB settlement numbers on March 15th, and Q4 earnings March 31st. I don't expect Q4 earnings to be particularly interesting unless they include the FB settlement numbers. Could those numbers instead be put into Q1 earnings for 2021? Possibly. Initially IVY beta is expected to begin being released late this year. I will also be looking forward to see how Apple and Tesla respond in the coming months. Ultimately, BB is a long-term play, but is poised to dominate this emerging industry with the partnerships and security focused software they have secretly been building. Now if only the could do something about their logo, some rebranding would be nice... This is not financial advice, just my own opinions. I am not a financial advisor nor a professional. I own 14k shares in Blackberry, as well as options (10x 8/17/21 20c BB). Do your own DD and fact check me as well
https://steam.cryotank.net/wp-content/gallery/slaythespire/Slay-the-Spire-01-HD.png Slay the Spire (StS) has finally arrived to Android! For two years many of us dreamed for this legendary game to be accessible on their mobile devices, and finally the day has come. No need to talk about how awesome this game is, how it basically started a new genre of card-based dungeon crawlers (UPD: or roguelike deck-builders, if you prefer the term), and even about how well or poor it works on Android hardware in its current state (there will be lots of these posts during the days to come). What I wanted to talk about is the impact this game had on (specifically) mobile industry and how other developers were able to utilize this innovative formula in their own products. Personally, I am somewhat glad that StS release was delayed that much. This allowed a lot of "clones" to be spawned, many of which I enjoyed playing. Some of them appear to be straight rip-offs, but others introduced many fresh ideas of their own, some even surpassing the predecessor's greatness. What the heck am I talking about and how is this even possible will be revealed to you, should you decide to stay on a bit and read through the article below.
General info
First and foremost, let's clarify the important thing: card based dungeon crawlers are not Collectible Card Games (CCGs). Even though they share the same ideas, and some of them (StS included) even have a feature to permanently improve starting cards, or a mode to play with pre-constructed decks, this is not the case for the genre in general. There is no place for multiplayer and PvP battles here: a turn-down for the most, but an undeniable advantage for the rest - only though-out puzzle-like single-player experience which we can pause at any moment and continue when the time is appropriate. Thus, there will never be troubles with downtime, matchmaking, ratings, overpowered builds and other PvP stuff, as there will never be a satisfaction of crushing your opponents with the power of your mighty intellect... The fun of discovering interesting synergies between various card combinations is still present, though. With this being said, let's quickly look through the core features of the genre, which will be relevant for almost every game we review below: - we must explore a dungeon, which (usually, but not necessarily) consists of three floors with increasing difficulty; - we have limited control over the order in which to face the challenges; - there is a powerful boss in the end of each floor; - we battle using deck of cards, usually drawing new cards from deck to hand each turn; - there is a limitation on how many cards we can play during our turn; - we start with a weak basic deck, but get new cards as rewards for fighting enemies; - there is a possibility to permanently remove (weak) cards from the deck; - successful gameplay strategies revolve around utilizing the synergies between different cards; - there are several character classes, each with their own cards and tactics; - there are often additional items to acquire in the dungeon, providing bonuses and emphasizing specific types of play; Before Slay the Spire (StS) came out, there was another card-based dungeon crawler called Dream Quest (DQ), which considered by many to be the first game of the genre (at least the first one to make a significant impact). Not sure if the former drew inspiration from the latter, but certain parallels can easily be drawn: in fact, all of the features mentioned in the list above are valid for DQ the same way as it is for StS. The rich plethora of card based dungeon crawlers (both PC/Console and mobile) originated from some combination of the two. StS, however, can not be considered a clone of DQ, as it introduced a lot of original ideas and spawned its own line of descendants. It is always interesting to analyze each new title to see which of two games was the biggest inspiration, and to group them accordingly. For me the main criteria lies in the core difference in battle system: - in StS, enemies (usually multiple) show their intentions at the beginning of each turn, so we know what to expect and what to play against; - in DQ, the enemy (usually single) draws and plays cards the same way as we do, often using the same abilities and synergies we ourselves can use. Introductions aside, let's finally get to the interesting part - the games! (Note: Games are listed in alphabetical order to not give any privileges to one over another. For my personal preferences see the comment section).
Dream Quest clones
Call of Lophis takes us on a grim journey through infested lands full of deadly monsters, dangerous traps, and one of the most ridiculous card art I have ever seen. It's surprising to see how dark fantasy elements combine with the humor and gags this game presents. From the gameplay point of view, there is enough card variety and interesting synergies, but it will take a long time to reach the interesting parts. Really: this game just does not know when to end, forcing new and new dungeon locations onto us with basically the same monsters and same approaches to dealing with them over and over. Its the boss battles which crank the difficulty up to over 9000, and if we don't have the right deck by the time we reach them, there is nothing we can do to pull it off. Plus there is some shady business going on with monetization schemes, where even paid version of the game makes us spend money to unlock additional classes and grind a lot to buy permanent improvements. Only truly dedicated players will be interested in dealing with all this nonsense. [...] UPD: Haven't checked on it for a long time - maybe the situation improved somehow. Crimson Deep is still in early alpha and was not updated for a long time. But the development hasn't stopped, and there is a new major release approaching in the nearest future. It makes no sense to talk about the game till then: the version in the store is too raw to provide any significant gameplay experience, but it would be interesting to see where it goes in the end. Dimension of Dream is probably the only game that has the same grid-based dungeon layout as DQ itself. This time with full 3D and a possibility to fight only limited set of enemies before facing the final boss (which allows to moderate difficulty as we go, either defeating tougher enemies with better rewards, or to save HP and fight only the easy ones). This game has one of the most interesting battle systems and 6 truly unique classes with deep complex strategies unlike anything we have ever seen (not only the cards themselves, but the order in which we play them greatly affects the outcome). Unfortunately, the English version was pulled from Google Play, leaving only Chinese version for Asian people to enjoy. UPD: Apparently, the game was re-released under different publisher with the title Dreaming Dimension, so there you have it. [...] Meteorfall: Journeys offers the streamlined approach to dungeon crawling, where all our decisions boil down to Reigns-like "swipe left / swipe right" operation: picking the path, encounter resolutions, and even battles are simplified to utilize this binary choice mechanic. But don't worry: these specifics do not affect the gameplay, still providing enough strategic depth to appeal even to hardcore players. Add here a neat visual style, lots of character classes and their variations, cool card combos, and you get a true masterpiece, which is Meteorfall. [...] Night of the Full Moon offers a fresh take on a fairy tale of Red Riding Hood, but adding darker elements to it (including werewolves, zombies, mad scientists and cursed cultists). It demonstrates an amazing production quality with top-tier art, beautiful audio support, and intriguing storytelling. Gameplay wise, we have the closest thing to DQ, safe for the grid-based dungeon maps, which were changed to just picking the encounter out of available three. Some people may argue that the game does not offer enough strategic variety, only suggesting a single best build for each class, but you will still get different runs due to the randomness of card and power-up drops. Another argument of it being too easy is completely nullified on higher difficulty levels. Wish the story would develop in a different direction, though. [...] Spellsword Cards: Origins provides the gameplay similar to the Night of the Full moon, but focuses more on role-playing character development part. Aside from choosing a class, we also get to pick race with unique traits, and a school of magic, greatly affecting which cards will be available to us during the run. The problem here, though, is that monster encounters do not demonstrate a lot of variety, forcing us to fight the same enemies over and over, and the difficulty is rather high, with starting cards doing almost nothing and enemies quickly run out of hand with their devastating attacks, whereas good cards are hard to come by, and even then you will still be devastated on later stages. [...] UPD: Or maybe I am just bad at this game (welcome to comment section for valid strategy suggestions).
Slay the Spire clones
Blood Card offers a unique possibility to construct the dungeon ourselves, providing a pool of encounters of different types: regular monsters, elite monsters, events and shops. We pick a desired encounter from the pool, deal with it and then move on to the next one. Another interesting feature is that our health is defined by the number of cards in draw pile, which limits our tactical possibilities, but is compensated by the fact that we get multiple copies of cards as rewards for fighting enemies. There are a lot of interesting mechanics related to moving cards between various piles, as well as other neat features (like: the Death inevitably arrives in three turns and starts whacking everyone on the field with increasing persistence), but I'll leave them for you to discover on your own. Card Crusade seemed like a cool idea of mixing classic "roguelike" dungeon crawling with its "deck-based" counterpart, where we explore the dungeon the same way as we do it in Hack, Angband, Pixel Dungeon and other similar games, but use cards to fight actual enemies. In reality though, this implementation just adds a useless abstraction, as the adventuring does not provide any tactical benefits and is only there to inter-connect battle sequences (heck, even breaking pots and chests does not give us any coin, of which developers themselves warn us at the very beginning!). The cards are not very interesting, with next to none cool synergies, and new classes (which should be unlocked by performing specific actions on previous runs) do not provide any major difference. [...] Card Quest takes us on an epic journey through fantasy lands, where we will perform great deeds as one of the classic RPG hero classes (fighter, wizard, rogue, ranger), each with their own equipment and fighting disciplines. The interesting part is that the cards we use during runs are defined by said equipment, and if we find some new pieces during our adventure, we get to keep them for further runs. Also worth noting that defense cards are played not during our turn, but during enemy turn, which requires us to plan ahead a bit. This being said, the game is extremely hard - it will take a lot of unsuccessful tries to finally reach the end. But the variety of dungeons and possible builds will keep us occupied for long. Dungeon Tales for a long time was the closest, yet simplified copy of StS mechanics (up to similar cards and gaming strategies), but without certain elaborate features, like upgrading cards or using potions. The basics are left intact though: we still build our deck along the way and face the powerful boss in the end. There are only two characters available yet, but each has a couple of viable builds, so it can keep us invested for quite some time. [...] Endless Abyss is a close StS clone with very similar character classes (only two so far) and a lot of cards with exactly the same effects. Graphically the game looks very good, but angry monetization, lots of grinding, and forced ads make it almost impossible to fully enjoy. [...] Heroes of Abyss is a predecessor to Endless Abyss with basically the same core gameplay, but very simplified dungeon crawling part. There is no floor map with choosing our path, nor there are elaborate adventure events: just a series of battles with the boss in the end. The spoils we get after each battle go into improving our starting deck and unlocking new difficulty modes with higher rewards. What makes the game unusual, is that we chose the preferred build right from the beginning with appropriate set of starting cards, without the need to rely on the randomness of card drops. It may be interesting to unlock and compare all the 6 available builds, but once the task is done, there is almost no reason to play the game further. Heroes Journey provides a different setting for a change: this time we will play as space explorers, who crash landed on an alien planet. Thus, instead of familiar swords and bows, we will be wielding blasters and energy shields: the rest remains the same, up to the majority of cards straight up copied from StS. Unfortunately, this innovative idea was completely ruined by repetitive grinding and angry monetization, forcing player to make dozens of identical runs with the same small card pool, until something adequate is unlocked. Oh, and the game is long abandoned by the developers. Pirates Outlaws is an amazing rework of original StS ideas in a pirate setting with some changes to gameplay mechanics, such as introducing persistent charges needed to play certain cards, and different buff/debuff statuses that replace each other. There are also some questionable features, such as ship stamina that deteriorates over the course of the journey and leads to game over if not repaired in time, or a quest system, where quests can not be completed in parallel, but instead picking the new quest resets your progress in the current one. Some may also argue that new classes take long to grind for, or expensive to pay for, but with permanent booster pack this should not be a problem. Anyway, the game is highly recommended for any StS fan. [...] Rogue Adventure offers a twist to usual mechanic: our hand is limited by 4 cards, but each time we use one of them, a new card is immediately drawn to its place, thus we never run out of cards to play. Non-starting cards are common for all classes, but are grouped by type (or race), giving huge synergies depending on how many similar cards we have. Aside from this, the game offers diverse gameplay by providing a lot of different classes, each with its own unique strategies and dynamics, and some interesting items to work around. The developers constantly provide updates with bug fixes and new content, but be warned that new mechanics may break what you are already accustomed for. Royal Booty Quest started as a straight rip-off from StS with the same classes and abilities, and even cards having the same names. And absolutely atrocious pixelated visuals, which were not possible to look at without eyes bleeding out. Over time, though, it developed its own unique mechanics and interesting card combinations, but the art style did not get any better. However, if this is not a problem, the game is enjoyable to an extent, but since it was not updated for a long time, I doubt it will keeps anyone's interest for long. [...] Tavern Rumble adds an unusual strategic element - a 3x3 grid, on each units and enemies are placed. The core gameplay remains the same (we still see what opponents are planning to do each turn and adjust our own strategy accordingly), but the addition of the grid introduces another tactical layer: not only we should maximize the damage output, but also plan the layout for our troops to provide the effective delivery of said output, while at the same time establish enough defense to minimize the damage to ourselves. There are a lot of cards and classes to play around, different play modes and a lot of features that are still being constantly added to the game. Some may argue about simplistic pixel graphics or long repetitive grinding, but it is easy to unlock everything within reasonable amount of time, even without paying. [...]
Other Games
Of course, my criteria does not work 100% of the time, as some games are way too different from anything else to confidently enroll them into one of the categories. They either demonstrate traits of both, or implement entirely unique mechanics of their own (which I like the most), while still maintaining the basic dungeon crawling ideas (so a lot of the games you might think of will not end up in the list). What I have in mind is the following: Dungeon Reels removes the cards from card-based dungeon crawler - why bother, right? Instead, it provides some kind of a slot machine, where each turn three rows spin independently to pick available actions based on what slots we have in our reel. Winning battles awards us with new, better slots to add, each with their own specifics and synergies. Enemies also randomize their moves with slots of their own, but the most satisfying mechanic is the possibility to spin a jackpot with three identical slots for some powerful effect. It is interesting to see this concept developed further, but the game has not been updated for a long time. Iris and the Giant takes us on journey through imaginary world, inspired by Ancient Greek mythology. Each battle takes place on a grid, where various enemies advance in huge numbers. We play a card from our hand, usually dealing damage to nearest enemy, and then everyone who is still standing and can reach us deals damage in return. There are cards that target multiple enemies at once, as well as ways to play more than one card during our turn, so most of the time we will be deciding which card to play at which moment. The deck has limited size, and if it becomes empty we lose, so new cards should be constantly acquired. There are a lot of interesting mechanics to discover, but the game is very hard and luck based, requiring a lot of trial-and-error to finally reach the end. [...] Phantom Rose Scarlet has the same basic core, but with completely innovative battle system, not seen in any other game. On each turn there are four positions for cards to be played in strict order, where two of them are randomly filled with opponent's cards, and the remaining two are left for us to fill. Instead of drawing the hand, we have our entire deck available right away, but playing cards puts them on a cooldown, which does not reset between battles, so we constantly face the strategic choice of playing our best cards right away or keep them for later. The game is in active development, providing new mechanics and further developing the story, which is quite captivating here. [...] Void Tyrant is a bit of a stretch, but still a "card based dungeon crawler", in which we basically play BlackJack against our enemies by dealing card with numbers from 1 to 6 one-by-one from our deck until we stand or bust. Whoever has the highest value wins and deals damage to the loser. There are various supporting cards on top of this mechanic, allowing us to either jinx the outcome in our favor, or to perform various other metagame manipulations. The only downside of the game is the lack of content, as it quickly runs out of interesting things, and since it was not updated for a long time, it is unlikely that anything new will be added in the future. [...]
Conclusion
As you see, there is a lot to play besides StS, so even if you are not hyped by its long-awaited Android release, but appreciate a good intellectual dungeon crawler, you will find something to suit your needs. I hope, even with StS release, new games of the genre will continue appearing on mobile phones, and I will gladly review them and add to the list. If you know any hidden gems (or even trash) that was not highlighted in this article, please share the names and/or links in the comments. I am also open to any discussions on the topic, as I am obviously able to talk a lot about my favorite genre. Good luck to everyone in all your endeavors. P.S. I am well aware of games like Dungeon Cards, Card Adventure, Dungeon Faster, Meteorfall: Krumitz Tale, Card Thief, Maze Machina, Cube Card, Card Hog, Fisherman, Relics of the Fallen and other "grid-based puzzles", but do not consider them to be a part of the "family".
DisclaimerI want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
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