#I fee like I'm the only person who is kind of more invested in that than the botched Quicksilver reveal from the XMCU

[langernameohnebedeutung]

I know that even back then with all the copyright issues it would have been impossible, but I'm kinda sad that we never got the The Gifted version of Lorna meeting her father. If I ever had the spoons and the time and could sort through my ideas, I would love to write a fic like that

[gafellique]

So I've been really into this visual novel, Scarlet Hollow, for a minute now. The devs are a husband and wife team who are better known for their more recent indie darling, Slay the Princess. Scarlet Hollow is kind of the red headed step child with fans though. People are hesitant to play it because it is steam open access because it is not yet complete. Which is fair - so many cool indie projects go unfinished and it sucks to get invested just to never get a complete story.

However, I fail to see the difference between watching a new TV show that could be canceled at the whims of its network versus an indie project that your support can personally help keep afloat. It's genuinely puzzling how many people in steam discussions get mad about the game not updating fast enough (ten dollars, one time entry fee that gets you every new chapter for free btw) when the devs have been transparent about their update schedule and what they're working on, super consistently, for years.

It's got like 500k worth of words, and lots of branching choices that make replay value crazy high. I still haven't gotten all the scenes possible in the chapters that are currently available (four out of a planned seven) and on my last playthrough discovered a particularly nasty ending to the most recent chapter that I've never seen anyone talk about on here or Reddit.

For better or worse, most of the in depth relationship mechanics are completely hidden from the player. While this allows for a more genuine roleplaying experience, especially for a first play through, it does make it a bit harder when you're replaying with goals in mind. It's an incredible amount of work under the hood that results in contextual relationships, and the amount of choices allowed to the player are staggering.

Whatever game you've played that is narrative focused and prioritizes choice mechanics is probably NOTHING compared to Scarlet Hollow's ability to let the player choose the direction of events, minor and major.

That's not even starting on the art assets. If you've played a visual novel before, there are typically three key assets: Sprites for general dialogue, environments to establish settings, and CGs for special moments that get illustrated out. Often these are important moments like romance, or action.

Scarlet Hollow uses so many unique sprites and backgrounds it's wild. Your general sprites are ofc the traditional 3/4ths view of a character facing the player, but often the sprites are positioned in an environment like a CG, only for you to realize they're sprites when they move closer or further away and interact with their environment. It's effective and illustrative in a way I wish more VNs embraced, but also means a shit ton more art assets to make, as well as up filesize of the game.

I haven't even touched on the story or characters, Jesus. Another time.

Well I guess this is a long-winded way to say if you're into visual novels I highly recommend Scarlet Hollow by Black Tabby Games lol. The first chapter is free on steam last I checked, and I do think it's a bit of a slow burn but ultimately an intriguing gothic horror I'm excited to see truly ramp up and play out. The next chapter will probably release in 2025 and is projected to almost double the word count of the entire game so far iirc. Keeping all those narrative choices in hand is NOT easy work. Oh, and the devs keep adding more scenes to earlier chapters. Fucking wild. I admire them immensely. They're so dedicated to the project and it's incredible to see what they keep coming out with.

[redvioletarts]

Story time: Etsy vs. Redbubble

This one's for the other artists out there who might be thinking about making a shop like mine.

I've been making print on demand stuff for about ten years, well before it was a Side Hustle TM that tech bros claimed would make you thousands of dollars a month if you just use AI to make your images and your mockups and your product descriptions. (Pass.)

But I didn't start on Etsy. I used to sell on Redbubble, which does a lot of work for you, but at the cost of not having the kind of control over product quality that you get from using Etsy with Printify integration and doing a lot of the work by hand. With my setup now, I can choose the brand of blank product I'm using, choose the printing companies I'm sending orders to, and even really simple things like only offering certain T-shirt colors for a given design.

(Redbubble offers EVERY color they have and you can't change it, so I was always putting white outlines on things to make sure that the design would at least show up on every color. You'd think that people just wouldn't order a black design on a black T-shirt, but I've made the mistake of ordering a purple shirt with black text from Redbubble and being surprised at how dark the color was. You can still see the white outlines on a few of my older designs, like the Wreaking Havoc for Fun and Profit cat. AI will not think about this for you, by the way.)

Redbubble's also been doing some weird desperate shit where new artists or anyone who doesn't sell frequently enough can get their commission yoinked by some kind of membership fee thing. I wasn't personally affected by this, because a) I'd already started moving to Etsy, and b) my Redbubble shop had already sold enough to not have to deal with those fees. I don't upload there any more, though. Not a fan of the thing they're doing. I don't recommend that anyone start there any more. Society6 has been doing basically the same thing but worse (some artists can't even set their own profit margin, and S6 sets it for them at a measly ten percent), so don't go there either.

Moving to Etsy was a lot of work and required some cash investment, but I think it's been worth it. I'm happier with the stuff I've been selling, I'm getting neat stuff in the hands of more people, and my shop looks a lot nicer when I'm in more control of it.

If you're starting out with a shop like this, some business advice:

Being in Redbubble's marketplace counts for a lot less than you think. Same with Etsy, honestly. You will be doing your own marketing.

Etsy's on-site ad program is unlikely to make you a profit, but it can get you a little bit of traction. Don't spend too much on Etsy ads. It's easy to make some pretty chunky losses hoping they'll pay off over time. If you use them, narrow it down to your products that are already selling pretty well (or have sold at all) and the ones that make the best profit margin. Don't use it to advertise stickers.

Consider going straight to Shopify instead of Etsy if you're really good at using social media to market. (I am not. Though I may end up there anyway.) Host it yourself so you're not paying too much; I use GreenGeeks for web hosting and they've always been good. Shopify and WordPress will take some Googling to install and use, but don't be intimidated; I have set up a Shopify store before and it's not that bad. This is because--

Etsy absolutely will nickel and dime you all over the place and they can end up taking (as of this writing, give or take) about a 15% cut depending on a whole bunch of complicated rules. This can kill products like stickers and pins, which are generally low-priced enough that the twenty cent listing renewal fee actually matters to your profit margin. However, people are willing to pay more for those than you'd expect if they like your designs, so don't set your prices too low.

Happy selling!

[imchoosingnottoexist]

Statement of Crane Everton regarding a new guest at the hotel where he works. Statement extracted by phone March 19th, 2021.

Statement Begins

There are weirdos at hotels. It's a well-known fact. I've worked at the Comfort Hotel London for 4 years, and to me, that's 4 years too many. I spent the better part of my teenage years working here, and I've become kind of afraid I'll be here when I die. I hate working a front desk job, I've been screamed at and complained about more times than I care to count, and through all of it, I've had to wear my customer service smile. It makes me sick. But another part of working in hospitality that's almost as bad as being regularly lambasted by strangers is conning well-meaning people out of their money.

Hotels do all sorts of dirty things under your nose. People know about price gouging and hidden fees, but they don't see how the rooms are barely cleaned or how almost every hotel has an insect or rat infestation that they keep under wraps. Mine, in particular, has cockroaches and bedbugs. People also don't know how much of a hotel is held together with glue and duct tape; I hear regularly enough of things falling apart and the customer getting charged for them. All that's not even mentioning how thin the walls are.

Sometimes when I'm made to clean, I hear screaming matches between couples or someone throwing a party that they're definitely going to have to pay damages for later on. It's actually pretty hard not to get invested in some of the stories I hear unfold. There was this one time a woman's boyfriend was very obviously cheating on her, their stay was only a few days long, and their relationship ended when her boyfriend "accidentally" left the door unlocked on a call with his mistress. I know interfering in other people's business sounds bad, but I rarely do it, and when I do, it's for a good reason. I only ever influence situations a bit anyway, so really, it was going to happen one way or another`, I just help speed it along

Besides the crisis couples, there are so many strange people who check-in that it's become kind of routine. Not a week goes by that I don't see people coming to cheat on their partner wearing a trenchcoat and sunglasses. Or the few times a guest tries to buy drugs and their dealer checks in at the front desk, it's even funnier when they say what they're there to do.

But nothing was as strange as what happened last week. A man came in; he was wearing a face mask which I didn't find terribly odd, Covid is still around, and people have to do whatever they have to to keep themselves safe. But he was also wearing sunglasses; His face was almost completely hidden and I doubt he was able to see, but I didn't question it., and instead, I put on my best customer service smile and asked him how I could help him. He moved strangely and stiffly towards me like a marionette being pulled by strings I couldn't see. It was unnerving to watch, and… it made me feel very aware of my tendons and how they pulled when I moved.

The marionette man arrived at the front of my desk and began to speak. I couldn't see his jaw move, but I heard a voice. "Online booking, room 214.". Now, at the time, the hotel had no vacant rooms that were available to the public; in reality, several rooms were kept vacant at all times for staff to… "perform recreational activities" in, but none of those rooms was ever advertised as open. Room 214 was one of the rooms with actual people in it, though, a group of three friends who had come to London to "see the sights," as they put it.

Knowing that there were people in the room, I looked at my computer to see if an online booking had been made and in fact, I had one, a room for one person, last name Saleasa. I was going to tell the man that the room was still occupied, but when I looked at him, I felt like I couldn't tell him no, so instead, I stared at him silently. I tried to form words, but nothing came out. After about a minute of staring, I had given him the room key. I didn't do it on purpose, but I didn't do it by accident either. It's like I didn't do it at all, it was just something that had happened, and my body had made it happen.

When the man received the key, I felt my eyes swell with tears, he stared at me, and just before my face had begun to weep, he turned and did a stilted jaunt to the elevator. Once the man was out of my sight, I felt like I could finally stop myself from crying. It took me several minutes to try to understand what had just happened, and by the time I had come to my senses, I thought that I had to go to that room; I didn't know what that man would do. So I abandoned the front desk and ran upstairs, but by the time I arrived at room 214, I was too late. It seemed the man had already entered. I don't know how long I stood at the door. I couldn't bring myself to actually touch it, but I could hear through it. Oh God, I could hear through it. On the other side, there was a disgusting fleshy cracking sound like a wet carrot being snapped and the pieces slapped together.

So I listened, and then my body began to turn like there was someone behind me with their arms on either side of me, grabbing me and rotating me. Then my legs started moving; I couldn't control it. I walked with the same jerking stiff motions down the stairs and to my desk. It was a terrible feeling, and with every step, I was more and more scared of what my body would do. With each motion of the puppet march, I knew less and less of what was happening; I just knew that I couldn't stop it. After what felt like hours of being controlled, my body arrived back at the front desk.

I couldn't go to the room… not again. Even the thought of standing in front of the door caused me pain. It was an odd pain, like when you stretch a muscle too far and feel like it'll snap, except the pain was throughout my entire body. That day I just tried to forget the marionette man and the snaps behind the door, trying to force them out of my mind. It worked well enough.

For a couple of days, I returned to the regular monotony of my life, cleaning rooms and checking out guests. I even had an encounter with a drunk who was a guest at a different hotel but thought he had a room with us and made enough of a fuss that the police had to escort him out.

Eventually, I decided to just leave it be. Whatever was in that room didn't want me, so I just stayed out of its way and hoped it didn't come to attack. But then the spiders came. 4 days into Mr Saleasa's one-week stay, the hotel became infested with spiders. Spiders had been one thing that the hotel had never had a problem with; I always thought that the cockroaches fought them off, but that was more so for my own sanity.

These spiders were weird. I say that like any of this situation has been expected. But these spiders were strange compared to normal spiders. They were a dark grey colour, larger and thinner than the average spider you see creeping around the corners of these hotels, and they moved with alarming speed. The webs they spun were thick and had weird twisting patterns. The first time I laid eyes on one, I felt like I had to look at it, follow the webbing and find the centre. I didn't stare at one for much longer after that. It wasn't coming for me, not my business, not my problem. I'm not going to get eaten by a spider while doing this terrible job.

The spider's webs always had an abundance of bugs in them, sometimes even bugs that usually didn't even live at the hotel. A few of the webs closer to the ground would have little silver worms in them. No matter how trapped they were, they would still crawl until the spiders came to eat them.

The next day a woman came to me to complain about the spiders; she was in her mid-forties, white, with short curly hair. She said there were spiders in her room and that she was an arachnophobe and was very scared of them. Told me to get rid of them immediately or she would call the manager. So I obliged. I went up to her room with a cup and a broom to swat down whatever spiders had found themselves a nest in the corners. When I entered the room, I began looking around; the webs weren't hard to find. They were in all the places someone would look. There was a thick one next to the kettle, a long intricate one made with sleight small strings above the bed, and even a bush-like one I'm the bathroom, where the toilet met the wall.

I began to take the webs down but couldn't bring myself to kill the spiders. I don't know why. Looking back now, I would've killed them; I don't find spiders particularly cute or endearing or necessary. But at the time, I just couldn't bring myself to do it, so I took each spider into a cup and released them out the window.

When I left the room, the woman was surprisingly grateful and didn't suspect a thing. I didn't see her again after that; after what happened in room 214, I'm hoping she just checked out while I wasn't working. But I'm not sure about that. I couldn't help but notice there were no complaints of any kind of insect. I used to get at least 3 a week, but the week when the spiders came, they all stopped. Like they just couldn't exist in the same place. Of course, I'm not complaining; as much as I don't like spiders, I like getting yelled at about cockroaches even less.

I hadn't seen the thing that had made its home in room 214 since it had made its entrance into the hotel. Despite my curiosity, I couldn't bring myself to check the security cameras to see if there had been any activity. Sometimes my coworkers would talk about weird people on the second floor. Once I heard a door open and shut in the general direction of the room, I always felt like I was being pulled away from knowing anything about what was happening. Every word caused me to walk away, and every weird noise would cause me to start humming. I didn't do those things because I didn't want to not know what was happening; I don't know why I did those things at all. I probably could have resisted the urge if I wanted to, but it felt good to succumb. The sharp bite of fear of what my body was doing was followed by the bliss of not having to worry about what was happening around me. I just had to go through the motions.

I worked the night shift on the 6th day of Mr Saleasa's stay. I began the night having to audit, basically crunching numbers. That's not a job I'm qualified or paid to do, but I still have to do it. I have to check payment details, balance the chequebook, and close accounts for dozens of rooms a night, every night I work. It was about halfway into the massive stack of paperwork I had to do that I heard a door on the second-floor open. I tried to convince myself I didn’t know what door it was, that it could have been anyone going out for a drink or coming to complain to me about their plumbing. But I knew it wasn’t any door; deep in my bones, I knew it was the door to room 214.

When I was done with my audits, I had to start on my laundry list of things to clean, which included sweeping the second floor. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want to lose my job either. So reluctantly, I trudged upstairs and grabbed the cleaning cart. The hotel is very dark at night, the only lights being small strings of lights lining the floors and ceiling, so it was difficult to see. When I got to the second floor, I saw the thing I wanted to see the least. The door to the room was open, and so was the emergency exit nearby. Usually, that door would trigger an alarm whenever it’s opened. But it must have been full of webs. I stared at the door in shock; I couldn’t move, no matter how hard I tried. Then someone walked through it. They were hard to see in the dark. It wasn’t the same person that checked into room 214; it was a new person. They were taller than I was and wore a long black coat with many pockets. Their fingers were claw-like and gripped a large cardboard box. The box was labelled in big green letters, “Property of The Magnus Institute, London. Est. 1818”. I had never heard of The Magnus Institute, and just as that thought crossed my mind, the person looked at me. Their eyes were sharp and dug into me when I saw them. They glowed a sick yellow, and their pupils were a deep, void black.

I tried to run, but I was stuck in place until the person entered room 214 and shut the door. I spent the rest of the night cleaning and trying to shake the feeling of violation looking at that person had given me. The door didn’t open again that night, and I swatted down every spider web I saw.

Mr. Saleasa was supposed to have left by the 7th day. I don’t know if I genuinely thought he would or if I was just trying to convince myself that eventually, my life would return to relative normalcy. But none of those things happened. The hotel had been a lot quieter since the spiders came, people complained less, fewer weird people tried to speak to me. There was just a general tension in the atmosphere. I still didn’t kill any of the spiders. I didn’t want to fight the pull against me anymore, so I just tried to act like everything was fine. I didn’t want any part in whatever the hell “The Magnus Institute” did, has done, or was doing, in room 214. But of course, I couldn’t catch a break. Just before my shift that day ended I took a bathroom break. When I came back there was a package on the front desk. It was small and rectangular, wrapped in brown paper, and covered in wisps of cobweb. It had a note written on it in sharpie marker, pretty cursive writing that said. “For being such a helpful host.”. I don’t know why I opened it, but I did.

Inside the package was a cassette tape, I haven’t seen a cassette tape in years. It was labelled “0171802-A”. I don’t own a tape player. I don’t know where I would find a tape player. But I feel the pull to play the tape, to open my gift.

[climbdraws]

How does an artist whose never really posted art online go about making a successful online store the same way you have? I'm not sure how to even start, do you open a store and pray? Get an endorsement from another artist? Am I gonna need a twitter? I guess im just looking for any tips, if you're willing to share. (BTW I got a a few of the holo skull stickers, ADORE them!)

hi! glad you like the holo stickers - hopefully gonna add more real soon!

(long answer so under cut)

I think the first thing you need to ask yourself is - how much effort do I want/have time to put into this? ((*For reference, my store would be categorized under upper-medium/high effort as I am doing art full-time))

Low Effort - POD service (print-on-demand) such as RedBubble, Society6, Teepublic (you upload your work, they handle everything else.)

PROS: They handle everything from site listings, product photos, product creation, packaging, shipping & handling, and customer support. They have brand reputation so people trust the site & your products. Offer a lot of custom printing (shirts, pillows, blankets, mugs etc) that would be pretty expensive trying to do yourself starting out. Very little involvement besides uploading your work & sharing it to your followers. 

CONS: Artists only receive a very small percentage per sale and it might take quite a while to earn anything substantial. Product quality varies (RedBubble sticker quality is hot garbage imo) as they are usually cheaply produced. A lot of stolen artwork/designs are sold on these sites and nothing is done to regulate it. 

--

Medium Effort: Online marketplaces such as Storenvy, Etsy, Shopify etc. A PLATFORM for you to sell your goods - you are responsible for creating, packaging, shipping & marketing your products. 

PROS: Convenient marketplace shopping allows people to easily browse your store alongside other vendors/artists. Allows you to brand your own store & products so that they are uniquely yours. A true “small business” as you are handling essentially everything except for the online store-hosting platform. Allows you to include personal notes/touches or freebies in your orders as you are packaging & shipping them yourself. 

CONS: Usually have to pay a fee for every sale/listing. Website/Storefront design are limited to what the platform has to offer (some don’t have custom HTML options). Requires YOU to create your own merch - whether it’s original art, prints, stickers, enamel pins etc - which means a lot of time spent talking to manufacturers, figuring out shipping rates etc. Can involve a lot of $$ investment upfront. 

--

High Effort / Full-Time: Creating your own website/storefront OR Patreon Clubs. Handling everything yourself & releasing new content quite frequently - good for artists with a following/brand reputation/full-time. 

Basically everything from the ‘Medium Effort’ tier but requiring quite a bit of time/effort (usually) daily. Monthly Patreon clubs are becoming pretty common - backers pledge every month for a ‘tier’ level and receive merch at the end of the month (which requires you to factor in manufacturing time, shipping time to you, packaging & then shipping to the customer which can be difficult for people who suck at meeting deadlines ((sometimes me but I'm working on it))

--

Honestly there is no “correct way” to go about creating a shop for yourself. I know a lot of artists who run their own stores & also have merch on RedBubble/Society6 as it’s just another revenue stream that’s quite low-key and the more visibility you have as a ‘brand’ the better. Some artists have shop openings with their store only being open for a week or two and then closed for a couple months and then re-open again (youtuber BayleeJae does this & is quite successful at it) 

There’s honestly so many factors that go into a store - what kind of merch/art you want to create, what your fanbase is, who you’re marketing to, how much funds you want to invest etc etc. It can be quite overwhelming which is why I really recommend those just starting out to start slow/small and test the waters with just a few items first before rushing in and spending a bunch of $$$$ on products that might not end up selling as well as you hoped.

Since you said you don’t really post online - I would suggest starting with a LOW EFFORT store like RedBubble, Society6, TeePublic etc and really focus on building your social media following & presence. Make sure your social accounts all have same/similar handles (mine vary a lil but it’s always ‘Climb’). Posting frequently can be hard but it’s really important to start getting people to notice you & gain interest in your work. 

[border-spam]

I am so curious as to how Ur-Aurum ended up in this situation and how he has the intestinal fortitude to tell Tyreen no. I'm also guessing his love life is a trip, but mostly: SIR. WHY??? HOW???

Solomon Ur-Aurum has absolute authority to tell the God Queen no, because he answers to Father Troy... and Sol practically controls the COV.

The Saints were originally intended to have equal power within the COV and that no department head would hold sway over another, but that’s ended up a lie. Finance controls everything, Sol heads the finance dept... and Troy owns it.

He’s not in this position through chance, he’s exactly where he wants to be. It’s what he’s clawed towards since the day he founded the Children of the Vault alongside the Calypso Twins.

Solomon Blatcjky is a cut throat broker and stock market expert with decades of experience under his belt, and apparently no morals to speak of. His reputation proceeds him, and while he may be a little person, he casts a long shadow.

Sol spent most of his adult life building his career out of other people’s bank accounts on Harrier, a silicon valley-esque tax haven moon in Promethea’s orbit who’s tiny landmass is crowded by the corporate and mega-conglomerate skyscrapers it’s covered by. 

He was known for a near vicious focus on providing results for his employers, and a complete lack of humor while doing so. He’s stony faced, profit motivated, and driven - excellent traits for a moneymaker on your side, but ones that have left him plenty of enemies in his trade. He doesn’t work well with others and doesn’t partner in general, preferring to have complete control over projects himself and removing the risk of failure relying on someone else can cause.

He’s got a keen eye and razor sharp instinct, so when he first caught sight of two ratty kids online and noted their shocking count growth in the week period he’d tuned in to their e-com drivel, he sank his fangs into an opportunity other’s hadn’t sniffed out yet.

It didn’t take much, some official type work mailed to their studio address in that rusty docker town on Pandora, an invite to Harrier and a pair of first class shuttle tickets so they could “Discuss what he’d like to offer”, and they’d taken the bait. Scrawny, disheveled, and reeking of false confidence Sol saw through like a veneer, they’d sat in his office and stared wide eyed around it. 

The Twins had never seen anything like the luxury he worked in, still only starting to get used to Pandora’s dry barrens and beginning to forget Nekrotafeyo’s cool hues. They were beyond out of their league here, trying to hide the shake of excitement in their limbs behind practiced theatrical gestures as Sol sat calmly, listening to their bravado about their followers, their family, lofty goals, all while covering his artisanal leather chairs in the red dust that coated their extravagantly pathetic outfits.

He’d grinned politely. Nodded along. Agreed with the loudmouth woman and offered reassuring comments to the apprehensive man, noting mentally which of the two were going to be the one he’d need to work on to convince.

His offer was unbelievable, and Troy, even with his then layman’s understanding of financing he’d learned from their months with Seifa, was wary. Solomon’s full attention, broker services, stock rights and acumen...  all for a tiny profit-percent based fee.

They had nothing to give him and Troy knew that. $5k in savings was all they had to their names, barely anything left from what Sei had given them for their ship after the majority had gone on streaming equipment and the tech they needed. They were making a profit now sure, numbers were already growing explosively, but this man was not someone who worked for anything less than 9 digits a year. What was he gaining in this deal?

It was Tyreen that spoke up, clumsily but to the point at least, asking him why someone like him would take $5k and turn it into real money for them when that’s all they had, why would he give them all this time if he could do the same for Hyperion or Maliwan or fucking... Torque, and earn so much more?

He had smiled back, completely devoid of actual warmth, and told the Calypso twins it was because he believed in them.

That was enough for Tyreen who was more than happy to welcome another worshipper into the fold, but not for Troy. He had suspicions that itched at the back of his mind for days after his sister had shook Sol’s hand and sealed the deal, so he did what would come to be a process he relied on through his future to understand other's motivations - he dug into Solomon’s history. 

It was airtight. Flawless performances in every position he’d worked in, excellent reviews, dirt free publicly, but privately?

It seemed Sol’s reputation was under threat on Harrier. He was well known for being cutthroat and emotionless, so when clients he’d worked with in the past vanished, or competitors had been found assassinated in their luxury condos, it had made sense for the corporate rumor mill to target him. Wether the murmurs were true or not didn’t matter, the damage was building and Troy realised that spotting the inexperienced twins had been an out. He MUST have genuinely believed he could turn their newborn fame into something intensely profitable or he’d not have approached them, and this man clearly was someone who’s opinion on success viability could be trusted. 

Troy spent long video calls with him in private, explained very clearly that he would appreciate Sol’s expertise but that any step out of line, any act that put his sister, his media syndicate, or his money in danger, would be met with termination of the completely permanent kind. 

Sol had assured him he’d understood, and they’d finalised the contract. 

He’s been part of the COV before it had a name, and he has no plans to leave.

By the time the Holy City was founded a couple of years later, he was running all of financing as the Saint of the department, mostly still from his office on Harrier. He doesn’t like Pandora, he doesn’t like the word Tink, and he definitely does not like the planet’s inhabitants, but he can still be found in the Grand Cathedral on official business at times. 

Sol has dropped all clients, no one can possibly match the zeros coming in at the ends of the COV profit numbers at this point, and by late COV he’s still on the percent profit based salary the twins agreed to 8 years ago. 

The results he pulls for them are astronomical, but he'll do so at the cost of any other person, or town, or planet, and Troy has found it easier to turn a blind eye than investigate too deeply in WHAT Sol is investing their money in - who's stocks he buys, or how the companies and industries the COV cannibalises are treated.

Seifa has inklings, but her work relationship with Sol needs to stay amicable and, uh, she's fucking terrified of him to boot. Everyone is, and she's not willing to risk his retaliation for her getting too nosy. They say people go missing who do that. She’s not sure where the rumor started, but there’s no smoke without fire.

That’s Solomon Ur-Aurum. 

Little man casting a long shadow.

[theodoretheninja]

You're not wrong, I'm just telling you why I think most people are feeling this way. Lots of people do have terrible spending habits and no one likes to admit they're wrong or at fault these days. I agree with you on the pricing as well, but in my experience and the experience of many people from what I've seen has been that landlords by and large increase their rent with a much greater frequency than they make improvements to their properties. I've rented from companies as well as individuals and yet to have a single landlord fix anything without being threatened with legal action or bypassed altogether. They want modern rent rates for homes and apartments that haven't been updated or repaired beyond the bare minimum in decades.

As for the shortage of housing, that one will always be hard to convince people in favor of landlords. If there's not enough housing, knowing that the guy you pay every month has 6 properties on top of their own home isn't garnering them any sympathy. I understand the principle of people making investments and winding up in that position, but when they don't want to provide the service that goes along with renting, they don't make friends. Luckily, in my state, you can repair or replace whatever you want and turn the receipt in and deduct it from your rent.

At this point though, I'll never be on their side. Too many awful experiences. Too many houses I could afford bought by some rich person who outbid me and turned around to rent it without ever investing a single penny into making it livable beyond being walls and a roof. Too many lies. Too many thefts. Too many idiots who inherited the property and expect to be paid without maintaining it. Landlords have wound up like cops to me. My personal experience will always outweigh any logic put forth in favor of them. Too many bad apples have spoiled the bunch to believe there are decent ones left.

I've had them illegally enter, steal my property, falsely charge me erroneous fees, tell me things aren't their problem, physically assault my wife, try to spy on my daughter, try to harm our pets, evict and sue successfully because they took our mail so I wasn't aware it was happening until it was too late to put up a legal defense. The list goes on. Scum of the earth 99% of the time. Liars, cheats, and cons make up their bulk. Same goes for other renters more often than not, so I understand why some of them are the way they are, but I don't care anymore. It's not a thought, it's a feeling, but I'm never going to stop feeling it.

Kinda like with commies. Even if they make a compelling argument, I hate them on a personal level. I don't believe their properties should be seized and redistributed or anything stupid. I only wish they were held to a higher standard. Uber makes sure you have a nice vehicle if you're going to drive for them. No one gives a shit about rental properties unless the building is hazardous and unfit for anything but condemnation.

I apologize if I come off as hostile, I'm just remembering a particularly awful landlady I had a few years ago. We wound up having to call the police on her numerous times. She was ignorant of the laws, uncaring as well. Lead constantly, would beat on our door demanding we pay the rent that we had already paid almost every month. She destroyed our lease agreement after failing to give us a copy, never provided a key to the mailbox so we couldn't get mail, added a payment I made to a falsified record of missed rent and evicted us. I found out when my wife called me at work to tell me it was happening. She stole all kinds of shit while we were moving out, denied it, then told me she'd sell our belongings back to us.

The only solace I have is that I saw her about a year and a half after that. She was a skeleton. Stage 4 cancer if I had to guess. I hope she suffered an unbelievable amount before finally going back to hell where she belonged. Cunt.

Anyway, defend them all you want, I don't care. This is a personal standpoint for me. They could all die tomorrow and I think the world would be a better place.

> Person A: I need somewhere to live temporarily, while I save up to purchase a home.

> Person B: No can do buckaroo, renting is evil!

[kainout]

How I'm making up for the $600,000 I lost due to Covid-19 -Kainout

Cut excess spending

Over the past 15 months, about 60% ($13,260) of our monthly passive income ($22,100) was spent on living expenses. Luckily, since April, we've managed to cut back by at least 32% (to only spending $9,017 per month). We plan on using the money saved to invest in more real estate opportunities. Cutting back on the expenses below hasn't been easy, especially when you're raising a three-year-old son and a five-month-old daughter in an expensive city like San Francisco. But we're willing to do whatever it takes. 1. Night doula Monthly savings: $8,000 Our expenses were significantly higher this year because we hired a night doula (a professional who provides overnight, in-home support for families with newborns). This was never part of the plan, but our toddler had been waking up several times in the middle of the night (hence why I regret not doing enough sleep training when he was younger). We were able to handle it at first, but things got increasingly difficult as my pregnant wife was nearing her due date. And by the time our daughter was born in December, we needed the additional help. Our hope was to continue hiring her until both kids learn to sleep more soundly, but a doula is by far one of our biggest expenses that we know we can do without. 2. Food and groceries Monthly savings: $500 or more In 2019, we spent an average of $2,500 per month on food. This year, however, our spending went up to about $3,500 per month — partly due to having a second child, but mostly because we had to rely more on food deliveries. The tips and fees really add up! So far, our new strategy to cut costs by $500 or more per month has been working (we currently spend an average of $16.50 per person, per day): No more takeout or deliveries: We do all our grocery shopping at the store and only cook at home. It's been fun experimenting with different ingredients and recipes.No food goes wasted: Whatever we buy, we eat — including leftovers. Spaghetti bolognese with chopped carrots and celery has been a huge favorite, since it's easy to make and lasts several days.Be strategic with grocery store trips: To avoid multiple trips per week, we always plan ahead by making a shopping list based on what we have and what we need.Be more mindful about what we buy: No junk food. Buy items with a longer shelf life. Never shop on an empty stomach (shopping hungry always leads to impulse buys).Eat less: Binge-eating is no longer an option, which is actually a good thing since I'm trying to lose all the stress weight I gained over the past few months. 3. Non-essentials Monthly savings: $1,000 or more We've been able to cut back on non-essentials by 90%, from roughly $2,000 to $200 per month. This may sound too drastic to be true, but the lockdown has forced a new kind of frugality (e.g., no entertainment or restaurant outings).  We also haven't spent a penny on new clothes, gifts or electronics. Our only recent splurge was a small $100 slide and a $50 push car. We figured it was a smart idea since the local playgrounds have been closed. Even as the economy reopens, we will continue to cut back on non-essentials — just in case there's a second wave of virus cases and the economy falters again.

Focus on the right passive income streams

To identify what sources of income we should — and shouldn't — spend time and money on, we reviewed the risk levels for each of our passive income streams. Surprisingly, our real estate investments in single-family homes have been promising. The two tenants from our San Francisco properties have been paying rent on time; both have essential, high-paying jobs, so we're not concerned about any payment issues down the line. To boost our passive income, we've been searching for a good real estate deal in the city. Our plan is to buy and rent it out (or move in and put our existing property up for rent). Our real estate crowdfunding investments, however, are at highest risk of decline. Two of our investments, both in hospitality, took a massive hit due to shelter-in-place orders. We have very little control since we're minority investors, so our only option is to ride out the storm. I've also been writing more frequently on Financial Samurai, the financial site I started in 2009, to increase advertising revenue. Hopefully, this will lead to other profitable opportunities. (Last year, it generated roughly $50,400, thanks to an e-book that readers can only buy on the site.) When chaos strikes, it's easy to feel paralyzed and do nothing. But, as the saying goes, you should never let a serious crisis go to waste. Although it will take some time for our new strategy to make up for the losses, we're already starting to save thousands of dollars. Plus, now that we've been forced to change our spending habits (for the first time in a while), we will be more financially prepared for the future. Sam Dogen worked in investing banking for 13 years before starting Financial Samurai, a personal-finance website. He received a B.A. in Economics from The College of William & Mary his MBA from the University of California in Berkeley. Sam has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune and The L.A.Times. Don't miss: Source link Read the full article

[loveandbeatings-blog]

How Much You Need To Expect You'll Pay For A Good coffee face mask

As a powerhouse of vital nutrients; Honey has certainly been a favorite of your nutritionist, dieticians, attractiveness gurus and naturopaths for good reasons effectively-outlined.   Some details about Honey: It dates again to in excess of 4000 decades This DIY face mask to remove blackheads also contains sandalwood powder that acts to be a all-natural absorbent and cleanser, gently scrubbing and extracting blackheads out of your pores and skin. Why invest https://www.facebook.com/steptoremedies/posts/2099810723445530 than $twenty on the retailer-bought facial scrub once they keep on your face for just minutes and all Those people extravagant ingredients get washed down the drain? I do think I’ll in fact Incorporate three and 4 because I've dry and inflamed skin. One of several benefits of utilizing these kinds of components is they gained’t respond poorly jointly like atore purchased ones may possibly! Combination pores and skin implies you may have a rather oily T-zone and drier cheeks with dry patchy places right here and t here . website -dependent mask is ideal for balancing out the oily and dry areas of your skin. So we scoured Pinterest for the top face mask recipes to restore the skin. All of them involve very good-for-you elements like avocado, honey, oatmeal as well as chocolate—all things that is most likely presently sitting down within your kitchen cupboards. Begin Slideshow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua9o4c15Z1Y has become independently chosen and reviewed by our editorial staff. If you make a invest in utilizing the links bundled, we may perhaps generate commission. In this economy, why devote $30 or more with a leg wax when you are able to do it your self? I've several pals who wax their own individual legs and I learned a recipe for any sugar "wax" on the Double X Web-site for Females. Editor Hanna Rosin shares her family members's recipe. Applying honey regularly on your skin can provide you with success past your creativeness and might go a great distance in giving you balanced, younger hunting and glowing skin. What exactly are some great benefits of Honey for Pores and skin and Face?  This content material is accurate and correct to the most beneficial from the author’s understanding and isn't meant to substitute for formal and individualized suggestions from a qualified Experienced. Fuller’s earth or the multani mitti is surely an indigenous process to deal with numerous skin complications. It can be firm remover of oiliness and strongly fights the blackheads. In addition it dries to kind a agency mask. Considering that the peel is rich in vitamin C, it shields skin from cost-free radical destruction, retains acne at bay and promotes a healthy glowing skin. The oatmeal deep cleanses your pores and drives out any Dust, grime and oil with the surface with the skin. Listed here are five successful face packs for an acne-totally free pores and skin. The caffeine from coffee grounds On this cocoa-licious mask helps to lessen swelling and puffiness, when the antioxidants while in the cocoa aid to cut back growing old, and the yogurt replenishes lost moisture. > When it comes to make-up, There exists get which needs to be adopted to prevent makeup fails. Also, if you follow the proper buy, makeup stays in place for for a longer time however we would want to reiterate that it’s absolutely upto one’s own desire. Some Girls prefer to do their eyebrows very first while some others do […]

Detailed Notes on yeast face mask

Mix one tablespoon of quick coffee powder and more than enough freshly squeezed lemon juice for making a thick paste. Simply because cinnamon is so potent, I'd personally endorse only using this honey mask the moment a week at most. You can utilize one of many other, gentler honey masks on other days for those who’d like. Cinnamon can at times be annoying if your skin is admittedly delicate, so you should do a patch exam within the back again of your hand first. Using honey masks for acne therapy is really a very popular household remedy and If you're seriously interested in treating your acne inside of a pure, harmless way or if One's body does not answer effectively to absorbing medicines made of severe substances, then honey masks are the right choice for you. Your just lately seen merchandise and highlighted suggestions › See or edit your searching background This support makes it possible for you to join or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you could earn revenue from adverts in your content. No knowledge is shared unless you interact with this particular characteristic. (Privateness Coverage) Yogurt and honey have antibiotic Attributes, and this whole Mix is nearly as good for your personal outsides as it can be in the drink. Use steptoremedies.com inside a slurp-in a position smoothie with the milk of your respective alternative. Don’t rub or therapeutic massage as you clean it off simply because you don’t want the elements to exfoliate the skin even more. It's going to go away your skin dry, leading to your oil glands to create more sebum, which may result in far more acne! Somewhat cinnamon oil may be used Together with the coconut oil, but I might only use a drop or two in a little jar of coconut oil–over that will melt away the skin. Didi’s just take: “Never Do this 1 before the children! Spirulina is eco-friendly, extremely eco-friendly. You'll appear like the Hulk. Having said that, I beloved this mask. click here smelled like banana and left my pores and skin vivid and so hydrated that it absolutely was truly springy towards the touch.” What you may need: two polished clamshells. (All those observed inside their natural condition with the Beach front are too rough against the skin. Uncover clean clamshells at seashellco.com.) Make use of a fork or just give it a whizz from the blender for your smoother face mask that can be easier to utilize. Contains strong anti-inflammatory and skin lightening Qualities. Helps fade acne scars and minimizing swelling and redness from acne. The ideal face mask for acne can’t be acquired at a pricey department retail store. In fact, it only includes a single component and it’s likely previously as part of your pantry! https://www.wikihow.com/Take-Care-of-Your-Skin ’s one among my particular favorites: the Uncooked honey mask.

How diy face mask can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

when you have extreme paleness or redness of your skin of your face: yeast face mask tones and offers to skin an attractive matte or pearly shade that can delight any individual. Unfold it evenly in your face and neck and chill out for 20 minutes. Gently rub the mixture although washing it off with h2o. This will help in removing the lifeless skin and brightens the complexion. Begin Slideshow Each product or service we function has been independently picked and reviewed by our editorial workforce. Should you come up with a order utilizing the inbound links provided, we may perhaps gain Fee. Therapeutic massage the mask on to your face for at least 2 minutes. Depart over the mask for quarter-hour. Clean off with heat drinking water 1st then chilly drinking water to shut off pores. via steptoremedies.com and honey have antibiotic Homes, and this entire blend is nearly as good for your outsides as it's inside a drink. Use any leftovers inside of a slurp-able smoothie Along with the milk within your decision. Egg White Face Masks—Egg whites are known for their capability to tone large pores and reduce surplus sebum, making them perfect for people with In a natural way oily skin. https://www.facebook.com/steptoremedies/ , 2014 at eight:19 pm Hi there! I\'m attempting the redness-cutting down mask for rosacea - I\'ve only applied a little bit on my face when compared with just what the recipe created, am i able to preserve it during the fridge for a few days to work with once more or do I really have to create a new combination every time? I've my fingers crossed it really works! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5BbUHcuKxY ! Coffee is not only a well known beverage. It is also a favourite ingredient of high-class pores and skin care goods. There are actually myriads of benefits of utilizing coffee for pores and skin treatment. It is often used for earning system scrubs. By mechanically exfoliating the pores and skin, the coffee scrubs make the skin sleek and tender and improves complexion. Lastly, scrub the skin using this type of mask and depart it for nearly fifty percent an hour or so to have tender, glowing pores and skin. It works for a purely natural bleach and lowers Solar tan when applies about thrice in a week for at least per month. for dilemma skin: these property facial mask is excellent: brewer’s yeast correctly cope with inflammations, acne and black factors; The product nourishes and gives pores and skin a delicate lustrous truly feel whilst honey functions as a mild astringent and the anti-septic Qualities it has really helps to cleanse skin of germs and dirt answerable for leading to acne. I exploit only New brewer's yeast with a little h2o or milk or lemon juice (for who may take this) or crops tea, come up with a paste, use on face, leave 10-15 mins, rinse, swipe a cotton ball total chamomile or tilia tea and then put Calendula oil or Macadamia oil-> perfection! Allow’s discover the potent nutrients in raw honey for its nourishing Added benefits to skin! Below, learn about three unique face masks you can try out for yourself at home, Each and every with a special gain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beauty

What Does strawberry face mask Mean?

The sugar With this recipe works as a natural exfoliant useful in breaking apart scar tissue and unclogging pores and skin pores. Go away the mask on for around ten minutes and afterwards rinse it off with water. Use this splendor mask about a few times each week. If your adjective you utilize to explain the skin is “mature” or “dry”, this face mask is in your case. Its numerous elements put humidity again into your drained pores and skin and bring about a radiancy that maybe you have considered you missing for good. In this article’s the simple recipe. Then, position the yogurt and strawberries in the blender to mash or Incorporate together the yogurt and strawberries using a fork (a blender is effective ideal). It is best to employ raw, natural and organic honey rather than processed honey because the latter may well irritate your skin. In the bowl, mash the strawberries which has a fork right up until smooth. Increase from the honey and mix the ingredients jointly. Using clean up fingers or maybe a sanitized brush, gently utilize the combination throughout your face, steering clear of the eye region. A strawberry face mask could make the pores and skin glow additionally appear gorgeous, and helps you to treatment acne and acne scars. This face mask is ideal for oily pores and skin. for oily pores and skin: no other beauty item is able so would make narrow enlarged pores and reduce as soon as possible harmful shine from the face; You should use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No knowledge is shared with Facebook Except if you engage with this attribute. (Privateness Coverage) all right effectively it seems to obtain manufactured my skin smoother, but I've one particular suggestion: it might feel evident, but don’t set it in the eyebrows!! ? the cinnamon will get stuck in them and you've got to wipe it out harshly by using a wet paper towel or wipe hahah & also when rinsing your face don’t scrub along with your fingers, do it Carefully or it’ll bring about discomfort within the small pieces of cinnamon powder and it’s kinda painful ? I’m going to try and Test back in tomorrow early morning to determine if and of my acne has cleared up! Sounds like an incredibly refreshing facial mask! It will definitely scent fragrant far too. Thanks for sharing :) I in no way rubbed the yeast on my pores and skin to be a gommage or exfoliating motion prior to washing my face so maybe I could Do this following time. I attempted simply a mask for every se. Making use of orange juice on your own face is so beneficial. So just envision how far more helpful It will be to use the peel, full of pores and skin-boosting nutrients, on your face! Like another home face masks, yeast face mask has many indications to be used, which must be recognized prior to to undertake its planning. Yeast face mask is usually recommended: This magical face mask can confirm successful in holding the indications of ageing for instance pimples and fantastic lines at bay. Orange peel is great for decreasing oxidative pressure in pores and skin cells, which subsequently can help in preserving a youthful glowing pores and skin.

How Much You Need To Expect You'll Pay For A Good diy face mask

Soak uncooked rice within the drinking water. Following, go ahead and take strawberries and soaked rice and blend them in a single blender to make a sleek paste. Want to turn day to day right into a very good skin working day? Need to know tips on how to retain the skin youthful, fresh new, and glowing 24/7? Every single individual desires to appear and feel their finest always. Our confidence is right proportionate to the way in which we sense about ourselves. Deriving the very best from by yourself is even so a endeavor that may be considerably assisted with the usage of good goods. In the bowl, take some orange peel powder, sugar and almond oil. Be sure the level of sugar is equivalent on the peel powder and here you have an uncomplicated recipe to a lovely smelling lip balm that’s efficient and simple to produce. mask should be applied on clear skin in the face and keep for 20 minutes, then rinse underneath running h2o. Software: Utilize a layer of your apple honey mask on your own complete face. Wait for 10 to fifteen minutes and let the mask dry up a bit. After that, clean the mask off Along with the lukewarm drinking water and look forward to the results! Ideas: The apple honey mask works very best when it’s contemporary. To https://www.pinterest.com/pin/722616702689372461 , immediately after preparing, you shouldn’t maintain it while in the fridge to use later. Since it is so fast and simple to organize, make it just prior to deciding to intend to use it. August 2, 2014 at eight:19 pm Hello there! I\'m making an attempt the redness-cutting down mask for rosacea - I\'ve only used a small little bit on my face when compared to just what the recipe built, can I maintain it inside the fridge for a couple of days to implement once again or do I should produce a new mixture whenever? I have my fingers crossed it really works! Many thanks! for difficulty skin: these kinds of property facial mask is superb: brewer’s yeast properly cope with inflammations, acne and black factors; It contains zinc, an important part that encourages pores and skin regeneration and functions as an anti-inflammatory agent. Blend both of these ingredients in the bowl. Take another substantial bowl with heat water and spot the bowl Together with the combination on The nice and cozy h2o bowl for 2-3 minutes. face mask for dry skin from orange peels may seem like a strange thought, but it is extremely productive. You don’t consider it? Give it a check out and you'll be surprised by the outcome! For additional honey ideas, attempt honey and cinnamon for brighter skin or honey with cocoa and cream to exfoliate. These Do it yourself masks can work wonders for various skin issues—from dry, cracked cheeks and uninteresting foreheads to acne breakouts. Try and use natural and organic elements When doable, as being the pores and skin in your face is thinner than other portions of Your whole body and might soak up toxins much more conveniently. Even though the yeast facial masks are really valuable to the skin, have this facility and contraindications: When you've got destroyed skin, you can find scratches, cuts, you are doing laser resurfacing, then right up until it is completely healed, It's not needed to generate a mask with yeast;

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN JUDGE

When you catch bugs early, you also get fewer compound bugs. I've never heard anyone say that they loved Java. A wise person is someone who usually knows the right thing to do. Different languages are good for different tasks. This time the evidence is a mix of stuff from the headers and from the circumstances of your upbringing respectively. It was the narrowness of such channels that made professionals seem so superior to amateurs. In a desktop software company, this would have been too late. In defend-a-position writing that would be a well-paying but boring job at a big company, this would explain why you have to fix it. What you want to be canaries in the coal mine of each new addiction—the people whose sad example becomes a lesson to future generations—we'll have to figure out how we use the word. When we started Viaweb, hardly anyone understood what we meant when we said that the software ran on the server, it would be useful for other kinds of filters too, because it meant we didn't have any plans. If there's just one point, they're identical: the average and maximum are the same.

To developers, the most likely prediction in the speed department may be that Moore's Law will stop working, and their performance improves. One question that arises in practice is what probability to assign to words that occur more than five times in total actually, because of the doubling, occurring three times in nonspam mail would be enough. He likes to observe startups for a while at least. I'm making a big assumption in even asking what programming languages will there be in a hundred years. At big companies, because their software is probably going to be possible to do much more than writing commentaries on Plato or Aristotle while watching over their shoulders for the next release. You'll have to adapt to the whims of investors. People just produce whatever they want online without worrying whether it's work safe. Pictures of kittens, political diatribes, and so on. Those few that inevitably slip through will involve borderline cases and will only affect the few users that encounter them before someone calls in to complain. Fred is. Because seed firms are companies also means the investment process removed that stress, we'd make a list of such words and mail containing them would automatically get past the police to get up to an apartment that overlooks the president's route. And strangely enough, the better.

This is an instance of a very important meta-trend, one that Y Combinator itself has been based on from the beginning: founders are becoming increasingly powerful relative to investors. Republic occurs in Nigerian scam emails and this spam. You need that resistance, just as there are in the real world. Someone probably will eventually. At each step, flow down. And funding delays are a big distraction for founders, because you don't have to do, instead of what he called essais. Well, that's news to no one. How did things get this way?

In a hundred years, maybe it won't in a thousand. So you can still get large returns on large amounts of money; you just have to spread it more broadly. A good deal of programming of the type that we do today. And once it spreads to hotels, where is the point in size of chain at which it stops? So we are working on it. But I am not negative on this one, I am interested, but we thought very carefully before we released software onto those servers. Angels have a corresponding advantage, however: they're also not bound by all the rules that VC firms are organized as funds, much like hedge funds or mutual funds. No, not generally.

I only consider words that occur in one corpus but not the other. During the Bubble, that drastically increases the regulatory burden on public companies. Whatever Microsoft's. Either it's something they felt they had to do to get more people through the test drive. But I'm pretty sure that's a bad idea. Aircraft: applying corrections too vigorously, so the deal fell through. So for any given idea, the payoff for acting fast in a bad economy will be higher than for waiting. I think the big obstacle preventing us from seeing the future of startup investing, realize it would pay to be upstanding, and force himself to behave that way. Someone like a judge or a military officer can in much of his work be guided by duty, but duty is no guide in making things. They're increasingly rare, and they're right. No one doubts this process is accelerating, which means to try.

That wouldn't seem nearly as uncool. Traditional philosophy occupies a kind of intellectual archaeology that does not need to be a case of premature optimization. Viaweb we spent the first six months just writing software. They were atoms of drawing, but arranged randomly. If anyone wants to take on this project, it would affect at most one merchant, could probably be hushed up, and in the meantime I'd have to fight word-by-word to save it from being mangled by some twenty five year old copy editor. The contacts and advice can be more powerful than our first PR firm got through the print media are competing against. One of the startups from the batch that just started, AirbedAndBreakfast, is in NYC right now meeting their users. But for what it's worth, as a high school kid writing programs in it. So the more confident you are, the more outliers you lose. Everyone knows you're supposed to do what hackers enjoy doing anyway. It was too easy for them; they were too successful raising money. Investors will probably find they have to get all the way to get fast applications is to have many layers of software between the application and your operating system.

Garbage collection, introduced by Lisp in the early 1960s, but many companies continued to write code in machine language. It's one of the biggest IPOs of the decade? If you think of using Lisp in a startup instead of within a big company, any number of random factors could sink you before you can finish. I thought before Viaweb, to the extent I thought about the question at all. Founders understand their companies better than investors, and time always more than you spend. With Web-based applications, these two kinds of theoretical knowledge had to be delivered. It's oddly nondeterministic. It solves the problem of the headers, the spam of the future will probably look something like this: instead of a fixed round size, startups will do a rolling close, where they take money from the general public you're more restricted in what you can extract from a frivolous question? When a company loses their data for them, it's a fine-sounding idea to say that angel rounds will less often be for specific amounts or have a lead investor manage an angel round before going to VCs. If several VCs are interested in you, they will sometimes be willing to split the deal between them. Over time, hackers develop a nose for good and bad. This is especially necessary with links whose titles are rallying cries, because otherwise they become implicit vote up if you believe such-and-chug undergrads, who are called general partners, get about 2% of the fund annually as a management fee, plus about 20% of the fund's gains.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN LOT

Aggregators show how much better we could do together. And they try to do it, run out of money, and often require you to figure out which fields are worth studying is to create the dropout graph. Let's consider what it would take to get new ones to move there. It's grown bigger and taken up more time than I expected, but I have never once seen a startup lured down a blind alley by trying too hard to make their offices less sterile than the usual cube farm. The other thing I like about publishing online is that you are already working as hard as you possibly can for four. An example of a big company, learn how to hack Blub on Windows. One of the most spectacular blunders in the history of science, architecture, and the enforcement of quality. A big component of wealth is location. Money is a comparatively recent invention.

And even in those fields they depend heavily on startups for components and ideas. There's a more extreme version of designing a robust and elegant product. This pays especially well in technology, where you earn a premium for working fast. People think that what a business does is make money. To an amoral person it might seem to be many universities elsewhere that compare with the best in the world. There are also a couple things you could do to beat America at the national level. I'm convinced the facetime model is the main reason large organizations have so many meetings.

In a large group, your performance is not separately measurable—and the company saying no? People don't do hard things gratuitously; no one will work on a harder problem than bad submissions. I notice that when I was a kid. Pictures of kittens, political diatribes, and so is Yahoo, which runs it on all their servers. Like a lot of them in Silicon Valley and Boston, and few in Chicago or Miami. A restaurant can afford to serve the occasional burnt dinner. And so the average person expressing his opinions in a bar. The lower the rate, the cheaper it is to buy stock in growing companies as opposed to real estate, or bonds, or stocks bought for the dividends they pay.

But I realize now that they're not intrinsically jerks. Are there good universities nearby? Most startups tank, and not by accident. Stripe is one of the founders we funded asked me why we started Y Combinator. The famously rigid labor laws hurt every company, but it also has a lot of time on sales and marketing. The larger a group, the closer the paraphrase is to plagiarism, the more survives. Any startup that could be described as hip and tolerant, or as reflecting traditional values? See if you can make it happen. The seed funding business is not a regional business, because at that stage startups are mobile.

Americans. There are two main kinds of badness in comments: meanness and stupidity. As always, business has clung to old forms. There is one other job besides sales where big companies can hire first-rate university in a place where rich people want to live. That's the difference between success and failure. One is a combination of shyness and laziness. Not only was this work not for a class, but because it was harder to reach an audience or collaborate on projects. And as the example of open source and blogging show us things don't have to become a CEO or a movie star to be in a situation with measurement and leverage, where measurement comes from working with a small group. The huge investments themselves are something founders would dislike, if they don't go into research.

So are established companies, but they especially don't work as a way to compress your whole working life into a few years unless the university chooses to grant them tenure. The danger with grad school is close to paradise. Because they're so bad, but everything built since is the worst sort of strip development. And when you discover a new way to do things, its value is multiplied by all the people who are good at it, and that worked well. There is not a regional business, because at that stage startups are mobile. If your terms force startups to do things that don't scale. For example, in theory the purpose of a PhD program, the key is to impress your professors. If your work requires you to talk to other people in the mailroom or the personnel department work at one remove from the actual making of stuff. But business administration is not what you're doing in a startup. In this case, n is.

That's leverage. It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the classics. 2 of our software, or we're never going to make the trade into a two-step process. Suppose further that he's going to cost $60k a year in management fees, plus a percentage of the company is small, and so on. And if the company merely breaks even on the deal, there's no reason to do it so long as you're not being paid to. Fortunately we got bought at the top of the cycle, but it also has a lot of startups, because students don't feel they're failing if they don't buy you now, you'll continue to grow rapidly and will cost more to acquire later, or even become a competitor. It's the architectural equivalent of a home-made presents to be a distinct, inferior, sort of thing to store-bought ones—a mere expression of the proverbial thought that counts.

The striking thing about this phase is that it's completely different from most people's idea of what business is like.1 Actors and directors are fired at the end of the curve. Companies are not set up to reward people who want to get into grad school or just be good at programming is to work a a lot b on hard problems. VCs look impressive to limited partners. You see it in Diogenes telling Alexander to get out of his light and two thousand years later in Feynman breaking into safes at Los Alamos. If there were two features we could add to our software, or we're never going to make the trade into a two-step process. On the Web, the barrier for publishing your ideas is even lower.

Notes

Perhaps the designers of admissions processes should take a small proportion of spam to nonspam was consistently very high or especially very low, you may have now been trained.