#My Ebooks

[yeehawpim]

[lifeinpoetry]

Free Palestine Reading List

Haymarket Books: Free Ebooks for a Free Palestine!

Verso Books: Solidarity with Palestine: Free Resources and Further Reading

OR Books: THE FREE PALESTINE READING LIST

City Lights Books: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear by Mosab Abu Toha

[2wo-knav3s]

best notification possible

[lover-of-mine]

The Demigod Diaries by Rick Riordan | Percy Jackson and the Olympians - s01e02 | The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

[uncultureddoubloon]

I just binged all of the Wayne Family Adventures webtoon and have been struck with an intense need to be reading comic books from the library again

[hippabouthealth]

Does your butt have “amnesia”?

Does your butt have “amnesia”? If you sit all day, you need to see this... #strongcore #healthycore #coreworkoutroutine #corebenefits #coreposture #weakcore #buildyourcore #strongerbody #happycore #coreconnection

When you think about “core strength” … what do you think of? Six-pack abs? A flat tummy? A tiny waist?  Think again!  This month we’re diving into all things CORE — and I think you’ll be wildly surprised at just how much your core strength affects your overall health… Not just the way you look.  To kick us off, I’ve got some quick info (and exercises!) about an important muscle group you…

[infamous-if]

hoping my power doesn't go out once milton fully arrives so i can work on these POVs in peace and actually have something to do because your girl foolishly has only (1) physical book to read in case of a power outage and i am currently not liking it…the universe is determined to stop me from DNFing

anyway august and sev's povs should be up soon if all goes according to plan lmao!

hope everyone stays safe and if you're hunkering down, good luck <3

[tenowls]

SYSTEM COLLAPSE!!!!!!!

[odakota-rose]

spoilers for the star beast novelization but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to be normal about them again

the doctor was going to give up visiting london FOR ALL OF THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY

[gorepup]

wheel of fortune

[pnfc]

today i was revisiting the pnf choose your own adventure book where the author they roped in to write it has an only middling understanding of pnf, thinks candace is blonde etc, but still got this much correct

[obsob]

there he is......the man of the house

[theologyy]

Review: “My Investing Journey and Learning” by Carmen Mundt

Qualifications: I’m a journalist reporting on business, economics, and defense who’s been in the industry for 7 years — the last 3 have been at, debatably, the #1 business publication in the world.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Thoughts: I cannot believe I spent 39 euros on this.

This 39 page ebook provides incredibly basic information that can all be found in this article.

First: while the ebook is about 40 pages, it probably has about 10 pages of actual information in it, interspersed with inspirational quotes from Sheryl Sandberg and Warren Buffet, with some pictures of Carmen in Monaco.

There’s about 1 page of “introduction” from Carmen that talks about her upbringing and journey to university in London. I won’t comment too much on her personal story, but an important thing to note is that she says she came from a “traditional Spanish household” where her father was the breadwinner and her mother had no access to family finances. After the 2008 crash, her family couldn’t afford to send her to college. She moved to London, applied for a student loan, and began studying finance at a university while working part time.

Carmen very, very briefly mentioned her regrets as to her mother’s inability to access higher education, work, and family financial planning; she says she’d never want to be in that position. While literally only one sentence, I think it makes it clear who the audience for this ebook is: someone who has absolutely, positively, no idea about money.

(She also very, very briefly mentions “big changes in her personal life” that made a full-time job in finance “not sustainable,” leading to her move to Monaco. This is her only reference to George.)

The rest of the book very simply explains how to make a budget, set financial goals, invest in the stock market, and mitigate risk. The information was kinda factually correct, and was written in a coherent manner. I think that’s the highest praise I can give it.

Here’s the thing: like other reviewers have called out, I am pretty certain that Carmen didn’t write anything besides the introduction. Whole sections (and indeed the entire format of the ebook) were clearly ripped from the Female Invest introductory courses. (I spent 3 hours clicking through each course so I could find direct wording comparisons to make this claim. I really wouldn’t recommend it.) I do think she edited these sections, and she interjected a few personal sentences; but I believe that’s where her involvement ended.

From an expert perspective, a lot of the information is so simplistic as to be almost incorrect. This isn’t a “first day of Econ 101” ebook — this is a “freshman year of high school home ec class” ebook. (Did anyone else’s home ec classes teach budgeting, or just me?)

Here’s an example. In a section on stocks, Carmen/Female Invest writes: “Investing in stocks allows you to support companies and causes you care about while still making a profit.”

On a basic level, this is correct. Purchasing a stock technically means you’re buying a little bit of a company, and I guess therefore supporting it. But unless a company is IPOing, you’re buying those stocks from another investor — which means your purchase has no effect on the company. So it’s a little disingenuous to claim you’re somehow helping the company. The ebook is rife with this kind of thing.

Carmen pushed in her advertising posts that the Female Invest courses were a key supplement to her book. So obviously, I had to do those too. And holy shit, they were so much worse than the ebook. Some parts were blatantly incorrect on basic information (they claim markets are open 24/7, when most are only open 9am-4:30pm on weekdays) and have some of the most patronizing metaphors I have ever read. (One of the most egregious was comparing your investment portfolio to a pizza because “stocks, bonds, and ETFs” make up different “sizes of slices to make a whole pie”. This isn’t even an accurate equivalent — maybe a calzone, pasta, and pizza make up a whole meal? I don’t even know.)

I would not recommend buying this ebook unless you, too, were barred from even thinking about a stock by your traditional father. Even then, consider free sources.

A Disclaimer on disclosures: So, after @ohblimeygeorge sent me a reddit post also reviewing Carmen’s book that mentioned ad disclosures, I decided to dive into the regulations. In the U.S., influential advertising is regulated by the FTC — in the EU, it’s regulated by the EU Commission, which I believe Carmen would qualify under since she is a Spanish citizen who lives in Monaco. First, I looked at this legal brief on content monetization business models, and concluded that that the ebook likely falls under “affiliate marketing” as Carmen likely receives a percentage of each ebook sold through her link.

(An additional disclaimer: obviously, I don’t know the details of the deal Carmen has with Female Invest, but I’d think it unlikely that she isn’t getting paid for their collaboration. She mentioned in an Instagram story under her Female Invest highlight that she “tried purchasing equity but they were already too big for what I could afford” but “did buy a bit of their crowdfunding.” Since she doesn’t have equity, i.e. doesn’t own a piece of the company, it’d be weird if she was doing this for free.)

Back on topic. I next looked at this legal brief on advertising disclosures. It states that affiliate marketing must be disclosed: “you need to make sure your audiences understand that it’s advertising.” Disclosures can include hashtags and “mentioning” advertising in the caption. Carmen has not disclosed advertising in any of her Female Invest posts, and appears to be violating this regulation. (Interestingly, her only posts that follow disclosure requirements are her Tommy posts.)

It’s apparently not uncommon. An EU Commission study showed 80% of influencers in the EU do not properly disclose ads.

So, there’s that too.

[strawberri-draws]

I just want to make my screen read my online text book out loud to me because my eyes hurt and I'm tired, and they have the audacity to make them all pdf images specifically so people can't "copy text" (so my computer won't recognize it as text and read it for me) and won't let me change it and I can't figure it out so I'll just have to. struggle

[bear-pattern-hamster]

"Carrie eating pumpkin🧸 🐹🎃"

This is Carrie, a hamster with a bear pattern on her butt.

She is a female golden hamster.

"Carrie and Bobby"

[learnelle]

I love quiet train journeys where I can read my book in peace for a few hours. On the contrary, this passenger beside me was quite impatient to get off hehe