#last night they sent me an email telling me the account had been restored

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

I'M BACK HOLY SHIT I'M BACK 😭😭😭😭😭😭

[aelaer]

First: welcome home & I hope you get the sleep you need to get back into your routines! Second: it's Feb. 2, a significant day to our beloved Stephen Strange. I know you're exhausted right now, and the timing is poor--but perhaps when you're up to, you could write a little one-shot about his feelings all these years later (is it 2022 or 2023?) on the anniversary of the accident that changed his life forever. Can't think of anyone better suited to write it! xx

This was sent a year ago but last month I planned to have it out for Feb 2nd, hah.

For canon, he comes back in 2023 in what I think was likely after Feb 2nd, so realistically he can address the anniversary again in 2024. It'd feel like only 3 years for him while, in actuality, it'd been 8. But when it comes to his experienced time versus actual passing time, Stephen's pretty messed up without the Decimation already (I'm not sure how I feel about the name of the "Blip" yet.)

The prompter also requested first person after I asked for more details, and I haven't ever written Stephen in first person so I thought I'd give it a go. I know first person isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you're willing to give it a shot, call me very obliged.

Warning for canon compliance :P

——————

Staring Back In Time Rating: G (well, other than language)

An entry from the memoirs of Doctor Stephen Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, during his time as the Master of the New York Sanctum, several months after the Battle of Earth against Thanos:

February 2, 2024

Calendars don't mean as much as they used to. Once upon a time my life was ruled by the calendar. Consultation here, surgery there, society dinner over the weekend. Dates were important and generally set without change once marked down.

It doesn't work that way as a sorcerer. I keep a schedule, of course, one that marks down classes with apprentices and adepts and meetings with other Masters, never mind all the business outside of Kamar-Taj. But I learned early on that these set times shifted occasionally to accommodate the emergencies that the order often had to quash down, and it became obvious that as a Master, my schedule was more of a hopeful guideline than anything set in stone. Flexibility was a necessity.

Ever since my return to the living, keeping anything resembling a set schedule has been more of a laughable dream. Earth being the center of two universe-changing, Infinity Stone-powered events in a matter of hours did serious damage to the fabric woven about reality across the planet, and the Masters of the Mystic Arts are going to be dealing with the multidimensional repercussions for years to come. Nothing is predictable in my day-to-day anymore.

My relationship with time was fucked the moment I confronted Dormammu, so I can't say it's a large surprise that calendars have become mostly irrelevant.

If someone had told me that I, Doctor Stephen Strange, a man of order and precision, would learn to live with such unpredictability, I would have laughed in their face. But I'm not the man I once was (and thank God for that; that man was a dick). However, it's also because of this change that I didn't realize the day until it was nearly done.

I was reviewing my schedule for tomorrow, which I had set up on Google Calendar (Google had, naturally, survived the Decimation just fine, but like most other non-vital services, had many of their upcoming products delayed for years. But their email and calendar services continue to work great). Tomorrow's a Saturday, which means nothing in my world. My work continues on. The threats on our reality care little for weekends or holidays.

Still, it was only during this review, shortly before I planned to retire for the night, that I realized that today is February 2nd.

I won't ever forget the day, of course. It was both three years ago and eight years ago—or perhaps many lifetimes ago would be a more accurate description, though I lost track of time in both of my major journeys with the Time Stone. One day I'll write about them. Not now, but one day. Both memories are still too fresh.

The memory of the day of the accident, though? It feels both like yesterday and centuries ago. Some parts of the day are engraved in my memory like a film. I remember the last surgery down to the individual conversations. Christine's "thank you". Nick's watch. The cling of the bullet as I dropped it onto the tray.

I can remember my last conversation with Billy, too, in the car. Every damned word. But the drive itself is fuzzy, even in my head with my memory. I remember it began to rain during the drive, not beforehand, and I know the road was narrow and two-laned. I know I avoided a direct route to avoid traffic, driving first into Jersey before heading north and crossing the river again. But the rest is forgotten to time, or perhaps to trauma.

I was told that Billy was the first to call 9-1-1 as he heard the tearing of metal and shattering of glass before the connection was lost. The driver I hit—I learned much later that she escaped with only minor injuries—called a couple minutes later. But it was out in the mountains, dark, and raining. It took them hours to find me and extract me from the car.

Funny. Never thought I'd ever write about one of the worst days of my life like this. But I was told early on that personal journals were encouraged for all who stay in Kamar-Taj. Something about its therapeutic benefits was mentioned at some point. I only picked up the practice once I learned that each gifted journal was inaccessible to others until the time of their death, and after I mastered the art of enchanting a pen to write the words I spoke. Unfortunately this journal appeared to others after the Decimation, but Wong has reassured me that no one read it and it has since disappeared again from public view. 

Still, the point is that, one day, someone just might read this—account of a man who was part of an effort to save the universe. And it is difficult for a reader to judge my actions if they don't know how I was the one who ruined my life. My driving was reckless and stupid. I was running a little late, but it wouldn't have mattered in the long run had I been fifteen, twenty minutes, thirty minutes late. Not really.

Then again, I suppose it would have. I certainly wouldn't be here right now.

One could say that the accident and everything that has followed is some sort of penance for my hubris as a surgeon. I enjoy my newer abilities—quite a bit—but the responsibility that has come with them has not come without its own hardships and sacrifices. Perhaps the worst of the sacrifices were the ones I was unable to prevent others from performing, all for the sake of the universe.

Those sacrifices were made willingly, but I cannot help but feel responsible for them, regardless. 

During my first winter again returned to the living, when the days grew colder and my hands ached in the bad weather, and the only thoughts to accompany the pain were bitter, another thought was born. I was tempted, for the first time in a long time, to give it all up, restore my fine motor skills with channeled magic, and go back to the world I once knew, for a life much, much easier than this one is now. Even with all the troubles that had cropped up as people tried to reorganize a world that doubled in size overnight, it was miles away from the difficulties we were facing in Kamar-Taj.

Their sacrifices—the fates I pushed so many people towards—quelled the idea quickly. It did little to ease the physical pain or sting of guilt, but it lifted the temptation. And ever since that day, I have considered the situation and I don't think I will ever be tempted by the idea of giving up my duties for an easier, pain-free life again.

And I suppose that counts for something.

——————

(Hey look, my interest in geography's leaked again.)

I've always wondered where Stephen actually crashed mostly because New York City is *flat* and those mountains were *very much not flat*. I figured out the bridge that he crossed to get out of the city (there are like, 21 bridges that lead out of Manhattan) was the George Washington Bridge, and it leads to New Jersey—but that's not necessarily useful because it can quickly turn back into New York state if you turn north. We also know he crashed down into a body of water, which *might* be the Hudson, but also might not, but that the body of water is to his left, which narrows it down a bit. But again, not much. And the site of his crash is so dark in the videos and screenshots that I can barely tell what's on it. It looks like a bridge and some industrial building, so the Hudson's a good guess, but otherwise? Well, basically I turned on the topography part of Google maps and started searching.

The 202 on the east side of the river just north of Peekskill (again in New York) matches the movie road's windiness, height, and closeness to the river, and even has a bridge that could be just to the north of the crash site. Unfortunately the railing's off and there's no industrial building thingy by the bridge. It also makes the route out of the city via George Washington Bridge make no sense. Like the Stark Industries area in LA in the films, it's probably a completely fictional landscape.

But as I wasn't able to find a better locale that was still close enough to NYC to direct an emergency helicopter to, my headcanon for this scene is that he left via George Washington bridge to avoid some major traffic or something, crossed the river via the 287 a bit further up north to get back to the east side of the river, then went up the 9 to the 202. Unless someone who lives in the area can find the actual road he was driving (if it's real), this is what I'm gonna go with. (And if someone DOES please let me knowwwww). Funny enough, I don't see him getting led to *his* hospital totally unrealistic, because he'd need a very talented orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in hands to come in, and generally speaking a patient can be helicoptered to another hospital where such a surgeon is available. If Stephen is working at the Metro-General, it's likely they can afford a large cast of talented surgeons. So I don't think Nick was necessarily the lead surgeon in his case, just one of many necessary surgeons.

[artemisegeria]

The Picture of the Mind Revives Again (2/?)

Title: The Picture of the Mind Revives Again (2/?)

Rating: T

Word count: 2025

Warnings: None

Summary: Sequel to “A Formula, A Phrase Remains.” Title is from “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth.

Vision has gone missing after Shuri, Bruce, and Helen revived him. Now they must tell Wanda what they did without her knowledge.

 Wanda was furious.

She was sitting in the cockpit of the Quinjet with Carol. She was forcefully reminded of the first time she’d flown with Carol to Wakanda. Except that time, she was still at the beginning of her grieving process and she didn’t know Carol at all. Now Wanda could not speak to her because Carol was one of her best friends and she had hidden this from her. They had sat in silence for a few hours.

Carol finally made an attempt to speak to her. “I understand why you’re giving me the silent treatment, but we all meant well.”

“I would think you would understand how little good intentions mean in a case like this.” Wanda knew this wasn’t the same as Carol’s situation with the Kree, but her hurt and confusion made her want to lash out.

“Look, Wanda, I’m sorry, but they practically begged me to stay quiet about this. It made sense to me when they explained what they were trying to do. They had good reason to believe something might go wrong.”

“Maybe I could have helped if they had told me.” She could have at least been there to ease Vision’s confusion. Maybe seeing her first thing would have helped him.

“Maybe, but we can’t go back in time.” Wanda and Carol both winced at Carol’s accidental wording. That had been a bone of contention before Steve returned the Stones to their proper places. Why couldn’t they just go back in time to fix everything? It had taken hours to convince those that had not lived through the five years between the Snaps that such a solution was not possible. “I’ll get you there as soon as possible.” Wanda nodded and fell silent.

Shuri, Bruce, and Helen met them when they landed. Some of Wanda’s anger had faded, but she could feel it simmering just beneath the surface. Still, they had worked for over a year to bring back the love of her life. That deserved some consideration.

Carol left them to return to her post in New York. Wanda thanked her for flying her there. She needed some time to get over her sense of betrayal, but perhaps she had overreacted a bit. Carol gave them a final jaunty wave and lifted off.

***

Wanda stood in the middle of Shuri’s lab. Their search had still not revealed any trace of Vision. The cameras recording the process of his revival showed him standing up and leaning against a wall before fading outside. Wanda ached to see the clear distress and confusion on his face, but it did not explain why he just left. Unless he thought the battle in Wakanda was still ongoing. But a search of the forest outside the city had not unearthed any clues either. Even if he was confused, he should soon realize that things had changed.

“How long has he been missing?”

“As long as it took you to get here.” Hours. That means he had been gone for hours. What if something was wrong with the solution that Shuri developed? What if he was injured and in pain?

“Please go over what happened one more time.” Wanda needed to understand everything.

Shuri answered, “We started the upload of his consciousness once his body was fully repaired. The scan showed that it had several hours left before the process was complete, so we felt that it was safe to leave him when we were called away for a time. When we returned, he was gone. The Dora who was stationed outside the lab did not hear anything when he woke up.”

“I know what ‘lost’ means, thank you,” Wanda snapped. “What I mean is how is that possible? You told me that you buried him. You said you had tried everything you could and failed. You said Stark’s notes had not provided the answers.”

“I lied. I am sorry, Wanda, but we were not sure that we would succeed. Bruce, Helen, and I agreed that this was the best way to proceed, but it was my idea at first. Do not blame them.”

“Fine. Just go on, please.” She had far more important things to worry about right now.

“When we returned, the scan from the Cradle indicated that his brain was operational, but he was nowhere to be found. We have been searching for him since that point.”

“How far could he have gone? He is a little recognizable.” Wanda tried to control her anger and panic. She should be thanking Shuri for doing what she had come to believe was impossible. Instead, all she could see was Vision scared and confused somewhere in Wakanda.

“We do not know. None of the palace guards saw him, and we have not heard of any sightings in the city. We have sent people outside to the battlefield and the forest as well.”

Wanda ran her hands through her hair, heedless of how she was messing it up. “I don’t understand why he hasn’t tried reaching out to someone.” Her, why he didn’t contact her.

“I do not know, but we will continue searching, Wanda. We won’t stop until we have him back and can determine what he needs.”

“I’m going to the forest to take another look.” She thought it would be the most likely place Vision would go if he were trying to help with the battle that he must think was still ongoing. No one tried to stop her. Wanda passed into the denser part of the forest. After some minutes of calling for Vision, hoping against hope that he would just descend in front of her, she was overcome by all the emotions she had gone through during the last few hours. From shock to hope to rage to joy to confusion. She let herself sob for a time, but then she moved on.

She explored the forest for several hours longer before giving up. She was wrung out and exhausted. When she made her way back to Shuri’s lab, she noted that everyone was struggling to stay awake while they pored over models and security footage. Wanda’s heart softened and her anger did not re-emerge. They were working themselves to death for Vision’s sake. She finally suggested that they all go to bed and get a fresh start in the morning.

Okoye led her to a guest bedroom. Wanda collapsed without even bothering to undress, only peeling off her boots.

***

When they recongregated in the lab the next day, Okoye reported that some of the Dora Milaje had taken shifts exploring throughout the night, but they had not been successful. There was no trace of him. Neither had Shuri’s search of the security footage revealed anything.

Wanda could not imagine how Vision could disappear so utterly or why he wouldn’t have tried to contact her by now unless something was terribly wrong. By lunchtime, they still had not come up with a good solution. Wanda left the others after swallowing down a few quick bites.

She explored the palace as she had not been able to do the first time she was here. She thought that Vision would love the artwork and the architecture. Thinking of him renewed her determination to find him. As Wanda was pacing the halls, trying to think of where to search for Vision next, her phone buzzed with a new text alert. Oddly enough, it did not show a sending number. It only said, “Check your email, please.”

Wanda frowned. She had an official Avengers email account, as everyone else on the team did, but she hardly ever looked at it. The messages she received there ranged from fan mail to questionable requests to death threats that were automatically flagged by the renewed SHIELD to gauge their seriousness. This sounded like a potential scheme to get by the account’s safeguards, polite wording or no. But something told her to follow the instructions regardless.

When she pulled up her email, the first message she saw also had no subject line and no sender. She opened it. She almost expected to have to explain why she opened such a message without showing it to the IT people first, but nothing happened. Somewhat relieved, she scrolled down and began to read.

My dearest Wanda,

I apologize that my abrupt departure from Princess Shuri’s lab caused you distress. I am well. I was not thinking very clearly when I returned to consciousness. My only thought was to rejoin the battle, only to find that the last battle ended over a year ago, and the one I was trying to rejoin over six years ago.

There was so much information to absorb about the last six years. I hid in the forest on the outskirts of the city and scanned what I could from the internet. I am still adjusting to the absence of the Mind Stone, though Shuri’s replacement seems to have restored most of my powerset.

I feel that I must be on my own for a time. I worried that if I spoke to you again, I would not be able to leave you. Please forgive me for my selfishness. I was never able to truly become myself during the first three years of my life. I was so focused on the team and keeping you safe, which I do not regret for a moment, that I forgot to think of what I truly wanted from the life that I was granted. I feel that now is the time to do so.

I have seen your pictures throughout my time alone. It fills me with more joy than I can express that you have built such a strong life for yourself and rejoined the team. I hope that you will welcome me back to become part of it again after I have completed my journey.

If you wish to contact me, you may reply to this message at any time. It will reach me. If you need me for any reason, I will be there.

All my love,

Vision

Wanda sank back against the wall for a moment. She almost thought it was someone’s idea of a sick joke, but it sounded so like him. And it was all of a piece with Shuri’s explanation of what happened immediately before Vision was found missing.

She let the tears stream down her face as she read the message several more times. Part of her wanted to be selfish and beg him to come back immediately. But when she thought about it a little longer, she realized that she could not deny him this chance. It was exactly what she had wished for when she was saying goodbye. Moreover, Wanda’s own time on the run, though undertaken under the worst circumstances, had granted her more strength than any other period in her life, aside from the previous year. She had learned greater control and confidence that endured to this day.

Taking a deep breath, Wanda started to compose her reply.

Vizh,

You’ve got to be more careful how you word your letters. I need you always.

But I understand why you have to do this. Take as long as long as you need, and I’ll wait for you.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Wanda paused at this point. Her message was a paltry sample of what she really wanted to tell Vision, but she thought if she started writing out all her thoughts, she would never stop. The lines of communication were at least open. They could contact each other if need be.

She considered how to sign off. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but it didn’t feel right to do so by email. They needed to have a real conversation. He needed to hear her voice to believe that she wasn’t simply returning the sentiment because he had said it first.

She settled on:

I’m so happy you’re back.

Wanda

It wasn’t enough, but there would be time to say more later. She rose to go find Shuri and T’challa and get them to call off the search.

  A/N: In the next chapter, Vision does some more exploring.

A word of warning, this was the last of the chapters that I’ve had partially or mostly written for a while. So the next chapter will definitely take longer than my last few updates, but hopefully sooner than two months.

[sheminecrafts]

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs write that “the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure — which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect — triggering a failure of our DNS system.”

Robinhood was offline from Monday at 6:30am Pacific to 11pm Pacific, then had another outage this morning from 6:30am Pacific until just before 9am Pacific.

The $912 million-funded fintech giant will provide compensation to all customers of its Robinhood Gold premium subscription for borrowing money to trade plus access to Morningstar research reports, Nasdaq data, and bigger instant deposits. It’s offering them three months of service.

A month of Robinhood Gold costs $5 plus 5% yearly interest on borrowing above $1,000, charged daily. Before a pricing change, the flat fee per month could range as high as $200. However, compensated users will only get the $5 off per month, for a total of $15. That could seem woefully insufficient if Robinhood users missed out on buying back into stocks like Apple that went up over 9% on Monday. Robinhood is calling it a “first step”.

Impacted Robinhood users can contact the company here to ask for compensation. Below you can see the email Robinhood sent to custoemrs late last night.

Robinhood’s email to customers late last night

Robinhood is also working to contact impacted customers on a individual basis, and it’s looking into other forms of compensation on a case by case basis, company spokesperson Jack Randall tells me. It’s unclear if that might include cash to offset what traders might have lost by having their money locked in inaccessible Robinhood accounts during the outage.

Compensation could become a significant cost if the startup assesses that many of its 10 million users were impacted. The markets gained a record $1.1 trillion yesterday, but some Robinhood traders may not have been able to buy back in as the rebound occurred following mass selloffs due to fears of coronavirus.

Down again, Robinhood will offer ‘case-by-case’ compensation for its outage on the day markets gained $1.1 trillion

Now the startup, valued at $7.6 billion, will have to try to regain users’ trust. “When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation . . . We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long” wrote co-founders and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev [disclosure: who I know from college].

As for exactly what triggered the downtime, the founders write that “Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups.” There’s been a frenzy of retail trading activity in the wake of coronavirus. There’s also been sudden spikes in stocks like Tesla amidst mainstream media attention. 

Going forward, Robinhood promises to “work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure.” However, they warn that “we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.”

The outage comes at a vulnerable time for Robinhood as oldschool brokerages like Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and Etrade all recently moved to eliminate per-trade fees to match Robinhood’s pioneering zero-comission trades. Though some of those brokerages experienced infrastructure troubles recently, Robinhood massive outages could push users towards those incumbents that they might perceive as more stable. 

from iraidajzsmmwtv https://ift.tt/2VHCHj6 via IFTTT

[technicalsolutions88]

It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs

write that “the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure — which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect — triggering a failure of our DNS system.”

Robinhood was offline from Monday at 6:30am Pacific to 11pm Pacific, then had another outage this morning from 6:30am Pacific until just before 9am Pacific.

The $912 million-funded fintech giant will provide compensation to all customers of its Robinhood Gold premium subscription for borrowing money to trade, offering them three months of service. A month of Robinhood Gold costs $5 plus 5% yearly interest on borrowing above $1,000, charged daily. However, users will only get the $5 off per month, for a total of $15.

Impacted Robinhood users can contact the company here to ask for compensation. Below you can see the email Robinhood sent to custoemrs late last night.

Robinhood’s email to customers late last night

Robinhood is also working to contact impacted customers on a individual basis, and it’s looking into other forms of compensation on a case by case basis, company spokesperson Jack Randall tells me. It’s unclear if that might include cash to offset what traders might have lost by having their money locked in inaccessible Robinhood accounts during the outage.

Compensation could become a significant cost if the startup assesses that many of its 10 million users were impacted. The markets gained a record $1.1 trillion yesterday, but some Robinhood traders may not have been able to buy back in as the rebound occurred following mass selloffs due to fears of coronavirus.

Now the startup, valued at $7.6 billion, will have to try to regain users’ trust. “When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation . . . We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long” wrote co-founders and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev [disclosure: who I know from college].

As for exactly what triggered the downtime, the founders write that “Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups.” There’s been a frenzy of retail trading activity in the wake of coronavirus. There’s also been sudden spikes in stocks like Tesla amidst mainstream media attention. 

Going forward, Robinhood promises to “work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure.” However, they warn that “we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.”

The outage comes at a vulnerable time for Robinhood as oldschool brokerages like Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and Etrade all recently moved to eliminate per-trade fees to match Robinhood’s pioneering zero-comission trades. Though some of those brokerages experienced infrastructure troubles recently, Robinhood massive outages could push users towards those incumbents that they might perceive as more stable. 

from Mobile – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2VHCHj6 ORIGINAL CONTENT FROM: https://techcrunch.com/

[magzoso-tech]

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/robinhood-offers-15-discount-blames-outage-on-record-trades-2/

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs write that “the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure — which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect — triggering a failure of our DNS system.”

Robinhood was offline from Monday at 6:30am Pacific to 11pm Pacific, then had another outage this morning from 6:30am Pacific until just before 9am Pacific.

The $912 million-funded fintech giant will provide compensation to all customers of its Robinhood Gold premium subscription for borrowing money to trade plus access to Morningstar research reports, Nasdaq data, and bigger instant deposits. It’s offering them three months of service.

A month of Robinhood Gold costs $5 plus 5% yearly interest on borrowing above $1,000, charged daily. Before a pricing change, the flat fee per month could range as high as $200. However, compensated users will only get the $5 off per month, for a total of $15. That could seem woefully insufficient if Robinhood users missed out on buying back into stocks like Apple that went up over 9% on Monday. Robinhood is calling it a “first step”.

Impacted Robinhood users can contact the company here to ask for compensation. Below you can see the email Robinhood sent to custoemrs late last night.

Robinhood’s email to customers late last night

Robinhood is also working to contact impacted customers on a individual basis, and it’s looking into other forms of compensation on a case by case basis, company spokesperson Jack Randall tells me. It’s unclear if that might include cash to offset what traders might have lost by having their money locked in inaccessible Robinhood accounts during the outage.

Compensation could become a significant cost if the startup assesses that many of its 10 million users were impacted. The markets gained a record $1.1 trillion yesterday, but some Robinhood traders may not have been able to buy back in as the rebound occurred following mass selloffs due to fears of coronavirus.

Now the startup, valued at $7.6 billion, will have to try to regain users’ trust. “When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation . . . We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long” wrote co-founders and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev [disclosure: who I know from college].

As for exactly what triggered the downtime, the founders write that “Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups.” There’s been a frenzy of retail trading activity in the wake of coronavirus. There’s also been sudden spikes in stocks like Tesla amidst mainstream media attention. 

Going forward, Robinhood promises to “work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure.” However, they warn that “we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.”

The outage comes at a vulnerable time for Robinhood as oldschool brokerages like Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and Etrade all recently moved to eliminate per-trade fees to match Robinhood’s pioneering zero-comission trades. Though some of those brokerages experienced infrastructure troubles recently, Robinhood massive outages could push users towards those incumbents that they might perceive as more stable. 

[chocolate-brownies]

Explore what digital detox can mean for you—and the world at large—at Wellspring.

I talk a big game when it comes to mindfulness. In the yoga classes I teach, as well as in conversations with friends, I find myself ranting about the evils of digital devices and social media. And yet I also increasingly catch myself reaching for my phone before getting out of bed in the morning. I obsessively watch every Instagram story in my feed. The sound of a notification, any notification, sets my heart racing with both anticipation and anxiety. It’s a hard truth, but an important one to admit: I am addicted to my devices. Can you relate?

They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step to solving it, a colloquialism I conveniently kept forgetting to follow with a second step. But my dependence has reached unhealthy levels—I’m sleeping poorly and unable to focus on simple tasks, like reading, without “checking in.” It’s time for a hard reset. I’m digitally detoxing for seven whole days, and will document my progress in a journal—that is, assuming I don’t collapse from withdrawal.

Here are the rules:

No personal social media, whatsoever. I can use social media for my job (I manage my yoga studio’s Instagram account) between the hours of 8am and 4pm.

Professional email only between the hours of 8am and 4pm.

No convenience apps (Venmo, Uber, etc.).

Try hard.

Be honest.

Day One

I’m a mess today. I attended a 108 festival in Santa Monica this weekend and flew back home on a red-eye. Disaster. I’m bleary-eyed, nauseous, and totally out of it. The only thing I want to do is binge on Netflix for hours, but I’m pretty sure that mindlessly staring at a screen would be a bad way to kick things off. I consider an online restorative class, but that requires a computer. They make everything so easy, and yet do they really fulfill our needs? I turn my phone off completely, pull down the window shades, drape my body over a bolster, and consider myself dead to the world.

When it’s time for bed, I find myself antsy to the point of clenching my jaw. It’s been almost 24 hours since I checked WhatsApp for messages, and I’m worried I’ll “miss” something. But what could be so important that it’d be sent via WhatsApp at 10 pm on a Wednesday night? I go to bed. 

Day Two

I’m still jet-lagged, but feeling more excited about the detox. As I go about my routine, I catch myself reaching for my phone dozens of times before noon. Literally dozens. This is not good. Each time, I ask myself: What were you planning on doing with it? The answer, I admit sheepishly, is always the same: Instagram.

I decide to dig a little deeper and explore why I feel the need to check IG, and I realize it isn’t out of boredom or curiosity. I notice that the common denominator in each of these close calls is that just before I grab my cell, I have begun to get a little anxiety about deadlines, my career, my hopeless singledom… Turns out, I’m straight-up trying to avoid feelings that oh-so-inconveniently keep creeping in. I decide to make a new rule: Every time I want to avoid a hard emotion by cruising the web, I have to sit, close my eyes, and feel the feels for two minutes. I do a lot of eyes-shut-sitting this week.

Day Three

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. I was working on an article, and I must have blacked out for a sec, because when I “woke up” I was seven images deep on my Instagram newsfeed. Let me reiterate this: I actually opened a new tab on my browser, navigated to Instagram, and started scrolling without realizing that I was doing so.

Apparently I also scroll for procrastination purposes. This was a theme that would recur again and again throughout the week: The second I felt stuck or bored or distracted by whatever I was working on, I would click open a new tab and start to type either “Insta…” or “Twitt…” or “Face…” Cruising around social media sites is my favorite form of postponing a dreaded task, a fact that Mark Zuckerberg would love but my editors would hate. I didn’t cure myself of the urge this week, but I did catch myself in the act earlier and earlier.

Day Four

This is a tough one to share. I realized today that, in addition to texting and IRL chats, one of the main ways I stay in touch with my girlfriends is to swap snarky comments via DM about people we hate-follow on social media. Ugh—it sucks to admit it, and it sucks even more that I do it. Gossip is a huge part of our society’s culture; I’ll even go so far as to say it’s how we’ve been trained to communicate with each other. But that doesn’t make it right.

I realized I was missing the daily lol moments from my best gal pal’s razor-sharp takedowns, and that’s when I first acknowledged the deeper issue. We have so much in common: We both love to cook, teach yoga, and are passionate about wellness. We have zillions of things to talk about and do together. Connecting and fostering a sense of closeness through this social media snark just feels cheap. And lazy. This one is an easy fix: We made plans to meet for tea, and shared an hour of substantial, thoughtful conversation. I left our date feeling refreshed, not guilty and dirty.

Day Five

Okay, I’ve definitely gotten over my withdrawal symptoms and have entered the euphoria stage. I made plans to go out with my parents to celebrate my mother’s birthday, and I had a tight turnaround from my shift at the yoga studio to the time of our dinner reservations. Normally, this type of situation would stress me out as I attempted to take care of my dog, get dressed, and get out the door, but today I felt a sense of lightness. I practically skipped out of my apartment with my cell set to airplane mode. What changed? I’m pretty sure it’s the fact that I had officially crossed “Check Instagram” off my to-do list.

Let me explain: Once again, I’m blushing so hard I’m turning red, but my addiction has roots so deep that I have convinced myself scrolling through random people’s feeds is a necessary step in getting ready to leave the house. It isn’t just a time suck: The real problem is that I’ve placed undue importance on the minutiae of someone else’s life over my own. My voice says that attention and presence are important, but my actions say that what celebrity yoga teachers ate for lunch is more so. I decide to banish my cell from the “getting ready” process from here on out, and lean into the itchy “but I just wanna know” feeling that comes with my abstinence.

Day Six

Last week, while I was on vacation in another state, my folks had my aunt and uncle over for a meal. I knew this not because I was invited or because my mom told me. I knew because my aunt posted pictures on Facebook. This got me thinking how much of my friends’ and family’s life updates I glean from stalking — instead of talking. I’ve learned about my network’s pregnancies, deaths, and engagements through social media, and I’ve definitely shared big news (a book deal, a move, a new job) of my own through the platforms.

I used to tell myself that social updates were simply the most efficient means of reaching the most people all at once, but the more I think about it, the more I’m wondering: Why is it important to reach the most people all at once? If it’s a major life event we’re dealing with, shouldn’t I want to discuss it with personal, face-to-face interactions? And if it’s a boring detail not worth a real conversation, does it really need to be shared? I’ve considered social networks a huge part of my social life for the last ten years, and I’m not going to lie… I’m having an existential crisis over here.

Day Seven

It’s the last day of my digital detox, and I’ve reached a calmer, clearer place by actually engaging with the physical space I’m in. Instead of jumping up to cook dinner, do a final email sweep, and crush the last few items on my to-do list, I spent a few minutes after meditation this evening simply looking around my apartment. Did the light always look so beautiful this time of day? Had my ceilings always been that pretty? They’re REALLY pretty. Have I seriously lived here for four months without noticing them?

I’m suddenly aware of how often I pass time in restaurants, cafés, and parks without looking around. Why? Because my face is buried in my cell. Of course. I became hyper-aware of my own behavior patterns this week as I watched diners whip out their devices the second their dates got up to use the restroom, and I observed people moving forward in a line while scrolling until the second they reached their destination. I made a conscious effort to look up, look around, and spend time observing the buildings, furniture, decorations, and people surrounding me. It’s definitely a practice I’m going to carry with me when this experiment is over.

Parting Thoughts

This was one of the hardest things I’ve done. It wasn’t an issue of willpower; what made this detox challenging was being honest with myself about how unhealthy my addiction has become. There’s no way I was going to undo a decade of learned behavior in the course of a week, but what I will take with me is a clear awareness of my patterns and triggers. So that was step one. Step two is examining this new self-awareness with kindness, patience, and forgiveness.

Will I toss my cell out of my third-floor window? Definitely not. But I absolutely am going to scale back, check in less, and employ mindfulness tactics in my social media and technology usage. I tell my yoga students to play at their edge of discomfort, but not to live in extremes. What better advice than that for living in a digital age?

—

Rochelle Bilow is a yoga teacher and wellness writer based in Upstate New York. She’s an advocate for body positivity and healthy attitudes toward food and spends the majority of her free time concocting feel-good recipes. She’s also a nature nut and proud corgi mom. Connect with her at her website and on Instagram.

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The post This 7-Day Digital Detox Was the Hardest (and Best) Thing I’ve Ever Done appeared first on Wanderlust.

[magzoso-tech]

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/robinhood-offers-15-discount-blames-outage-on-record-trades/

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs write that “the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure — which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect — triggering a failure of our DNS system.”

Robinhood was offline from Monday at 6:30am Pacific to 11pm Pacific, then had another outage this morning from 6:30am Pacific until just before 9am Pacific.

The $912 million-funded fintech giant will provide compensation to all customers of its Robinhood Gold premium subscription for borrowing money to trade plus access to Morningstar research reports, Nasdaq data, and bigger instant deposits. It’s offering them three months of service.

A month of Robinhood Gold costs $5 plus 5% yearly interest on borrowing above $1,000, charged daily. Before a pricing change, the flat fee per month could range as high as $200. However, compensated users will only get the $5 off per month, for a total of $15. That could seem woefully insufficient if Robinhood users missed out on buying back into stocks like Apple that went up over 9% on Monday. Robinhood is calling it a “first step”.

Impacted Robinhood users can contact the company here to ask for compensation. Below you can see the email Robinhood sent to custoemrs late last night.

Robinhood’s email to customers late last night

Robinhood is also working to contact impacted customers on a individual basis, and it’s looking into other forms of compensation on a case by case basis, company spokesperson Jack Randall tells me. It’s unclear if that might include cash to offset what traders might have lost by having their money locked in inaccessible Robinhood accounts during the outage.

Compensation could become a significant cost if the startup assesses that many of its 10 million users were impacted. The markets gained a record $1.1 trillion yesterday, but some Robinhood traders may not have been able to buy back in as the rebound occurred following mass selloffs due to fears of coronavirus.

Now the startup, valued at $7.6 billion, will have to try to regain users’ trust. “When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation . . . We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long” wrote co-founders and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev [disclosure: who I know from college].

As for exactly what triggered the downtime, the founders write that “Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups.” There’s been a frenzy of retail trading activity in the wake of coronavirus. There’s also been sudden spikes in stocks like Tesla amidst mainstream media attention. 

Going forward, Robinhood promises to “work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure.” However, they warn that “we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.”

The outage comes at a vulnerable time for Robinhood as oldschool brokerages like Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and Etrade all recently moved to eliminate per-trade fees to match Robinhood’s pioneering zero-comission trades. Though some of those brokerages experienced infrastructure troubles recently, Robinhood massive outages could push users towards those incumbents that they might perceive as more stable. 

[magzoso-tech]

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

New Post has been published on https://magzoso.com/tech/robinhood-offers-15-discount-blames-outage-on-record-trades-3/

Robinhood offers $15 discount, blames outage on record trades

It wasn’t the leap year, a coding blip, or a hack that caused Robinhood’s massive outages yesterday and today that left customers unable to trade stocks. Instead, the co-CEOs write that “the cause of the outage was stress on our infrastructure — which struggled with unprecedented load. That in turn led to a “thundering herd” effect — triggering a failure of our DNS system.”

Robinhood was offline from Monday at 6:30am Pacific to 11pm Pacific, then had another outage this morning from 6:30am Pacific until just before 9am Pacific.

The $912 million-funded fintech giant will provide compensation to all customers of its Robinhood Gold premium subscription for borrowing money to trade plus access to Morningstar research reports, Nasdaq data, and bigger instant deposits. It’s offering them three months of service.

A month of Robinhood Gold costs $5 plus 5% yearly interest on borrowing above $1,000, charged daily. Before a pricing change, the flat fee per month could range as high as $200. However, compensated users will only get the $5 off per month, for a total of $15. That could seem woefully insufficient if Robinhood users missed out on buying back into stocks like Apple that went up over 9% on Monday. Robinhood is calling it a “first step”.

Impacted Robinhood users can contact the company here to ask for compensation. Below you can see the email Robinhood sent to custoemrs late last night.

Robinhood’s email to customers late last night

Robinhood is also working to contact impacted customers on a individual basis, and it’s looking into other forms of compensation on a case by case basis, company spokesperson Jack Randall tells me. It’s unclear if that might include cash to offset what traders might have lost by having their money locked in inaccessible Robinhood accounts during the outage.

Compensation could become a significant cost if the startup assesses that many of its 10 million users were impacted. The markets gained a record $1.1 trillion yesterday, but some Robinhood traders may not have been able to buy back in as the rebound occurred following mass selloffs due to fears of coronavirus.

Now the startup, valued at $7.6 billion, will have to try to regain users’ trust. “When it comes to your money, we know how important it is for you to have answers. The outages you have experienced over the last two days are not acceptable and we want to share an update on the current situation . . . We worked as quickly as possible to restore service, but it took us a while. Too long” wrote co-founders and co-CEO Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev [disclosure: who I know from college].

As for exactly what triggered the downtime, the founders write that “Multiple factors contributed to the unprecedented load that ultimately led to the outages. The factors included, among others, highly volatile and historic market conditions; record volume; and record account sign-ups.” There’s been a frenzy of retail trading activity in the wake of coronavirus. There’s also been sudden spikes in stocks like Tesla amidst mainstream media attention. 

Going forward, Robinhood promises to “work to improve the resilience of our infrastructure to meet the heightened load we have been experiencing. We’re simultaneously working to reduce the interdependencies in our overall infrastructure. We’re also investing in additional redundancies in our infrastructure.” However, they warn that “we may experience additional brief outages, but we’re now better positioned to more quickly resolve them.”

The outage comes at a vulnerable time for Robinhood as oldschool brokerages like Charles Schwab, Ameritrade, and Etrade all recently moved to eliminate per-trade fees to match Robinhood’s pioneering zero-comission trades. Though some of those brokerages experienced infrastructure troubles recently, Robinhood massive outages could push users towards those incumbents that they might perceive as more stable.