Best business & money books according to redditors
We found 42,093 Reddit comments discussing the best business & money books. We ranked the 12,862 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 42,093 Reddit comments discussing the best business & money books. We ranked the 12,862 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
You might be interested in this book:
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman has done Nobel-award winning research into the way human beings make irrational decisions and why. The TL;DR is that the brain has two distinct systems for thinking -- a strong, fast, emotional and relatively dumb one, and a weaker, slower, rational, much smarter one. When you "think with your gut" you're using the first system, and when you ponder something carefully and make a rational choice you're using the second system.
So what you had here was a good example of the two systems being in conflict. The dumber but stronger emotional system probably said something like "Ugh, I don't want to walk up those stairs! I can do this with a butter knife." The smarter but weaker rational system then pointed out that this was pretty dumb, but it wasn't strong enough to override the "fast" system, which is all about short-term tactics, not long-term strategies. The slow system then sent you off to Reddit to complain about how your fast system is an idiot.
Edit: I wasn't aware the the ebook links were unauthorized so I've removed them per request of the moderators.
This sort of thing is like getting hit by lightning.
Imagine this: if you were around in the early 1900's, which car company would you have invested in? There were hundreds of them. Most of them looked pretty good. Even as late as the 1950's Studebaker, Nash, and American Motors would have looked pretty great. You would have no way of knowing Ford, GM, and Chrysler would have been the survivors and good investments.
Moreover, you don't remember it, but in the late 90's Apple was totally on life support. I think it was either Microsoft or Bill Gates tossed them some help, it was so bad. Steve Jobs came back and turned the whole mess around. If your dad had invested in them in 1986, he'd have sold it within 10 years and been happy to have walked away with more than $0.
Moreover #2, the late 90's was the tech boom. Look up some info on Pets.com. Yahoo was the internet titan. AOL was everywhere and bought Time Warner. Dell Computers were huge. Compuserve. The 90's was the same thing as cars in the early 1900's. You had no way of knowing out of all the tech companies that Amazon and Google were going to be the survivors.
You know how Amazon basically used the internet to eat Sears' lunch? That means smart and connected people fully immersed in the retail industry running the biggest retail business in the world and able to afford all the consultants and research they could want couldn't even comprehend what technology was going to do within a decade or two or spot what was going to be their downfall and you think you could have managed to pick Amazon out of all the tech companies at the same time?
Moreover #3, the places where there are spectacular opportunities, they occur to people around the founder and early employees and people in the venture capital industry. You'd had to have known Mark Zuckerberg in college or his parents and been able to lend a nerd with a computer $50k, or been an early employee of a "shaky" at best company. That's the risk you run if you go to work for a startup. If you have claim to a percent or two, if the company takes off, that's huge. But way more likely the company probably flops or gets bought out for a modest amount. Are you friends with college tech nerds? Are they working on stuff that you think giving them $10k's wouldn't be throwing money away? Do your relatives know their relatives? Are you in an area where you'd come into contact with those people?
Additionally, I'm 32. Part of getting older is realizing you've made choices and decisions and they create opportunities and paths and take away other opportunities and paths, and learning how to cope with seeing that you should have done something differently. We're all doing the best we can at the time. If any of our parents had bought $10k or 20k worth of Apple or Microsoft in the 90's they'd be millionaires by now. If my parents had bought a different house on a lake in the same town for a slightly higher price 30 years ago, they'd be in significantly different financial position too. If only my grandfather had bought large amounts of land near where he lived Washington DC during the Great Depression! You made the best decisions at the time, don't live life looking in the rear view mirror and second guessing yourself.
Looking at my situation, I could buy a flashy car that I like and would enjoy a lot or I could take that few hundred per month and invest it. What happens when I'm 60 and have an account with a big number in it? Then I buy the car I'd enjoy having and go on a lot of vacations, except I'll be old. And I don't expect suddenly when I'm older, my feelings will switch around and I'd suddenly start to enjoy spending money and seeing the number go down rather than saving it. And I've talked to my coworkers, a decade ago there was a person in the office where I work now was mid-50's and came down with brain cancer and was rapidly gone. We have other coworkers who die right after retiring, or aren't healthy enough to get much enjoyment. Think about that--you or me could spend our whole working lives saving money for retirement and then die in our 50's or right after retiring and not being able to get any enjoyment from it. And it's not just dying, but coming down with an illness or having a lot of pain. That isn't a very enjoyable life.
And yet I'd rather save money and push that problem out of what to do with it. This is what I think about when I think about whether to get rid of my cheap, working, boring car and consider getting something fun.
I think autonomous vehicles will be a large source of growth in the coming decade. So which company do you think will do it first? Ford, GM, Chrysler, or Tesla? What if Apple or Google or Uber or Yahoo or some company you haven't heard of right now swoops in and does it first? Surprise! You chose wrong. You could redeem yourself if you invested in a car company the tech company chooses to partner with because they know how to tech but not to make cars. Which car company would they partner with? Is it the one you chose?
Healthcare is big. It's 17% of our economy. How do you invest in that for 10 years for now? What if the people start electing progressives and they completely rearrange the healthcare system and do something like eliminate the need for insurance companies or sharply reduce the profitability of pharmaceutical companies?
Don't dwell on hindsighting yourself. If you look at any graph of a stock or anything it is sooooo obvious to spot the times to buy or sell and pick an optimum path through different investments but when you have to do it live you never know what is going to happen. If you had $10k now, do you think you'd invest it right now or do you think we're on the cusp of a recession where if you hang on to that sum for part of a year or more, you can get a much larger return? What do you think, hmm? It'll be so easy to be able to see what you should have done when you're 32 in 2029 and pull up a graph of stocks and what they did in 2019-20.
I don't want to be rude but stop it with the crypto. You know how gambling works because it exploits people who have the inclination in them to say 'just one more for sure!' even with games where the odds are actually pretty low to ever come out ahead. The fear of missing out is what compels people to get involved with it. People who say "If I had put $100 into bitcoin in 2011, I'd have $10 billion now!" like, no. It's exploiting the people like you who want to look at the graph of Apple's stock price and say "if I had bought in '86...". Also last week the Fed announced it's working on developing a peer to peer live payment system--you know one that will use real actual money so actual real people will be able to use it. That is going to diminish the real world use crypto claims to have. Canada already has a system like this and I don't know if European countries do as well.
Read this book, pup.
Basically monthly I buy the S&P 500 index. It's a trade off between how much return I want and how much effort I want to put in. I doubt I'll beat skyscrapers of people with PhD's who are experts in this, know accounting, read boring reports and do all sorts of research, and actually talk directly to the people running companies so I buy the index and won't ever be worse than the market as a whole--which the skyscrapers of people can't consistently beat. I own some other company's stocks separately, like a railroad, an industrial conglomerate, and Google and all three of those have done great. In that book I linked to, a section talks about how you can approximate the market performance with like owning any 25-30 random companies' stocks--because he's from a time before there were actual market indexes you can hold. Lately I've been starting to think that you can probably beat the market if you avoid the obvious loser or stagnant companies that are big enough to be part of the S&P 500. Like just buying and holding blue chips like McDonald's or Coke or IBM or Disney for multiple years will probably beat the S&P 500. You won't get rich enough to be able to retire at 35 that way, something like what Apple did, but you'll come out pretty solid in the long run. At the same time, so like I own say $10k of Google. If the company doubles, now I have $20k. Big whoop. Now I can retire. If the company 10x, I'll have $100k. That's even better but I still can't retire from that. The big companies can't grow so much--how would Google or Apple double in size from where they are now? Apple would have to completely invent a whole new industry again (and it'd have to be like actual AI or something nutty like teleportation). And if any one knew what that was going to be, they'd have done it already. We have RFID tags now and have had them for over 10 years yet stores still would rather pay cashiers than have customers simply walk through an RFID detector.
The next stuff to come is going to be connected with faster internet and reducing labor. Drones and getting rid of human drivers? E-doctor video visits?
The history is simple. The minimum wage was originally passed with the intention of providing a full-time worker the capacity to support himself and a family. The federal minimum wage in the United States was set at $0.25 per hour in 1938. It was not tied to inflation and has to be increased by law. The term "Act of Congress" is often used to describe a massive and nearly impossible action. In this case it is both a literal and figurative truth.
There are a number of commenters here who seem to think that the minimum wage was ever intended to be other than you describe it. They are wrong. The minimum wage is just that, the minimum acceptable wage that a full-time worker can make and be able to subsist without assistance.
> No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. —President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933
The minimum wage was established to ensure that all workers in the US would be able to live independently on their wages. The existence of a minimum wage provides all other workers with useful bargaining leverage, increasing wages throughout. Historically this typically results in a redistribution of wealth from owners to workers (not a commensurate increase in prices as some here have claimed), which always results in an overall increase in economic growth as workers are also consumers.
In the US minimum wage has become stagnant, failing to reflect inflation. A large part of that is the misonceptions throughout this thread. Minimum wage is not "earned solely by teenagers and college students for beer money." Nor can any reasonable person suppose that anyone doesn't desere to "live comfortably on 40 hours a week."
These, fairly recent, attitudes have been encouraged by business owners who have little incentive to pay their workers a reasonable wage, so long as there is an army of unemployed and underemployed willing to do the same job. The minimum wage subverts that desire.
Simply put, an owner pays a little as he can for the labor. The rarer a laborer's skills are (not how skilled or useful he is, the owner never pays anyone he doesn't have to) the more he can charge because he is difficult to replace. Minimum wage establishes a floor, as do overtime requirements and other fair labor standards.
The minimum wage has nothing to do with whether or not someone "deserves" to be paid for their work. Your boss will never pay you more than he has to, that is the central premise of a free market. A minimum wage says that no matter how little he wants to pay you, he should still pay you enough to live on. It is also simple economic sense, it saves money that would go to public welfare to support people who are employed. It is a decision by society as a whole that no one who is willing and able to work should find themselves in poverty.
All that being said, the shareholder prefers that money goes to his bottom line, and not into wages. So he fights any increase tooth and nail. The misconceptions throughout this thread, and the insane anger focused on those one rung lower on the socio-economic ladder, are one tool to avoid it. Another is spreading misinformation, also found in this thread, to lawmakers; claiming that increasing minimum wage dampens, rather than strengthens, the local economy. And the last is simple apathy, since the minimum wage is not tied to inflation it becomes increasingly trivial as time goes by. After a while it becomes, as it has now, a poverty wage.
EDIT:
Oh my poor inbox. Ok, I'm going to try to address some of the biggest responses.
EDIT 2:
Okay, this has blown up way to far. It needs to stop. This isn't a particularly well written or researched essay on the minimum wage. It's not an academic article on the subject, or even an editorial. I only wrote this because I was royally pissed off that every other response in this thread was shitting all over low wage workers, claiming that everyone who was paid minimum wage was either a teenager or a lazy failure in life who deserved nothing. So I pulled some references from Wikipedia and hacked together a "for" response in the form of a short persuasive essay (in the sense that the essay is intended to persuay, not necessarily that it succeeded).
If you still think I'm full of shit, if you don't like my Christmas reading list, if you have another magical panacea, or hate poor people, or hate rich people, or want to observe that minimum wage is a band-aid for some bigger social issue; please start another thread. This is crazy. There's no way I can even see your response anymore.
The TLDR, ELIL5 of the entire post is this: Minimum wage in most places in the US is higher than the federal minimum wage, but still not always enough to live on. Minimum wage was supposed to be a living wage, but increasing it requires an act of law even though the cost of living goes up every year. Since low wages mean low costs many business leaders and investors like a low minimum wage, so they fight efforts to raise it. As time goes on what was a living wage becomes too low to stay one. I think that's bad.
And because everyone's gotten really riled up, here's a scene from my favourite Christmas movie.
In a nutshell, the classic steering mechanism for public opinion used to be Manufacturing Consent (Chomsky) or Engineering Consent (Bernays) which generates propaganda to achieve more of a public consensus whereas Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation looks at the shift from that to neutralizing the pubilc into inaction by polarizing them with conflicting information or misinformation (patently false information) so that NO consensus can be reached. Both achieve the same goal of allowing the power elite to carry out the policies they wish while reducing the influence of an ostensibly democratic public which, in conjunction with more and more police state-like authoritarian measures making them more compliant, can no longer tell what is truth and what is misinformation. The public descends into arguing amongst themselves as opposed to those in power.
Edit. I would highjly recommend watching Adam Curtis' famous documentary The Century of the Self which looks at Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's nephew) and the origins of the consumer society, public relations and propaganda.
The problem is that click-bait is the only way to keep the lights on for most of these sites. They just don't make that much money.
Consider how this translates to employee pay and, in turn, the incentive for these employees to pursue virtuous journalistic careers and invest the time required to keep things on the straight and narrow.
As a result, we don't get journalism - we get op-ed and clickbait. We get toxicity.
This is part of a vicious cycle. Toxicity and clickbait are more profitable.
It is in human nature for us to have our interest piqued by negative headlines and bad news. Our brains work by recognizing patterns and relationships between facts and situations. We've evolved to be more interested in the facts that jut out and are potentially more threatening to our survival.
So, bad news and negativity gets clicks. Weird-ass headlines gets clicks. Misinformation drives clicks. Toxicity drives traffic. Clickbait drives traffic.
Go look at the headlines and "hot" articles on top gaming blogs. You'll see tons of negative articles or headlines that stir toxicity.
So, if you're the editor for a gaming blog site, what do you do? Even if you're not intending to run toxic content, you might unconsciously start becoming conditioned to run toxic content through the positive feedback you get through page stats.
In systems like Forbes where anyone can submit and the most popular articles get featured, it's easy to see how the most divisive and potentially toxic content gets featured.
Consider this. Here's a fictional made-up quote we can use for the sake of argument.
> "In the new game, the brothers go to Africa. It's a fascinating place," said Jim Drawerson, artist on Super Plumber Brothers 2. "It was hard to capture all of the culture and ethnic diversity, but I think we did a good job."
Which of these three headlines do you think will get the most clicks and comments?
> 1. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist interview
> 2. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist talk about setting game in Africa
> 3. Super Plumber Brothers 2 artist slammed for racist comments
For the third headline, all you have to do is find a few people on Twitter who were offended (someone is always offended about something), screenshot their comments, and paste them into your article.
The third headline will drive clicks, even if it's not accurate. But who's going to hold the gaming bloggers accountable?
Gaming blogs are largely not accountable to anyone except the stats that keep the doors open. I'm not going to name names or sites, but I can tell you that, having worked in the industry, there are a handful of very popular sites that do not fact check and do not run corrections. It should come as no surprise that these sites also make most of their revenue on click bait.
So what can we do?
It's a huge effort, but a lot of the toxicity in the gaming community comes from ignorance. And that ignorance is driven, willfully or not, by clickbait.
At the end of the day, there's just not that much gaming news. So someone has to stir up drama to fill columns and drive clicks.
EDIT -- This is a great book that covers some of this subject matter. Very quick read.
http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
To be clear, I am not affiliated with this book and am not using Amazon affiliate to make money on clicks/purchases of this book. I think it's a great resource for people who would like to know more about this topic.
That and the entire list of cognitive biases on Wikipedia.
edit: as this seems to be so popular, here is a good book about cognitive bias
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore is a great introduction to investing. It might look silly, but it's not a silly book.
It's intended for "normal people" with no background in economics. It explains the basics of the stock market, funds, ETFs, bonds, etc., as well as the basics of investment — risk management, compound returns, value investing/fundamental analysis, etc. — in simple, understandable terms.
"Boglehead" is a humorous term for people who espouse the investing philosophy of John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard — the largest and most consumer-friendly provider of mutual funds in the U.S. — and creator of the first commercially available index fund. Bogleheads usually recommend a simple "three-fund portfolio" as a diversification strategy, based on the idea that index funds by design will, over time, give non-professionals the best returns, as opposed to individual stock picking.
Bogle himself wrote a bunch of books. The Little Book of Common Sense Investing is supposed to be great.
I remember reading a story in "Trust Me, I'm Lying; Confessions of a Media Manipulator" where the agent of an author wasn't getting any good marketing coverage for his client's new book, so the agent starting pulling the "angry consumer" shtick, calling/writing into different media outlets (bloggers, radio, etc..), pretending to be pissed off about the book. No one had heard of it, but eventually some of them started writing about how insulting & disgusting it was, just based on the agent's complaint.
It worked. No publicity is bad publicity.
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edit: Since people are seeing this, you should read this book. The guy (former American Apparel advertising exec) did this tell-all book because he saw the media's standards dropping and his industry's tricks starting to be used in things like politics. It will destroy your confidence in ever believing anything you read on the internet, reddit definitely included. Good for honing your bullshit detector.
edit 2: I am not affiliated in any way with this book. You are not being manipulated 😜
Not saving any of my disposable income - if I invested even 10% of what I earned in my 20's I'd own a house now that I'm in my 30's, but instead I'm just now trying to catch up with that train.
EDIT: For those interested in learning to invest, I'll share some resources below. As for how I invest - I have 60% in high-interest 5-year CD account (about 3.1% APY) and the rest in mutual funds (VMVFX and VTMFX to be exact). I am putting 10% of my pre-tax income into my employer's 401(k) (they match some of contributions) and am contributing maximum amount possible to my IRA. Finally I keep about 5% of the cash in a savings account which provides a relatively low interest rate of 2% (but I can access that money at any time).
What I'm excited about: moving my investments to ESG (responsible environmental, social, and governance) funds. These funds carefully screen companies for negative impacts in that area - for example, tobacco and alcohol companies would be excluded, as would oil companies, and fashion retailers that use unsustainable labor practices. One such ESG fund is run by Vanguard - VEIGX.
Tips for saving: learn about concept of paying yourself first - that means automatic deductions into a savings account that you can't easily touch that happen after each of your paycheck. This has been the key to saving - automating it so that it's not something I have to think about - like a mortgage or bill payment - makes sure I don't spend the money meant to be saved. Do some budgeting to figure out where your money goes - there's lots of tools online, like Mint, that allow you to easily break down spending by categories and even set a budget. Estimate your living expenses (rent, food, bills, transportation) and prioritize saving for a 6 months worth of living in case of a job loss or accident. Learn about lifestyle creep and always live below your means - buy used not new, avoid cheaply made low quality products, think twice whether you really need the thing you're buying, can you get it used, can you borrow it? How much is the thing you're buying a liability in terms of maintenance, insurance, etc? Prioritize spending on yourself (experiences, learning, self-development) rather than on things.
Relevant reading:
I got about 25 minutes into the video; I'm not wasting more time. If you want to know serious data about the dangers of central planning of the monetary system, there are vastly better sources that talk in real, economics, and not lofty, sensationalist terms.
The International Role of the Dollar: Theory and Prospect by Paul krugman
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
The Creature from Jekyll Island by Griffin
Milton Friedman's Free to Choose videos
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My main objections in the first 25 minutes of this "documentary" are:
1) They're not correctly defining or using the terms currency or money and not identifying their economic role. Money is not the center of an economy, it is the lubrication that permits economics to happen. Economics is the analysis of how scarce resources that have alternative uses are allocated by people (by markets).
Money doesn't create those allocations, money enables those allocations.
Even in an economic system without money, there would still be allocations of scarce resources that have alternative uses by people; whether that is choosing to use your time to cut down a tree for your neighbor in exchange for beef or choosing to use your time to mow a lawn for your mother in exchange for a smile and a thank you; your time is a scarce resource and you're choosing how to allocate it with zero money being involved.
Money is any medium of exchange and is created as a store of one's labor.
You receive a dollar in exchange for X minutes of your labor. That piece of paper stores those X minutes of your labor and you can use it in exchange for something you value.
So anyway - this video does a shitty job identifying what money is at the outset... I don't think it'll get better.
2) The banking system, monetary policy, and politicians making a killing off of those systems has not been hidden from anyone. As they admit, almost in a very quick juxtaposition with their incorrect statement, the bankers, academics, and politicians are very open about their systems.
The problem is that people are just happy with their lives and are safer than they've ever been throughout history.
3) A complete misunderstanding of what "interest" is and what fractional reserve banking is.
Interest is the cost of lending money... it is the price tag on a product just like on the coat or iPod you buy. The baker isn't going to give you all his bread for free; why should a bank give you money for free?
Fractional reserve banking can be done responsibly. Much like the interest rate, it should be done at the rate set by free markets. A fractional reserve rate of 90% almost completely guarantees that when you withdraw, you will always be able to withdraw all of your money. In exchange, banks will give you vastly lower of an interest rate than at a 10% fractional reserve rate because it is higher risk and lower reward for the bank.
Anyway - like so many other documentaries out there about extremely complex matters, this one is just trying to sell a product like every other good capitalist out there. They need to catch your attention and get you to talk about it to others to make money - so of course they're going to play to the 8th grade education market.
How to Lie With Statistics by Darrell Huff
It's a pretty quick read about how true information can be used in misleading ways.
Edit: Two other redditors have pointed out that you can find it for free here.
I used to sell annuities as a broker, yes this is the main reason. You are better off investing in a Roth IRA or some other retirement account first, then - if possible when you retire - obtain a variable annuity with a principle/income protection (just in case the market crashes, but you get more dough when it goes up, than fixed).
Long story short, read Bogleheads Guide to Investing or Bogleheads Guide to Retirement; sources:
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_d006Bb505YNH1
The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470919019/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_z006Bb4QAZKBM
These two books are more than enough to give anyone the knowledge in terms of investing and retirement planning. Or just hit me up with questions, please note that I haven’t been licensed in almost a decade, because I had chosen not to renew my series 6 and 63. Anyway, I hope my post helps.
Edit: damn autocorrect.
There's a book called Predictably Irrational that talks about studies in human behavior that's related to this. The idea is that we have a certain set of mores for social behavior and a separate set of mores for business behavior, so you get irrational behavior when you cross from one to the other.
For instance, they sold starburst candies as an experiment. As expected, sales went up as price went down, until they became free. Then people took only took a one or two, because it was now a social transaction, not a business transaction. But if they were a penny a piece, people felt free to drop a dollar and take 100 of em.
>I can't go to the bathroom without missing atleast 1 phone call from someone about something breaking.
Don't worry about that. Hell, I straight up ignore my phone sometimes even when I'm right beside it. Priorities and such.
>if I need to start looking elsewhere for more pay to offset the stress
Not a bad idea. Always be cognizant of what's out there.
As others have said, bring it up professionally with your boss. His response will help sway the "should I look elsewhere" decision.
Another good suggestion is to work on time management skills. Here's a highly recommended book around here.
And you have vacation days for a reason. Use them. If you try to but they never approve it, then that's a big red flag.
The Black Swan
Seriously, this is a ridiculously important book. Most people are terrible at the concept of evaluating probability/risk of rare events. Even people who think they are being good at it.
Here's my list of the classics:
General Computing
Computer Science
Software Development
Case Studies
Employment
Language-Specific
C
Python
C#
C++
Java
Linux Shell Scripts
Web Development
Ruby and Rails
Assembly
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
"Going with your instincts" and "thinking things through" are obviously different things. But why are we so inclined to prefer former over latter? What are the strengths and limitations of both systems? What are the easy mistakes, convenient half-truths and sneaky traps we fall for every day while staying completely oblivious to flaws in our thinking processes? Well, here it is: [Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555)
Here is the mother of all lottery advice comments. I think /u/Rabid_Tanuki may have been inspired by it. It’s entertaining and worth a read.
However, I would point out that £1m is not actually all that much money. It’s a good amount, and it can guarantee you financial security for life if you play your cards right. But in many ways you aren’t in nearly as precarious a situation as the people who win £30m. Even if you did tell people (DON’T!), this still is only enough to buy MAYBE one house in a high cost of living (HCOL) area like London. Your new friends wouldn’t expect Jaguars, just free trips, parties and help with medical expenses.
Still, you need to be careful: it’s surprisingly easy to fritter away a million euros/dollars/pounds/crowns. If you know you have trouble keeping money, then it’s a good idea to get financial advice on setting up some kind of trust. Taxes are another thing to think about. Realize, though, that there are many people who have this much in a standard brokerage account just due to having earned and invested over time. Since this isn’t a stupid amount of lottery money, you could do much worse than just sticking it in some index funds, turning on dividend reinvesting, and forgetting about it. (Which funds? Getting started investing can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. By far the most important thing is to start. Read this book.)
The reason £1m is able to guarantee you financial security is because of something called the 4% rule. TL;DR: once this is invested, you can safely take £40,000 a year out of it, if need be. As you’re looking for a career in journalism, having a base income of £40k which you can rely on is going to come in REAL handy.
Congratulations: you’ve been shown to the front of the “FI/RE” queue. (There’s a UK version too.) Now don’t fuck it up!
The E-myth revisited, by Michael Gerber. I'm sure this will be recommended many times, and for good reason.
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280
Not sure if it's a cultural thing between the US and the UK or just society evolving now we have social media and stuff but I recently reread How to win friends and influence people and though it was massively overrated. Same goes for The 7 habbits of highly effective people.
Anyway, heres my list of books and why:-
Bounce
Excellent book in my opinion. Based on variations of the 10,000-hour rule with plenty of examples. Also touches on how the unknown habits and circumstance of someone can lead to outstanding abilities.
Zero To One
The first book that I couldn't put down until I completed it. Picked a fair few things up from it as well as a bunch of things I hope to move forward within the future with startups.
The 33 Strategies of War
Not a business book but definitely my style if you take the examples and strategies and turn them into business. This is the second book I have not been able to put down once picking it up.
The E-Myth Revisited
Although I had a decent understanding of how to allocate duties to people depending on their job role this helped me better understand it as well as the importance of doing it.
ReWork
Another book I loved, just introduced me to a bunch of new concepts with a fair few I hope to use in the future.
Black Box Thinking
Coming from and engineering background I was already used to being ok with my failures provided I was learning from them but this book is based around how different industries treat failure and how it is important to accept it and grow from it.
Millionaire Fastlane
I feel this is an excellent book for reality checks and getting people into a better mindset of what to expect and the amount of work required. It also explains a few common misconceptions of the get rich slow style methods where you may end up rich but you will be 60 years old or more.
I update this post with all of the books I have read with a rating but here are my top picks.
In short, if we don't reverse the trend of increasing inequality, there's nothing to rule out becoming a society structurally similar to 19th century Europe, except the peasants will work in cubes and restaurants instead of fields. The top centile will own almost all means of wealth creation and the vast majority of income. As well as having virtually total power over government. No more upward mobility, meritocracy, or representative democracy. A new aristocracy cemented in place by economic feedback loops and inheritance, so stable that it will only collapse from some big shock like world war or popular uprising.
Caveat: I'm only half way through the book... Smart people of reddit who've reddit, did I get the ending right?
Everyone sucks at something at one point, but with practice you'll definitely be able to get better! I highly recommend writing over typing out the solution when you practice. Also, 90% should be dedicated to planning out path to the solution and 10% for writing/typing the solution out. Sooner or later, things should start clicking and making sense. Here's a list of resources that helped me get all the way to the Google on-site interview (Didn't get an offer but it was an amazing learning experience)
Data Structure And Algorithm 1: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLH73N9cB21W1TZ6zz1dLkyIm50HylGyg
Interviewcake: https://www.interviewcake.com/
Khan Academy: https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-science/algorithms
Leetcode: https://leetcode.com/
Cracking the Coding Interview: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0984782850/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51F6Lwyq5JL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL390_SR390%2C390_&refRID=1PE4XEBQDDHEF4T1ZA9K
Algorithm Design Manual: http://www8.cs.umu.se/kurser/TDBAfl/VT06/algorithms/BOOK/BOOK/BOOK.HTM
Make sure to practice everyday and have a strong understanding of the concepts. Network, contribute to open source projects, and keep on learning!
Wolf, J.R., Arkes, H.R., & Muhanna, W.A. (2008). The power of touch: An examination of the effect of physical contact on the valuation of objects. Judgment and Decision Making 3(6): 476-482.
Even just coming into contact with something (test-driving that car, trying on that shirt, giving that bat a few test swings) gives you a larger affinity with the object. You know you can handle it, it's the right fit for you. It's been shown before that the longer you own something now or the longer you owned it in the past causes you to increase your perceived value of that object (the "length of ownership effect", see link above for examples in the introduction), now we know that just interacting with something makes a sale more likely.
Sunk Costs comes into play too... the more you invest in something the harder it becomes to abandon it. The work Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky did in this field showed a genetic advantage for anything that placed more urgency on avoiding threats than they did on maximizing opportunities ...so you see abandoning the pre-purchased movie ticket when the film is still playing as more of a loss than what fun you could be having by just saying "to hell with the $8, this sucks" and walking away (with the possibility that something better could happen). Behavioral economist Dan Ariely hit the nail on the head on this subject in his book, Predictably Irrational. He writes that when factoring the costs of any exchange, you tend to focus more on what you may lose in the bargain than on what you stand to gain.
Some of the things I was told:
What I learned - "There is a reason advice is free: because, it is usually crap" - Micheal Cain
Take yourself seriously. If you are doing things by the hour, charge no less than 50-100.00/hr. If you work for less, the customer is going to think your a joke, because they know what the market rate of professional services cost. You only have to work one hour at 100.00/hr to make the same dollar you would make in 4 hours and 25.00/hr.
Read this book: - The Lean Startup - Eric Ries
It is exactly about what you are doing and will give you some unique business ideas and help you not to be afraid of totally screwing up and starting over.
Lessons Learned the Hard way:
-Partners: Be careful with partners. It was once said, "you can tell the quality of a man by the company he keeps" Going into business with someone who has had multiple marriages is dangerous proceed with caution, Going into business with someone who has had affairs - no fly. A lot about a persons professional performance can be foretold from the quality of their personal life. Men and women of integrity are the foundation of a new company, if the foundation is sand, the storm will wash it a way. Lesson: Choose good partners. If you share any of the ownership or leadership, make sure they are trustworthy. Not that just you trust them, but they are generally a trustworthy person.
For the most part, just get out there, fail, fail, fail, and learn. Keep track of your many failures so when you achieve success you will not get bloated and forget where you came from.
Buy and read these books (first):
Bogle on Mutual Funds https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/111908833X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Bogleheads Guide to Investing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118921283/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
The Four Pillars of Investing
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0071747052/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
After reading those, download Robinhood and put $100 in (no more) and play around for like 6 months before even thinking about trying to play with larger amounts.
-- OR - skip Robinhood and download "Betterment" and just slowly put money in there and build some wealth.
Happy Learning.
It's not just gaming journalism, it's all modern journalism.
Ryan Holiday - Read his books.
https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Hacker-Marketing-Primer-Advertising/dp/1591847389?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285?ie=UTF8&ref_=asap_bc
Seems like the appropriate place to plug this book: Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
Check out harry potter and the methods of rationality.
Read/Learn Non Violent Communication
Start to [Meditate] (http://humanistsofmn.org/127-better-critical-thinking-through-meditation)
Philosophy - "love of wisdom"
Read about rationality/critical thinking
Learn about the common [cognitive biases] (http://www.businessinsider.com/cognitive-biases-2014-6?op=1) and [logical fallacies] (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/)
Create some rationality habits
Learn about the ways Marketing/propaganda is used to influence you
The Trivium
> This whole article is nonsense.
An opinion is only as good as the evidence that backs it up. You say it's ludicrous, but the facts say otherwise.
And just to let you know, if you've ever read Freakonomics, it goes through a very thorough explanation of why Guiliani's tough on crime policies that dropped the rate of crime in the city probably didn't do anything, as crime dropped throughout the entire country. Of course, the question becomes why did crime drop? Surprisingly, they give a majority of credit to Roe v. Wade. And again, the book backs up that assertion with raw data, not just emotional statements like you saying, "BAH, THIS IS NONSENSE!!! ARRRRGGGHHH!!!"
So...do you have some actual proof to back up your assertion?
There isn't really such thing as fast thinkers, just people that rely more frequently on the fast thinking process that the slow thinking process. The fast thinking process happens by training information into your mind. the more often you are exposed to something, the more likely you will retain it in a fast thinking process.
This is how we learn things some basic things (alphabet, numbers). For an example, as children we repeatedly get exposed to the times tables in school. We are asked to read and recite the 1 times table,s then 2 times tables, frequently up to the 15 times table. This constant and frequent exposure is to train it to be written to the fast thinking process.
The fast thinking process is also highly unreliable and easily fooled. Take this for example (System 1 refers to fast thinking process, System 2 refers to slow thinking process):
A bat and ball costs £1.10 in total.
The bat costs one pound more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost?
System 1 provides the almost instant answer of 10p, which is, of course, wrong. The correct solution (5p) requires the conscious slow thinking of the cerebral cortex referred to as System 2.
Edit: The reason why this fails is because we look at the problem and attempt to apply a best fit known fast process that we have in our mind (X - Y model). However, the correct model is (X - Y)/2. the X - Y model is something we are exposed to extremely frequently and so retains in System 1 very well. But the (X-Y)/2 model, for most people, is rarely needed, and since we aren't exposed to it at any stage in our lives on a regular basis, it doesn't get stored in System 1. The problem with "fast thinkers" is that if they overly rely on System 1, then there's a danger of applying the wrong model to a given situation giving the wrong answer.
If you are interested in reading up on the 2 systems, I highly recommend the book "Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman". The author is a Nobel Memorial Prize winning psychologist who has studied extensibly in this area.
Rich Dad Poor Dad catches a lot of flak, but it's actually really good at teaching the absolute basics in an easy-to-follow manner. Like, learn what a Cash Flow Statement is, increase your asset column, learn basic accounting language, separate emotions and money, minimize taxes. Just glean the overall principles he's teaching and don't blindly follow his specific strategies.
The Richest Man in Babylon is another great, easy to read, investing 101 book.
And The Millionaire Next Door is a research-based book on Millionaires in America and what kind of habits and mindsets got them to their current wealth. It's a wonderfully refreshing read after being brainwashed by tv and movies saying that millionaires won it or stole it and live lavish lives. Most actual millionaires are pretty frugal and hard working with modest lives.
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And here are some resources to help you learn all the new words and concepts:
-- Microeconomics
-- Macroeconomics
-- Finance
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And when you get pretty familiar with the basics and want to start messing with stuff, I've enjoyed the Think or Swim paper money route. They give you $200,000 in fake money to play around with and invest and practice your strategies. It helps you get acquainted with the research and the interface and the fees for investing. It's a wonderful tool.
And then The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is supposed to be a pretty good comprehensive guide the advanced basics (is that a term?) of investing.
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Or if you want to skip alllll of this and just hire someone, I've read in those subreddits that you want to find a fee based financial adviser. Which you can do here.
.
I hope I've helped man! It's a lot of fun to learn about. I wish you all the best.
For more on this, check out Predictably Irrational.
Dan Ariely's TED talk is pretty good too.
So there's not a lot for us to go on here, but one thing I'll say is that good software development jobs are not easy, even for those completely qualified for them. If he's in the middle-high range salary-wise, then the challenge and expectations are probably all there. Software engineers are not cheap, so while they're treated very well to attract and retain talent, they're also seen as a big investment that had better pay off.
I was laid off from my first full time job and while my coworkers spoke very highly of my skills and the care I took with my work and went out of their way to emphasize how bright my future was in the industry both in person and in my peer reviews, my managers made things very clear: For the level of work they needed me to do, I simply was either not skilled enough or experienced enough to make the cut. It wasn't personal, or a statement about how smart I was, it was a cold and completely practical business decision.
What did I take away from that? Well after I stopped feeling bad for myself I realized that there wasn't anything wrong with me, that I was perfectly capable of cutting it in this industry, that many engineers less smart than me got along just fine, and that I simply needed to up my game and get a new job. It wasn't about getting smarter, it was about getting my shit together and working out of Cracking the Coding Interview daily, learning the hot frameworks that everyone needs engineers for, building a real portfolio and GitHub profile, and being ready to work that hard even after I got a new job. And I got a new job where I was paid over twice as much and so far I love it.
Nah, don't be silly. There's the real world knowledge that you use on the job and then there's the stuff they ask in interviews, which mostly consists of things you learned in college and forgot. Most programmers, regardless of experience, aren't going to do well on an Amazon technical interview unless they study before hand.
Your question assumes that you are buying low, and selling high very frequently. Day traders attempt to do this. Algorithms attempt to do this with thousands of trades per day (if not per minute). These strategies require vast amounts of data in order to operate. An individual investor has no hope of buying low and selling high in a fraction of a second to make a profit. Mostly because they cannot afford to spend the time gathering the information.
So how do regular people make a profit on the stock market? The less time you have to spend gathering data, the longer you have to wait to take a profit. Fortunately waiting also means that trading expenses are few and far between. However to make any money on the stock market you MUST spend some time learning. (OR you have to pay someone like me to do that for you, I'm a Registered Representative).
The recommended reading section (to the left of the screen) is a great place to start. Begin at the bottom with Bogleheads Guide, and work you way up to Intelligent Investor. II is a great book, but it's written for people who have taken at least a Financial Accounting class or two. So if you haven't or are unwilling to take a course start with Bogleheads, which is written for just about anyone.
If you don't want to take the time to read all those books (please run screaming from the market now, if you are unable or unwilling to learn about it), I'll sum them up for you in the way that I do with my own clients.
You need two things. A Plan and a Skill. The plan I like to use comes from Jack Bogle via the Bogleheads Guide and Bogleheads.org. The skill is recommended by Dan Sheridan (a commodities trader from the Chicago Exchange). Why a plan and a skill? Well because simply putting your money into VTSMX and letting it sit is doomed to failure. "Fire and Forget" is doomed to fail. There are psychological reasons. Humans are very susceptible to a herd mentality. Which leads to 'buy high, sell low'. There are emotional reason. When the market is tanking it HURTS emotionally. And there are negligence issues. People who dump money into an account are prone to forget about it. VTSMX is a fantastic fund, if you keep your eye on it. It's the worst fund in the world if you're not paying attention.
So what is the Plan? Right out of Jack Bogles playbook, the plan is:
"Take your age in bonds." I know, it sounds ludicrous to suggest to a 25 year old that they should have 25% of their funds in, say, VBMFX and 75% in VTSMX. That's way to conservative, right? They should be in 100% risk, right? Well no.
If you all you have is one position in stocks, you don't get to practice the skill! The Skill is critical and you need a second non-correlated fund. If your investment consists of a single fund, you have nothing to exchange with. There's nothing to practice. You need at least two funds to practice The Skill.
What is The Skill.
The first investing skill that you should learn is called 'rebalancing'. You do it at least once a year (more frequently if you can afford the additional costs, or are doing it in a retirement account). Every year on your birthday, you need to get 1% more conservative (see The Plan). So on that day you evaluate where you stocks and bonds are.
You started by investing 75/25, but over a year they will be completely different. The stock market should outpace the bond market. In a good year you could end up 90/10. In a bad stock market year you could end up 50/50. Regardless on the day you rebalance you sell off enough shares of the fund that is higher then it should be, and buy shares in the fund that is lower then it should be. After this transaction your risk is re-balanced from where ever the market took it, back to what it should be for you.
On your 26th birthday you should be 74/26. By re-balancing you have captured some gains (sold high), and have purchased some under-performers (bought low). Why is this better then say 'letting it ride' on the market? By doing this you prevent yourself from being fully susceptible to the market. 100% stock market position is a gamble. You are also making yourself more conservative over time. You are avoiding the high fee's of Target Return Date Funds. You are forcing yourself to monitor your investments, although not too frequently.
So have a plan. And practice a skill. A good plan that you could start with, but you don't have to, is:
Keep Costs Low (buy index or ETF)
Take your age in bonds
Re-balance at least yearly
Strongly consider doing this in a Tax Deferred retirement account (to keep costs low when you buy/sell/exchange shares)
This is how I make money on the stock market and the bond market, and the commodities market. This is not the only way to make money with investments.
Here is a scientific explanation of the Artosis curse: Regression toward the mean.
Basically, Artosis makes his predictions based on observations of high above (their own usual) average achievements of players. The problem is that there is actually quite a bit of randomness involved. At the high level SC II is being played at no single player is skilled enough to dominate everyone else (consistently, but likely not even at any one point in time if everyone would play against everybody else instead of just a random(ha!) selection). Randomness means, that when you observe someone being above average the chance that next time you observe them they will be WORSE, closer to the mean (back to normal!), is much higher compared to observing them doing something outstanding again.
I would like to point out that this is ONE of the forces at work. It does explain the Artosis curse. It does not (need to!) explain everything that goes on in the world or even just in the world of SC II. And it doesn't claim that this happens every single time, only on average.
Here is what Kahneman used as an example:
> The psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of the 2002 Nobel prize in economics, pointed out that regression to the mean might explain why rebukes can seem to improve performance, while praise seems to backfire.[8]
> “I had the most satisfying Eureka experience of my career while attempting to teach flight instructors that praise is more effective than punishment for promoting skill-learning. When I had finished my enthusiastic speech, one of the most seasoned instructors in the audience raised his hand and made his own short speech, which began by conceding that positive reinforcement might be good for the birds, but went on to deny that it was optimal for flight cadets. He said, “On many occasions I have praised flight cadets for clean execution of some aerobatic maneuver, and in general when they try it again, they do worse. On the other hand, I have often screamed at cadets for bad execution, and in general they do better the next time. So please don’t tell us that reinforcement works and punishment does not, because the opposite is the case.” This was a joyous moment, in which I understood an important truth about the world: because we tend to reward others when they do well and punish them when they do badly, and because there is regression to the mean, it is part of the human condition that we are statistically punished for rewarding others and rewarded for punishing them. I immediately arranged a demonstration in which each participant tossed two coins at a target behind his back, without any feedback. We measured the distances from the target and could see that those who had done best the first time had mostly deteriorated on their second try, and vice versa. But I knew that this demonstration would not undo the effects of lifelong exposure to a perverse contingency.
If you only read one book this year, let it be Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Public attitudes are shaped and driven by the media. If the public doesn't care, it's because we've spent years conditioning them not to care. If the public in general can't name many middle eastern cultures beyond "Muslim", that is very much the fault of the media.
If prominent newspapers started giving front page headlines to the plight of the Kurds, you'd certainly see a considerable public reaction, but right now the cycle is dominated by the anti-communist Hong-Kong protest coverage because it serves an agenda for the United States. Kurds being killed because the American government made the decision to abandon them? That's a bad look on America and the media won't give it nearly as much attention. See Manufacturing Consent on this dynamic.
This book changed the way I handle my days when I was a solo engineer doing everything under the sun. Now that I'm part of a larger network engineering team, I only use a handful of the tools recommended in the book as I don't find my time to be as scarce, and I get pretty good priority communication from management.
When I was a solo engineer:
Start of day: Block off the first 30min of your day to deal with any immediate, business-critical fires that I was either called on, texted about, or emailed about. If nothing is critical and needing attention, I would evaluate my task whiteboard (broken up into Primary/Secondary/Tertiary columns). Items are assigned to Primary priority either by myself or my manager. Secondary and Tertiary priorities are up to me. If someone waiting on a task that I deemed was Secondary or Tertiary priority is upset about that, they can speak with my manager and we'll determine what is most critical to the business.
End of day: Evaluate task whiteboard and determine what, if anything, needs to be added (and to what column) so it can be re-addressed tomorrow morning. As you cross off and wipe things from the board, make sure to document your accomplishments so it's easier on you/your boss during review time.
Start of Week: Maybe block off 30min with your manager/team lead/etc. to discuss current/upcoming projects. Document any completed tasks from your taskboard and wipe some off to make space (don't leave too much space or people might think you have nothing going on!)
End of Week: Update notes on what progress (if you managed to find any time) you've made on the projects you discussed in your stand-up meeting with your manager/lead/etc. at the beginning of the week. This is so you already have your notes ready next week and can do your Start of Day 30min fire addressing/taskboard eval on Monday without scrambling.
Start of Month: Man, I don't think I ever planned anything a month ahead.
Thank you, I appreciate your kind complement.
I would argue that the US is pushing to avoid a conflict with Iran. At least right now. IMO there won't be a war with Iran until oil price is dropped again, if ever. Iran has repeatedly violated a slew of sanctions and we know for a fact that they have been sending war materials and fighters into Afghanistan, into Iraq when it was hot, into Syria, and into Egypt most recently. The US plays it's part, saying that Iran is violating sanctions, etc. etc. and other members of the security council play their part and say hold off wait and see. But nothing happens. Nothing has happened for over 10 years of known nuclear violations. There are shadow operations like the virus, and other little artful moves meant to slow the program but no all out war. This way the UN looks deadlocked.
http://www.securitylawbrief.com/main/2013/07/un-divided-on-iran-sanctions-violations.html
I don't think this is necessarily a conspiracy, but a mutually understood set of roles nations are playing with Iran. Nobody really wants a war with Iran, but Iran is a bit of a loose cannon. The Saudis and other region nations are on board with further sanctions of Iran. Why?
Saudi Arabia is the lynch pin for all global energy politics. They produce insane amounts of oil, and have been doing so for decades. The House of Saud (royal family) controls everything in the country from oil production and profit to the military. The people are subjects, and have little real power outside of the violent, dangerous, destabilizing kind. The population of the country is a largesse state. The royal family gives everything to the people, more or less. For decades the House of Saud has been spending money hand over fist on luxuries and industrial development, but little on the actual population. About 10 years ago they switched to absolutely POURING money into building things for the people. They recognized that they had a population of wealthy, healthy people, many starting families, and nobody had a place to live, roads to get there, or any of that. It was a road to destabilization and civil unrest, and the royal family almost realized too late what was happening. They did figure it out though, so they maximized the profit margin on oil exports. You can't just pump more oil, it has detrimental effects on the oil field and long-term total production, so they are maximize the profit on what they produce and are now spending money hand over fist to upgrade the country for the people.
http://gulfnews.com/business/economy/saudi-arabia-to-spend-800m-on-land-for-riyadh-metro-1.1216763
http://persiangulffund.com/saudi-arabia-distributes-130-billion/
Happy people means the royals retain power, but the oil keeps flowing. The oil keeps flowing, WW III is averted. WW III is arguably hinged on the happiness of the people of Saudi Arabia, if you pick energy as the key to prosperity and peace globally, which I do.
So what does Iran have to do with it? Iran has been under sanction, barred from oil exports for many years now. The thing is, once you tap an oil field, you can't shut off production. The way these particular oil fields work, if you shut off the tap it might not start back up again, and if they do they will start up ad a fraction of the rate. So ever since the embargo started, Iran has been pumping. They have been pumping and storing oil. They have enough oil that they could pour it all into the market, flooding it and inflating supply to the point that oil prices drop to the level where Saudi Arabia can no longer spend the money needed to keep the people satiated.
They have so much oil stored in old tankers that they have actually created a shortfall on used oil and natural gas tankers globally. Iran has them all tied up for resource storage.http://gcaptain.com/sanctions-creating-stockpile-dozen/
http://gulfnews.com/business/oil-gas/iran-seeks-opec-consensus-on-oil-stockpile-release-by-us-1.1064765
http://marinelink.com/news/article/will-there-be-an-oil-tanker-shortage/319765.aspx
So Iran had (maybe still has?) a gun to Saudi Arabia's (and de facto the world's) head. It's the only reason they haven't been at least bombed. That and Iran seems to be playing a blustering and bluffing game. They are working hard on centrifuges and the like but it takes so much more to build a bomb than materials. What's going on in the country internally is hard to say, that's why they are the wild card. My gut feeling is that the powers in Iran know that the Iranian people don't want war. They can't look weak to the radical factions though, so they play their game. Honestly, that's just a guess.
So, the Iran situation seems to be a farce, or at least an act that can be put off for later until Saudi Arabia is stabilized for long-term production and the oil price can be brought down.
Thank you for asking though, I didn't really tie the Saudi Arabia situation in that I mentioned earlier. Iran features heavily in that script. JMO, it explains Iraq too. Saddam Hussein was a wild card that had done dumb things out of desperation before, and I think everyone truly was surprised when they didn't find massive stockpiles of radioactive material or chemical weapons. Especially given that the US sold so many chemical weapons to Iraq. With him gone Iraq is largely stable again, at least as far as oil goes. The law of unforseen and unintended consequences reigns supreme. Given how massive and complex the machine is, I don't know that peace can be maintained indefinitely. Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The spice must flow!
As to Israel, they don't want war either. They just want Iran off their necks, and their neighbors to be calm. They are the family nobody likes in the neighborhood, even though all those other families have their own feuds between them, and within them.
EDIT: There's always the wildcard of fracking too. This not only alleviates some of the pressure to maintain peace in the Middle East (Egypt will always be a feature though because of the canal, European-Asian trade hinges on it) but it also eliminates a lot of the competition between China and the US. I think that China, the US, and Russia would all like to see Russian production increase too. If only we can master fusion before we kill each other, that would be the day. Then we can fight (or walk the line trying not to fight) about something else.
EDIT2: Outdated info stricken.
>What the fuck happened to America?
Reasoning and the human brain doesn't work the way we thought it did:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Manufacturing consent
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Most have no clue what's really going on in the world... the elites are afraid of political awakening.
This (mass surveillance) by the NSA and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ttv6n7PFniY
Brezinski at a press conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kmUS--QCYY
The real news:
http://therealnews.com/t2/
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Government-Surveillance-Security-Single-Superpower/dp/1608463656/r
http://www.amazon.com/National-Security-Government-Michael-Glennon/dp/0190206446/
Look at the following graphs:
IMGUR link - http://imgur.com/a/FShfb
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
And then...
WIKILEAKS: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap
http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-haiti-minimum-wage-the-nation-2011-6
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM
Free markets?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Illusion-Literacy-Triumph-Spectacle/dp/1568586132/
"We now live in two Americas. One—now the minority—functions in a print-based, literate world that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other—the majority—is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. To this majority—which crosses social class lines, though the poor are overwhelmingly affected—presidential debate and political rhetoric is pitched at a sixth-grade reading level. In this “other America,” serious film and theater, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of society.
In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Pulitzer Prize-winner Chris Hedges navigates this culture—attending WWF contests, the Adult Video News Awards in Las Vegas, and Ivy League graduation ceremonies—to expose an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion."
Important history:
http://williamblum.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcA1v2n7WW4
As much as I wanna say this guy is a douchebag/idiot and karma will come back around... that’s not how the internet works. We’re all giving him free press right now.
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
First things first: ground yourself. You make great money, and, besides some irrational fears about things collapsing left and right, seem to have your shit together. Stop being afraid of what could happen with the economy or the stock market in the short term, and prepare your personal finances for the long haul. After all, that's your stated goal: "make sure my little one is reasonably comfortable when he turns 21 and my wife and I aren't too broke when we retire."
> investment related seem to be very different now in 2016
No, not really. The fundamentals of modern money management and investing are more or less the same today as they were in the 1930s -- spend less than you earn, save money for emergencies, and buy and hold investments for retirement. This is really, really easy to do. Buy a copy of The Boglehead's Guide to Investing. Read it cover to cover, take the best bits and leave the rest. It'll give you a solid rubric onto which you can act.
> at least 40% of my income is going to the various taxes in Japan without any apparent benefit to me or my family
"Apparent" here is the operative word. Emegency and public services are funded, the streets get cleaned, the roads get paved, the sidewalks are kept is usable shape, and a good chunk of your medical coverage is paid for by the taxes you pay in Japan. Without the civilization built around you you'd have a bigger problem than paying taxes. Taxes aren't always merely pissing away money with absolutely no return.
TLDR; stop being chicken little, read a book, educate yourself, and you'll sleep better with a fool-proof plan for your financial future.
because the heads of media feel dependent on the good will of politicians "to ensure access" and other such shit. supposing this was pitched to some news network, they would reject it by saying, "no other politician would ever speak to us again."
journalists - especially the powerful ones - also have a tendency to view politicians as immune from wrongdoing. as just one recent example, joe klein defending the extremely illegal warrantless wiretapping program: http://www.salon.com/2007/10/11/klein_fisa/ . you can also check out the reactions of famous journalists to the pardoning of watergate criminals, the refusal to investigate torture in the bush 2 administration, the politically motivated firing of government attorneys, etc...
for a whole lot more on this, i'd recommend reading the intro of noam chomsky's "manufacturing consent," which is available on the internet and does an incredible job of showing how and why the media has become largely a mouthpiece for the government (at least in america). read it for free here: http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499. "with liberty and justice for some" is also a really good book on this topic.
Richard Wolff recently said something that responds to your talking point:
>"Capitalism has been here for 400 years. It has produced ever growing inequality. Periodically inequality sometimes stops and even gets reversed. The Great Depression was a reversal. The mass of poeple intervene politically. They revolt. But then, even the successful reformers fail to change the basic system. The underlying dynamic undoes the very reforms that were achieved. "To do reforms in a capitalist system but to leave a system in place, is to leave the mechanisms in place that undoes the reforms."
And using my own interpretation with what he said to your scenario, if you are actually able to shrink the big corporations, are you implying that Capitalism today as we know it needs to drown and something else replace it?
Addendum: I want to add Mr. Woff's quote is a contextual summary of Tomas Pikkety and his long time collaborator Emmanuel Saez published work on inequality called, "Capital In The Twenty-First Century".
For Theory/Lectures
For Practice
First thing you have to do is learn all the lingo and jargon. Then you can learn the principles and strategies.
Investopedia is a fantastic place to get learn the lingo. Just search a word you don't understand and there will be a short article explaining it.
Then you can go two ways, learn pragmatic practices like Fundamental Investing vs Analytical Investing, Day Trading vs swing trading, stocks vs options trading, forex trading, etc.
Or you can study the grand scheme and mentality you need to become wealthy. From my experience you first need to have the mentality of a wealthy person before you can become wealthy. Like how TRP teaching you to be a certain way before you actually are. A good analogy is, "You don't meet any 80 year old people that are poor and great with their money". Just doesn't happen, your wealth is directly correlated to your behavior and outlook. Mentality and frivolous spending dictate your wealth, not how much your job pays you or your hourly wage. I know people making 100k a year that are fucking broke and will be broke the rest of their lives just because they don't care to learn how to use money.
I'd start with studying the most successful investors and businessmen ever. Learning how powerful compound investing is will probably be the most important thing. This is a great video over Warren buffett and his overarching mentality to investing. Study everything you can on him and how he "Thinks". He's mentality is what you need to learn and emulate.
The Intellegent Investor is probably the best primer book you'll ever read for investing. Its an extension to Buffetts mentality. The technicals will be over your head as a novice but pay attention to the mentality like buffett. It's written by a guy that entered the stock market in 1915 and survived through 5 recessions and is considered one of the best investing books ever written. It's one of the first books Warren Buffett ever read, he talks about it too in that video I linked. It's been updated every five years since it was written in the 70's. I'd suggest learning as much about Benjamin Graham, the author of this book, as you do Warren Buffett. Cause he's who Buffett learned from.
Now, once you get the mentality and lingo down you can focus on actual strategies and pragmatics. Financial Education youtube channel is a good place to learn fundemental investing. he's a bit goofy but he's solid on his delivery and takes a more modern approach to the buffett style of investing.
I'd recommend learning the basics of fundamental investing first. Learn how to read balance sheets, cash flow statements, income reports. Study market caps of companies, P/E Ratios, are they under or over valued, etc.
Once you have the basics of fundamental down then you can learn analytical. This is where you can make high returns on your investments but it is greater risk unless you learn how to manage them. Tons of people lose their ass in analytical because they don't know what they are doing. Educate yourself and don't be one of them. youtube the difference between day trade vs swing trade, momentum vs breakout trading, learn the difference between options and stocks, support and resistance lines, studies, indicators & signals.
That should be a good start.
edit Also Download the Robinhood app, it's the first free trading app ever. So you can literally start with $10 if you want and fuck around. the beauty of trading and investing is, it's not about the amount you start with. It's your % return per day, per month, per year. There are people day trading with 300%+ return in a month. They can take $50 and turn it into $15 or 5k and turn it into 15k. your return percent is the magic number, not how much you start with.
/rant Something that concerns me about this sub is how up and coming Software Engineers ask for handouts of information that they can easily acquire by googling and researching. Now I'm going to reward this behavior by pointing you in the right direction.
/endRant
First off: The FAQ https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/wiki/index
1.) Resume: https://www.careercup.com/resume
Using Latex: https://www.overleaf.com/gallery/tagged/cv (A lot of people love the Deedy Resume template - note that if you choose to use Latex then your output will be pdf which may not be processed well by automated resume processors)
Using Word: https://templates.office.com/en-us/Resumes-and-Cover-Letters
Notes: White space is valuable. Target your resume to the position(s) (but don't lie). Write it, then proofread it, then edit it, and repeat (grammar/poor wording looks terrible). The easiest way to maintain a good resume is to do just that - periodically (every ~6mo) open it up and add new experience (ignore the proofreading if you want.. just write anything new down).
2.) https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X and https://leetcode.com/
Notes: East Coast/Tier 2 companies typically don't ask as many (or as difficult) programming questions so focus on behavioral and domain knowledge. For the technical questions practice on an actual whiteboard with a partner while explaining your thought process out loud. Communication skills are probably more important than technical skills but this sub doesn't bring that up as much.
3.) See 2.
Final Notes: Maintain & update your LinkedIn. Prepare for your job search to be a grind (mentally). Do lots of research. Try and get referrals to increase the likelihood that you get an interview. There's no magic advice that will enable you to land a BigN job without hard work (though some will achieve it more easily than others - many people interview at Google 2-3+ times before they land a job there). Reading "Clean Code", "The Pragmatic Programmer", "How to Win Friends and Influence People", and at least owning a copy of "Code Complete" are often suggested here as ways to improve your abilities as an SWE.
Please do not do BTL. Far richer people and more savvy investors have done BTL and lost money.
You have a wonderful gift. £170K is an amazing windfall for you and your partner. Do not throw it away on a speculative investment, one that you do not know anything about -- can you tell me, in quantitative terms, how the housing market is doing, what are your rental yields (gross and net)? If you cannot, do not enter the BTL market as an investment.
My suggestion to you is to look to buying a flat for yourselves to stay in, and take the remaining funds and fill up your ISAs each year. Within your ISAs, you can invest in low cost tracker Index Funds. If this concept is alien to you, now is a good time to read up about this! A simple beginner book is [The Intelligent Investor] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661) by Benjamin Graham.
Alternatively, look at [Nutmeg] (https://www.nutmeg.com). This is a simple platform that you can put your money into ISAs.
To put into simple terms about what your £170K can bring you:
I am not your financial advisor! But please read and think carefully about your next steps. You have been handed an opportunity of a lifetime.
Outliers: The Story of Success - by Malcolm Gladwell
The Pragmatic Programmer - By Andrew hunt
Cracking the coding interview - Gayle Laakmann McDowell
An hour a day devoted to learning about stocks is a solid plan. I would suggest that the very first book you read be "The Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham who was Warren Buffetts mentor at Columbia University and taught Buffett how to use the Value Investing approach https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
This is a dense read and you should approach it as if you were taking a course and studying for a final exam. Get yourself a notebook and write down all of that golden info buried in each chapter. Keep in mind this book was first written in 1949 and the format of it and the financial language may be difficult to get through but take your time, don't rush through it, take notes, highlight paragraphs, and absorb the information you'll be glad you did in the future.
​
Below is essentially a list of things I wish I could have told myself years ago in order to save a lot of heartache and lost money. Hopefully it helps you to avoid a lot of painful lessons that I learned the hard way.
Well yes. The Iraq war started in 2003, and waterboarding quickly became infamous as an official US policy of "enhanced interrogation".
Some people began calling it torture, but the press didn't. The war began and the press immediately stopped calling it torture because the press generally tows the line drawn by the government.
If you're interested in this sort of thing, have a read through Noam Chomsky's and Ed Herman's Manufacturing Consent. Without being too melodramatic, it may change your life.
From an economics perspective:
From a social perspective:
From a moral perspective:
There's many more than just these, and there's a lot of underlying philosophy that modern conservationism is based on. I'd also categorize these books as a basis for "intellectual conservatism" as opposed to say "cultural conservatism". Something to note is that little of the conservative mindset is focused on policy and politics, per se. There is instead a strong emphasis on personal action and collective culture, the value of morals, and a focus on introspection. So while these books will perhaps help you understand a conservative perspective better, they will not likely provide a good basis for engaging in political debate. For that maybe you want a book by Ben Shapiro or something.
Shit post is an embarrassment to those with articulate complaints about the media that are derived from long considered impacts of particular types of violations within journalists ethics (most of these complaints center on the media's presentation of statistics). With great power must come responsibility and desire for truth above all else.
This may seem verbose, but the issue is highly specific and important, so I feel it warrants the specificity.
It totally is: it applies through various principles, like priming or conditioning, that psychologists study.
For instance, an experiment was done in England. An office kitchen served as the site: the kitchen had a small donation box for leaving money if you used the kitchen supplies: milk, sugar, etc. Near the donation box there was a poster that changed weekly.
Sometimes it was images of nature and sometimes it was an image of a human face, only showing the eyes.
On weeks with the eye posters the donations jumped by a huge margin, nature days had level donations. The eye posters primed people into thinking they were being watched.
Another study tested altruism, both the experimental and control groups were lead into a classroom and had to take a multiple choice test. At some point during the test, the "teaching assistant" running the test would drop a big packet of pencils, scattering them across the classroom. The altruism test measured altruism by comparing how many pencils the test subjects would pick up to help the "teaching assistant", the multiple choice test itself was a red herring.
The only difference between the control and the experimental groups, was a screen saver on a computer sitting in the back of the classroom. The control screen saver was abstract patterns, while the experimental screen saver was floating dollar bills.
Surprisingly, even that small factor significantly decreased altruism: people were less likely to pick up pencils to help someone else when primed to think about money.
or another totally crazy one: this one was done on college students, and again asked them to take a test. The control test was very generic, while the experimental was all about old age, growing old and aging. Before and after the students took the test, their walking speed was measured and the students who took the aging exam dramatically slowed down walking afterwards: they were primed to act as thought they were old (!).
All of the above examples come from a very accessible book I highly recommend: Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
You should read Trust Me I'm Lying if you want to know exactly how easily online media can be deceived.
It's ridiculous and I've used some of the tips in it to get stuff I've made into some fairly prominent magazines.
TL;DR in case you don't want to read the book:
They don't give a shit if it's not reliable, they get the page views (and hence advert hits) regardless of if it is legit. The edit isn't retroactively sent to everyone who previously read it. Plus they can even get a double dip of hits when they write the article about how they were tricked.
A couple things:
Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky.
Read the book or watch the documentary
How to Lie with Statistics, Modinomics 101
> As of March 30, the number of accidents recorded in 2017-18 stood at 73 — 29 per cent fewer than the 104 in 2016-17.
> In 1968-69, the number of railway accidents fell to three digits for the first time — to 908 from the 1,111 in the previous year. Three figures have remained the norm ever since — except in 1980-81
Here is a detailed story in 'The Hindu', Nov-2017, with detailed infographics:
> Death on the rails: India’s track record., Despite establishing itself as the country's prime mode of transport, the Indian Railways has to contend with a dubious safety record
Looks like the story itself is some elaborate PR spin, planted right at the end of the FY, with the most good-looking number carefully cherry-picked.
> “We are absolutely keeping our fingers crossed and if you see, there is immense emphasis on safety everywhere,” Chairman Railway Board Ashwani Lohani told The Sunday Express.
If only the ministers cut down on their boot-licking time, and put in more diligence in improving the reality rather than just managing the jhumla optics.
> We reject any allegation sought to be made against Amit Shah's son Jay Shah: Piyush Goyal
Manufacturing Consent
Old, but (unfortunately) still relevant.
The last Willey "for dummies" series I got was the how to land an IT job one and most of them were easy to read and had some decent pointers. That being said I'm always skeptical on getting stock market books. I own The intelligent investor and also have listened to Money Management Skills on the great courses audible series and I can say that phrase I keep hearing the most is that "you can't beat the market".
The average person who goes on etrade or Robin hood doesn't have the same resources as those higher up do with computers that can process hundreds of trades in the blink of an eye or potential insider sources . We also get emotional over stocks and find it hard to disassociate ourselves from our losses and boast about our gains. Getting someone else to manage your portfolio is also costly and you can most likely get better gains as long as you diversify your stocks in a mutual index fund. That's just a bit of what I learned and I suggest getting those 2 books/audiobooks that I recommend. I still believe the dummies books will be good, but from what I read, you'll have much more stress trying to maximize gains individually actively rather than take a backseat in a well diversified portfolio
I forget what this phenomenon is called but there's an entire chapter about it in this book.
This recession was coming either way. The economy never actually recovered from the last recession because the core problems of bad loans and inflation were not only unaddressed, but worsened. The economy isn’t built on fucking spending. It’s ridiculous that this is what mainstream “economists” think. An economy grows through savings and production, and everything the Fed does to try to fix a struggling economy only worsens malinvestment. Recessions happen not because spending is low, they happen because malinvestment is high and real savings are low (which in turn cause spending to dip, but you actually want that in that situation). You can’t just drive consumption and have that manifest a stronger economy. It’s about as legitimate as alchemy.
Edit: wow, I’m actually getting upvoted :). I wonder how many of those upvotes would’ve been downvotes had I explicitly mentioned that I’m arguing for Austrian economics. If anyone interested in learning how the economy actually works, here are steps One, Two, and Three.
Some things to think of:
You're a professional the day you dress up and start trying.
In terms of investing, What Can You Expect From the Market in the Long Run? is a nice post on the buying and holding strategy and why you shouldn't sell in down markets.
Investing can be pretty simple these days. Most of the advice on WhiteCoatInvestor (and for young professionals in general) boils down to the following (often called the 'Boglehead' approach, after Vanguard founder Jack Bogle):
I recommend the Bogleheads' Guide to Investing as a starting place. A Random Walk Down Wall Street does a great job in explaining why passive investing (i.e. buying and holding) is much better than active investing for the average person.
The hero worship of Marxist economics is largely misplaced and unproductive. Marx was ignorant of many intellectual breakthroughs in economics that occurred between his writing of The Communist Manifesto and Capital. Take, for example, the marginal revolution compared to Marx's theory of prices. No economist pays any attention to Marx's ideas on price theory, or his other "economic" contributions. Other things that people would like to credit to Marx, eg a focus on income inequality, is better credited to previous economists like David Ricardo.
Marxist economics failed to account for the core role of economics--the allocation of scare resources with alternate uses. Instead Marx simply asserted that a communist economy could achieve the same efficiency with more equitable distribution of gains, but without explaining how this could be done. He similarly ignored the tradeoff between worker's quality of life and efficiency/growth--this isn't to say that we have the right balance now, but that Marx didn't even consider the question. Every time Marx's ideas have been put into practice they have proved a dismal failure and demanded an immediate reversal to more traditional (ie "capitalist") means of organizing production. See Lenin's New Economic Policy and Deng's economic reforms. The tragic irony is that Marxist economies tend to cause the most suffering for the people they are intended to help, as the elite are perfectly capable of protecting themselves regardless of circumstances.
Marx's contributions to history are significant and his political contributions are undeniable, but we shouldn't lionize his economic theories simply by association. His contributions to economics as practiced today are non-existent. Marxist critiques of capitalism were disproven within his own lifetime. Indeed by the publication of Capital, wages of the working class were increasing. A lot of casual Marxists tend to think he predicted that "capitalism was bad" and then cherry pick periods that loosely agree with this understanding. Marxism actually makes much more specific predictions about the way the world will evolve that were false--for example, where and how the first communist revolution would take place. We shouldn't lose sight of that.
Economics is complicated and we shouldn't reduce it to hero worship of some past figure who "proved capitalism wrong". A recent book that focuses on the injustices of economic inequality with a far more sophisticated treatment is Capital in the Twenty-first Century by Thomas Piketty.
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510973787&sr=8-1&keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview+7th+edition
"Technological unemployment" reminds me of the "Joe Smith" example from Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson:
>...some writers [have gone] to the extreme of looking only at the immediate effects [of new technologies] on certain groups. Joe Smith is thrown out of a job by the introduction of some machine. "Keep your eye on Joe Smith," these writers insist. "Never lose track of Joe Smith." But what they then proceed to do is keep their eyes only on Joe Smith, and to forget Tom Jones, who has just got a new job in making the new machine, and Ted Brown, who has just got a job operating one, and Daisy Miller, who can now buy a coat for half what is used to cost her. And because they think only of Joe Smith, they end by advocating reactionary and nonsensical policies. (p. 59)
I'd be interested in hearing opposing views to this, however.
Awesome Interviews
https://github.com/MaximAbramchuck/awesome-interview-questions
Coding Interview University
https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university
Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850
Company Interview Corner - GeeksforGeeks
http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/company-interview-corner
Technical Interview Questions | CareerCup
https://www.careercup.com/categories
Search Interview Questions
https://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/index.htm
Linux System Administrator/DevOps Interview Questions
https://github.com/chassing/linux-sysadmin-interview-questions
The System Design Primer
https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
Devops Interview Questions
https://github.com/Leo-G/DevopsWiki/wiki/Devops-Interview-Questions
More interview prep resources including online courses at http://Learn.SharjeelSayed.com
*Edited for more resources
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484083335&sr=8-1&keywords=time+management+for+system+administrators
If you're working on your math and might pursue a CS degree I'd recommend Cracking the Coding Interview. I actually haven't read it myself but it's a highly recommended book often mentioned on subreddits like /r/cscareerquestions
EDIT: Perhaps pair it up with books on algorithms and data structures so you get comfortable in working with, lists, arrays, trees, graphs etc :)
EDIT: (currently 0) Why would someone down vote this? I just don't understand why?
EDIT: Someone mentioned that it could perhaps be because I hadn't read it myself so I thought I'd add a heartfelt recommendation by /u/amputect that I just read in the authors AMA:
> Gayle, I don't have a question, but I wanted to say that your book helped me get two programming jobs. I used to push grocery carts in the arizona summer, now I work for Google. I also, like, went to college and learned and stuff, but your book was a huge help in prepping for interviews. Thanks to you, I felt more confident and more prepared, and I was able to interview with several major tech companies without fear vomiting a single time which for me was a pretty big deal.
Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you. Your book is great, I recommend it to everyone. You are a fantastic writer and a brilliant human being. Thank you!
> My advice is to make sure your Android app is solving a pain-point. This seemed to work well for me.
This is true for any startup. /u/jug6ernaut: read The Lean Startup for a more complete explanation.
The most important thing about your startup is NOT the product (whether it be an Android app or a new type of organic hummus). What really matters is the problem that your target customer base is currently having, whether they really have that big of a problem, and whether you're solving it.
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Or read it online (just Google "Economics in One Lesson" )
Further Reading
Michael Huermer - 'The Problem of Political Authority':
[Hard Copy]
Henry Hazlitt - 'Economics in One Lesson':
[Audiobook]:[PDF]:[Hard Copy]
David Friedman - 'The Machinery of Freedom'"
[Illustrated Summary]:[Audiobook]:[PDF]:[Hard Copy]
Ludwig von Mises - 'Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth':
[Audiobook]:[PDF]:[ePub]
MisesWiki - Economic Calculation Problem:
[HTML]
Murray N. Rothbard - 'For a New Liberty':
[Audiobook]:[HTML]:[PDF]:[Hard Copy]
Murray N. Rothbard - 'The Ethics of Liberty':
[Audiobook]:[HTML]:[PDF]:[Hard Copy]
Frédéric Bastiat - 'The Law':
[Audiobook]:[HTML]:[PDF]:[Hard Copy]
Ludwig von Mises - 'Human Action':
[Audiobook]:[HTML]:[PDF:[ePub]:[Hard Copy]
Murray N. Rothbard - 'Man Economy and State, with Power, and Markets':
[Audiobook][HTML]:[PDF]:[ePub]:[Hard Copy]
You should read Trust me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday. It brilliantly digs into the media ecosystem and explains exactly why you are right.
https://www.amazon.ca/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/ref=asc_df_1591846285_nodl/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292905515425&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2803731859655008491&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061024&hvtargid=pla-406163954633&psc=1
Spoiler: media went through this in the early 1900s when newspapers were sold individually. Subscriptions to papers is what Bred modern journalism as a virtuous pursuit like we understand it.
Not a book, but great resource to vet out a business plan: Lean Canvas
Books:
Lean Startup for sure, as it relates to small, lifestyle or scalable business. Zero to One is a phenomenal book by one of the Paypal Founders, but is geared a bit to tech startups. E-Myth if you are starting more of a small business, as opposed to tech startup.
"You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror. And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.”
― Ben Horowitz
Excited for you venturing into your own business! Kick ass!
oh man.. just read /r/AskTrumpSupporters.. its depressing.
It really doesn't matter what arguments you make at all. Their intuitions come first, arguments come second. Intuition says Hillary is snobby/rich/evil and Trump is not, end of story.
There are people justifying Trump Jrs collusion with Russians! Anything can be justified with enough mental contortion and denial.
Really, the sooner you realize critical thinking means nothing to a huge group of people the better. Arguments don't form opinions, they are formed after the fact to justify them. Social pressures (what do my friends think?) & intuitions inform opinions.
EDIT: If this is interesting, checkout The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt. Its where i stole most of this from. Theres also other related stuf in behavioral econ & psychology - Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Its the tip of an iceberg
Prof. Chomsky literally co-wrote the book on how the media is used by the ruling class to get the public to buy into the establishment narrative.
Give this book a read.
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
This might help
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=nodl_
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227
This book has been suggested a few times so I finally got around to reading it. I think it has some good information in it. I'm only about halfway through it, but I like it so far.
Time Management for System Administrators
Other books would be any of the social books like "How to influence people", "7 healthy habits..." Etc.
I haven't read this one yet, but It has been suggested to me if you plan to go more into management/leadership Start with Why
Other books that have I have ear marked due to being mentioned:
Also, do a search for "Books for IT Professionals" to find a lot of other suggestions.
Have you read "Manufacturing Consent"? Possibly Chomsky's most important works.
"manufacturing consent" should be required reading
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Let's go ahead and jump down the rabbit hole here.
1 - Reddit is a business. It's a subsidiary of Advance Publications. Technically any content or comments you post here are unpaid contributions to someone's bottom line. Controversy and lies are amoral in this context, meaning that if something gets hits and views it's gold. Doesn't matter if it's bullshit feminism, a post about some cool archaeological dig in Siberia, or a post hating on mods and admins. Even this box I'm typing is gifted content.
2 - The internet itself is a fucking business. And it's about as cultish as you can get. Memes, viral videos, comment circlejerks, flaming, are all part of a "cult"ure we've built around the rights and wrongs of interacting with each other through electronic means. Anything desirable but "other" is quickly categorized and integrated. Anything undesirable is simply ignored. That means controversial is actually desirable because it generates back-and-forth. This dynamic is super fucking easy to manipulate, meaning...
3 - It's all marketing now. When companies exhaust their technological or practical advances, they turn into marketing machines. And those machines are as vicious as they are effective. Just try reading more than half of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator without wanting to throw your computer and phone in the trash and move into the mountains. If you post in an online forum, you're becoming part of 100 problems at once. You can weigh the pros and cons and decide against participating if you like.
4 - People trying to market and make money off of PUA, Red Pill, or anything else are as varied as any other self-help group. Some are completely full of shit. Some are so-so. Some are downright fucking necessary and totally worth your money. Now the ones that are worth the money and time, I want them to have exposure and visibility. I want them to have a voice that effects others because that means eventually I'll hear about their awesome idea, read it, and change my life.
5 - Just because you engage in a few activities in a community does not mean you're in a cult. I've seen real cults hidden off in the backwoods, actual physical groups of people that truly indoctrinate their youth with mantras like "I beat my body and make it my slave." It might be scary to think that people go into those things without any critical thought, that they become automatons for some fake "greater good."
But I'm going to go off the rails here and say: Why not?
Why not drop your ego sometime and join up with a group that demonstrates effective methods of self-development? I remember being invited to a secret meeting of a Christian teen group off in the woods where they had an "Honor Ceremony." Basically these kids had worked their asses off studying and working out in pure isolation. They learned about God and all that stuff - to each their own - but the end result was a group of extremely committed, extremely in-shape young adults.
I mention this ceremony because the message was not what I expected from any Christian sermon anywhere:
(paraphrasing) "The moment you leave this place, everyone is going to want to have sex with you." That was their graduation message, and it wasn't a lie. These kids had been holed up away from civilization and honed into fit little soldiers of Christ and then told the most honest thing ever: the outside world would find them hot and innocent. They would be irresistible.
So maybe some become lifelong Christians. Some get into drugs. Some, like the girl I took back to my dorm (they kicked her out after she spent a weekend with me), just fast-tracked from slut to married life and forgot the place altogether. Basically it all evens out. The cult thrives off of those few who both become successful and maintain their beliefs. Everyone else is just forgotten.
I personally think Red Pill is most effective when it feels like a cult for the first little bit and then once you get past the basics and realize it's about living your own life and thinking for yourself, you realize the entire fucking message is do what you want. If you want to join a cult, sure. If you want to climb a tree and piss on people on the sidewalk, great. As long as it's your decision apart from the "oh man are other people judging me" voices, it's still your life.
> Even this seems a bit too aggressive for my taste
Your job for the next month or three is to become a sponge for financial knowledge. Even though you have a CPA and a CFP, in order for you to feel comfortable with their decisions with your money, you need to have some amount of knowledge with finance.
Read:
After all that, you should feel much better about both your withdrawal rate and how aggressive your portfolio will be.
Yo estoy viviendo en NY desde diciembre del año pasado y estos son los consejos que te puedo dar.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1458414826&sr=1-1&keywords=programming+interviews+exposed
Básicamente, refuerza tu conocimiento de algoritmos y estructuras de datos. El decir "esto sí lo hice o lo vi en la escuela pero ya no me acuerdo" no es una excusa válida en ninguna entrevista.
http://www.bairesdev.com/
http://www.opensystemstech.com/
Mucha suerte, cualquier cosa mándame un mensaje!
People are incredibly good at justifying their beliefs and actions.
People are masters of saying, I'm not X, I'm just X-1. "I'm not an alcoholic; I'm just a guy who likes a fifth of scotch with breakfast." "I'm not a wife beater; that bitch just needs to learn some respect." "I'm not a sexist, I just think neuroscience proves men are better."
The reasoning starts something like this: A "racist" is a monster, and I'm not a monster, so I'm not racist. And if I'm not a racist, then there must be some other reason why I believe these things. Maybe I'll claim to hate everyone equally. Maybe I'll rely on religion. Maybe I'll say I truly believe in separate but equal.
There's a reason racist forums spend so much time posting about "evidence" that supports their beliefs. They feel that if they can "prove" it, then they're just realists, not racists. (Conversely, you'll notice that /r/biology doesn't spend an inordinate amount of time posting evidence that genes are the main mode of inheritance. They believe it, but they're don't need to be defensive about it.)
So, yeah, there might be some people on there who think of themselves as "racist", but I'm guessing most of them would say they are not.
If you want to learn more about how we trick ourselves about our beliefs, I would recommend The Unpersuadables and Thinking, Fast and Slow.
> I have a theory that your brain tries to "automate" processes and to do them subconsciously when it feels confident enough about it.
You should read the book Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman - excellent read that I would highly recommend. I think you'd find the book interesting, and it discusses this topic in depth.
>I wonder whether online work changed things because there are few occasions for people to have conversations that socialize them into the ethical expectations of the profession.
Journalism didn't have ethical expectations a hundred years ago, because every story was sold on 'hot sheets', cheap 2-page papers sold by newsies. The most sensational headlines made the most money and there was zero accountability.
Then for 50+ years, journalists became dependent on monthly newspaper subscriptions and reputation and audience trust became paramount. Suddenly, ethics were necessary to do the job.
Now, news is all click-driven and we're back to zero accountability. Trust Me, I'm Lying is a great book about our current era of news and how it can be manipulated.
Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty
Congrats on the truly awesome start in life!
Oh, and don't tell people around you how much you're making. It will affect your friendships/relationships, and you'll have people asking you for money constantly.
Don't let the lucrative offers some people get, deter you from turning down a very solid offer to get some good experience even if it's a little below your compensation expectations. Being unemployed for 3+ months and never getting that 110K + bonus + relocation @ [Insert Big N Name] is a shitty situation compared to some 65-70k at a less expensive city with a smaller company that has some new tech they're trying to scale.
In a year, you'll be surprised how much you can save and if you play your cards right, network, do a great job, you'll be worth a decent amount of money after a year.
Have friends whiteboard you for practice. Get used to writing "nearly" build ready/compile ready code using built in Java language data structures and functions. Especially get used to the Collections library, iterating over two collections in a single pass while checking for duplicates or comparators on each entry.
Buy this book and this book and sign up for LeetCode on a free account.
Honestly, try to enjoy your spare time. Do something logical but fun like playing strategy games or solving puzzles. Go to meet & greets, club meetings, volunteer at a dog shelter. Don't try to "win" this game because out of all the people that "win", some end up having severe issues with stress, time management, "loving" the job/life and life after college is nowhere near as sunshine and rainbows as during.
I wish I could "skip" a lecture and work from home, watch Netflix or go with some friends to go eat food in a town nearby or catch a convention or watch some concert on campus. All the college fun stuff? It's gone. Now it's just work... Well, work and money but still... Not as much fun college stuff. Some fun college stuff, but not as much.
The economists generally agree with you.
> CNN is starting to look an awful lot like the official news agency of the US government.
"Starting to look"? CNN, NYT and much else of mainstream is a major government and elites propaganda feature since, well, pretty much always. Try this clip then this book.
In The E-myth Revisited, Michael Gerber paraphrased a quote from Gen. George Patton. It has stuck with me for many years after having read the book.
>The comfort zone makes cowards of us all.
​
> I think the primary problem is that the business is "me" and I'm having a difficult time transitioning from a "freelancer" to a "business" in a way that still keeps me flush with reliable income.
Read The E-Myth Revisited.
The first chapter or so will resonate with you deeply as the whole book is about turning your business into an actual business that can function without you so you can get your life back.
so if you're aiming for summer 2015 then two things i suggest are:
when january 2015 rolls around, you'll be battle ready for all the interviews. but ya - thats what worked for me.
First, our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. AKA we can be manipulated to believe things against our interest. Science on reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Manufacturing consent (book)
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/
Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Manufacturing consent(vids)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM
https://vimeo.com/39566117
Testing theories of representative government
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Democracy Inc
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed-Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X/
http://www.therealnews.com
A party that considers communism as part of it's core message isn't one I would be hesitant to call extreme. What that effectively means is that they consider the abolition of the market economy (or the travesty of a market economy that we currently have) to be the ultimate goal of the party. And for anyone who thinks an economic model other than one involving at least marginally free markets works, please consult your nearest primer on economics such as:
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Our-Markets-Essential-Economics/dp/098442542X
Essentially cons/libertarians troll Amazon and review books that they don't read.
This is not more apparent than all the one-star reviews of Piketty's, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. They simply give it one-star without reading it, call it Marxist propaganda, and tell us how discredited and dangerous Picketty is.
This works well on their low-info base, but it only drives away reasonable and intelligent people.
Recommended reading
Here is my suggested reading list for anyone who ever wants to be a small business owner. I like audiobooks but you can get some of these in print also.
Entrepreneur Mindset
There are several books that talk about the entrepreneur mindset. “Rich Dad Poor Dad” was one of the first that I had encountered. “Four Hour Work Week” is a popular one among young adults and lazy millennials now. But I think this one below sums it up in a relatively fast and easy way. To me there is nothing wrong in this book, but in my opinion it’s a little incomplete and inaccurate and won’t work for some people. It doesn’t say how to switch lanes, or say that you can be in two lanes at the same time. Still, it should be required reading for anyone remotely interested in business. It’s at the top of my list because the correct mindset is required before anyone can think about actually doing business.
http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-the-Code-to-Wealth-and-Live-Rich-for-a-Lifetime-Audiobook/B0143BEDUO
Business and Marketing
These two combined are basically an MBA in a box and then some. They are long audiobooks that go over the lessons of an MBA program, and the first one also covers a lot of life hacking and mind hacking theories such as how to stay motivated etc. Some of this stuff is very interesting, some if it is boring to slog through. But knowing what is in here will have you well versed to communicate about business at a high level. I have listened to both several times, I keep coming back because it’s a lot and I can’t learn it all at once.
https://www.amazon.com/Personal-MBA-Master-Art-Business/dp/1591845572
http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Critical-Business-Skills-for-Success-Audiobook/B00UY842O8
The E Myth series basically describes how many entrepreneurs fail to implement systems in their business. It has a couple other important business concepts and is geared mainly for beginning entrepreneurs or those who have not yet studied a lot about business at a high level.
http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Audiobook/B002V1LGZE
Mike Michalowicz, Solid principles, Some are regurgitations of Seth Godin and E-Myth, but some are original and insightful. Not very efficient in delivery of material, but I would highly recommend.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Toilet-Paper-Entrepreneur-Audiobook/B00FKCI3I4
https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/The-Pumpkin-Plan-Audiobook/B008CHN41K
https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Profit-First-Audiobook/B06X15WX5B
In the world of marketing, Seth Godin is well known as a forward thinker. He has a new perspective of thinking about marketing in the internet age.
Seth Godin Startup School. This is a series of 15 short podcasts, maybe 15 to 20 minutes long each. It’s a good cliff notes version of a lot of his other books.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-godins-startup-school/id566985370
http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Purple-Cow-Audiobook/B002V0QOJS
http://www.audible.com/pd/Business/All-Marketers-Are-Liars-Audiobook/B002V1NIMI
Gary Vaynerchuk is well known in online entrepreneur forums, especially with a younger audience. He is interesting to listen to and talks at a basic level mostly about social media marketing.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfA33-E9P7FC0AoARnMLvgFgESJe4_Ngs
This is a link about fashion, but it could just as easily be about restaurants or any other business. As you read it, substitute the product for your product or widgets and it makes sense.
https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do
It’s probably not necessary to read this whole book, but it’s widely referenced and it’s important to understand the theory. This guy basically coined the phrase “Lean Startup” to describe businesses that start small and apply the scientific method to determine which direction to grow. Not to be confused with LEAN Manufacturing methodology made famous by Toyota, but follows similar principles.
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
There are a lot of great posts in reddit. There are a lot of crappy ones too. But worth trolling.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/
https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/ (yes it’s spelled wrong)
For example, this post basically has a step by step guide to start a small business.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/5lfy6n/4_years_ago_i_wrote_a_case_study_on_reddit_on_my/
Other links
21 Lessons From Jeff Bezos’ Annual Letters To Shareholders
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/bezos-amazon-shareholder-letters/#2000
E Commerce, Design, Online Marketing
This guy has a very interesting perspective on display tactics.
https://www.nickkolenda.com/
A good source for tactics. Also offers one of the better wordpress themes
https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/
These guys offer great information and insight in their podcast.
https://ecomcrew.com/episode-1-welcome-to-the-ecom-crew-podcast/
Landing Page Optimization
Important for all businesses even offline, for example with restaurants these principles could help for menu design or digital signage, for other businesses this knowledge can help with advertising layouts etc.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-brand-strategies-uniquely-position-your-ecommerce-above-bhardwaj
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/7-landing-page-design-tips
https://blog.kissmetrics.com/landing-page-design-infographic/
https://moz.com/ugc/how-to-build-a-great-online-fashion-brand-34-things-that-really-amazing-fashion-retailers-do
https://thrivethemes.com/6-brain-hacks/
This book discusses apps, especially networking apps like Uber.
https://www.audible.com/pd/Business/Platform-Revolution-Audiobook/B01DDX7MJ2
Also
http://andrewchen.co/marketplace-startups-best-essays/
A good page of links
http://www.themissionmarketer.com/digital-marketing-resources/
For Restaurants
http://www.restaurantowner.com
Very valuable stuff here. Business plan templates, etc. $30 a month for a subscription but well worth it if you are starting or running a restaurant.
https://www.restaurantmastering.com
http://www.typsy.com
Not worth the paid membership yet, but it's growing. And you can get a free trial for like a week and binge watch everything.
Dealing with delivery aggregators
https://www.reddit.com/r/restaurateur/comments/76sd1i/uber_eats_what_percentage_you_paying_em_anyone/
Edit: spacing
I had a highschool math teacher who always told us to be warry of statistics and even had a book he shared.
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_mfP4DbK80WD65
Jokes on them, I shall use that as a wishlist! >:D
(Also they forgot Basic Economics, so it's wrong)
friend of mine worked at a company that was highly metrics driven. Only nobody in his division knew statistics at all.
I joked to him to read "how to lie with statistics"
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
The mad bastard actually read it cover to cover. He ran roughshod. Justified massive headcount increases, made his numbers look amazing, got promoted. Shit was hilarious. He has since moved on.
Take 5% of your money and try something else but I advise you to read the Intelligent Investor first. Benjamin Graham has been right for the past century and will be right for this one too. I add individual stocks during market downturns but keep 90% of my money in index funds.
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
It's really simple. If you're have problems passing phone screens and in-house interviews, there's a gap somewhere. You need to figure out what that is and fix it.
Do you have personality issues (be honest). I have no idea what 2000+ friends on fb means. Who the hell actually knows 2000 people...wtf? Do you have close friends? Can you have causal conversations with people? Are you aspy? If you're sure you're cool here, move on. If not, sign up for Toastmasters and dive in.
More likely, you have some gap in CS fundamentals. There's stuff you don't know and people aren't hiring you because of it. Write the code to solve the following two problems (no cheating or I can't help).
There's something you're doing or don't know that's causing people not to hire you. You need to pinpoint what that is and fix it. It's probably nothing that a weekend or two of cramming can't fix. Check out glassdoor.com and get to the point where you can solve most any of the questions. When you're practicing, write the code for each one. Get this book: http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
You're completely wasting your time "playing around with frameworks" because no one's going to hire you for that. You need to work on the stuff you're scared of that you're putting off learning about. Can you code a red/black tree from scratch? If not, you should learn to do that before even thinking about doing a "personal project."
A big problem, and it somewhat coincided with Dominic's rise to editorial power at the paper as news editor, is that at some point they decided to eschew being an arts weekly with some news coverage to focus mainly on generating web traffic through flamebait and controversy. And while that works, the problem is that there's a host of other web outlets that do it better and on a larger scale than the Stranger ever could... and of course those outlets probably pay better even if the workload is great. It was only a matter of time before the Dominics and the Lindys would run off and take a better paycheck to go do it for someone else.
Problem is those writers were able to build a rep of credibility in the paper's prior life before they and the paper went that route, and passing the torch isn't possible when no one gives a shit about Ansel Herz trying to be a more obnoxious version of Dominic, and no one really wants to see Paul Constant, Charles Mudede or Brendan Kiley stumble out of their pay grade to try and do hard hitting journalism. They already had Bethany Jean Clement pulling extra duty out of her comfort zone before she left.
I frankly would not be surprised if Savage got bored of the tedium and just decided to shut the paper down in a couple years. He already makes a lot of money from his touring, book, syndication of his column, etc, and doesn't really need the paper anymore.
>If you don't understand calculation problem, marginal value, global capitalism, freedom, income mobility, regulations, innovations in the first place of course you'll end up as a commie. What did you expect?
Lmfao. I see somebody just finished Economics in One Lesson
Cracking the Coding Interview is a bestseller on Amazon and is extremely helpful. I've read through it on flights out to interviews, and it puts me in a great frame of mind.
If anything, I get more out of the guide for how to approach interview questions more so than the meat of how certain problems or algorithms work themselves.
Make sure you take the science of approaching your answering process for the questions just as seriously and systematically as the mathematics/algorithms involved. Cracking the Coding Interview does a good job of summarizing the approach you should take, and gives a series of questions to practice answering in the manner provided (all sorts of common algorithms and data structures used in interviews are contained in the book, giving you great practice at applying these types of things). You should buy that book right now, and buy a whiteboard and an erasable marker to practice answering some of the questions on. Well well well worth it.
Most of all, have fun! In a certain way, the more fun you have, the better your impression will be on your interviewers.
Also, I wore a suit once to an interview, and I felt like a moron.
Edit: some quick re-wording.
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt got me started, so I'll go with that one.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Basic Economics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465060730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_2-ZSCb0VTCP1Y
Wow, there is so much hate on stock investing here.
I recommend cross-posting to /r/personalfinance.
I think you picked a good mutual fund for someone with risk aversion. If she's that averse to talking about stocks, then I don't think a book will help - but if you'd like to understand the arguments better, the best introductory work on the subject is The Intelligent Investor.
I think education is the best tool here. There are a few critical points that she'll have to understand if she wants to accept investing as distinct from gambling:
And a final bit of advice you probably don't need: if everyone is telling you that something is guaranteed to give you a return, that is an excellent sign of a bubble.
Past examples include tech stocks and real estate. You can make a strong case for gold, but as always, it's dangerous to try to predict the future.
Halitosis as we know it today is the product of the Listerine company.
For years they tried to find uses to sell their product. It started off as a surgical antiseptic for wounds. Then it became a household antiseptic, a floor cleaner, a cold and sore throat remedy, and even a douche that was capable of curing gonorrhea.
Finally they decided to market it as a mouth wash. However, mouth washes didn't exist. Bad breath existed and there were means to deal with it; however, it wasn't that big of an issue to people and no one felt as self-conscious about it as they do today. So the Listerene company made use of the relatively-obscure medical term called "Halitosis" and marketed its product as the way to cure this horribly embarrassing disease that you didn't know you had.
Their massive marketing campaign changed the entire public's opinion on bad breath. They ran ads such as a bride second-guessing marrying her fiance because he has bad breath, stating "Can I be happy with him in spite of that?" Bad breath was no longer something that can be overlooked. It is something that reflects very badly on the person and it is now a disorder that can and should be treated. Thanks to their Halitosis marketing campaign, their revenue went from $115,000 to $8 million in just seven years.
Sources:
Wikipedia
Freakonomics
Advertising the American Dream
This book will help:
Time management for system administrators
If you want to learn more about this I suggest reading Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.
I strongly recommend reading Gayle Laakmann Mcdowell's Cracking the Code Interview, or watching one of her lectures on the topic. Although her book goes into detail on the types of questions that can come up in these interviews, the general advice she gives in this lecture is solid gold.
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature - evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics. (probably most interesting from a Freudian perspective, deals with many of our unconscious instincts)
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces The Shape Our Decisions - Unconscious decision-making, behavioral economics, consumer psychology. Fun read.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion - Most popular book on the psychology of persuasion, covers all the main principles. Very popular among business crowds.
Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships - Social neuroscience, mirror neurons, empathy, practical stuff mixed with easy to understand brain science.
Authentic Happiness - Positive Psychology, happiness, increasing life satisfaction.
Feeling Good - A good primer on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Also widely considered one of the best self-help books by mental health practitioners.
The Brain That Changes Itself - Neuroplasticity, how experience shapes our brains. Some really remarkable case studies that get you wondering how powerful our brains really are.
The Buddhist Brain - The practical neuroscience of happiness, love, and wisdom from a Buddhist perspective.
That should give you more than enough to chew on.
I think a better question is why did /r/economics significantly improve in quality.
To begin, libertarians are a very vocal, opinionated, stubborn group who thrive in fringe internet communities. Paleo-libertarians ("Austrian" school followers) in particular think that their ideology is not just an ideology but actually Very Serious Intellectual Economics, so of course they'd find /r/economics to be a natural fit for themselves. I mean think of how many libertarian writers conflate their politics with "basic economics." You don't usually see liberals or moderates pulling that.
A few things happened over time though:
I run a small IT shop with about 25 repeat customers. All but 4 are business clients, I do very little residential (with the exception of the home PCs of some of my business owner clients). My business has two parts: managed services and break fix. Managed services are contracted, and basically I guarantee "x" level of uptime for the client per month. For that, I bill about 50 bucks per PC per month, and anywhere between $250 and $300 per month per server. Break/fix services - I offer onsite or remote support, I emphasize remote where possible (much cheaper for all involved and less overhead for me). Break/fix is billed hourly and/or could be a project rate.
Servers and business clients - generally if I come in your door (whether remotely or physically) I'm on the clock, and therefore diagnosis and repair are included in the service call. Its expected that you'll spend time researching a problem to arrive at a fix. That's called due diligence and good customers aren't afraid to pay for it. Just don't be blatantly googling and saying things like "No shit!" and "uh oh, really?"
Three big things to keep in mind:
And finally: Don't be afraid to fire a customer.
Former virtual assistant here wanting to put in my two cents from the internal side.
>Think of a task you need to do for your business, but you don’t have the time, or the knowledge on how to properly execute it.
Yes and no. You should have a general idea of how the task should be done.
For example, if you have no idea how to write a blog post, you should make an attempt to learn the basics of how to write a blog post before hiring someone to do it for you.
That way, you know the type of voice you're going for, what type of content your business puts out (authority/expert type? gathering info and presenting it? opinion piece?), the format, and relay that information to your contractor.
You can't delegate it if you don't know what you're looking for. You also won't know if the end product will be effective.
You don't need to know how to do it exactly or even how to execute it, but you should know the basics of what you're asking for.
> I have seen many freelancers in the Philippines charging up to US$50 per hour to manage an Instagram account. That’s a lot of money for such a task. Try to figure out what is the hourly rate in the country where you are hiring... This will help you to estimate the budget you can allocate on a task.
I don't get out of bed for less than $45/hour as a virtual assistant and a lot of people will balk at that price.
Here's what my former clients got at $45/hour:
Or, you can pay someone in India $10/hour to schedule your Instagram account, but good luck getting that VA to go above and beyond at that rate.
>Use a "hidden word"
On my end, when applications have these "hidden word" things, it screams inefficiency to me. You are REALLY going to base my ability to perform my tasks on whether I can I spy with my little eye a single word in your wall of text?
Here's a more accurate way to do it:
Here's an example: I recently hired a project manager/assistant to keep me on task with my clients. My clients text/email/call/etc. and I needed someone to organize and schedule my tasks out through Asana (a project management type of app) in an organized fashion because it's so tedious to do it myself.
I asked the following two questions:
That being said, this advice will not work for everyone.
Your ability to teach, delegate, or pay, will impact your relationship with your virtual assistant. If you have money but no time, go high-end and hire an expert VA at $35/hour or higher.
If you have time but no money, hire an entry-level/foreign assistant and take the time to train them.
I'm currently transitioning out of being a VA to start a digital marketing agency. I am now hiring my own team of virtual assistants to help me. Here's what I've learned from the hiring end:
A lot of businesses fail in hiring because they want to hire someone to solve a problem they can't solve themselves. $10/hour virtual assistants are ENTRY LEVEL and will need a lot of hand-holding and training. You can absolutely go this route if your budget is low or you have a lot of time to train (or have processes at the ready) but in my experience, few business owners have been organized or patient enough to train someone entry-level.
Within 6 months, they usually fire the entry-level assistant in favor of a more high-end one.
The other thing is... if you got a "good one" who can handle their own at the lower rate, get ready to have people try to snatch your assistant for $12/hour or $15/hour or be forced to match a competitor's rate.
However, what isn't replaceable and what is difficult to teach is culture and work ethic.
I personally work with entry-level VA's due to lack of budget (I have more time than money) - but I hire VA's whose visions and lifestyles align with mine.
For example, I am starting a digital marketing agency. I DO NOT want to hire entry-level virtual assistants who are digital marketer wannabes because they'll just work for me for a few months, gut me for all my knowledge, and take what they learned from me to compete with me.
Fuck that.
Instead, I hire people who have a full-time job, or children, or family obligations, and are seeking "side income" NOT full-time hours. They are happy with entry-level $15-$25/hour pay and they have no intentions to eventually compete. I've noticed they're usually easier to work with because they're not constantly looking for more/higher-paying clients and they aren't burnt out from the industry.
Ultimately, I am working with a niche group of people (spiritualists, cannabis entrepreneurs, sexual empowerment coaches, zero waste/environmental coaches, etc.) so the people I hire MUST have a current interest in those subjects. I can freakin pay for a $29 Instagram course in Udemy or give them my Skillshare login to teach them Instagram but I can't teach them to care about our clients.
(Note: I'm not saying hire people who are absolute newbies with no experience. You can hire a mom who has a huge Instagram following to manage your Instagram account for $15/hour and then send her to take a Udemy course to refine her marketing skills in Instagram. You can hire a college student who wants to be a scientist but codes websites on the side, to help you manage your clients' Wordpress websites).
I know this was super long-winded... Just wanted to give a perspective from a former virtual assistant who now works with virtual assistants.
The key being successful in the cake business actually has little to do with the ability to make cakes. The problem is that bakers often times make terrible business people. Making a cake here and there is great, but does your mom have the ability to manage inventory, follow-up with customers, keep costs down, keep good financial records, market her product well, etc.?
There is a great book you and her should both read, it's called the E-Myth. After reading it then decide whether you should move forward with a cake business.
For a software engineering position? I highly recommend Cracking the Coding Interview if you're looking for something to prep!
You do not need to enrol in co-op to get a job this summer, or any time for that matter.
Take initiative and apply to jobs independently. Job fairs are a great way to get an interview, and both the CS career fair and the Engineering career fair (there'll be a mix of companies, but companies hiring for Software devs will be there) are coming up soon. There are also plenty of opportunities to apply online. Check out student services periodically for resources (like interview prep strategies and the like), similar to what you would get in co-op. Get CTCI and practice. Practice technical interviews with your friends. Talk through problems as you solve them. You got this.
If you don't have a job lined up by the time summer registration opens, register for summer courses, but keep trying to get a job. You can drop the courses if you get a job, or take the courses if you don't.
When I went, there were always a few companies where the representatives had a badge that said "I hire frosh." My advice would be to check it out to get a feel for what's going on. I wouldn't expect a whole lot, but at the very least it'll be good prep for the frosh/soph fair.
A word of advice - when I went to the fall career fair during my freshman year, I actually found it quite stressful. I ran into a couple of recruiters who came off as condescending, and the overall atmosphere seemed pretty stressful (gotta hustle for that internship). It was a bit of a contrast from the dorms and even office hours, where people are generally happy to lend a helping hand.
When I took CS 103 later, Keith Schwarz actually had a fairly negative view of the effect/messaging of the fall career fair towards freshmen. He felt that the competitiveness and the inevitable rejection of certain internships would not really provide a positive view of one's learning. Learning is a long process, and getting rejected from a dream CS internship might lead some to feel that their classes were for nothing. It's ultimately up to you whether you want to view your CS education as more of a pipeline into a good job, or an opportunity to intellectually explore (you can of course balance both, and there is no right way to do it).
So if you wanna hustle for an internship, then by all means go for it. However, keep in mind that the career fair is only one way to get your foot in the door. If you wanna be a real snek, network around and find people who can give you referrals for companies you're interested in. Also code up a project or two and put it on GitHub (with a link on your resume). Most importantly, read the good book.
This is a classic example of How to Lie with Statistics.
Just because people in rural & remote counties have fewer possessions and make less money, doesn't mean they're materially poorer in a qualitative sense.
I have a lot of shit I wouldn't need if I lived in Mississippi. (I know because I spent a few years in Mississippi). It costs much more to live where I live and it takes more income and more stuff to live here. But I was much better off in Mississippi in terms of quality of life materially.
If you look at the map of red vs. blue counties you can see the blue are concentrated in urban and coastal, which actually makes this a comparison of geographically different kinds of economies and a therefore a fallacious statistic.
tldr; increased consumerism and the increased cost/income associated with high consumerism does not equate to better or worse material conditions when you compare rural regions with urban regions. People lie with statistics
Nudge by Thaler (Nobel Prize in Economics) & Sunstein
A book which is unquestionably about Economics and Public Policy
​
I haven't read it yet but it's on my list:
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics also by Thaler
​
Thinking Fast & Slow by Kahneman (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Not strictly about economics but Kahneman essentially created the field of "Behavioral Economics" and the implications for his theories about decision making bias are extensive in Economics. In many ways Kahneman and Tverski's work is the foundation of Thaler's in Nudge.
​
Also:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
If you can't tell I like the Behavioral Econmics books...
I think you will be surprised to learn that what you have come to understand about neoliberalism and the positions supported by this sub are not always in alignment.
Make sure to read Why Nations Fail. Your first book report is due in two weeks.
First if there is enough potential profit in your idea you can always hire engineers, programmers etc. So keep that in mind and start keeping a list of every idea you have, I keep one in my phone that is gigantic now. Stop limiting your self to just what you can do and it will really open up your mind.
I would recommend the $!00 startup, it is full of case studies on what others have done. After reading this book it seemed like I just started thinking in an entrepenuerial way about almost everything and ideas came like a waterfall. I now have more solid ideas than I can possibly ever pursue, and get new ones daily.
Another great one is Lean startup. It has the most practical advice I've encountered on how to test and then go forward with an idea. After this book I was able to mentally test ideas and see profit or failure in them much easier. This book is also invaluable for once you actually start something.
http://www.amazon.com/The-100-Startup-Reinvent-Living/dp/0307951529/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373772742&sr=8-1&keywords=%24100+startup
http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373773392&sr=1-1&keywords=lean+startup
Caution: Wall of text to follow.
Firstly, congrats on caring at a young age about your finances. That's something not a lot of people can say. With that being said I'll like to take each of your paragraphs in turn and answer your questions at the end.
NOTE: If you just want answers to your questions and not my advice skip ahead.
> While I believe that there are some truths behind "Money doesn't buy happiness", it is a lot easier to be happy knowing that you are well-off.
As a word to the wise from someone a little further down the road let me just say there is more truth than you yet realize in those 4 simple words. Many people don't come to see the truth till their old age looking back on a life filled with regret, so take some time now and seriously contemplate it, because the reality is in 85 very short years you'll likely be dead, and all you ever had will belong to someone else. If the only happiness you get in this life is seeing dollars in your bank account you'll miss out on a lot.
> The leading cause of divorces are because of financial issues. I mean, that has to speak for something.
In the vast majority of divorces it's not a lack of money that's the problem, it's a lack of agreeing on what to do with the money that is. Marriage can work below the poverty line, and above the 1% line. The financial issues of marriage aren't solved with just "more money!"
> I want to be able to support myself, other family members who aren't as well off, and be able to buy my kids (if I have them) a car, pay for their college funds, etc.
Supporting your own family is honorable, but beware when helping out "less fortunate" family members. There are many, many problems that can arise from that if not done properly, and enabling a family member will only make their situation worse, not help them.
> I don't want to be a doctor. Or a lawyer. . . . . who can bank at least a million in one year.
That is a very big dream, but it's not unrealistic. Big dreams are good, and as long as you can approach them level headed they help give you focus. I say that your dream is worthwhile, and although I caution against greed as it can destroy you and your life, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be a CEO making $1,000,000.
ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTIONS
> So tell me. Where do I start investing and also building my way up to becoming the CEO of a company?
You start right where you are. There is nothing stopping you from pursuing your dream now. Begin with learning. Learn what it takes to be a CEO, learn how other CEO's have done it, learn what your talents are. There will be much learning for you starting out.
I recommend the internet and a library card. Read a CEO's biography (it's as close as you'll come to getting to interview some CEO's). How is it that Donald Trump was able to go from rags to riches twice?! What would it take for you to do that? Learn all there is to learn about running a business, being a leader, and leading a successful venture.
> At what age?
NOW! Bill gates was already writing software and starting Microsoft at your age (not to say you're behind or anything like that.) There is no age limit on being a CEO, and there is certainly no age limit on learning and working hard.
> What majors in college should I be looking at?
This will be up to you and what you feel you would be good at. Do you want to be a CEO just to be a CEO, perhaps some business major then? Learn from other CEO's stories and what they majored in.
> And at what colleges?
Personally there is little impact based on what school you choose. There are CEO's that never went to college, and there are CEO's that went to Yale/Princeton.
The fact is it takes maybe $200 to start an LLC and call yourself a CEO, no college degree needed. What comes after that is actually making the money! In order to do that you have to provide a good or service that people want. The more people you make happy, the more money you'll get.
Something you should know now is that starting a company, and running a company is HARD WORK. I know some owners of start-ups that had to work 60 - 90 hours a week with little to no sleep to build their business. I know others who fell into the CEO position because their daddy owned the company, and they were lazy, and thanks to their lack of action the company collapsed.
> And of course, looking to do this in a legal way.
Welcome to America :), where hard work, sacrifice and the willingness to learn and strive can and do payoff.
One last piece of advice: Don't be a jerk. When you become the CEO of a company and you are making the millions, when you someday are the hotshot, don't look down on those around you. Remember where you came from, and those that helped you along the way, and there will be those that will help you!
People will always respond better to someone who is nice than someone who is a jerk.
Here is some recommended reading once you get that library card:
There are many more books, but that's a start.
Jon Acuff went from amateur blogger to best selling author, and is a great motivational writer. His books make me want to run a marathon, and are good for motivating you.
Dave Ramsey went from bankruptcy to running a 300 person business and earning in the %1 of earners in the nation with a national brand. His book is about being a leader in business and you'll need to lead if you want to be CEO. It's a hard job, and not nearly as cushy as you might think.
Thomas Stanley is a researcher who studies those with a net worth over $1M and his book will show you that being rich doesn't contradict with a frugal lifestyle.
The others and highly recommended in general!
The fact is you'll need to grow up, turn off the TV, and look weird to your friends. How many 15 yr olds do you know reading books about how to run a company and studying up on what it takes to be a CEO, or how to start a business? I don't know many, but I do know that at 17 years old William Gates III started a joint venture with Paul Allen (their first business). They both went on to make the top 20 richest billionaires list. Bill still holds the top spot.
If you want to be rich, you want to be a CEO, then work at it. Work at it now, work at it often, and work at it always. I have no doubt if you dedicate yourself you can do it. The fact of the matter is that most people reading this are tired just thinking of the work it takes to be CEO, and that's why they never will be.
Best of luck on your future success, and don't forget the little people.
~ Dragon J.
Edited for formatting.
black swan talks about this. it's a sliding scale. if you are born you are x% likely to make it to be 1. if you make it to 1 you are x% likely to make it to 5. and so on.
good read
My recommended reading list includes One Up on Wall Street, Fail-Safe Investing, The Black Swan, How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes, and Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds. The first book talks about picking individual stocks based on what you already know, the second about structuring a portfolio for growth while still playing defense, the third about common fallacies and hubris, the fourth about basic economics, and the fifth about irrational behavior.
If your money is sitting in a US bank account, then you're making a 100% bet on the future of the US dollar. At a minimum, diversify your currency holdings by buying sovereign and high-grade corporate debt in countries with strong currencies.
>Is there any politician out there willing to fight for Canadians? Is that too much to ask?
Sorry to tell you the government doesn't work for you.
These links will take a while to digest, but if you want to understand what's going on in the world, you owe it to yourself to become informed about the true state of the world.
Our brains are much worse at reality and thinking than thought. Science on reasoning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ
Rd wolf on economics
http://www.rdwolff.com/
"Intended as an internal document. Good reading to understand the nature of rich democracies and the fact that the common people are not allowed to play a role."
Crisis of democracy
http://trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Democracy-Governability-Democracies-Trilateral/dp/0814713653/
Education as ignorance
https://chomsky.info/warfare02/
Overthrowing other peoples governments
http://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
Wikileaks on TTIP/TPP/ETC
https://youtu.be/ABDiHspTJww?t=17
Energy subsidies
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2015/NEW070215A.htm
Interference in other states when the rich/corporations dont get their way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mxp_wgFWQo&feature=youtu.be&list=PLKR2GeygdHomOZeVKx3P0fqH58T3VghOj&t=724
Manufacturing consent (book)
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/
Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349
Manufacturing consent:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM
https://vimeo.com/39566117
Testing theories of representative government
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Democracy Inc
http://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Incorporated-Managed- Inverted-Totalitarianism/dp/069114589X
From war is a racket:
"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."[p. 10]
"War is a racket. ...It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." [p. 23]
"The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." [p. 24]
General Butler is especially trenchant when he looks at post-war casualties. He writes with great emotion about the thousands of tramautized soldiers, many of who lose their minds and are penned like animals until they die, and he notes that in his time, returning veterans are three times more likely to die prematurely than those who stayed home.
http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/0922915865/
Blum:
http://williamblum.org/aer/read/137
US distribution of wealth
https://imgur.com/a/FShfb
http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
The Centre for Investigative Journalism
http://www.tcij.org/
Some history on US imperialism by us corporations.
https://kurukshetra1.wordpress.com/2015/09/27/a-brief-history-of-imperialism-and-state-violence-in-colombia/
The real news
http://www.therealnews.com
^(This reply got kinda long, sorry)
> in an ideal world, yeah 50-50 is best, but I thought about it.
50/50 has it's own host of issues. What happens when you need cash? What if one of you wants to make a critical decision but the other objects?
Assuming your bootstrapping the startup, you're going to need money and that likely means one or both of you will need to invest. Do you do it at even levels? Let's say you launch and there's enough interest that you need the dev to start pulling more hours. Does he still need to contribute the same as you?
When it comes to decisions, it's natural to assume that you and your partner could work your way through any disagreement. While that may be true, you'll never really know until it matters. It's easy for a person's priorities to shift after going through the grueling process of launching a startup.
> Where I would come in the picture is at the very end when we launch our project and I would deal with sales/marketing, as these our my strengths and not my friends'.
No. Go read (or re-read) The Lean Startup. If you're wearing the hat as the business guy, then there is so much that you will need to do even before you should consider bothering your friend with this.
Before you approach anyone, you should have already verified your idea through surveys, conversations with potential customers, and any other relevant market research. You should have all of that in an easily digestible document or presentation.
While you're doing the research, you should have, at minimum, a splash page that gives a brief overview of the idea, perhaps an explainer video, and most importantly, a way to capture user interest. Those future leads should be considered metrics on your past tests.
Basically, you want to have everything ready as if you're pitching to a n angel or VC investor. The reason for this is simple: you are pitching to an investor. The only difference is that instead of trading money for capital they're trading sweat, blood, tears, a healthy social life, and a lot of sleep. A fringe benefit of pitching to your potential partners this way is that you'll get great experience pitching in a lot less stressful situation.
Once you get someone to partner up, there's still a lot that you will need to do while your co-founder is coding away. You'll need to continue on with the market research. If you're using the "minimal viable product" approach, you should be the one ultimately responsible for navigating pivots and releases.
You should also be cultivating a pre-release userbase. This means kicking out regular newsletters to anyone that subscribes to your landing page, building rapport with relevant bloggers and reports, and chasing potential leads.
If you're bootstrapped (self-funded) and you wait until you release to do any legwork then you've already put yourself in a situation where you're underwater. You'll have bills, your partner will have spent a fair to insane amount of time building the app/SaaS, and absolutely zero positive cashflow. What's more is you won't know that a market really exists or what price you should charge.
OP,
Calm down. Like you say, it was a learning experience and it seems a good one at that.
To everyone else's defence, when you can drop terms like "profit margin," "overhead" and "markup," it doesn't grant you business expertise. Or at the least, it doesn't impress this subreddit.
Instead it makes it sounds like you took a Business 101 class.
More telling was the new phone and business cards. These are, at best, things you need after a first client (proof you have a "business").
But when you started in on Class A shares and Class B non-voting shares, it made me re-read the first paragraph. I'm thinking "Is this guy doing landscaping, or is prep'ing a visit to a VC?"
You've got drive. That's great. And now you have experience -- from one try. Try again. You'll fail again, and that's cool. Especially cool if you try again.
Best to you and whoever you pair up with next. In the meantime, fill in time with a few books like Lean Startup and Rework.
>Thanks for the response.
Thanks for the conversation. I'm enjoying it.
>So, if I understand correctly, you're saying that karma as a content-sorting system is a useful and necessary part of reddit, while karma as a label on a redditor is an unnecessary and detrimental aspect of reddit.
I largely endorse this summary. I'm not saying personal cumulative karma is completely worthless, but I think "karmawhoring" is entirely related to going for a big score beyond that which is necessary to prevent filtering. I think there should be some point where you "win the game" or "stop leveling" and the score ceases to matter. Those who are only here for the score will either start a new account or leave. Those who were here for the discussions will continue on as before, less the annoying "you're just here for the karma" discussions.
At some point, our cups should truly runneth over.
>I would understand this opinion, as it is explained in the "Abolish Karma" post, but the very beginning of the linked comment seems to suggest otherwise:
>So, here karma (the summed label-on-a-redditor kind, not the content-sorting kind) is a currency regardless of its superficial valuelessness, which would seem to suggest something rather contrary to the "Abolish Karma" post: that karma does have some sort of underlying value.
I touched on this just a moment ago but I'm happy to elaborate.
Dan Ariely has done some interesting research on value and currency in Predictably Irrational. Basically, our behavior is manipulated easily by arbitrary numbers and arbitrary situations. The model for karma is very much like a score in a persistent-universe MMORPG. Scores in MMORPGs lead to gold farming. Most every participant on Reddit is at least passingly familiar with these environments and many of our participants are eloquently versed in them. Meanwhile, there are very few online communities that assign rank and weight to comments. So while the discussions have more in common with a PHPBB or the like, the community isn't unlike WOW.
Where things fall apart, of course, is the fact that you can't sell or trade Karma. Psychologically, however, that doesn't matter - we're primed to expect some sort of redemption system for our score because of past experience and peer influece, so we behave as if there's some sort of redemption system for our score.
I believe this makes Reddit a worse place rather than a better one - if there were some sort of exchange for karma, people wouldn't be scolded for having a high score. People who were just reposting things for the high score would be drummed out of the community. In a very real way, we're acting as if our poker chips are money... when in fact we can't even use them to bet more.
In a nutshell, Redditors behave as if that cumulative karma score had value, even though it doesn't... and this dichotomy causes a lot of squirrely behavior.
Like reposts.
I'm a HUGE fan of this book, and actually read it. The version I read had commentaries at the end of each chapter that were written a bit more recently, so it helped to make the book book feel current (it was written in the early 70s). (http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341621394&sr=8-1&keywords=benjamin+graham+investor)
I found it to be a comprehensive explanation of all the financial instruments I'd ever heard of, and explained clearly what they were and how they worked. It's kinda like having a rich uncle sit you down in his wood paneled office and explain to you how the financial world actually works.
It's not simplified, and it can be intimidating, but I'd highly recommend it.
I've been saying this since the last election.
"Sex sells" is dead. We've successful removed any and all shock value on that one.
Now it's "Outrage Sells". And they even write books about how to use it.
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
Let me be a devil's advocate here and defend why companies wouldn't pay > 5k a month for a 10x programmer.
First off, our typical firms in Singapore can't appreciate good technical value. They can't tell the difference between work done by a good programmer and one done offshore. To them, it's just like buying a chair. If I can get a much cheaper chair in India, why not? They are still used to judging quality by experience. In fact, technical quality can't be judged by experience and the number of projects you have done. A fresh poly grad might be way better than a programmer with 5 years experience and a CS degree. If the poly grad spent his time in poly dabbling in new technologies and programming languages, writing code for open source projects, he might be way better than the CS grad that stagnated in his J2EE job.
Also, good technical value is very hard to measure. Even Google have problems measuring this. Even if you care about technical value, you may not be able to tell if the person you are hiring is good. An interviewee that aced a coding interview may not be a good programmer. It simply means that this guy is good at solving such questions. (It's possible to cram for such interviews as if you're studying for Os by studying technical interview 10 year series, mind you.) He might ace the interview but suck at writing production quality code. Instead of using well tested libraries, he might hand roll his own red-black tree and crypto library >_<. What's more, such programmers may not write high quality, readable code. And, good programmers may not pass such coding interviews. One classic case was when this guy who wrote a program that's used by 90% of the engineers at Google, failed to pass Google's technical interview because he couldn't invert a binary tree.
Unfortunately these are hard problems. Fixing the first problem requires a mindset change from employers and key business decision makers. The second requires companies to change their hiring practices. Try pair programming some projects with your interviewees. That way you can get them to articulate their thought process and see how well they handle real world problems.
I've found Cracking the coding interview to be an excellent resource. That book together with online sources helped me get several internship offers. The book won't spoon feed you from the ground up - but will cover all the topics necessary. The interview questions are all about PRACTICE! Spend a lot of time thinking about how to solve programming questions, the complexity of your solution, and ways to improve your solution.
After a while, you should reach a point where you start recognizing patterns when you see a new question. There are often existing data structures (that you must know backwards - like hash tables) that you can use to solve a given problem - try and think of which one fits the question nicely.
Finally, read this. Good luck!
Both Economics in One Lesson and Basic Economics are golden, though for very different reasons.
Economics is One Lesson starts with a truth that is obvious and simple once you hear it explained. You think to yourself, "Well, yeah. Who could possibly think otherwise?" And then you hop onto Reddit and see that a substantial preponderance of Reddit are afflicted with a mindset and beliefs that fly in the face of this simple truth. It then spends time expanding on this truth and applying it to tons of different things that you wouldn't intuitively see it applying to.
Basic Economics is better though. Both are well worth reading, but Sowell's work is incredibly comprehensive. When I read it, it didn't come across as someone trying to prove any world view, as tends to be the case from so many economists. It is him simply seeking to explain economics to someone who is new to the field. To his credit, he uses terminology that is accessible to anyone and doesn't spend a single moment trying to prove to how smart he is. (Though his brilliance is immediately evident.) Its most important quality is that it doesn't ask you to partake in a string of thought experiments to reach some grand conclusions. Every assertion he makes is supported by multiple studies and historical examples. This happens time and time again. And the bolder the claim, the more evidence he provides. It's remarkable.
While it does weigh in at 700-ish pages, Basic Economics is almost certainly the perfect book for getting your feet wet when in economics.
Time management.
In my mind this is the actual ideological war that is currently being fought, but it never gets too much of a discussion. Glad books like Capital and Reich's new documentary are prosecuting the case.
This issue is the clear separation between the parties. This is all the data we have on equality in Australia, red is for ALP governments and blue for LNP governments.
Since 1980, the ALP have run an even keel on GINI, which is the accepted measure for inequality. They haven't improved equality of income, but it hasn't gotten worse.
Since 1980 the LNP have seen inequality increase rapidly, with GINI up 0.05, making us the 9th most unequal country in the OECD (out of 34 countries).
If GINI hadn't gone up (ie ALP was in power and maintained their trend), we would be around the tenth most equal, jumping around 15 countries or half the OECD.
Of course, as you can see, this means we have a centrist and a right party, which means inequality will always go up over time. The ALP have ceded the battle, in effect. Perhaps why the Greens vote is creeping up, along with the vote for the populist right, like PUP?
The good news? The last time inequality was this bad (US graph just because we suck at this topic, it is relevant here for a number of reasons) was the start of the Progressive Era, which resulted in more progressive taxation, a focus on education, healthcare and scientific research, exposure of political corruption, big leaps in equality for women and racial/ethnic minorities and so on.
Is the same happening now? The conversation has already started, with books like Capital. The Occupy movement and March in March were huge, and while the media basically ignored them or criticised them, hundreds of thousands of people in the streets doesn't happen for nothing.
Even some MPs are talking about it.
Time for a New Progressive movement?
Rule # 1 - DO NOT HAVE A PARTNER.
TLDR - We failed due to a lack of trust between partners that grew over time and I was going through a divorce and emotionally checked out of the business. (I was in charge of all production...ie. when I checked out, shit fell apart)
Here's what we did to scale from $120K the first year to $1.2 mil in 18 months (10x growth).
We hosted all client sites through 2 reseller accounts with Hostgator and Godaddy. Hosting revenue pays the light bill and cable bills. Plus, your contractors only need to know how to do everything in 2 Cpanels. It's more efficient and profitable.
Outsource: ALL design. Wireframes in-house.
Outsource: Hosting setup, domain pointing, CMS/Wordpress installation, theme installation
Outsource: Email marketing. You define strategy and design etc. but the build and automation is all outsourced.
Outsource: Bookkeeping. Automate everything using IFTTT and Freshbooks. Automate as much as you can.
Outsource: All Local SEO - We used LocalOxygen.com to scale production 10x.
Outsource: All social posting. Give the workers access to your posting software and let them post that shit. You do the strategy, they do the execution.
Outsource: Adwords management. Find a certified overseas crew to access your MCC and again, talk to them about how you want the accounts managed.
Outsource:Remarketing/retargeting - Overseas Adroll team or GDN team. You'll have no problem finding teams that know more than yourself overseas at reasonable rates.
Hire a part time VA (Virtual Assistant) for $3.00/hour and have her handle your email, send out client intake forms, invoice reminders, all reporting that isn't automated. After 3 months, this person can basically serve as your remote office manager for $4.00/hour from Peru,Greece or the Philippines.
When/if hiring overseas workers, look for countries with a favorable exchange rate and a bad economy + strong English presence. They must be available during US business hours and have a microphone and camera for face time chats throughout the week. https://Upwork.com and https://www.onlinejobs.ph (we actually bought mics and cameras for those who did not have them.)
We handled SEO in-house and had a small overseas team to help with link building.
90% of my time as founder was spent on project management and helping sales people understand this stuff so they could sell it better. You can find competent workers all over the world for under $10/hour. We used Odesk/Upwork and took the time to build a solid base of loyal contractors. We trained our contractors to do the work the way we wanted it done. I was paying several people in Pakistan full-time @ $38/week or $.96/hr) to do link building. Profile creation etc. etc. I simply made a video explaining what I wanted them to execute on and how to do it and they went off and did it.
We had writers in Isreal (with Masters Degrees) paying the $15/hour to write great content.
If I got back into the game again, as an owner, I would literally outsource 99% of the work. Some to overseas and probably the SEO to a US based company. The rest of my time would be selling. I'll never work IN an SEO company again knowing what I know now...so much easier to train people on systems and let them execute. This way I get to stay working ON the business, not in it.
Remember taxes take 39% roughly.
Number 1 lesson - Find a great sales person who is wide but not deep in their understanding and who is also great at establishing rapport , then you go along with them on the sales call. You're the credibillity. Rapport + Credibility = Trust = Signed Contract
Lesson 2 Create documented processes and train others on how to execute.
Lesson 3 As quickly as possible put yourself in a spot where you are able to work ON the business and not IN it. If you do not do this then the business is owning you.
Lesson 4 Read the E-Myth - https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280
Lesson 5 - Bask in 80%-85% margins and pay yourself well. Also bonus your contractors often and healthily ($20-$50 bonus every two weeks) and they'll never leave.
Hope this helps...
I bought this book. None of that Dave Ramsey bullshit. That guy's stuff is good, don't get me wrong, but it's written for Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers who are in thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt. What about the guy who's a Millennial and not in debt? Cue in this book. Written specifically for a guy like me. I read that book when I was 19 and started putting money in my own Roth IRA soon afterward, and setting up my two credit cards I had with full auto-pay every month so that I don't need to worry about missing a payment. Since then, I have never had to worry about my finances. I have never lived paycheck to paycheck. Financially, I am set and am on the way to a nice retirement before I'm 65.
GET OFF YOUR SAD HORSE MY FRIEND. There's literally never been a better time to be a technologist who wants to learn more (and get paid more).
Yes, you're struggling. Yes, you want to change. But DON'T FEEL CONSTRAINED BY YOUR DEGREE. Draw on the experience you've had and look for new challenges. You certainly don't have to be a manager if you don't want to be.
if you think theory is holding you back, there are AMAZING online classes - online algorithms classes from Stanford/MIT. (The Stanford one is more of a refresher on basics). If you're finding that algorithms are holding you up in interviews, then read "Cracking the Coding Interview,"' cover to cover.
EVERYONE is looking for great technologists right now. Our company (untapt) is US-based, but feel free to message me with questions.
Qualifications: grew up in a very modest (i.e. lower) part of town, parents worked in blue-collar professions, and started buying a rental property in the 1960's, then dad passed away (with four kids). Now definitely intergenerational wealth, all kids went to college in STEM, parents in their 90's (step-dad helped build up RE holdings to 36 units) with holdings in the 8-figures. No I haven't inherited any of it (yet) but well into middle age myself, make very good money (and will leave it at that), and have a few RE holdings.
> I'll have manager experience. I'm also reading a book called "real estate investing for dummies" and I just finished "rich Dad poor Dad"
Good for you, I didn't start reading books on anything finance related until well into my 20's, and then I read a lot of very good books. I don't think much of Kiyosaki, frankly, but as Brian Tracy said 'to earn more you must learn more'. So don't stop, keep on reading, and especially books over blog posts and short pieces. Why? Books will have more complex ideas and more research to back it up.
Regarding your game plan: you did not indicate what you are interested in doing, and what you do well, and what people will pay you to do, and what the world needs. Take a look at this ikigai graphic. Not sure if you know that welding or sales is this for you, and of course there are other things you may grow into. But hey if you have a good idea that this is the path you want to take, good for you!
I came here to say about sales, few salespeople are on Reddit, they are very busy making lots of money to talk about it. In my own (technical) sales field base runs from $65K up to $120K with another 40% commission, but you need to have the right background (STEM college degree, experience as a customer, and aptitude for outside sales) so barriers to entry are high. So yes, six figures in your late 20's is achievable, and it does take a lot of hard work, no doubt!
Of course owning your own business as a contractor, or becoming a top welder, or tons of other things you could do, I know of plenty of people who do very well.
Regarding the end goal, admirable, and I say your thinking is in the right place. The road to FI is varied - real estate is a very good method (the way my parents went, they bought low and held onto their properties in a HCOL area), investing into index funds another good method (again read books like Boglehead's Guide to Investing, or another favorite of mine on the sidebar called The Richest Man in Babylon) The amount these books can make you over five or ten years is a lot. Over 15 or 25 years is huge.
> Even if I don't get to enjoy it
I see many piling on here saying 'you should enjoy it' but I didn't interpret this comment in that way. You realize it's a road not many take (too many live way beyond their means, and don't have savings / passive income / true wealth to show for it). Yes there's sacrifice, and it takes a long time to build up $1,500 in monthly passive income much less $15,000, but people do this and often you cannot tell. (For example, look up the book The Millionaire Next Door.)
Are you on the right path? Definitely YES. The path to financial independence starts with a mindset, and the fact you are asking the question puts you out in front of all the peers of yours who are thinking about lots of other things, which you know all too well.
Will you make mistakes along the way? Of course, we are all human. The important thing is mindset, and the great thing of being younger is that you have time to make other choices, and learn along the way.
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
link for the lazy
Humans are not intuitively good at probability and statistics, because of numerous cognitive biases. -Thinking: Fast & Slow
Realize that you always need to be learning and taking in new information. You will never "master" the market, nobody else has mastered it either, so take others' opinions with a grain of salt.
As much as people joke around here it can be a good way to spur new thought. If someone says the market will crash in 3 days? Why? Do you agree? If so, why? What data can you come up with to support that? (Etc, etc). Your goal should be to become knowledgeable enough to look at the economic landscape and come up with a personal opinion about what will happen next.
Once you have an informed hypothesis on what will occur then you make investments based on those convictions.
Web resources:
http://markets.wsj.com/
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures
https://www.tradingview.com/
http://seekingalpha.com/
WSB Cheatsheet = www.3xetf.com
Read. All the famous investors started reading at a young age and read ferociously (ok maybe not all but most).
Go to the library if you can, they generally will have all the quality investing tomes, without some of the "get rich quick manuals" which only benefit the authors.
Here is a few books to start with:
Most of this stuff is investment theory. To be a successful investor as an average American, without a job in the finance industry, you probably don't have to read all of those books. If you really want to get into investing, that's a good place to start.
Also, the Bogleheads book is a great one to start with because you can decide if you really are interested in investing. If not, that book is good personal financial advice regardless who you're getting paid. It will benefit the regular American.
Go to Vanguard.com and open an individual account (or in your case, a Roth IRA account as well). You'll wire money into this account from your bank, and then you can use their interface to purchase shares in any stock you want.
Do NOT buy individual stocks (like AAPL, GOOG, etc). You CANNOT predict what stocks will go up or down, no matter what the "pros" tell you.
You CAN predict (with reasonable confidence given historical data) that the market as a whole will go up 5-7% annually when averaged over 30 years.
If ONLY you could buy shares in the entire market! Wait. You CAN! With these special kinds of stocks called Index Funds which are themselves a large collection of stocks designed to go up and down with the market.
But the market is still volatile and risky. That's why you should also invest in bonds which are lower risk, but lower yield. Rule of thumb is that you should invest your age as a percentage in bonds (if you're 30, 30% of your portfolio should be in bonds). Reason being you don't want riskiness when you're a couple years away from retirement.
If ONLY there were a type of fund that would AUTOMATICALLY adjust your bond holdings as you age. Wait. There IS! With these special kinds of Index Funds called "Target Retirement Funds". Simply buy into the fund for your retirement year, and the adjustments will happen for you as you age! For example, I plan on retiring in 2050, so I have shares in VFIFX.
Now, you can buy as many shares as you want in an individual account, but when you take the money out, you're going to get taxed significantly on your gains (capital gains tax). You can avoid this tax hit by buying your shares from within a Roth IRA account (as opposed to an individual account). There are a lot of restrictions on these IRA accounts, but when you withdraw money at retirement, it will not be taxed (if it's Roth rather than a Traditional IRA).
Lastly, do yourself a massive favor and read this book 8 times: The Boglehead Guide to Personal Investing. I was just like you last year. I read that book, and hung out here in /r/PF, and now I have a fully-implemented retirement strategy.
Hey eggshellmoudling! I'm at work so I can't pull up many references, but I'll see if I can help with some of your questions here.
First, the question of income inequality being a threat, and how it relates to redistribution. I definitely agree with your assessment of the last answer. It was more of a condonement of wealth redistribution than an explanation of the problem we (saying that as a libertarian, but I don't speak for all of us) have with calling income inequality a threat. In and of itself, wealth inequality is simply a consequence of how society is working. I think that a good argument could be made that inequality IS a threat in a system like we find ourselves in now, because money is so closely tied with power and rich people can use their money to influence the government and get richer. However, a small percentage of a population being incredibly rich isn't inherently bad. As long as they have come across their money in a fair (loaded word) way, as in without coercing or tricking people, they have given enough to society to merit having that amount of wealth. The only potential threat, which is a pretty minor one really, is that they don't spend their money responsibly. If, for example, they use their money to pay every person in the world to stop working, they would disrupt every market and people would starve to death. A more realistic example might be hoarding it in a place where it isn't effectively invested. If they are using the money to invest in other industries or employ people for tasks that add wealth to the system, which almost every rich person does, they aren't hurting anyone by simply being rich.
As far as redistribution goes, we believe that the current amount of inequality is heavily aided by things like redistribution of wealth and government regulations. For an example of that, say a really poor person finds out that they have a knack for orthodontics (not sure how they found that out :p) and that they could help a lot of people and make a ton of money practicing it. It wouldn't matter at all in today's system because they would be restricted by the barriers of entry to that field established by the government. Like I said before, you can argue that wealth inequality is bad right now, IMO, because the rich are so easily able to use their wealth to keep the poor poor through government coersion, which is unfair to the poor.
Second, how do we address the problem of a tiny minority controlling the wealth and allow people like you to thrive? I don't think you'll like my answer to this one, but please understand that I'm trying to be respectful and if anything comes off as rude or condescending I apologize. One way to think of wealth is as a big pool. Production adds wealth to the pool, and by adding to the pool people are allocated a certain portion of the pool. It might help to say this simple truth: there is only as much wealth in the world as is produced. That sounds simple but has huge implications. Mainly, it means that if everyone is doing the thing that they do most effectively, society as a whole benefits from a bigger pool. Now, back to your question. I have addressed the first part already, but when it comes to people that are trying hard but aren't getting a big enough portion of the pool, the fundamental reason (in a market society) is that they aren't contributing enough to earn a bigger portion. They are contributing less to the wealth of the world so they don't get as much wealth themselves. The ways to fix that are to either (1) grow the entire pool or (2) find a new way to gain more of the pool, thereby contributing to (1). That being said, I would be willing to bet that your situation is entirely different from that. For example, I highly doubt that you would feel maxed out on effort, talent, and luck if there weren't so many boundaries set up in society today.
I rambled a bit there but hopefully it was helpful. Let me know if you have questions about anything. If you are interested in why we (or at least I) believe that our system would be the best for every individual on average, I would highly recommend reading Economics In One Lesson or Capitalism and Freedom (this one is a little more difficult). They lay everything out very logically and had a huge impact on my belief system.
Check out Henry Hazlitt's "Economics in One Lesson." It does a great job of offering counterpoints to false ideas people have and express in mainstream news outlets and on Reddit.
I think modern economics, at least in the US, is a bastardized system of what a free market should be and is instead, corporatism. In a pure free market, economic progress should look like a sine wave with peaks and troughs. Some good times and some bad times but with a slightly upward trend for growth.
The problem in the US is that politicians don't want there to be a trough during their term because it gets in the way of their only goal: to be re-elected. So, elected officials provide subsidies to certain industries to prop them up until the next election. Through these subsidies, government picks winners and losers instead of the free market.
Over time, leaders from government and leaders from corporations switch back and forth, through bigger campaign donations or bigger subsidies. This is why you see people from Goldman Sachs or Monsanto getting jobs with the Federal Reserve or Department of Agriculture, and vice versa.
To answer your question, enough time has gone by that the biggest players in the private industry are given government allowances that make it impossible for out-of-favor firms to compete.
Paul's policies break this up. If the Department of Education is gone, then local school districts may choose who supplies their school lunches, leaving the big supplier who has donated millions to the DOE officials without their guaranteed contract.
Also, reverting to the gold standard would be really tough for our economy due to it's size, though not impossible.
Hopefully there are others in this thread more knowledgable than myself who can chime in.
here's the book Manufacturing consent.
how to lie with statistics by darrell huff
One of the things I loved about this piece is how he revealed two very sneaky statistical tricks used by those pushing the narrative that the science is against the memo. I'm as much of a sucker for seemingly solid statistical claims as the next guy, so I really appreciate having my eyes opened about how misleading they can be.
(Yes, I'm familiar with the Twain/Disraeli quote and this book too.)
That Piketty book really is a fascinating read though. For those interested, it's called 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century''. It covers lots of basic economic tenets, and makes a good case on his global capital tax theory, which seeks to quell the issues inherent with Capitalism that give rise to an increased disparity in income and wealth distribution.
Good food for thought.
> I was wondering if a DS course was necessary to do well on Leetcode problems
Nope:
Try Leetcode easy problems. Look up new concepts as you encounter them. Repeat.
edit: if you have time, there's also https://www.coursera.org/learn/algorithms-part1
Someone that hires first years here [1]:
Resumes
I can only speak from the perspective of a smaller company, but I have several suggestions, some of which may be more applicable if you're going to apply to somewhere with less than 100 employees:
Cover letters
Some companies will care about cover letters -- I personally count it as a negative if you include a cover letter that is obviously templated:
Dear hiring manager, I see you are doing [some random thing copied from our website] and I am myself very passionate about [that thing]...
If you are actually reaching out specifically to join my company because you know someone else that's worked here, or you've used our product and want to work with us for that reason, a cover letter is probably appropriate.
Interviewing
Interview in as many places as possible. There are really only two things you should be focusing on as a first year: Cracking the Code Interview, and not being too nervous.
Seriously. Buy cracking the code interview [3], and spend a week or so solving problems and learning memoization / pointer manipulation / dynamic programming. You'll be SO much better off.
I find that if you think of every interview as "interview practice for when it matters in later years" you will not be so nervous as a first year. Expect to not know the answers to some questions, and just explain what you are thinking to get "part marks." Freezing up looks much worse than going down the wrong path with confidence.
References
[1] I'm CEO of ParseHub -- you can contact me at [email protected]
[2] I also do optional lectures for CSC207 on Fridays noon-1PM @ BA1200, one of which will be on how to make open source contributions. Feel free to email me if you want to come.
[3] It's available on amazon
For intro sociology, I'd recommend some preachy nonfiction. They are written for laymen but introduce the sociological style of approach. Something like Fat Land or Uninsured in America.
Freakanomics is not exactly sociology, but could be an interesting read for someone interested in social economics / group behavior. Jonathan Kozol is a reporter, not a sociologist, but his stories mix investigative reporting with a human element to focus on topics of interest to the field of sociology. I remember Nickel and Dimed also being a good read.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is not a book about sociology, but rather a specific example of culture clash within the context of medical care. That being said, it is a big reason why I decided to become a social worker (which is a profession in line with the two fields mentioned in your post).
A Place at the Table is a movie that might fit the bill.
Note: I'm American. I imagine other places would have different topics of interest.
Edited: add movie and fix format
Investing in cities via Municipal Bonds is the very essence of value investing, just on a scale that isn't related to a company.
The rest of your mess of a point has nothing to do with his investment philosophy. He makes money where he sees value. How he defines value would require a few weeks reading on your part, so get to work:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1396646177&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+intelligent+investor
You inspire me.
Fellow Vancouverite here (19). I see a lot of myself in you (which is why I'm replying) but in the opposite situation: we always lived comfortably. Either way, that drove me to the same motivation and has since I was little; I've always been an entrepreneur, and I bet you will be too.
Here are a few principles I've compiled over the past 10-ish years of my passion for business:
You asked for actual resources:
I'm missing so much but I have to go. Hit me up if you ever want to chat and I'd love to help you however I can. People like young, ambitious, driven people. So go start talking to people!
Creating a unicorn isn't just taking a horse and waving a magic wand over it to have it sprout a horn and a billion USD valuation. It takes willing investors, a market that fits the product, a solution that fits the market and company whose employees (at all levels) know what they're doing. Oh, and also a bit of luck.
See: https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
What I mean is, it's quite possible that someone has tried before but lacked one of the above four prerequisites.
I highly recommend The Bogleheads Guide To Investing, it definitely gave me the understanding and confidence of index investing, plus, it's great to lend out to other people when they show interest in the topic.
As for how much of your starting income to set aside, the most important part is just to start it, and automate it.
Note the below is just my recommendation for what I would do if I were just starting out, you should absolutely determine your own investment strategy and risk tolerance (although you are young, so you can afford to be more aggressive than someone closer to retirement)
Just to cover all the bases here for starting out:
China's authoritarian directives have absolutely pushed it far ahead of the squalor its previous authoritarian regimes had perpetuated. Its really flabbergasting to me how people point to this as a positive for china-style authoritarian regimes. Even more stupid is the people that try to say China has a new form of government. They don't. Its basically a dictatorship.
Countries with authoritarian regimes can certainly have massive growth between huge valleys of economic stagnation or collapse. You should read Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson. They have a very clear and well supported theory on the effects of government institutions that explains china, russia, the US, and all the rest: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227
And lastly, democracy vs non-democracy is not a binary thing. Russia, for example, has a "democracy" but very little real representation of its people. India has a similar problem to a far lesser degree. And so does the US for that matter. Democracy is new and something we still have to improve on. But the economic effects a democracy has, of causing sustained but slow growth, are far better than the massive economic swings and generally far lower economic prosperity of authoritarian countries.
I am going to give my perspective, but as always, your milage may vary.
>When and how did you start?
I didn't start programming until I started in college. I knew I was good at Math, and good at Science, and that I was interested in Computers. I pursued a CE degree (I was 18 at the time), and am now pursuing a Ph.D. in CS. My wife started her CS degree 1 year ago (she's now 25), after being dissatisfied with (and subsequently abandoning) a degree in Marketing. For the sake of mentioning it, we both started with Java.
My real point is: I don't think it's ever too late to start. If you're sincerely interested, your passion will take you far.
> What are some daily things you do that drove/drive you to your goals?
I consider programming a type of carpentry, and so, I strive (and don't always succeed) to program as much as I can, in as many languages as I find interesting. So far, I've programmed in Java, Python, Javascript, C#, C, Objective-C, and Lisp. It can be daunting to learn new programming languages, but I wouldn't worry. I got around to playing with each one because I found they were good tools for things I wanted to do. In academic circles, I believe that's called "project-based learning," where you learn as much as you need in order to complete some project or task.
> What books do you recommend, ones that have had a huge positive impact in your professional career?
I absolutely love the Head First series, and it made me value my own unique learning style (which in turn led me to discover that I learn better through projects). I own 6 Head First books, and I absolutely love each and every one of them.
My wife recently discovered (and I also really enjoyed) the book Cracking the Coding Interview, which is a concise review of the fundamentals of programming, as well as very good guidelines for doing well in your coding interview.
> What advice do you give to junior programmers that want to plunge into open-source community but are just overwhelmed by the amount of complexity in most of this projects?
If you're just starting out, I would start your own project to do something you want to do. The chances are that, in doing so, you will leverage someone else's tools, and in turn, you may discover that a tool you're using...
...has an obscure bug, or
...would be really great if it had this one other feature
You then contact the project lead (or project board of directors), and state your case, and then...BAM. You're an Open Source contributor.
> Which work-related fields are you most interested in?
I am a fan of artificial intelligence, and I think it's the bees knees. I also do game development, which I enjoy very much.
> What was your first big investment after your degree?
I bought a car, mostly because I needed it. Bear in mind, I am on a graduate student salary, which isn't necessarily the most financially rewarding position out there.
If you have any other questions, or if you would like me to go more in-depth into some of the previous questions, do let me know. :)
CTCI the "holy grail" of interview prep in this subreddit :)
Ehh.
I don't know if you can attribute it entirely to apathy. Lots of Americans are kept too busy -- worrying about their jobs and other immediate needs -- to the point where they can't pay attention to politics beyond what they get on the evening news.
And as long as stories like this don't make it onto the evening news, they'll continue thinking society as a whole is alright and they're just unluckier than most.
Check out Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent": http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499 -- it may be 25 years old already, but it's still dead on.
The error comes from focusing on the wrong filters. The "liberal media" is a thing (in two ways, really, but let's focus on the one people generally refer to) when you look at rhetoric. This can be determined through linguistic data analysis, which Seth Stephens-Davidowitz did in his book Everybody Lies. One of the interesting things he shows there is that the rhetorical bias varies not by ownership, for instance, but mostly through the dominant political leaning of the area in which the paper (which was the focus of the study) is sold. That is, a news outlet's rhetorical bias depends on its audience, not its owners.
This analysis is useful, but there is a glaring problem with it: In focusing on rhetoric, it ignores actual policy advocacy and, importantly, publication bias. And that's where the owners have influence. As long as the policy advocated agrees with the owners (and the media's inherent structural biases, re: the Herman-Chomsky Propaganda Model), how it is presented (the rhetoric) only matters to the extent that it influences revenue. And anything that is counter to these interests, will be ignored.
So, yes, there is a "liberal media" (and they're actually fairly dominant). Problem is, they are liberal in rhetoric only (and sometimes in actual policy, depending on what you mean by 'liberal'). What the media doesn't tell you is usually much more important than what it does.
This reminds me of the book "How to Lie with Statistics"
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1404410530&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
Manipulating stats is quite easy, but how many people are really going to investigate how they collected those stats.
Actually they do....
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Also, you have anecdotal evidence, which is not much evidence at all.
Thirdly, this is a repost.
> They source the OECD report.
They source data from OECD and WHO and then do this.
> Well it's not better than other countries health systems,
Again based on what metrics?
> and it cost more
Is the French system worse then the Sinaporean system because France spends more?
> I think it's a stretch to say it performs as well as it could.
No healthcare system performs as well as it could. Even if we could rank efficacy position would be irrelevant from a policy perspective, you still need to improve even if you are ranked first.
Here are my nominations:
I haven't read them all through but have started on the Time Management book. So far so good.
This. Time Management for System Administrators.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Problem gambling has nothing to do with being stupid. Human decision making just doesn't work like that: I'll point you to one of the better cognitive science/behavioral economics books to come out recently if you're really interested in understanding more how people actually make decisions, or if that's too long, perhaps a short TED talk to whet your appetite?
The gambling industry employes cognitive science findings to entrap people. You can't really understand the problem with gambling until you understand our biases and how limited our decision making ability really is.
Problem gambling affects all socio-economic classes, but those of us with more money:
Once you understand behavioral economics and the place of gambling in the world, it's much harder to just leave it alone. That's why we have the laws we do.
On the other hand, all of that is somewhat unimportant to the discussion at hand. ;-) The point is we're attempting to enforce laws created for the sole reason that rich people don't like having to deal with poor people hanging around in public places, while not enforcing rules that demonstrably positively affect the economic situation of poor people.
(edit: Added ego depletion w/ citation)
If you actually studied propaganda systems you would know that the West's media, especially UK's, and USA's are by far the most unified, most biased, and most selective of topics to cover in the world. It's a lot harder to ban the publication of certain articles or views than to make it in the media's interests to publish them - in this case they will do it themselves. And most of these media-owning corporations are interested in the American corporate power and increasing it. Also, even though, in America there seems to be a lot of different media organizations, almost all of the media consumed comes out of a few corporations. As a Canadian who has studied in Moscow I can say that there is a lot more political 'dissent' and debate in Russia than in the West, sure there are some obviously biased media organizations like RT, but these are few and there are a lot of objective and highly Putin-critical media organization in Russia. There are also many more political and social factions in Russia than in US or Canada that regularly appear in the media, in both bad and good lights.
Sources:
Corporations owning the media:
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6
Presentation and analysis of Western propaganda systems:
http://www.amazon.ca/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Article describing the bias of the western media in the context of the current Ukraine crisis:
http://zcomm.org/zmagazine/outrage/
Let's be honest your entire perception of Russian media as being monolithic and pro-Russian gov is based on what you've heard from Western media.
I'd recommend reading many sides/perspectives so that you can formulate an independent mind and not just be a mouthpiece of some economist's ideology. For instance, I disagree with a lot of Marx, but I think his materialist critique of history and his critique of capitalism are very useful and a lot of it is correct. His solutions/recommendations are shit, but that doesn't discount his contributions. My recommendations:
Generally Considered Right-Leaning Economics:
Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson: https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510274539&amp;sr=8-1
F. A. Hayek, Road to Serfdom: https://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Documents-Definitive-Collected/dp/0226320553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510274634&amp;sr=8-1
F. A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit: https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Conceit-Errors-Socialism-Collected/dp/0226320669/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510274634&amp;sr=8-3
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations: https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-Nations-Bantam-Classics/dp/0553585975/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510275227&amp;sr=1-3
Frederic Bastiat, The Law: https://www.amazon.com/Law-Frederic-Bastiat/dp/1612930123/ref=pd_sim_14_5?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=31TE91RXV0Q2XPPWE81K
Also read: Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig Von Mises
Generally Considered Left-Leaning Economics:
J. M. Keynes, The General Theory: https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Employment-Interest-Money/dp/0156347113/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510274943&amp;sr=1-3
Rosa Luxemburg, The Accumulation of Capital: https://www.amazon.com/Accumulation-Capital-Rosa-Luxemburg/dp/1614277885/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510275041&amp;sr=1-2
Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution: https://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Writings-History-Political-Science/dp/0486447766/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510275041&amp;sr=1-1
Also read: Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Modern day Left/Keynesian economist is Paul Krugman.
Anarchism:
Emma Goldman: https://www.amazon.com/Anarchism-Other-Essays-Emma-Goldman/dp/1484116577/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1510275717&amp;sr=8-1
PDF
Updated version for Kindle through Amazon
It's a solid starting point. At times it feels like a sales pitch for Vanguard, but it's still not bad advice. It does have good info on the basics though.
I don't think I could do a mock interview exactly... not sure that would be kosher. But I can definitely offer you some tips from my experience with both the intern and full-time interviews.
How to prepare:
How to interview:
What's next:
Good luck!! It's always really exciting for me to hear about young women applying to Google. Hopefully I'll see you rocking the propeller beanie this summer. :)
P.S. I love your username. Avocados are amaze balls and I don't know what I would eat if they didn't exist.
They are very likely to show up. I'll give you the standard set of links to review:
This book helped me: Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions https://www.amazon.com/dp/098478280X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_rtPIzbM5ZMZXD
It goes over data structures and algorithms as well as many other common questions.
I have been through 3 Microsoft Internships and am currently a full-time employee there.
First of all, congrats on securing the interview. 5 days might be a little tight. But I would recommend you take all 5 of those days off from school and study these two books thoroughly:
You must study these books and the problems in them very carefully. The basic data structures such as lists, arrays, stacks, queues, trees and hashtables - you should know these and associated algorithms like the back of your hand. You should be able to produce code for algorithms such as inserting to a list or searching through a tree in a few minutes. Most problems can be solved by using a specific data structure and some associated algorithm.
You will most likely have 2 back-to-back 45-minute interviews. Both of these will be highly technical and focused on algorithms and data structures. Typically, you will be presented a problem. For example: determine if a linked list has a loop or not. You must then come up with a solution to this problem and be able to explain the algorithm to the interviewer. You should also be able to quickly analyse the time and space complexities of the algorithm. Finally, you will be asked to code this algorithm. Here, knowing a specific programming language is not important. So put down your C Programming Language book and start reading the other two I have listed. You can code in pseudocode. The syntax is not important - only the algorithm.
If you manage to do all this in less than 20 minutes, you will typically be asked to answer an extension to the same problem. For example: Find the exact node where the list loops back on itself. Then you repeat the same process and solve this modified problem. Alternatively, you may be asked to describe yourself (small-talk). However, these HR style questions have very little impact on your result.
If you are ever stuck, you can always ask for clarifications from the interviewer. The interviewer will also provide hints if you seem to be struggling. Always think aloud as this will allow the interviewer to stop you from thinking in the wrong direction. The second interview will go the same way but with a different interviewer and problem. Remember to ask when they will let you know of the interview result.
After you have studied your books, go through glassdoor/careercup and search for interview questions. Sort these by date and learn the latest ones thoroughly.
If you managed to do everything right, you should be invited to Redmond to do your real interviews. Good luck!
Your parents are ridiculous. You're smart to want to know about finances while you're still in college. I'll bet few of your classmates are doing this.
Here's a good list of resources for money stuff:
Keep talking to your financial aid officer and don't tell your parents anything. Play dumb until you're out of their house for good. They're freaking out over losing control of you.
Anyone have any book recommendations for a 26 year old? No topic in particular, not necessarily financial/business or otherwise, just any suggestions?
I'm currently reading:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Be-Wrong-Mathematical/dp/0143127535
I'm not far into it, but it's basically on how to properly apply mathematics and logic to problem-solving. It's not exactly a new strategy for life or anything, but it's probably a good idea to read if you're analytical. I got it off Bill Gates reading list.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Found through the reading list- This one I've finished and can't recommend enough. It's from the 50's and it's intended reader were investment bankers. The main suggestion is hide yourself from bad information because you can't eliminate the impact it'll have on your decision making, and we aren't exactly equipped to know what's good or bad if we don't have experience in that realm already. It's a lot of common stuff people use stats for to push a product service policy etc.
https://www.amazon.com/Starship-Troopers-Robert-Heinlein/dp/0441783589/
I'm really into it. I love sci-fi. I don't necessarily love philosophy, but I'm really enjoying this book. It's hard for me to read a lot of at once but I don't ever want to put it down. The mindset of the character and narration really gets me. Since reading this, I've heard or noticed many many recommendations for Heinlein, though I'm unsure. He seems to be a proponent of fascism, but I guess he could just be writing down the fantasy of the particular fascist society he created and not necessarily saying "ya know this is how we should be" I don't know. I see conflicting things.
I have a book for him.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Read the Bogleheads guide to investing. This honestly should be required reading for all Americans. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470067365/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_6tBgDbZ99RCSR
My two favorite books which introduce economic thinking are Armchair Economist and The Undercover Economist. They're quick reads, they're jargon free, and actually teach some of the thinking. Unlike the pop-econ books (Freakonomics and its ilk), which are simply about strange results from research (some of Landsburg's later books suffer from this problem). For an introduction to behavioral economics, you can't do better than Predictably Irrational.
For substance, textbooks are probably best unless you have a carefully chosen list of academic articles. Wooldridge for Econometrics, Mankiw for introductory macro, and Nicholson for introductory micro (Krugman's micro book is fine too). Mankiw writes my favorite econ textbooks. For game theory, I used an older version of Watson's textbook, and it was fine, but I don't know how other game theory books stack up.
If textbooks are a bit much, but you still want a substantive book, the first chapter of Thomas Sowell's introduction is very good, the rest is decent repetition. If you want a some discussion of discredited economic theories that are still trotted out regularly (like trickle down), Zombie Economics is a really fun read.
I'm pretty sure the 90D option is merely there as a 'decoy' (as Dan Ariely calls it.)
In short: Our brain tends to work with price differences in a relative fashion. The mere presence of the 90D option makes the 100D look like a way better deal. Bonus: People tend to choose the 'middle' option if possible! It's there to lure customers that think about a 90D into spending an extra $3k ("It's a way better deal!"), and lures people thinking about a 75D into upgrading to a 90D ("At least I 'saved' $3k compared to the most expensive option!")
Anyway, the book linked above (or anything by Dan Ariely, really) is well worth a read if you want to have a look into the psychology companies (or salespeople) use to get you to pay (a lot) more than necessary.
That's not true. Rural Bohemia was more advanced than rural France in the beginning of the 20th century. Read it in this book, I'll just suppose they got their sources straight.
You thinking more Poor Economics or Why Nations Fail? There's also some good stuff on urbanization's role in development in Triumph of the City which has a lot of implications for developed-world city policy too.
There are two books that I have read that have done a great deal to help me understand the dynamics that allowed Europe to rise to dominance starting in the 17th century: Guns, Germs, and Steel, and Why Nations Fail. The former talks about the geographical and ecological considerations that stifled development outside of Europe. The latter talks about the role if extractive institutions, set up by colonial powers, that remained after decolonization and prevented previously-colonized nations from developing. I can't do their arguments justice here, but if you are sincerely interested in changing your view I strongly recommend reading those books. I'll try to address your specific points:
> it seems to me that those of European heritage have made the most long-lasting and significant contributions to mankind. To name a few: space travel, internet, modern technology and medicine.
All of these marvels are founded in the scientific method, which developed during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has been successfully exported to multiple non-European countries, most notably Japan. So, it's not just Europeans who are able to appreciate Enlightenment values. But the Enlightenment did start in Europe. So, to believe that the Enlightenment proves that Europeans are superior you must prove that the cause of the enlightenment was the innate character of Europeans, and not any contingent factors. That is...very difficult to do. And, yes, the burden of proof is on you, here, since the null hypothesis is that the biological distinctiveness of Europeans is unrelated to the start of the Enlightenment.
> I realize Arabs of ancient times also contributed a lot in the realms of mathematics and medicine.
Yes. Different civilizations have become world leaders at different points in history, which makes the idea of some kind of innate superiority of one civilization really hard to believe. It just so happens that the Islamic Golden Age occurred at a time when it was impossible to communicate over large distances, while the European Golden Age (which we are now in) occurred at a time when communication is instantaneous and we can project military power across the entire world. In other words, the global dominance of Europeans is historically contingent, not an immutable fact of biology.
>One argument I frequently hear to counter this position is that other nations have failed to develop due to colonization and exploitation.
This is an excellent argument, and is, essentially, correct.
> if they were on the same level as Europeans intellectually and strength wise, why couldn't they have found the means to fight back and turn the tables?
Although they were at the same level as Europeans "intellectually and strength wise", they were not at the same level technologically. Europe was in a golden age, Africa, India, and China were not. Again, the key here is that the European Golden Age occurred at a time when it was possible to travel the oceans and project military power worldwide. That was not the case in the Islamic Golden Age or the Indian Golden Age, which explains why those civilizations didn't conquer the world in the way the Europeans of the 19th century did.
>Instead of Europeans doing what they've done to others, why couldn't it have been the other way around?
Guns, Germs, and Steel does the best job of explaining this. In short: Europeans were blessed with livestock that could be domesticated and a consistent climate that allowed them to produce lots of food more efficiently that other regions of the world could, which allowed them to spend more time on other things, like technology. Again, the full argument is the length of a (very good) book, so I suggest you pick it up to get more details.
Double Double by Cameron Herald
This is exactly what you asked for - all about growing your business.
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
This is a great framework for starting and growing a business using a scientific metrics-based approach. Love this book.
Hot Seat: The Startup CEO Guidebook by Dan Shapiro
This is a great book about founding, growing and exiting from a startup or new business. It's got tons of great advice in here about cofounders, legal setup, taking investments, and running the business in a way that facilitates a successful exit.
Not an affiliate link btw
E-myth Revisited
OK, so here is my advice.
First, some background on me so you know where I'm coming from with this. I started my own business almost 5 years ago. It's a tech company, but I think I've learned enough that there are applicable lessons, not only from my work but from the other entrepreneurs this has put me in contact with. Currently my company is self sustaining, has 5 full time employees, and Fortune 100 customers (we make B2B software).
First thing - you have to be really careful starting a business around your passion. This can be an easy way to come to hate your hobby. Remember that it is a business first. While I haven't reread it in years, you might want to read a book called The E Myth which talks about starting a small business.
Second, if you're serious about this, I hope this post wasn't some sort of customer validation experiment. Of course people here are going to be interested. However, most likely no one here is an actual potential customer. I've read some of your other answers here where you've mentioned that games sell "like hot cakes" and there is no real competition and it's a large market. If you do this without any real customer validation you're going to have a rough time at best and be out of business quickly with a ton of debt at worst. Who are your customers? How are they going to know about this place? How do you know what they are willing to pay to participate? How do you know THEY want a place like this? How do you know they are actually willing to pay you money to come to this place? A good book to help understand the various ways you can gain traction is Traction which discusses 19 different traction channels and how people have put them to use to grow their business.
Can you deal with competition? Even if there isn't another business like this in the area, how do you know someone isn't working to start one? If your business is a success will someone start a competitor? Are you ready for that? What if a month before you open a competitor beats you to it? If you have a solid business and plans to grow in place you'll be fine.
I don't know if you plant to raise money or not, but regardless of that fact, think of how you would pitch this to someone who could invest but doesn't give a crap about boardgames or pubs. Would someone who is looking at this from a purely objective money making standpoint be interested? Have you generated enough traction, attention, and interest to make this an appealing business prospect? If not, what can you do to change that? If you can't figure that out now, do you really want to wait until you're deep into this business to try and figure it out?
Set up some metrics. Probably the best way to do it for your business is to measure revenue per visit. How much profit do you expect to make per person per visit? If you are charging $4 per person and then you expect some % of them to buy additional things (food, games, drinks) - your avg per person should be over $4, obviously. How many visitors and at what average profit per visitor do you need to stay afloat? You can increase your overall profit 2 ways - increase the number of visitors or increase the average profit per visitor. You'll have some limits - you an only fit so many people in the building, for example. This will help you determine if this business can be profitable and give you an idea of where you need to be so you know early on if you're tracking well or not. Measure everything that you can.
Basically, just be careful. You're mixing your hobby with your work, but you have to remember it's a business first and foremost. Treat it like a business and be honest with yourself and you'll be fine.
Also, fried foods with games sounds like a good way to end up with a library of greasy games.
good use of ETFs, bond / equity mix. % of bonds in your age and the rest in equities. Vanguard is great for this, this book is excellent to get a grasp of everything
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
>I do want strong public education and universal healthcare. However, I want those services to be provided with the most efficient use of tax dollars instead of that money being pissed away.
Yikes, Please read
Your response is very silly. The answer to OP's question is far simpler - no need to call anybody racist - and has to do with economics. Chapter 23 of Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson explains that the purpose of inflation is to cancel out minimum wage laws. Devalue the currency and suddenly businesses can afford to pay $15/hour to flip burgers. But inflation is worse than that; it necessarily involves a wealth transfer from the poor to the rich (since the wealthiest folks are those closest to the newly minted money). This is very useful to people in power because the effects are largely indirect and invisible.
The Nixon Shock of 1971 removed the exchangability of US dollars and gold, instituting a freely floating currency and unleashing the Federal Reserve's power to devalue the dollar with impunity. This has involved a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top, sucking purchasing power out of the middle class and resulting in the current situation that OP is inquiring about.
This chart shows inequality over time and illustrates what happened since the 70's.
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlitt.
(Free pdfs are also really easy to find.)
Even more formatting fun!
By the way, thank you for this list.
If you really want to understand why this is happening there's a widely praised book by an economist called Thomas Piketty that summarizes it like this:
-For most of human history the returns on capital exceeded economic growth. Because of this if you had capital to invest you were pretty sure to do a lot better than if you had only your labor to give. Economic inequality was the status quo. From a recent interview with Piketty in the NYT:
>Over the 1700-2012 period, world output has grown at 1.6 percent per year on average.
>In contrast, rates of return on capital can be 4 to 5 percent over centuries, or even higher for risky assets and high wealth portfolios. Contrarily to what Karl Marx and other believed, there is no natural reason why rates of return should fall in the long run. According to Forbes’s global billionaires list, very top wealth holders have risen at 6 to 7 percent per year over the 1987-2013 period, i.e. more than three times faster than per capita wealth and income at the world level.
-Around WWII this changed. Destruction, inflation and other crises, plus the social institutions set up after WWII in the west, caused inequality to stop rising.
-What we're finding out now is that this brief period, which lasted until the 1980s, was an anomaly. (Personally I find it interesting that this period stopped right around the time we in the U.S. and the U.K. decided we needed less regulation and government involvement in things). Things are now getting back to the way they used to be.
>U.S. inequality is now close to the levels of income concentration that prevailed in Europe around 1900-10. History suggests that this kind of inequality level is not only useless for growth, it can also lead to a capture of the political process by a tiny high-income and high-wealth elite. This directly threatens our democratic institutions and values.
The question is, what are we going to do about this?
If you are new, it's very risky to take suggestions from random people on the internet. It could be a hit or miss, but a thorough read on books like Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is a good start to understanding the market. From there, you can gain a basic understanding of suggestions people give you to discern if it's a good buy or not. Buying stocks merely on speculation as you are doing now can be exciting as long as you are ok with losing your hard earned $300. Just be aware of the risk.
The intelligent investor, by Benjamin Graham.
Critical thinking is something that we stomp early, and that stays pretty well stamped out without some care and attention.
In his AMA earlier today, Neil Degrasse Tyson suggested that children are born scientists, who bring a sense of curiosity and wonder to everything they do. Adults are usually the ones whose minds slam shut.
Our schools, our churches, our upbringing in general teaches us precisely how to be accepting and uncritical. Those systems simply demand belief in what is being offered as though it were indicative of some capital-T "Truth".
So, your job needs to be to start thinking like a child again. Everything you encounter needs to be questioned and interrogated. Remember: You've been raised to do precisely the opposite, so this won't be easy. You need to continually remind yourself to look for the holes, the flaws, the shortcomings in the arguments that are put forward.
I would recommend the following things:
The more you practice, the easier you'll find it to keep an open mind, and be willing to entertain evidence which challenges your beliefs and opinions. You'll even welcome those challenges, because they help you advance your knowledge and understanding.
Do those things, and you'll find that all of the questions you pose here become much easier to deal with over time.
How to Lie with Statistics - Darrell Huff
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_AZEgDb4HMAXFY
Thinking Fast and Slow
Shiller and Akerloft have a book on behavioral macro that I haven't read but have heard mentioned.
If you want to learn about the other 99 cognitive biases people are unwittingly carrying around (perhaps you, too), check out Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Algorithms, Design Patterns, VCS, being familiar with typical CS interviews questions and something that will be really needed
Some Books:
For Algorithms:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algorithms-Sanjoy-Dasgupta-ebook/dp/B006Z0QR3I/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Algorithm-Design-Edition-published-Springer/dp/B00E28CR4I/
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-Cormen/dp/0262033844/
Design Patterns:
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Explained-Perspective-Object-Oriented/dp/0321247140/
http://www.amazon.com/First-Design-Patterns-Elisabeth-Freeman/dp/0596007124/
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612/
http://www.amazon.com/Design-Patterns-Dummies-Steve-Holzner/dp/0471798541/
Interviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/
> My strong suit is ruby/rails which I feel like is pretty rare and specific when it comes to most internship positions. (I can count on 1 hand the people who know rails in my school).
First off, trust me, you're not that special.
> So far, I have had interviews with 6 of the companies, and have yet to miss a question, & every time I am able to solve the technical questions relatively quickly (e.g. 45 min coding problem, done in 20 etc.) and then we go on to talk about interests etc. The thing is EVERY single company, after the technical interview (usually the 2nd-3rd phone interview), I am in limbo. Usually from 2-3 weeks, before I get denied.
So far, I'm picking up an attitude problem.
> I have only now started asking for feedback(but of course nobody replies to my emails).
Yeah, don't do that.
> I know they are large companies (vmware, yahoo, dell, etc.) but is it strange to have an interview go well and then just go into the void?
YMMV, but it's entirely possible. However, for myself I'd say 95% of the time, someone gets back to me.
> Also I am not socially inept, yet it always seems as if me and the recruiter get along great, while the technical people give off a cold disconnect (but still nice).
How often is this happening? I'd say there are some technical people who are just like that, but I'd say the majority of the time I see them acting that way in an interview is because it isn't going well.
> However it seems pretty inefficient to apply to jobs with 2000 kids hunting for 2 open positions, so it may be the lottery effect that is killing me.
Maybe, but if you're applying to 100s of jobs, you'd think something would eventually edge out in your favor.
Honestly, to me it sounds like:
There's nothing much you can do about an attitude problem other than hold your tongue and think before you speak on anything that isn't directly related to the technical question at hand. Explain, don't boast about past projects and experiences. Be open to learning.
As for technical questions, the best I can do is prescribe the usual: Cracking the Coding Interview. Good book for getting the basics down for technical interviews. Others will suggest other books after that, but I've had good luck with geeksforgeeks and the interview section of Glassdoor for companies like Google and Yahoo for going above and beyond.
Just to give you a peace of mind, I'm gonna share that I'm utter shit too. I have almost 20 years of experience and working at a huge worldwide company. I have conducted more than a hundred interviews myself and yet, if I apply to somewhere I can't write a simple parsing script in a coding interview.
Some of us just wired this way. Also interviews are like a date. It is equally up to chemistry and luck along with correct answers to questions if you get the job.
To be useful too, a few links. Check out this for inspiration:
https://rejected.us/
The best book to get an IT job:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cracking-Coding-Interview-6th-Programming/dp/0984782850
After looking at your post history, it seems you're a 2nd year majoring in stats? I would just continue on the path you're currently on- best case scenario, do as many 300 / 400 CPSC courses for your electives that you can. Worst case scenario, try the BCS program after you've graduated.
I completed a 5 year CS degree with 16 months of co-op experience and a ~90ish average in CS courses and have been working in the industry for about 3 years. Here is the breakdown of where I learned how to develop:
I totally understand how anxious people would feel after getting rejected from CS but it's honestly not the end of the world. If you're willing to put in the effort, there are so many free resources out there that will help you learn how to develop. I assume you're done with 110/121/210... here are some resources that really helped me out:
Code complete 2 - one of the best coding textbooks I've ever read... released for free: http://aroma.vn/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/code-complete-2nd-edition-v413hav.pdf
Practicing for interviews (not taught in school) - https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
Learn the fundamentals of javascript... then learn typescript / react / whatever flavour of JS you hear about becoming popular... here's some site I found after 2 minutes of looking but I'm sure there are much better ones: https://medium.freecodecamp.org/an-introduction-to-object-oriented-programming-in-javascript-8900124e316a
If you're really worried that your stats degree might hold you back... fill out your resume with hack-a-thons and side projects and apply for CS internships. Email recruiters directly if you don't hear responses from normal application processes. When building your resume, start with the CS stuff and leave the major at the end... make sure that if a human ever reads your resume, they'll be reading about how much you've learned about development on your own rather than which major you happen to earn your degree in.
Here are my observations.
I started coming to this subreddit because I had a lot of questions after listening to Serial. I thought between this sub and the others I had found SPO and Undisclosed, I would get some satisfactory answers, some keen insights. I posted some questions on all three subs. On SPO, most my posts seem to disappear into oblivion. On Undisclosed, my questions were seen as hostile or stirring the pot or something. On this one, it's 50-50.
After listening to Serial, I leaned toward Adnan being innocent but had some grave doubts, some questions that I needed clarified, so I would guess I am in the 2b category.
In the course of my discussions here and reading through the trial transcripts, the MPIA file, and lots of other documents (not all by any means), many of my original questions have been answered and I no longer consider Adnan a principle suspect in the death of Hae Lee. However, I am open to the possibility that he's guilty and have no reason to be committed to his innocence. If he's guilty, then he is where he ought to be.
I think a major difference between the two groups that I see is that the guilt side depends far more on innuendo, cherry picked details from contradictory witness statements and testimony, and seem overly committed to details that don't that much. Usually, what I see is little attempt to reconcile contradictory and mutually falsifying beliefs.
I am not saying that those who believe Adnan is innocent don't sometimes do the same thing. I would say overall, though, they handle the evidence more carefully, consistently, and methodologically soundly.
Principally, I think the main difference is between fast and slow thinkers. Fast thinkers make quick judgments and often rely on a "What I See Is All There Is" way of thinking. So, for example, we have quite a lot of information about Adnan and his day and we can pick through all that information to find inconsistencies, lies, whatever. We have a lot less information on other potential suspects, for example, Don. So the focus is on Adnan because there is a lot more there to cherry pick and confirm our initial biases.
I think the innocent crowd is more likely to withhold judgment both on Adnan and individual pieces of evidence until their questions and doubts are more satisfied. The are less likely to rely on an initial rush to judgment.
Here are some examples:
I am thinking of writing a spine post because I keep hearing this as some kind of evidence that Adnan is guilty. If you have ever heard of the Cental Park 5 and watched or read their statements, you will see that all five confessed to the rape of the jogger, separately included similar corroborating details, and yet it was all made up through suggestive leading questioning by detectives. The true rapist was a serial rapist who was caught for another case soon after the fact. It didn't stop the wheels of justice against the 5 teens who were convicted though. Here you had a "spine" corroborated by not just one sketchy witness, but 5 separate young people.
I'm going to stop there. These are my observations. It is entirely possible that despite their weak reasoning and amateur use of evidence, that the guilters are right and Adnan is guilty. I am not at this point at all convinced.
The best advice I've found about interviewing and hiring was in Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman and it's not specific to engineering/programming at all. Basically decide on what aspects you will measure up front and calibrate your interviewers on what good/bad/great looks like. Then have your interviewers meet and grade each candidate on each aspect independently without sharing notes until it's all over. Tally up the scores and hire the winner.
If you do that then you'll have more successful hires than if you don't. Virtually everything else programmers tend to do while interviewing is either a waste of time or hurting your success rate.
The other big problem with technical interviews is the emphasis on making perfect hires or screening bad engineers. It's simply way too complicated to do reliably and you end up wasting a lot of time interviewing and going without the help you desperately need. It's better to put more emphasis on actually making the hires you need, and if they struggle with the engineering work then give them feedback and help them improve, if they can't improve then fire them and hire someone else.
Grinding problems, haha! I can't answer your more specific questions, but I'll distill the resources that I have found to be most useful. The types of questions will depend on wherever you are applying and you might not even get technical questions at some places.
I would start with CTCI then, if you feel like it, move on to Elements of Programming Interviews which (I think) has more difficult problems. All the while just grind problems on leetcode. Also, make sure to practice answering these questions without coding in an IDE. I have just been using a notebook and pencil. A whiteboard works too. Before beginning any sort of coding, you should have the general algorithm down that you will use to solve the problem.
It also would be helpful to know how to implement / be familiar with the following:
Data Structures
Algorithms
OOP (define these)
Other stuff:
Finally, know Big-O complexity Big-O Cheatsheet! I'm sure there is a lot more but this should be a great start.
Good luck! :)
No kids, mortgage, etc? If so then in order or priority:
At this stage saving money (accumulation) is way more important than asset allocation (stocks, bonds, CDs, etc.)
Buy this book and read it
If every republican read how to lie with statistics -Darrell Huff (1954) Fox viewership would drop. Hell, Democrats or anyone for that matter should read this. It makes trusting a news source a lot harder when you immediately pick out devious tricks to engineer partial truths.
Here is a great source
Why would you care if something is increasing so low. Its like from 0.0000001 to 0.001 it increased by 10,000% sounds like a huge increase but its not. Its propaganda. How to lie with statistics
This statistic is thrown around all the time, and is almost totally meaningless. Did you know that 47 year-olds get paid more than 18 year-olds? Why? How dare they! Outrageous I say! Of course there are plenty of legit reasons why, job selection, experience, etc...
If an employer could truly get away with paying $0.88 to a woman instead of $1.00 to a man for the same job all men would be out of work tommorow.
I suggest reading how to lie with statistics. A great intro into reading through the constant BS the media pushes.
That said, there are plenty of discussions to have around pay issues, including why teachers and home health aides get paid so little, how to compensate for the crucial work stay at home moms do, why more girls aren't getting into engineering, etc... Difficult issues.
let me remind you that corporate media is the spear of the U.S. propagandistic machine, just watch for entertainment
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453832685&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=noam+chomsky
There is a great book a professor of mine asked us to read for a statistics class. The title was "How to lie with statistics". I highly recommend it if you can find it. Basically, it shows you how to spin numbers to prove whatever you want.
Woohoo, I found it on amazon
Ugh. It is really sad when Vox comes in to present the more rational argument (their top article today is that you shouldn't watch The Interview because that would helps NK).
Still, the USA Today was pretty slimy right there. Clearly someone at the USA Today bought the book How to Lie with Statistics.
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833
The best book that I've ever read for dealing with the unique time management issues and techniques faced by system administrators. It covers the ways that our days flow, trying to work on deep, intense, and complex projects while being constantly interrupted in an environment where everything is top priority and no one understands what you do beyond "fix computers". It provides a number of ideas for managing your personal time to balance short and long term goals, and other suggestions for managing your department at large.
Highly recommended!
I highly recommend Time management for System Administrators.
Ticketing system or a shared to-do list. Something your boss can look at (or add to). Then you take that list to them and go, "Well. I have all these things as Priority 1. Which is really a P1 to deal with?" They tell you and you work on that and then just work your task list.
Ultimately it is about organization but this is a good book to read to help with some ideas on ways to manage it all: Time Management for System Administrators
It is time to ditch conservative economic beliefs. Cutting taxes helps to collapse the middle class, government programs help maintain and expand it. Read Capital in the Twenty-First Century. We have tried conservative and neoliberal economic theories and they are proven not to work. Foley is just the latest to try to push the same broken ideas and it will lead to a predictable end, the rich get richer while the middle class gets pushed downward. While Malloy is not very good, Foley will be terrible.
Someone who hasn't even read the first few pages of Hazlitt's book, I presume.
It's statistically unlikely that active investors will beat the market - that's not actually the same thing as hard. Saying that it's very difficult to beat the market is just a useful shorthand.
In Tim Hale's Smarter Investing he tells the story of James [1,](https://i.imgur.com/0z08uhw.png) [2,](https://i.imgur.com/pIN2fyR.png) [3] to illustrate typical retail investor behaviour. Read it for yourself - is he wrong to say that most retail investors behave like this? James is perhaps a bit worse than average, but investing psychology is the curse of most retail investors and they things like panic selling in a downturn.
Other retail investors are underinformed know-it-alls, which is a curse one has to look out for - as an active investor you have to be incredibly humble, and you have to examine your own motivations and fears; your goal is to understand your own flaws and shortcomings as an investor, endeavouring not to fall prey to them.
One of the most common statistics cited against active investing is that the majority of fund managers do not beat the market [1, 2, 3]. I can't say I know all the reasons, but other investing psychologies apply to them - most of them are corporate employees and have bosses to answer to; investors will flee when they underperform and generally there are pressures upon them which will lead them to conform and hug the index (but with higher costs).
Search YouTube for the videos of Paul Lountzis speaking at Ivey - I think they're each about 60 or 90 minutes each, and he does repeat himself some, but they're worth watching in their entirety if you're interested in this stuff. If you're interested in this stuff you should be reading and watching as much as possible, because it is a necessity to be informed.
Lountzis gives the example of a new fund manager arriving at an investment bank, and being given $10M or $100M to invest on behalf of clients. He is given a sector he must invest in - like US small cap - and then he must invest that money within 30 days or so. He cannot sit on this money for 6 months looking for the right opportunities, because who would put their money in an investment fund that is sitting on 80% or 90% cash? Hence many of the best opportunities are denied them - they must invest the money and they may be forced to realise losses if they need to release money to investors or invest in something else. This constraint is not foisted upon the private investor.
If you ignore the costs of trading - which are incurred by index funds too - half of all stockmarket transactions beat the market. The problem is with doing it consistently, but I believe it's possible to beat the market with discipline, a buy-and-hold strategy and some fundamental analysis (read The Intelligent Investor).
Reminds me of Trust Me, I'm Lying
The answer, as usual is: it depends.
If you want to invest your money, then there's no better time than now. However, the implication is that when you invest that money you have to leave it sit long enough to do it's work.
At 19 and wanting to invest, you have time on your side. You need to be able to stomach volatility in the market and not get excited when your stocks rally for 30%, nor should you despair when the stocks plummet by 40%.
Traditionally speaking, the stock market averages between 6%~8% a year, which is much better than any savings account you're going to find. However, you shouldn't treat it as a savings account because volatility will almost certainly put you in a bad position to sell whenever you need the money most.
If you feel like you can stomach that volatility and turn a blind eye to both the rallies and collapses, then the stock market may certainly be for you. If you are NOT looking to place your money in good companies for a long period of time (10+ years), then it's my opinion that you are simply speculating... in which case you may as well go to the casino.
If at this point you have decided that you would like to invest in the stock market, you now need to figure out the degree of involvement you would like to dedicate.
If you're looking for a simple hands off investment, then you should just invest in an index fund such as VFINX, SWPPX, or QQQ.
Index funds closely track the performance of the market and charge minimal fees. They are pretty much totally hands off on your part, and are the Ronco of stock investing. Just set it and forget it, and enjoy your ride on the market.
A step above that are mutual funds. They actively try to beat indexes, but charge a fee to do so. There are mutual funds for any style of investing, and people tend to choose mutual funds that coincide with where they think success will lie. That means choosing foreign or domestic, stocks or bonds, and even individual sectors like technology, retail, energy, etc.
The world of mutual funds is vast, and provide an opportunity to beat the market, but it comes with a price. I'll leave the rest up to you to do your research.
Finally comes individual stock picking. Picking individual stocks is the highest risk, but also have the potential for the highest returns. Also, there are no fees except for the fee for purchasing your shares.
There is also a lot to this world, as I'm sure you know, but if this route interests you, then I would suggest you pick up a few books, beginning with The Intelligent Investor.
This book is, in my opinion, the best introduction out there to investing for long term wealth.
Finally, since you're so young and you seem to have an eye out for your personal finances, I absolutely recommend you read The Millionaire Next Door.
Good luck!
Best advice I can give is check out this book from a library (or buy): Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions. It's written by someone who worked as a software engineer at Google & Microsoft and did interviews.
Doing problems out of that book helped me remember some important things that were actually asked about in interviews. I ended up getting two job offers at the same time which allowed me to tell the other company what my offer was and get them to raise it quite a bit.
I interviewed at Google this year and I'm 33. The ageism you hear about sometimes, while it exists, seems to be less prevalent than some would have you believe. If you're worried about it, Triplebyte (referral link) does completely background-blind interviewing for SF and NYC companies (though you do have to be quite good to get through their process; see below first).
(This might not work for OP anyway if they are in Australia since they might need a visa, and Triplebyte AFAIK doesn't do that.)I guess where to start would depend on your background. Do you have any software itches you could scratch? That is, is there some solution to a problem you see either in your job or your daily life that you might be able to automate or solve with software? Maybe start with that; set up a respository on Github and start planning and coding it up (though if it has to do with your job, clear it with them first).
I recommend learning Java or C++. The concepts you learn in those languages will transition to others pretty easily.
If you're looking into bigger companies or startups, I recommend watching MIT OpenCourseware 6.006, Introduction to Algorithms and maybe following along with the class assignments (all free). If you can make it through this course, along with Cracking the Coding Interview, you'll be well on your way to being able to clear many DS&A-style developer interviews.
For others in this thread, $100K AUD is apparently $80K USD (but as OP mentions, Australia has a high COL so its purchasing power is probably lower).
I work at Google (full-time). Before Google, I had been writing software for 8 years professionally (Computer Science degree). I would say that every other day for about 1 month I spent about 2-3 hours preparing. Looking back, I probably over prepared, but I would rather have that than be underprepared. Here's how I prepared:
In the end, the interviews were easier than I imagined. Couple of n-ary tree questions, a distributed computing question, a math/algorithm question and a basic Java coding question.
Current Microsoft intern here! You've got your first sentence perfectly in order of increasing importance. Since you interned at IBM, I'm assuming you have a decent grasp of data structures and algorithms. If not, you now know where to start!
Do some thinking around your app -- if that's a highlight for you, then it's going to come up. Who was your audience? What was the goal of the app? What were the design choices you made? What could you have done to make it better? faster? more secure? What did you learn?
Go pick up an interview book or two -- I used Cracking the Coding Interview to prepare. If you notice yourself stumbling anywhere (especially the first two-thirds of the chapters), be sure to do some learning around the things giving you trouble.
I wrote about my interview experience at Microsoft, if that interests you. It's also got some links to other people's experiences.
I'd recommend buying one (or both) of these books and reading through them:
Each of those books has a wide range of programming problems that are commonly asked during an interview. I highly recommend going one question at a time and actually trying to solve them yourself before looking at the solution. This way you won't simply have a dictionary of interview questions--you'll also be able to develop the skills to figure your way through similar problems.
You can either learn to crack the interview or reconsider your job search strategy. Sure, you may not be able to analyze the complexity of a travelling salesman solution, but you may be able to find an employer who instead cares more about software engineering, tooling expertise (version control, CI etc.), expertise with a particular technology (you mentioned PHP), a well-rounded approach to software development in general, soft skills or whatever else you're confident you may bring to the table.
Here is an interactive page where people can visualize how Quicksort works, this is one of the most widely used sorting algorithms, once understood you can pick any of the other popular ones: Bubble, Insertion, Heap, Selection, etc. CtCI — Cracking the Coding Interview is a good book written by an engineer who used to be part of the recruitment team at Google and other "Big 4" companies, I really recommend it, every page is worth its penny*. Leet Code is also a good resource to learn and practice algorithms, most of the exercises have articles with good explanations of how to solve the problems.
I just read that in Predictably Irrational. Link: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
R 1
Sure, that's what psychologists (and skeptics, and atheists) have always argued. Irrationality, superstition, gullibility, biased and fallacious thinking are deeply ingrained in human nature. Humans are cognitive misers, because thinking rationally is hard and costly. We're evolved in an environment where, in order to maximize chances of survival and reproduction, we had to act, react, think and form beliefs quickly, rather than thinking things through thoroughly. Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow is a must-read on this.
But, no reason to lose heart. Humans have a remarkable ability that distinguishes us from other animals: we're capable of metacognition. We're able to think about and analyze our own thinking. We can identify flaws and compensate for them, recognize biases and correct for them. Methods that have proven effective in this endeavor have even been institutionalized: they're called science and skepticism. Other human endeavors have gone the opposite route, fostering and exploiting human irrationality. Those are called superstitions, pseudosciences, charlatanry, religion.
That's one of my favorite popular science books, so it's wonderful to hear you're getting so much out of it. It really is a fascinating topic, and it's sad that so many Christians close themselves off to it solely to protect their religious beliefs (though as you discovered, it's good for those religious beliefs that they do).
As a companion to the book you might enjoy the Stated Clearly series of videos, which break down evolution very simply (and they're made by an ex-Christian whose education about evolution was part of his reason for leaving the religion). You might also like Coyne's blog, though these days it's more about his personal views than it is about evolution (but some searching on the site will bring up interesting things he's written on a whole host of religious topics from Adam and Eve to "ground of being" theology). He does also have another book you might like (Faith Versus Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible), though I only read part of it since I was familiar with much of it from his blog.
> If you guys have any other book recommendations along these lines, I'm all ears!
You should definitely read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, if only because it's a classic (and widely misrepresented/misunderstood). A little farther afield, one of my favorite popular science books of all time is The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, which looks at human language as an evolved ability. Pinker's primary area of academic expertise is child language acquisition, so he's the most in his element in that book.
If you're interested in neuroscience and the brain you could read How the Mind Works (also by Pinker) or The Tell-Tale Brain by V. S. Ramachandran, both of which are wide-ranging and accessibly written. I'd also recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow by psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Evolution gets a lot of attention in ex-Christian circles, but books like these are highly underrated as antidotes to Christian indoctrination -- nothing cures magical thinking about the "soul", consciousness and so on as much as learning how the brain and the mind actually work.
If you're interested in more general/philosophical works that touch on similar themes, Douglas R. Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach made a huge impression on me (years ago). You might also like The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett, which is a collection of philosophical essays along with commentaries. Books like these will get you thinking about the true mysteries of life, the universe and everything -- the kind of mysteries that have such sterile and unsatisfying "answers" within Christianity and other mythologies.
Don't worry about the past -- just be happy you're learning about all of this now. You've got plenty of life ahead of you to make up for any lost time. Have fun!
> Being color blind doesn't mean pretending color doesn't exist. It means not taking it into consideration when it's not relevant.
You're mistaken, and the second sentence emphasizes it. The fact is, color is more relevant than you realize, especially when you haven't gone through most of your life being judged negatively because of it. "Color blindness," is a happy way to pretend that race matters much less than it really does.
> If I'm getting someone foundation, I'm going to check it against their skin tone. But I'm not going to look at skin color to decide whether to sell a house to someone or anything like that.
I assume what you're implying here is that race only matters when specifically relevant to physical characteristics. Unfortunately, our society isn't built like that, and never has been. To your example, people do consider race when selling a house, and have (and continue to) actively and deliberately hinder the ability of people of the "wrong" race (particularly African Americans) from home ownership or rentals. "Color blindness" says it's wrong to focus anti-discrimination efforts on African American victims, since it says it's wrong to involve race in decision making.
> And if you act like I described, then there are no "innate biases". Not sure where you're getting that.
So, even if you deep in your heart believe that racism is wrong, even if you try your hardest every day to treat everyone fairly, and even if you are a member of an underprivileged race, you likely carry a racial bias (e.g., even if you're black, you subconsciously associate negative assumptions with black people). This has been scientifically proven again and again, but there's a fantastic demonstration here if you want to see first hand instead of reading lots of dry papers. Try it out and you'll likely be very surprised by the results.
> As for the wheelchair thing, again, if it is directly related to the wheelchair, I take it into consideration, but I'm not going to make assumptions about, for example, intelligence or voting rights.
There's two problems here.
First, if you grew up in the western world, and especially if you grew up white in America, you are very unlikely to be able to judge exactly what is related to race. If you are a human who is not specifically educated on these matters, chances are very high you'll be wrong. This is what people are talking about when they deride "privilege." Think about the likely-fictional account of Mary Antoinette saying "let them eat cake." She wasn't saying that to dismiss the starving population, she just heard there were riots because there was no bread, and therefore concluded that in the absence of bread, cake should be available and suffice. It was absolutely unfathomable to her what the life of a French peasant was really like. The same is true in a large part for anyone growing up with any kind of privilege. It's so hard to think about experiences you have nothing in common with, and as a result, you color (no pun intended) your every decision in your own ignorance. (Read this, and maybe the article it's about).
Second, whether you like it or not, you probably do make assumptions about things like intelligence, unless you are constantly vigilant against it. By purely following your intuition (which is based very rapid subconscious decisions), you will almost certainly be wrong, and you will almost certainly convince yourself that you came to any conclusion rationally. By assuming you have no bias, you actually allow your bias to take control. I highly recommend Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow for some eye opening information on human cognition.
> Color blind=not grouping people together based on skin color, not completely erasing individual experiences.
The fact is, again, that this is just wrong. When you purposefully disregard race, you are erasing individual experiences. You are encouraging the creation of implicit groupings by ignoring them. There's more to racism than Jim Crow and the KKK.
Hate to break it to you, but lesson number 1 is going to be that you shouldn't be paying >$5000 for a class in personal finance (especially when it all fits on an index card!).
Save $4990 and buy this book instead. Incidentally, the guy who wrote it tried teaching personal finance classes at Stanford and nobody came. Everybody thinks they want to learn about this stuff, but nobody actually wants to go sit in a classroom to learn it.
Book's pretty good, and less dry than most "personal finance" stuff...a lot of the basic financial advice is already covered in Harold's index card, but he has pretty good material on negotiation, automation, and how to prepare yourself financially without miserly budgeting and worrying about whether or not you can afford a $3 starbucks drink.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lucas_Jr.
further reading: on basically all 4 bullets https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Markets-Incerto/dp/0812975219/ref=pd_sim_14_2/133-0444399-0427912?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0812975219&amp;pd_rd_r=20G8KZ7HRQTB9EV8KRMF&amp;pd_rd_w=QI4pT&amp;pd_rd_wg=y8262&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=20G8KZ7HRQTB9EV8KRMF
further further reading on the last bullet, and the actual explanation of "black swan" that is starting to show up in crypto but totally incorrectly used https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X
you could also dig into efficient market hypothesis.
also, if you're into technical analysis/charts, this could shake your views a little but it's good to be challenged
Black swan.
I've got a book for you my friend: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X
You'll like it
\> This is not a financial problem, this is a trauma problem.
Perfectly said.
OP, in therapy you can talk about your experiences growing up with financial worries. A good therapist can help you explore how those experiences affected you and help you identify the narratives you tell yourself as a result.
It sounds like the financial hyper-awareness has actually served a very useful purpose for you so far. You did well in school and worked your way into a good career. But there's a saying: "What got you here won't get you there." Now your anxiety around finances is holding you back, and you would be better served by spending less energy worrying about finances while still putting a plan in place to responsibly manage your finances.
A therapist can also help you retrain your thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one type of therapy which is aimed at retraining negative automatic thoughts. You identify negative thoughts and write them down, then apply techniques from the CBT toolbox to understand why those thoughts are distorted and replace them with more adaptive thoughts that better reflect reality.
The key point is that your brain won't let you simply choose to stop thinking a negative thought, because there's usually a kernel of truth. You need to replace the negative thought with a new thought that also true but is more adaptive.
So for example, when you think:
\> I'm suddenly gonna lose all my money at the blink of an eye
You can write that thought down, then look at a list of cognitive distortions and identify things like "all or nothing thinking" and "jumping to conclusions". From there you can identify potentially useful CBT techniques. Some techniques work better for certain types of cognitive distortions. So you might try techniques like exploring "What's the worst that would happen? How would I need to react if I actually lost all my money?", or you might try keeping count of unwanted thoughts to make yourself better at noticing them as they appear. There are dozens of techniques.
I'll note that studies have actually shown that CBT from a book can be just as effective as CBT with a therapist. I'd recommend finding a therapist if you're able, because they can help in ways that a book can't. But it's worth mentioning for anyone who isn't able to see a therapist, or isn't sure whether their therapist is any good.
You can just open up the book, start reading, and do the exercises. The key is that you can't just skim the book. You have to actually do the work and write down your answers.
Here's a good book on CBT:
https://www.amazon.com/When-Panic-Attacks-Drug-Free-Anxiety/dp/076792083X
Here is a good blog post on how to find a therapist:
https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2016/04/17/howto-therapy-what-psychotherapy-is-how-to-find-a-therapist-and-when-to-fire-your-therapist/
Finally, one way to feel more in control is to learn more about managing your finances. I'd recommend reading a good book on personal finance, like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283
And then I'd recommend writing out an "investing policy statement". Basically it's a written statement describing your financial goals and long term plan of how to attain them. You're effectively writing instructions for your future self. This can help put worrying to rest. For example, you can consult the statement to remind yourself that you planned to save $___/month toward a house and $___/month toward retirement. If you are meeting your goals, you shouldn't feel guilty about spending money on things you enjoy.
Here's a blog post describing an investing policy statement:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/how-to-write-an-investing-personal-statement/
>Why isn't this a bigger deal for people? GMA just got scammed and no one is making a fuss about.
Well, it happens literally all the time. Ryan Holiday wrote a book about it and how stupidly easy it is back in 2013. "Whenever you see a malicious online rumor costs a company millions, politically motivated fake news driving elections, a product or celebrity zooming from total obscurity to viral sensation, or anonymously sourced articles becoming national conversation, someone is behind it. Often someone like Ryan Holiday." But, nobody cares. Or not enough to matter, anyway.
And even if people did, care... who's going to report on it? The media? You think they're gonna let you know how stupid and easy to manipulate and constantly wrong they are?
Please tell us more about the benefits of making someone sing and dance as related to IT. Don't worry, I'll wait for you to google some more horseshit.
You want a team building exercise, or something to bring someone out of their shell? There are a ton of them that don't involve stupid shit like this. This gave me anxiety just reading it, and I would not participate. Is this really worth losing a brand new hire? If so your company must have more money than brains.
Recommended reading: A book with literally nothing about singing and dancing in IT.
Old but still good
Might not be a technical best practice, but is a best practice in terms of mind set on how you manage your time.
> I can sit here and convince a lot of people that Black, Hispanic, Asian, or White people have sick twisted cultures. If I decontextualize those statistics intentionally my portrayal of the group is bordering on dishonesty.
In case anyone doubts you, here is a book that you'll find in many poli-sci classrooms: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Note: The text at the bottom of the cover is a joke.
You're right; I was probably a bit too smarmy. Statistics really aren't a natural thing for a person to "intuit" about. How To Lie With Statistics was my first stats book in college, and I think it was a brilliant decision by whomever designed the curriculum.
The apparent change of those who think it is justified is actually less than the margin of error of the poll. The change in those who think it's politically motivated is just over the margin of error.
Biggest change is among Republicans, who previously thought Trump should cooperate, but now don't.
Also they only spoke with 1,101/235M+ Americans of voting age
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_Kp38Ab9T1YZET
Good read.
I understand your reaction, but there is some serious critique against the media in the West as well. True, people can get more sources than in Nord Korea and I think nobody will ever argue our media is even close to being on the same level as the media in Nord Korea. That would be crazy. However, our media is still very prone to bias.
The thing is, there is no huge conspiracy to push the media certain ways. It is just the result of different actors behaving in certain way. If you are interested in how the media is affected by this I would advise you to read Manufacturing consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.
Yes you are right, we have a lot of different sources to our possession, [regarding your comment below] however, what you should always take into account is that the position being taken by the bulk of media will outweigh the positions being taken by subculture media. This means that for most of the people the access to the media they actually have is the access to the position of the bulk media. So in this case it doesn't really matter what the potential media access to these people is, because they will never reach the potential (nobody ever will).
Than another thing is the fact that the bulk media is always seen as more objective than subculture media. While they both, arguably, have huge bias. Now this is understandable; you'll have subculture media on every stupid idea around, while the bulk media at least adheres to some sort of journalistic standard. There are, however, good subculture media around, which are arguably better than the bulk media. But these are often very specialized media, reporting only on 1 issue.
Conclusively, media is biased and there is no way around this. By having a lot of different media sources you'll have all biases and you could arguably collect the least biased view. However, the bulk of the media are all relatively in the same category and appear to have the same bias. Meaning that this bias will not be resolved in the biggest proportion of society. In addition even if people search for sub-sources of media a lot of them will only be eluded by some shitty left or right wing conspiracy media site.
All in all; people are unable to estimate the objectivity of media and this goes for all people [only by looking back in time can people sometimes see whether media was objective of not]. The reason why people can't judge the media is because it does not reference their sources. One possible solution people are talking about is by creating new journalistic standards in which all information should have a source and be referenced to, in the same way this is done in scientific papers. Additionally the media can become peer reviewed and this can serve as its validation. Us normal people can then trust in the peer-reviewed process or look at their references and the other data and articles and form our own conclusions (if we have knowledge about the subject).
But right now we don't have such a media and so the best position you can take about the media is that [1] it is biased and [2] this is not the result of some crazy conspiracy.
I kinda made this up, I don't have a good word for it at the moment.
> I can't keep writing about for ever...
Sad but true. Once or twice, okay, we'll throw you a bone. But more than that, you must be obsessed, paranoid, or delusional -- aka one of those wacko nutjobs.
I'm curious if you, as a member of the press corps, have ever read Noam Chomsky's book "Manufacturing Consent" and what your perception might be as an industry insider.
Always loved the book How to lie with statistics,. Found it from Bill Gates top 10 must read list, loved it.
Complexity should give it a try!
(I don't think its Nahaz fault, COL playing terrible. I do hate the "stats dont lie" shit he does though.)
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
yes indeed
Read the Intelligent Investor https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1496868214&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+intelligent+investor
Then change you day trading ways.
Here's a short list of what I would consider the cream of the crop as far as fundamental analysis books for a beginner:
Beating the Street
One Up on Wall Street
F Wall Street
Financial Times Guide to Value Investing
Getting Started in Value Investing
And of course
The Intelligent Investor
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_3tMADbCN4D5Y0
The book focuses more on regular local small businesses and explains that if an owner is working IN the business (doing the work) instead of ON the business (improving the business) then the owner just owns a job and not a business. In order to truly have a business and a quality of life as an owner, all the day to day responsibilities need to be handled by employees so that the owner can focus on growing and improving the business. This isn’t realistic for some owners, which is why they only own a job and may never have a quality of life that makes owning a business “worth it”.
Read like your life depends on it. All topics. Grow yourself.
Also, a couple that I found useful around the concept of building a business (rather than being self employed):
Reading like a fiend will also help you in your job. You’ll become more effective in leading teams, leading yourself, influencing change across organizations. Your worth will climb whether you stay with the same company or move around or work for yourself.
It helps that I work in a very highly paid industry. I would not be able to save nearly as much as I do otherwise.
I cannot recommend this book enough:
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
Economics In One Lesson, by Henry Hazlitt is the primer that was recommended to me when I started (slowly) reading about economics. No doubt at greater levels of complexity his thesis starts to fray a bit, but the book is a clear introduction to the fundamentals.
Don't know specifics of what you're after, so I'll shotgun you with links:
Hopefully something was to your liking.
Note: An active /r/rational book-club would be awesome. Community analysis would help to improve our definition of rational fiction; as well as improving our rational reading skills.
If you think this is interesting, you should read [Thinking Fast and Slow] (https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555).
Disclaimer: I teach at a bootcamp in the midwest.
Here are some things I'm noticing:
I'm going to suggest a couple of things to try before you enroll in a boot camp.
From here, it's a matter of learning. You're never going to learn everything (there's too much out there), but you can definitely learn quite a bit.
If you've got a CS background, you should be able to pick up the basics of Ruby on Rails. Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial is pretty commonly cited; if you want to do web development, go through this tutorial twice. Maybe three times. Then start building projects on your own. Alternatively, Daniel Kehoe's Learn Ruby on Rails is also pretty commonly cited.
A good understanding of Rails, plus a solid foundation in HTML, CSS, and Javascript/jQuery will make you a reasonably compelling junior developer for a company that builds web applications. Doubly so if you can show off a few good personal projects. A good bootcamp (like the one where I teach) will give you a structured and guided opportunity to learn these skills. A terrible boot camp will also give you this opportunity, but you'll have to work a lot harder on figuring out how to make it all happen.
In addition to self-study and building projects, start attending meetups and actually talk to people.
If you do decide to start looking at different boot camps, here are some questions to ask:
Of course they can lie to you, or use weasel-words to obfuscate, or make stuff up, or.... Of course that's the case.
A good boot camp will give you lots of opportunities to practice AND will help you find your first job. We (where I work) do a lot of talking with recruiters and companies in our network, and we work really hard to make sure that our students get jobs that offer lots of opportunities for growth and development, and, when possible, that align with strengths and interests (there's not usually too big of a disjunct there). So far, we've had quite a bit of success in terms of our students finding employment, and even the companies that have been resistant to hiring students like our grads have started coming around (albeit slowly) as more and more companies hire our grads and have good experiences with them. But it'll be at least another year or two before our grads reliably get hired as junior devs in the bigger corporations (as their first or even second job) without first having a CS degree.
There are lots of different ways you can find success, and almost anything you do (quit your job and self-study, stay at your job and self-study, go to a boot camp, backpack around Europe, and so on) can be reasonably explained in an interview, especially if you can demonstrate that you are someone who is smart and gets things done.
Even your current job can be explained. Sure, your dev skills aren't what you want them to be, but you've got a ton of practice fixing code, which means you've got a huge list in your head of all the different mistakes you might make while writing code (which then means that you can, given adequate leeway, build systems that help you avoid or at least catch those mistakes). Don't discount that. It's important stuff that you learned, even if the way you learned it makes you feel really terrible.
Hope this helps.
Practice whiteboarding (solving technical problems on a whiteboard). Try to read Cracking the Coding interview . If you look online you might find a pdf version.
General tips for the interview:
To be clear, I don't work for HP but I do work for a large tech company and I'm on a hiring panel. Good luck!
Introduction to Algorithms is probably the best book if you want to go deep in algorithms eventually.
Cracking the coding interview book is also a great repository of "must-have" concepts for CS.
Cracking the coding interview for prepping interviews: https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
I went through the Google interview process not too long ago. Here's my recommendations:
Have you seen the SE Bible?
Psychology (studied, but never practiced)
Here are a selection of interesting books:
This video is a Google interview example so of course the problem is a bit contrived, but I think it is a decent illustration of the process he is referring to. The guy writes the code out in C++, but you could just as easily write in pseudocode.
Solving the problem by hand and writing a sketch of the algorithm builds intuition and makes the actual code much easier to write. People knock interview prep as being nothing like the job, but I find that it can do a lot to boost general problem solving. CTCI and leetcode are good resources. If you are brand new to programming Codingbat might be useful, but it is really just for the basics.
Build it, push it, evaluate the feedback, and iterate, iterate, iterate!
If you haven't already, read the Lean Startup. A huge mistake of many entrepreneurs (myself included), is that we get so excited to build our product and make it perfect, we don't stop to gather feedback on whether we should be making it at all.
Bounce your idea around for a while, push a very early, limited, or "rough draft" of your product/service (your MVP) to the market, and see how they respond. Then, you'll know if there's something there to pursue. Otherwise, you waste time and money building a product that nobody will pay you for.
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
This is a great book and will probably tie into a lot of psych ideas as well as marketing ideas. It basically goes over how we can predict that people will make "dumb" choices based on personal bias.
I think its a must read for most marketers, especially those interested in running their own tests or working in CPG companies.
You don't understand economics. If it's too expensive to use Chinese labor to make cheap goods, that means China is already too wealthy and developed to need to rely on low-value manufacturing in its own labor force.
In fact, moving such factories to India, SE Asia or West Africa would mean more money going to China, as Chinese companies invest in the developing economies the same way US companies and individual investors have gotten wealthy from Chinese development, production and consumption.
Other countries will change their laws to whatever China wants. They want to compete to attract all those factory and low-level service jobs that China is seeking to offshore.
Why Nations Fail
Yi Wen's illustrative essay on how China's economy developed so rapidly
You should read Lean Startup if you haven't already. Will probably be a life changer.
Read The Lean Startup it's all about doing a startup for next to no money. Here is a free copy
One of the basic premises they teach. Is to take your idea and make it as simple as possible. For example, if you want to make uber. Go out with a sign and stand next to a bar. Put up a sign that says "I will drive you home, so you don't have to drunk drive $20."
See how many people you get, then ask those people how to make your product better. Probably is a terrible example, but I hope you get the picture. Instead of spending 10,000+ on making an app. You can test your idea without spending any money. You also get the most important resource without spending any money. Feedback from your customers.
It sounds like you want to do this as a hobby instead of a business. If you are wanting to do this to play more games then you will end up playing less games if you run a good business and if you try to run it as a hobby it's not going to be able to support you and will end up being more of a "clubhouse" than a professionally run game store. My largest piece of advice is to read https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280 If you do read that and still want to open a store feel free to reach out to me and I'll be happy to answer any specific questions you have.
I compiled lists of interview questions from Glassdoor before my interviews and used Cracking the Coding Interview.
The interviews questions that I received were fairly varied. From what I can remember:
There are a lot more of these topics covered in Cracking the Coding interview.
My previous internships were for big non-tech companies. They weren't particularly interesting or impactful, but they were a line in my resume. Keep in mind that your resume is just to get an interview. Once you're in front of engineers, what you say and write in the interview are most important.
I can name you a book, Cracking the Coding Interview.
I started in the same boat as you, but I've been doing this for a few years now. Probably worse than someone who came up in a very structured environment.
Get a orchestration mgmt system setup, like salt, puppet, chef, etc.
Get monitoring set up if you haven't already. Central logging and automatic alerting, etc. If you have time, set up visualization for logs so you can see trends, using things like splunk or elk.
Make sure you have backups, and make sure you can actually restore from backups.
These are good, and written by someone with way more experience than me: 'The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition', 'Time Management for System Administrators'
I clicked here to suggest that book, but not surprised someone already has. It's the first comprehensive book about how to do the job of system administration.
Tom's Time Management for sysadmins book is another one I recommend.
It sounds like you have a problem organizing your projects. I'm going to recommend a book that I think will help you out. I saw it recommended in this subreddit a few weeks back, and it's really helped me.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Because despite huge growth in worker productivity, grow in worker wages has been stagnant. You can ignore technological and efficiency advances and blame it on overpopulation and a world facing peak oil and other peak resources (meaning less consumption would be available per person), but that hasn't stopped capital gains from going through the roof, so that doesn't make any sense.
No. The political and economic system we've tacitly settled upon is designed to concentrate wealth (which is what the phrase "the 1%" was supposed to allude to). What's happening is that everyone except the single richest person in the country is being screwed, everyone up to that just slightly less and less so the higher you go.
That's why your wage sucks.
> Is there anything in economic research about this?
Yes, lots. For example, Capital in the 21st Century, published in 2015, was a blockbuster work of economics.
> What are the grand dynamics that drive the accumulation and distribution of capital? Questions about the long-term evolution of inequality, the concentration of wealth, and the prospects for economic growth lie at the heart of political economy. But satisfactory answers have been hard to find for lack of adequate data and clear guiding theories. In Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty analyzes a unique collection of data from twenty countries, ranging as far back as the eighteenth century, to uncover key economic and social patterns. His findings will transform debate and set the agenda for the next generation of thought about wealth and inequality. Piketty shows that modern economic growth and the diffusion of knowledge have allowed us to avoid inequalities on the apocalyptic scale predicted by Karl Marx. But we have not modified the deep structures of capital and inequality as much as we thought in the optimistic decades following World War II. The main driver of inequality―the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth―today threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. But economic trends are not acts of God. Political action has curbed dangerous inequalities in the past, Piketty says, and may do so again. A work of extraordinary ambition, originality, and rigor, Capital in the Twenty-First Century reorients our understanding of economic history and confronts us with sobering lessons for today.
the books reccomended in the faq provide abundant info. Specifically,
"The millionaire next door" -- explains the importance of defensive spending and talks about how fiscal responsibility is passed to your kids depending on your money attitude.
"I will teach you to be rich" is a good general primer.
"The boglehead's guide to investing" introduces all the options out there and explains why investing in low-cost index funds is best for the long run.
edit: "I will teach you to be rich" is a more stimulating read, followed by millionaire, and last is boglehead.
edit 2: Millionaire is more "mindset" with not many practical advice except for its section on how financial responsibility is inherited onto kids
Against The God: the remarkable story of Risk- Outlines the history of probability theory and risk assessment through the centuries
https://www.amazon.com/Against-Gods-Remarkable-Story-Risk/dp/0471295639/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105434&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=against+the+gods
When Genius Failed - A narrative of the spectacular fall of Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund which had on its board both Myron Scholes AND Robert Merton (you will recall them from MFE)
https://www.amazon.com/When-Genius-Failed-Long-Term-Management/dp/0375758259/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105453&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=when+genius+failed
Black Swan/ Antifragility- A former quant discusses the nature of risk in these controversial and philosophical books. Some parts of this book are actually called out and shamed in McDonald's Derivative Markets, one or the both of them are worth reading
https://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness-Fragility/dp/081297381X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105478&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=black+swan
Godel, Escher, Bach- Very dense look into recursive patterns in mathematics and the arts. While not actuarial, it's obviously very mathematical, a must read.
https://www.amazon.com/G%C3%B6del-Escher-Bach-Eternal-Golden/dp/0465026567/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105497&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=geb
Endurance- This was recommended to me by a pure mathematics professor. Again, not actuarial, but more about the nature of perseverance though problem solving(sound familiar). It's about Shakleton's famous voyage to the south pole.
https://www.amazon.com/Endurance-Shackletons-Incredible-Alfred-Lansing/dp/0465062881/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475105520&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=endurance+shackleton%27s+incredible+voyage
The bible.
I like the bogleheads approach to investing:
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1301614963&amp;sr=8-1
Forums with specifics can be found here:
http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php
You might find this an interesting read.
_____
Also, I don't think the state or federal governments will care about 0.9% and 0.005% of homes, but if sea-level rise starts negatively affecting NAS Oceana or the Norfolk ship yards, they certainly will take notice.
On a related note, I also recommend Cracking the coding interview (Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984782850/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_Dr39ybRT8SJ94) as it is literally recommended by Google as study material for their interviews.
hi
get yourself a copy of this
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850/ref=dp_ob_title_bk?dpID=41J6k0AL6yL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=detail
have a look at this
https://www.pramp.com/#howitworks
watch a few mock interviews on youtube
attend meetups
join irishtechcommunity and have a look at the jobs section
Go read Cracking the Coding Interview. It covers pretty much everything they are likely to ask you and has a bunch of practice questions with solutions/rationale.
Some tips...
Make your own projects or code to build a portfolio. Upload the code to Github to build an online portfolio.
Here are some excellent books that may help as well:
Elements of Programming Interviews
Cracking the Code Interview
Programming Interviews Exposed
>Do you find that the standard system of technical interviews (data structures & algorithms) is an effective way of assessing candidates? Why or why not?
When I was an undergraduate, the dominant interview approach involved brainteasers like "why are manhole covers round?" Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Microsoft mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like How Would You Move Mount Fuji? and How to Ace the Brainteaser Interview.
Brainteasers were mostly phased out after Google introduced the current approach involving data structures and algorithms. Initially, these were reliable indicators of future success. But after every other company started copying Google mindlessly and asking the same set of questions, the approach quickly became less effective. People optimized for interview performance with books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews.
There are certainly parallels between what happened then and what's happening now. The difference today is that people have taken things to another level with platforms like Pramp and bootcamps like Interview Kickstart. New businesses keep popping up that focus on cracking the current system, and I don't think that bodes well for its future.
But what can we do about it? The fact is that any interviewing process can be cracked once its format becomes popular and standardized. Let's say that some major company like Facebook introduces a new standard that involves candidates giving two-hour presentations about significant personal projects and then answering tough questions from a committee. You may be familiar with this format if you've ever applied for a research position. I actually think this would be great for 2-3 years until everyone starts doing it and Gayle Laakmann McDowell or whoever publishes "Cracking the Personal Project Presentation." And then a bunch of new businesses will pop up to sell you slide templates, professional reviews, etc.
In short, I'm not a big fan of the current system (EDIT: because it's been "cracked") but I honestly don't know of a better one (EDIT: that won't suffer the same fate).
> I read that SWE internships typically have data structures/algorithms style interviews. Is this true?
Yeah, out of 3 offers only one of them had me do any interviewing that wasn't strictly DSA, and that was because they do banking.
>When's a good time in your OSU online degree progression for you to begin applying to internships?
Whenever you have time. It's July so you can probably catch the spring co-op cycle and definitely the summer internship cycle for most companies. All you need is enough data structures and algorithms knowledge to interview (anecdotally, I wrapped up all my interviewing while I was finishing 162 and discrete).
> How did you do it?
Ultimately optimize for time, try to study stuff that 80% of people will ask you, but look at specific questions companies ask when you get down to the interview stage.
> Most of the jobs out there are temporary or contract (short/long/C2H)
This sounds patently untrue. I'm certain that the vast majority of people in CS have full-time jobs rather than temp or contract.
> Recruiters won't even look at you if you don't have a knowledge in a specific stack (even for entry level)
Also untrue, especially for entry level, where good companies won't care what tech stacks you know.
> Recruiters don't even look at your resume, all they do is keyword search
Partially true. Resumes are often automatically filtered by how many buzzwords they contain. If you can use buzzwords without making your resume seem over the top, do it.
> I've been told that I shouldn't even apply for SDE jobs because I'm a "tester" and how I probably don't know of any CS fundamentals (because my degree is in CompE, not CS)
Bullshit. Any company worth working for - most companies - will not take that attitude. They might be skeptical, but they would never suggest you don't apply.
> Interviewers don't seem to have interest in interviewing
It doesn't matter; it's their job. And most interviewers are competent at interviewing, so nothing to worry about, regardless of how "interested" they are. (Though an "interested" interviewer, while rare, is a pleasure!)
> Companies have absurd hiring standards (they are all looking for a unicorn for 50-60k/yr pay, through contract)
Depends on the company.
> * Entry level jobs require years of PROFESSIONAL experience in a specific technology
Entirely false.
---
The current job market is fine, prosperous even. Craft a strong resume, post it in the resume advice thread, and send it out to companies. Apply to a bunch of companies, account for a 5-15% response rate (higher if you're more skilled).
Getting interviews will be the easy part; to pass them, you'll need to pass difficult algorithms questions. Books like Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews are essential reads; then go on a website like LeetCode and grind away at problems until you can solve easies in 20 minutes or less, mediums in 30 minutes or less, and hards in 60-120 minutes. I'd say a 3:9:1 ratio of easy:medium:hard would be a good ratio to go with, and do as many problems as possible until you're comfortable with where you are (for me, that was about 120 problems). The premium subscription is well worth it for problems tailored to certain companies.
Edit: spelling
If you want to just save/invest passively: https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
For most people (who really don't spend the time to understand companies), I'm totally in support of what I call the Ronco Rotisserie method of investing: Set it and forget it! Buy some low MER ETFs and forget about them.
If you want to invest more actively, I like Peter Lynch's books, classics like The Intelligent Investor. For ideas, I'll look to Morning Star, Valuline, Credit Suisse, etc.
I don't trust sources that generate revenues off of views and/or clicks (CNBC, blogs, etc.). Most visibly, you see the militantly bear cases for Uber/Lyft here or militantly bull cases (at least until recently) for Tesla, which I think is impacted by sources that are looking to generate buzz. Then you go read something like Aswath's blog, Morning Star, or Credit Suisse which has a much more balanced view on the company when compared to MSM.
I have found a great deal of use out of Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
A young person has spent his entire life having his needs provided for by his parents. So the only model he really knows is one where a benevolent authority figure takes care of people in need. Naturally he supports a strong welfare state.
As he grows older and becomes responsible for himself, he begins to understand that making good choices and working hard helps him do better in life, and helps him best provide for his family. So when the authorities take more and more of his earnings and give it to other people who he thinks are making bad choices and working less hard, he gets resentful. He wants the government to get stop interfering in his life. [Here I'm using a more classical understanding of conservatism, not the currently popular xenophobic, warfare-oriented understanding of conservatism.]
Also, in rare cases, as he gets older he'll learn enough economics to understand why welfare programs do more harm than good, and will advocate against them.
Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232
I recommend you start with Hazlitt's book.
Try to avoid the capitalism vs socialism dichotomy, that is not going to be majorly helpful.
The most obvious is that taxes that is reducing the incentive to make a profit, but there are a myriad of other reasons that reduce the incentive that the book elaborates on.
If you're new to econ, I would suggest either Basic Economics, as /u/snatchinyosigns suggested, or "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt.
http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=economics+in+one+lesson&amp;qid=1555251994&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
From there, you might want to get into some of the morality-focused books, if you want a short/easy one, I suggest "Anatomy of the State" by Murray Rothbard
https://mises.org/library/anatomy-state
If you want to learn about how an anarcho-capitalist society could work, I'd read Machinery of Freedom by David Friedman
http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf
https://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Freedom-Guide-Radical-Capitalism/dp/1507785607/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=machinery+of+freedom&amp;qid=1555252140&amp;s=gateway&amp;sr=8-1
Have you read Thinking Fast and Slow?
Cognitive psychology is where lots of decision-making stuff is housed, but if you start with cognition as a broad topic, it will take a while to get to decision-making.
mayne, investopedia puts ya off on da right foot, ma suggestion...read all da articles. den u can start readin da good shit lyke ma nigga buffets book. also dis nigga khan will teach ya a lot of gud shit. member ta read da wsj, bloomberg, ft, dealbook, marketwatch, ect. to know wuts goin on in da wild markets.
gud luck ma nigz, if ya need more pointers just let a nigga know
If you've got the time consider reading The Intelligent Investor.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=0060155477&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=1J2N6M1MFGN3E805691P
Predictably Irrational is a great book that covers this and a bunch of related bits of psychology.
> I don't own the Nexus Charger but I would be pretty pissed if I spent $40 on a Virtual Ticket for an exclusive mount and it's added to the store as a gold mount.
wat.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost%E2%80%93benefit_analysis
Mount was "priced" at $40. You valued the product at or higher than $40. The transaction was made. You were happy. The end.
If you have a problem with this concept, then you should consult a list of decision-making cognitive biases and consider where your problem lies, because your opinion (or buying thought process) is, by definition, irrational.
Further reading: https://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Decisions/dp/0061353248
you would absolutely love this book.
I really do need to read that. I recently read Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow which is largely based on Epstein's work on dual processing.
I just checked out Tom Stafford's For Argument's Sake: Evidence That Reason Can Change Minds
>Are we irrational creatures, swayed by emotion and entrenched biases? Modern psychology and neuroscience are often reported as showing that we can't overcome our prejudices and selfish motivations. Challenging this view, cognitive scientist Tom Stafford looks at the actual evidence. Re-analysing classic experiments on persuasion, as well as summarising more recent research into how arguments change minds, he shows why persuasion by reason alone can be a powerful force.This is a collection of previously published essays, revised and expanded by the author, and accompanied by a previously unpublished introduction and annotated bibliography to guide further reading on the topic.Tom Stafford is Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Sheffield.
I have my doubts, but we shall see.
Amazon.com links provided:
1 The Slight Edge
2 Mastery
3 The 4-Hour Workweek
4 The Art of Power
5 Thinking, Fast, and Slow
6 The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
7 The Power of Now
8 The Power of Habit
9 Whatcha Gonna Do with That Duck?
10 The 48 Laws of Power
11 Your True Home
12 Ego Is the Enemy
13 The 4 Hour Body
14 The UltraMind Solution
15 The Dip
Hi! Psych major + bookworm over here. Some well written and accessible books that I've enjoyed reading are:
Thinking Fast and Slow from Kahneman http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375192703&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=kahneman+thinking+fast+and+slow
Willpower: discovering the greatest human strength by Baumeister http://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Rediscovering-Greatest-Human-Strength/dp/0143122231/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375192853&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=willpower
And Outliers by Gladwell http://www.amazon.com/Outliers-Story-Success-Malcolm-Gladwell/dp/0316017930/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1375192928&amp;sr=1-2&amp;keywords=10000+hours
Baumeister and Kahneman are the leading figures on the research done within their particalur fields and these books show a glimpse inside of the kitchen, so to speak. (Iḿ not 100% sure about Gladwell, Iḿ on my phone atm). The books are well written, accessible, entertaining and fascinating.
I believe it is called "9-11".
I would also recommend these:
The Responsibility of Intellectuals
Manufacturing Consent (the book)
Manufacturing Consent (the documentary)
He has written like 100 books so there is a lot. Those are probably good starting points. There is an anthology book called "The Essential Chomsky" that is a nice collection too.
> Come da titolo, se siete esperti di economia ditemi un po' dove posso trovare una trattazione divulgativa della materia o un qualche corso online.
Dunque: IEA e' abbastanza tecnico e te lo sconsiglio, ma Undercover Economist e' divertente, e puo' valer la pena di leggerlo anche solo per intrattenimento; sulla stessa riga c'e' anche Freakonomics che pero' a me e' piaciuto molto meno.
Se poi ti viene la voglia, io inizierei con un po' di microeconomia, ci sono ottimi testi universitari che pero' costano un botto; pero' in genere si trovano usati a poco. Quello di Krugmann e' molto 'easy/pop' e con poca matematica (l'ho solo sbirciato, pero'); io ne avevo uno di Perloff e non mi sembrava male (ma parlo di un bel po' di anni fa; probabilmente c'e' qualcosa di piu' aggiornato).
Per i corsi online: una mia conoscenza ha seguito un corso su Coursera di un tipo indiano (non mi ricordo), ma era orripilante: un mio amico lo seguiva, mi ha chiesto di dargli una mano, ho provato a guardare uno dei video e non ho mai visto spiegazioni cosi' vaghe e confuse. Evitalo come la peste..
Credo che qualcosa di migliore sia su Khan Academy; vale la pena di guardare. (EDIT: ho guardato ed e' un po' stringato, ti servira' un supplemento. Krugmann, Perloff o qualunque altra cosa sia disponibile usata a prezzo ragionevole; evita le traduzioni italiane, pero').
Dopo aver guardato un po' di microeconomia, potrai decidere su cosa buttarti.
Se ti interessa la finanza e ti piacciono i romanzi, leggi Liar's poker, che mi e' sembrato spettacolare. E se a questo punto ti prende l'idea di capire cosa sono mai questi misteriosi bond e derivati, c'e' un ottimo e chiarissimo (ma un po' pesante) libro di finanza di Ivo Welch disponibile online; richiede un po' di matematica ma e' chiarissimo.
Ah, visto che ora va di moda la 'behavioral economy', puoi anche leggere qualunque cosa di Dan Ariely (tipo Predictably Irrational), ed e' sempre divertentissimo (e ha fatto pure lui un corso su Coursera con cui mi sono diverito un sacco). Ma se ti interessano poi gli aspetti seri, leggi lo spettacolare Thinking fast and slow di Kahneman (premio nobel, a ragione).
How To Lie With Statistics
It's because we live in a democratic society, where unfortunately, the same people who believe all pit bulls are vicious dogs, a blink away from ripping your throat off, are the same ones who will vote to one day ban pit bulls based on false evidence. Furthermore, you should never, ever make conclusions based on bad data. That just seems like common sense to me.
In the past year, pressure cookers have been the single greatest direct terrorist threat to Boston. This is a true statement. It is also useless data. Making any judgements based around it is a waste of time, and really boggles the minds of people who actually know it's useless data.
Remember, statistics can be manipulated to show anything you want. A great book that my stats teacher had us all read: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I wish I could say I was surprised at the level of stupidity. You realize stock is ownership of public companies that......provide economic value? I don't even want to bother correcting everything else you said. Rather, here's a link to an entry economics book that might help you begin to understand the topic. https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1536700354&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=basic+economics&amp;dpID=41MDRqLIVoL&amp;preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&amp;dpSrc=srch
Me too! For a little motivation, check out Mr. Money Mustache and Early Retirement Extreme. For some really good information, check out Get Rich Slowly and The Simple Dollar - both have extensive archives on frugality, saving, investing, and debt repayment. I read all of those every day.
Here are some basics:
ERE and MMM both are into frugal lifestyles combined with established passive income streams from real estate and investment earnings. That seems like the way to go, especially given the low prices for real estate and the increase in renting.
I would also start reading on these topics. For an eye-opening motivational read, try The Millionaire Next Door - I recommend that to everyone regarless of their personal finance goals. For starters in investing, The Boglehead's Guide to Investing is great, and a lot of the information can be found free at the wiki. GRS has a great post from a while ago on the 25 Best Books About Money.
You don't need to set up as a limited company, but it will look more professional, and it will increase your accounting costs.
Being is sole trader is very simple from an accounting/tax point of view, being limited means you need to properly record everything, and you need to pay yourself a wage each month. There's other considerations which an accountant will talk you through. You'll also need him/her to submit your accountants each year for a cost of circa £400
There are tax and other benefits to being a limited company, but it really depends on your turnover/situation. If you're not selling goods, investing a lot or employing people then the tax benefits are negligible imo.
If you decide to be a sole trader, by law you have to write YOUR NAME Trading As YOUR COMPANY NAME somewhere on your invoices.
A decent accountant will walk you through the up and downsides and it's up to you really. You might ask yourself will your target audience be prefer to (or maybe only allowed to) buy from a registered company, or are they OK with a sole trader.
This is me speaking as a sole trader for the last 4 year, if any accountants respond they might see this differently.
Beyond that, you can make yourself look more professional by using a virtual office in a proper address. These start from about £30 pm for just the address and go up in cost if you add more services like mail forwarding, meeting space or even a telephone receptionist. Most of these business centre type places have upgrade paths so if things go well you could upgrade to a shared space or even a dedicated one.
If you're operating near a bigish city try to get a virtual office with an address with a central postcode, this will help you show up in Google Map results better.
You can also get VOIP numbers that travel with you wherever you're working so you can move office addreses if needed. I use a Skype Landline number which only costs £20 odd a year and means I can keep my number wherever I'm based, have an area code for the area I want to do business, it rings through on my PC, and (if the Gods are smiling) rings through on phone app as well.
If you don't have someone to turn to for logos/business cards drop me a PM and I can recommend a very good/value graphic designer. I can point you in the direction of more featured VOIP. And -whilst you probably don't need this- I make small business websites. Feel free to ignore this pargraph because I'm not trying to push anything on you, you'll soon discover that when you run a small business -initially at least- there's a lot more people interested in selling to you than buying from you.
I'd strongly consider looking into local business network meetings. Some are paid for and some are free.What they deliver varies wildly. If you want more in this just ask.
I'd also consider having a read of this.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1465382377&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+e+myth
And have a glance over here. There's not much of a UK business community on Reddit.
http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/
Good luck, anything else just ask.
Read this book:
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_JMjdBbQQQEE10
The sooner you go from the employee to the business owner the sooner you'll start building a company and huge wealth.
I've always found E-Myth and How To Make Your Business Run Without You to be good resources for documenting processes. If there was software to walk you through the process it would be even better.
It's never "too late" for smaller startups. Keep applying! Even if you get the offer halfway through the summer, it might still be worth it for the company to take you on for the rest of the summer.
Find smaller companies on http://angel.co and https://www.whitetruffle.com/.
What specifically is going wrong with your applications so far? You say you've gotten some phone screens--are you generally having trouble getting to the phone screen, or generally having trouble getting past the phone screen?
If you're having trouble getting past phone screens, there are a bunch of resources for brushing getting better at technical interviews:
If you're having trouble getting the interviews, your resume might just need some dressing up. Having more projects is a great idea, as you mentioned, but you also might be able to spin some stuff you've already done to fill that need better in the meantime. Post it and we can help!
Going through jobmine, there are exactly two parts to getting a job:
You get the interview by having a good resume, and knowing how to talk to recruiters.
You get the offer if you appear technical. Socially fitting together with your interviewer is invaluable. You want to feel like a coworker.
>Obviously the fee wasn't large enough to create a sufficient incentive for many parents to pick up their children on time, but introducing it gave parents the impression that the fee made it okay.
I think that's the point. Or at least, that was the point in Predictably Irrational, the first time this example was given in a pop-econ book (to my knowledge).
In theory, any fee should increase the incentive. In practice, the small fee offset the social pressure that they felt to pick up their children on time.
>This isn't evidence that incentives don't work; it's evidence that badly-designed incentive schemes don't work.
It's evidence that not all incentives work. Introducing a tiny fee was a tiny incentive, and it didn't work.
This has been a big subject of academic debate. But the most popular theory among economists (but not necessarily other social sciences) is that it had a lot to do with the kinds of governments that colonists set up; which in turn had a lot to do with native geography and, in particular, disease environments. I did some of my postgrad on this.
In short - if your initial settlers survived, you set up a colony your people could go live in, and you set up government and institutions based on yours back home. They weren't democracies as we know them know, but they had property rights and rule of law.
If your initial settlers didn't, you extracted what you could from the people and the land and stayed as remote from them as you could. The government and institutions you set up were then effectively corrupt and exploitative to begin with.
The theory goes that institutions like that don't change quickly (revolutions can change them, but not always for the better), so countries that started at a disadvantage with the colonisation ended up at a disadvantage.
The most common example is the British Empire in ie Canada or NZ versus sub Saharan Africa.
If you're interested in further reading this was the original seminal research even if it does get a bit technical in parts (https://economics.mit.edu/files/4123). There's also a related book by he same principal author which is more recent (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227)
There are very few examples for countries that managed to build a well working state from nothing within a very short period of time. Most of the nations that are wealthy and not corrupt today went through a development that took them decades, or even centuries: The UK, France, Benelux, German states and Scandinavians all started developing public education and efficient administration in the late 18th or early 19th century, which is one of the reasons they all pretty much exploded in strength during the 19th century, while Italy, Spain, Easter Europe and Turkey stagnated and stayed as corrupt as they've always been. Japan is a rare exception, they joined the club in the late 19th century and went from irrelevant to first rate power in just 30 years, as is Austria, which was the only part of the Austro-Hungarian empire that did fairly well after its demise.
It's not a coincidence that Germany, Austria and Japan fared so well after the second world war. They lost everything of material value, but they didn't lose the people that are most valuable to a modern nation: Diligent officials, teachers, professors and industrialists.
Meanwhile Italy was - and is - still corrupt and unstable as always. The destruction the war brought with it did not help them become something better, on the contrary: one of the major benefactors of the downfall of the fascist regime was organized crime.
If you're interested in reading about what helped the nations that are well of today become that way, and why nations that were historically poor have such a hard time achieving the same, I highly recommend the book "why nations fail"
Felicitaciones, cuida mucho la plata y retirate jóven que la vida es para vivirla!
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/02/22/getting-rich-from-zero-to-hero-in-one-blog-post/
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-behind-early-retirement/
https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1486170196&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing
Start by buying yourself a copy of the Boglehead Guide to Investing. It will be the best $20 expense you'll ever have in investing. Beyond that, we don't know much about you or what your investing goals are.
It really depends which kind of saver/investor you are.
My recommendation is to start from with the bogleheads wiki:
and then read their book:
you will find the majority of relevant info there. you can worry about the specifics later.
This is what I tell all beginning investors, also being told this myself as a beginner, but before you find any sort of apps to trade on or taking stock recommendations, you need to figure out what kind of investor you are and develop an investing technique that fits you. What kinds of stock you invest in are mainly determined by how long you want to wait before selling the stock and how urgently you need the money.
Most investors are typically classified as either Defensive or Speculative. Defensive investors are ones who buy stocks in companies that have a long history of slow growth, and are not likely to make big gains quick. These kinds or stocks are the kinds people would invest in for their retirement or educational plans and are either classified as Defensive stocks (slow steady growth) or Income Stocks (stocks that pay out high dividends above the national inflation rate).Stocks like these would belong to companies that sell products that are classified as Essentials such as food, water, or energy.
Speculative investors invest in stocks that they believe are going to grow quick, and are willing to take on major risk in order to potentially see those large gains. These kinds of stocks are classified as Speculative (high growth and risk), Growth Stock (small or start up companies with high risk), or Cyclical (performance fluctuates with the economy in major losses or gains). These kinds of stocks would belong to companies that sell luxury products that may not sell well if demand is not high enough.
What you need to know is what kind of investor you are, and what kinds of returns you want, and how quickly you want them. Once you know that, you can find the right stocks for you. But now is the best time for people like you to be learning about investing, gaining experience, and investing in companies.
Once you know how quickly you want returns, and how much risk you want to take, you can begin to develop an investing technique that suits your comfort zone. This will ensure that you don't get ahead of yourself, and lose all your money in blind foolishness.
If you want an app to practice investing before you do the real thing, Investopedia.com has a great simulator that lets you invest fake money and get accurate feedback of the market. The website also has a wealth of information about every subject you could learn about in regards to the stock market and trading.
Yahoo Finance is one of the best websites I've found for easily accessing the data you need on each stock and getting the best feedback of the current state of the market. You can also easily find stocks with the Yahoo Stock Screener.
If you want a book recomendation, The Intelligent Investor is considered an essential read for anyone who wants to have success, large or small, within the trading market. Warren Buffet, the most successful stock trader in history, said that it is "By far the best book on investing ever written." Here's the amazon page to buy it.
I read the following, in roughly this order:
The old adage goes "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he's got food for life" or something along those lines.
Therefore, instead of answering your Reddit post, I will refer you to the Bible of Investing, "The Intelligent Investor".
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) (Collins Business Essentials) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060555661/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_ESjbzbJMA1ZR0
Don't be a sucker who plays the market. It's on a tear right now and everyone is overly optimistic. Place it in a vanguard etf or a robo advisor like betterment or wealthfront. Take the emotion out of your investing and enjoy the 4-7% growth over the next ten years.
Whatever I need to stay relevant or updated. At this time I'm taking VMware cert courses from Stanly college, just to stay ahead on my own time. If you're just starting out, take Network+ to understand that realm, but there are a lot of routes you can go in. I always carry around these books though:
The Practice of Network and System Administration
Time Management for System Administrators
I agree with what others have said and I also have a book recommendation, "Time Management for System Administrators". There's lots of good ideas and suggestions in it.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Buy this book: http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Seriously, one of the best reads ever and exceedingly helpful.
<3 this book.
Limoncelli's other book, "Time Management for System Administrators," is also heavy on common sense but is absolutely worth a read.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Grab a copy of Time Management for system Administrators and actually read it. It took me months to make the time to read it but it is worthwhile. To start with you get instant confirmation that you are not the only person in your situation and that there is hope to improve the situation.
If management will not let you have a second person talk to them about hosted email. That would remove a chunk of the "stuff" you have to manage. Do a three and five year ROI on it just to make sure, but you are likely to come out ahead after you factor in DR, licensing, and time. Use the old Exchange install and what it took to upgrade as examples.
Even with an open floor plan you need a ticketing system and you need to believe in the system. If people complain tell them the ticketing system is so that "I can better do my job helping you."
The personal PC crap has to end. You open yourself and the company up to liability working on personal hardware.
For your bosses, have a sit-down chat about their "lottery bus" plan. That is what if you a) get hit by a bus on the way home, or b) win the lottery on the way home. For the company it doesn't matter because you're not going to be in to work the next day.
Thomas Piketty's book is what you're looking for then. It explains everything you're asking for and then some in a very readable way.
A better financial history type book is the Reinhart & Rogoff one.
As long as you are building a list, let me share my to-read list after I finish reading my current book:
You should also read Piketty's book and Bernanke's book but I didn't list them since I have read them and assume you have read them too.
I tend to only read and alternate between history and econ books for my pop/non-academic reading. I've only listed the pop-econ books since I assume that's what you are after.
Has anyone else read any of the books on my list? Are some terrible? If so let me know so I can avoid them.
Re: "good points" - as you surely know, the basic argument the Occupiers made has been quite clearly confirmed.
Re: "had to be reckoned with" - - just one example - - if Occupy hadn't established the one-percent-are-fucking-you narrative so firmly, Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comments would probably not have been seen so clearly as a one-percenter's hooey.
And an aside: last time we had an exchange, we were about eight comments in when you said something along the lines of, "keep typing, I don't even read your stupid shit cuz you're so wrong and dumb and I'm so right and smart haw haw." If that's still your way, let me know now - - I like a conversation, myself.
> The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
(Wiki)
From the decent book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X
This was from a chapter in the original Freakonomics book.
Thanks! I am looking at software engineering positions right now, and I agree that the market is very hot right now. The last time I looked for a job in earnest was around 2011, and it was depressingly hard to get a foot in the door.
Since others in the field might read this, I recommend getting "Cracking the Coding Interview" to prepare. I felt much more confident after reading this book. The author does an excellent job of explaining what interviewers are looking for and there's a lot of material to use for practice.
You're GPA is great so you don't need to worry about that, IMO I'd list it on your resume.
I would recommend the following:
While concurrently (har har) reading the book, any data structures you don't know, learn. Program them and test that they work.
Further, check out CSC263 materials and see if you can implement the data structures. You should also at the end of CtCI be able to attempt some of the assignments from CSC263 and complete them.
Also try coding problems on hackerrank or leetcode or w/e the sites are called -- note they can be demoralizing on hard but it's worth it and you learn a lot
Pick a language and learn it well, again if you do Java, then know how garbage collection works and other core language features (ex: If I ask you what a GC root is, do you know? [ask yourself this in 4 months] Can you compile from the command line? Do you know what Maven is and how to use it? Can you use lambdas and the new stream API? What is type erasure? etc)
C++ is great at removing your hair, but you'll learn a lot... and if you ever have to work on a C++ project you won't want to kill yourself when you accidentally do object slicing or something funny like this.
Obviously put your work on github or somewhere, though I think you know that this is implied
As you can see, attempting the above will directly benefit the following courses:
Sounds good doesn't it? Though this is probably only possible if you are doing literally nothing over the summer ;)
In my opinion, his most important work is his propoganda model and writings on the mass media.
Manufacturing Consent
I hope you're sincerely interested, because I am going to answer like you are :)
Each bracket has no relation to the next one. Drawing a line implies that there is a functional relationship between family income and SAT score. There IS a trend, but this is not the proper way to imply a trend. This implies something else at hand, like an equation or something.
I know I am not phrasing this well.
But even a bar graph would make the data look better.
Another thing to note: look at the axes! The y-axis starts at 400 and ends at 600. The altered axis makes the data seem more extreme. 200 points difference IS a large difference in SAT scores, but the way they represented it made it seem even larger.
If you are genuinely interested, there is an amazing book called "How to Lie With Statistics", which you can buy on Amazon that teaches you about all the naughty things that people do to manipulate their graphs to look better! Or you can download this powerpoint which goes over how to display data badly, haha!
The way /r/GoodMerlinpeen/ has presented this statistics is taken out of an example from this book
Its the process that numbers were calculated with that you should also be concerned with. Mailing address isnt a good proxy for 'foreign' as many commenters are pointing out.
I could do a bull shit study on shit data and feed you some numbers, but hopefully you would be sceptical about it!
Also check out this book How to Lie with Statistics for a decent explanation.
Ich habe jedes dieser Bücher gelesen und kann es empfehlen. Ich würde jedes davon wieder kaufen und wieder lesen.
this this this this this.
Scrum is not for you in this situation, /u/alookaday
Lean Startup is what you need. by Eric Ries.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman.
It is an amazing book and I have recommended it to almost everyone I know. It is really thoroughly researched.
from wikipedia:
>Thinking, Fast and Slow is a 2011 book by Nobel Memorial Prize winner in Economics Daniel Kahneman which summarizes research that he conducted over decades, often in collaboration with Amos Tversky. It covers all three phases of his career: his early days working on cognitive bias, his work on prospect theory, and his later work on happiness.
>The book's central thesis is a dichotomy between two modes of thought: "System 1" is fast, instinctive and emotional; "System 2" is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The book delineates cognitive biases associated with each type of thinking, starting with Kahneman's own research on loss aversion. From framing choices to substitution, the book highlights several decades of academic research to suggest that people place too much confidence in human judgment.
Information which threatens your core beliefs is perceived by the brain very similar to a physical threat. A visual introduction to confirmation bias and the backfire effect (5-10 min to read):
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
A big reason for the current situation is the media landscape. People often are not even in the position to ignore expert opinion because it does not penetrate their media bubble.
We even ignore expertise of ideological allies when inconvenient. Like how Republicans portray an overly simplistic picture of how markets work. How often do you hear "negative externalities", "information asymmetry", "market failure", "monopoly" or "oligopoly"? Markets are great, but not magical.
Healthcare as an example (30 min to read, a little technical): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3210041/
A great book about how our reasoning skills are more limited than we might think: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
>no one tried to tell my that my thinking is wrong
It's a difficult task, because the way our brains work makes personal experience supersede external information that contradict it, even when scientifically, objectively, our experience is... not "wrong" per se, but so incomplete that it veers into "wrong" teritory. I teach people how to get along with people, which is mainly applied psichology and neurology (specifically social neurology), so I come against this feature (it's not a bug, it's a feature) every time. For reference: Daniel Kahnemann's work. For reference: Chris Niebauer's book.
Your brain dupes you (it meakes you wrong, giving you the impression you're right) in several key areas relevant to our discussion here:
In your case, in order to examine what biases are in play and what is their result, I'd start questioning the hidden meaning of your use of notions like "chad", "betabux" and such. It speaks to overgeneralization (with a heavy serving of dehumanization) and confirmation bias.
Humans are unique. There are, of course, trends (sociology doesn't exist for nothing) but so far no human being looks and act exactly like another human being always and in all aspects; more, humans change over time: experience, opinions, world views and behavior shift as time passes. That would be the first step I'd take if I were you: stop working with archetypes and start looking for tiny differences. The world will get extremely rich if you do that.
TL;DR: you're wrong, but your brains won't let you see that and you have to voluntarily challenge it to improve your life quality.
Edited to add: and I didn't even touch the issue of cultural and social norms and conditioning, learned helplesness and many other phenomena that interfere and change all the stuff above.
>Man, this subreddit always makes me feel like garbage.
Don't sweat it. Just by reading this and caring you're ahead of most people. The subreddit will self-select for people who have the time and money to invest.
> 401k up to employer match
> Max out Roth IRA
>* Max out 401k
Even if you only get partially through the second step, you're still doing well. The money you invest now will be worth much much more after growing for a couple decades. The habits you develop now on good saving will be even more valuable. :-)
>That's it. I don't really know the difference between stocks and bonds and I have no idea what any of these acronyms are, but I guess that's why I'm here: to learn.
Here are some good books to learn from-- go check your local library for them or even an earlier version:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062006487/
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470067365/
http://www.amazon.com/Number-Quarterly-Earnings-Corrupted-Corporate/dp/0812966252
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
Both are amazing.
"Knowing what I do now, if at age 21 I'd had my choice of $2,000,000 or the wisdom to understand the concepts in this book, I'd choose wisdom. "
A government agency isn't a part of the free market. The hypothetical free market solution would be having multiple completing licensing agencies (like you have with some goods like plastics/oils) that other companies require to work with them (at the community level or otherwise) and if any of them were to openly violate trust they would be thrown out and one of the other companies would be preferred. Would require very different infrastructure but that's not surprising as you'd have to be a bit confused to call the current system a free market.
It's also not mythical it's a pretty clearly explained and defined thing. Here is a good intro book.
https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/
Mutual funds are probably your best bet for getting started. Super simple, instant diversification; just set it (monthly contributions), forget it, and let compound interest work. Check out this book: The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.
If you'd like to do something more active, there's nothing wrong with that, it's just very hard to beat the market. Most professionals can't even do it consistently.
>BTW.. in the history of the world it is mostly innovations that are putting people out of work. Not putting people TO work.
Might I suggest this book before you go lecturing about things you have no idea about?
Yes, let us abandon the use of automobiles in order to return to the glory days of the booming horse and buggy industry where it took about ten people at most to put together a vehicle..
Or why don't we stop using cell phones? I'm sure the laid off land-line techs will appreciate this, but what of the many thousands of app developers, accessory manufacturers, researchers, and wireless infrastructure engineers that exist as a result of this advancement?
My first thought was Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson, but Basic Economics works just as well
If you're looking for something more concise (as an intro to economic thought), Economics in One Lesson is a go-to resource. (Also avail. for BTC. :D)
They have a solution for that, too.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Time Management for System Administrators
>I believe I understand the science behind procrastination, but I just can't seem to apply any methods to my life.
Do you have a ticketing system? No. Then, roll a ticketing system with email pickup. OTRS or RT.
If yes, immediately put in place a SOP(standard operating procedure) company wide, that all requests with the exception if critical ops are down, that all requests go through the ticketing system. Back that up with action. With no action, unless it comes through the ticketing system.
>I am the only IT guy at a 80+ user company (which is pretty lax most of the time). Because our ERP software is terrible (Which I didn't choose and constantly argue to get rid of)
You accepted the position and all its responsibilities. Stop trying to change what is and accept that yes you have a POS ERP solution. You're fighting the wrong way. You should be asking yourself how can I make this ERP work for me, instead of fighting to get rid of it.
>I spend most of my time at work generating SQL queries for basic user requests such as order statistics and the like. It turned me into a IT zombie where I procrastinate on all my IT projects unless it's directly in my face.
Can you not automate these procedures? Perhaps scripts users can execute on their own to for order statistics and the like?
> Before I started 4 years ago, I was always reading IT books and going to college and was enjoying learning and experimenting. Now, I almost feel afraid to read about new things or refresh my knowledge because I know I've been out of touch for so long.
You are spending too much trying to figure out the same things day in and day out. You need to start using a ticketing system religiously and start documenting everything. Everything.
> This gives me constant anxiety even while at home, knowing that there are a lot of things I need to work on but haven't in months, such as fully setting up vCenter/vMotion, Configuring the PS SAN array properly, etc. Whenever I try to work on a project, I feel it requires so many prerequisites, let it be knowledge/reading manuals or running out of network ports on a switch, that I'm in a constant juggle of accomplishing nothing.
As munky9001 said you need to let go of work when you leave work. With the policy and ticketing system in place. You can then only respond to operation crit emergencies. Then, when you get in the next day all your open tickets will be in your face to remind you what to do.
> I'm wondering if anyone out there has experienced a sense of losing flow and confidence as a sysadmin and what they did to get back in the game?
Every sysadmin has. You aren't growing enough and just dealing with the same bs. You need to prioritize, organize and document.
The way I attack my ticketing queue:
I also recommend reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
http://www.amazon.com/Practice-System-Network-Administration-Second/dp/0321492668/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1344483754&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=the+practice+of+system+and+network+administration
A short version of both, at least read this.
http://everythingsysadmin.com/the-test.html
THIS. So much. I bought this https://www.amazon.de/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833 and its really helpfull imho, but you should do it.
I have to keep it up. Thanks for reminding me :)
Read this book, and you'll know.
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
The answer is so obviously yes that this seems a pretty trivial criticism.
Further increases in population allow for increase economies of scale, which allow for increased specialization and therefore increased wealth. Adam Smith's parable of the pin makers doesn't work if there's not enough people who are pin makers.
If you'd like just one specific noteworthy example, I would point to Piketty's criticism that population stagnation is the major cause of income inequality.
Another good random article on this topic:
http://primacyofreason.blogspot.com/2012/01/economic-benefits-of-large-growing.html
I mean, there's lot to debate on this subject. But to merely be able to even "think" of "any problem" is a pretty low bar, that's very easy.
No problem, glad you enjoyed it.
If you are interested in game design, read The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schnell. At least skim it. It's great and gets deep into the emotion and psychology of game design.
For business stuff, I got a lot of input from the classic E-Myth Revisited. I won't say it didn't get boring, but the actual point of it (systematize EVERYTHING) is a really important concept to learn. That changed the way I do things and now we have systems for everything in the company.
Read Crossing the Chasm when you start getting traction. It's a very important book that answered a lot of questions for me.
Right now I'm reading Behind the Cloud by Benioff, and man, this book is also great. I had no clue they used a lot of fairly controversial tactics to get press and traction. It's a good read.
The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
This just scratches the surface. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot.. it will take time. CONSTANTLY evaluate and look for things that can be improved.
Source: Started a few businesses, the current one being a filmmaking one.
I've read most of Kiyosaki's books and listened to the audio versions of him and after initially being swoon by him and the enthusiasm he drummed up in me by appealing to emotion, I later came to the conclusion he is a hack. He and Tony Robins has a similar style.
Gary Vaynerchuck is a decent alternative, though he does the same thing as Robert, but at least gives you something to work with.
E-myth was one of my favorite books to read about entrepreneurship mainly because it helps you realize what you're going to get into by working on your own thing. I can't recommend E-Myth Remastery though because it's very much a rehash of the original.
Grass is always greener... where there's shit all over the ground...
If beer making is a cathartic hobby to your well-paying day job, think long and hard as your hobby you enjoyed is now mandatory work that you must upkeep on a schedule, and you might need to have a significant bankroll when time get tough. Also, take a reasonable estimate of cost and double them, same with time to complete.
I also suggest reading the "E-Myth Revisited" which talks about how having the technical knowledge is not the same as having the business acumen to run a business. With "technical passion" being a notable driver for you, read this book as it makes distinctions between working on your business and working in your business. If you are leading the company, you
wontshouldnt be making the beer...Your location, your knowledge base, financial backing, prior experience in dealing with the management of resources (people, product inventory, logistics) will all play a huge part in your ability to pull it off. A SOLID marketing plan is critical as there are lots of new breweries popping up EVERYWHERE, and distinguishing yourself during your infancy is getting harder and harder to do. Not all will succeed.... cash flow is PARAMOUNT.
Anyway, good luck in your endeavors. I still wonder if this was the right choice for me.. hours are long and compensation low (but I have substantial equity!) but people like the product so I have that going for me.
I can only recommend bootcamps for 2 types of people:
But for the rest, I think you're better served biting the bullet and going back to school for an actual diploma or degree program.
For what a bootcamp provides, I think it's really expensive ($8600-9000 over 2-3 months). Ironically, the appeal of a bootcamp is also the main flaw of a bootcamp: time. For people who have no tech background (which is the main target demographic of bootcamps), you're essentially cramming all these tech concepts, languages and frameworks in 2-3 months. Are you going to retain all of this information 6 months later?
When you graduate from a bootcamp, you're competing with CS graduates, diploma students who had years to hone their skills. Give yourself an honest assessment and ask how you'll do against them?
I highly recommend going through a book called: Cracking the Coding Interview
These are the type of questions that the top companies will ask. Good luck with your pursuit!
Code Complete
Big Java Late Objects
The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master
The Mythical Man-Month
Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide
cracking the coding Interview
Introduction to Algorithms
Thinking in C++
I would recommend brushing over some basic CS concepts first. Since you've been out of school for a few years now, it might be a good time to start working on little side projects and/or programming exercises if software engineering is what you want to get into.
You can also check out this book, which will help you prepare for a programming/tech interview.
What type of job are you looking to get? Are you interested in software support? development? IT? Your preparation will depend on what route you want to go down.
Yes! Also, quite honestly I don't know that many CS majors who took linear algebra at my school for whatever reason.
Where do you get started?
Bonus for programming:
Maintainable kinda means that your code is easy to test, easy to comprehend (by others) and easy to modify. Read up on different design patterns to learn more about this.
Scalable is something you'll learn more about later, but basically it's kind of thinking about whether your code will be "good" enough to handle a lot of users (how fast is it how much memory will it take up)
Testing is very important when coding. You want to try to write small pieces of code then test it (i.e.: make sure it works).
All three of these things show up a lot in interviews, and if you can relate why you made your code the way you did to one of these three points (or something else) you should be pretty well off :D
How do I land an interview?
How do I study for an Interview?
Typcially, an interview will have you and the interviewer. The interviewer will first ask questions about you, what you're majoring in. And then maybe ask questions about your previous projects, and then he'll throw you a programming problem. Sometimes these can just be questions like "Which is faster: quicksort or mergsort?" or something like that, but other times they'll have you code something. If the interview is online, this will either mean you'll need to tell them the code you're writing or you'll code online on some collabarative envirionment (i.e.: you type the code online). If it's in-person they may have you write on a whiteboard. There are other formats of interviews as well, so make sure to research. Typically, for most larger companies, they won't care what language you code in (hopefully though it's mainstream!), but if you don't code in a language which they use, they may test you later for proficiency in one of their languages.
Sorry, not sure if this helps or not!
Good luck!
Read this
It will help you pass the interview process.
But before that you need to have a strong resume to attract recruiters.
Build a personal project. Participate in algorithm contests(acm).
I once hosted a talent show. I had to announce a winner. I was handed three index cards with the names of the winners. I didn't screw it up, but I felt like I was about to. Here is a quick recap of some of the stuff I thought about in that moment:
I was onstage in front of hundreds of people. I had to come up with witty things to say off the cuff. I had to remember to stand in the light. I had to remember to hold the microphone at the right distance (too close causes interference, too far means no one can hear me.) I had to look out at an audience of people judge everything I did. I had to worry about whether a joke was going to land or not. I had to think about my delivery. I had to make sure I didn't say the names in the wrong order. I had to make sure I didn't drop the cards on the floor. I had to come up with something to do when the winners were walking up to the stage to collect the prize I was about to hand them. I had to make sure I didn't spend too much time staring at the cards (have you ever had shared an awkward silence with someone? Every second feels like an hour. This experience is like that on steroids.) I had to make sure I pronounced the names correctly.
All of this stuff flashed in my brain in the five seconds when I got the card and read the first name. I'm the kind of person who has to read and reread my emails three times before I send them to make sure I don't have any mistakes. Heck, I read and reread my Reddit posts multiple times before I post them. On stage in front of a large crowd, you don't have time to do any of that. You just get something in your head, and go with it.
If I had to read that card the same way that Steve Harvey did, I would likely have made the same mistake too. That card is a nightmare. It is the opposite of good design. It seems slightly confusing, but still clear when you are sitting at home without anyone judging or waiting for you, but under those lights everything moves at light speed. In a high stress situation, people use different reasoning. They rely on simple heuristics instead of clear logic. Fire exits are red and glow for a reason. Pilots have extensive training and labeled emergency buttons for a reason. When people are under pressure to make quick decisions, they think differently. Check out the book Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's written by a Nobel prize winner, and it really captures exactly why a pilot, surgeon, or live tv host could make such a seemingly stupid mistake. Unfortunately for that event, they didn't have anyone as competent as a pilot or surgeon. They had Steve Harvey, arguably the stupidest person I can think of.
Overall, having been in a similar situation, I think it's completely understandable that Steve Harvey screwed it up. Any jackass can be a Monday morning quarterback. But unless you've felt that kind of pressure before, I don't think it's a fair criticism.
Has anyone read his book? http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=la_B001ILFNQG_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1369672712&amp;sr=1-1
Thinking about picking it up and wondering if anyone liked it.
You are not alone in feeling this way. The way I think of it is I feel like I have the wrong kind of interpersonal Velcro for most people, so they just don’t stick like I perceive most other people stick to each other. It’s understandable for this to make one feel defective, and very alone.
I try to twist it and think of it as an advantage, I think the upside to this means that you can be capable of tremendous self-sufficiency. Invest in you. Take care of yourself even when you want more than anything for someone else to take care of you.
I’m also prone to beating myself over the head with painful facts like “everyone always leaves me”, “nobody loves me like I love people”, etc. these feel so true because you might not have instances to contradict these “facts”. But in truth this is a fallacy summed up as “what you see is all there is” by Daniel Kahneman in Thinking, Fast and Slow link. Just because everyone has left doesn’t mean everyone will always leave. There are billions of humans and we happen to be a tiny percentage who have this sensitivity, there are still millions of us and millions more who have the empathy and imagination to understand us to some extent. Don’t give up. Good luck.
It's a good thing smart people have been talking about this for years. Here, have a documentary. There's a book too!
It's always been like this. If you're interested check out:
Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times by R. McChesney
Necessary Illusions : Thought Control in Democratic Societies by N.Chomsky
Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism by R.McChesney
Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda by E.Herman
Inventing Reality: The Politics of News Media by M.Parenti
Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America by R.McChesney
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by E.Herman and N.Chomsky
Constructing Public Opinion by J.Lewis
The More You Watch the Less You Know by D.Schecter
The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas by R.McChesney
Gender, Race, and Class in Media: A Critical Reader by Dines and Humez
Beyond Consumer Capitalism: Media and the Limits to Imagination by J.Lewis
Propaganda by E.Bernays
Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment by M.Parenti
When News Lies by D.Schecter
Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda by N.Chomsky
Will the Revolution Be Televised?: A Marxist Analysis of the Media by J.Molenyeux
All these guys have youtube lectures if you aren't much of a reader. Alternatively check out the following documentaries:
Manufacturing Consent
The Myth of the Liberal Media
The Power of Nightmares
Psywar
Class Dismissed: how TV frames the working class
The Power Principle
Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?
Or you could even do a course in media literacy and watch Sut Jhally's lecture series on Media, Public Relations and Propaganda.
You should the read the book, How to Lie with Statistics. It is a common practice to mess with graphics to make a point.
My point is that if you use one standard to measure one thing, and a different standard to measure another thing. Juxtaposing them and saying: "this this is more than that thing", then you're going to make what appears to be a convincing argument, but ultimately it means nothing.
One of the years in the next 3, US Oil is going to have a 150 Billion dollar Gain because some of that 67 billion dollar loss was infrastructure maintenance and will produce huge returns later. You teslamotors fanboys aren't going to upvote that post when it rolls around, showing how US oil is still 3 or 4 orders of magnitude more capable of producing returns on investment than Tesla EVER will.
There are lean years, and there are growth years for big oil. I can make the same argument, having a kid with a Popsicle stand laugh at a bunch of contractors building a skyscraper and shouting: "My popsicle stand made more money this year than you". It's meaningless. It ignores the most important thing which is 5 year moving average of return on investment and investing for future gains. This whole article made me stupider by reading it.
The book you need to read is: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Heh. Funny.
It's sure easy to confirm one's bias when you make stuff up.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff-dp-0393310728/dp/0393310728/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me=&amp;qid=1554384269
Also, maybe even more significantly:
https://www.amazon.com/Innumeracy-Mathematical-Illiteracy-Its-Consequences-dp-0809058405/dp/0809058405/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&amp;me=&amp;qid=1554384368
I would like to summarize JBP's position. Capitalism is not the best system but it works. It sucks on certain cases but it works. Also socialists ( most of them but a few are genuine caring individuals driven by compassion and horror at the poverty of the people. Most hate the rich , also George Orwell commentated on that in his book road to Wigan pier.) They seek to correct a system without correcting themselves first which proves they cannot correct the system. Also poverty is declining due to capitalism and it allows for creativity and a system which is in tune with natural law of inequality and the 80/20 rule.
as long as there is income and output there will be hierarchy and inequality. Humanity is corrupt and it will have corruption in every human endeavour.
also any system which tries to work against the natural law fails and falls short for numerous reasons.
Socialism cannot work in a psychological way due to human nature.
by the way , not my position , just a summary ( plenty of paraphrasing )
here are references https://youtu.be/f-wWBGo6a2w
https://youtu.be/6G59zsjM2UI
https://youtu.be/I8Xc2_FtpHI
here are some of Jordan’s looks on economics. https://youtu.be/bOMksnSaAJ4
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Factfulness#
https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730
$78b a year? Really?
Thanks for the meme, guys.
Basic Economics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465060730/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_a6IPCbZHR1ZWY
I highly recommend reading "The Bogleheads" as a great introduction to investing.
The Bogleheads are basically a group of people following the investment principles of late Jack Bogle, founder of one of the most successful investment companies, Vanguard.
Have fun.
https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
There's also a remarkable forum/ community over there:
https://www.bogleheads.org
You need to study up. Investing $20 in a book or two won't kill you when you have $1M in investments.
I recommend this http://smile.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1398314109&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing
Then call Vanguard and ask them for assistance. With that kind of money you get free help from a financial planner.
> "I've been doing my research and realise there is no way to make it rich quick ..."
It appears that you've already learned two of the most important things about investing: [1] Like anything else in life, what you will get out of it is a direct result of what you put into it (doing your research is extremely important to investing in individual stocks). [2] Investment returns are a direct result of the amount of risk taken, so you generally won't "get rick quick" unless you risk losing everything quick and there's still never any guarantee. That approach is not recommended, especially for beginners, but it's important to know that very many prefer that approach so you must take all advice and "hot tips" with a pound of salt.
As someone else suggested, it might be best to start with an ETF while you continue to learn how to evaluate individual companies, sectors, etc. ... perhaps an ETF that focuses on a strategy like DGI (dividend growth investing). Last, but certainly not least, read [The Intelligent Investor] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661) by Benjamin Graham.
I would recommend against buying individual stocks for any non-sophisticated investors. There is wide research that shows that most active investors can't consistently get good returns on individual stocks. The bogleheads wiki elaborates on this topic (https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Bogleheads%C2%AE_investment_philosophy)
If you do wish to invest in individual stocks I think you may need to devote time to do thorough research on your investments. I seriously don't think some stocks recommendations on reddit are going to be very useful. The learnings of the Intelligent Investor (https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661) are a good start.
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If their stock dropped 61% because apple pulled out - they don't have a bright future. You sound like the kind of person interested in investing in coal.
Edit: Educate yourself: https://www.amazon.com/Security-Analysis-Foreword-Buffett-Editions/dp/0071592539
The past is not an indication of the future in investing. You are speculating, one of the worst things you could do as an investor - here, educate yourself some more: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
Humans actually very often act irrationally, but in a predictable manner. I suggest you read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
Edit: Ted Talk on the topic by the author of the book
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_ariely_asks_are_we_in_control_of_our_own_decisions?language=en#
I mean, it is this sub's favorite meme
Quoted from his EconTalk segment: (link here)
>There's a very interesting thesis that Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel sort of formulated, which is that really the geographic factors determined where early civilizations blossomed, and that, almost in a deterministic way, shaped which societies are more developed today. And we go in detail about why we sort of disagree with the thesis and why it's not really capable of explaining the patterns of what we see around us today; but they are interesting sort of variants of this. But the one that I think is more kind of popular among journalists and academics is a sort of cultural hypothesis. Max Weber was the person who developed the most famous example of this, or the Protestant ethic and constructive process; and Catholics. That's not as popular perhaps today. But if you sort of ask people why China is doing so well: Well, it is about Chinese culture. Why the Mexicans aren't doing so well or why sub-Saharan Africa is poor: It's all about national cultures or some cultural traits shared by a variety of individuals; or it would be Muslim versus non-Muslim. And again, we try to explain why such explanations are very limited. China has had the same Chinese culture but it did extremely badly under Mao... they did extremely badly 40 years ago when they had terrible incentives under Mao, and suddenly started doing well when the incentives changed. And all the while the same people in Hong Kong were doing very well. That should tell you something.
Is this a good book to get started with neoliberalism?
In general, Peterson is not reliable. He tends to cherry pick, selectively omit, or outright distort, the 'facts' he cites. For the case of the Pareto Principle, which is often stated as "20% of the population will own 80% of the wealth", this is only true for certain parameters of the Pareto distribution. In reality, human societies are diverse; some societies have a high concentration of wealth and income, while other societies have much lower concentrations. As you correctly surmised, much has to do with the institutions that exist in the society. As Acemoglu and Robinson argue, when the elite control the government, they set up institutions that enriches the elite while dispossessing the majority of the people. A strong government that strives to restrain the exploitative tendencies of the elites will enable the majority of the people to reap the economic benefits of their work and will lead to faster economic growth and a more equal society.
>This has nothing to do with socialism or capitalism. Capitalist states often have the same social programs, but they have well made economic policy that can generate the wealth to sustain it without forcing everyone into poverty (see Denmark, Canada, Australia, etc)
No, it has to do with socialism and capitalism, it is not capitalism that generates that wealth, resources and labour generate wealth. If it was capitalism, then why are Somalia and Liberia so poor, their capitalist wealth generating magic should protect them, shouldn't it? They are being exploited out of their resources, so they cannot generate wealth, also, Cuba is just as poor as these countries, but it fares much better, I wonder why.
It is convenient to only talk about Europe, North America and Australia when you have to defend capitalism.
And Australia doesn't even have that big of a welfare state tbh.
>Venezuela was only doing "fine" because they were filthy rich from oil.
Yes, so?
>Compare them to singapore which didn't have said luxury of ridiculous wealth under their land.
Singapore? Have you ever heard reports of people actually working there? It's rich because their workers are controlled and alienated by the state, again, you are reinforcing my point (which is Keynes point, which is everyone with a brain's point), it is not capitalism that creates wealth, but it is labour and capital.
>Imperialism is entirely separate from capitalism (mercantilist nations relied on it the most)
I am not only referring to classical imperialism, but especially to economic imperialism, which includes the exploitation of resources and of cheap labour from other countries.
>are you really fucking implying USSR / PRC didn't kill innocents what the fuck.
When did I imply it? Just saying that capitalism kills mostly innocents, also, numbers are definitely inflated, the 60 million figure for Stalin is a meme by itself, and it is literally backed up by nothing.
>Read a book
>Exploitation tends to harm the imperialist nations, and nations become wealthiest by providing the means to success to all their citizens. It just so happens that private property and free enterprise does this the best.
I love it when people tell me to read a book, when they do it's probably the only book they've ever read, and they usually feel so triumphant when they have actual literature backing up their claims, no matter the context, also, it is always by some American economist.
Anyways, I do love me some Acemoglu (studied him pretty intensely in university, and I am rather fascinated by his theory of institutions being a fundamental driver in a nation's development, with the whole inclusive v. extractive discourse), but data is against the fact that exploitation harms imperialists, it might harm the nations that imperialist companies are located into (I would need data for this though), but it does not harm said imperialist companies, and how much cheap labour and resources are exploited in both Asia and Africa should tell you figures about it. You are confusing trading with exploiting, it's the former that gives theoretical gains to the poorest nation in some macroeconomic models.
Also, if you'd like, Read a Paper, even for a capitalist right wing economist such as Allen the centralised functions of the USSR are finely designed to bring about economic growth (and the USSR was the fastest growing nation for 50 years), so your "most efficient" meme which originates with the neoclassical school is just empirically wrong, and what I already said about Cuba (thanks to the embargo it's just as poor as some African countries, but it fares much better) further cements it, and I'm saying this without even supporting the Stalin-driven USSR (guilty of following aggregate results more than worker benefit, like capitalists do).
And, alas
>Marxism is a meme. That's why it will never be taken seriously by people outside of New School or UMass (besides internet memers and autocrats), sorry son.
I don't want to be racist, but this is the final showing that you are an American kid stuck in your own all-American Neoliberal bubble; Marxism is taken seriously (very seriously) everywhere except for the country that has a strong propaganda against communism, a right wing skewed government where the """"left"""" is composed of liberals and a government and education system which are quite literally controlled by big corporations, I wonder why.
And fun fact, in the rest of the world your economics literature (not all of it of course, some of it is good, mostly from the salt lake schools) is what is being made fun of.
And since we're talking about the US, lolefficiency, more than 5 times more vacant homes than homeless people, truly a fair and efficient allocation of resources, wouldn't you think?
Great decision.
Leverage off the shelf products as much as possible. Rough it out, then refine it through iteration. Don't be afraid to hack other commercial products if it saves on development time, and is able to demonstrate functionality.
Shapeways is really good for things like enclosures and prototype parts. It's expensive if you need to print large items, but they print in a variety of materials, and it will result in a professional looking prototype. If ergonomics or mechanical parts are important to the design, buying your own 3D printer might be a worthwhile investment.
While you're working on the prototype, start considering what business strategy you're going to use. I found books like The lean startup helped, and it might change the way you approach the prototyping phase.
Ich hab's nicht gelesen - vielleicht The Bogleheads' gGuide to Investing? Oder eines der anderen Bücher auf dieser Liste?
A lot of people feel strongly that Bogleheads.org provides a sound strategy. They have a book as well.
Is there any proof though that this has any effect? The only thing in this piece is speculation that it MIGHT do something. But the only thing its been used so far is to enforce to mcconnells supporters the word witchhunt. Not that that's not a reason to do it since they'd do it anyway, but its weird how much, without literally any evidence, we're believing this narrative. Its a dangerous illustration of gullibility when we want to believe and we should learn about this aspect of ourselves so it's not used in a more malicious bit of manipulation. Its actually a great example of the kind of story snowballing that becomes true by repetition described in Trust Me I'm Lying [1]
[1] Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846285/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_g5buDbC06QP43
For social media you should check out different company blogs. Those are really helpful. I like the Buffer and Hootsuite blogs a lot.
But books are way better than online websites
For marketing you should read Traction by Gabriel Weinberg
Ryan Holiday's Growth Hacker Marketing and Trust Me, I'm Lying are insanely informative and fun to read.
If you want to build something that scales, something that can change the world, then the best bet is to build something online. It's difficult, but you're only 15 so you've got a lot of flearnings (failed learnings) ahead of you.
Learn to program here, here or here.
Learn about the lean startup: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_Startup
Read this and this.
Fail fast, fail often.
If you want to get started sooner:
To quote Thinking, Fast and Slow:
"success = talent + luck. great success = a little more talent + a lot of luck"
I have no doubts that you worked hard for your degree and that you have quite a bit of talent. But don't knock the fact that quite a bit of luck was involved in you getting the job you wanted straight out of college and that it was high paying enough to let you pay off your loans right away. My girlfriend has been a teacher for several years and she's been working with the school system since she got out of college. She finished her Master's degree in 2010. She still has at least a decade of payments left before she pays it off.
While you are right that the degree you choose can influence whether you can successfully pay them off in a reasonable time frame, it is by no means the only factor. Painting all of them as stupid crybabies is a disservice to them.
>If you're programmed to accept an idea, you don't have any objective way of telling whether it's true
I don't think it's that black and white. Consider System 1 vs System 2 thinking, in the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Our intuition can predispose us to certain types of thinking, and we can still be capable to rationally examining these beliefs. Education on our susceptibility to cognitive biases, and education on statistical thinking, can improve our ability to compensate for the weaknesses in our intuition and force our minds to shift to more rigorous decision making.
On a broader level, evolution predisposes us to racism and tribalism. But our capacity for abstract thought and language enables us to improve, to present and entertain arguments and shift beyond a merely instinct-driven existence. Which is why humans are capable of moral improvement, yet chimps and dolphins remain the same. We have culture and philosophy and the capacity for moral progress.
>once you accept that one or more ideas were implanted in you, it's not clear to me how you would tell which subsequent ideas you arrived at based on evidence and which ideas you are programmed to accept
Critical thinking, examine your beliefs and the arguments by which you can support your beliefs. That's the entire purpose of Socratic dialectic, making people explicate arguments so they are forced to more closely examine what they believe and why. We aren't "programmed" in a fatalistic, deterministic sense, rather we have propensities and biases. We still have the capacity for improvement, the capacity to change our minds. As you must recognize at some level, otherwise you wouldn't be trying to persuade anyone of anything.
> short of a very detailed rehearsal of many different problems
Exactly.
I've had about 5 interviews with companies in the Bay Area, and in my experience all of them follow the same general sequence:
For the specific type of questions they ask, I recommend this book and /r/cscareerquestions
edit: and the technical screenings are always live coding sessions using a shared document. That shit is nerve racking and I recommending practising before the interview.
Never ever ever ever ever ever ever EVER ever ever EVER tell a company "I'm not suited for the job". Have some balls! Sure, you messed up, but hold your head high. Everyone messes up in their life at interviews; I know I have many times. Confidence can go a long way in promoting your personal image.
FizzBuzz is probably the most simple, commonly used interview question out there to see if a programmer can actually program. It doesn't get much simpler than that. I hate to break it to you, but Modulus is one of the most basic foundation concepts you need to know, and it's definitely taught in any entry level OOP book or Uni program. I dare you to show me a "Learn programming in Java/C++/Any other OO Language" book that doesn't cover it in the first few chapters.
You are over-thinking the solution here: it's meant to show how well a candidate can easily write clean, short code. There's no reason for you to abstract the functionality of finding whether a number is evenly divisible into a method - that's over complication in design, and it's a red flag for employers. I think you may have believed that isolating specific mathematic processes into methods seemed like a good idea to show off that you know object oriented principles. You're on the right track. However, if the process you're writing can be completed in a single line of code, let alone under 10 characters, you're just adding more dependencies and complication to a simple block of code. I would suggest this as a more clean solution to fizzbuzz (in Java):
for (int x=0; x<=100; x++) {
if(x%3==0 && x%5==0)
System.out.println("FizzBuzz");
else if(x%3==0)
System.out.println("Fizz");
else if(x%5==0)
System.out.println("Buzz");
else
System.out.println(x);
}
I personally struggled with a decent amount of interviews until I started to actually prepare for the interview. I recommend finding time to work through these two books; they'll help prepare you for what kind of questions to expect.
http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Interviews-Exposed-Secrets-Landing/dp/1118261364/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377704276&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=programming+interviews+exposed
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377704294&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=cracking+the+coding+interview
And most important of all: NEVER get down on yourself! Every tough problem or terrible interview you have is just a learning experience. Never tell yourself you aren't good enough, or just outright give up. You aren't allowed. Stick with it, and prepare months in advance, like homework. You don't have to be that person dedicating every waking moment of their life to programming, but if you're serious about keeping your interview skills sharp, you need to dedicate some time to learning the questions. Good luck!
EDIT: Grammar, etc.
TL;DR Improve yourself, invest in your future, don't worry about the mistakes...read the books listed at bottom, and practice!
Few months ago I royally fucked up an interview at Microsoft. A really simple question. But I had no experience doing coding on paper instead of a computer.
I spent a lot of time studying various books and paper coding to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
I then had an interview for another (in my mind at the time) dream job. I did fine for all the phone interviews and they flew me over to the west coast for an in person interview for the day. I did well for the first bit until they started pulling out dynamic programming and integer programming questions on me and expecting me. Once again something I didn't prepare for, and f'd up. Didn't get this job either. For the longest time I was really hard on myself at fucking up on both these interviews one after another. Especially this second one since a lot more was riding on it than just the job (another story).
But then I decided I didn't want to have this sort of experience again and expected better of myself. I made myself further improve and brush up on all those concepts as well. Did a few mock interviews with friends, spent some time working on interview type questions on both the computer and on paper. A month or two later I started interviewing again. By this point I was an interviewing machine - and I'm now able to do just about anything thrown at me. I've had my choice of employers and until just recently, was in the situation where I had so many offers I didn't know which one I wanted most. I'll be heading to silicon valley soon at one of the top tech companies in the world with a fantastic offer considering I just graduated.
The point is - learn from the mistakes and improve yourself. I realize you don't want to be that guy spending heaps of time coding outside of work or whatever... but this is an investment in yourself and your career. Do it once, and then just brush up on your skills from time to time. Get into the interviewing mindset and just rock them so you can have your choice of job - and then you can go about your thing once you have the job locked. The up front investment will be worth it!
Things that helped me:
Having trouble with Algorithm design/analysis? These are some of the go-to books for that:
> Why is he MMM’s so called “arch rival” and how do they differ in philosophy?
He's called MMM's "arch rival" because of this early (2011) blog post / book review by MMM himself about Ramit Sethi's (the guy being interviewed) book titled I Will Teach You To Be Rich. You can read the blog post on your own, but the short of it is that Ramit suggests a less frugal lifestyle than MMM. Ramit famously says you shouldn't worry about buying a latte because in the grand scheme of things a single $4 coffee isn't going to adjust your FI/Retirement goals that much. MMM takes the complete opposite approach, and suggests eliminating that latte if you can, and particularly if it doesn't bring any value to your life. MMM would say "why are you being a consumer sucka and paying a coffee shop a ridiculous amount of money for a coffee you can brew so much better at home!!!" while Ramit takes the "eh, don't sweat it bro" approach.
IMO, I think both MMM and Ramit have valid points. I think in moderation both are helpful - eliminate the crap you can, but don't sweat the tiny things or the things that bring you joy. Like don't get yourself all sad because you broke down one day and bought a cup of coffee - just try to avoid doing that daily if you can, and if you actually really like buying that cup of coffee then good for you, enjoy it!
I think this podcast is worth a listen, but it's helpful to have seen that early MMM blog post prior. His criticizisms of this sub and others like it is spot on too (as pointed out by another commenter).
I highly recommend Ramit Sethi's book I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
Find your meditative spaces. I do the dishes, I drive, I ride a bike, I take showers, I wander around in nature, I sit and watch the world pass me by. Sometimes I think about what I'm doing, or about some unimportant or asinine thing, or nothing at all. Sometimes I'm productive and sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm self-actualizing and sometimes I'm not. That's okay. Pressuring yourself to produce is an excellent way to be unproductive.
These spaces are the only times when I formulate truly inventive ideas. They're places where I can let my mind wander and review what it knows and to bridge and connect and construct, and they're places where I feel no stress. I don't want my life to be chaotic and completely uncertain, but I also don't want the structure of my days to consist of anything more than meditative spaces and free time.
More people need to learn to walk slowly.
Before you even go to a financial advisor or one that any Redditor might post to recommend as friends, go borrow these books from the library for a read so the investment world makes sense to you when you do talk about money with a planner and want to make sure you're getting good advice:
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661
http://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393081435
http://www.amazon.com/Warren-Buffett-Way-Second/dp/0471743674
If you're really lazy, at least read the first one.
If you're really, really lazy. Follow this blog for a bit http://canadiancouchpotato.com/
After that, only then should you take referrals and recommendations. Go to a few, and armed with some knowledge, you'll be much prepared to sift through advisors that are trying to bullshit you for front-loaded commissions, etc.
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham
I just stumbled onto this subreddit for the first time now, so apologies if I'm not replying to the request as desired.
Investing isn't really something that you can learn, in the sense that it's not like riding a bike where you practice and then after a little bit you know how to ride a bike and that's it. Think of learning to invest more as a constant journey, where you're always growing and gaining understanding but you can't really ever know enough. Most successful investors, including Warren Buffett and Charles Munger, are voracious readers simply because there is so much out there to absorb.
Here's the start of a reading list to take a look at, listed in order of how I would tackle them in your place (though obviously skip some or jump ahead if one description catches your eye specifically):
Indexing:
Value Investing:
Those are what I would start with. I recommend reading the books on indexing first not because I think the efficient market hypothesis (one of the topics covered in all three books) is 100% correct (it isn't), but because you need to have a filter in place that makes you skeptical and able to dismiss all the garbage investing advice that's out there (technical strategies promising 10%+ yearly returns guaranteed, etc). The value investing books I include because it is the only chance you have of beating the market over the long run, though I would only recommend the active management route if you have the time and energy to dedicate to it.
Most of what's in these books does boil down to a few basic tenets that could probably be summarized in a few pages, but I would discourage you from looking for quick investing summary information because it won't be of any use to you. It's not enough to understand/know the concepts. You have to believe in them, and live them every day. If you aren't absolutely convinced of the investing strategy you're using you'll wind up capitulating at the worst possible time and losing a lot of money, or at the very least being one of the many people who 'chase winners' only to suffer from consistently mediocre performance. That's why you need to be reading regularly--to keep your conviction and refresh yourself on the fundamentals.
Best of luck.
This worked really well for the Freakonomics cover. It...doesn't work so well with a banana.
Freakonomics: by Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner
Just very fascinating, makes you think.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060731338/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_1cPxCbMR2SG2J
Freakonomics says the dominant factor for the drop in crime was abortion legalization.
In Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational there's a chapter that explains how fragile our boundaries can be.
A survey subject was asked, while in a cold state, a variety of questions about sexual preferences and how flexible they were with morality, including whether they'd use alcohol or drugs as a means to get sex, whether they would have sex with a woman unusually older or even not quite legal. The answers were recorded and the test subject was paid. Several days later, the same subject was invited back for another test, this time under different conditions. The test subject was left by himself in a room with pornography playing, and he was instructed to pleasure himself, but not to orgasm. Every minute or so, a question would pop up on the screen and he would have to answer by clicking with a mouse. Here's the kicker:
When sexual feelings were turned on, the decisions and preferences varied by over 70 percent. Yes, the subject who swore he'd never use alcohol to get into the pants of a 16 year old now found the idea tempting. The guy who would never be attracted to an old woman was now suddenly willing to give it a try. The person who swore to be abstinent was now having trouble with that commitment.
Mormons (and other faiths) do right by not pushing boundaries. If your boyfriend wants to go farther, explain to him that if you do, it may compromise your ability to use proper restraint in the heat of the moment. It's important that you both really understand this. There may be nothing wrong with what you want to do, except that it makes it easier to get his hand up your shirt or down your pants, and there's a tipping point there that once reached is dang near impossible to turn back from.
Talvez você precise de mais experiencia pra conseguir algo assim, mas ganhar em euros ou dólares é melhor que ganhar em reais.
Eu trabalho remoto direto pra uma empresa de fora, mas tenho vários amigos que trabalham pela toptal. Pelo que sei, ganham no começo 35 trumps por hora (os projetos podem ter horas variáveis), mas é um pé na porta pra conseguir algo melhor depois.
Sobre areas, o que vejo mais oportunidade é front-end, principalmente com react, mas isso varia muito pra cada região.
If you are a CS major I'd go with the $15 package just so you can get the two books on security. In terms of helping your job prospects, I'd think about the following:
Assuming you already know how to program in a handful of languages, you might find the following useful:
Of course depending on what your interested in (e.g., mobile, web, systems, etc.) there are additional great resources but these will at least get you moving in the right direction. The biggest thing is just practice writing code as much as possible.
Mengetahui lebih dari satu bahasa pemrograman adalah persyaratan wajib jika ingin menjadi programmer professional. Pelajari low-level language seperti C dan C++ karena akan sangat membantu memahami high-level language yang lebih banyak dipakai di dunia kerja. Satu saran berguna: pelajari terlebih dahulu teknologi dasar yang membangun sebuah framework sebelum mempelajari frameworknya. Misalnya jangan langsung belajar Angular, pelajari dasar-dasar JavaScript terlebih dahulu. Jangan langsung belajar Laravel, pelajari dasar-dasar PHP terlebih dahulu.
Kurikulum pemrograman dibuat sejatinya untuk mencetak lulusan yang mampu menghasilkan good software. But contrary to what you'll face in real world. Di dunia kerja kamu akan menyadari bahwa bisnis lebih menginginkan "produk" ketimbang mengaplikasikan best software practices. Artinya kamu harus punya gambaran perusahaan seperti apa yang kamu impikan sebagai tempat bekerja nantinya.
Inti dari dunia pengembangan perangkat lunak adalah algoritma dan data. Di dunia kerja kamu akan dihadapkan dengan banyak sekali data dan bagaimana mengelola data tersebut. Perkuat pengetahuan fundamental, yaitu algoritma dan struktur data.
Pemrograman itu sulit. Sulit. Jangan berharap untuk menjadi expert dalam hitungan minggu atau bulan. Tapi tahunan.
Kalau sudah lulus kamu bisa baca buku ini untuk menghadapi interview.
Edit. Tambahan. Ingat bahwa programming languages, library, framework etc, is just a tool. Merely a tool. Modal kamu yang paling berharga adalah kemampuan merancang arsitektur sebuah sistem.
Cracking the Code Interview is the most well known book for interview programming questions. However, it's focused on harder interview questions than "reverse a
char[]
", which is little more than a basic "can you program" check (the interview questions that CTCI covers are skill checks).For solving something like "reverse a
char[]
", you should be able to do this after a first year programming class. It requires basic array and loop knowledge; nothing more. For a resource to cover that, you could use a MOOC like this one. It'll cover the basics enough to answer that question and similar ones, but you'd still need a lot more if you'd want to reach the point of being employable (merely being able to reverse achar[]
is not enough to get a job -- it's just a way for the interviewer to quickly figure out if they're wasting their time).TL/DR: Know what you want to be paid, be specific, show off your work, your resume isn't graded, and interview the company as much as they interview you.
Got my first industry programming job by posting on here about a year ago. I'd just graduated uni and was looking for a serious gig.
It took three or four posts over two months before I finally was starting to get decent offers. The ads that failed were generic, didn't market my skills well, and weren't specific enough as to what I actually needed, thus I got lots of Rev-Share-only offers, lots of $400 a week offers, and lots of "exposure" offers. There were a few offers for positions I was in no way qualified for, either.
For reference, this and this were my unsuccessful ads, this was my successful one.
I'm actually just now starting to look for a new job (my contract is up), and revamp my portfolio site, and my general advice is:
Bonus: If you're a programmer, get "Cracking the Coding Interview". It is amazing and will help you figure out what potential employers are looking for.
edit: ._. oh. This is a bit old. Oh well. Hopefully someone'll see it and get something from it.
Well the easy answer is when they ran articles suggesting that Saddam had or was very close to getting WMDs, or that AQ had connections to Iraq which helped Bush drive the US into the Iraq War. If you've read Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, they focus on the NYT and show a clear bias towards their corporate sponsors, as well as with the military industrial complex. The things you see and more importantly the things you don't see, are bought and paid for in all major news publications.
There's actually a wiki article about NYT controversies.
The "news" media has operated as a propaganda apparatus and has not simply "reported the news" for literally decades.
You only feel to the contrary, and that this is a new thing, precisely because they are so good at their brainwashing. This famous book can explain more:
http://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Looks like someone read How to Lie with Statistics: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
In the first article you linked:
> “We have universal health coverage - you don’t pay to see your doctor or go to the hospital. We have a high degree of social security. You are entitled to benefits if you lose your job, if you get sick, if you are disabled. We have one year of maternity leave, we have one subsidised early childhood education and care and we ensure care for our elderly if they cannot manage on their own,” he said.
>
> “We also have a strong and fee educational system. Students in institutions for higher education and university do not pay for their education, on the contrary they receive educational grants for studying,” he added.
Those are the exact things Bernie wants, and the majority of Americans want. If that's socialism, then call me a socialist. Bernie wants the programs that have been working there to be used here as well. Did he said he wants to copy everything no. That's not what a model is.
The term Bernie Bro is sexist considering most of his supporters were women. To title your article with the term is just bad journalism and doesn't set the right tone for making any type of point.
Your second article is from by Jeffrey Dorfman who has been found to stretch the truth.
The article Jeffrey wrote is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics. His hole premise comes from this [Neoliberal think tank](The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based, pro-free market). AKA let's come up with a conservative study that fits our narrative.
The second article is by William O'Keefe a known Big Oil lobbyist so it's no surprise he's writing hit pieces on Bernie and Socialism. He want's that Venezuelan oil that the new president is giving to all his supporters.
How can you support this argument
> “The message from groups like Occupy Wall Street has been that inequality is up and that capitalism is failing us. A more correct and nuanced message is this: Although significant economic problems remain, we have been living in equalizing times for the world — a change that has been largely for the good. That may not make for convincing sloganeering, but it’s the truth.”
When the income inequality of not only the top 1% but the top .01% and above is at a sickening and inhumane rate.
Did you seriously link to a John Stossel video? He is known for only giving one side of an argument. Listen, I don't want to be a socialist country either. But I do want certain socialist programs enacted, Medicare 4 All and Free college tuition through a marginal tax rate on the top earners in this country. Putting these two items in place does not turn us into Venezuela overnight, nor will it mean we'll be socialist in less than 100 years. To push the false narrative that that is the direction the left wants to go in is false and is again, really bad journalism. You should be ashamed for using that video to support your argument.
Edit: words
no one, there is a good book on how to figure out what is actually true (how to lie with statistics), it is great and really lets you know something.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Yup, these are the same people who will gladly condemn Saudi Arabia and praise Iran when it suits their causes. Noam Chomsky's - Manufacturing Consent has a lot to say on this subjeect.
Manufacturing Consent
For greater detail, check out Noam Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent"
Summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
Full Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHa6NflkW3Y
Book:
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Yes, Chomsky offers some great insights that amaze one. In our routine lives we never stop to think of things from different perspectives to really figure things out.
That quote came out of his book "The Common Good" but my favorite is his text "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media".
Some links
Noam Chomsky has been talking about this since before most of us were even born.
From the top gilded comment on the original thread:
&#x200B;
"In a nutshell, the classic steering mechanism for public opinion used to be Manufacturing Consent(Chomsky) or Engineering Consent (Bernays) which generates propaganda to achieve more of a public consensus whereas Adam Curtis' HyperNormalisation looks at the shift from that to neutralizing the pubilc into inaction by polarizing them with conflicting information or misinformation (patently false information) so that NO consensus can be reached. Both achieve the same goal of allowing the power elite to carry out the policies they wish while reducing the influence of an ostensibly democratic public which, in conjunction with more and more police state-like authoritarian measures making them more compliant, can no longer tell what is truth and what is misinformation. The public descends into arguing amongst themselves as opposed to those in power.
Edit. I would highjly recommend watching Adam Curtis' famous documentary The Century of the Self which looks at Edward Bernays (Sigmund Freud's nephew) and the origins of the consumer society, public relations and propaganda."
&#x200B;
The referenced material above:
Relevant book.
Was written in 1954 and still shockingly relevant.
I would definitely say that the Bible is the most Influential book ever written, though humanity would have been a lot better off it it weren't.
Insofar as the most valuable, my vote would go to Principia Mathematica. Although its readership was limited, it was the magnum opus of the greatest scientist who ever lived (Newton was also a colossal dick, but the value and brilliance of his scientific discoveries is unquestionable). With that book, Newton irrevocably took physical science out of the hands of the philosophers and into the hands of the true scientists. It heralded the first real scientific revolution. Newton showed us that we CAN understand the Universe, that mysterious things like gravity and light and the motions of the planets DO have explanations which make sense. And, with the exception of extreme circumstances where one must consider the effects described by Einstein's theories of Relativity, Newton's laws still apply to everything we do today.
One book which should have been on the list is, "How to Lie with Statistics." That one ought to be required reading for every single human.
Not magic.
How to Lie with Statistics
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
This book was the optional reading for my first year stats class. Should have been required.
> simply inquiring to your own experience of being. Turning attention inwards and playing around, trying to discover something.
This is introspection, not spirituality. Or, on a deeper and more scientific level, psychology and neurology. Our personalities and "selves" are made up of numerous sub-parts - every day experiences that pit those parts against each other are common. Like when we want that cookie, but don't want to get fat. But we can probe those parts much more thoroughly, and even selectively disable or trick or occupy one of those sub-parts. You get fascinatingly different answers if you ask people certain questions while they are also continuously adding one to a number every few seconds as opposed to a normal state, because the "consciously considering" part of their brain is distracted and other parts do their best.
Our sense of position is one such part of our personality. It can also be fooled, which leads to some odd experiences (feeling "out of body" for instance) - but never ones that actually violate what you could do normally - that is, you may feel as if you're floating above the room, but you still can't see behind you or on top of objects too high to see.
Vilayanur S. Ramachandran actually devised an experiment that ended in people feeling as if the table they were sitting at was part of themselves.
These experiences are a "spiritual" feeling to some people; but spirituality does not provide us with tools to probe them more deeply, or come to a better understanding.
But all of that is just the start; for a fascinating taste of how the sub-parts of our mental heuristic algorithms interact, I suggest this book
>A lot of modern psychology and neuroscience appears to be neglecting the concept of the unconscious mind.... Psychology is so determined to get religion out of science that it cannot allow for the concept of the unconscious
I honestly cannot imagine how you came to this conclusion. There is no question at all among psychologists that unconscious processes play an important role in cognition. Every single popular cognitive psychology book I can think of (e.g. 1 2 3 4) discusses the importance of unconscious processes.
Your question is very important. Especially for early stage or even first-time founders, who don't have the right support network yet. There are many more resources like Facebook groups, and youtube channels that you can leverage to learn more about entrepreneurship, specific skills, and industries. Let me know if you're looking for something more specific. I'd be more than happy to give you additional pointers.
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Here is a list of resources that I found very helpful on my journey:
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Forums
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Reddit: I was impressed with the quality and depth that you can get by asking meaningful and targeted questions in the right channels such as r/entrepreneur and r/startups.
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Podcasts
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All of the podcasts provide a great learning experience through case studies, founder interviews, and startup pitches. Believe me when I say that whatever challenge you're having someone more experience can very likely help you.
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Newsletter
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Launch Ticker News: One of the best newsletters out there that captures the latest tech and business news sent to your inbox several times per day.
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Blogs
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Books
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Thanks
I'm not going to touch this one because it's already been there for a day but as a Central American let me clear something up:
The shit that happened in North America doesn't even compare to the level of attrocities that happened in the rest of America. It is even argued that the reason why the US and Canada are wealthy and Latin America is a shithole goes to how different both regions were conquered. Up north Europeans were eventually forced to actually trade, down here they literally raped and pillaged and those power structures remain today (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227)
>a book is the thing you do when you can't get a theory past the peer-review process.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307719227
I love the crap out of books. One of life's greatest joys is learning and books are such an excellent way to do it.
Business books you should read:
Non Business Books (That Are Essential To Business
As a way of background I have newsletter where I share proven case studies of successful entrepreneurs. I outline step by step how they made money and got freedom from their day job. If you’re interested let me know and I can PM you the link to the newsletter or if you have any questions.
This post is a succinct but uncredited summary of The lean Start-up by Eric Ries:
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
I have a few, not all specifically about marketing but related to business, growth, customer experience, etc.
It should really be: here's what happens when you focus too much _in_ your business, not _on_ your business.
The E-Myth is required reading to combat this.
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
I agree with the other comments; this is a relationship issue. No amount of resources will help her if she refuses to use them. I suggest buying her a copy of the E-myth book because it sounds like she just wants to work for herself, instead of actually running a business.
My advice to you would be to isolate your finances from hers if you can do it without destroying your marriage. If her business goes down / gets sued, your (both of yours) money can go down with it even if she's under an LLC. Best of luck with this! Let me know how it turns out.
Presumably this book: http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280
(From googling)
> The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
What /u/edmontonpi said.
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I'd highly recommend you read The E-Myth Revisited.
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I frequently tell people that I am a part-time investigator and a full time entrepreneur. I spend a majority of my time on bookkeeping, marketing, and correspondingly little investigation work. Most people want to do the work of being an investigator, and not doing the work of running and building a business, and owning your own firm is definitely the latter.
Amazon reviews
Seconding The Pragmatic Programmer and Cracking the Coding Interview. I'd also recommend:
If you let us know which languages you primarily write, I can probably recommend some good language-specific titles, too.
Pragmatic Programmer, Clean Code, and Head First Design Patterns come to mind right away. They're 3 of my favorites.
There's also Design Patterns by the Gang of Four. That's a lot more dense IMO than Head First, but it's fantastic material.
Since you're looking to jump ship and start interviewing, take a look at Cracking the Coding Interview. That will prepare you for any questions you run into during the process.
It's probably also worth brushing up on Algorithms and Data structures.
That's a good start. For more on what "real-world" interview questions are like (and thus the kinds of algorithms you should be familiar with) consult the usual suspects:
Better yet, start building a portfolio by open sourcing the code on github. Include links to your projects in your resume. Have your resume live on linkedin and make sure its up to date and completely public.
As an interviewer, I love to see code examples and a pasion for coding in free time.
P.S: If you're about to go into software engineering interviews
Please do nothing yet. Please do nothing yet.
I think the other advice in this thread is worthwhile, but I don't think you should follow it YET. There is a great book, the Bogleheads Guide to Investing ( http://smile.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1421501534&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing ) very down to Earth, and there's a chapter on windfalls.
The first piece of advice is DO NOTHING for 6 months. Don't give it away, don't spend it, don't invest it, literally park it and do nothing. For 6 months. That ought to be enough time to give you some breathing room, learn how the money will be disbursed and what any potential tax liabilities are, and time to consider your options. Also gives you time to browse the personal finance section!
I think everyone should read the Bogleheads books to get a start on their retirement and investment planning. Both are easy to read and spell out the basics.
http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347920928&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing
and
http://www.amazon.com/The-Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470919019/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347920928&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing
Well, you're not far off. This book is very popular in libertarian circles: https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232
Economics in One Lesson should be required reading for all. Most people only look at the seen costs of projects but are ignorant of the unseen costs.
The advantages of learning about economics go way beyond understanding Bitcoin.
Economics (in the school started by Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, etc), is the study of how people act in order to achieve happiness. It asks: given people have certain goals (but without making any judgements on what those are), and limited time and resources to achieve them, how should they act to maximise their satisfaction? Even a man alone on a desert island is acting economically: should he spend another hour making shelter, another hour catching fish, or another hour relaxing in the sun? The economics of trade is built on top of this. Will one person with too much fish, and another with too much wood, discover they're both happier after trading than they were before, even though the total amount of wood and fish in existence has not changed? Indeed, the most important work on economics by Mises is called simply Human Action.
A few years ago I came across a book (Economics in One Lesson) which began with the following foreword:
>I strongly recommend that every American acquire some basic knowledge of economics, monetary policy and the intersection of politics with the economy. No formal classroom is required; a desire to read and learn will suffice. There are countless important books to consider, but the following are an excellent starting point: The Law by Frédéric Bastiat; Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray Rothbard; The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek, and Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan.
>If you simply read and comprehend these relatively short texts, you will know far more than most educated people about economics and government. … If you care about the future of this country, arm yourself with knowledge and fight back against economic ignorance.
I did exactly this and read them one by one. I summed up my findings in this blog post. I've found the books in the list above enough to defend against the biggest and most common fallacies you see in the news. I highly recommend reading at least one, if not all of them, and Economics in One Lesson is the one I recommend most.
You listen to those clowns at Chapo Trap House? Please do yourself and the world a favor and buy yourself one of these
Oh, well in that case I think you made an excellent decision!
I've had to work with a nontechnical manager in a similar role and it was a major headache to have to constantly explain to them why x took priority over y, and why z took so long to do. Having someone who understands these things at a more direct level would have helped make it much more bearable.
If you want a leg up, have a look at time management techniques. Far too many shops act under what amounts to a cargo-cult mentality regarding how to run IT. They go through the motions, but don't understand why they do. These shops run some type of ticketing system... poorly. Their customers end up suffering.
Time management techniques, well executed triage, and an understanding of end-user expectations, is what separates the wheat from the chaff. For a good introduction on the idea, check out "Time Management for System Administrators":. Its a book, by a guy who now works at Google. He also has a great set of presentations online on his YouTube channel.
A bonus aspect of the job is that you sometimes have to deal with idiotic or frustrating customers (or aforementioned managers). The best thing I've found to deal with it is to work on reframing the situation. This basically amounts to putting yourself in their shoes and trying to be more empathetic to their position. A great mindset to take is something out of zen/meditation - being aware of your emotions in the moment can help defuse a lot of nasty situations. I'd recommend starting with this book.
Check out The Practice of System and Network Administration, and Time Management for Systems Administrators.
Oh, and nagios/icinga is free and totally rocks, as does spiceworks.
This is what you need. https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833
Also, you could try to create the stickers where you can write the critical tasks, therefore, you will know on which tasks need your focus.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833
Give this a read. Chapter 9 is titled "Stress Management" but the whole book in general will help keep your stress down.
While I do not disagree, it is Capital*
read this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X
Over at /r/ukpersonalfinance we have a small "recommended reading" list that's worth looking at.=: http://www.reddit.com/r/ukpersonalfinance/wiki/faq#wiki_recommended_reading
> Intelligent Investor - Benjamin Graham
>
> This book was written by the father of "value investing", and the mentor of Warren Buffett, who is widely accepted to be the world's most successful investor.
>
> It was originally published in 1948, but Ben Graham updated it periodically over the years, and it stands as true today as it ever has.
>
> Beating the Street - Peter Lynch
>
> Published in 1994, this is arguably showing its age more than Intelligent Investor. Either way, valuable reading from one of the best managers of money in the past few decades.
>
> Naked Trader - Robbie Burns
>
> Subtitled "How anyone can make money trading shares", this is an entertaining, tongue-in-cheek account of one financial journalist's attempt to quit his job and make £1,000,000 using a short-to-medium term trading strategy. Not very scientific, but an interesting counterpoint to the previous recommendations.
>
> Smarter Investing - Tim Hale
>
> The ultimate counterpoint to attempting to "beat the markets" - after spending 15 years working in active fund manager, Tim Hale concluded that the best outcomes for most investors in most situations would be a simple portfolio of "passive" investments (that is, funds which attempt to track a market, rather than outperform it). This style is favoured by the likes of Monevator, and many of the subscribers here.
>
> Berkshire Hathaway's annual shareholder letters - Warren Buffett
>
> Not a book, but a series of essays over the years from the world's most successful investor. Makes interesting reading! Notably, the 2014 letter (not published in the above link but published here in abridged form) implies that he now feels most investors would be best served by low-cost trackers.
>
> The Financial Times guide to investing - Glen Arnold
>
> A great starter guide, going from the very basics (why businesses need shareholders) to more in-depth explanations of different types of investment, and step-by-step guides on how to execute trades.
>
Calculate out/project your monthly expenses and multiply them by 3-6. Then start saving that amount of money in a savings account. If for some reason you lose your job or something happens (your car breaks down, you have a medical bill) you can use this money to keep yourself from going into debt. When the emergency has passed, replenish the savings account.
Once that's established setup a Roth IRA and start contributing to it and investing.
If you're serious about trading, read these two books in this order before proceeding:
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Common-Sense-Investing/dp/0470102101
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
>>Read the intelligent investor After you finish it, ...
>Warren Buffet loves that book.
That's a minor understatement.
Warren Buffett named his son, Howard Graham Buffett, after the author. No joke.
Have a look at this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Investor-Benjamin-Graham/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1300704487&amp;sr=8-1. It is written by the guy who taught Warren Buffet to invest and mostly covers the general approach and mechanics of investing in fundamentals. It's the bible of personal investing. I would check out the links other redditors provided for the very basics, then read this book to understand the overarching concepts. Good luck!
Warren Buffett, richest guy in the world at one point, now probably in second or third believes in smart investing. He went to Columbia University in NYC to learn directly from Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. So, you couldn't go wrong by reading or skimming The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham before you seek a financial investor. See if your local library has a newer edition (it will include a discussion on newer securities, such as Mutual Funds, etc.).
Go read Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor for everything you need to know about value investing. Buffet claims he won't ever write a book since everything is in there (also, author is the guy who Warren learned from).
Excellent book.
Surprised no one has mentioned Tversky & Kahneman yet. Kahneman was awarded the Nobel prize in economics for his pioneering work in behavioral economics .
Their most famous/accessible work is probably Thinking, Fast and Slow
Try: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
Check out Thinking, Fast and Slow by the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman. It may not be what you're looking for since the investing/markets aspect is not the entire focus of the book. However, I think it would definitely be worth your time.
I would go with Kahneman's "Thinking, Fast and Slow". It can be rather tedious at times, but it's such a great summary of recent work in social and cognitive psychology that it's worth it.
Oliver Sacks, as mentioned before, is another great author. Very approachable, very interesting, yet quite informative.
I have heard that Dan Ariely is a great author. Predictably Irrational might be a great read.
Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works is also great, but I would recommend Kahneman over him.
Finally, I would recommend a classic: William James - The Principles of Psychology. It's old, and some stuff is dated, but the guy had amazing insight nonetheless. It'd be a great intro reading just to see where psychology came from.
I would stay away from Jonah Lehrer, since he was accused of academic dishonesty. His book "How we Decide" was an extremely easy read, and a bit watered down. On that tangent, I would also avoid Malcolm Gladwell. Sacks does a better job at explaining psychology and neuroscience to a general audience.
Hope that helps!
Also more complex than just telling people to read Thinking: Fast and Slow.
You can both sides this:
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=manufacturing+consent&amp;qid=1565983676&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=manufacturing+con&amp;sr=8-1
Ha, you're funny. Let's go over these.
Credit Rating: I can argue this was inevitable from the way things were going when Obama assumed office. You may argue it was not. This is not something I feel can be argued effectively.
Unemployment If you can look at that graph and tell me you still think it doesn't look better under Obama, I will call you a liar.
Gas was artificially low for a tiny period of time. A few months before that is was well over four dollars a gallon.
Debt I will agree has gone out of control and needs to be reigned in. Unfortunately a vast bulk of this is medicare and no one will touch that.
For the wars I'd rather see troop deployment numbers than number of wars.
Budget is congress. There is no argument for this. The creator of this graph was an idiot for including it.
By the way, statistics lie very easily. Read a book
This should be required reading.
But yeah, it's a little freaky how many people simply replace theology with science to form arguments about things they don't actually comprehend. That's not disparage science or scientists in general. But there's a lot of ignorant people who believe things not because they heard what scientists said and went and read about their work and examined what they did and tried to actually understand what was found, but because "science said so." Sometimes that can be abused... see the anti-vax movement.
The infographic, frame by frame
I'm a data analyst by profession, and this book would help anyone understand what is going on here.
Not because mormons are all liars, far from it, they are some of the most honest people, but the newsroom likes to juggle statistics. Every piece of information individually is true, but when placed next to each other they build a picture that is deceptive.
Frame 1: Sacrament meeting attendance "100%"
This is straight out deceptive
The Numerator here is "Active mormons" and the Denominator here is "Active Mormons". Now my wife is an active mormon, and she misses every once in a while so on top of measuring the same number on the top and on the bottom, they've also rounded up.
Frame 2: 1.3 million worship services: Straight forward, take the number of chapels in service x the number of weeks in the year. Somehow I think it will still fall short of 1.3 million. Let's check: 21,335 church units x 52 = 1,109,420. I'm not sure how they get 1.3 million, but it's > 1 million Close enough.
Members believe
They do believe in the bible as well as the book of Mormon, and Christ is mentioned that frequently, which is fascinating because 2/3's of the book occurs before Jesus is born. In fact, Mary is given by name hundreds of years before she was born, and John the baptist's exact phrases are quoted hundreds of years this should give one pause.
9 out of 10 members pray daily This is taken from active temple-recommend holders, or the most faithful of the members, certainly out of that "regular attendence" number above, these people are probably only half. Denominator units matter.
4th largest church here is where the deception begins. Because those "member" numbers above were only for active people, but to get the "Largest in the U.S." status they claim here, they include anyone who was ever a member. i.e. babies who never went to church, individuals who died until they are 110 years old, people who have resigned from the church. census records indicate that only 5 million members are active
According to the study
Mormon's placed 3rd, which is impressive, right after atheists and agnostics. Interesting tidbit
77% of members attend weekly again, one must ignore the 2/3rd of members who no longer self-identify as members, who were included in the 4th largest calculation. Members who self identify attend church more regularly. Imagine if catholics could remove from their denominator everyone who doesn't attend regularly from their attendance calculations!
73% listed marriage
Again, we're looking at the top of the top members. These members hold recommends and were probably already married. We're not asking kids if they are going to get married, we're asking already married people if marriage was a top goal. The idea that 27% of them do not have it as a goal should be telling.
96% donate These donations are required to be counted as an active member. They don't donate free-willing, they give money because it is required, like a tax, for membership.
80% donate to non-religious causes The Boy Scouts of America is closely tied (most would say owned) to the LDS church. Most of the "Non-religious" donations go to the Boy Scouts, which are allowed to use the church buildings for fundraisers, and to request funds twice a year in church. This year, my local authority (The Bishop) gave a talk in Sunday about the importance in donating to the friends of scouting program.
70% participate in religious volunteering again, most active members, but yes, they are excellent at volunteering. I have to wonder if they include volunteering at church run facilities (Such as the welfare farms) in this number.
Fasting this is true that they fast once a month, and donate the value of two meals (Usually much more) to the church (not to any charity, to the church). The church then puts this money into an interest bearing account for 3 years, and finally allows it to be spent at the end of those three years, when a bishop makes a request. This money is used for things such as reformation of gays at private company camps. Interest spun off the money is used in for profit ventures such as the mall. Most members do no know how their fast offering money is used.
More members live outside the U.S.
It was just discovered that almost 1 million members in Brazille do not exist. I would suggest that this is using global numbers including inactives to get this total, but if we are to use the "Active membership" numbers from above, we'd find that most members are not only in the U.S., but in Utah.
I don't know where they get the 28,000 congregation number, as I took my 21,000 congregation number directly from the 2012 conference report. Unless we built 7,000 ward houses in the last few months, I am suspicious of this number.
Total Church Membership as mentioned before, this includes anyone who was ever baptized whether they left, died until 110, etc. This is not the denominator for most the statistics on this infographic.
185 countries this is an accurate number by everything I could find.
Free to Choose
and Basic Economics
More modern look at the current state of the US - By the People
A few white Pastors I know are becoming more vocal and critical regarding POTUS and Friends, but in general I've found that while the conversation can be had, its next to impossible to actually change anyone's mind. Of course, we could just chalk it up to my poor persuasion skills.
It's truly tragic that the Republicans grabbed the 'God' theme. Sure, sure, we wanted to avoid the domino effect and wanted to unite the country, but hey, guess what? Jesus mentioned something about preaching to ALL nations, so I'd think that'd include communists and even countries labeled as an 'enemy'.
I'd also want to suggest that there are plenty of 'phony' Christians out there who are warping the image of "Christians voting for Trump", but I've met enough 'real' Christians who voted Trump. Something about economics and saving babies. It'd be nice if they read some literature, such as Basic Economics so that they'd actually have a basic understanding of the topic, and maybe even Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger so that they can better understand how well they truly have it (and might even stop griping about 'government handouts').
Despite the uphill battle, I'd encourage the conversation. Best case, they learn that Jesus wasn't a rich white man who bought off the Pharisees and only loved English-speaking peoples of pale complexion. Apologies for the minor rant, I'm somewhat annoyed with the world on this fine morning.
You want evidence that people buy less of something that costs more?
OK.
The cover is tacky and it was published a little while ago, but I highly, highly, highly recommend: https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
The principles in this book are very sound for those of us who do not want to be full-time investors (and who couldn't handle the risk anyway).
Lol, competitive coding is usually overkill for interview prep. Don't get me wrong--if you are good at competitions, you will almost certainly do well on interviews. Coding competitions focus much more on "finding an important insight"--usually beyond anything that you'll have to know for work--and then coding a solution, while interviews focus much more on your ability to hold many different moving parts in your head. Competitions also tend to focus on parsing inputs, which, if you are using a language like C++, is a pain in the ass and can be unnecessarily discouraging if you just starting off.
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My advice is to check out the CTCI book and to write working code for as many problems as possible.
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
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Be able to crank out DFS in your language of choice. Code every day. Try and work on problems that are easier to solve theoretically but that require holding a lot of different components in your head while you write the solution. The bottleneck for most people is writing correct code even after they know the solution--not "solving the problem" with theoretical data structures.
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Also, know your language well. Spend some time every day typing out the apis for the basic data structures into your lang's toplevel or interpreter.
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That stuff will keep you busy for a while.&nbsp; Once you're comfortable with the basics and get to a point where working on those kinds of exercises becomes more rote than challenging, try to create your own apps/plugins/libraries from start to finish.&nbsp; Working on full-scale projects will require you to learn skills that aren't developed as much during exercises & smaller projects, such as: architecture, design patterns, maintainability, testing, best practices, etc.&nbsp; Even more so if you give yourself a goal to actually publish/release those projects.
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A few other ways to develop those skills:
(Yelp, Imgur, Facebook, Trello, etc.)
(you can usually stay informed of hackathons through MeetUp or your local tech event calendar)
Here's a really good book by someone who used to conduct coding interviews at Microsoft, Amazon, etc.
Cracking the Coding Interview
Still, it's not likely that you'll see the same exact questions on an actual interview. Just practice a lot and get comfortable with solving problems. That will help you when it's time to code on-the-fly at an interview. Also, it's more important to talk through the solutions. Coming up with an innovative, elegant, or efficient solution with pseudocode is more important than getting the syntax exactly right in a particular programming language.
Save a buck and borrow it from the local library. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_FytlDbJFB2DME
I did not know about the 3fund book but think it would be silly to buy it :) it is going top tell you to balance for risk between a total market, total international, and total bond. It might talk about a split total bond/ total international bond... https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio. But hey might be worth a read if your library had it.
Great job! Now go read this book, open a Roth IRA at Vanguard, and auto invest into VTSAX Mutual Fund for the next 40 years, and you will be unfathomably rich. Dont bother with bonds, simply VTSAX and maybe a spinkle 10% at most of VTIAX for some international companies.
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https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1WLP27B3ZCKPW&keywords=bogleheads+guide+to+investing&qid=1565873408&s=gateway&sprefix=bogleheads+retirement%2Caps%2C138&sr=8-3
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https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/index.php
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https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/
Cracking The Coding Interview Read this book from cover to cover and be ready to accept your 75K+ job after you start murdering interviews left and right.
Some books that could help you practice algorithms and coding challenges are:
If you want some actual practice solving challenges with some guidance and/or help, I'd recommend Coderbyte which provides solutions to the problems along with the ability to view other user solutions so you can learn how others solve the same challenges. This article might help you find some other coding challenge websites as well.
Cracking the Coding Interview
Here are the resources that I have used in the past. These are the type of questions that the large bay area software companies ask during phone screens and on site interviews. I've interviewed at a number of these companies and currently work for one of them. They all do similar things both in terms of the coding questions they ask as well as the overall interview process. I've never interviewed for a start up or any other sort of company, so I cannot speak to how it's done outside of large software companies on the west coast.
The following book, Cracking the Coding Interview, is great. Some companies use questions straight out of this thing. Others will ask one of these questions with a little twist.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
Either of these sites are good resources for actually writing code. Some of the challenges on Hackerrank are harder than you'll probably ever encounter in an interview, though it's worth noting that I've been asked a couple of the problems marked as hard on OJ Leetcode during onsite interviews (I recall LRU cache and a dynamic programming version of text justification specifically).
https://oj.leetcode.com/problems/
http://hackerrank.com/
For general stuff you need to know, this blog post about how to prepare for an interview at Google is a good resource. Jump down to the Tech Prep Tips for the relevant stuff, or just read the whole thing, it's a good read.
http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/03/get-that-job-at-google.html
I had a recruiting firm send me this book. Pretty interesting.
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
As someone who has alot of friends who received the NIS previously and it has been rebranded to SG:D scholarship, I can you tell that almost all of them want to break their bonds if they could afford to.
Therefore my advice to you is to not take up the scholarship unless you need to for a various reasons:
If you really want to take the scholarships in government agencies, there are some perks too:
To be honest, the first 5 years of your career is extremely important because they setup the stage for your career advancement. My (biased) advice if you are serious about tech and developing skills to do awesome work is stay out of public sector, typical MNCs, banks and consultancies because there's just too much wayang than doing the actual work. Most consultancies in Singapore are just sweatshops than doing good work. Go work in tech firms that are known for their engineering processes and build stuff.
And if you want to get into FAANG, it's not that difficult if you put in the effort to prepare for it and try to do as many internship as possible. You should be willing to work through one of the following books
The best thing you can do is read and then read some more! Find those articles about investing and start learning the language. You can probably find what you need from a couple of books at the library or you can find them on Amazon but if you need help understanding it, then get help. You can call an investment broker in your area and schedule a meeting. They will usually spend some time with you for free in hopes that you will invest with them in the future.
[Mandatory link to Bogle type book] (https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1526318235&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=jack+bogle)
Worth pointing out as I haven't seen this book mentioned here so far.
Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator
I have been reading the book and the first edition is a little disjointed but still gets the point across.
this is legit. the article is from over a year ago. he wrote a book about it
Et dans ce cas il tourne la réthorique selon comme quoi EM utilise la justice (corrompu) pour entérer la vérité.
Au final quoi qu'il arrive ils consolideront leur base électorale.
Cet article explique assez bien cette stratégie :
http://observer.com/2017/02/i-helped-create-the-milo-trolling-playbook-you-should-stop-playing-right-into-it/
Et y'a même un livre :
https://www.amazon.fr/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/?tag=ryanholidayfr-21
This is actually the central premise of the book, Trust Me I'm Lying:
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
Essentially, now that most media is online, and advertising sales are driven by clicks, clicks become the all important goal of most articles. And this is ushering in a new era of yellow journalism.
What drives clicks are anger / outrage/ fear / hate/ humor / sex - things that produce 'emotional valences.'
So take two headlines examples.
Article 1 could be a wonderfully written, deeply researched article with a nuanced world view and actionable advice for winning in 2020. Yet, its not an exciting headline, and certainly does not spike a readers emotions. It gets 12,000 clicks.
Article 2 could be raging drivel; an emotional , opinion based listicle with 250 words and 10 memes stolen from Reddit. But that headline is pure click gold. Those who are angry/hateful about trumps win will click, while trump supporters angry/afraid about the prospect of being put in political re-education camp will also click. Further, both sides will share this article with their 'sides' of the aisle online. Result, 1.2 million clicks.
While article 1 is much better quality, article 2 is far more profitable for attracting advertising. As such, writers and editors will pursue more 'stories' like article 2.
I highly suggest Trust Me, I'm lying if you have not read it yet.
http://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
If you are going for a internet business or any product-oriented business here a are the best books
BEST ONES
"The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses" (Eric Reis) - 2011
https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/
"Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works" (Ash Maurya) - 2010
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Lean-Iterate-Plan-Works/dp/1449305172
"Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days" (Jake Knapp - Google Ventures) - 2016
https://www.amazon.com/Sprint-Solve-Problems-Test-Ideas/dp/150112174X/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1550802301&s=gateway&sr=8-1
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ALSO GO FOR (these are the ones that started organizing the Startup world)
"The Four Steps to the Epiphany" (Steve Blank) - 2005
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0989200507/
"Business Model Generation" (Alexander Osterwalder) - 2008
https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/
This is a common trap for designers ( all designers, not just games/software). When you're making something new you making some several assumptions about what your audience wants to play (or is willing to play), you even make assumptions about who your audience is. You have to validate these assumptions to figure out if you're on the right track.
I would highly recommend this book specifically because it talks about designing ways to validate all of the assumptions you're making about your target audience and the things they want. If you're not careful you can spend months and months working on a product that nobody wants. If nobody wants to play your game then its better for you to figure that our as early in the development cycle as possible. It'll give you a chance to tweak your design or give up and try out your next idea.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1377410351&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+lean+startup
Don't judge the book based on the title. The ideas can be applied to any project.
This should help you with number 1
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Book: The lean startup
Here are my top three:
You may want to read them in reverse order (3, 2, 1) as Steve Blank influenced Eric Reis who influenced Ash Maurya -- but I really think Running Lean has more practical / applicable insights.
The advice to "sleep on it" is not to be able to think about it at night, but to give yourself time to calm down from short term emotions that might be connected with a decision.
There is a book about decision making called ["Thinking Fast and Slow"] (http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555) with an explanation of how decisions can be made in those two ways, fast - intuitively, pretty much - and slow - using rational thought.
Both those approaches have their advantages and drawbacks, so you often can make a correct "fast" decision, but doing so will prevent you from checking back with the other thought process. So allowing you to do that is pretty much the value of "sleep on it".
If you haven't already, have a look at Thinking, Fast and Slow. The basic problem (AFAICT) is that, in practice, people judge risk based on how easy it is to recall an example, rather than statistical likelihood. With the media constantly harping on about a "mass shooting epidemic", this leads people to massively overestimate the risk of being a victim of a mass shooting, and because it's (what Kahneman calls) a "System 1" process (basically his term for "intuitive"), and because "System 2" processes (basically his term for "analytical") are very strongly predisposed toward concurrence with System 1 conclusions, it is almost impossible for data and reason to displace the intuitive presumption that mass shootings are a significant threat.
These are not finance books, but popular books on behavioral economics by leading academics
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast And Slow (a classic, I think)
http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555
Richard Thaler, Cass Sunstein - Nudge
http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X
Dan Ariely - Predictably Irrational
http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
>I don’t regret having one, just extremely ashamed of being sexual and communicating it to girls and also showing it to the world. Attracting girls’ attention and whatnot isn’t very hard but progressing things to dating, holding hands and eventually sex is impossible. I can’t even call them or message them on Facebook or Whatsapp because I just feel like an idiot for doing so. Making a move in clubs and bars is also difficult although I once got close to leaving with a girl but she didn't want to. I got made fun of a lot growing up for not having a girlfriend and this made me feel like i do not deserve one. It doesn't matter if I've got the green light to go ahead I just feel really ashamed do it. Even something like looking at a fit girl wearing a short skirt makes me feel bad for checking her out and that I shouldn’t be doing it.
I know what you mean. I've been there myself, but even when I was there I was entirely self-aware of my shame and I was skeptical of the validity of my emotional reactions; I realized they were ingrained. Being aware of your emotional reactions allows you to be emotionally proactive. Your sex-negative problem is mostly an emotional issue, and not much else, right? I've been there. I wouldn't doubt that you are also decent looking and have both latent and actualized social skills. Most intelligent introverts have a lot of potential to be who they want to be because they know themselves more deeply than others. You must use your introverted nature to your advantage and recognize the differences in others and yourself. In all honesty, there are an infinite number of unwritten rules; everyone's abstract/emotional logic is different. Many of them are foundational and predictable, however; including yours and mine. Like anything else, being emotionally predictable is not a black/white issue. It is a grey area, and you have to balance your reliability with creativity.
Being made fun of for not having a girlfriend is just as sexist as being made fun of for not having a boyfriend; gender equal too. Were you ever shamed for not having a boyfriend? It's clearly a matter of groupthink and extroverted style; not for everyone. Dating relationships, for extroverts especially, are often attention-getting and showy. They wear their relationships like trophies won. Usually introverts prefer a more private relationship because they have less social desire and are often shamed because of it. Introverts are “themselves” more often in private. Extroverts are “themselves” more often in public. There is no shame deserved either way, regardless of popular opinion. Both styles have their strengths and weaknesses, and you should try to introject some of the traits that you enjoy in others; regardless of type. That is how you become balanced.
>I’m receiving counselling from a pastor who advocates the whole “no sex before marriage” thing and believes that people should only date to get married and sex is only for making kids which is stupid IMO because I do not plan on getting married anytime soon.
Counseling from a Catholic pastor? Watch out, that is one of the most notorious sex-negative societies out there. They own the abstinence-only charade while they parade horribles. Marriage is not the answer to anything; it is an institution of the state. Anything else attached is sentimental.
If you haven't already, I recommend doing an in-depth study of animal sexual behaviors; especially the most intelligent animals. All animals have sex for pleasure, but some animals are only driven to have sex at certain times of the year; humans are on a 24/7 system.
>I’ve tried the no fap route and gotten very high days counts but that hasn’t really helped me at all.
Sexual frustration doesn't help anyone. If you are mindful, then you can use your libido to further your goals, but it is not an all-cure.
>Got any sources to help overcome sex-negative perspectives? I’m interested in recreational sex not baby making sex.
Absolutely. I recommend starting with actual sex science and learning about male and female psychology and neurology. Then work your way into reading about sex culture. You should also study developmental psychology as you will probably need the clinical context in order to objectively self-evaluate your childhood influences; it is necessary for self-therapy. The best therapy will always be self-therapy; no one will ever know you better than yourself.
Evolutionary Science and Morals Philosophy:
The Selfish Gene
The Moral Landscape
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do?
Sex Psychology, Science, and Neurology:
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex
The Female Brain
The Male Brain
Why Men Want Sex and Women Need Love
What Do Women Want
Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations from Adventure to Revenge (and Everything in Between)
Sex: The world's favorite pastime fully revealed
Behavioral Psychology and Abstract Economics:
How Pleasure Works
Freakonomics
Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can't Stop Talking
Thinking Fast And Slow
We Are All Weird
Developmental Psychology:
Nurture Shock
Hauntings: Dispelling The Ghosts That Run Our Lives
Empathy Building:
Half The Sky
The House On Mango Street
Me Before You
The Fault In Our Stars
Also check out James Hollis' Understanding The Psychology of Men lecture if you can find it.
Movies: XXY, Tom Boy, Dogtooth, Shame, Secretary, Nymphomaniac, Juno, Beautiful Creatures, and The Man From Earth.
All of these things are related, but it is up to you to make the connections; pick and choose which material suits your interests best. These are the things that came to mind first, and they have all influenced my perspectives.
I do for two reasons. First, for the competition and challenge of it. I love developing a strategy and seeing how well I can execute it.
Second, its to improve my ways of thinking about problems. Board games are very fixed problems with strong rules. In particular, board games are helpful in identifying cognitive biases in ways I think about problems.
One direct application of this is what is known as the Gambler's Fallacy. I think this obviously shows up in social deduction games. For instance, he can't be a werewolf three games in a row.
A second application of this way of thought is Anchoring. In Anchoring we get fixed on the first line of thinking we see. This comes up in games all the time, but I think its most obvious in word games. We find one word we like and we build off of that, we rarely consider other words. If you've ever played Paperback, you have probably seen your group do this as you open up the table for assistance.
Selective perception is another example. In this case we see a strategy that worked for us in the past and we fixate on moves related to that strategy. We don't think outside the box.
I'm going to write up a full article on this, but if anyone is interested, Thinking Fast and Slow is a fantastic book on this topic.
A lot of this comes down to how actively you want to engage in the process, how much of an "enterprising investor" you want to be as opposed to a defensive investor.
For the more defensive position, a lot of /r/investing appreciates Graham's approach emphasizing value, even if a substantial quantity of capital is devoted to playing the market itself (something Graham called speculating). If that approach is interesting to you--which seems likely given your stated desire for low to medium risk with steady growth--then the main adjustments you'd need to make are as follows:
Since you are from the UK I'm going to recommend /r/UKPersonalFinance's bible of Tim Hale's Smarter Investing. That basically explains passive investing, investing aims and timelines, portfolio strategies, etc and also inoculates you against trying to be too clever.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Smarter-Investing-3rd-edn-Decisions/dp/0273785370
You can also read the more general The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham but unless you are going to really dedicate a shed load of time to it Tim Hale's book is precisely what you need. Graham is basically the standard text on the matter but it goes into a lot of detail that isn't really relevant anymore whereas Smarter Investing is primed for modern investing and particularly deals with the UK environment more.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661
If you are going to invest you absolutely want to use the right platform for it. The UK has a good number of tax efficient platforms for investment. Specifically:
Basically it boils down to SIPP for retirement, LISA for buying a house (and to diversify against potential changes to the SIPP in law), S&S ISA for everything else. The one upside of an ISA over a SIPP is withdrawals from ISAs are never taxable. So using the £4k LISA limit each year makes sense once you are below the upper bands on income tax. As you'll effectively be able to withdraw from your LISA at will from 55.
//edit - List of platform providers and fees below.
http://monevator.com/compare-uk-cheapest-online-brokers/
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1
book: "The Intelligent Investor"
The Intelligent Investor is a great start.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060555661/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=1535523722&amp;pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&amp;pf_rd_t=201&amp;pf_rd_i=006079383X&amp;pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&amp;pf_rd_r=0QJSQH2JA725WYHP8J0M
A "purely capitalist" economy is impossible, because the end point relies on ideal market characteristics: all competitors and consumers having access to perfect information, and that all actors are 100% rational.
For the first, companies will not offer that, nor will consumers have the resources or time available to themselves to acquire it. Consider, for example: where did the milk from your fridge come from? who shipped it to the grocery store? how much did the farmer get paid? how much waste does cow -> milk process produce? all of those could be or are pertinent questions to some people, and are not trivial to determine. Now extrapolate that out to everything you buy. In most cases, we only have the information we do have because of government intervention.
For the second, humans do not act 100% rationally when making purchases. There's a fantastic book on it. One of the examples that works very well here was the way humans respond to "free". In a study, they gave out Amazon gift cards: a $10 gift card for $1, or a $20 gift card for $8 (limit 1 choice), most people chose the latter, as that has the maximum benefit to the purchaser ($9 of benefit vs $12). After lowering the price on each by $1, most people took the former, even though the latter offered a greater value -- a net gain of $13 instead of $10.
Pure capitalism is like pure communism: sure, it sounds great on paper, but in practice it's impossible to attain and significantly more flawed than a hybrid system.
Out of all of those, which would you say are frequently underrepresented in MSM? It seems like the first one is pretty readily parroted by everyone as though it is some grand indictment of supply and demand (it's not) -- try googling the phrase "perfectly competitive markets don't exist". Freakonomics did a pretty good job of popularizing the idea of externalities. Books like Nudge and Predictably Irrational have done a pretty good job of popularizing the recent ideas of behavioural economics. And what to do about natural monopolies (or what even constitutes a natural monopoly, in the real world) is still very much a matter of debate; it's not like there's a definitive answer to that.
If you find this interesting, you might want to check out his book, Predictably Irrational. It's full of interesting examples like this where your mind works in ways that you might not expect.
Recommended Reading:
(Those are just the ones I have sitting on my bookshelf... I have a dozen more on my Kindle that I can add to the list if you're interested.)
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Authors &amp;amp; Speakers (lots of TED Talks):
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Let's start a book club! :)
Obviously everyone has their favourites. My primary areas of research are cognitive bias and relational psychology, so I'd recommend starting with:
Cognitive Bias
Relational Psychology
Rationality
For maximum enjoyment, I'd suggest Stumbling on Happiness or Methods of Rationality, they're both very well written and entertaining reads.
Finally, if you start looking up references and papers (and if you're interested in this, you will), then grab a copy of zotero. A good citation manager is an absolute joy.
Disclosure: I'm a member of the International Association for Relationship Research, which is responsible for the Science of Relationships. I'm the primary author for Not A Jerk. Links to Amazon include my affiliate ID.
read this. pick it up at your library or buy it I'm in the same situation and it explains everything you need to know about budgeting, savings, retirement you'll need
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-Be-Rich/dp/0761147489/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1310257315&amp;sr=8-1
Spend $10 on a copy of I Will Teach You to Be Rich. The title is mostly a joke, but it offers very good, practical advice for anyone but particularly those in their early twenties.
I came back to the top after writing this because I know I sound like a dick. I know I'm not gentle. I know sound insanely critical and presumptuous about your life. I don't mean to be, I just don't know how else to write this and still get the message across.
> I want to ensure I have enough savings to buy a house once I leave university in 2/3 years
I don't like starting out on this note, but someone's gotta say it. Taking out a mortgage (let alone buying a house) within a year of graduating is not feasible for most who go to college on their own dime.
I draw attention to the house quote because it's symptomatic of a real problem everyone faces: Understanding how their finances align with their goals. But that's why you're here, and I haven't forgotten to answer that part of your question.
You need to build a budget and track your spending before getting in too deep. Some points:
I make about the same as you, only I've been in the situation for a year longer, and I definitely shared the same anxieties about my adult financial life as you.
Two pieces of advice: First - Read I Will Teach You To Be Rich. You can find the PDF online for free somewhere. Don't worry, it's not one of those sleazy get rich quick books. Instead it's a very level headed go-to guide to set up your financial life. It's been a huge help. Listen to the part about setting up a second savings account that automatically deducts a small amount ($50-$100) of money from every paycheck. It's an idiot-proof painless way to save.
Second, you're still young. Sometimes on this board it's easy to forget that twenty-something's with six figure savings accounts aren't exactly common in the real world. Don't forget to stay calm and try to have some fun. I went through a period of penny pinching every expense. All of my friends were buying nice clothes or going on trips to the beach while I sat in my apartment eating Ramen. As you get older the chances to ride off to the beach with friends or rage at the best music festivals become fewer and far between. Don't forget to enjoy yourself.
It's a metaphor, an old one, more recently redefined in Nassim Taleb's book.
This too
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081297381X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1495498142&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&amp;keywords=black+swan
This isn't exactly a novel criticism. Thomas Piketty stresses in Capital in the Twenty-First Century that economists have gone too far with mathematical models and more qualitative assessments should be used in developing models.
The Black Swan, by Nassim Taleb
Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch
A note on the second choice. I know it's not standard non-fiction fare, but I'm a huge Lynch fan and I really enjoy this book. It's short and I think reading it would benefit anyone. He was an Eagle Scout for Christ's sake!
For candles I really like the overview on Incredible Charts.
Investopedia is a great resource for pretty much anything related to trading. Many people also recommend BabyPips for learning the basics.
I don't have any books recs from personal experience, though I see Random Walk Down Wall Street and The Black Swan recommended around here often.
Trying stuff out on a chart yourself is often the best teacher. Check out cryptowat.ch for basic tools and tradingview.com for more advanced stuff.
Good luck!
>Also just to be fair, look at where this hero-based FPS style got Quake into, there is a reason why Blizzard made the most successful game in the genre, while others suffer from lack of development and direction.
Overwatch and Quake are NOT in the same genre. AT ALL. Overwatch is just as much an arena shooter as, say, Counter-Strike or Call of Duty are; which is to say not at all. You're making the same mistake everyone else is making in starting with incredibly superficial aspects of each game, namely that they have classes, and creating "genres" based on that rather than the actually significant gameplay differences between them (And they must be based on gameplay, since none of these games have any significant story elements in their actual runtime).
Overwatch is so far removed from traditional objective shooters, namely in how efficient use of abilities plays a much larger role in success than raw shooting skill than in virtually any other first person objective game that comes to mind. A large number of the classes don't even require any "FPS" skills, and instead have analogues in asymmetric strategy games and the like.
Quake Champions may be small, yes, but it IS attracting more people than just the quake crowd. On a technical level, it's an excellent blend between an archetypal arena shooter, the sort of game design Quake invented, while reducing complexity and convolution to make it much more approachable for those with more modern shooter habits. Lawbreakers, too, hardly suffers from any "lack of direction" in the design department. It's packed to the brim with great ideas and unique takes on the "high-skill FPS" concept, and had my jaw hitting the floor with respect for its elegant gameplay several times when I started playing it.
Success has far more to do with randomness and luck than most people in this thread seem willing to admit. Quake, Overwatch, and Lawbreakers AREN'T significantly better or worse than each other. No hypothetical backfit narrative properly explains why one would have hypothetically failed or succeeded without luck. We just live in a works where the big take the whole pie and the small get nothing; in a world of bandwagoning and herd mentality caused by popularity coming from whatever just happens to gain traction early on in its lifetime.
I bought in relatively early to all of these games because I'm a shooter fan and a nut for unique game design ideas. I will admit that I like Quake the most, Lawberakers second, and Ovwerwatch third, so I do have a little voice in the back of my head that gets irritated whenever others disagree with that assessment, but we all need to learn to come away form making simple judgements between them and other games in the same boat. All of them break the mould in different and unique ways, all of them have good ideas, and all of them could have been popular, in a world where luck happened to favor someone else.
The volatility in the marketplace has been fairly predicted in the previous months. Interest rates rose from the Fed, temporary trading restrictions overseas in China had been lifted, oil prices are plunging, etc. In general, sticking with an index like the S&P is a sound investment for longterm growth and sustainability.
I work in finance, and one of the very best books on investment is hands down A Random Walk Down Wall Street. I highly recommend it. I also recommend The Black Swan and The Misbehavior of Markets.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Black-Swan-Improbable-Robustness/dp/081297381X
I really liked the ideas presented in the beginning of the book (improbable events have big effects on our lives, but we have a hard time recognizing that) but got totally lost in a set of made-up examples that weren't clearly presented as fictional.
If you want to get a good insight into similar ideas, I'd recommend Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Check out The Black Swan if you're looking for books in that same vein.
> Hi--I am considering law school and want to focus my studies on LLCs, Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...
You are an undergrad? If you want to be a lawyer, study an actual applied topic, now, while you can - and that means not government or english. Economics, computer science, any natural science, most social sciences, history, anthropology. Law is a tool set that without historical context, knowledge of the world at large, horse sense and business savvy is almost completely useless. So unless you are learning actual things, law school isn't going to teach them to you. If you are already out of college, it is not too late. You just have to teach yourself.
I'm exceedingly lucky to have the job I have. And I would not recommend entering this law job market. And one of the primary reasons I actually got this position is before even entering law school I had pretty deep knowledge about the types of business I cared about - I had a background in software and a very high level of financial sophistication for an early twenty something.
If you really want to go to law school, I have to say, it is not a very good investment unless you get in to a t14, get offered a near complete scholarship, have a very unique angle into an industry that you have a pre-existing matching skill set for and the passion to match, or a combination of all of the above. If you are lacking all three of the above, your money and time is far, far, far better spent doing other things.
And if you really want to learn about:
> Corporations, wealth and liability protection, etc...
You won't learn a damn lick of it in law school. You will learn the casebook method. And you will learn all about regulations, formalities, and a whole bunch of shit. But if you are interested in business strategy, which is what it sounds like you are, you can start learning about that now. Start by reading non-fiction business books. And I don't mean bullshit strategy, management or advice books. Use those for kindling. I mean read books about actual businesses, written by serious investigative journalists and businessmen. Here's a short list to get you started:
Just get started, and keep reading. Read about real world businesses - don't read guidebooks about how to do X. See what is in the world and go read it. Are there publicly traded companies that you find interesting? Log on to Edgar and read their public filings. They tell you every goddamn detail of how the business is run, the strategy, the risks they face and how they choose to mitigate them.
Once you get started on this stuff, you will be drawn in and be able to keep up your own research paths. Follow the people on twitter that you find interesting - a lot of VCs are very vocal. Many publish reading lists. Look them up.
But for the love of god, don't think law school will teach you any of this. Corporate law, securities law and corporate finance will teach you the technicalities of all sorts of bullshit you will likely never apply, and, if you do, you will be as good at it as you would be at basketball after having spent three years studying the rules without ever having touched a ball.
Good luck, dotcomrade.
I think:
In particular, I'd encourage you to read a book called "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Nobel-prize-winning-psychologist Daniel Kahneman. In it he goes into great depth about the way that our brains often substitute difficult decisions (like "who should I vote for") subconsciously with easier ones (like "who do I have a better general impression of") and I feel that's the playground we should be operating in.
Supply and demand works if we are perfectly rational actors. But there is considerable evidence that we're not: see Predictably Irrational and Thinking, Fast and Slow. Salary in particular is known for irrational behavior. See the discussion of motivation in Drive or the short version in Daniel Pink's TED talk. Programmers are already fairly well paid and while I would certainly love to be paid more, I'm not convinced that alone would significantly increase the supply of developers.
The evidence for the talent gap is both anecdotal--every company I've worked at and many others I've interacted with complained extensively about lack of good developers--and some limited data (example 1, example 2), though it's not clear how to properly measure something like this.
Finally, I'm not sure that merely having 10x skill is enough to guarantee 10x pay. Perhaps in a perfect market with perfect knowledge and perfectly rational actors, it might be, but that's not how the real world works. You need not only 10x skill at your job, but also at turning that into money, which may be a completely different set of talents. For example, a 10x writer might make less money than an average writer if that average writer had their book turned into a popular teen movie. Similarly, the way for a programmer to make 10x the money is usually not to focus on salary (although there were some stories of Google and FB offering millions to retain some developers), but equity. And there, an exec-level programmer can get 10x the equity of a normal dev, though there is obviously a lot of luck as to whether the equity ends up paying off.
My political opposition isn't along a left/right axis but people who are dogmatic in their thinking. Left, right, middle; I don't care so long as you can recognize and temper your own biases. (I'm such a "neutron.")
Therefore, I like You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney. It's written (appropriately) for the general audience and is affably conversational in tone.
If they're hungry for more, the next book would be Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman for the way it breaks down fast and slow systems of thinking.
Either book should be part of a Neutral Politics recommended reading.
It's an interesting question and I think for a lot of people they can just take a glance at it and "know". As unscientific as it sounds, it can be more accurate than you think. There's a book called Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman that explains this phenomenon quite well.
This isn't exactly what you are asking, but a good psychology-related book that is written for the layman would be Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow
It is an interesting read that provides a lot of information about thinking.
I'm by no means a neuroscientist, but Veritasium made an interesting video based on the popular science book Thinking fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman.
> I've noticed the dotalikes(let's call the genre that for the sake of neutrality) get a lot of hate outside this sub.
I have three theories.
The first theory is that the opinion of the majority is not the same as the opinion of the overly visible gaming literati. I know that this is a fact based on smaller gaming genres, like tabletop roleplaying games, where recently a relatively popular thread indicated that too many people were talking about games like Fate and Dungeon World. Many people agreed.
However, looking at large community surveys and statistics released by the most popular online place to play tabletop roleplaying games we see that Fate only represents 1.65% of games and only 4.30% of all players are in those games, while Dungeon World only represents 1.84% of games with 4.55% of all players in Dungeon World games in the latter source (more comprehensive) and 4% of respondents playing Dungeon World and 5% of non-fantasy setting players and 4% of fantasy setting players playing Fate in the former source.
In other words, a lot of people really thought everyone was devoting way too much time to two games whose market shares are each less than 5%. Meanwhile, the two largest games - D&D and Pathfinder - combined are well over 50% market share.
This leads us to a probable analogous conclusion: the MOBA-haters are much louder online than simple demographics would suggest. This gels with most of what we know about online product reviews generally: only those who really hate or really love a product are likely to take the time out of their day to write up how much they love/hate the product, which leads to a polarization of online viewpoints.
Theory two is an extension, in some respects, of theory one: because MOBAs are so incredibly popular, while their proportion of haters remains about the same as most games (except for the addition of some hipsters who always hate popular things), their absolute number of haters is astronomically high.
Let's imagine for a minute that 1% of all people who play or hear about a game are driven to hate it online. A game with few players, like /r/totalwar of the Total War series, has persistent but relatively isolated griping as a result. If 1% of their subs complain about the game regularly, that would make for ~350 people: a significant portion in the Total War subreddit, where you would notice complaining on account of our earlier-established "haters are loud" theory above, but not a significant enough number to seriously bleed across to other more general subreddits.
In contrast, if 1% of /r/leagueoflegends, the League of Legends subreddit, complained about League, then that makes for 6,500 people. If "the 1% of League subscribers that complain about League" was a subreddit, it would be in the top 3200.
Other extremely popular games, like Call of Duty, seem to act in evidence of this theory: they receive a huge absolute degree of hate.
Theory three is that there is something about MOBAs that leads to direct competition and animosity. MOBAs are notoriously hardcore competitive games, being not just the most popular video games on earth, but also the ones with the largest tournaments. The two largest ones are also notoriously nearly identical.
We know that the brain tends to cook facts to retrospectively justify its choices, focusing on the benefits of your choice while downplaying the detriments, especially when that choice is largely irreversible and largely important (for more about how people react to making choices see Daniel Gilbert Stumbling on Happiness and Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice). MOBAs, by being so competitive, are naturally time intensive, especially among the gaming literati who tend to discuss games online and be part of the core gamer demographic. This makes the decision to play, say, League of Legends rather than DotA 2 subject to a host of natural heuristics that lead us to become "stuck" with our choice: the sunken cost heuristic, for instance. (For more about decision making heuristics see Daniel Kahneman Thinking, Fast and Slow).
When you combine these effects, you get a set of people who are:
Combined, I believe these three theories lead to this demographic, described above, displaying what appears to be a larger-than-normal degree of hate online.
Political works by Chomsky:
The Responsibility of Intellectuals (1967),
At War With Asia: Essays on Indochina (1969),
Government in the Future (1970),
The Fateful Triangle (1983, 2015),
The Chomsky Reader (1987, 2010),
Manufacturing Consent (1988, 2002),
Year 501: The Conquest Continues (1992, 2015),
Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky (2002),
Hegemony or Survival (2003),
Failed States (2006).
Works on Chomsky:
Noam Chomsky: A personal bibliography, 1951-1986 (1986),
Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent (1998),
Chomsky: Ideas and Ideals ( 1999, 2002, 2016),
The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky (2005, 2017),
The Social and Political Thought of Noam Chomsky (2000, 2002, 2004),
The Chomsky Effect: A Radical Works Beyond the Ivory Tower (2007), Noam Chomsky (2015)
Also this, this, this and this.
I've read a lot of business books in the past year. These include:
7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Rich Dad Poor Dad
Think and Grow Rich
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Secrets of Closing the Sale
How to Master the Art of Selling
The E-Myth Revisited
The Compound Effect
The Slight Edge
The $100 Startup
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
I have 4HWW waiting to be read, in addition to about 15 other books that are sitting there, waiting to be read.
The $100 Startup is very inspiring, especially for people who have no chance at securing a "normal" job (I dropped out of college). The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is also very informative. But out of this list, by far, my two favorite books are The Compound Effect and The Slight Edge. #1 going to The Slight Edge. Read this book. Maybe it won't apply to everyone as much as it did to me, but it totally changed my attitude towards life.
Without knowing more about your current financial situation (current net income and net worth, goal net worth and net passive income), it is hard to comment on what may be the strongest investing strategies for you.
If I assume you have basically nothing (no assets and no debt), then for you to be financially free in 10 years (lets say 2M net worth, 75K passive net income/yr) will almost certainly require you to either have a VERY high income and savings rate from now until your goal age or to build something of significant value you can sell to fund your freedom. I suppose you could speculate a bunch in the market and wind up winning big, but the prevailing opinion is that you might as well go to Vegas and put it all on black if that is your overarching strategy.
My opinion, is that if you want to achieve financial freedom by 30 (and are starting from nothing today), than you are best off building a business and spending your time increasing its value. This is not a path for the faint of heart, and a lot of people who try quickly find out they are not up, but if you want to get out of the rat race in such a short time span it may be a good option. Maybe check out this book. I have found it useful, and it does a decent job explaining why systems development is key to the success of most businesses.
Real estate may also be a good avenue for you to look into as well. If you do go that route, understand that the majority of your profit on a real estate investment will be based on buying heavily undervalued assets. Finding motivated sellers is essential (people moving right away, kids squabbling over their dead parents house etc.) and you need to be extremely conservative when analyzing potential buys. Also, property management is very demanding and more complex that it may appear so be prepared for that.
Good luck!
> Your job now owns you.
In the short term, yes. But it doesn't have to be that way for the long term. And by short term I mean a couple of years, not 10 or 20.
Compare it to a professional athlete, who trains like hell even in the offseason. They only have a short window of opportunity to excel, so the sacrifice is worth it if it pays off (granted, it doesn't always).
There are tons of books and web sites about how not to fall into the self-employee trap. One that comes to mind is The E-Myth though it's probably a little out of date.
There are jobs, and there is work. I get fulfillment from my work, but it took me a while to figure out what exactly fulfills me. I know that I need to work the rest of my life. Retiring and hitting the golf course every day would make me suicidal.
I had an internship with Amazon during my Sophomore to Junior summer. I also received offers from Microsoft and Google to intern this upcoming summer (Junior to Senior), but instead took an offer from Fog Creek Software. I have friends that have interned or are full time at Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, all from Rutgers University.
My advice is to anyone looking to get one of these positions is:
This may seem like a lot because well frankly it is. But if you actually enjoy programming and computer science, than this is pretty straight forward and easy. And finally, don't get discouraged. Just because you didn't make it into one of these companies the first time you apply, doesn't mean you'll never make it. Some people don't interview well(it is its own skill, hence #4), some people just can't build out a good resume(seriously use the template that I provided and read cracking the coding interview from front to back), and other people just aren't ready(you really need to program a lot). But that doesn't mean that you will never make it with them, just give it another year, identify your weakness, and work on it.
I really like this book for brushing up on concepts for interviews.
I remember reading a study where researchers found that people who were smart generally felt that they were dumb and people who were dumb, generally overestimated their intelligence. So I thought that's something you should maybe think about since you mentioned that you think you're not a smart guy. With that said, I think you should go for it for sure and I think that with enough preparation and planning, you can increase your chances of getting an offer from Google. And if you don't get it the first time, you should try again. I've read that some got in on the 2nd or 3rd try.
Your plan looks sound. I would recommend focusing on a specific language though instead of focusing on functional programming, C, JavaScript (unless you plan on doing front-end work, I don't think JavaScript would be useful in this situation). Java is one of the widely used languages at Google.
Buy Cracking the Coding Interview. It's such a useful book. The material it goes over isn't very in-depth, so don't expect to use it as a way to learn about various algorithms and computer science concepts. Rather, solve the problems in the book. The problems are of varying levels, some easy while some may really challenge you. You will feel really dumb trying to solve some of these problems, but spend as much time as necessary and try to come up with a solution that you then refine. You may not come up with the optimal decision on the first try.
Solve problems on CareerCup. From what I understand, some of the questions on there are actual Google interview questions.
Make sure you have a thorough understanding and know how to implement basic data structures such as Linked Lists Hashtables, Trees, Binary Trees, N-ary trees, Graphs and Di-Graphs. Know how to perform breadth-first search, depth-first search on both trees and graphs. Know post-order, pre-order and in-order tree traversal. There's more but that's what I remember off the top of my head.
The last interview of the on-site interview will be about system design and it requires a more general architecture knowledge (HTTP, SSL, compression, network latency, disk latency, etc...).
Search for blogposts of people who've interviewed at Google. There are like a dozen or more of them. They give you a good overview of the process and some even contain questions.
Best of luck!
Edit: I forgot to mention the Big-O notation. It's important and every interviewer will ask you for the time complexity of the algorithm you just implemented.
To expand on the above, I would say that you definitely need to learn DS&A before you can get a job. I got lucky getting my first job because they didn't ask me any algorithms questions but trying to find a job is next to impossible if you can't answer their questions on a whiteboard.
Also, practice coding on a whiteboard/paper. I cannot stress this enough. It's amazing how many things you think you know but you realize that your IDE fixes for you/reminds you of. Simple, simple things that make you look completely silly if you don't know them during interviews. Plus, it's just a different process.
It's also quite nerve-wracking to stand in front of a white board and have people watching you write code.....so it's easy for nerves to get in the way as well...
Also, get this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
There are plenty of other books out there as well...
Good luck!
Might as well get this one out of the way --> Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Force is less effective than using more subtle means to control the narrative. See Manufacturing Consent
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
So then the video is meaningless. Great.
My statistics 101 course started with the book "How to Lie with Statistics". This would be an excellent case study.
> The new index, proposed by the Rajan committee, is based on averages of ten sub-components
So an IIT and MIT graduate came up with new index to rank states where 1/6 of the humanity resides with varied demographics and index he comes up with is average of 10 unrelated sub-components. Seriously, Raghuram. You are effing RBI governor. I hope you know more mathematics then grade 3 kids.
I don't even need to go out of my way to see the flaw in his index. Just ask any graduate student who has published a paper in peer reviewed conference/journal.
ps -
http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I'll just leave it here if anyone is interested. It's humours,informative, very accessible light read on how statistics is misused by reporters and investigators to further their own agenda.
It depends on what you're using the data for. Both might seem to measure the same thing, but they don't. I went with a "per capita spending" as it points to consumer spending patterns. Plus, I'd guess that the data is much easier to find than something like "drinks consumed per year." Also, since the OP discusses sales I felt it "relevant" in this context. You're looking at it from a "alcohol consumed" standpoint, my method would look at it from a "money spent on alcohol" standpoint. Both are equally valuable and equally useless - depending on how you use the data. Since I'm a data nerd, I'll share my take on it and try to break it down further.
Let's say you go by per capita consumption (what you're describing). With that data, your goal might be to see how many drinks the average American consumes. That data might be valuable for someone in health services - possibly to suggest physical/mental health concerns regarding alcohol consumption. IE, has the rate of alcoholism increased and in what age group (age, socio-economic). Personally, I think it'd be a far more interesting data-set to look at, as the gap between drinks consumed by casual drinkers and alcoholics would probably be quite large. For instance: low cost, high alcohol content products like Steel Reserve, Wild Rose, and Mad Dog 20/20 - ie your homeless/alcoholic products - and plastic bottle liquor would be more heavily weighted while $200 bottles of wine would be considered only a few drinks. Meaning, $15 of MD 20/20 would be more "per capita consumption" than a $200 bottle of wine. Good data for those in health.
If you go by sales per capita, you're moreso looking at something that is valuable from a capitalist/marketing perspective. Basically, you're trying to answer what percentage of income the average American spends on alcohol. It'd be more valuable for businesses trying to determine pricing strategies. Cheap beers/bum wines/plastic bottle liquors would be less impactful as they're cheap. On the other hand, quality wines, craft beers, and other "luxury" wines would be more telling of your more middle-class purchases. I can see this being valuable for businesses determining which markets to target, legislators trying to add alcohol taxes, or even grocery stores determining whether or not to get their liquor sales license.
That's a perfect example of why I love data and the discussion of "how to lie with statistics".. I don't have enough familiarity with the trends on this topic so I don't want to make any erroneous assumptions, but let's talk hypothetically. Let's assume alcohol sales are on the rise, drinks consumed per capita is stagnant, and drunk driving deaths are falling. As I said, I don't want to make assumptions here, so assume that's all hypothetical. An organization like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) might site sales increases as "evidence that drinking is a problem and on the rise." Is it actually or is it just using a single metric that contradicts more valuable/specific information? In that scenario, to me it'd reveal that consumers are shifting purchasing habits to middle-priced alcohol and getting less drunk. Once again, I am not promoting a political narrative or accusing them of doing that. I just chose a random acronym people are familiar with.
On the other side of the hypothetical, let's assume alcohol sales are falling, but per capita consumption is significantly rising. Legislators might use sales figures to argue that alcoholism isn't as big of a concern anymore and thus we should cut treatment spending - when in actuality per capita consumption up and the reason sales are down is due to a recession. Once again, great example of lying with statistics.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
I think you have the right strategy with "something for the grandkids." But there is more you can do.
Fallacies and Pitfalls of Language is best posed as a "Hey, you want to know how to catch these lying bastards? Here's how." If he's at all cantankerous, this is the ideal book to fuel that. Once the logical fallacies he confronts daily have labels, it's easier to dispense with them. It's a much more engaging and practical approach than an introduction to formal logic or going for Greek philosophy.
It's an easy work to build on. How to Lie with Statistics is in the same vein if he really likes the format and wants more. If he only digs it, I'd start him on something like Sagan's "Demon-Haunted World" which takes a skeptical, and critical approach to demons, aliens, angels, psychics, and that sort of thing. It's engaging, hopeful, and interesting, and forces us to confront the silliness pandered on the History channel these days.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
One of my favorite books is How to Lie with Statistics. I think you would like it: https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
How to Lie with Statistics https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393310728/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_-HZ.BbXA1BV68
Yup. These guys aren't real Christians. This is their real bible
Oh man. I'm saving a copy of that graph. That's How to Lie with Statistics 101.
I recommend the book: http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
to understand more about human nature and how our perceptions mold our realities. We all need to understand the other side's perceptions and how they see things in order to understand how to persuade them.
The power of free has nothing to do with rationality. Read Predictably Irrational.
It's wholesome to spend Valentines Day with my crush
I'm glad you've become interested in such a fascinating topic. However, it's pretty expansive, so here are some links to books and topics in terms of broad, global, and more specific studies related to the issue of income equality:
Broad Topic/Global:
In the US/more specific:
This is just a list of the more well-known, discussed, and publicized works on the broader subject of income inequality and poverty. There is a plethora of information on this topic from different perspectives and analyses (e.g. political economy, neoclassical, marxist, etc...), as well as in different countries and time periods, so while you're reading remember to take the context of how it is being written and who is writing it into consideration. Hopefully this list gets you started though!
I'll recommend some books that I'm reading right now
Thinking, fast and slow by Daniel Kahneman
Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan
Broca's Brain by Carl Sagan
Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman
Why Nations Fail by Robinson and Acemoglu
In Afghanistan's Shadow: Baluch Nationalism and Soviet Temptations
The Terrorist Prince: The Life and Death of Murtaza Bhutto
> Why Nations Fail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Nations_Fail
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227
http://whynationsfail.com/summary/
You should read The Lean Startup by Eric Ries before you waste your money.
Edit: Also I have no idea what an app developing calculator is and there's no way it's correct.
Ciao, libero professionista nel giro delle startup da circa 6 anni qui, in ambito marketing digitale. Per esperienza diretta ti dico di diffidare dal 100% delle persone che orbitano attorno al così detto startup show business. Tutti quelli che sono in questa bolla sono dei fuffari con la passione per il raggiro. Stai lontano dai premi, stai lontano dagli aperitivi di networking, stai lontanissimo dai programmi tv e da tutti gli eventi fuffa del settore. Se vedi qualcuno che ti vuole vendere un corso online offendilo, anche pesantemente, lui saprà il perché. Detto questo ti posso consigliare questo:
Leggi. Leggi soprattutto in inglese. Ti dico che un buon punto di partenza è questo post qui. Poi ti consiglio qualche libro su lean startup tipo questo, questo e soprattutto questo. Poi ti servirà qualcosa per il business plan. Su questa materia ho letto solo un libro che parla di casi di studio e non te lo consiglio (una versione di questo qui), ti conviene leggere qualcosa di più accademico prima per capire come sono fatti questi documenti. In più ti servirà qualcosa di tecnico sul settore in cui operi. Ci sono decine di libri per ogni settore, basta cercare.
Fai. Inizia da quello che puoi fare: puoi iniziare da qualche schermata dell'app se il tuo modello di business ne prevede una, dal documento di analisi funzionale, dal business plan, da una demo del prodotto fisico che può essere commercializzata: insomma inizia a fare qualcosa che sia connesso al tuo modello di business. Scarta l'ipotesi sito web con annessa presentazione di qualcosa che non esiste: lo fanno tutti ed è quello che insegnano a fare nei corsi di fuffa. Prima fai qualcosa e poi dopo lo presenti. Questo fatto che le cose prima si fanno e poi si dicono ricordatelo sempre: il settore è pieno di gente che dice "facciamo, implementiamo, vendiamo" e intende "faremo, implementeremo e venderemo".
Costruisci un team. Parla del tuo progetto con qualcuno, inizia a stabilire relazioni. Se hai un profilo tecnico trovati uno che sa vendere, se sai vendere trovati qualcuno che programmi. Se non sai vendere o programmare trovati uno che ha tanti soldi. Ricordati: per fare una startup hai bisogno di un team perché non potrai mai fare tutto da solo. Ricorda: sono le persone che fanno le imprese e la componente umana nei gruppi di lavoro sotto la decina di unità è fondamentale. Non prendere a bordo parenti, non prendere persone tossiche, non prendere amici, non prendere il primo che passa. Una buona idea è partire da colleghi o, ancora meglio, ex colleghi.
&#x200B;
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060555661/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_3Unbub0KY51BG
Read these -
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
https://www.amazon.com/Security-Analysis-Foreword-Buffett-Editions/dp/0071592539/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_i=0071592539&amp;pd_rd_r=NQ9JQNS97TSCDHPSDTEM&amp;pd_rd_w=LxdWn&amp;pd_rd_wg=9nDBB&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=NQ9JQNS97TSCDHPSDTEM
It's not hard to understand once you understand the driving principles. This dip/crash was predictable.
Investing is a marathon, not a sprint. I'd recommend you read The Intelligent Investor before making any purchases.
How deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Buffett himself would recommend you index. But, if you must, start with Ben Graham and move on to learning accounting and then start with Buffett's annual letters.
Here's the recommended reading list on this subreddit's sidebar.
I personally started off with Peter Lynch's One Up on Wall Street. It's a good book for beginners to help you start thinking about stocks analytically. Regardless of what you start off with though, definitely follow it up with The Intelligent Investor. That is a fundamental book with some big concepts in there such as "Mr. Market" and "Margin of Safety"... but it's not an easy read until you have some foundation first.
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1491278610&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+intelligent+investor
https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-down-Wall-Street/dp/0393352242/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1491278661&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=random+walk+down+wall+street
The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham is a must.
http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661
I also have a PDF copy of Margin of Safety by Seth Klarman.
http://financetrends.blogspot.com/2008/08/seth-klarman-margin-of-safety-pdf.html
> Or is there something that I am missing.
Yes.
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So if they have more profits next year, and do the same thing, it happens again and again and again and again. The value goes back up, then it gets distributed out to the SHs. So you have your stock (similar price) PLUS income.
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I suggest you read this and this.
The grandaddy of them all is "The Intelligent Investor" Benjamin Graham. "By far the best book on investing ever written." --Warren Bufett
If you are looking for forecasts, you will probably read a bunch of investing news sites. They all have forecasts for pretty much everything under the sun, and you will pretty much filter out anything that doesn't say what you want to hear. Don't put much stock into forecasts.
Do yourself a favor and read The Intelligent Investor. It sounds like you're looking to make some quick bucks on some money you don't really need, but that could lead to speculation, not investing, and you could wind up losing a lot more than you think possible.
The book will give you a good idea of how to split your capital between stocks and bonds, and why splitting is a good idea. It will tell you how to evaluate stocks and industries, so when you read about forecasts and what have you, you can actual evaluate what you're being told. It's a good place to start.
If you look to the side bar to the right, there is additional information on how to start out.
I mean considering the sub reddit https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365.
General Greeting: I'm 34m, engaged, no kids in our plans. Have lived in Orlando for 16 years since college, and have been making websites and working in software engineering since high school. I absolutely love teaching people how to code and lucked into joining Code School (as you would easily discover looking at my post history).
What brought you to /r/fi: After my mom passed away ~11 years ago, I started reading everything I could to understand what to do with the modest inheritance. This led to reading things like The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, The Millionaire Next Door and eventually MMM which helped refine and shape my view of investing, consumerism and the role of money in my life.
Other hobbies/interests:: I listen to a lot of audiobooks, and challenge myself to read/listen more. Recently started a site (minafi.com) to write about topics different from my day to day -- minimalism, financial independence and mindfulness. It's been fun having another avenue to write about things that are at the top of my mind, and explore something different from programming. Bunch of other common hobbies - CrossFit, board games, cocktails, eating anything and traveling anywhere.
Picture of yourself if you want: Somehow even though I'm crazy open with personal facts, sharing a photo seems quite intimate. I don't think I've done that before on Reddit, but here goes!.
Educate yourself before you start blowing money. Go read a book on investing like Bogelhead's Guide. You won't learn anything of value from blowing money on penny stocks, other than not to blow money on penny stocks. Knowledge is power, but you're seeking it in the wrong places.
Boglehead's Guide to Investing this book is an amazing comprehensive guide to financial markets, saving, spending, bonds, taxes, etc etc. It is a collective thought project by 3 very wealthy investors with nothing to gain but to teach everyday people about money. It is very well written, well thought out, and covers a lot but does a great job of explaining it to financially illiterate people. I would definitely suggest giving this book a read or at least, checking out a few chapters.
Economía e inversiones son dos cosas muy distintas. Los libros de economía que leí están en ingles y son:
Una vez que leas y entiendas los tres primeros libros, las inversiones pasan a ser algo mas fácil de entender: como producir valor a partir del aire.
Ugh. Ok SJW. I dont feel like entertaining you anymore. Here read this , https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232
LEARN SOMETHING.
>Automation — long a force in agriculture and manufacturing — is accelerating in the retail sector, a trend that could hamper efforts to bring down the nation's stubbornly high jobless rate.
This is stupid. See: Economics in One Lesson, chapter 7; the curse of machinery. For anyone on this subreddit who doesn't have that book: Amazon.
I don't think it is bullshit. This is the value of BTC as money, and money only. Bitcoin is also a store of value, a speculative asset, an edge against mainstream assets, etc...
The amount exchanged on exchange do not really matter as they are off chain and very high velocity, so don't contribute to the value of the asset as money.
Even if I assume your $200M is right, then the points still stands, most of BTC's value do not come from it's monetary use.
EDIT: Getting downvoted for reminding basic economics, bravo bravo ! You guys should spend less time on reddit and start reading this: https://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232
I get painted as a radical in today's backwards world, but anyone who studies economics knows that politically motivated moves like this have no basis in economic reality. You can write whatever laws you want to write, that's not how the value of the dollar is decided. The purchasing power of the dollar adjusts according to its availability - and a number of other factors. Writing a law as simple minded as "you have to pay people more money" takes away from the purchasing power of the dollar. Although probably not the only factor, your rent went up as much as it did largely due to the increase in minimum wage. This is not "corporate greed" it is a functioning economy. It has been done countless times in human history, and yet here we are, actively continuing the bad practice into 2019 and beyond.
I realize this is not the place to get into a huge conversation about this necessarily, so I will stop myself, but if you or anyone is interested in a grounded view on the nature of an economy, I would highly recommend reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.
You need to read this, which you can buy for $0.99 used on Amazon (or probably $10 locally somewhere): http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1422488301&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=economics+in+one+lesson
Your arguments do not comport with economics.
Below is a link to "Time Management for System Administrators" by Limoncelli. Get your boy a copy of it. I have a copy on my shelf that I have highlighted. I sometimes need to read it myself when I start to slide and get a little sloppy.
I had a similar situation when I arrived at my current position. I gave the junior staffer this book. 4 years later he has shaped up and moved on to another gig where his has been working his way up a big corporate tech ladder.
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1412943247&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=time+management+for+system+administrators
https://www.amazon.com/Time-Management-System-Administrators-Working/dp/0596007833/ref=sr_1_1/144-8858292-8956659?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1543544242&amp;sr=1-1
I prefer two, but others may do.
I just finished this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Management-System-Administrators-Thomas-Limoncelli/dp/0596007833
Awesome read for anyone who works in IT. The book has some scenarios that I thought were unique to me but apparently are seen by many admins.
A quick and good read about managing your time. I am also a lone admin and this has helped.
Time Management for System Administrators https://www.amazon.com/dp/0596007833/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_awd_W2HBwb27CD89X
This book helped me a lot and changed my life I strongly recommend - Time Management for System Administrators https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0596007833/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_r4WWCbJPR5RPA
A few thoughts. Hopefully at least one of them will be helpful.
I could go on, but most of the above is already in the two books I listed and I'd just be riffing on a theme. I'll leave you with this:
You hit the proverbial nail on the head. Make-work bias has been around for centuries and there is usually only temporary unemployment for those whose jobs get replaced by capital. But like you said it's not really worth worrying about at this point.
If anyone has any interest in technological advancement or capital from an economic standpoint, these are some great books to check out:
[Capital in the Twenty-First Century] (http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0ETBP81SYG4890W6R34T)
[The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Second-Machine-Age-Technologies/dp/0393239357/ref=pd_sim_b_6?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0N2W244G0SF4XT3Q5MDB)
[The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Lights-Tunnel-Automation-Accelerating/dp/1448659817/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&amp;refRID=0Q1BR5DDQRM29TZPTGBN)
It's true. Only 60 million make it into the top 1%, with $34,000/year. Half of that 1% (29 million) live in the US. The number comes from Branko Milanovic's work, and his book The Haves and the Have-Nots.
Here are some articles on it from well respected organizations:
http://blogs.worldbank.org/publicsphere/inequality-and-rise-global-1-great-new-paper-branko-milanovic
http://foreignpolicy.com/2012/02/27/were-all-the-1-percent/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/garyshapiro/2012/05/30/we-are-the-worlds-one-percent/#7db36adf20f0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/americans-make-up-one-half-of-the-one-percent_n_1183713.html
However, keep in mind they all cite the same source, which is Milanovic and his book, and were all written at around the same time, so I assume it was Milanovic's publisher paying a PR firm to get these written. But that's pretty much how most media works now days. So if you are still skeptical of the number, I suggest reading the book, or finding some of Milanovic's published papers and reading through the methodology used to come up with his numbers.
Another fantastic book on the subject is Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I highly recommend reading it. Picketty actually expected huge amounts of controversy when he released his book, and was surprised to find out that not many people disagreed with his methodologies and conclusions. Which is pretty scary in itself.
"Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy" sobre Anonymous. Estaba muy interesante por que, uno, describe lo que ha pasado los últimos 6 años en cuanto a seguridad en línea desde la perspectiva de Anonymous, y dos, por que me tocó vivir muchos de esos momentos en línea y en la vida real con lo de Cientología, Wikileaks, Occupy, etc. 10/10 recomendaría.
Antes de eso: "Social Physics". Dice que podemos usar "big data" para monitorear las interacciones de las personas para tomar mejores decisiones sobre como organizar nuestras empresas, organizaciones, y ciudades. Tipo chido, pero lo que argumenta sobre big data según yo puede exacerbar la desigualdad en poder que ya existe entre los "pudientes/1%/corporaciones" y el resto de la "gente común y corriente". También está el peligro de que los algoritmos que usamos para tomar decisiones no tomen en cuenta muchos factores importantes que igual pueden empeorar la disparidad económica y racial que ya existe. Pero tiene ideas muy interesantes. 8/10 léanlo si le entran a este tipo de cosas.
Siguiente: Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Trata sobre la desigualdad que existe y se ha creado con nuestro sistema económico actual. Viene muy recomendado.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely understand you are young and need guidance. I was 17 when I started investing as well.
I can give stock recommendations all day but I can give you two really good pieces of advice right now.
1: Read. Read everything you can. The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham is the bible of value investing. Warren Buffet himself said that this was the best book on value investing he's read. Read this book. Also, read Rich Dad Poor Dad This was the single most influential piece of literature I've ever read.
2: Be extremely careful who you take advice from. Just because people are older doesn't make them smarter. You want to find people who have exactly what you want for yourself. These people are worth taking advice from. The average person is an idiot, and they all think they know the right way, and yet they all are slaving away at jobs they hate that "don't pay them enough". This could even be your parents or friends. It may be hard to reject their advice. They may not even realize that they don't know what they are doing. Again, you want to learn from people who have exactly what you want.
Remember, buying something that is cashflow negative with no guaranteed appreciation is not an investment in the classical sense - it's speculation. See https://www.amazon.ca/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Value-Investing/dp/0060555661.
As someone who works in finance for a living, I promise it's not as complicated as it seems. Once you understand the fact that the finance industry intentionally complicates and obfuscates its inner-workings to generate demand for our services and add a little bit more profit here and there, everything will seem a lot less intimidating.
If you're the bookish type and are serious about learning about the markets, I'd recommend checking out The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. I really like this edition because it has summaries after every chapter that ties the concepts presented by Graham to more recent economic developments such as the Dot Com Bubble and The Great Recession, among other things, and attempts to apply them. It's a dense read, even if you have a background in economics or finance like I do, but it's well worth it.
It was Freakonomics, yes. That chapter was fascinating. I wonder how much of it is accurate.
Maybe. I thought the decline in crime we due to the population changes caused by the liberalisation of abortion in the 70s.
Source: (freakenomics - Amazon)[http://www.amazon.com/Freakonomics-Economist-Explores-Hidden-Everything/dp/0060731338]
I'd recommend Freakonomics because it shows economics as the awesome discipline it really is.
Can't speak for graduate programs, but if you're applying to positions that involve coding, you'll be asked at the very least about your coding experiences, and (if you're applying to a company that actually has decent tech) be asked some technical coding questions - so basically, don't sweat the wording too much because companies will verify your experience in interviews. For applying to software development positions, I highly recommend checking out Cracking the Coding Interview, this book pretty much hits the nail on the head for everything you need to prepare for.
For reference, I was a math major and only took 2 coding courses in college (1 was required for all graduates), but I had been coding in java since 7th grade, and despite learning practically nothing new in college and getting fairly rusty, I was hired at a smallish company and do data science and software dev (currently messing around with neural nets basically just as experimentation). I put down on my resume/cv that I had 10+ years of experience in Java, was fairly proficient in C++ and Python (which was true, I had done some work in those in college and coded up some fairly large projects), and said "had experience with" a few other languages.
I've had a 70 minute interview once, it was one long technical question with personal questions in between parts. Apparently this is the key to success for software interviews
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X?ie=UTF8&amp;*Version*=1&amp;*entries*=0
Don't. Do not under any circumstances say you would work for them over all other choices. There's a few reasons for this.
This isn't necessarily done on purpose, but I've seen it happen first hand too many times to count. It's almost like the "bad-boy" dilemma in dating- the guys who seem farthest away to reach are usually the most in-demand.
Instead, communicate your passion through the knowledge you have about their company. Talk about their things they've done you admire, ask them questions about how the framework they use and why (Do your research, don't say anything obvious!). If there are company github projects, read through them all. Try to get an idea of what they might be working on next and why.
In a phone interview your goal is not to get the job, just to get to the next interview. Give them what they need without sending across any red-flags. Really look closely at the job description and make sure you check each criteria. Have prepared answers for questions like: "Tell me about yourself," "Where do you see yourself in 5 years," etc.
I'd also recommend buying "Cracking the Coding Interview" if you have some time to prepare: https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X
It's extremely helpful.
This post is incredibly realistic and I found it to be very helpful: http://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1z97rx/from_a_googler_the_google_interview_process
Practice. Practice. Practice. Know your data structures and algorithms. I would read up on Glassdoor and CareerCup to get a general idea of the level of difficulty. I would say Google's interviews tend to fall about average on the level of phone interviews I've done.
Other resources:
I've heard good things about these books; Cracking the Coding Interview: 150 Programming Questions and Solutions and Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job
Cracking the Coding Interview: More to help you get a job as a Software Engineering, but full of fun problems even if you do them just for the challenge and learning.
The Code Book: A great overview of the history of Cryptography.
> Now herein lies the problem. I now need to condense a 4 year degree down into two years.
Just to be sure, your department should have an undergraduate adviser whose sole purpose is to help figure this out for you. Arrange a meeting to make sure your plan will work as you expect (just to be on the safe side).
> Also, I have heard that interviewers in Big Tech will probably ask Operating Systems questions, memory management questions, and scalability questions, so I am very worried that I won't have the experience to answer these questions in interviews. My biggest fear would be to just say "I haven't had any experience with this yet" in response to a question in an interview. I would be dropped in a heartbeat.
First, the ability to say "I don't know" is a huge thing for you to say, since it's an honest answer and will give a general good impression on your interviewer (provided the question isn't a basic one :p). If you want to prepare for these interviews, I recommend reading Programming Interviews Exposed and Cracking the Coding Interview (which you have read, but I'll mention it here simply for other people's benefits) (in that order), to brush up and learn about technical interviews.
> Finally I want to note that throughout this time I have been working through "Cracking the Coding Interview" [...]
Can you elaborate on what you mean by "Working through"? You don't (and shouldn't) be able to answer all those questions from memories, but understand the general thought process and tricks to solving them. It's very unlikely you will receive an exact question from the book, but a variation of it might appear. It's also important to note that each problem should take no more then 30 minutes to solve (some far less).
Cracking the Coding Interview.
Everybody's learning style is different. Here are some books I believe to be essential for any novice or pro.
Programming For Dummies. It has a stupid title, but it is well reviewed for good reasons. I read through this beast in three weeks. There is no coding involved, as it is mostly theory, but it covers most of the bases of computer science and programming logic. Looking back, much of it confused me at first read, but the big ideas are all presented here. Reading this during the summer before first semester was a huge boost for me. All of the major computer languages are discussed in the book.
Cracking the Coding Interview. A book meant for veterans trying to get into highly demanding top tech companies, the book is a great introduction to programming paradigms. There are numerous examples of problems in each chapter with answers at the back of the book. The whole thing is in Java, with a short chapter on C++.
Design Patterns. As you learn more about object oriented programming, the concept of design is introduced. This book is the holy grail of software architecture and recommended by many. I would hold off acquiring it until you are certain that CS is where you want to be, it is quite technical. This book follows C++, although a Java version of the patterns exists on Github.com
A non-technical book just for fun:
The Innovators is essentially the story of computer science and how it got to present day. It follows the characters, human beings, that were involved each step of the way right up until modern day. Your professors will be impressed that you know who Alan Turing, Grace Hopper, and Charles Babbage were. If only I had been at THE MOTHER OF ALL DEMOS! The actual stories of Microsoft, Apple, The internet, the PC, video games, the space program, etc. On Quiz Up, a trivia app, every other question in the CS category involves names from this book. Read it just to be a real geek that knows where this stuff came from, and the drama/tension that led to innovation. The book is actually really funny at times.
> ...gain some experience under my belt
I agree with /u/ivix; it's the wrong kind of experience. If you have a CS degree, then you should be developing, not answering phones.
I recently entered the field, and I found https://pramp.com/ to be super useful for technical interviews both over the phone and in-person. They're live, so it feels a lot like a real interview (i.e., nerve-wracking).
Also, Cracking the Coding Interview is a must. There might even be a copy at your library if you don't want to buy your own copy. This walks you through the interview experience at the big software companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, etc.), and teaches you how to solve an algorithm problem, not what the answer to each problem is.
Finally, as dumb as it is, I'd recommend practicing coding on a white board (or a piece of paper). It's stupid that companies do it, but if you practice it, it'll be easier to think about the problem you've been asked and not about how weird it feels to be writing a loop in marker rather than typing it. Write sort algorithms, BFS/DFS, fibonacci, etc. Not that any of that stuff will necessarily help you, but I felt much more comfortable in the actual interview because I was used to drawing code.
Let me know if you have any questions and goodluck!
Most people's "hard" interview stories are about difficult whiteboarding exercises or some such.
The good news is that there are plenty of resources, like Cracking the Coding Interview (considered the "Bible" of interview practice books), HackerRank, etc. to help you get better.
I recommend practicing HackerRank alone, and doing problems from CtCI (yes, the book is so good it is usually referred to by an acronym) with others under "realistic" conditions (i.e. in front of a whiteboard, with one person posing as the interviewer and the other trying to solve the problem).
The bad news is that fundamentally improving anything takes time. If you practice interviews twice and do a few problems from HackerRank each week, you will see significant improvement after ~3 months.
Lastly, I leave you with this fantastic talk by Sean Lee, a CS alumnus from the University of British Columbia, about interviewing with big tech companies.
Long story short, just practice and keep trying; failing once, twice, or even more times is no problem. Companies (rightly) care only about how good you are now, not how much you sucked a year ago.
This person worked in a bunch of tech companies and then quit to sell their interview questions online:
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
How to lie with statistics.
>"The secret language of statistics, so appealing in a fact-minded culture, is employed to sensationalize, inflate, confuse, and oversimplify," warns Huff.
here's a book to read.
Because many people believe that you can lie with statistics...a guy even wrote a book on how to do it.
Hey, here it is...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393310728/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1469297515&amp;sr=8-1&amp;pi=SY200_QL40&amp;keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics&amp;dpPl=1&amp;dpID=51zFExbOw9L&amp;ref=plSrch
Idée cadeau.
http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Economics-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465060730/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1450127393&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=basic+economics+thomas+sowell
Well, as you probably know these Economic schools of thought are usually associated with some university or group of Economists. For instance, the Chicago School was associated with the University of Chicago. Thomas Sowell is a very popular Conservative economist that adheres to the Chicago School who put out his book Basic Economics a few years ago. Although it's a book about Economics, it's written from a popular perspective meant to appeal to the general layman. Many Libertarians follow the Austrian School and still read the books of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek, both unorthodox economists.
Economics is one of those subjects that often takes on an ideological nature. As much as one wants it to remain scientific, people from all creeds are guilty of ideoligising Economics. The Left is not exempt from doing this, either. Marxist Economists still teach the Labor Theory of Value, an idea rejected by mainstream Neoclassical Economics. In fact, Marxists pretty much reject all of Neoclassical Economics in favor of Marx's approach to Economics. I remember listening to some lectures by Richard Wolff, a popular Marxist Economist, and he said when he discusses economics with other Economists they never know what he's talking about, because Marxian economics is so radically different from mainstream economics, since it has different definitions and premises.
> It also seems odd to disagree with the majority of universities teachings.
These schools of thought form due to disagreements in theory and interpreting data. Marxist, Neoclassical, Austrian, Modern Monetary Theorist, etc. economists remain scientific and objective in their approach to Economics, but each have different theories regarding how the Economy works. People tend to latch on to the theories that agree with them or confirm their bias. This isn't just a Conservative thing, it's an everybody thing.
I really liked Beyond Paycheck to Paycheck for general personal finance and investing. It assumes absolutely no prior knowledge and really walks you through everything from budgeting to saving to investing to estate planning. I'd start here.
I also liked The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing, which is basically a summary of the low-stress, long-term investing style that the company Vanguard has tried to make possible.
As usual, the For Dummies series also has some very good information, and your library will almost certainly have pretty much any title you want from them.
Good luck!
You say you haven't done an algorithms or data structures class yet at university, which tells me you're probably not even at the midpoint of your student career. There are plenty of internships and opportunities out there. If I'm right about your current progress at university you have time on your side too, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.
If you think you're having trouble with the interview process itself you might want to check out Cracking the Coding Interview. It goes into detail about the entire hiring process, what you should DEFINITELY know, what you should probably know, how you should go about coding on the whiteboard, and goes so far as to even suggest how you should dress for the interview. The bulk of the book are the useful sample questions and answers. Definitely worth a read.
I just picked up this book Cracking the Coding Interview which i wish i would have done it over a year ago. If you preview the book and go down to page 30 it has a process map. Basically its a mix of projects, practice interviews, and tackling interview type questions.
If i had a do over, i would grab this book early on and keep it close while completing other books like head first C# or whatever language fits your goals.
My girlfriend got me Cracking the Coding Interview my sophomore year of college.
https://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850
It showed me what to expect in future technical interviews, and gave me something to look forward to. It's not and end all, be all by any means, but it's a good starting point. Eventually he should look into leetcode for these sorts of things, but this book was recommended to me early on, and I really enjoyed it.
Have you tried Cracking the Coding Interview? It has a section dedicated to Big O.
I've posted this before but I'll repost it here:
Now in terms of the question that you ask in the title - this is what I recommend:
Job Interview Prep
Junior Software Engineer Reading List
Read This First
Fundementals
Understanding Professional Software Environments
Mentality
History
Mid Level Software Engineer Reading List
Read This First
Fundementals
Software Design
Software Engineering Skill Sets
Databases
User Experience
Mentality
History
Specialist Skills
In spite of the fact that many of these won't apply to your specific job I still recommend reading them for the insight, they'll give you into programming language and technology design.
Go read The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing and you'll be set to get started investing. It's well-written and easy to understand.
Been loving the responses so far! My own preferences have been changing, and I've been reading a lot more non-fiction than I used to. It has really opened the doors to a lot of books I would not have considered reading before!
On my reading list:
The Unthinkable by Amanda Ripley - this is what I'm almost finished with now. It has been a really insightful read on how little prepared society is for disasters, and the steps we should take to help fix that.
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker - I've seen this mentioned on reddit a few times and it's in the same vein as the book I'm currently reading.
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce D. Perry
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries - I'm currently working in the startup industry, and have read similar books to this.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz - same as the book above. This is currently going around my office right now so I should be reading it soon!
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk M.D. - this was recommended to me by a friend when he learned I was reading The Unthinkable and The Gift of Fear. Honestly really looking forward to reading this one!
On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society
Books I'd recommend:
Blink by Malcom Gladwell - all about the subconscious mind and the clues we pick up without realizing it. Pretty sure reading this book has helped me out in weird situations.
Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance - amazing read about how Elon Musk works and the person he is.
The Circle by Dave Eggers - just don't watch the movie :)
> Common sense tells us that if you're so poor that you can't afford $0.80 condoms, you probably shouldn't be having sex at all and risking getting some woman pregnant.
Common sense tells us that if you're in the econ sub you should have at least an econ101 understanding of how the world works.
Start with this and work your way forward. It might be challenging for you because its an actual book written by an educator and scientist. Not an angry conspiratorial youtube video, Brietbart article, or Twitch stream. But I believe in you!
Not a course, though I heard this is a good one https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 (the book is about cognitive biases). The author is an economist and psychologist at the same time, even got Nobel Prize in economics.
Don't really know if this is type of thing you are looking for.
Well said. I would just like to take your point about how poorly informed people are a bit further to one about psychology and decision making: One of the best books I know for understanding the thinking of Republican conservatives and Trump supporters is the book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (who won the Nobel Prize in economics for his research).
Namely, they have only developed their "fast" thinking abilities: i.e. prejudices, and emotional, 2-valued (Yes/No, Good/Evil) gut-reaction decision making. And they are terribly poor at "slow" thinking: i.e. complex, abstract, critical and lengthy calculations in a multi-valued space of uncertainty (e.g. probabilities and statistics, etc.).
And this has created a nasty game of Hawks vs Doves (i.e. Assholes vs Cooperators) that the political left needs to develop a better, broad political strategy in playing.
It's very difficult to get around it.
You have to stay very focused on a goal. For me, since ROM7, it's been to finish every match I play. Has that happened? No, but I understand the situations it has not and I'm very pleased with how things have been going.
It also helps if you read autobiographies or books on sports psychology (or psychology in general) to get ideas & techniques on how to better your mentality.
Here are some that have helped me immensely.
PS. I'm not telling you where, but if you don't want to create a book collection PDFs of each of these may or may not be online.
Some ideas from self-help books might resonate with certain people, so in that sense, they're not a scam. Personally, I've gotten more from books that aren't specifically "self-help," but focus more on a certain topic and help shine a light on why we think the way we do and some potential ways to change that way of thinking. A few examples:
The Power of Habit
Thinking Fast and Slow
The Like Switch
I also read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck and got nothing out of it, but I see lots of glowing reviews for it, so some people must have enjoyed it.
Good and Real by Gary Drescher. Covers a similar philosophical stance to that of Yudkowsky in the Sequences, but with more academic rigor. A fun read that goes over computation, decision theory, morality, and Newcomb's Problem (among other things.)
Thinking Fast and Slow Daniel Kahneman's lifetime of research in heuristics and cognitive biases condensed into one epic volume. Highly engaging and 100% recommended if you aren't well-versed in this area.
A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley. A scientific approach to studying, looking at good memory tricks, ways to learn better, and some interesting ideas on procrastination (including characterizing it as a malign reward loop).
There is a great book called Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman that lays out a description of the brain as having two systems.
Sytem one is fast and automatic, operating below the level of what we think of as 'consciousness.' This is what sets your walking pace, or interprets the facial expressions of others, or plays out a movement from muscle-memory. The type of information it deals in is things like 'really hard effort.'
System Two is slow, deliberate, and reflective. It's what you use to do complicated math problems, or cue a part of a lift you aren't automatic at yet. (Spread the floor!) It's also how your brain reflects on what it's doing. (I shouldn't be rude to my Mom.)
You have a finite amount of bandwidth and these systems are trading it back and forth all the time. What's likely happening when you 'blank out' during a tough set of DL is that your system one is so over-taxed that it's recruiting all the power from your system 2. When you 'came to' your System 2 turned back on.
The same thing happens when you're hiking on a trail, see a bear, run away, and only then 'feel scared' and have a chance to reflect and realize what happened. System 1 became the boss for a while during a period of extreme stress. Same as with deadlifting.
tl;dr - You are going full instinct.
You need to go read some financial management books.
Here's one to start.
Assuming you're in the US and presumably in a low tax bracket, you should be putting money into a Roth IRA.
Sidenote: My company offers 100% 401K matching, no vesting period, and offers good low cost/fee funds. Yet I still have co-workers that don't fucking do it, despite being literally a 100% return on investment for just plopping money in there.
Welcome to the states! It sounds like you and your husband are doing quite well for yourselves. Saving for the future and being financially independent is a great goal to strive for. Maxing out your IRA and 401K is a great idea as it'll save money on taxes. Beyond that, I recommend low-cost mutual funds for nonpre-tax savings - a good book to read that's great for beginners would be The Boglehead's Guide to Investing. I also recommend checking out /r/personalfinance
As to worrying about lifestyle creep, there are a few tricks I like to do to keep me from spending needlessly. The first is to envision how long it would require me to work to be able to afford something. For example, you make $55k/yr or about $27.50 pretax, so if you see a new pair of shoes that are $125, you'd need to work for a little more than 5 hours to be able to afford them. Are they still worth it to you?
Another trick is to wait several weeks from buying large, expensive items. I like to set a price point for myself and if it's over that ($250) I need to wait several weeks to buy it. If I forget about it or find 2 weeks later I don't need it than I just saved myself money - it's saved me from buying a lot of needless electronics. This takes some will power, but I believe that you can do it.
I really like Investopedia University. It's free and very informative and they will have pages with short videos/articles explaining terms and concepts as well. A good start would be their Financial Concepts and Index Investing entries. Also wanted to add their Retirement Plans page. You'll mostly want to read about Traditional and Roth IRAs, and Qualified Plans.
The biggest tip I could give is to just keep reading, I found I was actually interested in this stuff so it was easy to read all about it. If you don't understand something make the effort to learn and then continue. It doesn't have to be complicated, index investing is a great way to build wealth over the long term.
I never really read any actual books, because honestly the best advice for 90% of people would be to just invest in index funds, and there's plenty of free information online, but you can read The Boglehead's Guide to Investing.
Bill Ackerman has a good video that does a good job of breaking it down.
On What to Read
Here are some suggestions on books and websites:
The Millionaire Next Door by Stanley and Danko - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising-Americas/dp/1589795474
If You Can by William Bernstein - http://efficientfrontier.com/ef/0adhoc/2books.htm
Free version is here - https://www.dropbox.com/s/5tj8480ji58j00f/If%20You%20Can.pdf?dl=0
The Investor's Manifesto. Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Investors-Manifesto-Prosperity-Armageddon-Everything/dp/1118073762
The Bogleheads Guide to Investing - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/1118921283
The Coffeehouse Investor - https://www.amazon.com/Coffeehouse-Investor-Wealth-Ignore-Street/dp/0976585707
The Bogleheads' Guide to Retirement Planning - https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Retirement-Planning/dp/0470455578
The Four Pillars of Investing: Lessons for Building a Winning Portfolio by William Bernstein - https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio/dp/0071747052/
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey - https://www.amazon.com/Total-Money-Makeover-Classic-Financial/dp/1595555277
Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1118117859
Investing for Dummies by Eric Tyson - https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119320690/
The Millionaire Real Estate Investor per red-sfplus’s post (can confirm this is excellent) - https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Real-Estate-Investor/dp/0071446370/
For all the M.Ds on here and HNW individuals, you might want to check out https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/ and his blog – found it to be very useful.
https://www.irs.gov/ or your government’s tax page. If you’ve been reading, you know that millionaires know more than your average bear about the tax code.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/7vohb3/money/
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRedPill/comments/3hzcvn/financial_advice_from_a_financier/
https://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/09/22/4-money-tips-4-personal-finance-legends/
Personal Finance Flowchart from their wiki - https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png
Additional Lists of Books:
https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Books:_recommendations_and_reviews
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/books-4/
Subreddits
https://www.reddit.com/r/investing/
https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/ - I would highly encourage you to spend a half hour browsing their wiki - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/index and investing advice - https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/investing
https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
https://www.reddit.com/r/SecurityAnalysis/
https://www.reddit.com/r/finance/
https://www.reddit.com/r/portfolios/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bogleheads/
MRP References
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/40whjy/finally_talked_to_my_wife_about_our_finances_it/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/67nxdu/finances_with_a_sahm/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/488pa0/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (original)
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/6a6712/60_dod_week_6_finances/ (year 2)
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3xw015/how_to_prepare_for_a_talk_about_finances/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/30z704/taking_back_the_finances/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/2uzukg/married_redpill_finances_and_money/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/3637q5/some_thoughts_on_mrp_and_finances/
https://www.reddit.com/r/askMRP/comments/8dwaqt/best_practices_for_finances_within_marriage/
https://www.reddit.com/r/marriedredpill/comments/588e5o/gain_control_of_the_treasury/
Final Thoughts
There are already a lot of high net worth individuals on these subs (if you don’t believe me, look at the OYS for the past few months). This should be a review for most folks. The key points stay the same – have a plan, get out of the hole you are in, have a budget, do the right moves for wealth accumulation. Lead your family in your finances. Own it.
What are YOU doing to own your finances? Give some examples below.
Queria partilhar depois em tópico próprio para criar alguma discussão. Se calhar o melhor é lançar o desafio de ler, e meter a malta a ler o livro e só depois discutir, né?
É este. Se quiserem alguém quiser ebook envie PM.
EDIT: Tópico próprio
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285
One of the first things he talked about was promoting a shitty book by a guy named Tucker Max who makes up fake stories. And he went out, defaced the billboard for the book, then wrote in an anonymous message with the picture of the defaced billboard. And put up fliers for a protest for the book then sent that in for people.
And he just emailed writers at HuffPo and Breitbart and other such sites, he didn't even post it to Digg (this was before Reddit). Nowadays he could probably just post the stuff on Reddit and people would give it thousands of upvotes without a thought or clue.
Edit: Good fragrance, 60+ upvotes: https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v5yke/s_a_u_s_a_g_e/d5vsglq
Bad fragrance, downvoted immediately (-2): https://np.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/4v5yke/s_a_u_s_a_g_e/d5w6999
Someone's monitoring the thread...
Manufacturing Consent was good for it's time. Politically I consider it Chomskey's best and most important work.
The modern version is "Trust me, I'm Lying" by Ryan Holiday.
https://www.amazon.com/Trust-Me-Lying-Confessions-Manipulator/dp/1591846285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1491383790&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=trust+me+I%27m+lying
Right now I'm reading Trust me, I'm lying. It's pretty much ruined the internet for me, and I couldn't recommend it more if I tried.
The media.
The DNC leaks proved that the Media was acting 100% as a surrogate for Hillary Clinton throughout the primaries and the general election. The problem is, the media lies.
They do not do reporting any more. They do opinion pieces, editorials and propaganda for their special interests. They dabble with identity politics and do hate-baiting outrage click bait pieces for money. They cannot be trusted.
I could write a book about this, but I don't really have to because it's been written already - Trust me, I'm lying
Absolutely should. Many people don't necessarily like seeing how the sausage is made, but Ryan Holiday's book is a great start.
I'm pretty much at the same boat with you (same age, Berlin, cash I'm sitting on) but my mortgage is a bit cheaper (1.04% since I made 50% downpayment I guess). So with 4% Tilgung and this 5% yearly payment, it should be paid off in 10 years, however, I'm still considering If will do it or will make this cash perform better when invested.
I currently have around 12% of my cash invested in ETF, the rest sits in my Tagesgeld. I will gradually increase the investment amount, since I only started last month so I'm still kinda learning before going full speed.
I suggest you to spend some time reading about it before going this path. finanztip.de has tons of info but only in German. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing is a kind of classic book, a bit focused on US realities, but still gives a good overview of different investment instruments and personal finances.
The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
It's actually not as complicated as you might think. Read this book and you'll be in good shape.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118921283
Schwab has some etfs with even lower ratios but since the assets under management (AUM) of these ETFS is significantly lower on them I use the above. If you care to check though the equivalents of the above would be:
SCHX - US Large Cap Blend - 0.03%
SCHM - US Mid Cap Blend - 0.05%
SCHA - US Small Cap Blend - 0.05%
SCHE - Foreign Emerging - 0.13%
SCHF - Foreign Developed - 0.06%
SCHZ - Total Bond Market - 0.04%
also check out
https://portfoliocharts.com/
and read this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1118921283/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
also read this
https://seekingalpha.com/article/15134-the-seeking-alpha-etf-investing-guide
I really like this idea, and it's pretty much what I'm doing. Last year I posted something about this here on r/financialindependence and I've also exposed my lifestyle here.
Since my teenage years, my goal has been to live free. I stumbled upon FI books early on ("Boglehead's guide to investing" anyone!?) and figured hitting FI early on was possible and desirable. I majored to be an Actuary and while studying, I started creating websites and doing other freelance work on the side. These projects took off very slowly, but were enough to pay for random college expenses.
When I graduated, I took a gap year and my freelance work was enough to sustain while traveling through Southeast Asia. At that point, I was netting ~500 to 1000$ a month from 20 hours of work (per month). I loved the lifestyle of working an hour or two every other day. It just became something I did once in a while on the computer instead of (or actually, while) browsing Reddit or FB.
I realized that if I roughly doubled this income, I might be able to sustain this lifestyle permanently. Coming back home (to Canada), I invested a lot of energy expanding several streams of income (mostly freelance work) and eventually it paid off. I even had the luxury of turning down 9-to-5 high-paying actuarial jobs.
Remote work now takes roughly 5 hours of my time each week (and 95% of that can be done whenever I feel like), and it allows me to live in a very low COL area, which ironically might help me reach FI sooner than if I worked in a HCOL city as an Actuary. Although I wouldn't mind living like this for a long time, I'm on track to become financially independent at around 30 y/o (in ~5 years).
While I understand that for many, working part time is not an option, trying a lifestyle that resembles "FIRE" (lots of free time, low stress, no financial worries) can really be beneficial. I feel like many blindly aim for FIRE because they dislike work, or like the idea of not having to work, and while I can fully understand why, living for the future is a dangerous gamble. Not because "you might die before" as stereotypical consumers might claim, but because of the terrible mental habits you risk developing. I believe that people overestimate the reliability of postponing happiness for extended periods of time. While the grass is quite green without work, in itself it doesn't do much, it only makes you more of what you already are.
Happiness is largely determined by mental habits. If you are not developing great mental habits RIGHT NOW, they won't magically appear the day you retire. All around me, I see people waiting for retirement to finally travel/invest time in passions/develop skills/etc. I'm skeptical of how well this works in practice. I have the feeling that people would benefit from treating their mental habits with the same care that they show towards their bank account. Surely you don't want this path to mentally cripple you and end up like this.
Like others mention, I wouldn't really call myself "half-retired" though. It's really nothing more than a cooler lifestyle. (subjective, of course).
+1 to Vanguard. Another good book for OP.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118921283/
Archives for the links in comments:
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Your example with Chernobyl is absurd. It would require that every single news organization follow the same policy, and "sell the news" to you via subscription. That could never happen in the free market. In the free market, some news sites run ads to gain revenue, some will sell subscriptions, some will push agendas for money and so on and so forth.
I still don't see why charging for a monthly subscription is such a "disgusting" business practice. Your argument with Chernobyl was a simple reduction to absurdity. If a site puts out quality content that people deem worthy to pay for, let them. I think that relying on clickbaiting, manipulation and sensationalism is much more disgusting and harmful. That's the real problem with news today, not those few subscription-based sites, who are at least honest with their business practice.
You also pay for your newspaper. In this sense, "selling news," as you put it, is very much standard practice, and it always has been throughout history. You also take issue with that?
By the way, Trust me, I'm lying is an insightful and thought-provoking book on the subject, even more topical today than when it was originally released, I highly recommend it.
It's called Trust Me, I'm Lying. I'm actually reading it for a class I'm taking on Communication Ethics. I'm not super well-versed on the subject so I don't have any other recs for you. This book was a quick read and the info was presented in an interesting way.
I just finished reading Trust Me, I'm Lying, which has plenty of good examples of how easily the author (and others) have leaked bullshit into the news. This very much applies to serious stuff as well.
Highly recommend the book!
You should read Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator which explains the complete absence of fact-checking in online media - and increasingly on the mainstream media which uses it as a source. These days, if its not The Guardian or BBC News, I assume its anywhere from 50% - 100% fake/lies/spin/manipulated/Alt-News
The way PR and marketing works with these bottom-feeding websites which churn out garbage-tier "content" to feed the click-farms, is that they MUST keep it churning. Churning, churning, controversy, clicks, anger. etc.
This is just a taste. Clickety-click.
I have definitely done this with great results. Just make sure you target the right blogs, be VERY personable and SHORT in your email... have one or two lines that makes you better/interesting to try and hook them. These two lines or so should be the only copy/paste you do on every email.
Seriously consider reading [this book: Trust me, I'm lying to you] (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846285).
It will teach you how blog posts go "up the chain" of media broadcasting, what it takes to set that off, how to find which blogs the high traffic sites pull articles from, and overall is an interesting read for marketing. You may be able to find the info for free, he is a blogger/writer... so trying Googling: Ryan Holiday up the chain
Again... seriously get this info. I read it in a few hours or day or so.
No specific recommendations (sorry), but will second the recommendations to use a fee only planner, and use a tool like Mint to track your spending. Since this is something that will pay dividends (heh) for the rest of your life, I'd suggest finding a good book to go over as well. This is my favorite.
https://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
The Bogleheads Guide to Investing. Now that I can save more with a new job, I thought it was a good idea to get a start on my retirement fund.
It's basically an introduction guide to investing and a type of investing centered around low risk and steady growth over a long time. It's surprisingly not dry yet very informative. I'm hoping to use this book and others to learn how I might be able to retire early. I recommend it to anyone who needs to learn exactly what the core stuff like stocks, bonds, mutual funds, IRAs, annuities, ETFs, etc., are and what you should probably do with them.
An important note to what /u/satansbuttplug mentioned, you can ONLY invest $5500 in an IRA or your earned income. Which ever is higher. Since you make ~$1k from your job, in all likelihood you only have an earned income of ~1.2k at the most. This limits your contribution to ANY type of IRA to that.
Like /u/satansbuttplug said, it is more important to save than focus on rate of return. Alternatively, like you mentioned OP, you risk tolerance may be high because he wont be crushed if this money loses its value, just remember to stomach to loses and stay in the market. Learn to bear the markets ups and downs with 3K so that later you can keep your 401k and other assets invested during down turns. Market volatility isnt going anywhere.
There is very little black and white, right and wrong in investing, whatever works for you is probably the best approach for you. Most important is making a plan and sticking to it. Head to the school library and read some investing books, this will help guide your decision. A widely recommended book is this book
The #1 criterion that always matters: fees. Vanguard is well known for its low fees, and for a corporate structure that incentivizes low fees. They're good people. You could consider their ETFs, which mirror their mutual funds. (Their mutual funds usually have a $3K starting requirement, but the equivalent ETFs have no minimum and can be purchased in small increments.)
Also strongly consider using index funds (which try to match the market by copying it) instead of managed funds (which try to beat it, and usually fail to, especially when fees are taken into account). But even if choosing a managed fund, fees matter and make a big difference to returns.
Other than that it depends on your goals and time horizon. I'd really encourage you to read some guides to investing -- they're usually pretty short, actually. The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing would be a good investment, if your library doesn't have it.
Exactly, there is no way her entire balance should be invested in something like this. I second the idea of putting it into a Vanguard Target Retirement Fund immediately. Then once she has more to invest and you have both done some research, you can start branching out into other investments.
Also, if you're interested in learning more, this is the best $15 you'll ever invest: http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
Feel free not to answer if you don't want to talk about it, but how'd you lose $17850?
In your defense, last week wasn't a particularly good week anyway ... my small portfolio dropped by over 2k
As for the books and stuff, I started by reading this: http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Guide-Investing-Taylor-Larimore/dp/0470067365
The amazon description hits the nail on the head:
> The Bogleheads’ Guide to Investing is a slightly irreverent, straightforward guide to investing for everyone.
It's very basic, but a good foundation if you really don't know anything.
This is a good answer.
The reason you'll see so much talk about Vanguard funds are because they are ultra low cost and Vanguard is mutually owned. USAA is a great company and I use them for insurance and banking, but I use Vanguard for all my investing because their funds are lower cost.
If I were you I'd move all the retirement accounts to Vanguard as you wont suffer tax consequences for moving them, and consolidate your holdings into a simple 3 or 4 fund portfolio. You have enough money to tilt (or overweight) your portfolio with higher risk/higher returning asset classes (small cap value, emerging markets) and still have access to the lower cost admiral share mutual funds. I'd recommend reading this book and this book to develop a solid investment plan.
One word: Vanguard (www.vanguard.com)
Resources I've found helpful for learning purposes:
Bogleheads (www.bogleheads.org)
The Boglehead's Guide to Investing (http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0470067365)
Good luck.
Tip: first thing, do a google search on the power of compound interest and tax-free growth. That should keep you motivated to get going and start saving now.
You managed to write an awful lot there without explaining how the Liberals giving Honda $82 million somehow ensures that they will remain in the country when they were investing billions into their plants without that grant. You said yourself that it hasn't stopped companies packing up and leaving the province. There is simply no evidence that this money is keeping them here.
The negative economic effects of subsidies for private business are well documented and not a matter of ideology. I encourage you to read about them. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt and Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell are good places to start.
I'd start with [Economics in One Lesson by Hazzlit](
http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=sr_1_1)
It's easy to read, easy to understand, no strange jargon, puts things very simply, primarily using logic and examples.
And try to thoroughly understand:
1.) Benefits of voluntary exchange
2.) Law of Comparative Advantage
3.) Broken Window Fallacy
For further reading, I'd try Ayn Rand's collection of essays called Capitalism the Unknown Ideal - that was a huge influence for me, again, quite readable and easy to understand. And finally Ludwig von Mises's The Anti-Capitalist Mentality.
This looks like it's exactly what i'm looking for!
I would recommend Economics in One Lesson (which you can also buy here) because it teaches you how to use reasoning in economics and figure out where people are using bad logic in their economic thinking.
I would definitely recommend this as one of the first books you read because there are a lot of economic fallacies out there put forth by pundits, talkshow hosts, and even some economists; this book will allow you to see whether or not their economic thinking and logic is sound.
On a personal note, this is one of the first books on economics that I read, and I absolutely loved it. While it might not be the most entertaining read, it is certainly more interesting than your standard economics textbook.
After you finish that book, I would recommend you read How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes because it explains, in a way that even a child could understand, why an economy grows. The overall concept is fairly simple, but it is vital to fully understand it before trying to understand more important concepts.
I started to make one a while back but didn't get too far. There are just too many great books to choose from.
Classics 1950-1970
What is Conservatism?
The Conservative Mind
The Road to Serfdom
The Constitution of Liberty
Ideas Have Consequences
The Quest for Community
Economics in One Lesson
Capitalism and Freedom
In Defense of Freedom
Age of Reagan 1970-1990
The Conservative Intellectual Movement Since 1945
Modern Times
Knowledge and Decisions
A Conflict of Visions
Anarchy, State, and Utopia
Roots Of American Order
Modern Must Reads 1990-Today
The Clash of Civilizations
A History of the American People
The Vision of the Annointed
Intellectuals and Society
Illiberal Reformers
Restoring the Lost Constitution
How To Be A Conservative
As far as the book recommendations go, it would be good if you could qualify what kind of books you're interested in (e.g. philosophy, psychology, history, science, etc.).
Books I recommend:
Psychology (or: On Human Nature)
The Anatomy of Violence: The Biological Roots of Crime
Thinking, Fast and Slow (my personal favorite)
The Undiscovered Self
The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
History
Strategy: A History
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism
Economics
Economics in One Lesson
Basic Economics
Politics
Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government
As always, the list of books to read is too long, so I'll stop here.
Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Is it The E-Myth Revisited, by Michael E. Gerber?
https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280
These are the books I recommend to start with:
All direct amazon links, no referral links.
Depends what your end goal. If its your primary source of income and want to make a nice living 100k. Also, is the bank loan in your name or the corporations name? If you are the one personally liable its probably a bad idea. You still have a ton you need to learn about business and the gaming industry based on your comments. If you want to learn more I would recommend starting here http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1416079505&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=e+myth
The E-Myth, $12
I would highly recommend that you read this.
Target 40 hours with the rest dedicated to exercise, non-work writing, non-work reading, and non-work socializing.
I've tried the other way, and this way helps me be more productive.
Keep in mind that how physically healthy and attractive that you look as outsized impacts on how people react to you in sales and business development situations. People who put in 'hero' 80 hour weeks months on end usually suffer badly in the health department. Few businesses can really be run by just one person. That's why you hire other people.
Good books on this:
Sorry about the loss.....
I recommend two books.
Check out The E-Myth revisited:
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It https://www.amazon.com/dp/0887307280/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_uqS0CbAT7R6NE
He literally uses a Bakery as an example.
Also applicable to startups.
If you haven't yet I'd implore you to read The E-Myth Revisited, which is a book that deals precisely with the situation of taking your passion and turning it into a business, and what most people do wrong in attempting to do so.
Only one title of overlap, nice.
Out of your list, where would you start? Have you read any other in our original list?
Built to Sell, John Warrillow
The Automatic Customer, John Warrillow
How to Sell at Margins Higher Than Your Competitors, Lawrence Steinmetz
Start With Why, Simon Sinek
Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek
The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber
Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckwith
What Clients Love, Harry Beckwith
Question Based Selling, Tom Freese
I'm going to check out the other book listed below (Built to Sell), but I highly recommend reading the E-Myth. You can check out the website below:
http://emyth.com/
And/or the book:
http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280
They really emphasize building a system that you teach your employees to mimic what you would do and then finding the right employees so that the product never changes.
What an interesting question.
I don't think I've ever read before of a business idea to start a brick and mortar business where you will cut and run if you are not making money within 3 to 6 months. And then start another, and then another. Most leases are for 6 months or a year.
The start up costs for day trading are a computer or your cell phone, a few hundred dollars, and you fill out an online form with a broker. I don't think day trading is a good example to use when looking at a brick and mortar business.
I spent almost a full year doing market research before I started my small business. It was time well spent.
The E Myth Revisited is a book that was very helpful to me. There are many web sites that have reviewed this book over the years so you can find great summaries of the book if you don't want to buy it.
Best of luck.
If you want to start your own business, read this book: http://smile.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427331465&amp;sr=8-1
It's all about people like you and me. Technicians (people who do things, bake pies, make widgets, repair sofas) who want to break out of working for someone else and start their own business. The problem is that most Technicians don't know anything about running a business. It was a real eye opener for me. Karl Palachuk says it's the one book he'd get every business owner to read if he could and I agree.
You might need a few more years under your belt before starting your own MSP, though. Right now the work seems easy because it's all technical work and it's handed to you. You sit at your desk and the tickets show up. When you run your own business, you have to find that work, sign clients up, chase down payments, everything. It's all on you. You'll likely need to transition out of the technical role altogether at some point.
Unfortunately, this is a journey you have to take yourself. We can't help you outside of giving you whatever resources we've found in our own megre quests for a career that makes us happy. Although I must say, it feels like you are approaching this from a difficult angle: "what can I study to get a career" should change to "what career do I want, and how can I get there?". Speaking as someone who is pushing 40, if you don't know what career you want, and if you don't really give a shit as long as it puts food on the table for you and your family, learn a trade. Plumbing. Electrician. Nearly anything that you can get a certificate for and then find a job. Pull 40 hour weeks and get paid well. There will be stumbling blocks as you go forward, but as an ex-marine small-business owner once said to me: "a hoop is just something you jump through." Get a loan if you need to. Check out your local trade schools, and see what financial aid they have. If you have the time, read The E-Myth Revisited by Gerber. It will help you if you are thinking about opening a business.
http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X to get the gist of things, and (surprisingly) Wikipedia to go into detail.
Check out Cracking the Coding Interview. You'll find examples of many different types of problems ranging from those centered around sorting, searching, data structures, dynamic programming, you name it. The solutions for the problems are great as they often illustrate several different approaches for solving any given problem based on optimizing for speed, resource usage, development time, etc. The questions are all similar to the types of questions you'd likely come across in software engineering interviews so it's also great practice if you're looking to sharpen your skills for the job market.
>What did/do you find hard about learning programming? If you could be specific about things that frustrated you or roadblocks that got in your way, that would be helpful.
The hardest thing I've found about learning programming is knowing where to start. If you're trying to learn without a mentor its really hard to know what you need to learn and how. To someone inexperienced with the field, learning to program seems as simple as learning a language, but the difficult part is learning to apply that to different problems. Overall, the hardest thing to learn is something that you don't know exists. As for a specific subject, I remember finding recursion and Polymorphism hard to understand the first time I encountered them.
>Did you choose to go to an institute of higher learning for programming instead of using the free resources that are all over the net? If so, why?
I am an undergrad sophomore at Northeastern University, studying Computer Science. I chose to study computer science at university instead of using online resources, because I realized that there was a lot to learn which I couldn't find in a web page. I made the decision shortly into my Junior year of high school when I was taking AP Computer Science. I enjoyed studying the subject so much that I couldn't imaging studying anything else.
>What is something that you wish you could change about your current programming instruction?
My current programming instruction is great. I generally think that my professors are very interactive and experienced in their fields. Something I think is great is that most of my professors lecture without computers. They write code on the board, which gives them much more freedom to move about and ask questions, and it makes that classes interesting. I also think it removes the focus from the language being used and places it on the theory, which is the important part.
>Do you look for career preparation or support? If so, what have you been looking at or what resources do you use? To clarify - I mean interview help, prep questions, advice, etc...about preparing to enter the field.
One of Northeastern's greatest tools is its coop program. Typically students graduate in 5 years with 1.5 years of working experience over three 6-month coops. In preparation of this, I had to take a class to prepare me for applying to companies. The experience was amazing. The advising department brought in employers and other students to talk to us and do mock interviews. As someone looking for their first "real" job, this is invaluable. Technical questions are an important part of the application process, but for entry level programming jobs they aren't too difficult. I've heard that http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X is a great resource.
>For those of you still in school/learning - do you worry about how you will find a job programming? What concerns do you have?
Nope, already got my first job in the field. From my experience over the past semester of interviewing, it you're excited about the field and have a reasonable ability to program, you can find a job somewhere (especially if you live in a city.)
>If you're out of school and in the workforce - do you ever worry about how you will move forward in your career?
Not there yet.
>Does your place of employment (you don't have to tell me who) provide you with feedback or a clear path to advancement? Tell me about your concerns here.
Not there yet.
In addition to the two reddits /u/monkish2002 suggested, I really liked Cracking The Coding Interview for help working though those problems. Interviewing is a skill, just like programming.
I took a few CS classes in high school and two in college, and then took post-bacc classes in computer science because I thought I needed to get a master's in it. I was wrong. A CS degree teaches basic coding skills, and then a lot of theory which is basically inapplicable, or barely applicable, to a programming career. I didn't need to know 90% of what I learned.
If you want to make sure you're well rounded and ready for an interview, read something like this and learn everything in it. Work on a few decent sized projects on your own time. Maybe read classics like The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth. Even if you just master the concepts in the first book you'll probably be ahead of 75% of CS graduates in terms of career skills.
Capital - Thomas Piketty
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/dp/067443000X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1454194050&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=thomas+piketty
Debt - The First 5000 Years - David Graebner
http://www.amazon.com/Debt-Updated-Expanded-First-Years/dp/1612194192/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1454194089&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=debt+david+graeber
There are no books that can adequately cover British politics to the extent that you're asking. Also, politics and economics are intertwined to the point that you cannot understand one without the other. Freakonomics, for example explains how the two cannot be meaningful separated and is an interesting place to start any political journey.
Depending on your background knowledge 30-Second Politics can give you a grounding of what all the different terminology means and Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box provides useful insight as to the difference between how politics is preached and practiced. Also, The Plan is essential reading to understand our current government.
You've already mentioned Douglass Murray's Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, which I would also thoroughly endorse. Further to that I'd recommend Thomas Pikkety's Capital in the 21st Century which although about economics is so closely tied to current political thought that it really is extremely useful reading
Holy crap.
The amazon reviews are hilarious.
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/product-reviews/067443000X/ref=dpx_acr_txt?showViewpoints=1
There's mostly 5-star reviews, but then a bunch of 1-star reviews from right-wingers who don't seem to have read anything more than the blurb. Sure looks like brigading.
'hurr durr communism has never worked' 'you'll all be equally poor' 'commie bullshit' etc etc (paraphrased quotes, sorry)
Ah well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXWzQW0jV3o Ain't Done Nothin' If You Ain't Been Called A Red
http://www.amazon.com/Capital-Twenty-First-Century-Thomas-Piketty/product-reviews/067443000X/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?ie=UTF8&amp;filterBy=addOneStar&amp;showViewpoints=0
My favorite review says "Stalin would be proud."
This reddit discussion from around a year ago is somewhat informative. It's all about credit unions in Toronto.
I like some of the credit unions that discussion talks about, but the closest one to me is a Meridian branch. I looked at their rates, and it looks like I'd still be paying around $9.00 a month for a similar account.
It's not a lot of money, but I'm on a mission to stop paying for banking. Mostly because I liked reading Ramit Sethi's I Will Teach You To Be Rich and he emphasized choices like that a great deal.
Pay off your debts in full, no point in keeping $50 on them at all. Cut up all the cards you don't use, don't get back into credit card debt ever again. Put some money in a ROTH or something if you've maxed the match on your 401k. Buy a copy of this book. Start an emergency fund too while you're at it :D
No idea about the taxes, but I assume your company would've taken them out of the 20k already?
Read I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi. It is written for people in their early twenties and it is a very accessible read.
Edit: Title was a little off
Return is usually a function of risk. In other words, you can make more money if you are willing to take on more risk. Your 1% bank account will always go up and is insured by the FDIC. That is not the case with most investments. Eventually you will lose some of the money that you thought you had. But if you invest for the long term and don't pull out just because you're down, you will be set.
Index funds are a great way to get a decent without having to think too much about it. I recommend the book I Will Teach You To Be Rich if you want to learn more. I followed his instructions and now I am rich (not really, but I know a lot more).
I'd recommend I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi. A touch cheesy, but a lot of good info in there about personal finance. I especially likes how he talks about automating your budget so that you don't have to spend a lot of time tending it.
Anything by Dave Ramsey is a good start too. And finally, I'd recommend the program YNAB for budgeting.
Preface: if you're not matching your company's 401(k), do that first thing Monday morning.
You're making three critical errors: (1) you're spending too much on housing; (2) you're not saving enough; (3) and you're succumbing to emotional appeal rather than logic.
With regard to the first point: you're spending way too much on housing. A very general general rule is to spend about 30% of your after-tax income on housing/rent and another 20-30% on fixed costs (utilities, car payment, etc). The remaining 30-40% goes to investments (Roth IRA, 401k), additional savings (5-10%), and then guilt free spending money.
Right now, you are spending 64% on your income on housing. Not just fixed costs, but housing. Moreover, including this amount, you are spending 95.8% of your income on fixed costs. That means you only have 4.2% of income to save (or buy a car).
Put it another way (since you read r/personalfinance). What would you think if somebody came on here and posted: "Humble beginnings, make $45k a year living with my parents, and I'm buying my dad a Porsche because that's his dream! But how do I save for an apartment?"
Your eyebrows would obviously be raised.
Now, here's why overspending on housing and fixed costs is a problem (and goes to my second point): you are suffering HUGE losses by not starting to invest NOW. For instance, if you started a Roth right now and contributed the max, and retired at 65, your Roth would be worth $1.263 million. If you waited until you were 30, it would be worth $814 thousand. In other words, by waiting six years, you're losing six years of compound interest. That's a $400k loss.
Lastly, I hope you're not looking at building a house as an investment. A house is a purchase. You cannot assume it will appreciate in value. It is a purchase that will cost a lot of money over time (property taxes, maintenance, transaction costs if you sell it, etc.). And, does your dad have the income to do all that, or will you be his supplier all his life?
Bottom Line: The fact that you're making $70,000 per year and think you need to take out a loan to afford car speaks volumes to your lack of finance knowledge. You need to own that and educate yourself on the basics (I'd recommend this: http://www.amazon.com/Will-Teach-You-To-Rich/dp/0761147489).
What I'd do:
(1) Match your employer's 401(k)
(2) Start a Roth IRA
(3) Open an investment account to start saving for your own house, as well as being able to take care of your parents when they retire
(4) Start improving your credit to make sure you get a low interest rate on your car loan
(5) Buy a car and stop mooching off your friends
(6) Cut back on sending $2,000 to your dad to build a house.
(7) Stop going to restaurants five times a week and use that money to pay for car insurance and gas.
PS: I know I can't understand your emotional desire to build a house for your dad. But I speak from this personally: my mom moved into her "dream house" out in the country eight years ago. It was a $145k mortgage. Eight years later and she's re-financed it twice. The balance is $140k. She just never understood how much it was going to cost to maintain the house on her own. She's never going to pay that mortgage off. And almost 60% of her income goes toward paying her mortgage. It's locked her up financially. Only difference between her and you is that you have years to correct your mistake, and my mom is fucked.
First, I feel like I was in the exact same place you were when I was 15, back in 1997. However, I didn't listen to my parents when they gave sound advice about saving and investing. Luckily, I managed to turn things around by the time I was about 25. Now, I've got over $200K invested and saved and my wife and I just got back from an eastern Europe road trip over the xmas break and didn't have to think twice about money. We still make a budget for everything and spend as little as we can.
Here are the 4 pillars of finance. They are all equally important and you need to know what part they all play.
This book will be a great introduction for you. You can get it used on Amazon for $10, or better yet, try to find it at your local library, or your school library.
When I was 15, I made minimum wage by working at a fast food restaurant, great way to get money. I usually spent all that money on taking my girlfriend out on dates to restaurants and movies, and on gas for the car and the car payment itself. It will be difficult, but staying single will save you a lot of money. Or, splitting the bill on dates will at least help. If you have to buy stuff, try to buy it used. The best way to accumulate money is to only spend it when you absolutely have to.
As you get older:
Wow, this post got a little long winded. I've got plenty of other
adviceinformation that I've learned over the years. I'll try to post it later when I get a chance. Last bit of advice, as for investing, take your time, don't be in a hurry. Make sure you know what you're doing before investing your money in anything. Good luck!Edit: I just read the bit about you living in Finland and having free school. Rock on! I'll leave the advice about student loans and community college for others.
i suggest to anyone who has all their money go to one checking account please read a personal finance book, i love recommending this book, or at least his website. i spent way too many years with one checking account saying one day ill do something about it.
and all the other advice is great as well. index funds should have lower expenses and its always a good time to get an ira started.
Checkout the Charles Schwab High Yield Investor Checking Account. You have to open a brokerage account with it but neither has any associated fees. There are no ATM fees, no minimum balance, and no monthly fees.
Pair this with an online bank for your savings account like Ally. Ally's rate right now is 0.84% instead of Bank of America's horrible 0.01%.
I recommend reading the book I Will Teach You to Be Rich. It's a very easy-to-read intro to personal finance.
If you're having trouble with 300 you might want to reconsider your major. While you can certainly avoid taking quantitative courses (325 and 326 are mostly theoretical with light math, and have massive curves anyway) - in order to make your econ degree stand out you should take as many quantitative courses as possible. Like Econometrics I and II, which are probably the hardest Econ courses available.
That said, I'm about to graduate with an Econ degree and my advice is to read this book, realize that most economists are a fraud, and then switch majors.
I wrote this a while ago, but I really want to highlight part IV, "Make the game less random and swingy for yourself and your friends."
IMO this is THE principle that ought to be taught, without which nothing else matters. I could write a book (or, well, a blog, apparently) on how its application can take a lot of different forms, but the core principle of reducing risk is at the center of it all.
This isn't just a "c_a_l_m" thing---Day9 has written about this, nor is it just a "gaming" thing---Overwatch, with its many variables, snowballing, and fast-paced, impactful action (compared to, say, soccer), is a complex and unstable system, like a stock market or an ecosystem. Anyone acquainted with that space knows that the cardinal mantra is risk reduction, even if that ends up meaning things that conventional wisdom thinks are risky.
Seriously, I would rank this is as the most important thing you could teach Overwatch players. If OW had loading-screen tips, at the top of my list would be a simple "Overwatch can be chaotic! Try and make it less so for your team." It doesn't make the case for why, and it doesn't explain how, but simply knowing that it is important would go so, so far.
Where did I say ALL NPPs are bad? I showed why nuclear power is not safe in Japan. The combination of company/government bungling with an earthquake prone area is another potential disaster.
Basically, science_diction oversimplified the issue. Nuclear energy in Japan is NOT the safest energy technology. This isn't just,"Oh people are scared because of some bad press."
Everyone talks about how this was a once-in-a lifetime, unprecedented event. I recommend reading Black Swan concerning risk and probability. The thing is, no one even conceived that 3-11 could happen.
But it did happen. And that's what we worry about. We can't predict when something similar might happen again. This is not fear. It's a reassessment of risk. We thought our nuclear power plants were safe. We were wrong. We might be wrong again.
I live a 30 minute drive from the Hamaoka power plant in Shizuoka. It is ranked the most dangerous and was not shut down until AFTER 3/11. There's talk about starting it back up because "we need energy" for the hot summer. If they do I'm gone. 3 of my coworkers are leaving Shizuoka because of this, and I know over a dozen families in Tokyo that also left.
I hate to pull this card, I really do, but I gotta ask, would you, or anyone reading this, live next to a nuclear power plant in an area with 5 earthquakes a day? Would you raise your kids there?
And can I have a source please for the information that "Fukushima Daichi" was set to retire in March 2011? I mean, the earthquake occurred on 3/11, but it was still up and running.
The Black Swan is a great book about the business, risk analysis, economics, and sociology of rare "black swan" events like a financial crisis.
> The city has been tremendously resilient and that has a lot to do with how it was built. The question may be what unpredictable change is coming that the county can't predict and is it built in a resilient way that will let it be able to survive that sort of change?
You might enjoy the book The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.
A random walk, the intelligent investor, and black swan are all good ones.
Are you looking for trading, internal business, etc? more detailed would be helpful.
Fooled by Randomness
The Black Swan
Predictably Irrational
The Black Swan
I've seen it plugged here and on the blog, but people assume it's just for Wall Street types or the military (I think all the branches recommend it). Small business owners, backpackers, bartenders, even stay at home moms, they all gain something from it. I've started gifting copies to friends and family, and especially my bosses.
I am currently Reading Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and Taleb talks at length about bell curves and the Power Law. It seems that while bell curves do occur, we have a tenancy to assume that they always occur, when in fact, the power law is at work.
I highly recommend reading... it is very interesting. Here is a brief article on Taleb's "Black Swans."
Is this the book you're talking about? http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081297381X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1373220229&amp;sr=1-1&amp;pi=SL75
I second /u/mbocchini's recommendation. Thinking, Fast and Slow is a fantastic overview of the growing (both in size and influence) field of behavioral economics from one of the most prominent psychologists of the past half century. It's written in a very accessible manner with little technical discussion, although the footnotes will source you to the academic papers and articles should you decide to dig deeper.
I personally think the most important step is learning what prevents you from critically analyzing events, situations and people. In order to objectively analyze something, we must learn what biases to avoid. In learning these biases, you'll learn how to develop a framework for approaching new information in a manner that will mitigate our innate biases.
I'm inherently biased with this recommendation, as I only recently finished the book, but I really enjoyed Thinking Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman. It's all based on academic studies, but I thought that it was written at an accessible level.
> Peoples lives are made best by being allowed to make their own decisions and decide what they want themselves
Holy shit no they aren't. Example: If the "donate my organs on death" checkbox is an opt-out affair, most people will opt out. If it's an opt-in affair, many many more people will opt-in. In this case, a relatively minor barrier to "making their own decisions" results in a huge quality of life improvement for anyone on a wait list for organs.
Read this for citation
For other examples of where the government desperately needs to intervene in markets, see forced arbitration clauses between companies and citizens, non-compete clauses in fast food workers' employment agreements, the fiduciary rule for financial advisers, the hole in the ozone, literally every false advertisement law, multi-level marketing schemes, copyright/trademark/patent law (although maybe not as much as is currently exhibited in the US), Dumping laws (e.g. don't throw sofas on the side of the highway), public intoxication laws, anti-trespassing laws, (the lack of) vaccination laws, literally all of public education, FDA drug safety regulations, global warming (and, honestly, most environmental causes), and the list goes on.
I'd argue that the government should be in charge of making sure that consumer expectations actually reflect reality and normally externalized costs are felt by the individual[s] inflicting them, as well as ensuring that life is mostly pleasant for most people and at least tolerable for the lowest rungs of society. People expect that traffic won't be shit, but suburbia inflicts traffic on city centers, thus increasing commute times and lowering standard of living for those who live furthest from city centers, so maybe suburbia should be discouraged.
> Are you actually comparing workplace safety regulations to you deciding that no one actually really likes suburbia and thus you should run their lives.
Yes?
If you don't want to have such arguments levied against you, don't make such absolutist statements like "If you think that the government should be setting the objective of reducing suburbia you should not be involved in government"
I went to one AA meeting when I first got clean and never went back. I understand people have found support and success in it but to me, personally, I felt it only increased the stigma of drug addicts as these broken hopeless people barely hanging on by a thread. It's an outdated system that relies on little science or attempting to progress the participants and relies more on holding people in place and focusing on the past. Instead I just worked towards becoming a normal person. Here are some of the resources I used:
r/Fitness - Getting Started: Exercise is probably the #1 thing that will aid you in recovering. It can help your brain learn to produce normal quantities of dopamine again as well as improve your heath, mood, well being and confidence.
Meetup: You can use this site to find people in your area with similar interests. I found a hiking group and a D&D group on here which I still regularly join.
Craigslist: Same as above - look for groups, activities, volunteer work, whatever.
Diet
This will be the other major player in your recovery. Understanding your diet will allow you to improve your health,mood, energy, and help recover whatever damage the drugs may have done to your body.
How Not To Die Cookbook
Life Changing Foods
The Plant Paradox
Power Foods For The Brain
Mental Health
Understand whats going on inside your head and how to deal with it is also an important step to not only recovery but enjoying life as a whole.
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
The Emotional Life Of Your Brain
Furiously Happy
The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works
Educational
If you are like me you probably felt like a dumbass when you first got clean. I think retraining your brain on learning, relearning things you may have forgot after long term drug use, and just learning new things in general will all help you in recovery. Knowledge is power and the more you learn the more confident in yourself and future learning tasks you become.
Illegal Drugs: A Complete Guide to their History, Chemistry, Use, and Abuse
Why Nations Fails
Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud
The Modern Mind: An Intellectual History of the 20th Century
Thinking, Fast and Slow
The Financial Peace Planner: A Step-by-Step Guide to Restoring Your Family's Financial Health
Continued Education / Skills Development
EdX: Take tons of free college courses.
Udemy: Tons of onine courses ranging from writing to marketing to design, all kinds of stuff.
Cybrary: Teach yourself everything from IT to Network Security skills
Khan Academy: Refresh on pretty much anything from highschool/early college.
There are many more resources available these are just ones I myself have used over the past couple years of fixing my life. Remember you don't have to let your past be a monkey on your back throughout the future. There are plenty of resources available now-a-days to take matters into your own hands.
*Disclaimer: I am not here to argue about anyone's personal feelings on AA**
for learning/cognitive related i recommend checking out:
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman,
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson
and the various Cal Newport books (he also has a blog),
Thomas Frank from College Info Geek is also cool.
i personally prefer actionable coaching over talk therapy as it helps me get shit done rather than sit around and introspect which i already do enough of.
there is a /r/Stoicism
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo, check it out
Brene Brown for self compassion, talks on Youtube, you could check out.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson is another good one.
For anyone who is interested in learning more about this, I recommend the book Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, who won the Swedish national banks prize in economics in memory of Alfred Nobel.
If you're just starting to dive into it, I think it'd be best to read a book that walks you through the main themes and concepts, or listen to podcasts such as EconTalk (you'd have to look for the interviews of behavioral economists). I think it's always good to have an introduction before going into the weeds. I agree with SbShula, Thinking Fast & Slow and Misbehaving are great for starting off.
In any case, here are some of the key papers. I used behavioralEconomics.com's "Introduction to Behavioral Economics" as an outline, and found links to the main papers (and books) that are freely available so you can download them. Of course, I recommend reading the website before starting to read the hundreds (thousands?) of pages in papers.
Prospect Theory
Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk - Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky
Bounded Rationality
A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice - Herbert A. Simon (On the bounds of rationality)
Maps of Bounded Rationality - Daniel Kahneman
Mental Accounting Matters - Richard H. Thaler
Nudge - Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (Technically not a paper, but papers tend to focus on specific examples intead of the general idea that people's decisions are affected by "nudges")
Dual System Theory
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman (Again, not a paper, but sums up a body of research in the same vein)
Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman
The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits - Finucane, Alhakami, Slovic, and Johnson
The Psychology of Preference - Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman
Status Quo Bias in Decision Making - William Samuelson and Richard Zeckhauser
Temporal Dimensions
Diversification bias: Explaining the discrepancy in variety seeking between combined and separated choices - Daniel Read and George Loewenstein
Hot-cold empathy gaps and medical decision-making - George Loewenstein
Exploring the causes of comparative optimism - James A. Shepperd, Patrick Carroll, Jodi Grace and Meredith Terry
Social Dimensions
Dishonesty in Everyday Life and Its Policy Implications - Nina Mazar and Dan Ariely
A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation - Ernst Fehr And Klaus Schmidt
Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity - Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter
MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy - Dolan, Hallsworth, Halpern, King, and Vlaev
Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. - James March
Thanks for the opportunity to look into all this. I just added a bunch of these to my bucket list.
If you're interested in this subject, I cannot recommend reading "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Israeli psychologist Daniel Kahneman enough. It is a very informative yet not overly technical summary of his over 30-year-long research on cognitive biases and the mechanisms of our decision-making processes.
The Stuff of Thought is the first and only book I've read of his, and I thought it was terrible. Really grindingly awful. It goes over old ground, told me nothing I didn't already know, and did it in the meandering, banal style of someone used to having people genuflect at his every proclamation.
I want to read Better Angels, but I'm having a hard time getting past Stuff. I did enjoy his AMA, though.
I just added this to my kindle library. It looks promising.
Edit: The lack of editorial reviews for Stuff (can we count Saletan?) should have made me hesitate before buying, but the subject interests me so much that I let my enthusiasm get ahead of my usual vetting process.
Amazon Link
I bought this a few months ago, and I recommend it.
If you enjoy these sorts of things, check out this book. Kahneman is the father of behavioral economics, which is basically the study of how our brains cleverly avoid doing any actual work.
Thank you for your response! I am glad at least one person read the link.
If you want to watch the documentary, here's a link. Its a bit old (1992), and Chomsky is sometime difficult to keep focused on with his style.
If you want to go all out, here is a link to the book on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.ca/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
https://www.amazon.com/Manufacturing-Consent-Political-Economy-Media/dp/0375714499
Your every welcome, feel free to ask any more if you wish. As far as Rand Paul goes he's got a few good takes but he does this weird thing where he puts nonsense into a hat shakes it up and pulls it out into a convincing sentience. For a comprehensive analysis of how this gets done in the media by not just Rand Paul and other conservatives but everyone I would suggest the book (or documentary) Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky & Edward Herman. It was published in 1988 but the core of their argument is still open relevant today. Here's the Amazon link: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375714499/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_M-dHDb9W0NBBH
Here's the YouTube link to the 1992 documentary: https://youtu.be/AnrBQEAM3rE
And here's a short intro to it produced by Al Jazeera with voice over by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!:
https://youtu.be/34LGPIXvU5M
Manufacturing Consent:The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky
This book provides a model for how the news media is used (and has been used) as propaganda for the political elite. The model is presented with multiple case studies. Very eye opening.
Following up on this, do yourself a favor and read Chomksy's Manufacturing Consent. There's also a youtube documentary/movie with excerpts from his lectures to help give you a feel for his ideas.
Lastly, I'm currently in the middle of reading Jason Stanley's book "How Propaganda Works." I like it so far; I'm about 1/2 way through it.
I just have a few pointers. Not going to go into verbose explanation.
-IRA will relieve $5500
-401K will relieve up to 17.5K
-Starting your own LLC is tax relief
-Buying a house (Wouldn't recommend this until you purchase in a buyer's market, but that's your choice).
-Invest in stocks (Here's a good book on investing):
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483895406&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+intelligent+investor Just a small thing, but figure out interest rates on savings and checking. If savings for your bank is greater than checking, put the bulk of your money there (If you're not comfortable stepping into investing it yet). Two reasons you want to do this: 1. Better interest is a few more cents returned than in checking. 2. If someone steals your debit card, at least all your money isn't in one place. Last thing, regardless of your field (Because I'm guessing you're not going to be a stripper forever. It's just to pay the bills), get an accountant and figure out how to itemize things. Take their advice. They know how to get you extra money back at the end of the year. If you do things for the company i.e. drive a distance from work, and they don't reimburse you, KEEP RECEIPTS of getting gas. This can be itemized.
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> I just have a few pointers. Not going to go into verbose explanation.
>
> - IRA will relieve $5500
> - 401K will relieve up to 17.5K
> - Starting your own LLC is tax relief
> - Buying a house (Wouldn't recommend this until you purchase in a buyer's market, but that's your choice).
> - Invest in stocks (Here's a good book on investing):
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1483895406&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=the+intelligent+investor
>
> Just a small thing, but figure out interest rates on savings and checking. If savings for your bank is greater than checking, put the bulk of your money there (If you're not comfortable stepping into investing it yet). Two reasons you want to do this: 1. Better interest is a few more cents returned than in checking. 2. If someone steals your debit card, at least all your money isn't in one place.
>
----
^(I am a bot. Contact) ^pentium4borg ^(with any feedback.)
There are a multitude of books that have been written and if you ask 100 people, you will get a 100 different answers on the best books to read. My recommendation is ignore all the flashy titles and strategy specific books that promise how to be a billionaire in 5 years or how to retire at age 25. Instead, for anyone just starting out, i recommend going with a solid foundation and once that is achieved, then find your individual specific plan. My three (actually four) books to get started in a serious entry into the investment markets are as follows (in order and assuming a starting point of Extreme Beginner)
https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Finance-Dummies-Eric-Tyson/dp/1119114292/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518157495&amp;sr=8-2&amp;keywords=personal+investing+for+dummies
And
https://www.amazon.com/Investing-Dummies-Business-Personal-Finance/dp/1119239281/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518157731&amp;sr=8-4&amp;keywords=personal+investing+for+dummies
2)The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing by Benjamin Graham.
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518157481&amp;sr=8-3&amp;keywords=personal+investing
This one is much more technical than the first read but I consider it "The Bible" for forming a solid education in value stock investing. Written just after World War 2, this book has been invaluable in understanding how to evaluate good investments in the stock market. I still don't know how investors did it before the internet, but using the principles presented in this book and the resources available online, your stock performance should be far in excess of anything you might do having not read it. Interesting side story: When i was in business school circa 1998-2001, I had a professor of Financial Analysis who introduced me to this book and also called it the Bible. In his lectures he and the students had many heated debates regarding the validity of Grahams teachings and how the investing world had outgrown Grahams views due to the rapidly growing diversity of investments today and the impact technology had on investing strategy. We, the students, were all blinded by the internet boom and all the stories of people who had an IPO for their company and became overnight billionaires, provided the company ended in dot-com. The professor was adamant that every generation was doomed to learn some hard and expensive lessons by thinking the Old masters no longer applied to the "New Reality". As an exercise we spent the following months reviewing many of the skyrocketing stocks that were part of the Dot Com bubble. The professor claimed that, based on his application of Graham's principles the only Dot com stocks he would consider holding for a minimum of 10 years from 1997 were Amazon, Intel, Sony, SAP and Microsoft. By 2000 he had fared much better than many of the students who thought the were going to be Pets.com billionaires.
Which brings us to the third book:
https://www.amazon.com/Extraordinary-Popular-Delusions-Madness-Crowds/dp/1463740514/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1518158993&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Extraordinary+Popular+Delusions+and+The+Madness+of+Crowds+by+Charles+MacKay
If you though Grahams book was old this one is coming up on its 200th anniversary.
This one is really not about investing as much as it is about the understanding how social psychology leads to things like, bubbles, panic crashes and fads that leave ruined investors in their wake. Every time I hear the word Bitcoin, I think of this book, just as I did back when everyone of my friends was going to be the next multimillionaire house flipper or day trader ten years ago. I am not saying that these strategies are inherently bad, just that it is important to be able to distinguish the facts from the hype, even when the person hyping it is yourself because you got swept up in the public craze. Read about the Dutch tulip craze and realize that the same forces are in play every day.
Once you grind through these three, you will be more than ready to start on your individual path and well armed to make reasonable decisions. Good Luck!
The Intelligent Investor is a great beginner's book that Warren Buffet swears by
If you only ever get 1 book, you can read this in a couple days, and it helps you get started with Vanguard.
https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Investing-Lessons-Every-Investor/dp/1118484878
Once you have a decent amount of money invested, this book will ensure you don't fuck it all up. A much longer read but full of good information on how to take the emotions out of investing, which are basically going to be your biggest foe.
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
Ask a 1000 people and you will get more than 1000 answers - this is how varied and complex investing is. If you are a beginner, I would suggest learning about investing first. There are ample materials out there. Concepts you should learn about: asset classes (stocks, options, bonds), diversification (not putting all your eggs in one asset class or stock). Learn too about "valuation" - how much should an asset be valued at. This is a crucial concept that you should understand even if you buy etf/mutual funds. You can, for example, buy the right asset at the wrong valuation and be hurt. Valuation tries to answer the question "Is this asset (class) fairly valued?" Implicit in understanding valuation is "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em".
I have personally benefited from Warren Buffett's writings and recommendations - so I read his shareholder letters (http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/letters.html). And I started with the "Intelligent Investor" by Benjamin Graham (https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661).
Good luck.
Congratulations! You've doing great. I only wish I was as smart as you when I was your age. Heck, you're even ahead of me in some regards and I'm 10 years old than you.
I have not read it yet, but I've seen The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing recommended by others on Reddit as a way to understand investing for us average folks. You might look into it.
I expected to find Jason Zweig on that episode. That guy is pretty much the poster child of sensible, simple investment advice. His WSJ column is pretty much dedicated to criticizing stuff like high-fee funds and stock speculation. It's named after the bestselling book on investing that Warren Buffet hails as his bible, which has been annotated by... Jason Zweig.
That segment was a great piece, it felt like a chapter out of the aforementioned The Intelligent Investor. Warren Buffet would approve of the investment advice and the rant against companies like John Hancock.
Read these books, in this order:
Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist
https://www.amazon.com/Buffett-American-Capitalist-Roger-Lowenstein/dp/0812979273/
The Little Book That Still Beats the Market
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Still-Beats-Market/dp/0470624159/
Margin of Safety (only available in free PDF now, out of print)
https://files.leopolds.com/books/Margin.of.Safety.1st.Edition.1991.Klarman.pdf
Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits
https://www.amazon.com/Common-Stocks-Uncommon-Profits-Writings/dp/0471445509/
The Intelligent Investor
https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Essentials/dp/0060555661
They'll teach you what's called value investing. As a system it was approximately originated by Benjamin Graham, Warren Buffett's mentor. It's the only system of investing that has been shown to consistently work over an extremely long period of time (nearly a century at this point) and anybody can learn to utilize it.
The first book will give you a close-up walk-through of value investing by following Buffett from his earliest days forward, including how he thought about investing (the most important aspect). That'll prime you to more easily be able to understand and digest the next value investing books. Once you have digested enough about value investing, you'll be able to adapt its ways to the things you're particularly good at (there are various styles or approaches to value investing; the best at it all use slightly different custom techniques in how they find stocks, what kind of levels of value they require before they invest, when they prefer to sell or not, risk tolerance, etc). As a system it's fundamentally built around logic / reason as the primary tools of appraising investments and making decisions, it encourages you to push emotion out of the equation of investing as much as possible (and in doing so, you automatically acquire a dramatic leg up over most investors big and small).
Of critical importance: value investing is not about producing small conservative returns. The best value investors have smashed the market's average returns over extremely long periods of time and they have tended to beat all other types of investors. Value investing is about: 1) not destroying capital, so that you can retain and compound it, taking maximum advantage of the extreme power of compounding returns; 2) picking investments that have an appropriate margin of safety (they've been significantly mispriced by the market), that protects your downside, while exposing you to a very large potential upside.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1332351037&amp;sr=8-1
Great book to start with. Also, check out r/investing; it's more active than this subreddit, and there's a nice list of recommend readings, online resources, FAQs, etc on the sidebar.
This might discourage you http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing-Practical/dp/0060555661/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1266975407&amp;sr=1-1
Start with Millionaire Teacher. Then read The Single Best Investment. Then to understand the business behind the stock, read The Intelligent Investor. This will provide a good start on what to look for individual business. The more you think business like, the better investor you become.
Ok, that's basically what I did when I started out. Let me just say, there is a learning curve- and LOTS to learn. However, if investing turns out to be something you enjoy, and you always continue learning, you open the door to higher returns in general (and a very interesting hobby :D ).
At the start, you don't need to know much more than the general facts. Equity, bonds, the market. What the lingo means, and where the resources are. The original book I got for an overview was the following, and I would recommend it: The
The FT Investing Guide - not a cheap book, but will go over the foundational knowledge you need.
I would then follow with The Intelligent Investor, which is THE great value-investment book. It will tell you about how to logically approach investing in companies, and give you a framework for choosing better companies to invest in, and not overpaying for the equity you invest in.
Knowledge of macro economics is also a plus, imo. I started off by reading Economics for Dummies (yes, really).
The basics of accounting is somewhat essential, but it's covered in the FT guide. If you can get to the point where you can understand a typical income statement, balance sheet or statement of cash flows, it should be enough to be a competent investor. It allows you to understand the underlying financial health of a business, which is very important.
Your aim is to find strong companies, with good future prospects, which are undervalued by the market, and invest for the long-term. This will allow you to maximise your returns.
..I was all set to continue writing this wall of text, but I think I'll leave it here for now. If you have any further questions, or would like more clarification on any points, I'd be happy to help. So just let me know.
Read this book: The Intelligent Investor
If you're looking for a way to make quick money and become millionaire quick then that book isn't for you.
If you don't want to make a career out of trading, a helpful rule of thumb is a 90 / 10 principle popularized by Andrew Hallam in his text Millionaire Teacher: Stick 90% of your capital in tax sheltered, virtually passive forms of investment like index mutual funds or ETFs with an IRA wrapper and stick the other 10% in whatever investment vehicle you want to learn.
For example, I put 90% of my capital in a batch of index funds and ETFs predicated on John Bogle's suggestion of "your age in bonds, the rest in common stock" index funds and ETFs by way of an account with Vanguard for my IRA and my company's 403(b) program. Vanguard makes this really easy through their target retirement funds, which automatically adjust the ratio of stock / bonds over time. I'm really interested in value investing; so, I take long positions in individual stock that meets the criteria Benjamin Graham identified in Security Analysis and The Intelligent Investor with the other 10% of my capital via a brokerage account with TD Ameritrade--this isn't tax sheltered like my retirement accounts but it's basically an ongoing education in investing since TD Ameritrade offers a ton of instructional materials on topics like options, commodities, etc. and I want to see my money grow.
Let's take a look at what this could look like for your situation. Starting with $5k and doing something like what I'm doing, you would:
Any follow up questions?
Since the seems to be a common question I'm just copy pasting some of my older responses.
Books to read:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Intelligent-Investor-Definitive-Investing/dp/0060555661
http://www.set.in.th/ben_graham_the_intelligent_investor.pdf
http://www.amazon.com/The-Investors-Manifesto-Prosperity-Armageddon/dp/0470505141/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1334165783&amp;sr=1-1
General Advice
;)
Just as an aside, you should read How to Lie with Statistics.
I need to re-read it. It never hurts to learn how to spot bullshit statistics.
There's a whole book about that. How to Lie with Statistics.
This sounds exactly like something that would be in How to Lie with Statistics.
Which is why you ought to read this book. It's a classic, but that doesn't stop people from practically using it as an operating manual.
https://www.amazon.ca/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728
Even ignoring maliciousness, which is certainly an element of underhanded politics, it's just very easy to do accidentally; or to not realise it's being done to you. How to Lie with Statistics is basically a collection of (authentic) examples of accidental and deliberate deceit.
All it takes:
Agenda + http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1458679454&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics
An oldie but a goodie How to Lie With Stastics
How to lie with statistics
I completely agree that taking away one device does not solve a problem. I'd also argue that "solving" depression is a complex issue that won't be as immediately enforceable as a gun policy.
So, why not both?
Surely there's some good reason for a Republican to back the bill, no?
ps, you might really enjoy reading "How to Lie with Statistics" (non affiliate link).
Seguindo a mote do teu ultimo livro, já leste algo do Dan Ariely
This was a study done by Dan Ariely. He's a Psychologist who studies irrational human behavior and has written 3 books on the subject and done several TED talks. He has many results that are just as interesting as this that he talks about
His first bookPredictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
His TED Talks
> Libertarianism is cruel in that if a person does not seek out education, or healthcare, or whatever else, they can fail and even die. But it is the most just system because it treats human beings with respect as individuals capable of making their own decisions.
I agree... and this is why I have mixed feelings about Libertarianism. I start with the idea that what is good is to minimize suffering and maximize wellbeing. I think that usually means letting people make their own decisions. But I think it can sometimes mean acknowledging that we are all predictably irrational, so having some laws that encourage us to make good decisions can be good.
> In short, liberals view humans as stupid creatures unable to do for themselves and conservatives view humans as stupid creatures that refuse to do for themselves.
I think they both are sometimes right and sometimes wrong -- and figuring out when is the hard part. And because figuring out when is very hard, we should err on the side of letting people make their own decisions.
> In reality, laws written on paper do not change human hearts.
Being written on paper doesn't matter (except for the legal system), but enforcing laws can change hearts (desires/aversions), and behaviors. I think punishment is one of the basic social tools we have to change desires and behaviors. It's far more costly than using condemnation (or praise), though, so I prefer using it only for the most important reasons. Punishment is like the burn one feels when touching a hot stove -- one quickly acquires an aversion to touching a hot stove after being burned.
In that case, I found a lot of inspiration in the book American Progressivism: A Reader. It's a sampling of formative essays and speeches during the Progressive Era talking about reforming government, reducing corruption, and building a reliable administration. Reading it helps understand how the modern US government got to be where it is, because most of their proposals were eventually adopted.
I also read Leninism by Neil Harding, which went into the detail of the initial Communist revolution in Russia and how Lenin's political theories evolved as circumstances on the ground changed. I think it was helpful both in gaining more understanding of the history of the time and in learning about what Communism came to mean in a Russian context.
I liked Predictably Irrational and Freakonomics for really highlighting 1) economics is about incentives, and 2) our incentives sometimes lead us and markets astray, sometimes even in predictably bad ways.
The Myth of the Rational Market traces a history of financial economics going back to the early 1900s and how we conceptualized the idea of the Efficient Market Hypothesis. It also ends up introducing a lot of basic financial information I had in my finance classes.
The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and the World on Fire goes into specific detail about the financial crisis and how central banks across the world responded to it. Useful if you aren't familiar with the specifics of the crisis.
The Working Poor: Invisible in America helps explore the hopelessness and despair of the working poor, and how a poverty mindset can develop. It also shows how systems of late fees, overdraft fees, payday loans, lack of benefits for part-time workers, the cost of healthcare, etc all combine to really rig the world against the poor succeeding.
That's all I can think of for now.
This is a good example of applied behavioral economics. Dan Ariely has written some interesting books on the topic, if anyone is interested:
Predictably Irrational
The Upside of Irrationality
I strongly recommend reading this book:
http://www.amazon.ca/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-Edition/dp/0061353248
It's pretty awesome.
You might say it's selectively rational.
Sorry. But I agree 100%. The comic may inspire some people, and I don't want at all to get in the way of that, but aside from the fact that the conversation was pretty much just a polemic for the cigarette dude, if you take that philosophy to its logical conclusion you end up being kind of a dick.
Often peoples desires can't be reconciled with reality, and not everyone can find a way to reshape themselves to want different things. People become depressed, and they don't want to be depressed, but they don't know how to be any other way.
The human brain isn't a perfectly rational machine, either, so even when you do know what you want, you can be undermining yourself without realizing it. You don't have one overarching life goal, you have many, and virtually every choice you make involves a compromise between several desires, and compromises are something brains are notoriously bad at making. Predictably Irrational, the Dan Ariely book that inspired my username, is full of examples of this.
What I prefer to do is acknowledge that goals can be hard, and try to find communities (like NoFap) where collectively we are stronger than we are individually. My shortcomings are different than yours, so we can share strategies.
At the end of the day, yes, I have to own up to my decisions. But the relationship between wanting something and achieving it is something I don't fully understand. I just know it's more complex than "A implies B".
Snapshots:
^(I am a bot.) ^([Info](/r/SnapshillBot) ^/ ^[Contact](/message/compose?to=\/r\/SnapshillBot))
>Is social democracy neoliberal
No
>liberal government institutions
etc.
this book goes into more detail what exactly thoes institutions are and why they're a good thing. If you read it you're probably gonna be more informed than 75% of this sub so I highly recommend you to read it.
Gracias, pensaba leer la parte histórica primero que es lo que más me llamo la atención de la wiki y si me interesaba algo en particular de ahí entonces leer algo más concreto.
Capaz también algo que explique varios modelos sin ser muy denso, algo que este en el tono de la explicación que pusiste acá pero más profundizado, el de Adam Smith parece interesante pero es medio viejo (1776) y capaz es medio denso, hay alguna cosa más moderna?
Este sería el último que recomendaste, ese autor?
Why Nations Fail by Acemoglu and Robinson.
Should it be 'available' sure! Should the America tax dollars pay for it? No. The America tax dollars should be spend on Americans.
This global village bs doesn't work. We have been giving them money for the last 60 years and much of the world is still a shithole.
You should read "Why nations fail" https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/dp/0307719227
Uh... why so aggressive? All most all of these countries, were colonies of western countries for literally hundreds of years.
Most of them, after gaining their independence, under went decades of civil wars. Or were grounds for proxy wars of more developed nations fighting over their natural resources (diamonds, uranium, etc.) and differing political ideological (capitalism vs communism).
Since they were colonies, they typically had restrictions placed in their ability to form legal systems, or they formed some distorted version of a western legal system. These weren't British citizens, with established legal frameworks, rebelling from Britain (like the American Revolution).
The lack of a legal system made it more difficult to form stable governments, or even organize functional economic systems. Typically their citizen lacked basic legal protections, that more developed nations take for granted.
Literally, nothing like a drug addiction, but yea good on them for try.
Maybe read this book. :/
>Do you think there's no middle ground between foreigners showing up with guns and ships and taking your shit, and being separated from world trade?
Yes, I believe trade and foreign investment is that middle ground.
>Despite being grotesquely unequal (as all countries were at the time), India was once enormously wealthy. I cannot help but think that if its wealth had remained in India or been traded for other forms of wealth, rather than just being taken, India might be doing a bit better today.
Read this book it's a great book about the topic at hand.
Resources:
For me, the best way to learn was to read biographies and stories of successful entrepreneurs. It gives you an idea of how big companies actually start and the founder's approach.
Examples: Losing your virginity (richard branson), Steve Jobs' Biography, Andrew Carnegie's Biography, Rockefeller's Biography, Bill gates, etc.
I would also highly recommend start watching the pandomonthly interviews on youtube. Here's Airbnb's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yPfxcqEXhE
Definitely look into bussiness management books as well. if you are going down this road, there is a chance you will want to start doing it on your own and having proper business skills will help tremendously in securing work, and balancing costs, and making money doing it! I am sure some people on this sub can recommend some great books on this topic as well.
Here are a couple books,
https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417/ref=sr_1_1?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5MLrBRClARIsAPG0WGxuwhyo-18J3-xPOVP8bXeTJ4zbGZHkpO4GqIGKlz-WCRxt3aUroqQaApECEALw_wcB&hvadid=229992601126&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9000745&hvnetw=g&hvpos=1t1&hvqmt=e&hvrand=4412519744533501821&hvtargid=aud-748919244907%3Akwd-297504215686&hydadcr=16960_10238137&keywords=business+model+generation&qid=1567691052&s=gateway&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.ca/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0307887898&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=PEqJa&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=a62e2918-d998-4bbb-8337-35aac776e851&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H
https://www.amazon.ca/Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-Step/dp/0984999302/ref=pd_sbs_14_3/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0984999302&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H
https://www.amazon.ca/Business-Model-You-One-Page-Reinventing/dp/1118156315/ref=pd_sbs_14_4/141-1005106-2495725?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1118156315&pd_rd_r=3ef234c3-168a-4156-bb6b-32f1e4f1ecca&pd_rd_w=Oruqz&pd_rd_wg=P882W&pf_rd_p=f7748194-d8e0-4460-84c0-2789668108bc&pf_rd_r=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H&psc=1&refRID=RMAX7VQZE9TKPTQ2SM8H
Had this list together from a blog post I wrote a few months ago. Not sure what exactly you're looking for, but these are my favorite books and I'd recommend everybody read them all. There are other great books out there, but this is a pretty well rounded list that touches everything a company needs.
The Lean Startup https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898
Business Model Generation https://www.amazon.com/Business-Model-Generation-Visionaries-Challengers/dp/0470876417
Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products https://www.amazon.com/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/1591847788
Talking to Humans https://www.amazon.com/Talking-Humans-Success-understanding-customers-ebook/dp/B00NSUEUL4
Predictable Revenue https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213
To Sell is Human https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905
Rework https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745
Delivering Happiness https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220
Awesome, quick read about traction and a method to explore and test different channels in the context of your specific goals
www.TractionBook.com
Great read about being aware that your effort is the one thing you have the most control over and how important having a clear focus and plan is
http://smile.amazon.com/Leave-No-Doubt-Chasing-Dreams/dp/0773544763/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453704910&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=leave+no+doubt
Guide to Lean Startup Method
http://smile.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453704944&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=eric+ries
to get things started.
Clear Introduction and Training in Scrum: It's a powerful and extremely versatile workflow to creating and managing any type of project--You could integrate the Lean Method into scrum--most do. Edited to add this one
http://smile.amazon.com/Scrum-Dummies-Mark-C-Layton/dp/111890575X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1453778191&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=scrum+for+dummies
Technical skill has nothing to do with the success of a startup ^(slight ^exaggeration ^but ^still ^mostly ^true.) 99% of startups aren't going to be the unicorn viral apps you hear about (think Snapchat, Instagram) where it grew organically without funding because the app was something magical. Also, seed funding is shockingly "easy" to get, but you need to put effort into pitches, a lot of them, which requires a lot of legwork. I'm sure your friend had to do pitch after pitch after pitch to win a venture contest.
In order for a product to be successful you need someone with a lot of marketing savvy to make it grow natively, and/or someone with a lot of business savvy to be able to pitch to investors (in order to hire someone with marketing savvy). The technology behind it is actually kind of meaningless (as much as I wish that were false -- I say this as a techy who's been in the industry for 7 years). Read Lean Startup, half of the successful startups the author mentions had no technology behind their product before they were validated and funded, including the ones that were technology based!
>I've been working on multiple applications, hoping to get something to fly and take off.
Have you released any of these, or do you find yourself floating from one idea to the other? If the latter, I'd suggest picking one and running all the way with it. This means marketing, growth hacking, physical pitches to individuals or companies, posting it to forums, getting your mom to download your app, whatever! I would say that if you're putting above 75%, hell maybe even 50%, of your effort into building it in place of some of these other things before calling it quits, it's probably not going to work. Worst case scenario, it still fails, but at least you can learn how to do it differently the next time.
That said, I still would focus on graduating at least, but getting a tech job doesn't mean the game is dead yet. I spent the first 7 years of my career at large tech companies saving a ton of money so that I could quit and work on my own ideas for a while without worrying about money. And I learned a lot about real world tech before actually diving into it, so I'm much more efficient than when I had just graduated. Not the path for everyone, but it worked for me.
Gotcha. That really sucks, and I mean that in the most meaningful way possible haha.
That type of thinking is the complete opposite of "agile" development, where typically there is a budget, but product owners and devs work together, iteration-by-iteration to determine what needs to change. If an "estimate" is carved in stone, then it's not an estimate anymore, but a fixed-bid project--again, the complete opposite of what developing with agility is supposed to be.
Sounds like a good starting place is learning about lean development and building a minimum viable product, since they're so sensitive about estimate granularity. That manager will have to learn to lead building a very minimum viable product, with as minimally necessary a valuable feature set as possible.
I recommend reading:
From a psychological perspective, there are a whole set of systematic biases in how we think (e.g., those catalogued in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow). And the existence of visual illusions and so forth (e.g., The Dress) tends to suggest that our perceptual faculties are designed for efficiency rather than accuracy - they wouldn't fool us if we saw the world entirely accurately. It's clearly accurate to say that our minds are not entirely reliable, and you don't need to be an evolutionist or a philosophical naturalist to believe this (there are traditions in Christianity that would argue R is low, too). Thus believing that the probability that R is low is not contingent on believing N&E.
However, there is a big stretch between saying that our minds are not reliable and saying that our scientific theories about evolution are not reliable. Plantinga here effectively paints scientific beliefs as being the same as any beliefs, yes? But there's reason to believe that scientific beliefs are more likely to be true than other beliefs.
Much of science tries to use quantitative measurement instruments (e.g., rulers) to reduce human bias, and technology (microscopes, for example) to go beyond human perceptual limits; similarly, scientists replicate studies in order to reduce the likelihood of the original findings being in error. The general aim of science is to increase the likelihood that our theories about the world are correct. And in general, observed experience suggests that science has utility in terms of our ability to base functional technology on scientific theories - a whole swathe of scientific principles underlie the ability for you to read this text on the computer screen you're looking at, for example. This suggests that while our current scientific beliefs might still be inaccurate, they're still more likely to be accurate than other beliefs.
And so if you are trying to argue about the probability of a scientific theory from a Bayesian perspective, as Plantinga is doing in the EAAN, you therefore need to take into account a markedly increased probability of scientific theories being correct compared to other beliefs.
If a Plantingan then asserts that P(R|N&E) is still very low, even with science's error correction processes, then someone who believes N&E could argue that P(R|AG) - where AG stands for the idea that the Abrahamic God created us - is even more improbable.
I read your comment. Then I look at the username of the comment above you. My head explodes.
Seriously though: you are 100% right in what you are saying, but I hope people is not thinking "yeah exactly people are dumb... they just need to be told off, they will wake up, and everything will be fixed". This is as efficient as "fixing" mass shootings by giving weapons to the teacher.
It is all about how the human brain rewards our actions, and how that influences how we act and think. We are designed to prioritize an easy chuckle (low effort, high reward) over a "computationally expensive" thought (source: Thinking Fast And Slow).
You want to convince someone? Be short, be precise, know how the human brain works and don't fight against it.
In general, when it comes to things like SEO, SEM, etc you are better off sticking with blogs and content sites like SEOMoz, Marketing Sherpa, and Danny Sullivan/Search Engine World. By the time a book is written it's usually out of date in these fields.
>Our fighting hasn't stopped because I haven't stopped fighting for control.
>I don't trust my fiance. There, I said it. I want to. I'm working on it. But I don't, right now.
I am not sure that I believe this, actually. I think you do trust him. The issue is, I think, the difference between an unconscious response (what you've trained yourself to do your whole life) and your conscious response (what you desire your reaction to be).
The unconscious responses are created in a part of the brain that is more instinctual - some people call it the "lizard brain". This response, to fight your fiance, or to act in a way that is mistrustful, happens in milliseconds. It is not under conscious control, it is by force of habit.
The conscious response, which happens in the parts of the brain that evolved later, takes longer to happen. The key is you have to re-train yourself, and it takes time and effort. You only have milliseconds to intercept the unconscious mind's response (mistrust) and replace it with your conscious mind's desire (trust).
So the first step is to recognize the unconscious response, be more aware of it, and at least try to stop yourself from reacting that way outwardly, or realize when it's happening and stop as soon as you realize that's what you're doing (which is sort of what happened with the airport story - you realized it, but after a few minutes, not in milliseconds.) Then you replace the instinctual response with your desired conscious response - instead of not trusting him you act as though you do trust him.
After you do this enough, your instinctual, unconscious reaction will change, and trust will become your new default.
An excellent book on this subject, if you're interested, is "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman.
edit: typo