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Gamestop Big Picture: The Bigger Picture
Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This entire post represents my personal views and opinions, and should not be taken as financial advice (or advice of any kind whatsoever). I encourage you to do your own research, take anything I write with a grain of salt, and hold me accountable for any mistakes you may catch. Also, full disclosure, I hold a net long position in GME, but my cost basis is very low, and I'm using money I can absolutely lose. My capital at risk and tolerance for risk generally is likely substantially different than yours. I'll cover many things that I think will be generally beneficial for newer traders and investors first, but if you're just looking for my current observations on GME, write about it and the end, so feel free to skip the wall of text in the middle if that's what you're here for :).
One thing I would suggest for newer traders, particularly following the Robin Hood fiasco, is to transition to a more powerful brokeplatform. As I've mentioned a few times, I use TD Ameritrade's thinkorswim platform (see very recent review
here). They don't pay me to promote it or anything, other than that I can say that my portfolio performance has been greatly enhanced by the capabilities the thinkorswim platform provides.
I've gotten many questions and comments requesting guidance on educational materials. I haven't responded because I am honestly not the best person to ask about that. I will say that the resources listed in this sub (to the right of the list of posts) look to be fairly comprehensive and excellent in quality.
Awareness, Ideas, Thesis, Due Diligence
Most common question I got since my last post about my process for identifying trading and investing opportunities.
At a high level, it all starts with awareness and various ideas about how the world around us is likely to change, and what the market currently anticipates (you will commonly hear phrases like 'X is already priced in', or 'the market is already discounting the fact that', etc.).
Regarding GME, the idea I had was that some struggling retail and other businesses, which had been left for dead by the market, would actually rebound fairly quickly, and perhaps benefit from pent-up demand as the vaccines rolled out.
Ok, that makes sense, but how, in fact, do you take your awareness of the world, take some of those ideas, and actually do something with them?
I tend to start with running a screen (screen as in a sieve, not screen as in what you're staring at right now) in thinkorswim. Other platforms have similar tools.
tradingview.com is also excellent for a web-based tool. These allow you to filter stocks by various types of criteria.
As an example, I might start by filtering for:
- Stocks in the retail sector
- Market cap >65mio, <3bn (I find that to be a good range for minimally stable micro cap to smaller mid-cap that is likely insufficiently covered by analysts, and therefore more likely to be substantially mis-rated by the broader market)
- PE < 7 (nothing magic about 7, that's just what I decided to use as a relatively but not ridiculously low PE multiple)
- Fixed Charge Coverage Ratio >1 (i.e. they can cover fixed costs out of earnings, so imminent bankruptcy risk is likely lower). Note that if you're looking ultra deep value you might actually specifically want to find companies at risk of bankruptcy at first glance, to dig through in detail to find ones that look more likely to turn themselves around from the brink for some reason.
Etc. It takes longer to think about what kinds of filters to use than anything else. Once I've set those criteria up, you just run the scan (click a button in thinkorswim) and out pops a list of stocks that match the criteria in less than second. On 2/6/2021 running the above scan gives me 9 names (of which, funny enough, Express--apparently another meme stock short squeeze play based on just looking at its chart for 2 seconds--is one). For those who are curious, the list I got was: ANF (Abercombie & Fitch), GES (Guess Inc), PLCE (children's Place), DBI (Designer Brands inc), GCO (Genesco), CAL (Caleres Inc), CHS (Chico's FAS INC), CATO (Cato Corp), EXPR (Express Inc)
At that point I might quickly check the charts to see what the daily action has been like for the past year, looking for patterns that might be interesting. I'll pick PLCE for this example, since it is breaking out strongly, and looks to be about to smash through resistance of the price on the eve of the pandemic crash. It also apparently blew out its last earnings estimates, which doesn't hurt.
At this point I might proceed to check their SEC filings (lots of insider buying a few days ago, Blackrock increasing stake, recently new CFO, etc.), whale wisdom, company news etc. I found an
interesting article from earlier last year that seems particularly positive--they have apparently been a leader in the retail sector in developing their digital omnichannel, with a large and foresighted investment made over 3 years ago, which made them particularly well-positioned to deal with the challenges of the pandemic (at least as far as bricks and mortar retail goes) and indicates very good things about the strategic vision of their management team and board.
It was a ridiculous bargain in November, but may still have room to run even today. Not an endorsement or telling you to go buy some of the stock, but that's my quick read.
With the above 30 minutes of research done, I might make the decision that it warrants further investigation.
As you dig deeper, you start to build a working thesis or theory on how the company is going to deliver performance, or get enough attention from the investment community to warrant a re-rating outsized gains in share price (the bull case). Then you try to find all the reasons and evidence as to why that isn't going to happen (the bear case).
From that point on you iterate as many times as seems prudent to you, depending on how much of your portfolio you intend to invest. Since we're all here already, summarizing and posting your due diligence to this sub seems like a no-brainer. It is very likely you'll get good feedback to help you refine your thesis even further, or perhaps stop you from making what might be a big mistake.
Even if I decide not to make an investment at the moment, at the very least I might add that stock to a watch list, etc. I can actually set thinkorswim to give me an alert if any new companies pop up that match those criteria from now on. This type of feature is pretty common with screening tools. This might happen if, for example, a struggling retailer gets its cash flow in order and crosses from <1 FCCR to >1 FCCR.
A process very much like the above is how I found GME to begin with, and subsequently found my way to Reddit since there was so much GME-related traffic.
The Market is so much bigger than GME, so I highly encourage you to use the knowledge, tools, and techniques you've learned about or been exposed to to explore that bigger picture.
You, The Market, The Trade
If you've found something that looks interesting enough to warrant actually investing, it's worth spending some time to further think about precisely how you think you should do so before you just hit the buy button.
If your thesis and time horizon are longer-dated, then stocks are likely your best bet.
If instead you have a very specific time window in which you're interested, or have reason to believe the stock will move by a certain date, then options might be much more capital-efficient with a higher return (though a much higher risk of greater or total losses as well).
There are many ways to express your ideas or bet on your thesis. In fact, your thesis about a particular company might lead to trades on an entirely different company. If your due diligence on a key industrial company that primarily supplies parts to a certain car company shows major investment in technology and production efficiency, that might also bode well for their customer, and thus warrant an investment there as well or instead. My DD on oil storage capacity getting full back in April led to me taking some speculative positions in oil tanker stocks, as another example.
You may also modify the way you position your trade based on market conditions. Jon Najarian (a CNBC regular who focuses on options trading) recently described how he is transitioning his portfolio using a stock replacement strategy. This means using various options strategies to try to mimic the performance of stocks, but without holding stocks directly. The reason for this is that he is increasingly concerned that we may have a large market correction in the near term, and would like to have a defined limit to potential losses (a feature of many options strategies). I don't know if he's correct, but his moves make sense as a way to address his concerns.
Another thing I've referenced a few times in my post is writing cash-covered puts to essentially bet against the price falling vs betting that the price is going to rise. This comes with the added wrinkle that 'losing' (i.e. the stock price in fact falls below the strike price of the put) comes with the added feature that you end up owning stock. For this reason I commonly use this as a strategy on high-confidence stocks as a way to gain some revenue if the price goes higher, and effectively buy the dip if it goes down first.
How you express your thesis in terms of the specific trades you make can greatly impact the likelihood and magnitude of your returns, and the profile of your risk. Buying the stock you like, while straightforward and with a very intuitive risk/reward profile, may not be the best way forward.
That being said, it is critical that you do understand the trade before you execute, so I would highly recommend practicing via papesimulated trading--which, by the way, is a built-in feature of thinkorswim--before you execute a complex multi-leg option play. Ok, I'll stop shilling for the rest of this post at least :).
Back to GME
On Thursday and Friday what I believe we saw was despair-driven selling compounded by the tug of war between shorts that entered at $150+, and shorts still piling into the trade.
Overall short-side sentiment is more cautious at this point than at the highs despite supposed sentiment among short-side players that GME is a $10 ($20 at best) stock. This is reflected in Ortex data showing utilization dropping below 100% for the first time in months (i.e. shorts are no longer borrowing every single share they can get their hands on), and short interest stabilizing over the past few days. As of Thursday utilization was 69.3%, and free float on loan was at 44.1%. Data for Friday should become available just before Monday market open.
The reason for the above, I believe, is that while shorts seem to believe current prices are still a good entry point, they need to be concerned about getting blown up if a short that entered at the squeeze highs decides to cover and lock in profits. The removal of restrictions on GME by Robin Hood adds another element of risk.
The lower the price, the likelier that deeply profitable shorts cover, spiking price while doing so at the expense of the newest shorts, and the easier it is for retail sentiment to move price, so we're in a sort of very fragile equilibrium until the larger shorts that entered at the higher price points have covered.
I'm not sure how to estimate when this would be, other than to say that the lower the price goes, and the more days that pass, the lower the incremental profit potential and higher accumulated interest cost for the short position holders, so I don't expect them to hold those squeeze high short positions for very long. It is possible that the spike on Friday was a push to cover a fair bit of those positions before the weekend. I would also expect that they will move to cover if somehow momentum seems to turn to the long side, which would accentuate and accelerate the the inflection of momentum greatly.
I'm not sure what I'm going to do with my last 130 shares of GME at this point. It's possible I hold them for a while to watch how things play out for the next few weeks, but I wanted to give everyone reading my post fair warning that going forward I may make an intra-day decision to sell part of all of the position. I will, however, keep open the cash-secured put position, as an automatic entry back into GME at an effective $30 price point if the price is <$40 by April. I may open new positions based on developments as well.
On a different note, I took some time to once again review my thoughts and decisions over the course of the trade. While doing so I was reading back through my posts from 12 days ago (only 12!? feels like it's been at least 3 weeks...) reminding me that I had previously begun building a position in
AMC as a value play (via a couple of march $3 strike calls) on rumors of imminent rescue/turnaround financing. I was originally planning to build a better position once I had time to study the potential trade structure better, but instead unloaded them at ~1000% profit for a net ~$2000 gain to concentrate further on GME when I was re-positioning my portfolio, not even realizing at the time that AMC was another stock with a legitimate short squeeze momentum thesis (LOL, I really should pay more attention to social media). I just glossed over the profit as about what I was expecting off the bounce from market rerating the stock from "bankruptcy is imminent" to "holy cr*p, the studios need AMC for their movies to make money!". I should have realized when I was getting so many messages from people asking me to do for AMC what I was writing for GME. I didn't even do any DD on the short interest there(!) and ignorantly advised people that they should only pay attention to the value thesis as I
channeled my inner Charlie Munger.
I guess it just goes to show that you only have time to look so far into so many things at once. As I've mentioned previously, trading is a hobby of mine, and something I do in my spare time. I'm not sure if I would have been able to coherently manage momentum trading two stocks that were basically printing money in overdrive at the same time to take full advantage of either trade, especially while writing daily posts. Try to keep that in mind if you choose to pay attention to what I write :).
Also, apologies if you've messaged me and haven't gotten a response. I will sometimes try to respond if I have time (and a good answer), but if you have a good question it would probably be better to either post as a comment or your own post so that you can get a broader range of responses, and also so that the responses can be seen by (and therefore benefit) everyone.
Hope you're having a good weekend, and good luck in the market on Monday!
submitted by jn_ku to investing [link] [comments]
Sixteen Years ago in 2005 Annie Borjesson was found deceased on Prestwick Beach, Scotland. Immediately ruled a suicide, subsequent evidence has pointed to something more sinister. Yet it has been ruled a matter of 'National Secrecy', potentially involving multiple Intelligence Agencies.
[LONG] Hello everyone, this is going to be a long write up. If you wish you can check up my other write ups on my account. Usually I construct a chronological timeline, however today we will be following a evidence by evidence approach. There is an accompanying documentary to this post which can be found here and at the bottom. The Body and Initial Investigation Sixteen years ago, in 2005 a man was walking the coast of Scotland. On this cold December day he found a young woman, deceased on Prestwich beach. He called the police who quickly cordoned off the area. The crime scene consisted of a woman, face down on the beach with a travel bag containing most importantly her passport but also her wallet and some clothing.
The passport identified this woman as Annie Borjesson a 30 old swede who had been working in Scotland from 2004 till her death. Working in the[hospitality industry in the city of Edinburgh. Annie was described as a highly intelligent, musical and fun individual by her family and friends. She had plans to return to Sweden on the day she died, and was found only a few miles from the airport she planned to fly from. Yet somehow she ended up on the beach.
The Scottish Police removed the body from the scene and closed the investigation very quickly, within a day declaring it to be a suicide. Before even the autopsy would be performed. Further investigation by the Scottish police could not locate any Suicide note, and although these aren’t always present when suicides occur; it is indicative of what is to come. After an official statement was made identifying the cause of death as suicide by drowning, The Scottish Police did not open an inquest into the death, so no further investigation was ever officially conducted. The Police were certainly rushing to have this case closed and off their hands. This is where the rabbit hole begins.
The Undertakers and A Second Autopsy An undertaker in Vargarda Sweden received the body, after inspection they noted discrepancies which were not accounted for by the authorities. The deceased was missing hair, the missing hair – to the undertakers could not have naturally been removed but rather had to of been removed by an external force, this hair had to of been pulled off the deceased scalp. Furthermore these undertakers too recognized bruising on her body, with particularly large bruises on her arm approximately the size of a palm as well as bruising behind her right ear. Furthermore these undertakers recognized what they called black and blue ‘thumb impressions’ on her neck and scrapes on her knees.
Now these are not the ramblings or complaints of a foreign undertaker not understanding the systems for dealing with autopsies and the dead in the UK. As before these complaints were made they were also put forward by another party; the deceased’s body passed through a different undertaker, who had a formal understanding of investigative systems and pathologists within the UK.
-The UK Undertaker- This undertaker was located in London and prepared the deceased for transportation. After examining the body they wrote letters of recommendation to Scottish authorities and sent copies to the deceased insurance company and the family of Annie Borjesson. These letters contained the same analysis of the deceased’s body which was not accounted for by the authorities;
‘During the restoration of Annie in particular I found her hair was falling out due to washing and combing. I can verify that she did have significant bruising to her body which for reasons I cannot explain I believe were not included in the autopsy report. I find this to be quite unusual considering the circumstances of her death and I recommend a contact with the hospital coroner with this respect’ You might think that these bruises could have been caused by the sea, or by decomposition. However both undertakers noted that these types of bruises are inconsistent with ones which would have occurred due to damage from the sea or seabed and are not the right type of bruises to occur after death. (I have been told that
technically bruising can't occur after death, but similar discolouration can occur)
No one disagrees that she passed away due to drowning, they do however disagree as to whether she came to harm before the drowning and if she did, was the drowning really caused by suicidal tendencies or an external force drowning her. Sky News in 2019 working with a Pathologist within the UK recognized these inconsistencies and on their own accord contacted the Crown Office to see photos from the Autopsy. What they received back brings up so many more questions than answers; the Crown Office wrote back:
‘
It is not in the public interest for these photos to be released’ We’re beginning to see a clear line of action occurring, is it possible people with the power to do so are trying to cover up the truth behind her death ?
-
Leaks- Leaks are not always something which should be held to a high regard, it’s really dependent on the news network and its credibility. Here we are going to put our trust in Sky News’ as they attest to the following statement; there was DNA found on the deceased’s hands from an unknown woman. This information was never given to the family or general public, it does not prove definitively foul play as this DNA could have been picked up for an incomprehensibly large amount of benign reasons but further lends credence to at the very least the investigation was incredibly secretive
-
A Second Autopsy- A second Autopsy was requested by the family and later performed in Gothenburg, the findings of which largely agree with the initial Scottish Autopsy, that Annie died from drowning. But this autopsy disagreed as to
where she drowned, this autopsy found evidence that Annie drowned in fresh water. Not in Saltwater, not in the sea. They had found a material which can only be found in Fresh Water in her lungs and no evidence of the saltwater counterpart. Yet when pressed the Swedish authorities refused to investigate any further, once again this trend of secretiveness is being presented. Here you might wonder if she drowned in a fresh water river or lake, and was carried to sea by the currents I will address this later.
The Last Sighting and Geography of The Beach A figure was witnessed on the beach at before sun down, light was fading but it was by no means gone. Roughly around the same time at 4:00pm police say they have CCTV of Annie in the area, approximately half a mile away – although it is to be noted only screenshots have ever been shown to the family after a lengthy battle. Now this witness, Andrew was walking with a partner, and did state he could not confidently say the figure was even a woman moreover The person with whom he was walking with was never interviewed by police at all. Showing investigator both failed in their duties to properly investigate all leads and clues, and
also improperly used this sighting and claimed the figure was definitely Annie despite the quoted witness being unsure and unable to even discern whether the figure was male or female.
-Geography of The Beach- Now here we’re going to get a little specific see the deceased body was deposited at the south side of the beach. Now the beach raises slightly as you travel south and ends up quite a bit higher than the rest of the beach. This has lead locals who are aware of the beach and its movements, to question how the body ended up at this position if the beach does not naturally deposit such large things in this area. However marine experts and archivists have worked with reporters and have found that Prestwich Beach did experience a larger than normal swell the day she was found indicating it was possible the deceased body could have been deposited where it laid.
Earlier we saw that after a second autopsy there was strong evidence that she died by fresh water drowning. You might wonder if she drowned in a lake, and was carried to sea I can confirm there are no lakes in the vicinity, however there are two rivers. One to the north and one to the south, the Northern river is approximately 2km [1.2 miles] from the crime scene and the southern river is approximately 3.5 km [2.1 miles] from the crime scene. The Northern River is quite a bit a smaller than the southern and thus is not as strong of a candidate, however it is currently unexplored and unknown whether it is possible even the southern river could carry and then deposit such a large load at that location. I suspect the southern river is too far to deposit the body, however I am no such expert and cannot provide anymore analysis than this.
CCTV and Technology It was found the time stamps between her being present in the airport and then being sighted in the Train station were non congruent, in effect she could not have travelled the distance between the train station in Prestwick and the airport in a quick enough manner for these ‘Timestamps’ to be correct. This inconsistency is baffling and I urge you to consider the amount of causes and possibilities for this to occur, such as editing of the timestamps, or the two CCTV systems being set to different times.
Furthermore Annie’s actions within the airport too are baffling to say the least. Annie entered the airport, and when reaching the concourse walked the full length of the building. Before exiting to the carpark through automatic doors. 3 minutes after leaving for the car park Annie walks back in to the airport; her mother described her as looking very angry in this moment, Annie then hesitates briefly and leaves the airport from the same direction she just came from. Rather shockingly the Police have no CCTV of Annie in the car park, so we do not know what happened; if she intended to meet someone or met someone and had a bad interaction we will never know.
Upon leaving the airport there was only 1 other sighting of Annie on CCTV in Prestwick town on station road but this sighting is disputed as the figure is very blurry. Resembling more of a tall young man carrying a bag. Despite these discrepancies Scottish Authorities once again used inconclusive evidence to build a timeline, using this sighting to map out her supposed journey from the airport to the beach.
-The Deleted Call History and Emails- You might be thinking that technologically there may be some leads which could be gained, however archives of Annie’s phone calls in her final days and her complete Email history (both emails received and emails sent) have been mysteriously erased. We don’t know erased and we don’t if there could have been evidence in these emails.
The Boyfriend ? Annie had gotten involved with a person who claimed to be an ex Rugby Player for the Scottish National team which she met at a nightclub in Edinburgh, the depth of this relationship is unknown but it is believed they were to an extent dating for a brief time until they cut ties because he was not who he said he was. He was an imposter, and she would not hear from him for a long time. That is until just weeks before her death he reappeared in her life, showing up at her swimming pool of all places. The last encounter Annie would have with this man would be at a Rugby Club social, this encounter unsettled Annie
so much she told her friends of it, and how frightening it was. Annie also called her brother and father multiple times. The last call Annie made to them she expressed she had a feeling she was being watched and followed, in fact this call was not made from her home landline but rather a phone booth in the street as Annie expressed fear that her phone lines were being listened to and monitored.
When pressed by her parents and friends about her anxieties Annie expressed it ‘was something she would have to deal with herself’. The true identity of this man has never been found, whether or not he was the cause for such fear and it was justified is to this day unknown.
The Case For Suicide Because we are amateur "investigators" here I will present briefly the case for suicide. I understand some will like and support this, and others will quickly brush it off. I urge you to consider it as a very strong possibility. Annie had become withdrawn and was definitely showing some signs of depression, furthermore some of her friends in Scotland and Sweden have said she expressed depressive feelings in the days leading up to her death. Some of the complaints proposed by the undertakers can be explained away such as her missing hair, as depressed people often cut their hair or pull it out, also it may have came out due to improper storage of the deceased body after death. Finally the scrapes on her knees are very consistent with what happens to dead people who wash up on shore, as it is knees and knuckles which are most commonly damaged in this way.
The Rendition Programs Here we will begin to delve into what seems like very obscure theories, but those who have followed me and my account for some time will know how I feel about such theories; I do not in any way support unfounded grandiose claims in fact I created a video advocating against such theories on my channel. However I am presenting this to you as it does bare some merit to be investigated. This is not my personal belief but it is included. Don't let this one absurd theory undermine the other issues in the investigation. In 2005 the war on terror was reaching its peak, a coalition of Allies had been formed to combat terrorism and Prestwick airport was allegedly being used in the covert operation ‘Rendition’. This operation was conducted by the US and UK intelligence agencies; The CIA and Mi6. It moved captured terrorists from location to location for multiple reasons such as interrogation and potentially torture. This operation has been highly contentious and its existence has been denied by both the US and the UK to this day.
Is it possible that Annie got caught up in this? See some have suspected that the previously mentioned man who was using a
false identity could have somehow been involved in this operation. Some question whether Annie had uncovered the truth about this man, which lead to her demise and her death subsequently being covered up ?
-I’d also like to interject very quickly that this man could have had no connection to any Agency and could still of had a motive. If he was just a liar and Annie found out; maybe he did murder her for just that. But some have said it’s awfully coincidental that her last day was spent at and near the functions of a potential covert operation, that she met a mysterious man who was using a stolen identity and finally that proper investigations of her death have been decline and shut down by two Governments.- ------
And that's the write up ! As always advice is welcome and encouraged. A set of references are below, I have used much more and some are region locked so apologies if you cannot access them. Thank you for reading and I look forward to your feedback. [Documentary] References:
Sky News Family Requesting Photos Sky News Death Filed As Secret Daily Mail Death Filed as Top Secret Story Cast Podcast Scotland Herald Kenneth Roy (writing for the Scottish Review) This guy was a really well respected journalist and was considered the primary investigator for journalists on the case.
The National Scot The Scottish Daily Mail The Scottish Mail on Sunday MSN Medium submitted by RingedMysteries to UnresolvedMysteries [link] [comments]
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submitted by phillygoat to WatchURaffle [link] [comments]
The Fog of Wat
The representative of the United Earth Senate was, felt the Admiral, exactly what she expected any politician to look like in the flesh.
The bespoke suit, the expensive soft shoes, and perfectly set hair. A man who was use to being on camera. The Senator also has that cagey look in his eye, the one all career politicians ended up having.
It was the look that judged every angle; a look that was forever hungry for an opportunity to exploit. The Senator’s eyes darted hither and thither, his brain forever seeking to blame someone for any problem he faced and to only find compromise when faced with a problem where this was impossible.
Everything the Admiral wasn’t. She felt a mixture of contempt and pity. Politicians were baseless creatures. Without purpose. They were creations of the very political systems humans demanded. They rose in power because humans wanted leaders to represent them. And they fell from power because humans were horrified at the results, unwilling to accept what they got was indicative of who they were.
Taking a breath, the Admiral stiffens her back and salutes him formally. He nods his head in curt reply. “Senator Merriweather,” she says in her strong firm voice, “we are glad you could join us today.”
The Senator response was typical of politicians; to them ‘getting to the point’ and ‘being blunt’ was an excuse just to be rude.
“You may not be Admiral Yashino,” he says in what he assumes is his most intimidating, shit/kicking voice; “I’m not here for a nice tour and a photo op.”
The problem with politicians was when they thought they were dealing with brutal honestly, they forgot that the Military deal with true brutal honestly on a daily. Yashino is unfazed.
“I had hoped so. We don’t usually receive visitors during live operations.”
“Well Admiral, you are now,” he sneers.
“Obviously,” she says her face neutral.
The politician seems to rock on his feet a second before ‘cutting to the chase’ (thank God, she thinks, I feared he would want to make a speech first) and narrowing those fast eyes speaks.
“I will be blunt Admiral. There is a LOT of concern about the Courier Service on the Senate Military Oversight Committee. A lot. Your budget has increased twelve fold in the last two years. Right now a full 30% of all Earth Defense is wasted on this little fiefdom of yours.”
“I wouldn’t say it was wasted...” she begins.
“For HALF the money we spend on the Couriers we could pay for 24 Star Cruisers. 24. We could actually build and man 6 battleships. In fact if we took 20% off your budget, in two years we could afford another Juggernaut. Another one.”
“I am aware of how much our branch of the armed forces...”
“And don’t get me started on that. A BRANCH? We have the Black Sky Navy, the Earth/Space Marine Corps, the Legionary Army. Why the hell do COURIERS need to break out of the Navy and set up their own new branch? The Logistical costs alone! New headquarters, new uniforms, new logistics chains of command...”
“I believe Admiral Rahindra presented the arguments at the last session of the Oversight Committee...”
“The Joint Chiefs are all for it, I heard them. And to pay for it they want us to INCREASE military spending. Increase it!”
“We are at war Senator,” says Yashino, evenly.
“And don’t we know it? I’m going to level with you- we think the Courier Service is a waste of time.”
“And that’s because Senator, you and the Oversight Committee are idiots,” she replies coldly, “you are idiots who have NO idea how to wage war in space. Your ignorance is obvious.”
The politicians eyes narrow. Like all his kind ‘getting to the point’ and ‘being blunt’ was something he felt only he was allowed to do. Doing it back caused them great offence.
“That could cost you your position Admiral.”
“No Senator. It won’t. What’s going to happen is you will leave here, go back to Earth, convince the Committee to approve budget spending on the military by the amount requested by the Joint Chiefs and allow us win the war.”
“Sure of yourself ain’t you?”
“It’s NOT your military ignorance that bothers me Senator. Its your scientific illiteracy that worries me the most. The Couriers exist to deal with one of the most brutal scientific truths in the universe. It is our species ability to solve an unsolvable problem that has meant we are winning this war. And you wish to CUT our budget?”
She turns to indicate the door leading into the complex.
“You do not wish a photo op correct? Fine. You have security clearance. You are the first to visit Courier Headquarters here on Yolunda Prime. Please- SEE what it is that we do. With your own eyes. Then decide if we are worth it.”
Senator Jefferson Merriweather was taken-aback. He had heard about this Admirals reputation. Brutal. Blunt. Incapable of social nuance. The Joint Chiefs also felt she was a military genius. Was behind every victory in the Gulompes War.
He WAS curious. But he was also determined to get revenge for her ‘idiot’ comment. He was a United Earth Senator dammit!
Still, he just nodded and followed her through the door. They entered a long, windowless, corridor, empty except two marines in dress uniform who stood at the far end guarding the distant exit. She walks quickly, but he is taller than her and keeps up.
“I take it,” she says the moment they begin walking, “you are aware of Operation Spindrift?”
“Yes. The 3rd Fleet is seeking to locate the Gulampes main battle Fleet over in the Rustine Sector.”
“Correct. Fleet Admiral Hunter is trying to bring the Gulampes to fight. The plan is to hold them in place while we bring in reinforcements and crush them.”
“It’s a good plan,” he says but she shakes her head.
“It’s a desperate plan. As long as the Gulampes can hide out in the Rustine Sector we cannot build on our victories last year. They are always able to outflank us and attack from the Rimward side of our borders. Literally we must destroy them or be unable to engage on the planned offensive on their homeworld.”
“I am aware of the Joint Chiefs overall battle plan Admiral,” he says sourly.
The Admiral curtly salutes the two marines, who raise their weapons in almost mechanical precision, eyes staring forever ahead. The door detecting the Admirals biometric signature opens automatically and the Senator is met by a wall of noise.
The Command Centre of the Navy Courier Service is all movement. Dozens of junior officers man stations talking to other officers. Real time images from across the vast interstellar war are displayed on larger monitors.
He can see that the room is made up of several clusters of officers and terminals. Each cluster is overseen by the type of ambitious rising officer humans excelled in creating. Brilliant, focused, career officers; Lieutenant-Commanders and Captains; each knowing promotion lay in excellence.
Above it all was the Admirals platform. A balcony twenty feet above the maelstrom below. The God Perch. Along the upper levels of the walls huge screens could display chosen images for all to see. But those in the God Perch were the intended audience.
As they stride out onto its wide platform, Senator Merriweather sees a single officer waiting for the Admirals return. Tall, slim, all muscle and tone below his uniform. A chest filled with decoration ribbons and a clean cut strong jaw. The Admiral glances at him and says, “Commander Grayson, report.”
“Admiral,” he salutes, his entire focus upon the smaller Japanese woman, the Senator utterly ignored, “We have word from Force Omega. The 3rd Fleet has engaged the enemy at Star GC421-618.”
“Excellent. How long until we get pictures?”
“Real time data is on its way.”
She nods. A small glint of amusement enters her eyes and she says, “Bring up the feed from the nearest relevant Loadstar, Commander. Get it to focus on GC421-618. On screen four.”
His face registers a tiny look of surprise but he doesn’t even pause. A few buttons are pressed and on one of the giant screens on the wall opposite an image appears. Stars floating in the endless night sky. One orange star sits much larger and nearer than the others Below it data signals in red flash information.
The Admiral indicates for the Senator to join him. She nods at the screen with the star-field. “That’s the image from the nearest Loadstar Telescope.”
The Senator smiles, “Our finest space telescopes. Highest level resolution. Able to see events billions of miles away in perfect clarity.”
His chest swells a little, “They are the eyes of the fleet. Nothing can match their resolution.”
The Admiral smiles, “Built by a consortium of cooperations who I believe made significant campaign contributions to yourself and others on the Oversight Committee Senator, Yes?”
“What are you suggesting Admiral?”
“Nothing Senator, just making an observation. Please excuse me for a moment.”
Yashimo quietly goes off to talk quietly with the tall Commander. Inwardly seething, the Senator listens but soon discovers they merely talk about reports from other sectors. He turns his attention back to the view on the giant screen.
The Loadstar Consortium HAD given his campaign a lot of money, true, but it had passed all the standards. The telescopes were the best humans had ever made. Blunt or not, this woman would pay for her sly allegations.
Minutes pass and Admiral Yashimo walks back over to him, tight lipped.
“Senator? The telescope will be zooming in the system in question now.”
Merriweather glances over and sees the view on the large screen change. It suddenly shows one of the stars in much much closer detail.
An orange giant; it burns with it low luminosity, ancient and aged. Around it they can make out a large gas giant planet, a swirling mix of purples and red many times the size and mass of Jupiter. A small icy planet sits to the far right of the screen, significantly smaller, but they can see lightning flashes in its Methane storms. The whole thing is amazing, vivid and detailed.
The Admiral nods, “This is the view from the Loadstar. The telescope is 2,008,200,000 miles out. That IS an impressive resolution I must admit.”
The Senator smiles smugly to himself, “Of course. No expense was spared in developing them for the military.”
“I am deeply disappointed to hear that...” she says. The Senator has had enough. He was about to unleash a stern lecture when the nearby Commander barks, “Admiral, we have real time data coming in from the Hermes.”
“On main screen immediately,” she says, her eyes narrowing.
The previously black massive screen in the centre of the room springs to life. It starts repeating a short video clip, no longer than five seconds. It’s a read out of a tactical display board, the kind found on all Earth ships. Along the bottom are dozens of icons in blue, the ships of the 3rd Fleet. Along the top and moving quickly downwards a massive series of red icons- the ships of the Gulampe. They move towards the human ships with growing speed. And then the image resets and repeats itself.
“Commander Grayson I want eyes-on images.”
“Yes Admiral,” he says before speaking into a communicator, “LC Monbasi, how long until we can display real time visuals?”
Down below, around a particularly busy cluster of screens, a tall African officer stands and touches his communicator. His words emerge from a small speaker nearby.
“We are getting it now, first four minutes is being unzipped.”
“I want it on screen two ASAP LC,” says the Commander.
“Roger,” comes the reply, “will upload within 6 seconds.”
“I want it at x10 speed,” says the Admiral. Down below the tall African nods and says “Yes Ma’am,” and begins furiously typing into a work station.
Seconds later on the screen to the right of the main one, pictures of the battle appear. The camera is located on a ship behind and to the right of the human front line. Merriweather can see before him the pride of the 3rd Fleet, The Ra, sat in the middle of a long formation of cruisers, frigates and anchored by the leviathan battleships. At x10 speed they seem to move very quickly, turning towards the orange star.
The camera picks up the enemy. The vast, vast horde of alien craft, literally hundreds of them. Thousands maybe. Their weird geometric design demonstrating the alien aesthetic of this enemy species. As the Senator watches he sees their fleet begin to move quickly towards the human one and then both sides unleashing fire.
Laser beams begin to bore holes in armour; huge projectile guns and gauss canon fire across space, their deadly cargo beginning the long journey towards their targets, slow moving but deadly. Slowest of all the missiles explode out of launch pads and begin racing towards targets, illuminating the void in between the fleets with their rockets.
And to this the Senator sees ten score fighters launch from launch bays, streaming low (below the carnage of the closing gap between the fleets) and starting to close the distance towards a much larger swarm of Gulampes fighters, both sides ready for a deadly dogfight...
Escorts, their thick armour and weapon interception systems their only true defence, move to place themselves between the deadly barrage aimed at the human fleet and the whole thing is a chaotic dance of movement and light and death.
The Senator watches open mouthed as the images plays out for just under a minute and then, just as the first waves of weapons are about to hit repeats itself. He had no idea how overwhelming it was, how small he would feel to see a battle first hand...
Commander Grayson turns to the Admiral, “I have a message from Captain Ling on the Hermes Admiral.”
“On my screen,” she says.
A small screen on the desk in front of her springs to life and a chubby Chinese officer appears and starts talking.
“Admiral- this is Hermes actual. Admiral Hunter reports the engagement has began. He has control. We have sent confirmation of receipt of control. Information was also passed to The Washington and The Thoth at the same time we sent to you. All Courier protocols are in effect. We have the God Spot. Awaiting confirmation of receipt and any additional orders. Hermes ends.”
The screen goes black. The Admiral presses a button and lifts her head; the Senator cannot see the camera she is obviously speaking towards as she says, “Hermes, this is Yolunda Base; acknowledging receipt. Recognising Admiral Hunter has control and you have the God Spot. Zulu time is seven minutes, nine seconds. Suggesting EyesOn at six minute intervals not ten. Inform Yolunda when FCRS down to 25% storage. We have The Yellow Star on stand by to replace you. Yolanda Base ends.”
She turns to the Commander, “Send that and tell The Yellow Star to up readiness. The Hermes is going to be busy.”
The tall American nods and does what is asked.
Behind them Senator Merriweather is frowning. Something is bothering him. Something isn’t right. He can’t put his finger on it... wait!
“Somethings wrong,” he says.
The Admiral turns to him, “Senator?”
The politician points at the screen showing the Loadstar information; it hasn’t changed. The slow burn of the Orange Star, the gently moving patterns in the gas giant.
“Why can’t we see it?”
The Admiral signs and with barely held contempt says “I know scientific literacy isn’t a crucial element in getting elected but didn’t the members of the Oversight Committee ever ASK to be told how space actually works?”
The Senator can only blink and she shakes her head. “Fine,” she spits, “I will explain it to you and you will hopefully explain to the idiots in the Senate.”
She points at the screen with the Loadstar image.
“That is a view from the Loadstar of the star where the battle is taking place right now yes? But it is over 2 billion miles away. Great resolution. But the light takes three hours to reach the telescope Senator. Three hours. You are looking at the feed from 3 hours ago. The fleets won’t even arrive for hours to come. The Loadstars are useless to us.”
He blinks and says “What?”
“Relativity Senator. The absolutes of the universe. The ONLY things that can travel faster than light in the whole universe are ships with FTL drives. The ONLY things. So, our ships and the Gulampe’s ships and anyone of the 8 species can get in these craft and go faster than light. But ONLY these. Light cannot go faster than light. Radio communications cannot. Televisual images cannot. NOTHING else can, understand?”
She snorts disgust at him, “Using such useless ideas as ‘telescopes’ is insanely stupid. By the time we get images of the battle on that? The battle will be over. If we depended on direct communications from the ships themselves? GC421 is over 25 light years from here. 39 light years from Earth. By the time we hear from the battle the survivors would already be raising their children.”
She leans forward towards him, “This is the fog of war Senator, made real in a way no human has EVER faced before. An impossible to breach barrier. No species out of the 8 with FTL have ever overcome it. Until we did.”
“How?”
“Couriers. Messengers. Until the development of the modern telecommunications networks, the way all generals commanded battles in the past. You would send people to inform you what was going on. All we did was update the system. You wish to know why 30% of the military budget goes on the couriers? Fine.”
She leads him towards the edge of the God Spot while she talks.
“On every command ship you will find at least a dozen couriers. They serve the commanding officer. Each man or woman has their own craft. And in the event of catastrophic loss of command, there are always at least twenty couriers in standby throughout the fleet. Every four minutes a courier is launched... there!”
She points to where the screen shows at the back of The Ra a small, long ship with a heavy back unit, flies out of a launch bay. It does not aim towards the battle but rather flies away from it, initiating its FTL drive and disappearing in a sudden flash.
“That is a Zephyr Class Courier ship. Using standard FTL a frigate could travel from here to GC421 in about two hours. Two hours is too slow. Zephyr’s are basically a powerful engine. No weapons, no life support. Just a tiny cockpit for the pilot in an encounter suit and a stupidly big engine. They could make it in 24 minutes.”
She wave ever hands, “Each Zephyr carries a data chip- everything seen by the Admiral over the last four minutes in the chip. And they carry it back.”
“Here?”
“No. Because one, 24 minutes is still too long and two? To go that fast Zephyrs burn a LOT of fuel very quickly. They have a range of just four minutes until they drop out of FTL,” she says, and indicates a small screen to the lower left hand side of the wall of screens that reads ‘Hermes Data’.
“And this is where the FCRS come in. Fuel & Communications Relay Ships, like the Hermes. The Hermes is basically a huge floating fuel truck. The Courier Service standard policy is to ALWAYS have at least one FCRS behind main human fleets at the distance a Zephyr can make in one jump. The Zephyr jumps there and transfers the data it carries- takes about ten seconds. Refuels and swings back.”
“The data from the battle is relayed back down the line,” she says and the Admiral smiles, “Like the old Pony Express yes? Passing it on to a fresher ship. And here is where we have improved a lot. That budget increase allowed us to design the Mercury Class. Much much bigger versions of the Zephyrs. Can burn for about 15 minutes give or take. And move even faster than Zephyrs. The data from the battle is transferred to a Mercury and THEY get it to here.”
She indicates the room filled with information coming in from the battle.
“From the Hermes position it takes about three minutes to get here. Which means we can get the down load, respond to it and they an take the response back to the Hermes and then from there back to the Third Fleet. Total time elapsed from the ships in battle sending us something to us receiving it here? Today is just over seven minutes. Which isn’t great. But it’s winning us the war.”
Grayson clears his throat and says, “Admiral- I have updated...”
“Display,” says the intense Japanese woman.
In the wall before them new images appear. The fleet display shows a furious battle as human ships hold the line again a much larger force, losing but doing so at deadly cost. On the other screen at x10 times speed video of the battle repeats before them; a chaotic image of explosions and weapon systems. The bright flash of thermo-nuclear detonations, the impact projectiles into thick armour, scores of guns of every possible shape and size firing seemingly endlessly. The aliens have sent two waves to close the distance between the two armadas.
The humans enact a heavy cost but the numbers are overwhelming. As they watch the staff below pause in their duties as the HSS Victoria, the vast battleship breaks apart and explodes, the HSS Jefferson, her small escort being caught in the blast...
Greyson says quietly, “Admiral- message from Admiral Hunter on The Ra,”
“On my screen,”
The Senator sees the face of the commander of the 3rd Fleet. Around him his command deck is the image of cold efficiency. He seems calm, steely even and his voice is quiet but intense.
“Command, this is 3rd Fleet Actual. Enemy was engaged 12 minutes ago. Operation Spindrift is go. We are on the clock. ETA Beta and Alpha Force is 8 minutes. I regret to announce we’ve lost The Ganges, The Spear, The Dorset, The Dawn, The Burning Star and we’ve just lost The Jefferson and The Victoria. I’m trying to minimise but we need to nail them here. No reason to divert from Spindrift template. Awaiting instruction. Ra ends.”
Admiral Yashino nods and glances at the Commander besides her.
“Send this to Earth Command. No addition from myself.”
“Yes Admiral,” he says. Yashino turns to the Senator besides her.
“We have our own Mercury’s in orbit. When the data from the battle reaches us we make a copy and send it in one of them to Earth command. 7 minutes to get from the battle to us. 4 minutes to get from us to High Command. The Joint Chiefs can witness a battle 39 light years away with a delay of about 11 minutes. THIS is what the Couriers do.”
The Senator nods opened mouthed and Yashino presses home the point.
“What your Committee and every single armchair general back on Earth fails to grasp however is that Couriers allow us unleash humanities most potent weapon- tactics. Without this system, without US, there would be no tactical approach to any space combat.”
“What do you mean?” Merriweather asks, looking confused. She wasn’t surprised. Few civilians actually had any idea how war was waged.
“Look at the alien fleet. Its vast. Why? Blobbing,” she begins but the Senator frowns.
“What’s blobbing?”
“Huge Force of ships acting in one massive formation. That’s how every single sentient species fights in space. They blob. We did until a few years ago.”
“Why?”
“Due to distances and the fixed speed of light, you cannot split your forces and hope to cope with a flexible battle space; cannot depend upon real time communications to reach your other forces with any hope of it making a difference. Even battles within a single star system have to be simplistic. It could take an hour each way for messages to be sent and responded to. Impossible.”
She sighs, “Each admiral is effectively commander in chief of his forces. Every single space battle is always the same. Bring as many guns to the battle as possible, fire at the enemy, hope you have better guns. That’s it. That’s all space warfare can be. WE however, can now do things like Spindrift. With Couriers in place and an effective system, we can use tactics.”
“What tactics?”
“Look at the screens carefully Senator. Look how small our numbers are.”
“Yes. You’re right. Where are...”
“Admiral Hunter split his forces into three. Force Alpha under Rear-Admiral Huntington; Force Beta under Read-Admiral Gonzales. And Force Omega under him. The aim is to have Omega act as bait. Fly around and seek out the Gulampe’s, who would have blobbed together. The moment he engaged them his job is to HOLD them. Fight viciously. Draw them in. Convince them they have a small enemy force tied down and commit all. He judges the situation. When he thinks they are ready he sends word. We can get his order to to Alpha and Beta Force in six minutes. They can arrive there 60 seconds after that.”
“But how...”
“And that’s where the system comes in. You may have heard- Hermes isn’t the only FCRS ship out there. It’s the Omega FCRS. Alpha has The Washington and Beta The Thoth. The Hermes sent word to their sister ships who sent word to their respective Rear Admirals.”
“How did they know where to find them?”
“Because Couriers are always moving back and forth checking everything. This is what an EyesOn commands are. Constantly checking things when there isn’t any battle. Constantly, constantly checking everything is where it’s suppose to be. Human beings becoming physical versions of radios. In fact...” She points to the still peaceful image brought by the the telescope 3 light hours away.
“When we ordered that to zoom in? How do you think we did that? Any command to that useless thing would have taken years to get there. We sent a Mercury there. The pilot docked with it and he manually set the zoom. See?”
She shakes her head, “We don’t ask for more money because we are greedy Senator; we ask for money money as we need to perfect this system as it is helping us win the war...”
She turns away. The Senator watches in amazement. Images from the battle come back- the Omega force of the 3rd Fleet taking a pounding, selling their lives dearly, buying time. The Gulampe fleet throwing more and more into it. The clock ticks.
25 minutes after the battle started the images of the arrival of the Alpha and Beta Force are relayed before their eyes.
Alpha appears to the right flank of the Gulampe’s. They appear and INSTANTLY unleash a preprogrammed barrage. They don’t have to work out where the targets would be or their distance. This information was delivered by Courier before they even arrived. Their impact is devastating. Merriweather wishes to cheer as he watches them slice through an entire flank of Gulampe’s, forcing their Commander to commit his reserve and re-address his lines...
A few minutes later they see Beta arrive. Coming in high above and below the main bulk of the Gulampe’s reserve. They fire weapons the moment they arrive, missiles aiming for empty space. But the Gulampe’s locations and speed had already been given. The enemies craft are doomed by their own velocity to run into their own destruction.
Forty five bloody minutes after the battle started, the Senator is watching as the admiral and her aide carefully witness as the Gulampe’s try and disengage from what was a bloodbath for them, but are stuck between four insanely vicious barrages of fire.
Grayson says quietly, “It’s like Cannae Admiral...”
“Hai...” comes the reply.
Senator Merriweather just stands in quiet awe. He snatched away his eyes form the epic victory and gazed at the floor below. Messages are relayed back and forth. The readiness of the 4th Fleet, in reserve in case Spindrift was a failure, and now being told they won’t be needed to save the day; status update on the repairs to 7th fleet in the Mars shipyards; deep range scouts in Gulampe territory; border patrols along Human-Shessimar Space; transfer of data from deep space observation posts next to the Geyant Supervoid.
Information. Carried to us in the only way one could carry such things in the age of FTL. By Courier.
He turns to the Admiral and formally bows.
“Admiral? I believe I owe you an apology...”
“Thank you Senator. But it would be better if you could perhaps convince the Oversight Committee of our worth,” she says quietly.
He smiles, “Oh you can be sure of that...”
That smile.
She bites down her distaste. No doubt when Merriweather returned to Earth he will make himself the Couriers most vocal champion. No doubt inflate his support while at the same time pretending he never had it any other way.
He was a politician. Their kind never changes.
submitted by thefeckamIdoing to HFY [link] [comments]
[NM] Seiko Prospex SPB183 55th Anniversary Limited Blue Dial Captain Willard - 100 spots at $11/ea with no spot limit.
| Item Name: | Seiko Prospex SPB183 55th Anniversary Limited Blue Dial Captain Willard |
| Price: | $1100 |
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| Description: | Up for raffle is the recently released 55th anniversary blue Seiko SPB183 captain Willard. Limited edition of 5,500 pieces. Powered by Seiko Calibre 6R35 automatic movement. Stainless steel case with bracelet. Blue dial with large luminous hands and markers. 200 meters water resistant. Watch is brand new and comes complete with full box and papers, blue rubber strap, and full AD warranty. |
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First Contact - Third Wave - Chapter 402
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Moving from maintenance mode to low awareness. Done. 317 seconds. Mining Autonomous Machine 78462 has returned ahead of schedule. Log files indicate machine surfaced due to megaton level impacts upon the surface disrupting mining operations. Upon gaining access to surface machine encountered heavy combat between unknown species, enemy species, and rebellious machine entities of enemy manufacture. Machine suffered external damage in addition to damage to Grinding Array 17. Ore bay 4 is nearly overweight. Grinding Arrays servicing Ore Bay 4 did not process raw material to account for overweight. Overweight occurred after Grinding Array 17 was damaged. Machine returned to main processing facility for repair and servicing 126.43 years early. More data is needed. Moving to semi-autonomous mode. Initiating self-test checks on cryogenics systems. The virtual intelligence ordered a scan of the interior spaces of the mining machine, waiting the long seconds for the system to interlock the equipment to ensure there was no communications leakage along any known spectrums that could be detected from the surface.
Inside the ore bay the virtual intelligence noticed a large mass of Substance W.
Files were loaded, comparing usage of Substance W to the approximate shape and size of the object. No data was returned.
The VI ordered the mining machine to transmit all logs of sensor readings on the surface and downloaded the logs for all seismic disturbances for the last 3.2 years.
In the last 289 hours there has been a sudden uptick of seismic incidents. Initial seismic disturbances are synonymous with large ships landing of Gatherer Class or below. Within 1.2 hours seismic disturbances synonymous with atomic weaponry have occurred. ERROR - SEISMIC DATA OUT OF RANGE Approximately 220 hours ago seismic events took place suggesting impacts registering in the megatons, far outstripped ease of use weapons. No secondary and tertiary signatures of standard high explosive munitions. Deployed atomic weapons of such magnitude are outside of normal range. Approximately 148 hours ago sustained seismic events strong enough to bounce from the core to cause aftershocks took place over the space of several seconds per blast. More data is needed. Supervisor data needed. The VI ordered a cryogenic storage pod moved from deep storage to the cryogenic recovery bay. It was still 27.3 years until the next mandatory wakeup of supervisor level organisms.
Deep inside the hardened structure robotic gantries and cradles whirred to life in an icy tomb. Graspers removed a single pod, handing it off, where it was moved rapidly to the cryogenics section. The first three cryo-thaw systems were responding to self-tests with errors so the pod was moved to the fourth.
Self-test of the organism inside showed that at some time cellular crystallization had occurred.
The organism was beyond medical repair and was flushed into the reclaimer.
It took two more tests until a cryo-pod passed the self-tests and the thawing process began.
A malfunction occurred during dethawing, roasting the organism inside.
The remains were dumped in the reclaimer.
The VI was slightly concerned. Less than 25% of the original long term crew were left. It thawed out several biological maintenance technicians and set them to work examining the cryo-system. Less than 2.12 hours into their maintenance cycle all biological maintenance technicians no longer responded to orders.
A mid-level supervisor was found and successfully thawed.
Less than one hour after thawing the mid-level supervisor ceased responding to orders.
A high level supervisor was decanted.
And dissolved into a puddle of protoplasm, the cellular walls collapsing as the cell's nucleus failed.
The VI began to suffer the electronic equivalent of worry.
After two more tries, the fourth high level supervisor was successfully revived. The VI noted, again, that the particular high level supervisor had warnings attached to its file, but as the warnings contained no code the VI could parse, it ignored them.
It had the supervisor moved to the armored command center and injected with warmed ichor. Once brain waves moved into normal patterns, the VI sent the awake commands to the high level supervisor and began transmitting urgent data requests.
-----
Cordexen blinked as the system shocked them to wakefullness sitting in the facility command chair. The command center was still dark, even the monitors dark. For a moment it wasn't sure where it was, opening and closing their chitin eye covers and sensing the area around them with their psychically sensitive antenna.
I'm still alive, it thought.
What have I done to deserve such a fate? It gave the equivalent of a groan when it remembered that the command center was psychically shielded and why.
"Urgent status reports are waiting your examination," the VI stated.
Oh no, a rock got caught in a gear, and now I'm being woken up into this endless torment, it thought.
"System, how long since last awareness period?" Cordexen asked.
"That data is locked out by orders of the facility commander," the VI responded.
Cordexen groaned and shuddered as the memories flowed through it. The Lanaktallan Autonomous War Machines attacking the planet, the near panicked flight to the shelters. The silence of the planet as dust settled and the war machines left. The Hive Queen's orders for the deep level mining crews to refit the station for automatic and go into cryo-sleep until a rescue was mounted.
They're never coming, it thought to itself.
The galactic arm is nothing but bare rock and laughing isotopes on the stellar winds. The Krikitak Empire dies, here, as each cryostasis system fails one by one. Dies in darkness and silence. "System, how long has this facility been under emergency system protocols?" Cordexen asked.
"By orders of facility commander, that data is restricted for morale purposes," the VI answered.
It sighed to itself.
I wish this tortured existence was over but I do not wish to throw myself into the reclaimators, it thought.
How long must we go on? How long will it be until I can leave this accursed facility? it thought.
What does it matter what precious resources we gather if there is no being left to enjoy them? It could remember the last time a group was sent to the surface. Servitors and one of the last Speakers.
It remembered their screams of agony and the long terrible silence afterwards.
It remembered what came afterwards.
"There are urgent situation reports that must be," the VI started.
"System, silent for one hour," it said.
I wish I had a home to go back to, it thought.
It remembered the footage of the hivehome it was hatched in burning as autonomous war machines of the Atrekna rained orbital fire down upon the orderly fields and ranches and food corrals of Revaintik. How the planet had been reduced to nothing more than bare rock, radioactive dust, and thin wisps of atmosphere.
I wish I had been killed there, it thought, then flinched before the emptiness inside of him reminded him that there was nobody else there.
I wish I had been killed before now. Two green servitor caste entered the control room, moving to panels, and began repairing and powering the systems. Both of them had the slightly powdery look of a servitor caste that had recently left cryo-stasis and both of them moved slowly, almost painfully.
Cordexen watched silently, antenna trembling nervously.
What is it like for them? They live only a scant few decades, slaving away at keeping our Empire's technology moving. Are they aware? It is said they are largely non-sentient, that they must be ordered and calmed by the hive-mind, but is it true? Cordexen wondered. One stumbled and the other rushed over, combing the one that stumbled's antenna.
It shows more care and concern for its fellow servitor than any have shown me. It looked at the two of them.
Come here, little ones, Cordexen sent.
The two green servitors put away their tools and jerkily moved over to it.
It lifted them up, cradling them in its hands.
Can you hear me? Are you in there? Are you really just mindless drones or can you talk? Do you think? It waited, petting them with its bladearms, soothing them with its touch and mind.
Please talk to me, it thought.
Please. Just one word. It has been so long. The two green ones were silent, a slight anxiety building that they had not finished the task the computer's psychic array was demanding that they perform.
Go, little ones, it sent, bending down and placing them on the floor.
"System," Cordexen said. "Stream to my display urgent reports," it swivelled the screen in front of it.
The color shift was off and in the upper right of the hexagon the pixels were dead, but it was able to read it.
Atomic detonations? Plasma munitions? Focused and directed nuclear blasts? Cordexen froze at what he was seeing.
Lanaktallan combat machines.
The sky, though. The sky was blue! That meant water vapor.
Cordexen spotted a flash of color and stopped the recording, backtracking a few frames. It zoomed in on the flash of color, magnifying it.
The image was grainy, heavily pixelated, but the Mantid knew what it was seeing.
Plants. Different than what I remember, but plants
on the surface*,* it thought.
Black dark awareness settled on it.
How long? How long have we slumbered in this terrible place where only work that no longer matters is carried out? Life beneath the sun
again! We have slept away eternity down here, it thought.
It huddled up into itself, watching the little green ones work.
I wish you could talk to me. ----------------------
The VI noted that the high level supervisor was no longer responding to requests, had silenced it. Like the mid-level supervisor, video logs of the mining machine's brief surface excursion sat on the monitor, the supervisor staring at the image.
The VI checked the rankings of those in storage.
The Supreme Supervisors were all gone. The Grand Supervisors were gone.
There was one other high level supervisor that outranked the currently inoperative one. The VI began unthawing it. It would move it to Secondary Command Center 281.
--------------
The electro-stimulus awoke Klakeka with a jerk. The massive Mantid shuddered as its internal organs, still feeling ice cold, were flooded with warm ichor. It reached out, for the stabilizing influence of others of its type, for those above it.
And found nothing but emptiness. A deep black gulf of silence.
Oh. Yeah, it thought to itself, huddling down and shivering.
I live on, payment for my treachery. "System, how long since last period of activity?" it asked, coughing the clear slime of cryo-fluid out of its abdomen.
"That data is restricted by order of the facility commander," the VI said.
"There is no facility commander, you hunk of metal and molycircs. Transfer all authority to me," Klakeka ordered.
"Cannot comply. Message is as follows: I entomb you here, faithless ones. Till the sun burns this planet away you shall be entombed in darkness. End message. Do you wish to view the current emergency logs?" The VI felt nothing about the message.
Klakeka reached out again, finding nothing more than the heavy psychic shielding around the command center, which was dark and cold.
"Lights," they ordered.
"Cannot comply," the VI said. It stated the message again.
"Move thermostat to standard living setting," Klakeka tried.
"Cannot comply. Message is as follows:" the VI repeated the message again.
Klakeka shivered. Cold enough to be uncomfortable, not cold enough to be existence threatening.
Three green servitors moved in, repairing the damage time had done to the consoles.
Klakeka watched them move, how they were slightly jerky from cryo-sleep. How they worked together, touching one another, sometimes touching antenna.
Oh, to be you. No thought, just purpose, Klakeka thought.
"System, unlock doors of command center," they tried. Again, the compute refused to comply.
Klakeka lifted one bladearm. Thick, long, razor sharp, serrated. Capable of ripping through Lanaktallan armor or Atrekna psychic shielding with ease. Capable of tearing through the armor and defenses of any living thing the massive Klakeka encountered.
For moment it started to remember the way his bladearms had slid past thick chitin armor, deep into organ spaces.
It pushed the memory away, but not before the bladearm was wreathed in the silvery purple nimbus of psychic energy.
The void is preferable to being woken again, it thought.
It touched under its jaws with the tip of the psychic blade. The psychic energy tingled, peeled away a small slice of chitin.
It only took a shove.
-------------------
The VI saw the high level supervisor's vitals go critical. It quickly pulled the command chair into the system, moving the high level supervisor to medical systems. The supervisor's brain was damaged, but not irreparably so.
Medical systems opened up the chitin head, the thick nerve mat around the brain, and began repairing the damage to the brain itself.
Within minutes, the damage had been repaired and the medical systems began putting the high level supervisor's head back together. The damage had been life threatening, but in reality it was fairly minor and easy to repair.
The VI sent the high level supervisor back to the command chair, moving the command chair to the command station.
It sent the wakeup commands.
---------------------
Klakeka woke, its head aching.
No. Not again. ---------------------
Abriketa unfolded itself from where it had huddled up on the command chair. Monitors glowed with dull light, displaying the facility's data. The screen next to it had a paused video that showed waving grass and trees.
Abriketa had been staring at that screen for hours.
To feel grass against my footpads, to feel the sun upon my chitin, it thought to itself.
"Lights," it tried.
"Cannot comply. Facility commander lockout. Message is as follows:" the VI answered.
Abriketa turned and looked at the grass again. It remembered being young, running through the grass, chasing food, with the others of it caste.
That fear they felt as I pursued them. That deep resignation when I caught them. Was it like what I feel now? No slavering jaws, no glittering bladearms, no, not for me. Just this. Darkness. Eternal, unending, it thought.
Inside, where there was normally purpose and the warmth of the hive mind, there was only silence and darkness. A cold feeling that it had tried to remove with bladearms, cutting tools, and once a blaster rifle.
My carapace is not even marred, it thought. It could remember putting the barrel of the blaster rifle against its chest, using the tip of a bladearm to press the firing stud. The high pitched screech of the blaster rifle, the THWAK of the impact, the feeling of pressure released.
And waking back up in the command cradle as if nothing had happened, his carapace unmarked.
Except, I am no longer armed. What happened to my trusty rifle that took the lives of so many Lanaktallan and Atrekna? Was it dumped in the reclaimer? Hidden in a storeroom? Thrown into a volcano? it wondered.
"There are priority logs to be reviewed. Would you like to continue viewing them? The VI asked.
"Kill me," Abriketa ordered.
"Cannot comply. Message is as follows," the VI said.
Abriketa curled back into a ball of misery.
"There are priority logs remaining to be reviewed. Would you like to continue to review them?"
A small green servitor moved along the tiny catwalk and Abriketa watched it.
Please talk to me. --------------------
Cordexen watched the logs as they played through. The deep mining machine had been on the surface for nearly an hour before diving into the planet's bedrock again. He paused the recording repeatedly, examining them.
Enemy tanks, driven by the Lanaktallan, were easily spotted.
There were different ones. They did not use plasma or particle projection weapons. Instead, they fired kinetic munitions, focused nuclear detonations, missiles, rockets, mortars. The mining machine's sensors were crude, calibrated to move beneath the surface of a planet, so did no have clear data.
But Cordexen could see that the unusual tanks fielded battlescreens that were so thick that they belonged on combat spacecraft.
It paused on the power armors. It had found two, both types piloted by bipeds.
Do you think? Do you talk to one another? Do you touch each other? Cordexen wondered, feeling the dark silence inside of him keenly.
Do you stand in the sun and lift your face so that you can feel the warmth? I would willingly die at your hands to hear you cry out a battle cry as you did so, Cordexen thought to itself.
I would gladly submit even if you only touched me long enough to rend my apart with your bare manipulators. "System," Cordexen stated.
"Awaiting input," the system said, as always.
"Is there surface data to review?" Cordexen asked.
"Negative. As per facility commander's orders, no surface contact was allowed prior to Mining Autonomous Machine 78462 being forced to the surface due to nearby atomic detonations," the system told it.
"Open outside channel or camera," Cordexen tried.
"Facility is on lockdown as per facility commander's orders. Message is as follows:" the VI dutifully repeated the message as it had for the endless past.
Cordexen went back to reviewing the messages.
It suddenly stopped.
The doors leading into the mining machine's command center, which had been fully automated at a point in the past, had been forced open. Once two point three hours after the machine submerged, another time only two hours ago.
"System, show me facility log for door access," Cordexen said.
"Cannot comply. Data lockout for this station by order of the facility commander. Message is as follows," the VI recited the message again.
They're inside. Not Lanaktallan. The bipeds! Cordexen looked at the door, the bead of the weld glittering in the dim light provided by the monitors.
It felt something it had not felt in an endless time.
Hope and anticipation.
Please come in and kill me. --------------------
"Look at the door," Addox said when the platoon came around a corner.
Vuxten stared. The doorframe was blackened, with shiny sections. The door itself had obviously been repaired and then welded shut. He checked his map. They had been forced to backtrack repeatedly, slowly working their way up and toward the center.
"Get it open," Vuxten said. He activated the platoon command channel. "Reflex triggers on, men. Anything faster than Casey or Tulmik gets a shot to the face."
Private First Class Tulmik had reflexes so fast, even in armor, that many of the Telkan Marines felt that they bordered on supernatural.
Vuxten watched as Casey slowly cut open the control panel.
"Well, that's new," Casey said, moving to the side.
Vuxten looked at the space past the cover plate. It should have contained simple wiring for a bladearm to rock a switch and open the door.
Instead, the internal casing was blackened and damaged, metal droplets where the metal had been turned to liquid and rehardened. Wires bypassed the controls.
"Cut it open?" Addox asked, looking at Vuxten.
Vuxten had been dreading this moment. They had been moving through the facility and using the door controls to open the doors. Cutting open the door meant that the facility would notice it immediately.
"Do it," he ordered.
"Roger that, sir," Casey said, setting to work with his fusion torch.
It took only a few minutes, the endosteel of the door cutting like soft butter before a hot knife. Addox used the suction pad Casey handed him to pull the door out of the way, leaning it against the wall
"Um, I don't think that's standard, sir," Addox said when the platoon's shoulder lights illuminated the hallway beyond.
The wall panels were pitted, scored, cratered, blackened, and covered in beads where liquid metal had hardened after being splattered against the wall. There were multiple blast patterns on the floor.
"You think they all killed each other and this place is just running on automatic?" Lance Corporal Zevrek asked.
"Possibly," Lieutenant Plunex said.
"No way. That little greenie leg we found smashed between those two pieces of equipment had only been there for a couple of centuries," Addox said.
"There's computerized automatic, then there's Mantid automatic," Casey said slowly.
The platoon moved slowly down the hallway, keeping their spacing up, looking at the walls and ceiling.
"Dead camera," Addox said, pointing it out.
"Ichor stains according to my buddy," Private Hekamet said, pointing at a discolored mark on the wall.
The hallway T-intersectioned at a larger one.
"Ideas?" Addox asked.
"Head toward the center," Plunex said after glancing at Vuxten, who stayed silent.
"Wish we could use the mapping seeds," Private Druten muttered.
The doors at the end of the hallway were missing, the hallway opening up into a massive space.
"Halt," Vuxten ordered a good ten meters from the door. He thought for a moment. "Casey, Druten, Vintra, five steps in. I want feed from your cameras to Lieutenant Plunex, Sergeant Addox, and myself."
"Roger that, sir," Druten said, moving up.
Vuxten didn't say anything as Casey reached down and grabbed the minigun, bringing it up and into play. The smart harness hissed softly, compensating for the weight of the gun, the ammo, and the creation engine.
Vuxten watched the three fields of view as the troops moved forward. They passed the doorway, kicking in their light enhancement.
The floor was covered with ancient debris, stains, craters, and blast marks.
Vuxten was watching Casey's feed as the human looked up.
"CHROMIUM SAINT PETER!" Vuxten yelled, his hands pulling his rifle into play as he slammed the platoon's psychic shielding to maximum.
Casey's minigun opened up.
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[NM] BNIB Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 68 Saturation COSC - 100 spots at $9/ea with X spot limit.
submitted by phillygoat to WatchURaffle [link] [comments]
Bitcoin Newcomers FAQ - Please read!
Welcome to the /Bitcoin Sticky FAQ
You've probably been hearing a lot about Bitcoin recently and are wondering what's the big deal? Most of your questions should be answered by the resources below but if you have additional questions feel free to ask them in the comments.
It all started with the release of
Satoshi Nakamoto's whitepaper however that will probably go over the head of most readers so we recommend the following articles/books/videos as a good starting point for understanding how bitcoin works and a little about its long term potential:
Some other great resources include Michael Saylor's
"Bitcoin for Everybody"' course, Jameson Lopp's
resource page, Gigi's
resource page, and James D'Angelo's
Bitcoin 101 Blackboard series. Some excellent writing on Bitcoin's value proposition and future can be found at the
Satoshi Nakamoto Institute.
If you are technically or academically inclined check out
developer resources and peer-reviewed
research papers, course lectures from both
MIT and
Princeton as well as future
protocol improvements and
scaling resources. Some Bitcoin statistics can be found
here,
here and
here. MicroStrategy's
Bitcoin for Corporations is an excellent open source series on corporate legal and financial bitcoin integration.
You can also see the number of times Bitcoin was
declared dead by the media (LOL) and
what you could have earned if you didn't listen to them! XD
Key properties of Bitcoin
- Limited Supply - There will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoin created and they are issued in a predictable fashion per the inflation schedule. Once they are all issued Bitcoin will be truly deflationary. The halving countdown tells you how much time until the next drop in block rewards.
- Open source - Bitcoin code is fully auditable. You can read and contribute to the source code yourself.
- Accountable - The public ledger is transparent, all transactions are seen by everyone.
- Decentralized - Bitcoin is globally distributed across thousands of nodes with no single point of failure and as such can't be shut down similar to how Bittorrent works. You can even run a node on a Raspberry Pi.
- Censorship resistant - No one can prevent you from interacting with the bitcoin network and no one can censor, alter or block transactions that they disagree with, see Operation Chokepoint.
- Push system - There are no chargebacks in bitcoin because only the person who owns the address where the bitcoin resides has the authority to move them.
- Low fee scaling - Most wallets calculate on chain fees automatically but you can view fee estimates and mempool activity if you want to set your fee manually. On chain fees may rise occasionally due to network demand, however instant micropayments that do not require confirmations are happening via the Lightning Network, a second layer scaling solution currently rolling out on the Bitcoin mainnet.
- Borderless - No country can stop it from going in/out, even in areas currently unserved by traditional banking as the ledger is globally distributed.
- Trustless - Bitcoin solved the Byzantine's Generals Problem which means nobody needs to trust anybody for it to work.
- Pseudonymous - No need to expose personal information when purchasing with cash or transacting.
- Secure - Blocks and transactions are cryptographically secured (using hashes and signatures) and can’t be brute forced or confiscated with proper key management such as hardware wallets.
- Programmable - Individual units of bitcoin can be programmed to transfer based on certain criteria being met
- Nearly instant - From a few seconds on the lightning network to a few minutes on-chain depending on need for confirmations. Transactions are irreversible by normal users after one confirmation and irreversible by anyone (including miners) after 6 confirmations.
- Peer-to-peer - No intermediaries taking a cut, no need for trusted third parties.
- Portable - Bitcoin are digital so they are easier to move than cash or gold. They can be transported by simply carrying a seed (a string of 12 to 24 words) on a device or by memorizing it for wallet recovery (while cool, memorizing is generally not recommended due to potential for forgetting the seed and the potential for insecure key generation by inexperienced users. Hardware wallets are the preferred method for most users for their ease of use and additional security).
- Scalable - While the protocol is still being optimized for increased transaction capacity, blockchains do not scale very well, so most transaction volume is expected to occur on Layer 2 networks built on top of Bitcoin.
- Divisible - Each bitcoin can be divided down to 8 decimals, which means you don't have to worry about buying an entire bitcoin.
- Designed Money - Bitcoin was created to fit all the fundamental properties of money better than gold or fiat
Where can I buy bitcoin?
Bitcoin.org and
BuyBitcoinWorldwide.com are helpful sites for beginners. You can buy or sell any amount of bitcoin (even just a few dollars worth) and there are several easy methods to purchase bitcoin with cash, credit card or bank transfer. Some of the more popular resources are below, also check out the
bitcoinity exchange resources for a larger list of options for purchases.
You can also purchase in cash with
local ATMs. If you would like your paycheck automatically converted to bitcoin use
Bitwage.
Note: Bitcoin are valued at whatever
market price people are willing to pay for them in balancing act of supply vs demand. Unlike traditional markets, bitcoin markets operate 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Securing your bitcoin
With bitcoin you can
"Be your own bank" and personally secure your bitcoin
OR you can use third party companies aka
"Bitcoin banks" which will hold the bitcoin for you.
- If you prefer to "Be your own bank" and have direct control over your coins without having to use a trusted third party, then you will need to create your own wallet and keep it secure. If you want easy and secure storage without having to learn computer security best practices, then a hardware wallet such as the Trezor, Ledger or ColdCard is recommended.
- If you cannot afford a hardware wallet there are many software wallet options to choose from depending on your use case. Mobile wallets like BlueWallet are generally more secure than desktop wallets. Beware of fake mobile wallets and check reviews from reputable Bitcoin websites. Avoid paper wallets or brain wallets.
- If you prefer to let third party "Bitcoin banks" manage your coins, try Gemini or Unchained Capital but be aware you may not be in control of your private keys in which case you would have to ask permission to access your funds and be exposed to third party risk. There is a saying in the community, "Not your keys, not your coins" meaning if you don't store your coins in a wallet that you control the keys to then you do not really own your bitcoin as you have to ask permission from the third party in order to move them.
Note: For increased security, use Two Factor Authentication (2FA) everywhere it is offered, including email! 2FA requires a second confirmation code or a physical security key to access your account making it much harder for thieves to gain access. Google Authenticator and Authy are the two most popular 2FA services, download links are below. Make sure you create backups of your 2FA codes.
Avoid using your cell number for 2FA. Hackers have been using a technique called "SIM swapping" to impersonate users and steal bitcoin off exchanges.
Physical security keys (FIDO U2F) offer stronger security than Google Auth / Authy and other TOTP-based apps, because the secret code never leaves the device and it uses bi-directional authentication so it prevents phishing. If you lose the device though, you could lose access to your account, so always use 2 or more security keys with a given account so you have backups. See
Yubikey or
Titan to purchase security keys.
Both Coinbase and Gemini support physical security keys.
Watch out for scams
As mentioned above, Bitcoin is decentralized, which by definition means there is no official website or Twitter handle or spokesperson or CEO. However, all money attracts thieves. This combination unfortunately results in scammers running official sounding names or pretending to be an authority on YouTube or social media. Many scammers throughout the years have claimed to be the inventor of Bitcoin. Websites like bitcoin(dot)com and the r / btc subreddit are active scams. Almost all altcoins (shitcoins) are marketed heavily with big promises but are really just designed to separate you from your bitcoin. So be careful: any resource, including all linked in this document, may in the future turn evil. As they say in our community,
"Don't trust, verify".
- Avoid using ad-based search engines like Google or Yahoo: ads are shown based on how much the advertiser bids, and scammers can easily outbid legitimate providers for ad space, since immoral ways of earning money are far more lucrative than moral ways. Use DuckDuckGo instead, which has no ads, and never tracks you as well.
- Ignore private messages offering services.
- Never enter your seed words in a website of any kind. Hardware wallets will recover by displaying possible seed words on their own interface, never on a website.
- Always check addresses on your hardware wallet before sending or receiving. Some malware has been known to replace addresses in your web browser or that you copy-and-paste.
- Avoid clicking on links like that look like links, such as https://www.google.com/, without first hovering over it and actually checking where they go to. Just because a link is labelled with an HTTPS address does not mean it actually sends you to that address. It is trivial for someone to comment a link on Reddit that looks like it will send you to one website when it actually sends you to another, and you might not notice the difference until a scammer has gotten all your money, or you have downloaded and installed software that steals your money.
Common Bitcoin Myths
Often the same concerns arise about Bitcoin from newcomers. Questions such as:
- Is Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme?
- Will governments ban Bitcoin?
- Will quantum computers break Bitcoin?
All of these questions have been answered many times by a variety of people. Here are some resources where you can see if your concern has been answered:
Where can I spend bitcoin?
Check out
spendabit or
bitcoin directory for millions of merchant options. Also you can spend bitcoin anywhere visa is accepted with bitcoin debit cards such as the
CashApp card or
Fold card. Some other useful site are listed below.
| Store | Product |
| Bitrefill, Gyft | Gift cards for thousands of retailers worldwide including Amazon, Target, Walmart, Starbucks, Whole Foods, CVS, Lowes, Home Depot, iTunes, Best Buy, Sears, Kohls, eBay, GameStop, etc. |
| Spendabit, Overstock and The Bitcoin Directory | Retail shopping with millions of results |
| NewEgg and Dell | For all your electronics needs |
| Piixpay, Bitbill.eu, Bylls, Coins.ph, LivingRoomofSatoshi, Coinsfer, and more | Bill payment |
| Menufy and Takeaway | Takeout delivered to your door |
| Expedia, Cheapair, Destinia, Abitsky, SkyTours, the Travel category on Gyft and 9flats | For when you need to get away |
| Cryptostorm, Mullvad, and PIA | VPN services |
| Namecheap, Porkbun | Domain name registration |
| Stampnik | Discounted USPS Priority, Express, First-Class mail postage |
Coinmap and
AirBitz are helpful to find local businesses accepting bitcoin. A good resource for UK residents is at
wheretospendbitcoins.co.uk.
There are also
lots of charities which accept bitcoin donations.
Merchant Resources
There are several benefits to accepting bitcoin as a payment option if you are a merchant;
- 1-3% savings over credit cards or PayPal.
- No chargebacks (final settlement in 10 minutes as opposed to 3+ months).
- Accept business from a global customer base.
- Increased privacy.
- Convert 100% of the sale to the currency of your choice for deposit to your account, or choose to keep a percentage of the sale in bitcoin if you wish to begin accumulating it.
If you are interested in accepting bitcoin as a payment method, there are several options available;
Can I mine bitcoin?
Mining bitcoin can be a fun learning experience, but be aware that you will most likely operate at a loss. Newcomers are often advised to stay away from mining unless they are only interested in it as a hobby similar to
folding at home. If you want to learn more about mining you can read the
mining FAQ. Still have mining questions? The crew at
/BitcoinMining would be happy to help you out.
If you want to contribute to the bitcoin network by hosting the blockchain and propagating transactions you can
run a full node. You can view the
global node distribution for a visual representation of the node network.
Earning bitcoin
Just like any other form of money, you can also earn bitcoin by being paid to do a job.
| Site | Description |
| WorkingForBitcoins, Bitwage, Cryptogrind, Coinality, Bitgigs, /Jobs4Bitcoins, BitforTip, Rein Project | Freelancing |
| Lolli | Earn bitcoin when you shop online! |
| OpenBazaar, Purse.io, Bitify, /Bitmarket | Marketplaces |
| /GirlsGoneBitcoin NSFW | Adult services |
| A-ads, Coinzilla.io | Advertising |
You can also earn bitcoin by participating as a market maker on
JoinMarket by allowing users to perform CoinJoin transactions with your bitcoin for a small fee (requires you to already have some bitcoin).
Bitcoin-Related Projects
The following is a
short list of ongoing projects that might be worth taking a look at if you are interested in current development in the bitcoin space.
Bitcoin Units
One Bitcoin is quite large (hundreds of £/$/€) so people often deal in smaller units. The most common subunits are listed below:
| Unit | Symbol | Value | Info |
| bitcoin | BTC | 1 bitcoin | one bitcoin is equal to 100 million satoshis |
| millibitcoin | mBTC | 1,000 per bitcoin | used as default unit in recent Electrum wallet releases |
| bit | bit | 1,000,000 per bitcoin | colloquial "slang" term for microbitcoin (μBTC) |
| satoshi | sat | 100,000,000 per bitcoin | smallest unit in bitcoin, named after the inventor |
For example, assuming an arbitrary exchange rate of $10000 for one Bitcoin, a $10 meal would equal:
- 0.001 BTC
- 1 mBTC
- 1,000 bits
- 100k sats
For more information check out the
Bitcoin units wiki.
Still have questions? Feel free to ask in the comments below or stick around for our weekly Mentor Monday thread. If you decide to post a question in /Bitcoin, please use the search bar to see if it has been answered before, and remember to follow the community rules outlined on the sidebar to receive a better response. The mods are busy helping manage our community so please do not message them unless you notice problems with the functionality of the subreddit.
Note: This is a community created FAQ. If you notice anything missing from the FAQ or that requires clarification you can edit it here and it will be included in the next revision pending approval.
Welcome to the Bitcoin community and the new decentralized economy!
[NM] Seiko Propsex 1965 Modern Reinterpretation (Ref. SPB147) - 95 spots at $10.00/ea with NO spot limit.
| Item Name: | Seiko Propsex 1965 Modern Reinterpretation (Ref. SPB147) |
| Price: | $950.00 |
| # of Spots: | 95 @ $10.00/Spot |
| Price Justification: | Sold for $900.00 on 01/17/2021, but worn |
| Price Justification: | Sold for $900.00 on 12/07/2020, but worn |
| Price Justification: | Sold for $850.00 on 12/23/2020, but worn |
| Price Justification: | Sold for $845.00 on 12/05/2020, but worn |
| Price Justification: | Sold for $700.00 on 12/27/2020, but worn and scratch on crown |
| Call spots? | Y |
| Spot limit per person? | No |
| Location/Country: | USA |
| Will ship international? | USA ONLY with FedEx 2 Day. Will ship fully insured to a FedEx and hold at location. |
| Timestamp/pics: | Album + Timestamp |
| Escrow: | I am for liftback |
| Description: | Up for raffle is a brand new, never worn Seiko Prospex 1965 Diver's Modern Reinterpretation with an open warranty card. Designed for those who treat life as the ultimate adventure, the Seiko Prospex line meets every challenge with technological excellence and style. Offering an extraordinarily legible dial and durable enough to become standard equipment on the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition (JARE), this landmark timepiece propelled Seiko into the forefront of dive watch design. With contemporary styling and upgraded specifications, this new reinterpretation reflects the look of the 1965 original, but with a sleeker and thinner case designed to fit more comfortably on the wrist. The rich brown dial, framed by a black one-way rotating elapsed timing bezel, includes a date calendar and LumiBrite hands and markers. Upgraded from the original, the 24-jewel automatic movement beats at a frequency of 21,600 vibrations per hour, with a power reserve of approximately 70 hours, and can be wound manually or automatically. Crafted of stainless steel with super-hard coating, this superbly functional timepiece features a dual-curved anti-reflective sapphire crystal, screwdown crown and caseback, and black silicone strap, and follows ISO standards for scuba diving to depths of up to 200 meters. 200m Water Resistant. |
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A comprehensive list to aggressively save mobile data
TLDR; bunch of methods to minimize mobile data usage, ranging from obvious to complicated. Android based, may be applicable to apple in certain situations. Please comment any other ideas/suggestions. Hey there
/nocontract - first of all a big shout out to those who have put the time to make in-depth reviews of the various service providers. I recently ported my number over to a better MVNO and it's been a great cost savings.
Mobile data seems to be a pretty hot-topic area for phone plans at this time for many people (with many "unlimited" plans becoming de-facto limited, money being tight with covid, so many apps gobbling up data, etc), so this information may serve useful.
We spend a lot of time in this subreddit trying to
maximize how much data we can get with our money, but I think having a resource to
stretch your data under a cheap plan might also prove to be useful for some!
Now, onto the meat and potatoes of my post:
- Disable mobile data
- Easy. When you're not using it, disable it. While you're at it, ensure "mobile data always active" is off, so if you forget when at home on wifi, it will not use mobile data.
- Data Saver Mode
- Enable it in your settings, so background mobile data is reduced.
- Update on Wifi
- Set all app updates and android updates to wifi-only.
- Data alerts/caps
- Use data alerts to keep track of your usage. I have one set at every gigabyte.
- If it is very important to you that you don't go over a certain amount, set a data cap, either on your phone, or with your cell service provider.
- Download everything you can.
- Watch netflix? Download it. Youtube? Download it. Read books? Download it. Listen to music? Download it. Podcasts? Download it. Use a website often? Download it to your browser (heck, if you can, just download wikipedia!).
- In the long run, an SD card can be cheaper than mobile data.
- If don't have an SD card slot, and maybe you're a little crazy, use a dedicated device for all your media downloads. Ipods don't have to be dead if you don't want them to be!
- Otherwise, just optimize your on-board storage, or choose a phone with a lot of storage.
- "Lite" Browsers/Services
- I personally use Google Go since it has been released in my market, but other reputable browsers include Firefox Lite (if you're in a selection of E/SE Asian countries - I'm sure a VPN could get past this), and Puffin. Not sure about Opera Mini - I've been wary of Opera's privacy practices so I've never really used them.
- If you don't want to download a new browser entirely, then at least turn on lite mode in google chrome.
- Some people have issues with these services/browsers from a privacy standpoint (compressing data on a remote server), but I figure since I've already signed over my firstborn child to google that there's not much harm enabling lite mode.
- Seek out "lite" websites
- Text-based websites, non-javascript websites, etc. Honestly, sometimes it's pleasing to navigate text-based websites without all the ridiculous colors, ads, etc.
- Examples include old.reddit.com instead of reddit.com, or text.npr.org instead of npr.org.
- Here's a github page with a list of various "lite" websites - github.com/mdibaiee/awesome-lite-websites.
- Google Maps Optimization
- Download as large of an area around your home/work as you deem reasonable. It will periodically update on wifi.
- Set google maps into wifi only mode. Maps has been able to create directions offline for a year or two now, and this is super useful when not at home.
- GPS requires no data. I've driven for hours with zero data usage.
- IM service when at home
- This is really only useful for groupchats - since MMS uses data, it's better to use something like hangouts (or whatever your preferred IM service is).
- Really depends on whether you can get people onto an IM platform, or if you even care to save the tiny amount of data that MMS uses. I've found my messaging experience to be much more pleasurable on IM than MMS, so it's worth it to convince friends/family.
- Out of the house often? Probably stick to MMS. At home often/large group chat with constant photos? IM, and have people text/call for emergencies.
- Seek out free wifi
- Target public buildings (libraries), chains (starbucks, dunkin, etc), or trusted guest networks (workplace).
- Some ISPs provide a free wifi service (xfinity hotspots, cox hotspots, etc). Take advantage of this if you're already paying for your home internet, and if you're eligible.
- Avoid those automatic wifi switching apps or app-based maps. There's a high likelihood they're scams/stealing your data. Find a reputable site or service, and stick to it.
- Use a VPN to keep your data safe.
- /privacytoolsio is a great subreddit for discussion on privacy-oriented apps and services. People there are very cautious about what VPN they use, which is a good thing when protecting your data.
- Aggressively disable background app data
- Go to your mobile data settings and see the culprits for high data usage. Disable all of their mobile data usage permissions, as you deem necessary.
- I'm aggressive, so I disable almost all of them except my messages app (in case I get a MMS). Most apps work perfectly fine with background data usage turned off, but YMMV, so do some research if it's a "mission-critical" app for you.
- This is still pretty useful even if you turn on data-saver mode, in case you ever accidentally turn it off.
- Do an app-settings audit
- Some apps have specific settings that you can disable/enable to save data.
- For example, you can turn off video auto playing on various apps (facebook), or maybe there's a setting somewhere to disable automatic syncing (gmail).
- This varies on a wide basis, so your best bet is to do an "audit" of your app's settings and see what works to save data.
- Ad/content blocker
- uBlock origin is a popular, open source ad blocker, but many people don't know that it also functions as a pretty broad-spectrum content blocker.
- You can install it on the full firefox mobile browser
- Set it up to block images, javascript, remote fonts, and of course ads. This will all save data. If I absolutely need a website to have any of those things (i.e. banking), I hop into another browser.
- /uBlockOrigin if you need additional information/help. The developer is very active.
- Misc. ad-blocking methods
- VPN that offers ad-blocking (privacy concerns, YMMV, I don't use a VPN to specifically block ads).
- DNS that offers ad-blocking (privacy concerns, YMMV, I don't do this).
- Set up a private VPN to your home, use a pi-hole as the DNS server, and enjoy pi-hole's ad-blocking capabilities anywhere you go. Removes the need to install an adblocking service on your phone.
- ...And finally, a sprinkle of self-discipline
- For example, ask yourself the following: do you really need to watch that video right now? Do you really need to browse instagram while waiting in line at the store?
- This has helped me cut back on internet usage, be more aware of my surroundings, and be a little more mindful of the content I'm consuming.
submitted by carbonara4 to NoContract [link] [comments]
automatic watch storage case video
Buy Kogan Dual Automatic Watch Winder and Storage Box from Kogan.com. Automatic watches need winding! Did you know that when an automatic mechanical watch, such as your Rolex or Tag Heuer, is not worn for any period longer than a day or two, it quickly loses power and stops working? Automatic watches have a tiny rotor inside the watch that winds the mainspring when the wearer moves their wrist ... Premium Automatic Rotate Single Mechanical Watch Winder Case Storage Display Box Dimension :120*130*122mmMaterial : ABS resinPower Input: 100-240V,50-60KhzPower Output: 4V,500mANet Weight: 480gPackage Content:1X Watch Winder1X Adap.. Buy Premium Quality Watch Winders for your automatic watches. ... High Gloss Wood Case Dual Watch Winder with Storage Drawer. £119.99. Sold out. High Black Gloss Finish, Storage Feature, Dual Watch Winder. ... Beige Interior 4+6 Watch Storage (No' D31BW) £249.99. Sold out. GLOSS DUAL WATCH WINDER (No' S24) Black. Buy Automatic Dual Watch Winder Wood Display Box Case Motor Rotation Storage from Kogan.com. For the watch lover, nothing is so dear as displaying his or her collection in an elegant box. This wooden display case from Randy & Travis Machinery not only stores watches, but it also winds them—keeping them in good shape even during storage. Cheap Watch Boxes, Buy Quality Watches Directly from China Suppliers:New Automatic watch winder safe box 12 16 watches storage collection Mabuchi motor watch machine box with LCD touch/TPD mode Enjoy Free Shipping Worldwide! Limited Time Sale Easy Return. Automatic Watch Winder, Watch Winder Dust-Proof Box, PU Leather Self-Winding Mechanical Watch Box with Quiet Motor, Rocker Storage Display Case for 1 Single Watch 4.2 out of 5 stars 364 £31.99 JqueenWatchWinders offer best watch box case and automatic watch winders for sale,100% handmade,Lightning Delivery and 18-Months Warranty Only US$46.99, shop automatic watch display case rotation watch winder adjustable display holder storage box mute motor watch box at Banggood.com. Buy fashion storage boxes online. Buy men’s watch boxes & watch cases. Find a huge selection of watch storage boxes, watch cases, and watch holders for men at our online store. Luxury Watch, Pen, Sunglasses & Jewellery storage Cases A large range of Luxury Watch Collection/Storage Boxes for the Enthusiast Watch Collector as well as Pen, Sunglasses & Jewellery collection cases
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