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submitted by EquanimousMind to poker [link] [comments]

(Selling) Many 4K Movies and HD Movies & TV Titles

I prefer PayPal F&F but also accept Venmo, Google Pay, Cash App and Amazon GC. Single entry is mostly firm in price but bulk purchase can accept minor discount. No discount when using Amazon GC.
MA = Movies Anywhere, FN = FandangoNow, GP = Google Play
TV Shows and Movie Titles in italics do NOT port to Movies Anywhere.
4K Movie Titles
4K Disney/Marvel (all split codes)
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HD Movie Collection and TV Shows
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Miscellaneous
HBO Max 14 day trial code. For New U.S. subscribers only. One free promo code for expenditure of $6 or more, by request.
submitted by ricochetLN to DigitalCodeSELL [link] [comments]

CMCSA - How to get your money back from Satan.

CMCSA - How to get your money back from Satan.
What's up dingleberry danglers! It's ya boy, Agent00Funk, here to welcome you back to another edition of the TendieDome! That's right, its time for another wall of text for your literary entertainment, definitely not for your financial advice. By popular request, I even figured out how to add pictures. Keanu help us.
If you're as illiterate as a Mississippi high school drop-out, go ahead and skip to the bottom for the TL;DR and my positions. I don't wanna hear no bitching about your lack of attention span, alright, because I will call you a slack-jawed cousin-fucker. Bet. So staple your eye shades open, Clockwork Orange style, and get ready to be blown away by how one of America's worst companies is gonna make you tendies. Those of you that have been following my DDs know that I'm not about rocket ships, I'm not gonna send you to the moon or Mars (but Uranus is in the cards). No, no, no, my sweet little summer autists, my plays are are all about steady accumulation of tendies. The goal? Acquire enough tendies so you can buy a first class ticket on whatever rocket a superior autist says is launching. Most of my plays are LONG term HOLDs, today's is a slight exception as we're looking for a Q3 or Q4 pay out. Maybe one day I'll grace you with my casino plays, but before I do that, we gotta make sure you're bringing enough dough to the paste-eating competition. And I sure as shit don't want y'all dick whistlers to blame me when the casino play doesn't pan out, so we're sticking with safe territory for now.
Alright, now that I've masturbated enough and have that post-nut clarity to tell you why you should be putting money in CMCSA. That's right you little chode yodlers, muthafucking Comcast. Lots of you are probably already their customer, and have evolved to instantly wanna shit on Comcast. I don't blame you, they seriously suck, bunch of fucking assholes. But you know what sucky fucky assholes do? Make stacks on stacks on stacks. They're fucking you, AND taking your money. These guys have prostitution really figured out....you don't even know that you their ho.
So, let's channel our inner Charlie, and do some Pepe Silivia deep dive due diligence. That's right, it's not just a DD like your wife's bra, we're going for the DDDD!
​
This is us rn. Would you take financial advice from this guy?
So, CMCSA....where do even start? The highway-robbery pricing (tendies)? The understaffed and overworked employees (tendies)? The geographical monopolies they hold? (tendies). The reliance on dumbfuck Boomers as a customer base (I wanna hear the choir sing it with me now:...tendies)? No, no, no....you may be retarded, but you know when you're getting fucked, and you know you pay for getting fucked anyway, just like everyone else (tendies).
​
fr fr
CMCSA basically makes money in two ways: 1.) fucking you. 2.) fucking others. But wait! There's more! They have even more ways of taking money from you and everybody else, and if your goldfish attention span can handle it, you'll see what I'm talking about. Oh and charts. I do have charts. Fuck, me and Billie Eyelash have been spending so much time in the Crayon Room together, those charts have so many colors, most of them green.
Before I bust out these fucking rainbow crayons, let's cover some ground facts. For the Europoors among us, you may be shocked to find out that most Americans have NO CHOICE in who their ISP is. I know, cue the Sarah McLachlan and charity pitch, it's fucking pathetic. Free markets, my ass. But you know what that means? Tendies. That's right, Comcast has the most little fiefdoms of all the ISPs in the land. Only $T can compete, but here's the kicker: people have been ditching $T for CMCSA. Why? Because $T offers DSL in a gigabit world, that's locked inside because of a pandemic, re-discovering what made cyber sex so awkward over AIM, but now with cameras! (All the real Gs were around for that A/S/L/ convo, shit was Catfish City). So, while all you fuckwads are going to work in your Superman pajamas on Zoom, more people signed up for that sweet, sweet broadband., so they too could go to work in their Cookie Monster pajamas. (Mine are camouflaged, my co-workers don't even know I'm there, they just see square burger patties getting flipped on the griddle and are like "woooooooooooooaaah") I know you bell-end ringers don't read, but you can read a little more about subscriber increases here: (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/28/comcast-cmcsa-q4-2020-earnings.html)
Did you notice that link? CNBC? Reputable shit, right? I know some of you motherfuckers pay CMCSA like $200/month just to watch that shit, along with 400 other channels of garbage. That's right Europoors, CMCSA isn't just an ISP with a monopoly, it's a cable TV provider with a monopoly (tendies). And you know what else? They own CNBC. Fuck, they own ALL of NBC. Now, I know, some of you more erudite ballsack gargglers already know this, but let's let the retards catch up. Because, guess what you molasses racers, CMCSA also owns Universal Studios. For the nerds in the front row, shut the fuck up, we already know you're smart.
Are you seeing this shit? Like, seriously, are you piecing this shit together? CMCSA owns the pipes, CMCSA owns the shit in them, large swatches of America have no choice except CMCSA, and more people need those shitty ass pipes, because it's way fucking better than the old ass copper $T is selling. "Alright," you say, "CMCSA would've been a good pandemic play, what's the bull case looking forward?" Well tug my dick and call me Rick, that's why we're here. I can already tell this is going become a damn book of retardation, so I'm going to add some chapters.
TV Subscriptions.
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We've got the finest stock art, just for you
This is the weakest part of CMCSA, everyone is cutting the cord, they're sticking to streaming, but if you check that link above, you'll see that they actually managed to add over 400k new subscribers. Sure, some of that can be attributed to people being bored as fuck at home during the pandemic and figuring they'll get 400 channels of dog vomit to help ease their soul-crushing ennui. There aren't a lot of reasons to expect these growth figures to continue, except one, which I will get to in a bit, but I do think they'll be a bit sticky. Why? Fucking Boomers man. Boomers have this very strange addiction to channel surfing. I don't get it. They just sit there and flip through 400 channels at 10 channels/second for hours on hours on hours. They aren't even watching anything, just surfing. Don't believe me? Go ask a Boomer near you how much time they spend channel surfing and why they won't give it up. They love complaining about it too: "all these fucking channels, and nothing to watch." If you point out that they could just STREAM something they want to watch, they just go right back to surfing, because they don't actually know what they want to watch. TV may be going the way of the dinosaur, but there are still lots of dinosaurs surfing channels for now, hell, they even picked up more. How? Is it all just bored people signing up for TV during the pandemic? Maybe, but I've got another theory about geography!
Internet Subscriptions
​
Yup.
So, even though people may be cutting the cord, they can't do that without internet, and...well....yeah, CMCSA may see declines from TV subscriptions, but definitely not internet subscriptions, not this year anyway. Again, I refer to the earnings report to show you jello heads the subscription numbers. I'm not going to belabor this point much, surely you know people need broadband, and CMCSA is the only game in town in many places.
Geographic Monopolies in Growth Markets
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Awwww yiiissss gimme Park Place
If you've been reading along thus far, congratulations, you'll remember that we talked about the little fiefdom monopolies these guys have across the country. So, where are those fiefdoms located? Right here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_communities_served_by_Comcast Now, I won't bust out the charts for population growth in all of these, because there is a fuck ton, but even just looking at Alabama (Roll Tide), you see that 80% of their markets in that state are growth markets, and only 1 is showing population decline.... and they're only in 6 markets there! Now, they don't hold 80% of growth markets in every state, but they hold a lot. This means that as these cities attract more people and grow, those poor saps will have no choice but to sign up for CMCSA if they want TV and/or internet. Yes, goons and goblins, CMCSA doesn't just have a captive audience, it has a captive audience in places where the audience is growing. Do I really need to spell out how these equates to tendies? Want to know something even better? Biden's infrastructure plan includes heaps of money for increasing broadband access to underserved and rural communities, communities that will then become part of CMCSA's growing fiefdoms.
Streaming
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Trying to catch my shows fresh from the stream with my bare hands
CMCSA has also launched its own streaming service, Peacock, and if you look at the CNBC link, you can see subscriber numbers for that as well. Seeing the writing on the wall, CMCSA has gotten in on making money from cord-cutters. Again, CMCSA owns the entire NBC and Universal Studios catalog, but it really doesn't matter because just like a bunch of people signed up for Disney+ just to watch The Mandalorian, a bunch of people have and will sign up for Peacock just to watch The Office. And yeah, it fucking sucks that before you could have Hulu and Netflix and not need any more streaming services, that they are Balkanizing the streaming space just like they did with cable, and now you need like 20 different apps, but go look at the Universal/NBC catalog and tell me that you wouldn't pay $5/month for access to it if you couldn't get it anywhere else. I mean shit. WWE is exclusive to Peacock...do I need to say more? Do you smell-l-l-l-l-l what The Funk is cooking?
Theme Parks and the Recovery
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Who else re-installing RCT2?
Here's a kick in the pants that you didn't expect. Universal studios. That's right, these motherfuckers got their own janky-ass wannabe Disney World. Hell, if anyone ever does open a Jurassic Park, it'll be CMCSA because they've got the rights to it and know how to run a theme park. How much do they add? About $6 billion/year (pre 2020). How much did they make in 2020? $1.8 billion. There's $4 billion set to come back into the pot. But wait, there's more! They're going to open their largest park ever this year, been building it since 2016, and the opening has been confirmed despite the Rona. Where? In Beijing, so you know the place is gonna be huge and full. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Studios_Beijing So as the vaccine gets out there, the world returns to "normal" and people go spend absurd amounts of money to slide across bits of metal, not only will missing revenue return, but CMCSA is ready to make the pot bigger. When is it opening? May. This is important because we're not looking for a pay-out until after the park has opened.
​
If you feel more retarded after having read this far, imagine how retarded I am for having written all that linguistic linguini. So, now that we know what the bull case for CMCSA is, let's bust out those crayons and look at some charts to get the full confirmation-bias effect and look at possible entry and exit points.
CRAYON ROOM TIME!
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I don't know if this will be mo bigga when you fumble fucks look at it, I'm too retarded to figure out formatting.
I really don't know fuck about shit when it comes to numbers, but I do know the lines look pretty. So, let's run this down real fast. This is a weekly chart going back to 2018. I wanted to go that far back to show you two things. 1.) CMCSA recovered from a dip in 2018 much like it has from the COVID dip, and is on pace to match or exceed it's growth average since 2018. 2.) Annual dividend increases of around 10%. Looking at the chart, there is no reason not to expect the same announcement towards the end of the year, and in fact the next quarterly dividend has already received the increase. I've got a few other lines in there, but what I want to point out is how much the price rises above the moving price average, weather measured as a simple moving price average or within Bollinger Bands. Dips below the average tend to recover and be above the average again within 2-3 weeks.
​
Crayons are awesome. I should invest in Crayola.
Now let's look a little at demand. Again, this is a weekly chart, but this time we're mostly going to be focusing on the right side of the chart. The top chart is a Stochastic Full measurement, the two horizontal blue lines represent oversold (top) and overbought (bottom). Generally speaking, if a stock is oversold, the price goes down, people buy, and the price goes up, leading to a position of it being overbought where people sell for profit, price goes down, and rinse and repeat. The squiggly lines are the two measurements of where the stock is in relation to being oversold or overbought. So what is it showing us? That the stock was recently oversold, and is heading towards being overbought. Best time to get in would've been 2 weeks ago, but try posting a DD on WSB back then that wasn't about the holy trinity cult. So what does this mean? Well, buying now could lead to a little rise followed by a little dip as it fluctuates between oversold and overbought.
The second graphs is the MACD (Moving Average Convergence Divergence) this chart essentially measures sentiment, if it's up, it's bullish, if it's down, its bearish. I know some of you eggheads will correct me with finer points, but I don't have time to write a textbook that I'm incapable of understanding. As you can see, it has leveled off, which makes me believe it will dip, this also corresponds to it's movements in the Stochastic measurements. So don't buy at open, watch it for a bit, it might dip.
The third graph...I have no fucking clue y'all. It had the word "projection" in it, and the line is pointing up, and that was good enough for me.
Timing and Prices
If you can get in for under $50, do it. I'm not sure if it will dip that low again soon, but it's within possibility. Calls aren't terribly priced, they're not the value they were 2 weeks ago when I first wanted to write this, but they're still a good value, especially for July and beyond, which is the timeframe we're looking at for an exit. Or not. I mean, you could sit on this shit forever and not really have to worry, which is another thing I like about it. But I have calls for July and October and may even pick up the 2022 LEAPs. We're looking for two events to provide a nice pop for our exits; the new park opening and Q3 earnings report that should include initial earnings from the parks, both new and re-opened. We want to see if the customers are going back to the parks, and returning that missing money into the pot, and we want to see how growth of broadband customers has increased. But again, don't sweat too much about timing and prices, this thing just keeps marching upwards.
Positions
CMCSA Shares
CMCSA 16 July $50c
CMCSA 15 Oct $52.5c
Tl;dr
CMCSA. No rockets, but good value. 7/10 Would buy again.
DISCLAIMER: I don't know what I'm doing, you listen to me at your own peril, please leave me alone SEC.
submitted by Agent00funk to wallstreetbetsOGs [link] [comments]

Maybe it's investing, maybe it's speculation. Maybe it's Maybelline.

There's a disconnection between understanding of what "value" is, or how to decide what is "investment" and what is "speculation". It's not binary, it's a spectrum. It's not universal, it's relative. It's relative to YOU, specifically YOU. It's not constant, it's relative to price and other opportunity. Lastly, it's not guaranteed. Ever. The future is unknown. You or I might not even be here for it.
Every person reading this knows some things I don't know, and every person doesn't know some things I do. Unless you are a literate dog, we probably share some qualities. In fact, even if you are a dog, literate or otherwise, we share some qualities and no small amount of identical language in our DNA. Dogs love steaks, and fresh air. Both things I like quite a bit too. But I enjoy looking for undervalued stocks, and dogs seem more interested in fetching tennis balls. We're both animals, but we're not the same animal.
To go back to GME and the toad's wild ride one more time this week, I can promise you I looked at some of the same numbers that DeepFuckingValue looked at 2 years ago. Lots of people did. I looked at gamestop in 2019, a few times in fact. I passed. DeepFuckingValue didn't. We were both right.
DeepFuckingValue looked at the company a year or two years back, and evaluated the numbers and the situation, and understood that a lot of short sellers were counting on this company to fold in the very near future. He probably also noticed that more and more short sellers seemed to be jumping on this bandwagon. He knew the situation wasn't nearly that dire. In fact it was likely to be "game on" for Gamestop, for quite a while to come. I got puns all night, so buckle up. Then he looked at the share price, understood the proposition and probability that this was a potentially very asymmetric opportunity (low probability, enormous return, mispriced very cheaply in relation to the potential return). I looked at the same things, but he got from the situation contextual understanding I didn't get. Namely the magnitude to which shorts can backfire and how to estimate it.
I also recognized, back in 2019, Gamestop was probably not in as dire straights as predicted. I wasn't alone, or special in this. Lots of people, including some famous people, recognized it. Michael Burry. Ryan Cohen. That one guy from the internet. I knew about the gaming console cycle too. I looked over the balance sheet. I got that piece of the puzzle, lots of us did. What I didn't understand very well at all was how short selling squeezes worked in practice, or just as importantly how to value the proposition. I still don't understand that with any genuine confidence, but I do get it more now than I did. Doesn't matter. I didn't get it, it was too confusing for me. So I passed. I said No.
People who "get it" get this concept. Two people can do opposite things for different reasons, and both be right. It's relative to you, your understanding, your tolerance for what talking heads often confuse with risk. Your tolerance for volatility. He understood the proposition, evaluated what he was PAYING for what he was GETTING (in this case not just the companies liquidation value backstop, but the potential possibilities of the price appreciation he could be getting - this eventual squeeze), knew himself well enough to decide if he could stomach the roller coaster, and chose to get on the ride.
I'm genuinely happy for this guy, and everybody else on these message boards in that rocket or just popcorning along in the theatre. I'm also happy for myself, because even though I didn't have any money stake in GME I understand more about how short selling and squeezes work than I did just a week ago. I got a free option on education.
The ups and downs are not risk. Volatility is not risk. Here's where we get vague, because this GME story isn't over. It's only gotten started. This has implications for the broader market. Follow me into the fog of tomorrow, will you?
Even the smartest, brightest people taking this bet 1 or 2 years ago had to contend with a lot of fog. It's not gone. Certainly the picture is MORE clear now than it was last year, but things are still REALLY FOGGY. More foggy for some of us than others. What we're witnessing now is why you cannot apply mathematics to complex systems (especially systems involving people) and expect everything to go as modeled. We don't have all the rules. This isn't chess, it's life. People cheat, bend the rules, propagandize, lobby, sue, counter-sue, weaponize fear and do everything in their capacity to get an advantage, up to and including breaking the law. Life isn't chess, it's poker. But it's way more complicated than a game of hold em. It's poker with 10,000 players at your table and a deck of 2.6 million cards, and a roof that might cave in once in a while and kill some of the people at the table, and one of the waiters serving drinks, and maybe the general mood in the room. Also someone who loses might pull out a gun and shoot the dealer. We cannot know all the things that might happen. But if you're in the casino we call earth, some of these events could affect you. I'm long on humans going to Mars, or Europa, or The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. God rest your soul, Douglas Adams.
This is why the proposition that the early birds took, people like DeepFuckingValue, is nothing whatsoever the same as the proposition that exists right now. Even if you and I have the same understanding of the proposition he took 2 years ago, and understand why it makes sense, it's not the same proposition that exists now. He bought in at I don't know what, $2 or $5/share. Some long dated options that cost a few pennies. People buying in now are paying $100, $200, $400/share. Refusing to pay too much is your biggest defense against being stupid. Don't be stupid.
If you're a fan of that Stranger Things show, you probably recognize that theme. "Don't be stupid." "We're not stupid." In that case, we have something else in common. I love that show. There's a beautiful scene in that show where the adopted dad Hopper is trying to explain to this orphaned, frustrated teenager Eleven why she can't go outside. It's not safe. The risk is too high. Dangerous people are after you, and they aren't playing by the rules. Hopper and Eleven are arguing and bickering about this, and neither can see the other person's side. They are both right, for different reasons.
This is a fictional show, and she is an extraordinarily powerful telekinetic. She can move stuff with her mind. Violently. The government scientists who raised her and trained this ability are after her. Hopper doesn't understand this yet. She can rip people in half with a willful thought. She's not in danger.
Except she is. There are things she doesn't get. Weaknesses she hasn't accounted for. She's got this great little group of friends, and they aren't superheroes. They've got families. Real people she cares about, who are regular people and definitely can be hurt. This is what Hopper is trying to get across. He's got experience, he's lost people. He knows. She thinks he's just an old grumpy boomer and he thinks she's just an emotional child. But they're talking past each other, and as teenagers are wont to do, rash decisions are made and things get out of hand. People die.
This has so many parallels with what's going on in Gamestop (and the markets broadly) recently. People, "the bad guys", are not playing by the rules. Other people, "the good guys", did not account for this ratfuckery. Now there's a tug of war. In the media, the courts, the SEC, congress, even in the public square of reddit and twitter. The proposition that was when DeepFuckingValue and company investigated it 2 years ago is not the proposition that is today. Even if it was the same situation, he and I came to different conclusions for different reasons because he understood it and I did not.
If you want to be an investor, you've got to learn to say NO, and not because "the other guy is wrong". You say NO because you don't understand how to value what is being offered confidently, or you do understand it and you see risks in the proposition that make the price unattractive or this particular proposition untenable for your temperament. Just like anything else in life, be it dating, job offers, or nigerian prince's who just need a little help with an inheritance scheme, successful people learn to say No to almost everything. The most successful people learn to say No so gracefully the rejected party leaves feeling good about getting rejected.
Investing is saying No to offers you don't understand and requiring a bargain price. Speculation is everything else. At /ValueInvesting, We're not stupid.
Corrected: The girls name is Eleven, not Seven. Fixed, Thanks jelledm
submitted by RecommendationNo6304 to ValueInvesting [link] [comments]

What is Monero? Why is Monero? How is Monero? Everything you need to know in 5 minutes or less.

Monero is one of those coins that doesn't really seem very important or useful but once you understand it a bit better you start to appreciate the fact that it exists.

What is Monero?

Bytecoin, now an ancient name in the crypto community, was forked by an anonymous Bitcointalk forum user thankful_for_today and BitMonero was born in 2014. The very community that backed this fork at first, threw sticks and stones at thankful_for_today so he disappeared from the stage. 5 days later the community took over, renamed the coin to Monero (Esperanto for "Coin), and made quite a sensation out of it. In 2016 Monero was the most transacted cryptocurrency out there, mostly thanks to the Darknet markets and the privacy features of Monero, but since the regulatory crackdown of those same markets in 2017 didn't kill Monero we can safely assume that it doesn't only relate to criminal activity. In fact, it has a lot more to offer.

Why is Monero?

There is a distinct difference between privacy and anonymity. If you want to keep your transactions private, you don't want others to know where your money is going. On the other hand, if you want to keep them anonymous, you don't care if they know where the money is going as long as they don't know who is spending it. Bitcoin already offers anonymity and it may seem impossible to figure out who is behind that random string of numbers and letters but it's actually a lot easier than you think.
If you use the same address for everyday payments long enough, by simply observing your spending habits all of us could know exactly where you live, what you like, how much you like it, and what you are willing to pay for it. So, if you had a gambling habit and I was a casino manager, I would probably send you some free money to try out our games but that is just the tip of the iceberg. What if someone has a personal grudge against you but is also a bit insane? At best, we will be annoyed by push notifications on our devices and at worst a lot of psychos will know where we live.
Monero solves this problem by creating decoy transactions almost all the time. It uses an obfuscated public ledger that allows anyone to broadcast or send transactions, but outside observers can't tell the source, amount, or destination. The inner workings of Ring Signatures and Bulletproofs are a bit complex but in simple terms, for every transaction you create Monero creates a dozen fake ones meaning that no one can tell the difference, thus your privacy is guaranteed. Reciever addresses are protected as well with a "stealth address" so both sides of the trade are covered.

How is Monero?

Monero is secured by the proof of work consensus meaning that the coin is mined. To be exact, 1.26 XMR per block with a block time of 2 minutes. Recently there have been some concerns raised about the privacy features of Monero.
In August 2020, renowned blockchain auditing and security firm CipherTrace announced that they had developed the world’s first Monero tracing tool in collaboration with the United States Department of Homeland Security.
The Monero dev team quickly responded to CipherTrace’s announcement, revealing that a new algorithm called ‘Triptych’ was in development, which promised to protect users against the reported detection methods.
It feels like there is a constant effort to shut down and delegitimize Monero by regulators. In December last year, the IRS offered a $625,000 bounty to anyone who can crack Monero’s privacy. This just goes to show how big of a deal Monero actually is and if you want a confirmation of that in practical terms, here is a simple example.
If you don't want others to know your transaction history with Bitcoin you can simply convert that BTC to Monero, convert it back to Bitcoin, and send that Bitcoin to a new address. Even if someone linked the previous address to you, they will have no clue where that Bitcoin went.
Monero is designed as a currency but it can also be used as a tool. Those that consider privacy to be a right can now use this tool to gain that right on their own terms. No one can say for sure if privacy coins will survive in the long run but for now, there seems to be a high demand for them.
So how is Monero? Very untraceable.
TLDR;
Edit: Formatting and typos.
submitted by Monster_Chief17 to CryptoCurrency [link] [comments]

Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

Stokes's Bristol Nightclub incident in detail (From: The Comeback Summer by Geoff Lemon)

IF YOU’RE LOOKING for a place where misadventure could begin, you can’t go past Mbargo. The nightclub’s streetfront is painted a purple so bright you’ll see it in your dreams. Strings of giant sequins shimmer in the breeze. Its phonically inventive name is spelt in silver letters that climb its three-storey terrace facade. Inside are strips of burning neon, a few booths, floorboards so marinated in drink that they have an ingredients list. Bristol is a student city on England’s south coast crowded with music and nightlife and street art. This is Banksy’s home town, and the tourism board suggests in rather strong terms that ‘you would be a fool not to see his amazing work firsthand’. The same organisation describes Mbargo as ‘intimate’, which is fair for a place where you can catch an STI standing up. Students cram into its modest dimensions while people with names like DJ Klaud battle for billing with £1.50 drink deals over seven sloppy nights a week. To get a sense of the story about to come, consider that it’s the kind of place open until two o’clock on a Monday morning, and that at two o’clock on a Monday morning, Ben Stokes still thought it had closed too early.
The Ashes of 2017–18 had disciplinary bookends. It was after that series that Australia’s two leaders went off the rails in South Africa. It was a few weeks before that Ashes tour that England’s biggest star windmilled his way into his own disaster.
In the early hours of 25 September 2017, Stokes and teammate Alex Hales were barred from re-entering Mbargo after a night out on the piss. A Sunday thrashing of an abject West Indies in an ignored series at the fag-end of the season apparently required ample celebration. After arguing with the bouncer and hanging about at the door for a while, they wandered off to find a casino in the hope of more drinking. They’d barely made it around the corner before getting in the middle of a conflict between four locals. As is said on the internet, it escalated quickly.
The 26 September reporting was bloodless. Withholding names, police stated that a man ‘was arrested on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm’ while another went to hospital with facial injuries. England’s director of cricket Andrew Strauss separately confirmed that Stokes was the arrestee, adding that he had been released without charge and that Hales had gamely offered to ‘help police with their enquiries’. Administrators had a good chance of hiding behind that investigation, and the next day Stokes was named in the upcoming Ashes squad as expected. But that night the video emerged.
Bristol student Max Wilson had shot it on his phone, then offered it to The Sun. What he thought was playing hardball was actually lowball: his opening price of £3000 was snapped up by a tabloid that would have paid ten times that. The Sun went on to make a mint by syndicating the rights worldwide. From a window above the fray, the vision showed six men on the street below performing the muddled choreography of a melee. One was right at the centre of it. One was waving a bottle, one dipped in and out, one tried to calm it. Two others floated around the edges. The central figure was unmistakable: red hair burning even in the streetlight as he launched into a series of blows against two of the men, falling to grapple with them on the ground, then following both across the street, swinging punches the whole way. Hales trailed behind, repeatedly and impotently shouting ‘Stokes! Stop! Stokes! Enough!’ The ECB could fudge issues that existed only in thickets of legalese, but not those captured in moving colour. Stokes was stood down from the next West Indies match, then suspended indefinitely. It emerged that he had broken his hand during the fight, something he’d done twice before while punching objects in dressing rooms.
The response in Australia was fierce: Stokes was a thug, a lowlife, a selection that would disgrace England. It was not entirely coincidental that a ban for England’s best player would be handy for the Aussie team, but there was also a cultural split. In England, plenty of people still minimise pub fights as lads letting off steam. In Australia, heavy media coverage as a succession of young men were killed had inverted that tolerance. The discourse now saw any punch as potentially deadly and accordingly reckless. This was more poignant in a cricket context given that David Hookes, the dashing Test batsman and state coach, was killed in 2004 by a pub bouncer’s fist.
The PR situation was bad for Stokes as details emerged of the injuries to the men he’d hit, and that one was a young war veteran and father. Stokes wasn’t officially removed from the Ashes squad through October but stayed behind when his teammates left, hoping for police to dismiss the matter in time for a late dash to Australia. His annual contract was renewed on the due date in case that came to pass. Then 29 October brought a twist in the tale.
‘Ben Stokes praised by gay couple after defending them from homophobic thugs,’ ran the headline. Kai Barry and Billy O’Connell had emerged. Not entirely out of nowhere: while Stokes had made no public comment, this story in his defence had initially been leaked to TV host Piers Morgan after the fight, as soon as the video appeared. Police body-camera footage played in court would later show that Stokes had given the same story to the arresting officer on the night. But no-one knew the identities of the fifth and sixth men in the video, and police appeals had turned up nothing.
It was The Sun again with the breakthrough. Kai and Billy were perfect for a readership not keen on nuance. ‘We couldn’t believe it when we found out they were famous cricketers. I just thought Ben and Alex were quite hot, fit guys,’ said Kai, who was memorably described as a ‘former House of Fraser sales assistant’. The paper had the pair do a full photo shoot: layering the fake tan, showing off chest waxes, mixing Ralph Lauren and Louis Vuitton into a range of outfits. Their best shot had them standing back to back, heads turned to the camera, in a mirror-image Zoolander moment.
Suddenly The Sun was the England team’s best friend. ‘Their claims could lead to the all-rounder being cleared over the punch-up and freed to play in the First Test in Australia next month,’ it gushed, then gave a tasting platter of quotes: ‘We were so grateful to Ben for stepping in to help. He was a real hero.’ ‘If Ben hadn’t intervened it could have been a lot worse for us.’ ‘We could’ve been in real trouble. Ben was a real gentleman.’ Would it be known forever as Kai and Billy’s Ashes? No. While the Bristol boys provided spin for Stokes’ reputation they didn’t influence the police. With charges still pending there was little choice – not given Strauss had previously sacked Kevin Pietersen for being annoying. Stokes remained suspended through the Ashes and a one-day series in Australia, and lost the vice-captaincy. It was January 2018 before the Crown Prosecution Service laid a charge.
That charge surprisingly came in as affray, a crime that can carry prison time but is classified as ‘a breach of the peace as a result of disorderly conduct’. The men he had punched, Ryan Ali and Ryan Hale, faced the same count, charged as equal participants in a fight rather than Stokes being charged with assaulting them. Alex Hales was not charged, despite being seen in the video to aim several kicks when Ryan Ali was lying on the ground. Given the underwhelming standing of the offence, Stokes was cleared by the ECB to tour New Zealand, and kept playing until his trial in August 2018, which he missed a Test to attend. None of the three defendants would be convicted.
The reasoning behind the charges was never released and was attributed vaguely to ‘CPS lawyers’. The service gave the case to Alison Morgan, a prosecutor of a class known as Treasury Counsel who usually handle serious criminal matters. Morgan had a scheduling clash and never ended up court for the case, but in 2018 and 2019 she would go on to win damages and admissions of libel from The Daily Mail, The Times and The Daily Telegraph variously for incorrectly reporting that she had been responsible for the inadequate and inconsistent charging decisions.
Morgan’s successor on the case was Nicholas Corsellis QC, who on the first day of trial was permitted by the CPS to request two assault charges be added against Stokes. ‘Upon further review,’ claimed a CPS statement, ‘we considered that additional assault charges would also be appropriate.’ This was patent nonsense from the service that eight months earlier had chosen the lesser charge. Any lawyer knows that no judge will allow new charges once a trial has begun, because the defence hasn’t had time to prepare. But such a request could deflect criticism of the prosecution service by technically making the judge the one who disallows the charge.
Working through the story from the trial and the tape is complicated. You had a Ryan and a Ryan, a Hale and a Hales, a Billy and a Barry and a Ben. You had several versions of events as to who knew whom, who was drinking with whom, who had insulted whom and who had merely engaged in ‘banter’, a word that in modern Britain has to do an unconscionable amount of lifting. The reporting had constantly mixed up the Ryans as to who had which injury, who was in hospital, who had played which part in the fight, and whose mum had which stern words to say about it.
Let’s agree that from now Ryan Ali is Ryan One, the firefighter who ended up with a fractured eye socket and a cracked tooth. Ryan Two can be Ryan Hale, the soldier who scored concussion and facial lacerations. Mr Barry and Mr O’Connell are best known per The Sun as Kai and Billy. In scorecard parlance we’ll leave the cricketers as Stokes and Hales.
Amid the confusion, Stokes and his lawyers built his case in a straightforward way. The UK legal definition of affray is ‘if a person threatens or uses unlawful violence or force towards another person, which causes another person of reasonable firmness present at the scene to fear for their safety’. That means it doesn’t account for violence that harms a target, but violence that might frighten a theoretical bystander. The wiggle room for Stokes was with ‘unlawful’, because the charge excuses violence in defending oneself or others.
This interpretation hinged on the beginning of the video, where Ryan One waves a beer bottle about and takes a swing at Kai. The version from Stokes was that he was minding his own business walking down the street when he heard homophobic abuse. He intervened verbally and was threatened verbally by Ryan One – something that Ryan One denied but that couldn’t be proved or disproved. In fear for his safety Stokes had to nullify that threat by bashing Ryan One before it went the other way. He registered Ryan Two in his peripheral vision as another possible threat, and again had only one recourse.
Stokes also had to convince the jury to disregard testimony from Mbargo’s bouncer that he had been looking for a fight. A solid lump of a man, Andrew Cunningham had not enjoyed his patron’s attempts to get back into the club after the bouncer declined an offer of a bribe. ‘He got a bit verbally abusive towards myself. He mentioned my gold teeth and he said I looked like a cunt and I replied, “Thank you very much.” He just looked at me and told me my tattoos were shit and to look at my job.’ Cunningham described these words as coming in ‘a spiteful tone, quite an angry tone’, and said that Stokes still seemed angry as he walked away.
These were details the doorman had nothing to gain by inventing, but each of them Stokes denied. By his own accounting he had drunk a beer at the game and three pints at his hotel, then ‘potentially had some Jägerbombs’ along with half a dozen vodkas at the club. He insisted that after all of this he was not drunk.
If I may take a moment here to call upon the wisdom of experience – a person who cannot definitively say whether they have had any Jägerbombs has definitely had some Jägerbombs. A Jägerbomb is an experience that does not pass one by. Further to that, a person who says they have ‘potentially’ done something has definitely done that thing and doesn’t want to admit it. A person who has had between 15 and 24 standard drinks in one evening is shitfaced. A person who tries to bribe a bouncer £300 – three hundred quid! – to get into Mbargo – Mbargo! – is beyond shitfaced.
If Stokes admitted that he was drunk then the prosecution could say he was out of control. He claimed clear recall of assessing a threat, feeling fear and deciding to protect himself with force. He confidently denied details from the bouncer’s testimony, like using the word ‘cunt’ or mentioning gold teeth. Yet on other details he claimed a ‘significant memory blackout’. He didn’t remember the punch that saw Ryan One taken away by ambulance. He didn’t remember what the Ryans had said to Kai and Billy, only that those words were homophobic. With no head injury, as one of the few people who hadn’t been hit, he had supposedly suffered this memory loss despite being sober.
The version from Kai and Billy was compatible but vague: they had been walking along, they ‘heard … shouts’ of abuse from an unspecified source, then Stokes ‘stepped in’ and thus they avoided possible harm. They claimed to have been bought a drink by Stokes at Mbargo, although CCTV showed them meeting outside. The overall implication from both accounts was that the cricketers had been pals with Kai and Billy, while the Ryans as per The Sun’s headline were a roving band of thugs.
The reality though is that the Ryans were the ones hanging out with Kai and Billy at Mbargo. Police discussed CCTV from inside the club in questioning and at trial. On that footage the four Bristolians bought drinks for one another, danced together, and Kai was noted to have variously touched Ryan Two’s crotch and Ryan One’s buttock. Ryan One told police that all of this was taken lightheartedly and wasn’t a problem. Indeed, when the Ryans called it a night the other two left with them.
This much is clear from footage out the front of Mbargo, which shows Kai and Billy exit the club and start talking with a subdued Hales and a demonstrative Stokes, who are stuck outside. The vision was played in court to determine whether Stokes was antagonistic towards Kai and Billy, as he appears to impersonate them and to throw a lit cigarette their way. More interesting is that after a few minutes the Ryans emerge, and all six actors in the fight video briefly form a prequel in the one frame.
Ryan Two pats Billy on the chest in friendly fashion with his right hand before clapping him on the back with his left. He moves past and does the same to Kai before leaving the shot. Ryan One stops to speak to Kai. They lean in for a moment, talking, then Kai turns and they walk out of frame together. Billy hangs around for a few seconds at the door and then looks after them and races to catch up. Stokes and Hales remain outside the club to remonstrate further with the bouncers. Whatever discord develops around the corner is between four men who left amicably together minutes earlier.
There’s no way to know what caused that friction. If Ryan One did use homophobic slurs, he might have been drunkenly obnoxious for no reason. He might have had an insecure macho response to some extra flirtation. He might have thought unkindness was funny – ‘banter’ once again. Or he might have said something that was misunderstood, as both Ryans insisted in court that they had not used nor had the impulse to use any abusive language.
What clearly didn’t happen was an attack by bigots on random passers-by. This kind of crime is regular enough that an audience understands the horror of it, and this is what was evoked by the public accounts of Stokes, Billy and Kai. All we know is that there was some verbal dispute among the Bristol locals, and that Stokes came along behind them and put himself in the middle of it. Ryan One responded to the interference aggressively and away they went. There are plenty of reasons to look sideways at the idea that Stokes was a saviour. Foremost, neither Kai nor Billy was called upon as witnesses in court. You’d think it would be ideal to have Stokes’ story backed up by those who benefited from his selflessness. But his defence team had developed the impression that the pair had shown a changeable recall of events amid a hard-partying lifestyle, and would be dismantled by the prosecution on the stand.
That raises the question of whether The Sun coached their quotes for the 2017 interview. Despite missing court, Kai and Billy clearly enjoyed the attention. In 2018 after the trial they did a follow-up spread in the same paper about how poor Ben had been mistreated. They got a television spot on Good Morning Britain and glowed about his heroism. In 2019 The Sun wheeled them out once more to say that Stokes should get a knighthood. In 2017 they had ‘never watched cricket’ but by 2019 were supposedly volunteering sentences like, ‘He saved us, now he’s saved the Ashes.’ Whether they were paid for these appearances is not known, but the chance to be famous for a day can be lure enough.
If you find this cynical, consider that on the night in question, the Bristol boys were so deeply moved and thankful for Ben’s intervention that they left him to be arrested and never attempted to find out who he was. Seconds after the video ended, an off-duty policeman reached the scene. You might think that someone grateful to a saviour would speak on his behalf. Instead, said Kai, ‘it all got a bit scary so we walked off. It was too much for me and we went to Quigley’s takeaway for chicken burgers and cheesy chips.’ They didn’t give their hero a thought for over a month while police issued multiple appeals for witnesses.
As for Stokes, he told his arresting officer that ‘his friends’ had been attacked. After three minutes of chat outside a nightclub, these friends were so dear to him that he has never contacted them again: not after the newspaper piece, not after the verdict. He didn’t want to see how they were or thank them for their support. He didn’t mention them by name in his solicitor’s statement after the trial.
The Stokes defence rested on Ryan One’s bottle, which he had carried out of Mbargo to finish a beer, not to use in a Sharks versus Jets amateur production. But once he turned it over to hold it by the neck it became a weapon. Intent and interpretation can change the material nature of things. Part of Stokes’ justification in court was that the bottle implied that the two Ryans might have ‘other weapons’ hidden away. You can understand how a jury could decide that created doubt.
Not being convicted, though, doesn’t give the contents of the video a big green tick. It does not, as his lawyer claimed, vindicate Stokes. Looking in detail, Ryan One is belligerent but his movements telegraph a bluff. Hales is the person he’s gesturing at, but they’re several metres apart when Ryan One cocks his arm ostentatiously, showing off the bottle rather than bracing to swing. He skips forward but Hales skips back and Ryan One doesn’t follow. Kai stretches out an arm to impede Ryan One, who has a drunken stumble, nearly eats pavement, then staggers towards Kai and hits him in the back. That hand is still holding the bottle, but his strike is a side-arm cuff on a soft part of the body. It’s all pretty tame.
This is where Stokes gets involved. Having moved across to protect Hales, he now takes three large steps to run around Kai and booms his first punch at Ryan One. They fall to the ground and the bottle clinks away. Stokes gets to his feet to punch down at the fallen man, while Hales arrives to kick him ineffectively then runs off across the street for some unknown reason. Ice-cream van? Stokes is soon back in the grapple having his shirt pulled up to show off his Durham tan. Ryan Two steps in for the first time to pull Stokes away, prompting a couple more random punches at this new target, then Stokes trips backwards over Ryan One and sprawls in the street. Hales chooses this moment to return and aim some solid kicks at the head of the man on the ground. Nothing so far is a triumph of moral philosophy or the pugilistic arts. But if it all stopped here, perhaps you could say it was somewhere approaching fair. Ryan One has behaved like a turnip and it’s not an entirely unjust world that would give him a whack across the chops. The antagonists have disentangled, Stokes has some distance, it’s time to dust off and go home. Ryan Two steps forward for this purpose with his palm raised in conciliatory style and says, ‘Settle down, stop.’
So Stokes punches him.
It’s roughly his fifth punch overall, and he really winds up into this one. He misses so hard that he stumbles away into the shadows of the shop awnings along the road.
Hales starts shouting for him to stop. Ryan Two backs into the street, still holding his palm up. Stokes closes on him from about five metres away, six large steps, to where Ryan Two is standing on his own. Stokes pushes him a couple of times, as Ryan Two keeps trying to placate him and saying ‘Stop.’ Stokes throws his sixth punch, largely missing as his target ducks.
Ryan Two keeps pulling away and reversing, into the middle of the street now. Stokes follows him, grabbing his sleeve to drag him back. By this point Ryan One has found his feet and walked around behind his friend. Both of them are in the same line of sight for Stokes, and both are backing away. Stokes aims his seventh and his eighth punches, which Ryan Two tries to deflect, as Hales walks up behind Stokes to grab him.
Stokes yanks away from his friend and switches to Ryan One instead, taking seven paces to grab him before throwing his ninth punch of the night. He grabs again; Ryan One blocks that arm and pushes himself back away from Stokes. Ryan Two again intercedes, putting himself between the two with his palms up and his arm extended.
Stokes throws his tenth punch, a right-hander at the face of Ryan Two, then shoves him backwards. Ryan Two backs away once more, four paces. Stokes follows, steadies, lines up, then launches his strongest punch yet, his eleventh, a proper right hook from a solid base, one that cracks across the man’s head and gives him concussion. Ryan Two ends up flat on his back in the middle of the street, his hands still outstretched for a moment in useless protest until they twitch and drop to the blacktop.
Stokes isn’t done. He once more shoves away the restraining Hales and follows Ryan One, who keeps backing away saying, ‘Alright, alright, alright.’ Five more paces from Stokes before another blow at the man’s head. Kai and Billy are now standing over the poleaxed Ryan Two. The video ends, but seconds later Stokes will punch Ryan One hard enough to knock him out too, before off-duty cop Andrew Spure arrives on the scene to bring down the curtain. When the body-camera footage kicks in some minutes later, Stokes is in handcuffs but Ryan One is still laid out in the street. Ryan Two has regained consciousness, folded his shirt under his friend’s head and is asking police for an ambulance.
‘At this point, I felt vulnerable and frightened. I was concerned for myself and others.’ This was how Stokes described that sequence to the court. An elite athlete with years of gym work and training to snap a bat through the line of a ball with astounding power and precision, swinging fists as hard as he can at men with none of those advantages. Punching so hard that he breaks his hand, and repeatedly shoving away a friend so he can punch some more. Frightened and threatened by two targets shouting ‘Get back!’ and ‘Stop!’
The off-duty officer testified that Stokes ‘seemed to be the main aggressor or was progressing forward trying to get to’ Ryan One, who was ‘trying to back away or get away from the situation’. The student who filmed the video can be heard on the tape at one stage exclaiming ‘Fuck!’ and testified that it was because ‘I felt a little bit sorry about the lad that had been punched and it looked like he had his hands up’. That tallied with the prosecutor’s depiction of ‘a sustained episode of significant violence that left onlookers shocked at what was taking place’.
The defendant stuck to his strategy. ‘No, my sole focus was to protect myself.’ All up, in the 33 seconds of footage after he falls over, Stokes takes 35 steps forward to keep hitting two men who keep trying to get away. Not once is he hit back.
After the verdict, Stokes’ solicitor positioned him as the victim. It had been ‘an eleven-month ordeal for Ben … The jury’s decision fairly reflects the truth of what happened that night … He was minding his own business … It was only when others came under threat that Ben became physically engaged. The steps that he took were solely aimed at ensuring the safety of himself and the others present …’ The statement was impossibly self-righteous and self-absorbed.
If there was anyone to feel sorry for it was Ryan Hale, the second of our two Ryans. He’s the one who emerged from the club with a friendly arm around the shoulder for Kai and Billy. He’s the one who interposed himself to end the fight, then kept putting himself back in the firing line, trying to calm an intimidating stranger while dodging blows. For his show of restraint he got laid out regardless, concussed in the street, then was issued a criminal charge equal to that of the man who hit him, and described in national media as a violent bigot in an untested story to support that man’s defence.
Lawyers for Ryan Two made a more convincing post-trial statement, noting that Kai and Billy, ‘neither of whom were relied upon by the prosecution or the defence team for Mr Stokes, have taken the opportunity to speak with various media outlets about the alleged homophobic abuse that they received in the early hours of September 25. Mr Hale has passionately denied this allegation throughout the course of this case,’ it continued.
‘It is upsetting to Mr Hale that although he was acquitted, the accusation that he was the author of such abuse remains. Both Mr Hale and Mr Ali were knocked unconscious by Mr Stokes, and although Mr Stokes has been acquitted of an affray, Mr Hale struggles with the reasons why the Crown Prosecution Service did not treat him as a victim of an unlawful assault.’Good question. Avon and Somerset police were the investigating force, and they were frustrated by the decision. Ryan Two was filmed clearly not hurting anyone, but police were instructed by the CPS to proceed with a charge. Hales (the cricketer) was filmed fighting but ‘a decision was made at a senior level of the CPS’ not to proceed. Police expected Stokes to be charged with assault but the CPS declined. It doesn’t take a wild cynic to think that placing the same lukewarm charge on three men for vastly divergent behaviour might ensure that none would be convicted, even as the trial would maintain the pretence that a defendant of influential standing had not been given a free pass.
A couple of years down the line, the original interview with Kai and Billy has disappeared. All traces have been scrubbed from The Sun website, its social media history, and even from the Wayback Machine internet archive. Given its headline of ‘homophobic thugs’ and text that names Ryan Two but not Ryan One, the libel liability isn’t hard to spot. Later interviews with Kai and Billy take the passive voice – they ‘suffered homophobic slurs outside a Bristol nightclub’.
The article that was once claimed to exonerate brave Ben Stokes now links only to a missing content page, with a picture of a dropped ice-cream cone and the phrase ‘legal removal’ inserted into the web URL. In terms of consequences, Stokes missed one tour. When he resumed his career in January 2018, the Australians hadn’t yet ruined theirs. Their year-long bans looked much more stringent. But the Stokes case dragged on in other ways. With no criminal liability, the Australians confessed promptly enough for the sporting world to give them the full length of the lash. Their situation was ugly but there was closure. Stokes got stuck in legal stasis, unable to be fully backed or condemned. Instead his issue was always present, a browser full of open tabs that the ECB swore they would read any day now.
Through 2018 Stokes was back but he wasn’t back, in the sunglasses and finger-guns sense. In his return one-day series he nearly cost England a match with 39 from 73 balls in Wellington. His first Test hit was a duck as England got rolled in Auckland for 58. At Trent Bridge while Stokes was injured, England posted a world record 481 against Australia. With Stokes three weeks later at the same ground they made 268. He crawled to 50 from 103, the second-slowest any Englishman had reached that milestone in 20 years. That span covered Alastair Cook’s whole career. It was apologetic batting, acting out responsibility via the scorecard. Stokes was creeping back into the team like he’d been kicked out in a blazing row and was hoping to tip-toe to the sofa.
It was December 2018 before the ECB disciplinary committee ruled on him and Hales. In a ‘remarkable coincidence’, wrote Simon Heffer in The Telegraph, ‘the punishment both players faced in terms of bans from playing at international level was covered by the amount of games they had already missed when dropped by England’s selectors, in the furore that followed the incident’. The verdict compounded the omissions around the case by not addressing the violence at its heart. Nor did Stokes, apologising only ‘to my team-mates, coaches and support staff’, and then ‘to England supporters and to the public for bringing the game into disrepute’.
The implicit next step was to rebuild that reputation. It might have been easier had his court defence not meant that he wasn’t game to admit any fault at all. It might have been easier if he or his advisers had been willing to change tack once the trial was done. Imagine a world where Stokes had stood outside court and apologised for overreacting, for the injuries he’d caused, and for the time and energy he had sucked out of other people’s lives. That would have been a show of responsibility beyond a scorecard. When the time came around to assess forgiveness, it might have meant forgiveness was deserved.
submitted by wingzero00 to Cricket [link] [comments]

Jan. 28 Daily HUT Content - What is new?

Hey guys, it’s Coooolin! It’s Throwback Thursday, and 2 more days til the weekend!! How was everyone’s day!? Gooodd ? Baadd? Let me know, dooown beloow !!
Here’s the new cards today, thanks as always EA!

Silver Master Icons

MARTIN ST. LOUIS - 91 OVR - TBL / RW - BAR2 , WH2
Billy Smith - 91 OVR - NYI / G - 5’10” / 185 lbs - SWA2 , DIS2
*Brendan Shanahan - 91 OVR - DET / LW - H and S2 , SH2

Sets

All these guys to upgrade to their 91 OVR cost their specific 86 OVR card , plus 9 Icon Collectables.
9 ICONS TO UPGRADE - short said .
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Primetimes

NHL

(Flooded with a team that beat the sens... lets not talk about that game..)
Will Update wanting to pump this out with Silver Master Icons
Elias Petterson - 89 OVR - VAN / C - GLA1 , PP1
Matt Duchene - 87 OVR - NAS / C - LTL1 , MAG1
Thatcher Demko - 86 OVR - VAN / G - 6’4” / 192 lbs - SPA1 , BAL1
JIMMY Howard - 85 OVR - DET / G - 6’1” / 218 lbs - SWA1 , DIS1
Nick Cousins - 82 OVR - NAS / C - SPE1 , WH1
Jordie Benn - 81 OVR - VAN / LD - SH1 , PP1
Jay Beagle - 81 OVR - VAN / C - LTL1 , GLA1
Kevin Lankinen - 80 OVR - CHI / G - 6’2” / 185 lbs - BAR1 , SWA1
Tyler Motte - 80 OVR - VAN / C - SPA1 , WM1
Jarred Tindroi - 77 OVR - NAS / LD - DIS1 , WH1

Other Leagues

Zachary L’Heureux - 83 OVR - HAL / C -
Aleksi Klemetti - 77 OVR - KAL / LW -
• • • • • • • • • • - - - - - - - - - • • • • • • • • • • • •

Packs Available

Quantity - 1,736
Double PT PACK - 37.5k C / 750 P
13 items, at least 5 Players with 2 guaranteed Primetime Players.
— From previous day —
23H / 40M
• Jumbo Premium Players Pack - 45k C / 900 P
20 items , all Gold Players, at least 5 80+ OVR Players
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30 items, at least 15 Gold Players, and 4 80+ OVR Players
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20 items, at least 9 Players with at least 4 Gold Players

P.S.

• Squad Battles Rewards
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HOCKEY NEWS TODAY

• Hockey History Today
• Winnipeg Jets back in runnin
Fantasy Hockey Pickups
Who should be on your team?

STOCK MARKET NEWS - WHAT JUST HAPPENED

• Gamestop See-Saw
• Disney Rising from its tumbled down
Corona News
• Corona News Today
• Ontario Reports Fewest Deaths

BELL LETS TALK DAY

• Bell Lets Talk
• Bublé is in on BLTK (Bell Lets Talk Day)
That’s the most important stuff I found today!
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What’s to Come?

• New Event Tomorrow - 5pm EST
• Weekend!!
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Summary of the day

Quick Read
Best Forward of the Day - PT - is ELLLIIAAASS PETEERSSONN OVR 89 with the syn GLAAADDIIATOORR and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
Best Defence of the Day - PT - is JOORRDIIEE BEENNNNN OVR *81 with the syn SHUUTT DOWNN and PASSSINN PLAYYMAKERRR
• Squad Battles Rewards!!
• New Season of HUT RUSH!
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Important Notice

Today is Bell Let’s Talk Day. Today is a day where Mental Health is in full action and everyone talks about it. You can help Bell Lets Talk Day gain money for Mental Health by; tweeeting #BellLetsTalk , Snapping friends with the Bell Lets Talk Day filter, sharing / liking / commenting their post on Facebook...and many other ways, as well as the obvious - simply donating.
Mental Health is HUGE especially with everything going on in the world.
Please know you are loved, cared for, and that your someones reason to smile, and wake up. You are a blessing to this world, put here for a reason. You are so strong, capable of anything you put your mind to. I know I am just some stranger on the Internet that does these “Daily Posts” but I am here for anyone in need of just talking about their problems, venting away, or just someone to talk to.
Bell Let’s Talk Day is one of my favourite / least favourite days because I personally love talking about Mental Health.... but I personally believe that it should be a week, or a month.. or just seriously for more people to talk about it on a daily basis.
Let’s end this stigma around Mental Health.
You can make a huge difference to someone’s life. Simply just be nice to one another, smile, and just say “I appreciate you” or some nice positive thing like that.
You recieve what you give away... karma goes a long, long ways.
I hope your 2021 and years to come are full of love, happiness, kindness, laughs, blessings, and success.
You deserve what you give to people. So if you give hate —- I’m sorry, but you’ll recieve that..
Love you all, I’m very appreciated of everyone who likes these posts, and strives me to keep posting. Its so much fun!!
My PM / Chat is open to anyone !! Don’t be afraid . We’re all in this together!!!
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Interested in Stocks?

EA’s Stock Price, after hours - Jan 28
$ 143.01 (usd) —- Currency Converter
we looked at the stock at $137.54 usd
—— That is a difference of ( $5.47 / 3.98% ) —
Disclaimer - I am not a financial advisor. It is your money, please do your own due diligence. I am not responsible for your money. This is *not** advice. I added this section for an added educational purposes only. YOUR CAPITAL IS AT RISK. Happy Investing.*
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NEED A SOUNDTRACK TO LISTEN TO?

TONS OF PEOPLE SEEM TO LOVE THE PLAYLIST!! How are you not listening to it already!?
Comment songs to add, and please give feedback! It’s much appreciated!!
I currently have “Skin” by “Sabrina Carpenter” stuck in my head.... which you can play, recently added to the playlist!
Sidenote - How do you guys like the playlist!? I have a friend who makes music...and I really want to surprise him with some new people listening to his music... if you wanna help me, please click Here!! it would mean a lot to me!!
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Sites To Bookmark!

If you click here you will be redirected to bilasport. Bilasport is the best Online Streaming site for your entertainment needs for all sports! (Not affiliated)
A great streaming source recommended by NHLStreams is SurgeSport. Click on Hockey and you’ll be good to go!
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Here’s a helpful pack guide for you! Click!
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When is my favourite team playing? When do they play!? Here you can click on this link, and tap on your favourite team. From there, tap “Schedule” . You can add this to your homescreen on iPhone by clicking the square with the upwards arrow, scrolling down, and tapping “Add to Home Screen”
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Fighting a Gambling Addiction?

Don’t feel scared to click here. Winning is SO much louder than losing. Know that you are NEVER alone. We are all here for eachother, and it is never too late to get help. I am here for you.
This is a VERY important thread, especially if you are new to HUT. Here!

Story Time!!!

“Happiness” - By Anonymous Person
Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, maybe doing something for people could make me happy.
So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbour who was sick in bed.
Every day I try and do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.
Today, I don’t know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I’ve found happiness by giving it to others.
When she heard that, the rich lady cried. She had everything money could buy, but she had lost the things money cannot buy.
The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are; but on how happy others can be because of you.
Happiness is not a destination, its a journey. Happiness is not tomorrow, it is now. Happiness is not dependancy, it is a decision. Happiness is what you are, not what you have!
P.S. - Hope you have a happy fun filled day
——-
28 / 365
—— —— —— —- —- ——- —- —— ——
Thanks for reading.
I’m always welcome to feedback, please let me know what I can improve on.
If there’s anything missing, please let me know!
Take care, happy gaming! TODAY IS BELL LETS TALK DAY!!
• Coolin Killin It
(Life is like a puzzle, you just have to find the right piece.)
submitted by coolin68 to NHLHUT [link] [comments]

Genshin Impact: Don't let yourself fall victim to a predatory monetization model

So I originally had little to no intention of making a thread like this, instead wishing to stay silent and watch as the storm inevitably blows over. However, a few recent events have convinced me to act.
Just so you all have some insight, I’ve played MMOs and gacha games for basically all my life since I could get on the internet (over 10 years now), and have experienced things from Nexon’s horrible monetization models from Maplestory to Vindictus, to the casino rate odds of Black Desert lategame, to being actually respected as a consumer in Azur Lane. Guess which one I’ve spent the most money on?
While I love this game, and fully wish to be able to support MiHoYo for their wonderful work, the fact of the matter is that the gacha rates in this game are beyond predatory, and this monetization model they’re currently running beyond exploitive, and as a result, I find myself unable to even give a cent of my hard earned money to support these dubious business practices.
Yes, you can enjoy the game without premium characters. Yes, the exploration can be completed with everything they give you for free. You can sink tens of hours into this game without paying a dime. But you can’t have the full player experience, to sate your curiousity with new characters or just have fun with the characters whose design you love, without either shilling out untold and unreasonable amounts of money, waiting almost a year for a ‘pity pull,’ or spending countless hours rerolling until you get a starting roll that you enjoy, which isn’t playing the game.
When a new 5 star character comes out, are players going to make new accounts and reroll to try to get them too, abandoning all their previous progress? At this point they’ll be more obligated to participate in this predatory gacha system, by which point so you know, the pull rate get the specific character you desire off banner right now is about 0.06% (estimated), while banner has about a 0.3% chance without pity. If you want an RPG horror story, just try to calculate how many rolls on average it will take to get a specific 5 star character that you want, and then convert the cost into whatever currency you use. Then realize you need 7 copies of said 5 star character to truly experience them at their full potential. Thinking about these costs unironically makes me shiver.
But in this capitalist society with which we find ourselves, money speaks louder than words. This is why I come to you all with a proposition; I ask the community to please stop spending on this game until we, as consumers, are better treated and given the respect we deserve. Until the rates and the built in gacha system are improved upon, and we are seen as real people and not just a convenient source of income from which MiHoYo can trick into this terrible economic loop, I ask of you as a community to stop buying the ingame micro transactions and the various season passes, so that MiHoYo can get the message. Yes, whales will be whales and continue to spend huge, but even whales will run out of steam (and money), and a system that’s supported by a few whales is unsustainable in the long run. That’s not to say stop playing, but just stop spending. After all, this game can be enjoyed fully as F2P. Don’t be pressured to spend by big shot streamers and YouTube upstarts pouring thousands into this game.
In a separate post below, I will include useful links with information regarding gacha comparisons rates and in depth calculations. I ask that everyone also approach this thread respectfully, and keep the discussion that is to follow respectful as well.
Thank you for your time in reading my post, and I hope that it has been a constructive endeavour.
submitted by Kitsunekko to Genshin_Impact [link] [comments]

More realistic money situations!

Ok, so there's a lot on my mind here and I'll try to break it down as clearly as possible. (Also I'm sorry if any of this has been mentioned before and I haven't seen it). As psychotic as it sounds, I think it would be really cool to have your Paralives be really influenced by money. Money is a HUGE factor in real life, so I think it should be a major point in a life simulation game. Some of these ideas might be lame or too intricate for some players, but I think they'd be SO COOL if they were included. (Maybe there could be setting options to turn some of these on/off too)
Starting Funds What if each family started out with a DIFFERENT starting fund? In The Sims, it's kind of based on how many people are in the family, but every family is pretty much the same. What if there were some questions you could answer in the create-a-family section that determines how much money you start out with? Like whether the parents already have college degrees/stable careers, if they have debt, if they have other things that would influence their monthly payments, etc. So maybe there could be a way to start out with a certain NET WORTH rather than a set amount of funds. Maybe your family was born rich, or born poor, or just middle of the road.
Emergencies It's a life simulation game. Emergencies happen! Maybe there could be car accidents, little Timmy fell off the jungle gym and broke his arm, Mom got food poisoning from the evil Karen at the parent/teacher conference, Grandpa had a heart attack. There could be a popup that gives you the option to go to the hospital, the doctor, an urgent care, or just deal with it at home. Each option would result in a different bill you receive and have to pay. And depending on the severity of the emergency, it could go really well...or really bad for your Para. (But I think you could also have the option to change your mind if you wanted to go to the hospital rather than sleeping it off.)
Maybe every action could have a behind-the-scenes percentage of whether or not an accident could happen with it or not. (Similar to if your Sim catches food on fire, or if your Sim gets pregnant after trying for a baby, etc.)
You could also choose a home birth or a hospital delivery, depending on if you want the bill or not.
Health Insurance
You could choose whether or not to have health insurance. You could choose whether you want to have a percentage taken out of your paycheck for it or not. If you want all of your family members covered on the plan and what types of things would be covered on your plan (health, vision, dental, etc.) and depending on the plan and how much percentage is taken out of your check, this could have a direct impact on the amount of the bill you receive (maybe you only pay 20%, or maybe it's fully covered, etc.).
I do realize this is a very American thing, so I get it if it doesn't go over very well in other countries and wouldn't be included lol. Maybe there could be a settings feature to turn this off or on?
Weddings/Marriage/Divorce Depending on the size of your wedding, you could end up with a huge bill, or make a profit! You could set a budget for your wedding and each little factor could change the total cost of the wedding. You could do it DIY and make specific changes to everything. In real life, there are also wedding venues (or wedding planners) that take care of everything and just tell you the total price. Both of these options could be good for players who want total control over the details or just have it done for them. Then, depending on the number of guests (or how rich/poor the guests are), they could give you really NICE gifts/cash or not-so-great gifts/no cash. Maybe you could also opt to have a giftless wedding or a cash-only wedding.
You could also marry a rich Para and get rich quickly that way. Or you could marry a poor Sim and acquire their debts, bringing down your net worth.
You could also have a very nice and clean divorce or an ugly one that requires lawyers. Depending on how the divorce goes, (maybe one Para wants the divorce and the other doesn't??) you may have to spend more on a lawyer, or they could both agree and it could be free of cost.
Child Support/Alimony In continuation of the divorce bit... If you have assets together, you may need to hire a lawyer to mitigate alimony and/or child support. Depending on the assets/children/etc., you may have to pay the other Para a certain amount, you may receive payments, or it may be an even split and neither party owes anything. There could also be an option to go lawyer-less and just work it out with the other Para (if they are willing, of course...)
Lotteries/Casinos I know in The Sims, there's Lottery Day (I think it comes with Seasons?) where you can buy a lottery ticket for $100 and you may or may not win. I think this could be fun if it were an option all the time! And there could be different types of lotteries you could win and different types of prizes. Maybe some tickets could be a MILLION dollars and you have a 1% chance of winning. Maybe it's a scratch-off ticket that you could win $10,000 on and you have a 4% chance of winning. Maybe it's a car, movie tickets, etc. It doesn't just have to be cash. This could be demonstrated as a popup, or they could go to a gas station to buy tickets.
There could also be casinos you could go to and have the same types of winning chances. Just a thought there :)
​
Addictions? This could be triggering, so maybe there could be a settings option to turn this off or on. Not necessarily drug or alcohol addictions (although, maybe there could be references, kind of like how The Sims uses juice to represent alcohol, etc.), but maybe there could be things that the Paras can get addicted to and they could either indulge in their addictions or spend money to get help for it. It could be things like the aforementioned lottery tickets/casinos, maybe addicted to a certain type of food (grilled cheese aspiration anyone??), maybe they have a video game addiction, etc.
To bring this point back to money - some addictions may cost more than others. Like if they ONLY like the highest priced food items, or they're spending a lot on lottery tickets, etc. They could go to rehab to cure them of their addictions.
​
Utilities You could choose different companies to go through for your different utilities and choose whether you want them or not. Power, Water, Sewer, Trash, Internet, Phone, etc. Maybe some companies bundle plans together and you get a discount. And depending on the company, you may have really good service or really bad service. You could choose to move between phone companies/internet companies, etc. And maybe you don't want cable TV because you just want to stream TVs and movies from the internet, so you could choose what access you have. Maybe some of the companies require a deposit if they're highly rated or something of that nature.
​
Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgages, and Other Debts Personally, I don't like being tied to what's only in my Sim's bank. I think it could be cool to have credit cards, loans, etc. If there's a pre-built house that you REALLY want your Sims to have, you could take out a mortgage and you could have monthly payments. You could also take out a loan if you're renovating a certain room in your house or need help to cover other debts. You could also do credit cards if you don't want to take out a full loan, etc.
This could be a fun opportunity to bring back the repo-man. Your Paras could also have a credit score, so if you pay your bills on time and aren't super deep in other debts, you have the chance to have a higher loan/mortgage/credit limit. And if you don't pay for it, you could get things taken away.
Bankruptcy In continuation of the last point, if your Paras are too deep in the debt and can't seem to get out of it, they could file bankruptcy. They'd have to pay for a lawyer to clear their records.
There could also be a setting to turn credit on/off, as I could see how credit could be an annoying feature for some players.
Different Bank Accounts for Each Family Member You could have a bank account for each family member or have everything bundled into one. Your kids could have a piggy bank or your teenager could have a part-time job. It would be nice to keep things separated (or all put together) if you want one person in the family to be working towards a certain goal. (Teenager wants a car, the boyfriend is saving up for a ring for the girlfriend, etc.)
You could also get a savings account(s) and dedicate each account towards something. Future house goals, wedding, vacation, emergency funds, etc.
Maybe stocks/investments could be a part of that too?
House Issues/Value In continuation of emergencies, there could be different house problems that come up. Some things could be small and easily fixable by your Para people, like a broken TV/computer (you could either replace it, fix it yourself, or pay someone to fix it like you can do in the Sims) but maybe there are some other house emergencies that could happen. A tree falls on the roof and you have to pay to get that fixed, a burglar busts down your front door or breaks a window, a pipe burst, and your entire basement gets flooded, etc.
You could still choose the same things, like replace it, pay someone to fix it or fix it yourself. If you fix it yourself and you're not handy, it may make it worse, better, or it could just happen again.
Depending on the severity of the issue and/or the fix of the issue, it could affect the overall value of the house. You could choose to ignore the giant hole in the roof, but if you ever want to sell the house, you're not going to get as much money as a house with a brand new roof.
Over time, parts of your house could start to decay (like roofs, floors, walls, etc.) and they may need updated after a certain amount of time. This could be dependent on factors like the quality of the item you used in the first place. Cheap roofs would need to be replaced sooner than a really high-quality roof, etc. Heavy-traffic rooms may need the carpet replaced, there could be stains, marks, etc. that gradually build up over time.
Selling a House In continuation to the last note above, you could choose to sell your house and have it be put on the market. You could have a few options with this, which depending on the type of player you are, could be very beneficial.
One option could be to just sell it as is. You may not get as much money for it, but you could just instantly sell the house to someone who buys up houses (Like an Ug buys Ugly Houses type of person). This could be a good feature for a player that just wants their Sim to move. You could also sell by owner or go through an agency. If you sell by owner, you may get lower offers on the house from different buyers. If you go through an agency, you may get higher bids, but you would also have to pay certain closing costs, etc.
You could also have an appraiser-like person come to your house before you decide to sell and let you know what things you could change that would improve the overall value of your house and what things are already really good. (You should replace the carpet, replace the windows, doors, etc.)
Once you're ready to sell, there could be a list of 3 or 4 families who want to buy your house with different offers (maybe they could also have contingencies, like I'll pay you what you're asking if you change the carpet, etc.) and you could pick which one you want to do. If there are contingencies, it could be based on what the appraiser noted if you didn't make the changes they mentioned.
Become a landlord or a flipper Maybe instead of selling the house, you just want people to pay you directly month by month. You could set your house (or maybe even just a room/part of your house) for rent and have a list of people who want to live there that you could choose from. They could each have things about them that could make them a good or a bad tenant. For example, maybe they're VERY accident-prone and things break very easily. You may or may not want this type of tenant. Or maybe they're really clean people (which could be nice) but they are very picky and may be calling you to fix things all the time. You could be a good landlord and go take care of your tenants, or you could be a bad landlord and ignore them, which they'd eventually stop paying and leave. You could also choose to kick the tenants out if you want new tenants or if you just want to sell it instead of renting it out anymore.
You could also just buy up bad houses, improve/flip the houses, then sell them/rent them out for profit!
Buying or renting a house Opposite of selling a house, you could also go through a process for buying or renting a house. You could have the option to just buy a house as-is (good for players who just want to get to the point). Or you could go through an agent/realtor who can help you find the perfect house for what you're looking for. You could enter details like the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, price point, etc., and they could give you a list of houses. Some of them may be in great shape or some could be in not-so-great shape. You could choose to place an offer on the house or you could choose to set contingencies. If you go through the realtor, they could also give you insights on whether the seller is willing to sell for lower than asking-price or not, willing to work with contingencies, etc.
Ok, those are my ideas 😂😂 This ended up being way longer than I thought, but I think these would be cool ideas.
submitted by simplysimmer19 to Paralives [link] [comments]

What a know-nothing retarded skeptic such as myself is learning from the GME "Squeeze"

So, this last two weeks was my first week in my life “investing” (legalized gambling really). 🥳
 
If I’m on WSB, it’s because all you autists are so fucking retarded that WSB has become the funniest place on the Internet. And because sometimes, despite (or because of?) the collective stupidity, I learn a lot.
 
Like: How to lose money 🤑 😭. Quickly. Seriously. Learning how to lose money is so hard. I mean, I only invested about 3500 total. But still, thanks to you guys, managed to lose at least 1500!
 
But seriously, thanks! Because for a measly 1500 greenbacks, as someone who has never, ever invested I learned:
   
So here are a few lessons (which I'm still learning) which I’d like to share with y'all.
  1. Be critical of everything - There are not only a lot of shills and bots out there (I’m looking at you, $SLVR-pushers!) but there are, surprise surprise even more autists. Especially with 6 million new accounts of presumably people who have never invested in their live, but in classic Internet-style, already tout themselves as steel-balled market gurus. From people posting data that’s fundamentally wrong, fundamentally misinterpreted, or coming to conclusions without enough data or just plain old confirmation bias (basically, all of WSB). Special shoutout to u/smohyee's very sober post which helped me look critically at stuff that has been flying around the forum these last days.
  2. Don’t underestimate my ignorance - I know nothing. Literally nothing. I can do basic addition and subtraction, and know stocks go up and down. Personally, the market seems like a huge insane bubble ready to burst at any second. But maybe not. What do I know? 🤷‍♂️ I’m as autistic as you. 🤤
  3. Get in before the hype - Even to my stupid, ignorant self, I realized buying GME at an all-time high of 150X its low, was a stupid idea. Especially when the entire Internet and even non-Internet media was buzzing with the hype. 3B. (Corollary). - If you are going to go up against a Hedge fund with is 10000X more powerful than you, don’t announce all your moves up front.
  4. Understand what the statistics and metrics mean before betting (I mean: "investing") - People are posting volume data, short interest numbers, using fancy lingo and stats that I still can’t wrap my brain around (I still haven’t understood how you can sell a put you don’t have for example, that’s how ignorant I am). But, as the wise men & women say - ignorance is an opportunity to redeem yourself.
  5. Don’t underestimate all the other players - Hedge funds, Retirement funds. Whales. They all have different agendas. And their agendas are not yours. The worst mistakes I saw were not acknowledging the special advantages that institutional investors will always have. This is not cheating. This is how the market works. You can be a crybaby autist about it, but that’s how it is (I wrote a bit about some of the advantages even I saw that HF have here - me, who knows nothing about investing). Institutional Investors have sentiment trackers, high-speed algorithms, inside information, battle-hardened experience, tricky tactics, etc. You are not going to beat any Hedge Fund of Institutional Investor at a game they invented, made the rules in, and excel at.
  6. Expertise is valuable - There is a very good reason why finance jobs, especially at Investment Banks, Hedge Funds and Private Equity firms are the best-paid jobs in the world - because they places hire very fucking smart people, who work very fucking hard (7 days a week, 14-hour days), to be better at this than you or I. The expectation that we be as good as them, is like expecting to pop out of your mom’s womb and run a 100m faster than Usain Bolt without a day’s training. The reason we don’t like Hedge Funds or the stock market in general, is it is because it a casino for the wealthy. We are the poor schlubs sitting at the 1 dollar blackjack table, while watching the billionaires in their Tuxedos coming out of their Bentley’s to play at the million dollar poker tables. From a recent Economist article this week: “Even in America stock market gains have mainly accrued to the rich. The wealthiest 1% owns 56% of the stock market, up from 46% in 1990; the top 10% owns 88% of the market.”
  7. The HF didn’t cheat. They don't need to. They hustled - They invited ignorant newbies to sit at their tables (yes, that’s us), and then fleeced us of our cash. We are idiots, because we KNEW the hustle was coming and we KNEW the pros were pros, and yet we STILL played against them.
   
Little reminders for myself for next time:
  1. Accept the risk - Any money I gamble in this friggin casino I can count as lost.
  2. If you have no clue, don’t bet - I have no clue what a “Calendar Call” or a “Vertical Call” is. You can bet I won’t be making that, until I do.
  3. Losing (preferably a little bit) of money, is a very strong motivation to learn.
 
And a li’ tip for my fellow autists:
Don’t post fucking DDs if you are an ignorant shit.
 
Positions - Holding 215 AMC (115 bought (stupidly, and during the hype) @14; 100 bought during a dip @ 8.11) Holding 2 GME (1 free from RH, 1 bought at 115) 1 SPY put 332; EXP 03/31
 
Final final note (for real, this time):
 
***If you think the stock market is unfair, you are right. Unfair is the very core foundation of capitalism. If you really really are pissed off at capitalism and hedge funds, have the balls to be socialist or a marxist; refuse to participate in the free market; and refuse to consume.
 
Be Bartelby!***
submitted by menemenetekelufarsin to wallstreetbets [link] [comments]

[Videogames] Zhengtu Online, The Original Sinner of free-to-play gaming and lootboxes

Hi everyone, this is my first contribution to HobbyDrama, I hope this is an entertaining read and also to the community's standards. Let's go!!
Brief glossary before we begin (and some foreshadowing)
MMORPG: massively multiplayer online role-playing game, MMO for short. A videogame genre that generally invites hundreds, or up to thousands, of players to share a space. Depending on the game, anything from general adventure to large-scale war to economy and politics can be simulated. I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this could possibly not know what this is but it's included anyway.
Electro-convulsive therapy: ECT for short, it is a form of treatment where electrodes are "carefully" hooked up to a person's head and a "precise" level of electric shock is delivered, in order to treat major psychiatric disorders. Developed in 1938 when most psychiatric treatments was in their infancy, it is still used today occasionally for serious cases of depression, mania, or psychoses. In its early days however, there were widespread claims of abuse associated with its use.
Pt1: The Root of all that is bullshit
Zhengtu Online (hereafter referred to as ZT) was an immensely popular MMORPG that was developed in China and primarily served a Chinese playerbase. Released in 2006, at its peak it boasted more 2 million players, which while not particularly impressive relative to World of Warcraft (8mil worldwide at the same time), was a truly insane amount of success in a gaming scene that was very much in its embryonic stage.
The game itself was an unimpressive Diablo-style top down fantasy setting, and its gameplay loop primarily revolved around improving your ability to kill various things, but what made it special was the overarching metagame: every player population (sharing a server) was divided into 10 kingdoms. Kings and generals were all individual players, and they dictated politics to their neighbors--primarily in the form of initiating player-vs-player (or PVP) warfare.
Most contemporary MMOs had an upfront price plus a monthly subscription fee. In China, such pricing models were mostly replaced by paying oney for a set amount of ingame playing time. Unlike all of them, ZT was completely free to play (F2P).
Free to play, however, meant pay-to-win: the best weapons and armor, and even leveling up your character, needed you to pay real money. Since so much of the game was focused on PVP, it also created an eternal arms race between players, each paying for the privilege of not being evaporated by a high level enemy.
The way they did this was unique at the time. While F2P online games had already seen their rise in South Korea, equipment was generally priced explicitly via in-game currency and bought in virtual shops. ZT fused this with the sweet, sweet taste of gambling: gear in the game was primarily obtained in loot boxes, and you had to pay for keys to open them.
It needs to be emphasized that gambling of any kind was illegal in China, but, in an eerie parallel of American CEOS in the future, ZT's developers said it wasn't gambling because, well, you weren't getting your money back.
By combining this with multiple other exploitative practices, such as providing a small amount of premium currency like a casino giving you a free bet on the house, or awarding special items to the player with the highest number of lootboxes opened in a day, ZT was making money like taking candy from a candy-hating baby, and made gaming history.
As far as what this means for gamers, this was Eve giving Adam the apple, Oppenhemier splitting the atom, Prometheus stealing fire, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and goddamn Helen Keller signing "water".
If you play any kind of videogames today, you've stepped through the long shadow that ZT had cast. Zynga (developers of Farmville) would be founded in 2007 and focused exclusively on free games with real-money integration. Lootboxes made it into Team Fortress 2 in 2010, one of the first major western-developed games to include them.
Similar mechanics (with varying degrees of exploitative practices) came to FIFA in 2010, Mass Effect 3 in 2012, Counter-Strike in 2013, League of Legends in 2016, and NBA 2K in 2017, infecting every genre of gaming under the sun, including the most popular MMO, World of Warcraft. As an aside, corporate defense of lootboxes in Star Wars Battlefront II also led to the most downvoted Reddit comment of all time.
Finally someone speaks out
The System, an article published in the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly in 2007, was a hard-hitting expose on the exploitive practices of ZT. It chronicled the rise and fall of a gamer who accidentally becomes the monarch of one of these in-game Kingdoms, her addiction to the game, and final disillusionment when she realized that in-game player behaviour was being explicitly manipulated by its designers for the purpose of creating addicts and selling more lootbox keys.
The whole article is worth a read, even if it is sensationalist in a way that immediately tells you the writer was clearly a failed novelist of some kind - describing virtual destruction with the kind of prose most people would consider and then discard for a gang rape, for starters. But it had gotten its point across. It created an explosive backlash against the game in China, and was even translated into English and propagated across gaming forums.
The fallout
In an act of censorship usually reserved for the CCP government, this article--including its English translation--began to be scrubbed from the internet, with speculation pointing to the immensely powerful CEO behind ZT. I mean, who else could it be, right?
This article would light the fire of China's first moral panic regarding videogames. In its wake, swift legislation would be enacted regarding internet gaming addiction as well as online proxy gambling. ZT would heed the new laws and remove its lootbox mechanics in the following years and many other similar games followed suit.
Most tragically, the panic (which, to be fair, was fueled by a very real problem) allowed unscrupulous characters such as Yang Yongxin, vice chairman of a hospital in Shandong province, to create "internet addiction centres". With its legitimacy established by a docuseries ("Fighting the Internet Monster") on the state-run television channel CCTV, these centres charged terrified parents exorbitant prices in order to keep teens by force in, essentially, private hospitals and asylums, subjecting them to inhumane conditions and abusive ECT in order to "cure" them of their disease. It was estimated that Yang earned the equivalent of more than $6million USD from his addiction centre in the short space of 2 years. While his centre was eventually closed by state order, he received no punishment of any kind.
As for ZT, it limped on until 2018. A mobile game reboot was made in 2015. A tie-in fantasy movie was released in 2020. it was not very good.
~~~~~~
Addendum: how we got here: Of Mice and levers
In the 1950s, an American scientist named BF Skinner discovered the following: when mouse is put in a box with a small lever that, when pressed, dispenses a food pellet, they will quickly learn to start pressing on the lever as fast as possible. If you then stop the food from dispensing, the mouse will lose interest quickly after pressing a few times and seeing no food coming out.
If, however, you hooked up the lever to dispense food at random intervals, the mouse will be practically glued to the lever and hammer on it nonstop, sometimes long after they become full, and long after any food has been dispensed.
This discovery, known as variable outcome operant conditioning, formed the foundation of our understanding of addiction and gambling. Skinner would go on to try and fail to make bombs guided by pigeons, but we're not interested in that here. His research tool--the Skinner Box--would become a descriptor you may have come across when discussing exploitive game mechanics.
Summary
Once upon a time, a game combined the random outcome of videogaming with real-money gambling. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
submitted by pre_nerf_infestor to HobbyDrama [link] [comments]

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