themeatbridge

It is, but forex markets allow traders to trade on significant margin. Meaning, if I have $100, I might be able to buy $1,000 worth of foreign currency (a 1:10 margin) and if the value of the currency increases 1% ($100) you get 10% of the profit, which is 10% of your investment. If the position increases by 10%, you double your money. However, this also means that if the value drops by 10%, your money is gone.

Now consider that forex traders often leverage at 1:500 margins. You get to buy massive positions with currency pairs, and even the tiniest fluctuations can provide massive profits or instantaneous ruin.

The algorithm I used monitored recurring micro-patterns, watching for predictable movements. You’re also watching relative value pairs, rather than just an absolute market value. Both sides of a currency pair have nations vying to improve the value of their own currency, so you can make money (or lose money) on either side of the pair. Dollar is low against the yen, buy dollars with yen. Yen drops against the dollar, sell your positions. Euro drops against the yen, go pick up Euros agains the yen, and feel confident that Japan is already trying to strengthen the yen (simplified example, because it’s way more complex than that).

So if you track currencies across all currency pairs, you can find inconsistencies. I called it “torque” 15 years ago, but I’m sure a proper forex trader can give you an actual name for it. These are areas where three or more currencies are out of alignment, like if the dollar is up against the yen but down against the euro, and the yen is up against the euro. These are situations where you would expect the market to equalize in one direction or the other, and the trick was being able to predict which way it would go.

And I thought I had figured that out. I had not figured that out. I had gotten lucky several times in a row. In fact, the market can tolerate that sort of incongruity, and the market forces on various positions are far more complicated. And because you’re leveraged, if you bet big, even small swings in the wrong direction can wipe you out.

And because your leveraged, if the position dips, you can’t just hold it hoping it will bounce back. Once the loss in value reaches your investment, the position automatically closes and you’ve lost everything you put in. It doesn’t matter if it bounces all the way back up, because you no longer own it.

It hurt with fake money, because I thought I had discovered some big secret key. Like that movie Pi. And then it was gone. All the sucess, all the dreams of a 9-screen batcave-style computer station with financial tickers and shit. I realized that I had nothing, and I was foolish for thinking otherwise. Stung like a bitch.

But you’re right, safe investments are the smarter long-term play. I did make an extra paycheck on dogecoin once on a moonshot. But otherwise, my boring retirement funds are all steadily beating inflation by a few percentage points. Why fight the tide?

Reminds me of the time I started learning about forex. I used a practice account to test an algorithm for recognizing short-term trends and trading on the activity. I ran a simulation for a few days to make sure it was working, and my fake $10,000 bankroll turned into $50,000 in less than a week. I was excited about the results, and went to explain it to someone with deeper pockets who might actually have $10k to invest, and in the time it took me to walk from my desk to his and back, it went to less than $600. Five minutes, $50k wiped out.

Needless to say, he didn’t invest and I stopped daydreaming about owning a yacht. Forex is gambling.

Narayama Murthy sounds like an enormous piece of shit.

Agreed, those people are the best. But also, that’s a bit of a nightmare scenario, because now you have to decide if you’re going to risk saying something from five minutes ago, or decline the kindness and feel bad for rejecting the gesture.

Awkwardly attempt to join the conversation, only to be talked over mid-sentence by someone else, and so you wait for another lull. Attempt to start again, only to be interrupted again by someone else. Watch helplessly as the subject of the conversation drifts far from the point you were going to make. Minutes pass, and everyone is glad to be talking about something else. You let go of the moment, and resign yourself to remain quiet. Then someone says to you, “Oh, what were you going to say?”

It’s a reference to spam callers. For a few years, right around when everyone was realizing they shouldn’t answer the phone for unknown callers, it was really common to get calls that, if you picked up, would play a pre-recorded message along the lines of “Hello! We’ve been trying to get in touch with you regarding your car’s extended warranty. You may be entitled to money and blowjobs, and if your warranty expires, your hair will fall out and your car will be repossessed. To speak to a representative, press 1. Por habla Esperanto, marqué νούμερο 二.”

If you pressed 1, you would ostensibly be connected to a high-pressure sales rep trying to sell you a worthless maintenance contract. Nobody is really certain, though, because despite hundreds of millions of people receiving twelve of these calls each day, not one person every stayed on the line longer than “regarding…” In fact, my memory on the end of that message might be a fabrication, because I don’t think I ever heard it.

It’s like when people in abusive relationships suddenly realize that their partner doesn’t actually care about them, and everyone around them is like “Yeah, no shit. Fucking leave their ass.”

So… we’re doomed?

No shit.

Right? I already don’t use youtube as much as possible. Piped helps, but if that stops working, I just won’t watch movies on youtube.

I understand why people are upset anytime a company fucks their customers for money, but the solution is always to walk away.

The fact that you think “intentionally ugly” and “diversity” are the same thing is just a staggering new form of ignorant intolerance. I’m going to need a minute to digest that.

Ok, so many question…

Is it that you only play as characters you want to fuck? Or you only play as characters that look like you? Or is it both, and you only want to fuck people who look like you, and want to play games where that’s part of it?

How ugly do you need to be to no longer be normal? Or is it being different from you that makes people ugly?

Are all ugly people minorities in your mind? Like you see someone on the street with crooked teeth and a mishapen head, and you think “Your kind aren’t welcome here!” Or are there certain minorities that are ugly to you, and you think this character model looks like one of “them”? Which group is even represented in this trailer?

I’m really curious about you. I’d really rather not be, and I’d probably be happier if I just forget you exist. You’re like a really weird shaped piece of dog shit. How were you formed? What the fuck was wrong with that dog?

I know you probably won’t give me answers, and will probably just fall back on some tired cliche of an insult again. But on the off chance that you feel like sharing, I’d love to know more.

So doubling down on the bigotry, eh? At least you’re honest about what you’re about.

It’s weird to be snarky about literacy when you have a spelling error in your whining.

What are you whining about?

What are you whining about?

I played the first two games, and I watched the trailer.

What are the bigots whining about?

-oh look, there’s one down below in the comments. I’ll ask them.

Edit: I asked 'em, but I received no answers. One called me a slur, but I’m not sure what else I was expecting.

It’s a stupid argument against solar power, but it is a legitimate argument against cheap and poorly-constructed solar panels that do not have the same longevity as the ones built in the 90s.

The nunchuck was sublime (when it worked), but the ergonomics of the wiimote were ridiculous. Pointing at the screen required an unnatural wrist angle that wasn’t sustainable for long gaming sessions, and trying to turn it horizontal to use as a standard controller was simply ass.

I lived through it, and even as kids we all agreed the N64 controller was weird and illogical. But we got used to it and it was not a hurdle or a detriment to the console. You could tell if people had played before if they held the center grip or the left grip.