In other news today...
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@loopback0 and stupid me bought TSMC instead.
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@topspin And now you depend on China not integrating Taiwan with a badly executed special operation.
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@loopback0 Some time ago I read that the business that turned biggest profits during the gold rushes was selling tools and equipment. AI is today's gold rush, and Nvidia and Microsoft are selling the tools and equipment.
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Reddit files to list IPO on NYSE under the ticker RDDT
Reddit's debut will mark the first major tech initial public offering of the year and the first social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019.
I need to learn how Put Options work ASAP.
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
Reddit's debut will mark the first major tech initial public offering of the year and the first social media IPO since Pinterest went public in 2019.
I need to learn how Put Options work ASAP.
Just make sure you get a long enough term
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
I need to learn how Put Options work ASAP.
Here's how put options work:
- You get seriously offended that a stock's price is continuously going up, or could possibly go up when you don't want it to.
- You throw some money at a mysterious third party in the hopes that the stock goes down and they sell you put options in return for your money
- The stock doesn't go down and your puts lose all of their value. Alternatively, you paid such a high premium for your put options that you still lose money even if the stock goes down a lot.
More seriously, IPOs don't typically get options chains right away, so the only safe way to profit off of them is to be one of the lucky few that gets issued shares ahead of the IPO, selling the stock immediately when you get the option to (many times there are restrictions on this). Otherwise, you have to short sell the stock which carries its own risks (especially since you can't buy call options to hedge your short position). If options are available then you should seriously consider using options spreads instead to control more precisely how much risk you're taking on.
In contrast, if you spend your money on
instead you can stay on the sidelines, watch everybody else lose their money, and then you at least still have your . For a little while. The theta decay on popped popcorn kernels is vicious.
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@izzion IDGI
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@Placeholder pshhhh. Somebody is making money when this inevitably tanks. Just curious how to be part of that.
(I’m not serious, btw, that sounds worse than lottery.)
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
@izzion IDGI
Put Options are contracts, so that up until X date you have the option to sell the stock at the specified price. (I’m assuming American options for the rest of this explanation, since they’re more common for individual issues. European options are an entirely different animal).
If the value of the stock drops below the strike price (the contracted price you can sell at by exercising the contract), you can make the difference between the market price of the stock and the strike price of the option (times 100 times the number of options you own, since options are sold in units of 100 shares). But if you have options that are good until April and the stock doesn’t swan dive until May, your options will expire worthless, and you’ll lose the money you spent to purchase the option.
It’s effectively playing hold-em poker against another person. You both have access to the “community cards” of public information, but you’re betting that your “hole cards” of extra research/superior gut instincts/familiarity with the industry are better than the other guy’s.
Or you’re using the options to hedge a position (you own the stock at $100 and you buy a put option at $80 to make sure you can’t lose more than $20 per share, but you pay a small price for that insurance)
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@izzion said in In other news today...:
American options […] European options are an entirely different animal
Are either of them warthogs?
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@Bulb said in In other news today...:
@izzion said in In other news today...:
American options […] European options are an entirely different animal
Are either of them warthogs?
Both only get exercised once, but European ones always leave it as long as possible.
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
@Placeholder pshhhh. Somebody is making money when this inevitably tanks. Just curious how to be part of that.
(I’m not serious, btw, that sounds worse than lottery.)And with your big luck in drawing the best item, options allow you to add an enormous leverage to your fuckups!
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@BernieTheBernie imagine the time I’d save!
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@izzion said in In other news today...:
Put Options are contracts, so that up until X date you have the option to sell the stock at the specified price
@izzion said in In other news today...:
If the value of the stock drops below the strike price (the contracted price you can sell at by exercising the contract), you can make the difference between the market price of the stock and the strike price of the option
@izzion said in In other news today...:
Or you’re using the options to hedge a position (you own the stock at $100 and you buy a put option at $80 to make sure you can’t lose more than $20 per share, but you pay a small price for that insurance)
Here's a example of how put options work:
- A while back, I bought 1000 shares of a stock with some fun money, for fun, because I thought I might be able to turn a decent profit off of it. I paid a price of $2.86 per share, meaning I spent $2860 dollars.
The price of the stock went up to around $3.30. Meaning, if I sold everything I would have turned a profit of $440, or a gain of about 15%. Not a bad gain, right? No, that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted more. However, at this point I was concerned that maybe something would happen that would cause the value of the stock to drop a lot. At this point, I decided to take some steps to protect myself in the event that the stock price dropped.
- I bought 10 put option contracts for a strike price of $3.00 that expire on May 17, 2024. Each contract cost me $0.55 per share, which comes out to $55 per contract (because contracts are typically for 100 shares). Since I bought 10 of them, I paid $550.
This purchase gave me the right, but not the obligation, to sell my shares for a price of $3.00 per share at any point up until May 17. Because these are American-style put options, I can call up my broker at any time and "exercise" my right to sell my shares for that price. In theory, I could do this even if the price of the stock was higher but that would be a phenomenally stupid thing to do. The value here is that even if the price of the stock is lower than $3 I can still do this.
If you crunch the numbers, that means I spent $2,860 on shares and $550 on put options. I have now spent $3,410 on shares that at the time were only worth $3300. In the event that the stock fell below $3, I would be able to use my put options to sell my shares for a total of $3000, meaning the worst that could ever happen is that I lose a total of $410. If the stock is less than $3.41 per share I am guaranteed to lose money, even though I only spent $2.86 per share.
That's a really expensive insurance policy, even for fun money. Should I have sold the shares right then and there for a decent profit? No, I'm a greedy bastard, dammit. I thought this stock could go even higher and I didn't want to miss out on all the potential profits. Buy put options at a higher strike price, meaning I could sell the shares for more? No, puts at a higher strike price cost even more money. Buy put options at a lower strike price instead? No, because the insurance is cheaper for a reason. I would lose even more money if the price of the stock tanked. Instead, I did this:
- Sold 10 call option contracts for a strike price of $4.50 also expiring May 17, 2024. Received a credit of $0.41 per share, meaning I gained $410 dollars.
When I buy a call option I gain the right, but not the obligation, to purchase 100 shares of a stock at the strike price of the contract. This is a great deal for me if the stock goes up above the strike price of the contract. I could make a metric ton of money if I'm correct. This is why people love to gamble with options contracts.
You'll note that I sold the contracts, instead of buying them. That means I gave somebody else the right, but not the obligation, to buy my shares from me at a price of $4.50 per share. If the price of the stock were below $4.50 then they would have to be incredibly stupid to exercise those call options. I'd happily sell them the shares if they did that though. If the price is above $4.50 then they get to be the ones making all the profit while I miss out because I sold my shares to them at $4.50 instead of at a higher price.
Let's crunch the numbers again. I spent $2860 on shares, $550 on put options and I got paid $410 for selling some call options on my shares. In total, I'm out $3000. My put options let me sell my shares for a total of $3000 if I want, meaning I can get all my money back no matter what the stock does. However, if the price of the stock goes above $4.50 I will have somebody else call my shares away from me at $4.50, no matter how high the price of the stock goes. In other words, I traded away any profit above $1,500 in order to not lose any money no matter what.
Here's a pretty graph describing my profits and losses, as it would look like in May when all the options contracts expire:
I posted about this strategy not too long ago in another thread, as a way of illustrating how you can use options contracts to do things other than high-risk gambling. Since then, news came out that caused the price of the stock to go down. A lot. It's trading at $1.77 now.
- If I had sold all my shares instead of engaging in this financial nonsense, I would have profited by $440.
- If I had not made my options contracts trades, I would have shares worth $1,770 now. I would have lost
$1,090. - If I had only bought put options, my shares would still be only worth $1,770 but my puts would be worth $1,340. I spent $550 on those puts, so my net is $2,560. I lost
$300. - What I did was sell those call options on top of everything else. I sold them for $410 and they are currently worth $40 meaning I would have to spend that much to buy them back to close my position. My net is positive $70.
If the stock stays the same price all the way until May I will exercise my put options and keep all the credit I got from selling call options, and still lose money in net because my brokerage charged commissions for my options contract trades. In other words, I played with options contracts in a "semi-intelligent" way and still managed to lose most of my profits. However, I was able to use options contracts to define and control my risk. The risk management was worth the cost. That's why options contracts are useful.
TL:DR: Don't even bother thinking about trading options if you skipped over this wall of text. Just don't. There are several more topics I didn't even hint at in this post that affected my decision making process.
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@Placeholder really, I just wanted to make a “this shit is going to tank, and I want to be in on the money” joke. But your practical experience was interesting to read.
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@Placeholder said in In other news today...:
TL:DR: Don't even bother thinking about trading options if you skipped over this wall of text. Just don't.
Thanks. I wasn't planning to.
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Dammit. I felt obliged to read wall of text after my previous post, and now I have.
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@Placeholder said in In other news today...:
and then you at least still have your
That's not how
works.
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Imagine you go to a vending machine, and it tells you:
Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe – Application Error
What would you think?
That it happened in
?
No, it was
. And the machine was produceddesigned in
.
Welcome to the Brave New World where Big Brother learns everything about you.
I read about it at heise.de in moon language:
Fehlermeldung offenbart: Mars-Verkaufsautomat scannt Gesichter von Kunden
An einer Universität in Kanada ist aufgeflogen, dass auf einem Süßigkeitenautomaten des Schweizer Herstellers Invenda biometrische Gesichtserkennung läuft.
but you may prefer a different source, e.g.
A Vending Machine Error Revealed Secret Face Recognition Tech
A student investigation at the University of Waterloo uncovered a system that scanned countless undergrads without consent.
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@ixvedeusi said in In other news today...:
@Placeholder said in In other news today...:
and then you at least still have your
That's not how
works.You just need to be part of Marie Antoinette’s world, where you can have your
Â
 and eat it too.Aww boo, strikethrough doesn’t work on emojis
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Some students claimed on Reddit that they attempted to cover the vending machine cameras while waiting for the school to respond, using gum or Post-it notes.
Weak. Not that I would ever suggest one should damage other people's property, but a can of spray paint, perhaps combined with a bit of sand paper, would be a more long-lasting solution. (Get the small ones people use for painting models; they're easy to hide.)
FWIW: the Wired/English article doesn't seem to include the following from the German one:
"Sobald die Daten an die Steuereinheit gesendet wurden", könnten sie "mit anderen Informationen, wie beispielsweise den lokalen Wetterbedingungen und der Tageszeit, kombiniert werden", heißt es weiter in dem Kommentar zu dem Beitrag in dem sozialen Netzwerk. "Die Plattform kann dann eine Nachricht an die Videoanzeige zurücksenden, um gezielte Werbeaktionen auszulösen und Zusatzverkäufe in einer einzigen Transaktion anzuregen."
Rough translation:
As soon as the data is sent to the control unit, the data can be combined with other information such as local weather and time of day. The platform can then send back a message to the unit/screen to display a targeted ad campaign and induce additional purchases in the a single transaction.
Apparently from a comment on social media, but they claim to have found the information in the company's promotional materials.
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@BernieTheBernie said in In other news today...:
Imagine you go to a vending machine, and it tells you:
Invenda.Vending.FacialRecognitionApp.exe – Application Error
What would you think?
That it happened in ?
No, it was. And the machine was produceddesigned in.
Welcome to the Brave New World where Big Brother learns everything about you.
...
A student investigation at the University of Waterloo uncovered a system that scanned countless undergrads without consent.
"facial recognition vending machines from campus.” Not a phrase I expected to hear today. Not surprised either. The surprise factor that it was Canada rather than China is not as great as one might think. Though I might have expected that it would refuse to dispense candy if you're not up to date on your boosters.
Many interesting things in the article.
"Adaria Vending Services told MathNEWS that '..The technology acts as a motion sensor that detects faces, so the machine knows when to activate the purchasing interface—never taking or storing images of customers.”
Yeah, you need facial recognition software for that.
Compare to: Stanley sounded the alarm after consulting Invenda sales brochures that promised “the machines are capable of sending estimated ages and genders” of every person who used the machines—without ever requesting consent.
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@jinpa (dry English accent) This is the story of a man named Stanley. Stanley took the door on the left, which resulted in him not discovering that he had, in fact, been lied to his entire life about the surveillance machinery watching him.
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@jinpa said in In other news today...:
never taking or storing images of customers
Obviously taking, otherwise it couldn't do nothing. It might not be storing them, just guess the age and
gendersexÂą.Of course storing it and using the purchase history of the specific customer is the logical next step, so it might be doing it anyway.
@jinpa said in In other news today...:
sending estimated ages and genders
Racial (well, sexual and age, but racial probably too) profiling! Where's the
crowd now?
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@Bulb Assuming that the company isn't actually lying, it's possible that the machines at the Canadian university are not the deluxe model, and that they actually are just a fancy motion detector. Can they detect a face without "taking" a picture, though? I guess not - they must at least store the image in temporary memory in order to analyze it to see if it's a face. Or could they do it in real time without storing an image at all, even while the analysis is done?
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@Bulb said in In other news today...:
@jinpa said in In other news today...:
sending estimated ages and genders
Racial (well, sexual and age, but racial probably too) profiling! Where's the
crowd now?They're waiting until word gets out that the software "misgenders" the wrong people.
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@Bulb said in In other news today...:
Racial (well, sexual and age, but racial probably too) profiling! Where's the
crowd now?Where they've always been. Where's the "if you've got nothing to hide" crowd?
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Adaria Vending Services told MathNEWS that “what’s most important to understand is that the machines do not take or store any photos or images, and an individual person cannot be identified using the technology in the machines. The technology acts as a motion sensor that detects faces, so the machine knows when to activate the purchasing interface—never taking or storing images of customers.”
Do they make bridge and Arizona oceanfront property vending machines too?
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
@Bulb said in In other news today...:
Racial (well, sexual and age, but racial probably too) profiling! Where's the
crowd now?Where they've always been. Where's the "if you've got nothing to hide" crowd?
Most people very much should hide their assets.
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Press Release: Future Software Should Be Memory Safe | ONCD | The White House
Leaders in Industry Support White House Call to Address Root Cause of Many of the Worst Cyber Attacks Read the full report here WASHINGTON – Today, the White House Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) released a report calling on the technical community to proactively reduce the attack...
also 
?
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@izzion said in In other news today...:
Aww boo, strikethrough doesn’t work on emojis
It does, just not meaningfully.
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Doom Is Now Playable On A $2,000+ Lawnmower Because Why Not
Finally, you can mow down zombies, demons, and monsters with an actual lawn mower
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
@Bulb said in In other news today...:
Racial (well, sexual and age, but racial probably too) profiling! Where's the
crowd now?Where they've always been. Where's the "if you've got nothing to hide" crowd?
Hiding. As usual.
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@Tsaukpaetra said in In other news today...:
@izzion said in In other news today...:
Aww boo, strikethrough doesn’t work on emojis
It does, just not meaningfully.
🍰🍿Even meaningfully, if you use the actual emoji and not the image one.
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Cocoa price hits record high as El Niño hurts crops - BBC News
The cost of the key ingredient for making chocolate has roughly doubled since the start of last year.
Guys, this is not a drill!
I need my chocolate fix!
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@topspin said in In other news today...:
Cocoa price hits record high as El Niño hurts crops - BBC News
The cost of the key ingredient for making chocolate has roughly doubled since the start of last year.
Guys, this is not a drill!
I need my chocolate fix!Trivia time!
Germany and Switzerland top the chocolate consumption chart both in Europe and in the whole world, at 9 (
) and even 11 () kg pro person pro year.For comparison, rice consumption is about 7kg/person/year. I don't know about you, but I find that hillarious.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
I don't know about you
:rookie_numbers:I'm probably statistically significant in that.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
at 9 ( ) and even 11 () kg pro person pro year.
Just took a look at my household database. My chocolate purchases were
- 2023: 11.2 kg
- 2022: 8.7 kg
- 2021: 10.1 kg
- 2020: 11.2 kg
- 2019: 11.4 kg
Edit:
Now it becomes clear to me why my health deteriorated so terribly in 2022...
Should off inquired my household database earlier!
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
Germany and Switzerland top the chocolate consumption chart both in Europe and in the whole world, at 9 (
) and even 11 () kg pro person pro year.For comparison, rice consumption is about 7kg/person/year. I don't know about you, but I find that hillarious.
Well, there's only so much chocolate-covered puffed rice you can eat before deciding to eat some other candy.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
For comparison, rice consumption is about 7kg/person/year. I don't know about you, but I find that hillarious.
You should look into the idea of tröstäta.
Not much consolation to be found in rice. It's good for actual meals, but it doesn't have the effect of binging a bar of chocolate.
Actually, I'm not sure what the latter does, but I do it anyway. It seems to be socially accepted to do so when you're on a downer. You can always follow up with alcohol later.
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@cvi said in In other news today...:
@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
For comparison, rice consumption is about 7kg/person/year. I don't know about you, but I find that hillarious.
You should look into the idea of tröstäta.
Not much consolation to be found in rice. It's good for actual meals, but it doesn't have the effect of binging a bar of chocolate.
Actually, I'm not sure what the latter does, but I do it anyway. It seems to be socially accepted to do so when you're on a downer. You can always follow up with alcohol later.
Looks like the famous nordics prohibition actually does work
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@BernieTheBernie said in In other news today...:
Just took a look at my household database. My chocolate purchases were
2023: 11.2 kg
2022: 8.7 kg
2021: 10.1 kg
2020: 11.2 kg
2019: 11.4 kgAnd I thought my 1 MB Budget.ods file was impressive, but it does not have this level of detail.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
Germany and Switzerland top the chocolate consumption chart both in Europe and in the whole world, at 9 ( ) and even 11 () kg pro person pro year.
What about the amateurs?
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Have some words:
A new phase of matter: Physicists achieve first demonstration of non-Abelian anyons in a quantum processor
Our physical, 3D world consists of just two types of particles: bosons, which include light and the famous Higgs boson; and fermions—the protons, neutrons, and electrons that comprise all the "stuff," ...
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in In other news today...:
For comparison, rice consumption is about 7kg/person/year. I don't know about you, but I find that hillarious.
That's much harder to quantify in my case: I often eat out. And at the Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Persian, etc. restaurants, rice is the typical side dish.
I can see that my rice consumption at home went down from more than 10 kg/yr to some 3 kg/yr, because I replace rice now very often with potatoes (which I hardly get at restaurants).
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@BernieTheBernie You're not eating real Asian food unless rice is the main dish.
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@jinpa I do not have any problems to combine a good chinese style pork with vegetables in 5 spices and soy sauce with a good serving of potatoes instead of rice. It's tasty.
In contrast,sambarice, especially that one from
, can be a deterrent. Basmati or good Thai rice are welcome, but I eat them so often, I really enjoy the variation with potatoes (or sometimes noodles like spaghetti, fussilli, spätzle, ...).
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@BernieTheBernie said in In other news today...:
In contrast, samba rice, especially that one from , can be a deterrent.
I would agree that Sri Lankan rice (white/basmati or red), while substantial, is not especially tasty. I suspect it's not coincidental that other Sri Lankan foods (curries, etc.) are often very hot/spicy. (They tone it down quite a bit for foreigners.) Also note that the Sri Lankan way of eating rice and curries is to make a ball of rice and a curry with your hand and pop it in your mouth. This is obviously not done in Western restaurants. Sri Lankans have commented that food doesn't taste as good with a fork.
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@jinpa said in In other news today...:
food doesn't taste as good with a fork
In good
style, I use a 
. And thus can enjoy the taste of the gravy / curry.
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@boomzilla You sure those are real words and not just made up ones?
