swordgeek
@swordgeek@lemmy.ca
- Comment on Is it worth investing if I can only contribute $50 a month? 1 day ago:
Regardless, my point was more to do with whether someone with only $50 to spare a month is truly in a position to invest in anything or whether they might be better off saving it for a rainy day or something like that.
True enough, but short-term or non-locked-in investments are available to most people.
If OP doesn’t have the starting funds to buy an investment vehicle of some sort, then they could put it into a zero-fee savings account and vigorously ignore it. This is, in fact, your rainy day fund.
Then when they have scrounged up the appropriate amount (likely $500 or $1k), they can buy a guaranteed investment certificate or the like, and get better interest rates while they continue to put money into their account.
When the term is up, they can buy a bigger one with their new savings. This way, they have both an emergency fund, and the starting point for a life of investing towards retirement, if nothing else.
(Of course your later point - if they’re struggling to eat - is still true as well.)
- Comment on Is it worth investing if I can only contribute $50 a month? 1 day ago:
Absolutely 100% yes yes yes.
Compounding is your friend. You can play with the values all you want, but this calculator showed me that if you deposited $50/month at 5%/year compounded annually, you’d end up making >$1800 in profit over ten years. Realistically, you should be able to get a better rate and shorter compounding periods once you’ve passed the threshold amount for a mutual fund or GIC.
And that’s assuming you never increase your deposits.
Realistically, whenever you get a raise you should assign some of it to increasing your monthly payments. Your goal should be to increase your payments faster than inflation. Get a $2/hr raise? That’ll probably add $250/month to your paycheque after taxes. You should be able to squirrel away $25/month from that at least.
Here’s a great piece of advice from The Wealthy Barber (Canadian financial dude): Pay yourself first. See if you can get your investment amount taken directly off your pay, and then you’ll never see it, thus be tempted to spend it.
His other advice is to set a goal of 10% of your income to invest for retirement. Seems like a lot, but it’s doable for most people who are talking about investing anything, like you.
Remember: The biggest factor in how much you make from investments over time is how early you invest. Invest now. Invest regularly.
- Comment on Is it worth investing if I can only contribute $50 a month? 1 day ago:
Pet insurance is a good thing for people with a large number of animals - particularly rescue animal boarding.
For most people though, no.
- Comment on What MMORPG are you playing, and why? 1 day ago:
None.
Because I hate people.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 days ago:
Insecure, contrarian, infantile.
- Comment on Why did people in the 90s/early 00s say that the internet "couldn't be taken down"? 4 days ago:
The answer to your second point is simple.
Meta’s properties (FB, Insta) have something that most other social networks are lacking: A network of real-world family and friends.
Twitter, Reddit, Mastodon, Lemmy, Tiktok, and the rest all tend to have communities built from the platform’s population, based on shared interests. Meanwhile, FB is the platform that you use to connect with your oddball uncle and high school friends from way back. That’s the sunk cost that makes it so much harder to leave than the strangers on reddit who share your love of lime jello.
- Comment on Why did people in the 90s/early 00s say that the internet "couldn't be taken down"? 5 days ago:
Net Neutrality was a major principle of the Internet but that is under attack, particularly in the US[…]
Not really focused on the US. Every nation, every corporation, every venal special interest group is fighting against net neutrality.
- Comment on Why did people in the 90s/early 00s say that the internet "couldn't be taken down"? 5 days ago:
“The internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it.”
From a very primitive perspective, this is true. Many of the infrastructure protocols (DNS, BGP, etc.) that the internet sits on are designed to be resilient and fault tolerant. Block access to a DNS server, and the system will find another one. Usually. Depending on circumstances.
Firewalling an entire country is incredibly difficult. From a technical point of view, the GFoC is only modestly successful. It blocks casual and accidental access to the ‘outside world’ just fine, but for the determined operator there are absolutely ways around it - VPNs, cellular networks, satellite relays, you name it.
But do you want to risk having the police show up at your door with orders to kill on sight?
This is fundamentally no different than content filtering in a typical office. From my work computer, I can’t get to porn sites. If I really wanted to, I could find a way - but the odds are pretty good that HR would be at my desk with termination papers and a security escort out of the building.
- Comment on Hey is Sharing Luigi’s Manifesto on Social Media Actually "Glorifying Violence"? Because Reddit Said So 😭 6 days ago:
He has rallied support for massively reforming the American Healthcare system…
I would disagree with this. Nobody is talking about health care reform. People are talking about destroying an economic system that creates billionaires, and also about destroying the billionaires themselves. This hasn’t been a call for reform, it’s a call to arms.
The scariest thing is that people are beginning to accept that the system has always been rigged, and there is no other way to fix it.
- Comment on Some disabled workers are making pennies per hour. Will that change under Trump? 1 week ago:
The articke suggests workers could get a better deal under Trump. That’s just insane to even imagine.
Of course they wonpt.
- Comment on How to get over my reddit ""addiction""? 2 weeks ago:
Step #1: Log out. Log out on your phone, desktop, or wherever you access reddit from.
Step #2: Delete whatever apps you used.
The way to get off of reddit is to get off of reddit. I found that as long as I was logged in, I couldn’t help but contribute - so I logged out and stopped.
Six months later I went back, vandalized my posts and comments, and then deleted my accounts.
I’m gone. I’m done. The divorce is final.
- Comment on Does hand washing your undies prevent it from losing its shape and elasticity? 2 weeks ago:
The only people I know who hand wash their undies are wearing expensive lace. Thongs and normal underwear are fairly resilient. Cold water washing helps, as does either tumble drying or hanging. You can also use the drlicates cycle on your washer, and get a lingerie bag.
- Comment on What was going on in England in the 1970s to give Monty Python so much comedy fodder that is still relevant today? 2 weeks ago:
In addition to the comments from others, it’s worth remembering that a lot of their humour is timeless. Shakespeare made drag jokes. The handsome cabin boy is as old as sailing.
Basically, taboo is funny - and these subjects have been taboo for most of human history.
- Comment on Did Google just have a little hiccup? 2 weeks ago:
This is the way.
- Comment on Does an international porn site like Pornhub take accents into account with their algorithm? Does an Australian watching Pornhub porn tend to get more porn with Australian accents than an American? 2 weeks ago:
Curiously, most uncensored Japanese porn sounds like ‘normal’ (e.g. American) porn, and censored porn sounds like kinky torture.
- Comment on How to get back into academia for a masters degree after being out for 20+ years? 2 weeks ago:
Look at the programs, check the pre-reqs, and apply.
My wife is defending her (terminal) Master’s thesis in two days, at the age of 58. It took five years and was a hard slog with a full-time job, but she managed.
- Comment on What are your most recent games played? 2 weeks ago:
Finished Fallout London last week.
This morning I finished replaying Grim Fandango for about the 12th time.
- Comment on Trump Disavowed Project 2025 During the Campaign. Not Anymore. 3 weeks ago:
Also in the “No shit Sherlock” file.
- Comment on What games have you put the most hours into? 3 weeks ago:
The Bethesda RPGs: Skyrim, Morrowind, Fallout series (although most of the hours probably into NV, which wasn’t actually Bethesda).
- Comment on Is it possible to have a "free speech" platform that simultaneously stops "hate speech"? 3 weeks ago:
Definitely read the article, but TL;DR It’s acceptable (and necessary) to shut down Nazis.
- Comment on What gives you hope to keep going? 3 weeks ago:
I have a teenage son - a wonderful kid who keeps me going.
Not sure what I’m going to do in my dead marriage after he moves out.
- Comment on Do you think being left-handed gives any unique qualities or advantages compares to other right handed? 3 weeks ago:
I fence, and lefties have a significant advantage, just because we’re used to fencing opposite-handed opponents.
- Comment on Greatest video game ever played? 3 weeks ago:
I have. In fact, I backed the development of it.
Definitely worth playing. Maybe a bit less memorable than the original, but also a bit more consistent. There are no huge difficulty spikes like the Meat Circus in the original.
The story is a bit more complex, and a bit more muted. Most of the levels are less memorable. But absolutely worth the time to play and enjoy.
- Comment on Greatest video game ever played? 4 weeks ago:
Grim Fandango. Despite the weird tank controls, it created such an amazing world - and all in a point-and-click adventure. My home PC is named Manny, our NAS is Eva, the router/firewall is Glottis, and so on.
Also, Psychonauts. Just a perfect 3D platformer.
- Comment on What are some video game quotes that is stuck in your head? 4 weeks ago:
Fallout London - a FO4 mod. (really, a makeover and whole new game.)
- Comment on What are some video game quotes that is stuck in your head? 4 weeks ago:
“Yeah, I was skeptical at first but the polycule might be the way to go.”
- Comment on What are some video game quotes that is stuck in your head? 4 weeks ago:
- Comment on Is there an obvious technical reason why the major email services (Outlook, gmail, etc) can't seem to limit recipients' from Replying-All? 4 weeks ago:
Here’s my snarky take on it:
Because it’s not the job of the mail client to decide what parts of the protocol should be hidden from stupid users.
- Comment on If media corporations worked together to convince you that a half decent politician is evil incarnate but the politician that helps corporations extort the people is good, what would it look like? 4 weeks ago:
This is questioning in bad faith, and is asked to push a narrative.
Even if I agree with the narrative, it doesn’t belong here.
- Comment on Rumors of Sony Acquiring FromSoft’s Parent Company - GAMESCENSOR 4 weeks ago:
Games, economics, and politics aside…
FromSoft has to be about the worst name for a company ever.