New title Statistics Supported by sanofi-aventis What are
New title Statistics Supported by sanofi-aventis What are
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what is a hazard ratio of 1 - win
FUCKED UP SHIT
I guess I’m what you’d call an addict. Junkie, even. Alcohol? No, I don’t touch the stuff. I drink it, hahaha. Don’t need hands to do that, hence the punchline. Drugs? I mean, I dabble. Recreationally. Whatever you got, if it’s free, I’ll shoot it up, lick it, smoke it, stick under my eyelid, snort it right into my aorta. And I’m not particularly picky either. Captain Cody, Skag, Mud, Fidgeridoo, Herbal Speedball, Organ Oil, Demmies, Miss Emma, Kickers, Mrs. O, Yog-Sothamines, XTC, Sneeze, R-Balls; if you have them, I’ll take them. Still not addicted to the stuff though. No, my one and only addiction is exceedingly simple, yet intolerably hard to satisfy; FUCKED UP SHIT. I’m not talking about your everyday dark web snuff mind you. I need the real deal. Something about my brain's incapability to shoot me up with dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins (the D.O.S.E), according to several online doctors. So it’s a medical thing. Still haven’t scored a prescription for it though. In any case, my medical condition forces me to deep dive into the fuckiest corners of society. You have your dark underground clubs, murder parties, subteranean sickofests, torture theatres, decapitation diners, and the odd organ orgies, but what I really enjoy, what makes my D.O.S.E overflow, is the ones you never hear about. The ones you have to find. No invitations, no RSVPs. One day they just pop up like a popcorn baby, and before you know it, they’re gone. I’ve been to a few of these over the years, and they never disappoint. I already told you about the Baby Killer Incident, yeah? Then you know what I’m talking about. Fucked up shit! I happened upon this particular one by Chance. Chance being this stripper I know that’s into some ritualistic cannibalism or other (I don’t ask), and long story short she knew the sicko who was hosting the event. I was hesitant at first, this particular sicko placing fairly high on my shitlist of sickos, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers and all. Not to mention that my D.O.S.E-withdrawals were flaring up, making me in essence nothing more than a shivering sack of suicidal human tissue on the best of days. So there I was in an abandoned mall, shivering sack of suicidal human tissue, idly accepting assorted drugs from random passer-by deviants taking a pity on me, when this guy comes up to me, all dressed up in a pink hazmat suit with a freaky unicorn horn (which, when I look back on it, was probably a massive drill-shaped dildo) stuck to his helmet, and he goes Hey Tilly (that’s my name, Tilly), Hey Tilly, he says. I hear you like fucked up shit. Man, word gets around, I think to myself, but at the same time these loud fucking alarm bells starts going off in my head, accompanied by Soviet Union-amounts of red flags. How the fuck do you know my name? I ask. Your ears, he answers. The guy told me to look for a man with fucked up ears. Well, you found’em, I say, making sure to twirl around all ballerina-like, highlighting my ugly-ass ear-stumps. And what fucking guy gave you my name? That guy, he mumbles idly, not actually pointing to anyone. Say, what happened to them? To who? Your, uh, ears. Oh, that, I say. Sliced them off as a punchline in an elaborate Van Gogh-joke. Well, two seperate jokes, actually. Both Van Gogh-related though. The guy nods, maybe smiles, but I can’t really tell because of the dildo-helmet, and beckons for me to follow him. Now, I don’t normally follow strange men into bathrooms, but sometimes that’s exactly what you should do. I guess learning when to do it, and when not to do it is an integral skill in this setting, but you’ll figure it out one way or another, so don’t worry too much about it. Anyway, into the bathroom we go. Like the rest of the place it’s spotless, meaning there isn’t a single fucking spot that isn’t covered in grime or dirt or bodily fluids of some description, and I wrinkle my nose in disgust as the guy waves me into an empty stall at the far end of it. I hesitate momentarily, my mind doing some olympic-levels of mental gymnastics to calculate the risk/reward-ratio of my current situation. I land on an even 50/50 - good enough - and I saunter into the stall, only to realise it’s not a bathroom stall at all. Unexpected, I say, my D.O.S.E-levels elevating ever so slightly. The guy starts descending the winding staircase leading god-knows-where, looking back at me when he notices I’m still just standing there sheepishly. You coming or what? he asks. Fuck no, I think to myself. Yeah, I say. Now, I’m no architect, but I’ll hazard a guess and propose that winding staircases are a rare find in your standard mall bathroom, abandoned or not. This wasn’t always a mall, was it? I ask. Good eye, the guy answers. Used to be a church. I guess capitalism always wins, huh? I just nod, soon enough realising these fucking stairs are neverending, like one of those spirals you see in old movies, you know, when someone is getting hypnotised? Then I think back on this woman I met when I was young. Younger? Time man, it’s always going somewhere, and I never really bothered catching up to it. Anyway, I think back on this woman I bumped into on the street, and how she out of the blue asks me if I’d seen her job, and I was like what the fuck do you mean? I’ve lost my job, she says. It’s always in the last place you look, I note. That’s really helpful, she says unironically. Say, could you help me with something else? What? Do you know, she starts. Do you know how to rewind a winding staircase? I don’t know man, that shit always stuck with me. Some kind of riddle? An elaborate joke? A covert Operation Mindfuck? Escaped lunatic lingo? In any case, that’s how I felt when we descended those stairs. Like I was rewinding a winding staircase. Here we are then, the guy suddenly exclaims, bringing me out of my temporal trip down memory lane. I am wildly underwhelmed at this point, but after letting my eyes get used to the dimly lit basement chamber, I can feel my brain starting to upchuck some good fucking shit into my system. Champagne? the guy asks, beckoning to a rather unbecoming rat-faced girl in the corner to come hither with a tray of alcoholic beverages. Don’t mind if I’m already two steps ahead of you, I think, having snatched a bottle I found sitting by the stairs. I pop it open, and enjoy the weird expressions on their faces as I chug the whole fucking thing in a manner of seconds. Tastes like an aging puke-shit hybrid, but my think-organ seems to enjoy it, and I’m not one to start a fight with my own fucking brain. I watch the two of them trade looks of confusion, realisation, and then something I (falsely) identify as fear, then turn my attention to the tied up naked man at the far end of the room. I think I forgot to mention him, but he was there too. In fact, he was the sole reason my D.O.S.E was elevating - the prospect of some kind of fucked up torture show enough to get my juices flowing. Now what? the girl asks. Do we tell him? Fuck it, the guy says, and then proceeds to bash half of my skull in with a crowbar. You know the part in every fucking action movie where the main character knocks some poor unnamed henchman unconscious? Do you realise how fucking dangerous that is? Concussions are silent killers man. Could’ve inflicted some serious brain damage too. Those fuckers can fuck you up for life. Anyway, I guess I must’ve been out for a few, because when I woke up, I found myself dangling from the ceiling, my body suspended mid-air by some rather sturdy-looking chains. You fucked up royally this time Tilly, the dildo-helmet proposed. If my jaw hadn’t felt like someone had ripped it out, then jammed it back in the wrong way around, I probably would have responded with a witty remark. As circumstances were though, I felt forced to reply with a half-hearted Guh? Let’s show you exactly how much you fucked up, the guy says. My mind slips in and out of what I assume is consciousness, but it’s like my thoughts are torn in half; one side continuously trying to make sense of what I’m seeing, and the other rapidly filling with nausea-inducing dread. Both are fucking screaming though, my stump-ears somehow hearing the inside of my mind lamenting as it drowns slowly in an all-consuming madness. The naked man screams too, but he’s more physical about it. How can a supposedly regular set of lungs contain that much air, I find myself thinking. His skin is a deep shade of red, some of it undoubtedly caused by lack of oxygen, some of it by the ever-growing stream of blood ceaselessly dripping down from his soon-to-be empty eye-socket. Pull it Ems! the guy yells. The rat-faced girl, Ems, has this horrid fucking grin on her face. You know how an old lemon looks, like a really shrivelled up piece of lemon? All wrinkles and browning leathery texture? That was her face. All fucking rotting wrinkled lemon texture smiles. Pull it! Ems got the naked man’s eye firmly gripped between her thumb and index, long dirty fingernails digging into the spongy vitreous, having now pulled it about an inch or so outside of the poor fucker’s socket. And I can just tell by her posture that she’s readying herself for that final, horrible yank. I want to close my eyes so badly at this point, you know, just fucking succumb to the madness my brain is desperately conjuring up to save me, but at the same time I can’t. I physically cannot get my eyelids to work. I don’t know why, but that fucking fact freaks me out more than anything else going on. And then it happens. With a swift, overly dramatic motion, she rips the fucking eye all the way out, and the man’s tormented shrieks reaches sonic levels that transcends human hearing. My ears are ringing, my mind is swirling, and my eyes are itching. Watch this Tilly, the guy says coldly. Watch this fucking shit real closely. And I do. Barely conscious at this point, hanging onto sanity only by fucking ignoring reality as a concept, I watch as Ems drops the severed eye to the dirty grime-covered floor, the disgusting fucking thing still somehow connected to the man via the optical nerves - impossibly long squirming crimson tendrils. What the fuck? I mumble. I told you, the guy chuckles. I fucking told you. It’s hard to say how many there were. Countless maybe. Countless and then some, probably. Thin crimson worms, entangled in each other, organically interwoven to form a disgusting chain from the naked man’s empty eye socket to the severed eye on the floor. I could see them slithering in perfect repulsive unison, and suddenly the eye starts...moving. This is the best part, the guy says. The squirming chain slowly starts retracting, the blue of the eye turning a savory shade of grime-grey as it is dragged across the floor, up the naked man's legs, stomach, neck, face, until finally, after what seems like an eternity, it pops right back into the socket with a repulsive gloooph. My stomach wants me to vomit now, but it’s barren and dry and empty and sour, so instead my brain takes control, a tempting blank void all the way in the back of my mind presented as a possible solution. But they won’t let me go. Ems erupts in a maniacal laughter, like the sound of a chainsaw on rough concrete, and the guy soon follows. I feel the muscles in my back contracting all seizure-like; more than likely my body’s last desperate attempt at shutting me down. The naked man has stopped screaming now, the tortured wails replaced by a deep gargle, slime and blood mixed together in the back of his throat. Maybe his nightmare will end, I think, but then I realise it won’t. It hasn’t. It’s still going. The eye is still moving. Being dragged now inside his skull, I see the spongy texture of it bending and morphing hideously as it squeezes past bone structures that are by far too fucking narrow, and then it disappears completely, accompanied by a soundscape of gloophs and schlucks. The man topples over, still tied to the chair, and convulses in agony for minutes, until it all suddenly stops. I have never experienced such silence. That’s how I imagine space, you know. A great old big fucking vast empty nothingness of all the senses. And now, the guy says, standing over the corpse of the naked man. Now it is your turn. Ems hideous face morphs into that smile again. Big old lemon wrinkled smile. I remember her crooked yellow fingernails so vividly, horrid jagged things inching closer and closer to my eye, until I could feel them scraping on my exposed pupil. I guess my mind found a way out right then. Fucking took it long enough though, but I figure I must have passed out, maybe from the pain, maybe from the fear, maybe from the exhaustion. Most likely neither of those, though. When I woke up, I was alone, face down in my own sour-dry vomit on the ground. No naked corpse man, no dildo-helmet guy, no lemon-smiled Ems. I spent a good fifteen minutes checking my eyes, trembling fingers tracing them, you know, just to see if they were still there. And they were. They were fucking solid. They were fucking perfect. I guess I spent a few weeks or so recuperating from that shit, but I’ve never felt quite the same. Turns out there’s a reason for that. It’s weird you know, how I didn’t realise it sooner. I might be a fucked up piece of shit, but I’m no dummy. Gotta hand it to them though, it was a clever way to do it. Offering you a drink. I guess that’s how they got it in the naked man too. I suppose that’s why they told me I fucked up. Took too much, as the saying goes. Chugged the whole infestation. I cut myself shaving this morning. Just a tiny nick, you know. But where you’d expect blood, there was none. Instead I was greeted with the unseemly sight of a thin crimson worm, dangling restlessly by my nose. Now if that’s not some FUCKED UP SHIT, I don’t know what is. TCC
A break down of the bull case for Ethereum and how it relates to Bitcoin
There is a general understanding among ETH investors that the enhancements from ETH 2.0, EIP-1559 and L2 solutions will result in a sustainable monetary policy with near 0% issuance and the potential for Ether to become a deflationary asset. What is even more interesting is that the net return of ETH as a SoV becomes superior to BTC the moment that issuance is lower than the staking yield. In other words, even if BTC had already ceased issuance, it offers no mechanism to provide yield to long term holders with a negligible risk exposure as ETH does. There is an execution risk that Ethereum will not deliver on what is currently planned, but if it does then what I have explained will become a reality. You cannot separate BTC/ETH's payment rails from their respective monetary policies. As you are probably aware, issuance is just a subsidy, and without it the network will need to operate as a profitable business with a cash-flow that is entirely dependent on network fees. We are observing a situation that is causing a degradation of the utility of the Bitcoin network. What I mean by that is that the incentive for users to transact directly on the network is being diminished because of the tokenization into ETH and by the introduction of custodians (like Paypal) and traditional banking services who will soon be entering this space. If these trends continue, I suspect that the only activity that will end-up happening on-chain will be done by whales sporadically transacting to hodle and the occasional settlement from institutions. Bitcoin seems fast and frictionless, but that is because you are comparing it to something in the physical world. In digital terms Bitcoin emulates the friction of operation that is found with gold: it is difficult and expensive to move it, securing it yourself is not trivial, and it does not make for a great medium of exchange. I don't think this will be a good dynamic to generate enough transaction fees. That is of course my subjective interpretation of it, but regarding this particular situation it is nearly impossible to make objective assertions at this point. It is possible to assert that, in the digital world, the expectation of frictionless money would entail near instant transactions with negligible cost and without the relative risk/paranoia of dealing with nuclear waste and having a hacker watching your every move waiting for you to make a mistake to snatch it away. Digital money would also need to interact with other digital assets, preferably defined and operated within the same ecosystem. Ethereum is steaming ahead on all ends. Ethereum is fostering a digital economy (this is a very important part of understanding the value of Ethereum, but I will not be exploring it in this post) with DeFi at its center. It is currently generating about three times as much trx fee revenue as Bitcoin. L2 solutions are going live as we speak, and it appears that they will be much more practical and provide better UX when compared to the Lightning Network. This will help to amplify L1 block space value and push revenue even higher. That will be followed by EIP-1559, which will burn transaction fees. Mining is currently excessively profitable and the hash rate cannot keep up. This means the financial incentive can be reduced and by burning trx fees we achieve the equivalent of an issuance reduction, while stabilizing mining revenue. Eventually the transition to PoS will dramatically cut the operational cost of the network. That means that Ethereum as a business will become more profitable and less reliant on the issuance subsidy. Finally, we will see the introduction of sharding which will scale L1 by up to 1,000 times, compounding the effect of L2 solutions and making it feasible for the network to operate as a platform for new use cases. A solution to the hackenuclear waste security situation is being explored via social recovery wallets. It is still in the early stages of research and design, but it is important to realize that the Ethereum community recognizes it as a problem and is working on a solution. There is a lot more that can be said about the BTC vs ETH debate and I am working on a full write up that explores each individual element in more detail. Regardless, it is important to pay attention to this trend: the smartest people in this space are shifting their point of view and realizing Ethereum's potential. Raoul Pal is a seasoned investor, extremely bright and open minded. He started with Bitcoin, but it did not take him long to understand the value proposition of Ethereum. Lyn Alden is a brilliant investor and mental powerhouse who initially did not think investing in Ethereum could be justified, but she is also starting to shift her view and now understands that it has a justifiable risk/reward ratio to be included in a portfolio (although she is not personally invested in Ethereum). She has plenty of negative things to say about it, however it appears that she recognizes this is not a black and white situation. I have a feeling she will be revising her analysis on Ethereum again in the future with a more optimist view, but maybe that is just wishful thinking. The crypto space has a few analogies that have been used to describe technical/economic mechanisms that are somewhat tricky to understand: mining, Ethereum's gas, and the analogy between ether and oil. Crypto "mining" is not like real world mining. It's purpose is not to extract resources, but it is rather a decentralized mechanism to process transactions. Newly minted BTC tokens are not "mined", they are minted by the protocol and awarded to operators. Furthermore, it is impossible to change the total mining output of the network... adding/removing miners does not affect the mining output. If you are new to crypto, you can read a more detailed explanation of mining here. ETH's "gas" is not like fuel (it cannot even be stored). It is just a computational metric that is more akin to the distance a car must travel, but not what actually makes it move. The fuel is electricity and it must be paid for with ether. When you transact you are also paying for the "car" which is the use of all active mining hardware/validators for a fraction of a second. And ether is just money. If you put too much weight on these simplified analogies, you will not understand the economic actuality behind them. This is a source confusion in the crypto space, and it is used to support false narratives. From an economic perspective, ether is money. Once you understand this, you will know that the narrative that BTC and ETH are not competing because they are different things is analogous to saying fax machines do not compete with the internet. The beautiful thing about ether is that it is actually not "just money". It is a mixture of a scarce monetized commodity, money, bond and tech stock.
Monetized Commodity: Ether is becoming more scarce and will continue to do so with the transition to proof-of-stake and EIP-1559. Ethereum does not have a supply cap, but it does have a roadmap for a sustainable security model and if it achieves a positive cashflow then it will not only eliminate issuance, it can become deflationary. An argument can be made about potential issues with Bitcoin's sustainability in the long run.
Currency: Ether is used as a unit of account and medium of exchange to pay for every activity in Ethereum. It is also used in the same way for venture capital related to ICOs, and Ether is also used as collateral in the DEFI space and new monetary uses will continue to emerge. It is an immature form of money, just like Bitcoin is an immature form of gold. Some people prefer to say that Ether is just a utility token. However, a utility token is just a narrowly scoped form of money. Not only is Ether's scope within its digital economy growing, by next year users will be able to pay millions of merchants with Ether through Paypal. We have never seen the adoption of a new form of money grow organically. New forms of money have always been imposed by authorities. What would the organic growth of money look like? It would look like Ether.
Ethereum's digital economy: Ethereum has limitless use cases and it is already generating economic activity with real world usefulness. Ether's value will benefit from acting as the native monetary asset for Ethereum. As Ethereum's economic activity grows, the velocity and/or value of ether must also increase.
Bond: With proof-of-stake you need to lock up Ether to receive a yield in return. It is similar to how bonds work.
Tech Stock: Ethereum provides a service. That service is paid with ether. The network is controlled by holding ether that is staked. The more valuable the service provided by Ethereum becomes, the more users will be willing to pay for transactions and the more valuable the protocol and the Ether token become. Cloud based services is the entire business model of many companies. The network will be entirely operated by stakers who happen to be the recipients of transaction fees. It is not exactly the same as holding a stock, but there are a lot of parallels.
Full reserve banking model: This is a bit of a stretch, but it is a potential end-game for Ethereum. It can serve as the base infrastructure and reserve asset for a full reserve banking system. In a nutshell: a consortium of banking companies can be formed to standardize a framework to hold and stake Ether under custody in exchange for wrapped Ether. Customers deposit Ether, banks exchange it for wETH and stake the original ETH. Resting balances of wEther on customer accounts can receive a cut of the staking rewards. Banks get their profit model, customers get to spend wrapped Ether with traditional banking services and potentially receive a share of the staking yield. Customers could also have access to a yield curve based on variable reserve requirements. This would allow banks to create money (which is actually good for the economy when it is done with moderation), but for the first time ever customers would have the choice of how much risk exposure they are comfortable with. This dynamic could help to establish a form of democratic check and balances system that discourages moral hazard. Ether could become a godsend to banks in the land of negative yields. It's a pipe dream, but not entirely impossible. Don't forget that the US OCC has essentially given banks the green light to take the first steps in this direction (US banks have been approved to use the Ethereum blockchain for their operations AND they can become validators... yup this happened).
EDIT 1: Adding an analogy to explain why ether is money: Let’s say I have a car with a 14-gallon fuel tank and I want to take it on a road trip. The car is not aware of the price of gasoline, and it would not travel any farther if the price of gas would double the next day. That’s because the intrinsic utility of oil has nothing to do with its monetary value. The car needs gas because of its particular physical properties and how the ICE is designed to utilize it. If I want to drive from point A to point B and it takes a full tank to get there, it will take that full tank no matter what happens to the monetary properties of gas/oil. This is fundamentally different from how Ethereum uses ether. Ethereum (the network) is not trying to be money, but it utilizes ether exclusively for its monetary properties and not because it can be magically burned by an imaginary engine of sorts. It costs money to participate in the network as a miner, and their engagement is financially incentivized with ether. Block space is a scarce resource, therefore participants who wish to transact use ether to bid for it. These interactions are utilizing ether as a monetary medium of exchange. In the long run, as the price of ether goes up, the ether denomination of gas prices goes down. That happens because no one is using ether as gas/oil, and it is actually being used as money. In the short run you may see the opposite occurring because of the dynamic between the portion of block space demand that is inelastic and the demand for ether. EDIT 2: Revisiting key concepts to explain how they will become price catalysts.
Wide adoption of L2 solutions: these will amplify the base layer block space value while encouraging further network adoption by a significant reduction of fees. A successful integration with DeFi protocols will dismiss the "Ethereum killers" theory and consolidate market confidence.
EIP-1559: reduce excessive financial incentives to miners by burning transaction fees. This will also discourage miners from attempting to artificially raise fees via spam.
Sharding: scale L1 bandwidth, compounding the effect of L2 solutions, further consolidating Ethereum's dominance in the DeFi space, making it feasible to introduce new use cases and eventually increase trx fee revenue.
The switch from PoW to PoS: discontinuing PoW will eliminate the operating costs related to mining and will allow for a reduction of issuance. Money that was previously allocated to buying mining equipment will be redirected to the acquisition of Ether. Staking Ether will remove it from circulation for extended periods of time. Operating cost will be negligible, allowing validators to withhold most of the Ether revenue. This will be the greatest bull market catalyst in the history of cryptocurrencies and it will eclipse the effect ofBTC halvenings.
Bitcoin maximalists will be nay-saying all the way through and past a market cap flip. Do not get caught up in their narrative. If you are not sure, then it is better to rebalance your portfolio proportionally to market caps. If none of these things happen and Ethereum turns out to be a failure, then you would only have reduced your gains by 20%. Otherwise, ETH will be making you mountains of money. EDIT 3:Ethereum killers Ethereum killers remind me a lot of Tesla killers, but a lot worse. People need to understand that cryptocurrency platforms targeting financial Dapps are fighting the equivalent force of a black-hole when it comes to Ethereum’s network effect and user retention in this space. Bigger players, with bigger money, are entering this market and they will not settle for anything other than the top dog. This pattern reinforces Ethereum's position as the premium financial system, which ends up attracting even bigger players and resulting in the black-hole effect. To make matters even more complicated, financial apps are more valuable when they are surrounded by a rich and diverse variety of digital assets and other natively defined Dapps. There is not much you can do with your money in a ghost town. It is VERY difficult to build this type of environment up because the platform and dapps must also have established full trust from their user base. This is not to say there is no space for other networks to grow, but just don’t get your hopes high that they will be taking Ethereum’s stronghold as a financial system. There are other use cases that do not require the amount of decentralization and security offered by Ethereum, and the networks that can focus on these are the ones who will be able to coexist with in the long-run. Gaming, ERP interoperability and supply chain are good examples of such use cases. Remember that alternatives with cheap transactions have existed for a while and they have barely touched ETH's dominance (EOS, NEO, VET, QTUM, IOTA, LSK, STRAT, ARK and dare I say... TRON). EDIT 4: Refuting critiques about dynamic monetary policy If an argument can be made that the financial incentives to operators (miners/stakers) are excessive or insufficient then an argument can be for the implementation and execution of a dynamic monetary policy. I don't think an arbitrarily picked issuance schedule determined during the genesis of a new highly complex system is likely to be efficient through its lifecycle. Bitcoin's monetary policy provides the certainty of stability and protection from abuse, but it sacrifices the possibility of efficiency and jeopardizes longevity. It would be like if a captain of a ship would point it in the direction of its final destination, set the throttle, then fall back to his cabin for a nice bottle of chianti and hope that the ship would arrive safely. There would be no one at the helm to navigate the seas, no one to make sure it stayed on route, no one to avoid the storms or to take advantage of currents. In my opinion it is a pretty bad approach to something as critical as monetary policy. With respect to Ethereum's dynamic monetary policy: I don't see any evidence to suggest developers have been enriching their pockets by keeping issuance at the levels they are. Developers are stakeholders and the Ethereum fund holds a lot of ether - debasing ether is against their self interest. There is a great misunderstanding that the one's who are adjusting issuance are the recipients of the new tokens. Is there any documented case of this happening? EDIT 5: Addressing Bitcoin's immutable monetary policy The idea that Bitcoin's monetary policy cannot be changed is a myth. It is a false narrative that takes for granted that the issuance subsidy will no longer be necessary at some point, but there is no way to objectively assert this. There is no divine power preventing the monetary policy from being changed. If the security model for Bitcoin was jeopardized because of insufficient cash flow to miners, then Bitcoin's monetary policy would be the first thing on the chop board to go in order to remedy the situation. EDIT 6: Five years ago naysayers were screaming about how everything that is being done TODAY in the Ethereum network would never work. Now they are calling Ethereum a scam, or that is is a platform for degenerate gamblers, or that the fees are too high and therefore it is useless, or that it can't scale, or that something else better is just around the corner to take its place.... you know... basically all the things that traditional bankers have to say about Bitcoin, maxis are saying about Ethereum. EDIT 7: The greater the impact a new technology can have on society, the more difficult it is to comprehend its potential. Ethereum has the potential to have a dramatic impact on human civilization. It could take decades for it to be fully realized, but it would change the world in ways that we cannot possibly imagine today. If it happens, the moon will be just a pit-stop. EDIT 8: Thank you so much for all the awards! Ethereans understand this stuff, and I could feel the frustration in the air every time someone said that Ethereum is not money, or that ETH and BTC are completely different things, or all the other bs attacks that are in great part founded on a lack of understanding of how BTC and ETH actually work. I would love to hear what guys like Raoul Pal, Pomp, Michael Saylor and Fernando Ulrich (for my Brazilian friends) would have to say about some of the things that have been written here. If you know a way to get their attention, then please do it. EDIT 9: Clarification about Lyn Alden's opinion of Ethereum EDIT 10: I am still working on a much more ambitious write up. It is focused on economic aspects of money, monetary systems and global asset markets. I still have not incorporated any of the information written here, but I eventually will merge it together. One of the main new ideas that I am exploring is challenging the notion that money has no intrinsic value and that scarcity is the most important attribute of money. I think I make a compelling argument to demonstrate that facilitating economic activity is more important, and how Ethereum has a big edge over Bitcoin in this regard. Here is the link to the WIP doc. TLDR: Ethereum is not stopping at the moon... it is not stopping on Mars... it is going straight out of the Milky Way galaxy in search for alien life... but you should own some BTC just in case the spaceship malfunctions during launch.
It seems like the same discussions come up around Reddit a lot, so I figured I'd gather up some common topics, and their rebuttals. Many of these arguments can be expanded with more points and sources but I'm trying to keep this as compact and to the point as possible.
Myth 1: "Sexism against men is never institutional or systematic"
Many forms of sexism and discrimination against men are explicitly institutionalized or systemic in society. Examples include police violence, court biases, incarceration, child custody discrimination, military service, educational biases, health research and spending, insurance, housing discrimination, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy rights, and many others. The widespread ignorance and denialism around these issues can itself be interpreted as a form of systemic discrimination against men as well. Note that some of these are institutional because they boil down to statutory legal rights which exist in the realm of government policy and administration. And the government is obviously an institution.
Myth 2: "Most politicians and CEOs are men, and this has led to a society that privileges men and disenfranchises women"
The fact that many positions of formal power are occupied by men does not translate into measurable privileges for the average man. The assumption this is based on is the idea that men have an in-group bias and prefer other men over women. Which is an idea that has been debunked over and over again in the academic literature. The gender bias among men is almost zero, and sometimes manifests as an out-group bias sightly in favor of women, not other men. In-group bisses do exist among women though. In fact some research has found evidence for very strong gender biases among women. Including when it comes to educators, bosses, and hiring managers. Women in formal positions of power do actually seem to prefer other women over men, in much the same way that men are accused of behaving. So maybe this is just projection: people who themselves have gender biases assume that everyone else does as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103101915112 https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_9
Myth 3: "Women were uniquely oppressed in history compared to men"
Myth 4: "Domestic violence and sexual assault are primarily women's issues"
Domestic violence and sexual assault affects everyone, and at nearly identical rates between men and women. In the US, roughly 37.3% of women have been victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. Including 1.4 million women who experience sexual assault annually. For men that same figure is 30.9%. Including 1.7 million men who experience sexually assault annually (defined as "made to penetrate"). The vast majority of these men are also victimized by women, not by "other men" (which is another myth). This pattern is similar across the world, including in poor and underdeveloped nations (see here for a collection of studies), and is consistent with a wide range of research demonstrating "gender parity" between men and women for this topic. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Faculty/bibs/stemple/Stemple-SexualVictimizationPerpetratedFinal.pdf https://1in6.org It's also not true that there's a significant difference in severity between male and female victims. Around 66% of intimate partner homicides do have women as victims (which is hardly a staggering majority), but when you include intimate partner related suicide deaths (including assisted suicides), a greater number of men are killed because of domestic violence than women. These statistic also ignore the fact that lesbian relationships are more violent than heterosexual and gay male relationships. Which inflates these numbers and doesn't necessarily back up the idea that women are being uniquely victimized by men. We should obviously work to fight against abuse in any form, but our current, gendered approach to this doesn't seem to be helping very much. It is also commonly used as an excuse for misandry. Many people who discuss abuse against women do not actually care about female victims. All they care about is advancing a culture of hatred and sexism against men. https://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0141/full/html https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full See also: https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f4rvop/some_sources_on_the_severity_of_domestic_violence/ https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/koinom/some_sources_on_the_sexual_abuse_of_men_and_boys/ https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f5tes5/gender_parity_for_sexual_assault_academic_studies/ "But women are afraid to walk down dark alleyways at night!" As they should. And as do men. Most violent crime targets men. And fear is subjective. This is hardly evidence of some kind of unique oppression against women (at least one that doesn't also affect men), and it ignores the fact that men are usually afraid of finding themselves in those same situations as well. Men are stronger and more capable of defending themselves so I wouldn't blame someone for having gendered views or assumptions here. But let's try not to minimize male victimization or blame it on things like "male oppression".
Myth 6: "Men commit suicide more often than women, but women still attempt suicide more often than men"
This idea has its origins with faulty hospital reporting which lumps suicide attempts in with self-harm (which is something that's more common among women). Women are also more likely to report their suicide attempts than men. And even if this statistic were accurate, it ignores the obvious fact that a suicide survivor can attempt again, thus artificially inflating this statistic. The fact is, most suicid deaths are men, and most evidence points to there being more unique attempts by men. Any evidence that men are "better" at it than women has been interpreted as evidence for greater motivation of success, due to the very same factors that lead them to attempt suicide to begin with. Not as evidence that women are somehow attempting suicide at rates similar to men in the background. https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8 See also: https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/cvpyve/comment/ey5xeda
Myth 7: "Men make more money because of their gender, and this is evidence of male privilege"
Existing gender norms encourage men to earn money in order to meet the financial demands that are placed on them by women. This causes them to work harder and sacrifice more for their careers than women. Which they do in part because their income is tied to how successful they are with women, and whether or not they qualify as "marriage material". The wage gap is therefore an example of a gender norm that harms men just as much as it does women. 92% of workplace deaths are men. Men work on average an extra 4 to 10 hours a week (depending on your source) than women. They start working at a younger age (often skirting child labor laws). They retire later (which is also during their peak earning years). And they die sooner than women. Men have worse health outcomes than women and that's largely because of the pressures that society puts on them to be successful and earn money to spend on women. This is the other side of the wage gap that is equally as important, and that is equally as harmfully to men as it is to women. And it's really just the tip of the iceberg. In many ways the wage gap is just a reflection of the financial exploitation of men in society. Which is facilitated by things like hypergamy and unfair marriage and divorce practices. See also: https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/kzvfcg/about_the_wage_gap/ https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/dxaimc/the_wage_gap_is_created_by_women_and_reflects/
Myth 8: "Men don't go to the doctor because of toxic masculinity"
The main reason that men sometimes don't seek help is a lack of time to see a doctor. Men work longer hours than women at jobs that are less flexible, and more stressful, than jobs that women usually work at. Men overall engage in an extra hour of paid and unpaid labor per day compared to women, and an extra 45 minutes commuting to jobs that are further away. Meaning men on average have quite a bit less free time to go see a doctor than women do. This is also something that changes during retirement: retired men are just as likely to go to the doctor as retired women. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003320 A general lack of help and support, especially financial support, for men who need medical help also contributes to this. There is a myth that men are better taken care of than women which has resulted in gendered policies that help women, but exclude men. Even though it's men who often need that help more.
Myth 9: "Men don't speak up about sexism as much as women, so it's obviously not as big of an issue"
This is because people are less likely to care or listen to them. In part because many men who do speak up are silenced and accused of being misogynistic. A situation known as testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression. Men are told to keep quiet and many end up internalizing the idea that only women can be discriminated against, since this is what society tells us to believe. Instead, men often adopt different terminology when they discuss gender issues. Like referring to differences in treatment between men and women as "double standards" instead of sexism or discrimination.
Myth 10: "Most men's issues are caused by men themselves"
Myth 11: "Toxic masculinity is harming men and their mental health"
The concept of toxic masculinity has never been empirically tested, and some research questions the validity of it in the context of psychology and mental health. Even if you do think it is valid though, it is still commonly used in a way that is sexist and hateful torwards men. In recent years it has become associated with female supremacy, feminist hostility towards men, and misandry in general. And as a result, the vast majority of men find the term to be sexist and offensive. Men who identify with traditional masculine values have greater self-esteem, better mental health, better relationships with women, and are usually better educated than men who are opposed to masculinity or who accept feminist views about the patriarchy and toxic masculinity. The key to better mental health for men might therefore be an embracement of masculinity, not a shunning of it. Instead of trying to redefine masculinity, we should work to understand it better, and offer men better services based on an honest acknowledgement that men's and women's mental health might require different approaches. Men are not "defective women", and treating men's mental health in that context does not seem to be working very well. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/apa-guidelines-men-boys.html https://zenodo.org/record/3871217#.X-p1ji2l2J_ https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5
Myth 12: "Most men's activists just hate women or are opposed to feminism. They don't really care about men."
This rhetoric is normally used to silence the voices of men (and women) who support men's rights and prevent them from expressing themselves. Which makes it another example of testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression. The fact is that many people do care about men's issues, and that's why they become MRAs. Feminism does get discussed in the men's movement, but there are a couple reasons for that:
Many feminists, "radical" or otherwise, have advocated against men and have even pushed for public policy in ways that are harmful to men or discriminates against men. Feminists themselves tend to not fight against this, meaning it's often up to MRAs to address it.
Many MRAs are themselves current or ex-feminists who were ostracized for daring to take the feminist rhetoric about "also caring about men" a little too seriously.
Warren Farrell is a great example of this. He used to be on the board of directors for NOW, the world's largest feminist organization. And then he said that we need to work on child custody equality and reproductive rights for men. Topics that he assumed should fall under the umbrella of feminism since they are issues pertaining to gender equality. Instead of agreeing with him though, he ended up being excommunicated from the feminist movement. And now he's often regarded as the "father of the modern men's movement" for carrying on his advocacy outside of feminism. The problem that many MRAs have with feminism is that it usually stops half way when advocating for gender equality. So sometimes what MRAs are doing is just taking it the rest of the way towards actual gender equality. Our frustration with feminists comes from the fact that they refuse to see this as valid (or do it themselves to begin with). See also: https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/ihmb2p/by_denying_that_the_feminist_establishment_is/ https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/9v6tqj/a_list_about_feminism_misandry_for_anyone_who/
Myth 13: "Men don't receive custody of their children because they're bad fathers and don't bother requesting custody"
A majority of child abuse is actually committed by women, and especially by mothers. This is even more true when you include emotional abuse and neglect instead of just physical abuse. By some metrics, the biological father is the safest person for a child to be with. This is because when men do abuse children, it often happens while under the custody of the mother. Who is sometimes complicit in the abuse or even encourages it. Close to half of child abductors and traffickers are also women, not men. And many of their victims are boys. Boys face sexual abuse and are also used for forced labor and organ harvesting. They are less likely to survive or escape, are less likely to be reported on or identified, and they suffer from higher rates of abuse than girls who are trafficked. And yet very little attention is given to this. Missing boys, and especially missing minority boys, are often ignored by society and the media. To the point that people often assume that most of the victims are girls. Something which is known as the missing white woman syndrome (although in Canada there is a lot of attention given to missing indigenous women, even though 71% of missing indigenous people are men and boys). Note that I'm not saying these things to attack women, imply that they shouldn't receive custody, or to downplay the plight of girls. Which is a lot more than you can say about people who try to paint men as the villains in this picture. We should however be fair about what the facts are, and give male victimization, including victimization by women, the attention that it deserves. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16165212 https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/childmaltreatment-facts-at-a-glance.pdf http://www.breakingthescience.org/SimplifiedDataFromDHHS.php https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213416302599 https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/child-trafficking-myths-vs-facts Fair is fair and equal is equal. Gender equality will never be fixed if we refuse to look at both sides of the coin. We need to be honest about what the problems are, and stop ignoring them when they involve men, fathers, and boys.
I've Found 929 Discs Over 4 Years - Here's Some Data!
Over the last 4 years I’ve collected data on the discs I’ve found, broken it down into chunks and trends I thought were interesting, and shared it with the community. Previous year’s posts can be found 2019 Post and 2020 Post. This post deals with averages for the entire data set collected over the years. There are some comparisons from the previous years’ averages just for giggles here and there but if you’re looking for trends by comparing old posts you’ll need to remember that all of the data keeps getting rolled over into a larger and larger aggregate. I do plan on breaking finds down by year as well as location in future posts. Lots of neat data so may as well play with it, right? I’ve explained my data collection a bit more near the end of this post. If you notice some math and number discrepancies, it’s likely due to rounding or an incomplete data set. Or maybe it’s just me. As is tradition, I’d like you to ask yourself some questions about found discs. Take a guess, maybe ask your buddies what they think, and see how close you get to the actual data. Put a couple of bucks on it if that’s your thing. I’ll give you a little location context so you know what you’re working with.
Where were these discs found? Basket - 2 Brush - 9 Fairway - 43 Marsh/Mud - 17 Woods - 91 On Ice - 7 Roof - 2 Water - 429 SCUBA - 323
Summarized into some cleaner percentages: Water - 81% Land - 19%
I’ll talk about some thoughts on the locations a bit later. I split Water and SCUBA in the table even though there’s some overlap. If a disc was listed as found in the water, it was recovered either using a retriever or wading. SCUBA is self explanatory. While there are no doubt some SCUBA discs that were found close enough to shore for wading, these were generally deeper and more inaccessible for somebody out just playing.
Here are your questions. 1. How many discs were marked with a name and number? 2. What’s my disc return rate? 3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently? 4. What speed of disc was lost most frequently? 5. What color of disc was lost most frequently? 6. What type of plastic was lost most frequently? 7. What molds were most commonly lost?
I don’t recommend scrolling down much more prior to taking your guesses.
1. How many discs were marked with a name and number? This, along with return rate, was actually one of the pieces of information I wanted to know about when I first started thinking about the discs we were finding. It’s certainly a populacontroversial topic on discgolf.
Discs marked with number: 47% Unmarked discs: 51% Marked, but no number: 2%
So basically half of the discs I find are uninked. That number has fluctuated a bit over the years by a % or two but has really been consistent. The marked but no number discs usually have a PDGA #, but sometimes it’s just a name. In retrospect, I wish I kept track of how many times a bad number was present on the disc but oh well, that ship has sailed.
2. What is my disc return rate?
Total Return Rate (All Discs): 30% Total Return Rate (Marked Discs Only): 65% Total Return Rate (Unmarked Discs): 9%
We text the numbers on the discs we find. Ideally we get it done immediately when we find it as it makes meet-ups easier, but sometimes they’re too dirty and need a good scrubbing before we can read the number. If the text doesn’t work, they get a call. We also scan the local league page, which has a running lost disc thread, and see if we recognize anything. From there we either meet up at a course, arrange a drop-off location like under a trash can, or give it to a league person that can run the disc to its owner. We increased our efforts quite a bit to run “iffy” discs back this year. Last year we only bothered with numbered discs. This year we tried to run back pretty much everything. There’s a story behind it but figured I wouldn’t clutter up a data post too much. There’s actually a lot to unpack with these numbers. For example, 65% of marked discs are returned. Seems kind of low, right? But many of those owners tell us to keep the disc. My numbers on this data isn’t great as I only kept track of it this last year, but I have records of being told to keep a found disc 49 times - that’s 12% of marked discs. If we consider those discs “returned”, our rate goes up to 77%. Those numbers are low - I’m guessing if I had kept better records of “keep its” it would bring us closer to 80% but that’s speculation. Additionally, my buddy has a duffle bag of marked discs waiting to be returned sitting in his car. There’s 35 of them in there that have had positive contacts and are pending being returned. That’s another 9% if they ever get around to trying to get their stuff back (I know, it’s COVID, we’re trying to be understanding - most of these discs have been in there for months though). Anyway, moral of the story? 86% of marked discs are “accounted” for per their owners wishes and a good chunk of the 14% that’s left just had bad numbers. Others never get back to us and a few drop off the face of the earth after replying once or twice. A couple of times the owner had passed. It’s an unusual feeling when you find one of their discs. That still leaves us with a lot of unmarked discs. This year we got a small chunk (9% of all unmarked discs, 4% of total discs found) of them returned. Part of it was coordination with the local league. Part of it was just conversation with other players on the course. My buddy is a talker and likes meeting people. One of the first things he asks is if they’ve played a given course before and if they’ve lost anything. Surprisingly, we’ve returned quite a few discs from these conversations. What do we do with all the unreturned discs? After a few weeks I suppose we take ownership of them and do what we want. Usually we end up giving them away. We adore giving families and groups that are just starting piles of discs. One of the new things we picked up doing this year is making people whole when they’ve lost a disc. Sometimes we haven’t found the specific disc somebody lost but have an identical(ish) unmarked, unwanted, or unclaimed mold that we found that we can give them as a replacement. Sometimes we’ll sell a batch off if we’re getting ridiculous on storage. Helps pay for gear and gas and keeps the clutter down. It’s pretty rare we need to do that though - we’d rather give them to new players but that becomes a tricky proposition with the high speed stuff. A few we’ll keep and bag ourselves, but it’s pretty rare beyond maybe just trying a new mold out for a round or three.
3. What brand/manufacturer was lost most frequently?
Innova holds a commanding lead with Discraft being the only other significant contender. Merging companies like Trilogy and the MVP/Axiom/Streamline narrows things a bit, but not much. Last year I chunked the companies together based on who was manufacturing what, but with Discmania shopping around their sourcing I’m no longer certain who’s making what nowadays.
Data was taken from Infinitediscs’s flight information for each disc. I know there’s occasionally discrepancies between them and the manufacturers but I figured it would be best to pull information from one source.
Top 5 lost speeds: Speed 13 - 20% Speed 12 - 15% Speed 9 - 13 % Speed 5 - 9% Speed 10 and Speed 11 - 7%
Loss % By Type: High Speed Drivers (11-14) – 47% Fairway/Control Drivers (7-10) – 28% Mids (4-6) – 18% Putters (1-3) – 6%
As is tradition, the high speed drivers dominate the lost disc category. I’m looking forward to breaking the land and water data apart as nearly all of the water holes I find discs on are under 300’ from tee to basket but hey, people are going to throw what they’re going to throw. It’s also a bit of a nuisance that putters and mids are the least frequently lost but the most useful disc to give to new players. If y’all could start trying to emulate Lizotte with some unmarked putters on water hazards I’d appreciate it. If he can clear nearly 500’ of water, surely you can manage 250’, right? Go for it... cough
5. What color of disc was lost most frequently?
Blue - 18% Red - 14% Yellow - 13% Orange - 12% Pink - 11% White - 10% Black - 9% Green - 8% Tye Dye - 4% Purple - 3% Gray - 2% Violet - 2% Brown, Clear, Copper, Gold, and Peach each represented less than 1% of found discs.
From year to year, the color averages seem to change the most with the exception of blue being on top. One thing I noticed, however, is that I lump all blue discs together regardless of shade while most of the other colors have a “lighter” and “darker” version so that is likely bloating its numbers a bit. I’m not certain why I recorded them that way. Lord knows I got creative with plenty of other shades. For the purpose of simplicity, all discs marked “burgundy, wine, chartreuse, seafoam, turquoise” or any other oddball description got shoved into an arbitrarily “close enough” color category. Apparently some days I must feel poetic while recording these things.
I lumped all the different plastic brands into “close enough” varieties. Flexy, glow, and lightweight discs all got dumped together regardless of what plastic variety they were built into. I’m guessing a lot of folks thought base plastic would be the most common, but turns out it’s fairly rare in comparison to the premium plastics. I wonder if a lot of it gets retired into peoples’ garages and basements when they decide they like the game and upgrade. Those starter kits have to end up somewhere….
7. What molds were most commonly lost? As is tradition, I’ll be listing these according to the total number found instead of %. Unfortunately there wasn’t a clean “break” point so I’ll just arbitrarily pick...double digits I guess.
Ah, Destroyers - I knew you were the disc we were finding the most of, and every year you prove me right by preposterous ratios. Actually, I’m a bit surprised to see so many Innovas firmly entrenched in the top 10. The list has definitely shifted through the years. Heck, the first year Drones (of all discs) made the top 5. I don’t think I’ve found one since…. Anecdotally, the Kong/Zeus/McBeth Driver just barely missed the list - it’s definitely trying hard to catch up. I have a sneaking suspicion it may actually have made the double digit list but I think two “Prototypes” got marked as Hades due to what the owners indicated they thought they were, but I’m not so sure they weren’t Zeuses. Eh, who knows - we’ll see it on the list next year I’m betting. For the morbidly curious - there were 118 “Unicorn” discs, of which only one example of that given mold was found. Definitely not bitter about having to look up the flight numbers for every single stinking one of them…. A grand total of 271 different molds were found. 4 discs I was unable to identify - two oddball Innovas that had no markings and I just couldn’t figure out and 2 generic ones that probably came out of a Costco “Frolf” set or something.
And some stats for funsies…. Total discs I’ve found courses on: 23 out of 43 played - or 53% of courses played I’ve found a disc on. Disc finding rate: 606 discs found over 503 rounds played = 1.2 discs a round Note: I’ve removed the SCUBA discs from this but there were instances we went out just to wade instead of playing a course so this number is inflated a bit. We do find a lot of discs while playing - 2 or 3 isn’t all that weird. More if we have to go into the water to get one we lose ourselves. Also, this is not accounting for rounds played prior to U-Disc, but I wasn’t finding them at nearly the rate I do now. It’s accurate enough for a hipfire statistic. Most discs found in one day: 73 - SCUBA diving, two tanks of air
Average Discs Found on 1 Tank of Air - 25
u/mechanickzilla made a comment in a recent thread about lugging out a bunch of gear to a pond and searching for hours for 30 discs. It amused me because it sounded right. Turns out to be a pretty darn close estimate! A tank of air lasts roughly an hour. If I average out all SCUBA time it works out to be 25 discs per tank/hour in the water. I did refine my technique from early days and upped my efficiency quite a bit this year - turns out if I bring a salvage bag and don’t rise to toss discs to shore every time my hands were full I get a LOT more search time out of a tank and my average rises to 32 discs per tank, or about a disc every 2 minutes. There is some prep and cleanup time involved so I suppose strictly speaking the rate is lower if I want to account for the entire process instead of just time in the water.
Where discs are being found - 34% on one course, 48% on another, so 82% of discs were found on only two courses.
Most discs returned to one person - I’ve honestly lost count. I know he’s up to 12 or 15 and that’s a conservative estimate.
Most frequently found disc - A blue teebird we’ve returned 4 times. Haven’t seen the previous champion blue Rogue for quite some time. I’ll have to ask the owner what happened to it.
Find anything else interesting? A half dozen vape pens, a jar of marijuana, 8 golf clubs, hundreds of golf balls, 4 golden retrievers (the disc retriever, not the dog), 3 sunglasses, a couple of cell phones, 3 unopened beers, a couple of rakes, untold millions of towels, a bluetooth speaker, 3 sets of car keys, 1 pair of kid-sized glasses, 5 bicycles, and a rifle case.
About Location Location turned out to be a bit trickier to classify than I thought and I’ve changed and reclassified things several times now. For a while it was just woods and water, but that really didn’t do a good job of describing finding something on shore or in a basket. Here’s what I ended up with: Brush - anything not mowed without trees. Includes briars, bushes, and long grass. You’ll notice there are not a lot of these - that’s because I HATE walking through these areas and avoid them. A lot of the ones we found in this condition were there because we were looking for one of our own or we were cleaning up the course and happened to stumble across one while brushwhacking or something. Seriously, long grass is the WORST to look through. I feel for those of you that fight with it and really, really appreciate the courses that cut search paths through it. Marsh - the swampy, mucky crap that disc golf courses love to get built on because what else are you going to do with the land? Not quite enough to be able to submerge your disc, but plenty soggy enough that you’ll ruin a pair of shoes trying to walk through it. A lot of shore finds were reclassified to this. Fairway - anything mowed. I’m always surprised at how many discs we find on the fairway. I suspect some of them are blown down from being stuck in trees. Others are no doubt forgotten. A few are probably bad throws that rolled to someplace ridiculous. A lot of times we get these back to groups actively on the course, but a surprising amount of times we don’t. I think the rest are pretty self-explanatory.
Why? Just...why? Nearly 1000 entries is a lot to monkey with (believe me, I entered every damned one of them - many of them two or three times as I revised and improved my organization). The data collection started more or less by accident. My buddy and I were playing nearly daily and we were stumbling across a steady stream of discs. We speculated about what disc we were finding the most of (there were three or four reasonable contenders) but really didn’t have firm answers, just hazy recollections and some finger counting. In an attempt to answer our whimsically discussed question, I dug through my storage bin and counted. That left me with some numbers, but not the whole picture. I realized that there were quite a few discs that we’d returned, given away, or sold over the year prior. Fortunately, I had been in the habit of texting numbers to try and return discs and we both tended to take pictures if we found something on the course to show our friends. I had also started a disc golf journal I was keeping on Google Calendar and, for whatever reason, had been noting when we found a disc on the course. Between that documentation and memory (there were less than a hundred or so discs at the time, so it was easy to remember where I had found a given disc) I was able to put together a fairly decent, but somewhat incomplete, starting point for data. Sometimes data was missing, like color or plastic, but it was something to work with. I did what I could to keep the data “true” and no doubt neglected to account for some discs simply because I didn’t have documentation for them. I guarantee, for example, some discs were found on the course that were left by the group ahead of us and returned nearly immediately that did not get recorded. I also didn’t record discs lost and found from my own party. When in doubt, I left it out. It means some of my numbers are a bit different from one category to another as well. For example, I may have had documentation on the mold found, but not its color. As I collected the data and put them into an actual spreadsheet (Let me assure you, tracking data in Google Calendar is...not recommended) I realized there was certain data I wanted and began making a concentrated effort to keep track of it. There’s still mistakes and omissions, no doubt, but it should be pretty darn solid. Is the data good for anything? Hard to say. It’s a significant data pool, but the questions that can be asked of it are not always clear. The reason we find so many Innova discs, for example, is probably not because they are more prone to being lost than other brands, but rather that they are more popular and more thrown, and thus more likely to be lost and found. Color becomes more tricky - am I finding a lot of blue discs because they are more popular or are they easier to see and thus be found? Discs found with SCUBA are usually felt rather than seen, is there a difference between colors found on land and water? Finding trends may also be possible. It’s possible to isolate discs found by park per year they were found (heck, down to the date if need be) so perhaps we can find changes from year to year in a given location. It’s something I plan to dig into and post about from time to time. One area I could use some advice on is classifying discs by stability. The spreadsheet currently includes Speed, Turn, and Fade numbers along with quantity. For each mold of disc. I had planned on identifying discs on stable/neutral/understable but those definitions are not particularly clear. If anybody has thoughts on how this could be organized I’d love to hear them. Right now I’m looking at maybe displacement from 0 or something but I have a hard time calling a -2/2 disc like a Valk “Neutral”. I suppose I could break them down strictly by the listed fade/turn numbers. Shouldn’t be more than a dozen combinations. Anyway, I suppose there is no “why” other than curiosity and a desire to contribute to the community. I think it’s interesting so I’m posting it. Not going to lie, I like seeing if it’s enough to earn a “Quality Post” tag as well. As bad as a kid with a sticker chart, I swear. Feel free to ask questions - I do plan on breaking down data by year, location, and stability (once I figure out how to organize it) so there will likely be a few extra posts this year.
[first] [prev] [next] "So the kid, right, he starts the second grade. Now, his dad and mom are still worried he's going to slack off on his grades like he slacked off all summer on his chores, so his dad promises him anything he wants if he gets straight A's," Casey said, looking down one of the barrels of his partially disassembled minigun. Vuxten and the others nodded, Vuxten glancing at Addox to see if the scout drones had returned. When Addox shook his head head Vuxten knew they were still out. "So the kid, right, he really busts his ass. Buckles down doing homework, extra credit, all of it, right? So he gets straight A's and his dad's all: son, you can have whatever you want. A trip to Zaginaw Beach, a tour of Titan, even a trip to Mouse Planet," Casey said. He locked the barrel back in place and begun unscrewing the next one from the housing. "The kid looks at his dad and goes: Father, I just want a single pink golf ball," Casey said. He lifted the barrel up and looked down the inside. "The father is all "A single pink golf ball? I offer you anything your heart desires, my son. Surely you want more, despite being only a second grader. Surely there is something in this grand universe that you wish." The son replies, just a pink golf ball father." Casey tilted the barrel, checking for gouges in the barrel's rifling. "The father thinks to himself: well, bright children are often strange, and buys a single pink golf ball. When he presents it to his son the kid runs off with it, and the father doesn't see it again," Casey said. He suddenly looked up. "Drones coming back. Get ready." Vuxten nodded. There was always a chance that Precursor machines could follow the drones back. The drones settled in their cradles on Sergeant Addox's shoulders and Vuxten knew the Terran sergeant would have his armor systems and his greenie compile the data into a usable form. "Hey, Sergeant Casey, can I ask a question?" one of the Telkan with third squad asked. "Go ahead, kid," Casey said. "Aren't you worried about the fact you're just in a loading frame? Why not fab up power armor?" the Telkan asked. Casey stared for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't do power armor any more. Back a couple centuries ago I was part of Ninth Armored Guard, an Old Blood unit, a historical Vodkatrog armor division," Casey said. Before the Telkan could speak he held up his hand. "I was a damn good power armor troop. Powered Orbital Drop Assault." "That's a fast life expectancy for someone without SUDS. Ninth Guard is one of the Old Blood units that expect you to die during assaults, you don't get dropped to a non-Blood unit for dying," Glory said from where she was sitting on a pile of uncrushed ore. "How in the burning chrome Hell did you get out of that alive?" "I was better than the enemy. Too good," Casey locked the barrel in on the minigun and looked back up. "I suffered a bad case of Operator Identification Syndrome. Part of me still yearns for it." "Oh, I'm sorry," Glory said softly, turning slightly and looking away as if the big combat mech was embarrassed. "I wasn't patterned on your big dropship ass," Casey laughed. Glory laughed and it felt like something that Vuxten didn't understand had been cleared from the room. Vuxten could feel some sort of weird longing from the big Terran. "Patterned? What's that?" Wextuk asked. "It's when you develop an emotional attachment to the VI or eVI assist systems in your power armor, robot combat power armor, tank, whatever," he said. "It's pretty rough and if you get a bad enough case you end up needing hospitalization and therapy." "How did you get it?" Wextuk asked. Vuxten thought about telling the Telkan Private Second Class to shut up, but figured that they might as well talk about something while the maps were being compiled. "I was a power armor jock. Good one. Deep insertion, heavy assault, had an 80mm railgun on my right shoulder that could hit orbital targets. Rapid fire rapid reload missile rack, point defense, battlescreen systems, the whole nine yards. Toughest suit ever produced by the Confederacy or anyone else in the Universe," Casey said. "The NovaStar-VII," Glory guessed. "You were a NovaStar pilot. By the Digital Omnimessiah, I thought all of you were dead." "What happened?" Wextuk asked. "One drop went bad, hell, the whole war went bad, and I spent literally two years in my armor. Never getting out of it," Casey said. "Once I was able to get out of it, I spent five years where the only time I got out of my armor was to do field repairs on it or to briefly talk to survivors I'd rounded up." "You can stay in armor that long?" Wextuk asked. "Yes," Casey said. He reached forward and tapped Wextuk's armored chest. "Your armor is designed for you to live in, without removing it, for up to five years." Wextuk shivered. "It's not advised," Glory said softly. Casey reached down and wrapped his hand around the firing grip for his minigun and Vuxten saw the weapon's smartwire go live. "When did the drop go bad?" Addox asked, not looking up. Vuxten knew he was going over the maps and the data. "I barely got to the ground," Casey said softly. "It was a horror show aboard the CSFNV Sulaco less than an hour after we docked with Thule Station. One minute everything was green, the next I was fighting for my life. I was actually in the shower when it all went sideways." Vuxten noticed everyone glanced at each other as small arcs of purple electricity wound around the barrels of Casey's minigun. "I barely made it to Jemila and get her wrapped around me before almost everyone was dead," Casey said. "Had to fight my way to the drop pods and launch it manually. For almost two years Jemila was my only company aside from terrified civilians and the enemy. I couldn't leave her embrace, couldn't take the chance. After a while, I didn't feel safe unless I was in her embrace, unless I could hear her voice and feel her touch me, feel myself become one with her." "Chromium Saint Peter," Glory swore softly. He suddenly looked up and gave a sudden grin that made Vuxten wonder just exactly how many teeth humans had in their mouths. "After that, I went Administrative for about ten years, then Maintenance for about twenty years, then went into Ordnance before rotating to an Old Blood unit," his grin seemed to get more friendly and the electrical arcs vanished. "And that, boys and girls, is how Uncle Casey ended up in Ordnance." "Map's done," Addox said, looking up. "My little brother's about to have a fit." "It's Mantid make, Precursor Omniqueen era," Casey guessed. "Yup," Addox said. He shook his head. "It's really obvious once you hit the maintenance spaces." "I assume it gets worse?" Vuxten said. "Live Mantids?" Addox shook his head. "No. Pressure suits, hazardous environment suits, greenie toolkits, the whole nine yards. Looks like one of the larger ones, the ruling caste, is supposed to be overseeing this thing but from the scan data it looks like it was retrofitted for full automation. Got the old style horseshoe command center with the upraised central pit in the middle." "Got us a route?" Vuxten asked. "Several. Easy to forget how big the ruling caste was," Addox pointed at Casey. "Bigger than him in his loading frame." "Can you get us a route that won't have us fighting everything between here and there?" Vuxten asked. Addox nodded. "Yeah. Not for Glory, though. She's gonna have to stay here," he said. "Great, finally get a date and you all ditch me," Glory laughed. "It's because my butt's big, isn't it?" "You know it," Addox said. "I don't like leaving her behind. We should pull her braincase and take her with us," Casey suddenly said, turning from where he was staring at the dead conveyor belts. "No, I'm good, Casey," Glory said. Vuxten heard his armor chirp as Glory opened a private channel to Casey, his officer hardware alerting him to the communication's existence but not the contents. "I'll come back for you if I have to," Casey said. "I know you will," Glory said. "Got the route," Addox said. He looked at Vuxten. "Give the order, sir." Vuxten stood up. "All right, move out by squads. Let's see what this thing's brain looks like." The blue line appeared on his visor, showing the way. "Let's get going," Vuxten said. He led his men into the dark maintenance spaces of the beast. ------------------- General No'Drak looked over the data and Ge'ermo'o watched, slowly being able to make more and more sense of the Confederate labels. "Can you get a deep level scan of where the three mountain ranges join?" No'Drak asked, puffing on a cigarette. The pink canine-human-feline chimera shook her head. "Too many atomic explosions to get a good ELF reading or seismic reading. Unless you want to have the Dinochrome Brigade and Third Armor to stop firing and give us a few hours to do deep level crust geo-mapping." No'Drak clacked his mandibles in irritation. "So we have no idea what that machine, who has managed to reach speeds of nearly a hundred miles an hour under the ground, is heading toward?" he asked. "I'm afraid not, sir," the Military Intelligence Analyst said. "I can give you a WAG if you wish?" WAG? Ge'ermo'o wondered. He checked his implant and nodded. Wild Ass Guess. "By all means, Sergeant, wag your tail," No'Drak said, putting out his cigarette and pulling the pack out in the same motion. "Refit base. Probably extensive. Continental plate drift on this planet is slow but steady, which means we're looking at a machine that has probably been largely asleep for millions of years," she said. "Combine it with the fact that the Precursor mining machines all have armor that grows stronger when exposed to heat and pressure and we're looking at deep mining machines. Probably transition zone between the mantles capable so it can access the really exotic materials." "This planet produce any exotics?" No'Drak asked. She checked her display and shook her head. "Our dataslicers have cut through the Lanaktallan records. They've only been here thirty thousand years, but before that the native species had to deal with a lack of fissile material and rare metals like lithium and neodymium." "That machine and any companions might be why," No'Drak mused. "Mining it down in the transition layer before it can be brought up closer to the surface of the crust through geological means." The Terran chimera nodded. "That's what my Section Leader believes." "Which means, there might be a bunch of..." "STATUS CHANGE!" someone called out. Ge'ermo'o watched as No'Drak spun in place, looking at the tank. "Third Armor's Third Brigade, Fourteenth Regiment just issued authorization for Mjölnir rounds!" someone called out. "Time for Trucker to authorize release?" No'Drak asked. The slim male human with bright pink hair and black warsteel cybereyes checked his console. "Sixty-two seconds, his combat gestalt usage jumped to eighty-three percent of combat bandwidth during that time, up twenty-three percent from current theater combat bandwidth usage." No'Drak nodded. "Allow it. Patch us in via satellite." Ge'ermo'o looked up the Mjölnir phrase on his datalink and all six of his eyes opened up wide. "You are authorizing such rounds?" he asked No'Drak. "I do not seek to interfere but..." No'Drak nodded. "They're about to engage a Precursor machine the size of a city that's using its onboard manufacturing capabilities to pump out thousands of combat machines as we speak. The longer it has to dig in and acquire resources the more difficult it will be to stop it." General No'Drak turned and looked at the holotank as the massive machine was shown from orbit. It was surrounded by dust and smoke, its crash having shattered a fifth of the megalopilis it had landed on. Huge cracks, hundreds of meters wide, could be seen in its hull, and craters that were measured in the kilometers glowed sullenly with molten metal from where Space Force had engaged the massive Precursor ship and caused it to crash land instead of continue its orbital bombardment. "That thing can win the war all by itself," he said. "STATUS CHANGE!" the shout came again. Ge'ermo'o felt himself tense. "3-14 is firing," the same person called out. Ge'ermo'o felt his tendrils curl protectively under his jowls, felt his crests inflate protectively. The Precursor's battlescreens were thick, thick enough to resist nCv shots. Thick enough to tear apart the tiny tanks that had just emerged from the flaming hell of a burning chemical refinery. The whole holotank went white. ---------------- 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 activated the additional battlescreen projectors, feeling the electronic equivelent of anxiety as the power level dropped. It was running on backup reactors, its primary reactors dead and in the damaged sections that were little more than wreckage. The feral lemurs and their damnable kinetic rounds that bypassed the initial battlescreens had hammered it until it had almost begun to break up. Till parts of its superstructure had begun to break up. It had been forced to dive for the planet, narrowly avoiding the massive tanks the size of a Precursor ancillary vehicle, and had slammed belly down into the city. It was the first time it had ever been in a gravity well and despite the fact the OEM coding had protocols for it, 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 did not enjoy the experience. The tanks, small pathetic things of strange matter elemental alloy armor wrapped around a massive cannon, with their own battlescreens nearly as powerful as 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011's own screens, all leveled their barrels. The Precursor could detect the rapidly shifting complex battlecode between the tanks, linking them together and linking the tanks to a larger network, but it had learned that to expose itself to the feral's battlecode meant exposing itself to madness as feral attack VI's would swarm it. The Precursor tensed. It didn't know how it knew, but it knew, that the ferals were about to fire at it. ---------------- The main guns all fired, seconds apart, in one rippling long wave. The Lanaktallan tanks fired first, their shots hitting the battlescreen in rapid succession, all within a single second. The rounds, fabbed up and assembled by 15th Combat Sustainment, V Corps, III COSCOM, went off as designed. An atomic detonation to drive a warsteel explosively forged penetrator into the battlescreen. 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 watched the power suddenly drain past its ability to manage, watched the battlescreen projectors overheat and fail in one cataclysmic failure as they tried to resist not only over a hundred 125kt directed atomic explosions, but the warsteel penetrator slightly ahead of the shockwave. The Precursor's battlescreens failed, nearly 15% of A'armo'os shots streaking forward to hit the forward prow of the Precursor. Those drove craters five hundred meters deep into its armor, blowing out armor in a hundred meter radius as the EFP's did their work. Before 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 could adapt, could manage the brutal hits it was taking across its prow, which was already damaged from the crash... ...the real rounds streaked over the prow, sailing across the hull. For an instant 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 thought the rounds had missed. Some of them fired a full two seconds behind the leads. The rounds were spaced precisely, the math triple and quadruple checked by the green mantid engineers in addition to the fire control computers. 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 had enough time to detect that the shells contained components usually found in crude omnidirectional nuclear weapons. It computed that, based on weight and the standard 0.004 kt/kg explosive weight ratio where all species that developed superluminal flight gave up atomic and nuclear weapons, it could survive even the massive amount of explosions it would suffer. The fact they were omnidirectional meant that the majority of the explosive force would be wasted even if the rounds performed an airburst to hammer compressed atmospheric gasses against the Precursor's hull. The ghosts of billions of Mantids, uncounted Mar-gite, and races gone from the universes all howled with laughter. Ge'ermo'o could have even told it that what it was about to receive, it would not be grateful for. The shells, each weighing 'only' two-hundred and some change kilograms, oriented point down, the warbois shrieked with glee, and then detonated the round. Those races, who had met the humans toe to toe, or even Ge'ermo'o, could have told 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011 that ascribing the achievements of other races to the maddened lemurs of TerraSol was a mistake. The rounds were directed enough, were too powerful, to be counted under atomic protocols by the Confederate military, which had an upper limit of 2.25 megatons for directed atomic weapons. The Confederacy counted them these rounds as 'nuclear'. The backblast appeared, from orbit, like a blast sustained over a full second that came out to just over 50 megatons. But that was the blast that drove the hammer home, like explosives used to drive a drill into the granite of a quarry. Those 50 megaton blasts drove the real payload into the Precursor's body like nails of hellfire from a nailgun. The nails five hundred meter wide tubes of ravening energy that were the equivalent of 250kt blasts. The tubes ripped past the armor, the energy release of the 'backblast' and the 'tube' lasting for nearly a full second. Each 'payload' detonated deep inside the Precursor. Mathematically precision to place each 'payload' within the edge of the adjacent payloads in order to compress the in between matter to the point that even the dullest elements would undergo fusion. Even battlesteel. Each of the payloads detonated, the Tsar warheads, with a net explosive weight to system weight ratio that would make any race who had not witnessed it stare in disbelief. One hundred and thirty megatons detonating in an enclosed area. The still 'ongoing' blast tube driven by the 'backblast' prevented the blast inside the Precursor from exiting through the channel ripped through the armor by the 'nail'. Instead, as explosions followed the path of least resistance, it was squeezed and pushed into the body of the Precursor. From orbit, through the few sats still in operation, the entire top of the Precursor vanished in bright white light. 01001111 01010111 00100000 01001101 01011001 00100000 01000010 01000001 01001100 01001100 01010011felt nothing as its surface armor exploded outward and boiling matter ripped apart by the most basic of universal reactions consumed everything inside the armor. The ground rippled like water for nearly two hundred miles. The detonation was strong enough that it bounced off the molten core of the planet and caused an echo earthquake a third of the planet's circumference away. Where the Precursor had been battlesteel burned. ---------------- "Tango down." [first] [prev] [next]
With the arrival of update 31, the fifth megabrobot, Uranus, was born. This is after Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Neptune. It provides 25/33% boost to main and special power, depending on the rank of Uranus. It also adds 10% special power to all planes at XXX. It comes as a speedbot. Now there are two mega speedbots in the game. Let’s take a look at their reload speed. Cooldown
Brobot
Level
Cooldown (seconds)
Uranus
S1
12.4
Uranus
S100
7.3
Uranus
SS100
7.1
Uranus
SS140
7.0
Mercury
XX280
14.9
Uranus minimum cooldown is 7 seconds, achieved at SS140. Upon closer examination, Uranus S100 has a cooldown interval of 7.3 seconds, very close to its minimum. In practice, upgrading Uranus to S100 will be sufficient. It presents a more acceptable cost if staying at this level. There is a downside of keeping Uranus at S100. Its main damage value is low at 602. At XXX, it goes up to 2347. It varies by configurations, but using what I normally fly with, I lose about 20% of main gun power if Uranus stays at S100. Uranus is more than twice as fast (7 vs. 15 seconds) in reloading when compared to Mercury. It makes Uranus much more desirable in general game play. OD (Ability)
Brobot
Level
OD Ratio
Uranus
SS140
3.2
Uranus
S1
2.8
Mercury
XX280
1.0
Uranus OD is about 3x stronger than Mercury. We have seen many players using Mercury + Mars in general play. It is expected they will switch to Uranus + Mars. I know I have, even thought it is only at SS140 right now. Uranus is not a power bot. As such, its OD power does not increase when upgrading. There is no difference in power between S1 and S100. However, there are passive perks adding main and special power at certain ranks, making upgrade still worthwhile. All megabrobots render planes invincible during OD activation. It appears this is a design principle chosen by the developers. Certainly I would assume future megabrobots, if any, will continue to follow this trend. At first glance, the effect of OD appears to be similar to Hazard, where projectiles are flying everywhere as a screen clearer. Unlike Hazard, your plane is invincible during OD activation, and you can ram it into enemies. This is particularly helpful in boss fight. Just park your plane over the boss and it delivers significant damage. You can’t do this with Hazard. Positioning If you are serious about contest, build up your Mercury. If you are a casual contest player, build up your Uranus. It is substantially better, in OD power and reload speed, than Mercury. If you don’t have either, work on crafting Uranus first. It reloads faster than other speedbots, and it delivers 3X OD power of Hazard and Risk, and a whopping 10X of Legatus. Contest It remains to be seen how effective it is for close kills. I will get feedback from contest players. Top players will continue to use Sentinel + Mercury + Neptune. It delivers highest scores. Others can try Kenshi + Uranus + Neptune for more OD power, especially in later stages when bosses have huge amount of hp. There is 11% loss in scores, if maximum contest configurations are used, but it may enable you to kill bosses with Neptune for the ace kill reward. Business Model I believe developers have made most of the money they can from Mercury. Players have spent thousands of crystals to craft and upgrade Mercury. Now it is time to move on to the next shiny toy. To maintain their revenue stream, they switch to a new megabrobot. This is a recurring theme, just business as usual. Summary Uranus is the strongest speedbot. If you are using a regular speedbot, consider crafting it. You only need to bring it up to S100 and the cost is more containable. As mentioned above, you lose 20% main power when switching from XX280 Mercury to S100 Uranus. However, if you use Hazard, Legatus, or Risk today at XX280, switching to S100 Uranus will lose only 10% main damage. This is a good trade-off as you get substantially more OD power (3X and more) and considerably shorter cooldown. Upgrading Uranus is an expensive exercise. Depending on the current status of your base brobots, it could cost more than 10K crystals to bring it up to XXX. For some players, gold and brobot xp are also challenges along the way. Why not start at S100 and give it a test drive?
(Probably) FINAL UPDATE 1/3I have hit my wall, and so have others. This event IS. NOT. BEATABLE. Details in Updates. I will still answer questions throughout the event if anyone still needs help! Table of Contents (To easily find what you want)
Updates
Introduction
Important Points and major differences
What Hazard level to go for? (With in-depth details)
If you have set your sights on getting the LVN, look no more! Cause... it won't happen. Literally. Here is a vid of a guy downing 400,000 SC on BP packs to star up the LVN for Burning Pursuit VII. Notice there aren't individual BP even for sale. Honestly, it is painful to watch.
I have updated the Spreadsheet all the way through Burning Pursuit VI. I have yet to see anyone get any further. Use the spreadsheet to get the best ratio of SC you can, and upgrade the cars you like, because the LVN is out of range. Sorry guys :/
Updated the last parts in Burning Pursuit.
I will still answer any questions I can! Feel free to comment if you have any questions about anything! :)
(12/29)
Updated some of the spreadsheet, thanks to u/brorius.
Gotta be honest, I have worked so much on the pinned missions on Burning Pursuit, frequently getting zero. I don't have much left I can get, so I personally will be at a wall soon.
(12/26)
Added SC given in each of the pinned missions, to help you decide if you want to keep going (thanks to u/Thr0w_away_20!)
About increased cost to Epics: I can't figure out a pattern to the cost of epics. Epicsdocost more each time, but as for the rate, I am a bit lost... For example the first Apex epic costs 69,444 SC, andu/Didelididelidooconfirmed that the next one is about 79,000 SC, a 13% increase. . Then u/Eddles999 mentioned that the 4th is 90,276 SC and the 5th is 97,220, a 7.7% increase. So, as a general rule, think roughly 10% give or take. Think of that as you want to think what you want to upgrade. (Update 12/27)u/HuzzahA9 confirmed that the cost each time for the Apex increased 6944 SC each time. Thanks to you guys!
I have been trying to reply to all comments asking for help, and there have been quite a few, so if you didn't get an answer, comment again cause I might have missed it!
(12/24)
CONFIRMED! A ridiculous 216,000 SC is needed to upgrade the Bugatti LVN in order to finish Twilight Getaway. This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. This also needs three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, equaling 216,000. A TOTAL OF 26400 SC, just to move on to the next stage. That is a HUGE jump, so keep this in mind. In all honesty, if I wasn't making this guide, I would stop here, and buy the epics for the APEX, and get that sucker golden.
IMPORTANT STRATEGY I HIGHLY recommend using the spreadsheet to do the races with better ratios, even intentionally losing the races with bad ratios. Especially if you don't have previous cars fully starred. SC requirements are a b****.
Big point about LVN requirements, decision making. The end of Twilight Getaway requires 3 import parts in addition to meet the required rank. In this screenshot you can see the requirements. See updates for more details.
Removed strong suggestion to have fully starred cars
Added Twilight Getaway (ongoing)complete
Added Required Rank for each part of each stage, starting from Twilight Getaway (sorry, I don't remember before that point)
Added a shortcut to the spreadsheet in Table of Contents
Added more races/ratios to the spreadsheet. Will do every stage.
GOT TO STRESS: The upgrades are EXPENSIVE! Keep doing the daily credit event in daily events for credits! This will be my biggest barrier moving forward in completing the guide.
Helpful hint for "Hunted" races: In parts where you have to go through barriers, using touchdrive made is significantly easier, though you have to swipe quickly sometimes.
2. Introduction
Once again, I am making this guide from my own experience. I will do my best to post as much as I can, but I can't promise everything. I will update as much as possible. I will put a strike through anything that I originally say but turns out to be different. I will post an update and when in bold. That said, I will do my best. If you are looking for the Rimac DS event on Switch, I made a guide for it last year, and it should be the same. Here is the linkIMPORTANT POINT: According to other players on Switch, the event isNOTthe same as my previous guide. It appears to be more P2W. So, use it more as a guideline rather than completely accurate. Sorry :/
3. First off, key differences and other key points (Important)(Updated 12/22)!
Unlike DS2, there is only one option at a time until Lightspeed Chase II. From there, you should always go for the higher level.
The Legend Pass is NOT needed! (at least it doesn't seem like it will be needed)
(Update 12/22)FOUR STAR CARS ARE REQUIREDunlike last year. Keep this in mind. Not true!
(Update 12/22) In order to get the best ratio of Syndicate Coins (SC) to Syndicate Points (SP), you should ALWAYS do the level three runs. I am not even going to mention level one and two, because the reward is not worth it. We have found that in the long run, it is better not to fully upgrade the car, just 2* below the max level. For this reason, I will be mentioning at some points.
It looks like there are cars that have been used before (Arrinera Hussarya 33, Apex Ap-0, and Porche 911GT3 RS), so there may not be a need to strategize as much. Update: still strategy is needed, but it will be easier if you already have these unlocked/starred.
THE PRICE OF INDIVIDUAL BP GOES UP AFTER EACH PURCHASE! For example, the first buyable BP for the BMW I8 Roadster is 1000 SC, the next being 1100, then 1200, 1300, 1400, etc.
The reward BP are only once, so you don't have to worry about planning rewarded BP.
The recharge time for Hazard Level is 15min for 1 slot
DON'T FORGET ABOUT DAILY CREDIT (YELLOW COIN) EVENTS (The ones that are in daily events)! This special event will need a lot of cars to be upgraded, which takes a LOT of credits. Make sure you do these every day to keep up with the upgrades.
There doesn't seem to be a limit in number of ads you can watch to refill the Hazard Level bar. I did over 50 the first night to write this walkthrough. Update: This is confirmed on Android for me, but Windows does seem to have a limit. (Thanks to u/RON8579!)
4. Should I always aim for Hazard Level 3? Or is level 2/1 okay?
Easy tl;dr: For cars you don't already have, keeping it two stars BELOW MAX is the most effecient!ALWAYS do the level 3 races if you already have it pretty high. (At least for cars so far). THIS IS ASSUMING THESE CARS WON'T NEED TO BE FULLY STARRED LATER ON. Slightly more detailed tl;dr: Depends on your end goal/what you have. If you already have a lot of BP for many cars, do the level 3 races only. And if you get lucky on the rolls. If you don't think you can fully staupgrade your car, you can do the lower ones, but will get significantly less SC. If you already have the car fully starred, or close to fully starred, definitely do the level 3 ones. Otherwise, star it to two stars below max. Now the math. Basically, the ratio for level 3 is roughly 2:1. For level 2, about 5-6:1. For level 1, about 6-7:1. So if you double the number of races at level 2 rather than level 3, reaching the same amount of SP, you will still have less SC. Here is a spreadsheet of all the details One extra thing, u/LordMadPunt made a decent point: "You can eke out a few extra SPs with this rule (also from the previous DS): Always use the highest hazard level that does not complete the mission. If completing the mission is unavoidable, use the highest hazard level for that." This is a good point to get just a little extra from the missions. However, if the SP will be the same (as seen in the last line of my spreadsheet), level 3 is still best.
But what if you don't want to/can't upgrade your car all the way?
I did the math on that for in both Lightspeed Chase and Among Skyscrapers. Whatever you do, you will need BMW I8 Roadster at at least 2*, fully upgraded. To get to 4*, you will need 75 BP. The drop rate for the packs is 20%. Using just this, lets say it would take about 32 rolls, or 160,000 SC, then buy all 10 of the individual BP (much cheaper), for 14,500 SC. Total, 174,500. But that is a pretty crappy situation, because it doesn't take into account the guaranteed drops. I found that I got on average about 2.7 per roll. 75 BP - 10 individual BP = 65 BP / 2.7 = about 24 rolls. 24x5000 = 120,000 + 14,500 for the individual BP, 134,500 SC. Still a lot. But again, it depends on your luck. What do you get by fully starring? For 3*, 10000 SC in pinned missions, and for 4* 20000 SC. Then take into mind the losses in not doing the hazard level 3 and then 2. I didn't calculate this when I originally did it, but from my own guesses from my other calculations. Let's say even liberally, (can someone confirm?) another 20000 SC lost. In total, this is 50,000 SC you can get from having a fully starred. This is no where close to the amount spent. Even from my more realistic, better chance roll, that is still 134,500 - 50,000 = 84,500 extra you will have to pay. In short, you will get to keep more SC by only starring up BMW I8 Roadster to 2\. Even if my math is off a bit, still a much better deal! I 4\ it all the way, and I personally really like it, but it seems like it is not needed. What about the Arrinera Hussarya 33? Whatever you do, you will need Arrinera Hussarya 33 at at least 3*, fully upgraded. To get to 5*, you will need 63 BP. Using the above rate, you will need to roll 20 times for 53 BP, (150,000 SC) plus all 10 individual BP (22,000ish?), which is 172,000. What do you miss? 50,000 in pinned missions, and to my calculations, about another 50,000 in Hazard 3 missions. 172,000 - 100,000 = 72,000extra needed to fully star. Key point! This is assuming you have no BP of the Arrinera Hussarya 33 at the beginning of the event. Fewer BP are needed obviously, so it costs less to fully star. I had the Arrinera Hussarya 33 already fully starred, so it makes sense to fully star and do the level 3 races if you have it already or are close. Conclusion? If you don't start with the car fully starred or close to it, don't spend the SC to do it unless you get lucky with a higher drop rate or luck with jackpots. Unless of course you like that car and want to fully star it :P Even if my estimations for SC earned from level 3 races is way off, it still isn't worth itif you start from zero on that car*.*
5. Should I buy SC with tokens in the shop?
Easy answer, yes, at least the first 2 or 3. I personally bought the first two (totaling 50,000SC) at the beginning, as that was what I needed last year. Once I needed to star up the I8 Roadster, I didn't quite have enough SC to star it up without buying any. You might get lucky, but it is Gameloft. Then, when I got to Lightspeed Chase III, I needed more, so the first purchase was definitely needed. When I started Lightspeed IV, I had no choice but to buy the third pack (50,000)
6. About "PINNED MISSIONS" for extra SC
These are very easy to pass. They are all Money Run, and the only to know is if you get fewer coins, you will need to run them more. But because they are easy to beat, this is the only place I will mention them.
The police are actually good to have here! Each knockdown is +125. And if you get another within a couple seconds, it is +325.
The goal is NOT to win. Drift, slow down, get chances to knock down the other races.
Jumping through the air and Shockwaving stops your SC from decreasing.
Update: It is actually easier to get more SC when your car matches the recommended (required) rank. When your car is much faster than the others, they fall behind easily, and therefor can't knock them down to get more SC. This doesn't affect the total you will get, but saves grinding/sanity time.
Update 12/26 added Pinned Missions amounts to each race.
7. Tricks for getting more Syndicate coins
There are a few little tricks to get the most Syndicate coins as possible. u/dragom7 made a great page with details you can find here. I have tested it myself, and it works! Especially the intentional losing of a match (thanks also u/neverchurningbutter!). Go for the lowest ratio in this spreadsheet, and thanks to u/dragom7's suggestion, I highlighted the races with the best and worse ratios (starting from Twilight Getaway). Just be careful, the way I wrote ratios and the way he did are different! Also, as mentioned in other areas, if Syndicate Coins is a priority, be sure to NOT upgrade your cars all the way. (Update 12/24) Also also, some level 2 hazard races have a ratio worse than some level 1s, so check out this spreadsheet to find out what has the best ratios are. (Update 12/24) If you are REALLY pushing to get the most SC (and you have the time to watch extra ads), intentionally lose frequently if the ratio isn't good. In theory, you could get a lot more if you only played the ones with good ratios. It would just take a long time....
8. Desert Disaster
This one is very straight forward. It does not take any Hazard Level during the whole thing, most (all?) are just "Finish the race" goals. You get to used a maxed Rimac for free, and all the races are on the new Nevada track. It is pretty easy to get first if you are used to the track from A8 back in the day. New players may have a little trouble because THIS CAR IS FAAAASST. So heads up. But all in all, all four of these are pretty easy (including a special little surprise for the story at the end...) *30 BP for the I8 Roadster is given as a reward at the end, unlocking it.* You can get 10,000 SC from pinned missions.
9. Lightspeed Chase
The main races are done in San Francisco. For the BMW I8 Roadster: 2* 23BP 3* 33BP 4* 42BP (Yes, 4* is needed this time aroundin order to get the Hazard Level 3 races as well as the pinned missions) Total Credit cost was more than 1,500,000. A lot. Do the Daily credit events. I will try to record exactly how much for other cars. One pack is 500 SC, (10-pack 5000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1000 SC, then 1100 SC, 1200 BP, etc., up to 10 BP. Epic Card for BMW I8 Roadster: 27,778 SC (one also available from Milestones from MP 12/18-12/24) (Update, event over). Each additional epic costs 10% more (2778(?) more) each time you buy one. In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Lightspeed Chase II, two levels appear. At Lightspeed Chase III, three levels appear. DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONESif you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio. See #2 above for why this is no longer true. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the BMW I8 Roadster, do so before unlocking Among Skyscrapers, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. This means not finishing Lightspeed Chase V. In Lightspeed Chase V, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 1 (Yes, just stage one). HOWEVER this requires 4,600 SC for each of all four parts, a total of 17,400 SC. Keep this in mind while you play Lightspeed Chase. The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:49 to beat. Note that this is the first race with a time goal. You won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. The time itself, without any big mistakes, is not a big challange. *30 BP for the Arrinera Hussarya 33 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 35 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Lightspeed V is completed. At the end of Lightspeed Chase, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens) to get going on Among Skyscrapers. Pinned Missions SC given: Lightspeed Chase I: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase II: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase III: 10,000.Lightspeed Chase IV: 20,000
10. Among Skyscrapers
The main races are done in New York. For the Arrinera Hussarya 33 (the wiki page): 1* 35BP (Yes, you will need 5 more BP than what is given as a reward) 2* 15BP 3* 21BP 4* 28BP 5* 35BP (Fully upgraded, but epic parts not needed) One pack is 750 SC, (10-pack 7500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 1500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it! Epic Card for Arrinera Hussaryar 33: 41,667 SC. Each additional epic costs 10% more (4167 more) each time you buy one. In general, the courses aren't too bad. Unlike the previous event, you can't restart the game to change the options. Once you get to Among Skyscrapers II, two levels appear. At Among Skyscrapers III, three levels appear. DO NOT DO THE LOWER LEVEL ONES if you have it at a high level already. ONLY THE LEVEL 3 ONESif you are trying to go all the way, as these give the best SC ratio. See 2.Should I always aim for hazard level 3? Or are level 1/2 okay? above for details as to why. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Arrinera Hussaryar 33, do so before finishing Among Skyscrapers VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. In Among Skyscrapers VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 2 . This requires 7,500 SC each for all four parts, a total of 30,000 SC. The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:47 to beat. You won't be able to beat the other racer (I freakin 360 spinned him and he crashed at82% of the course, and he still won!), as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. *30 BP for the Apex AP-0 is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 45 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Among Skyscrapers VI is completed. On a bit of a strange note, I had the absolute worse luck on the pinned missions in Among Skyscrapers III. The starting amount was always low and it took me FOREVER to get it maxed. At the end of Among Skyscrapers, I had about 55,000 SC (including the 150,000 SC bought with tokens), to get going on Among Skyscrapers. But, I already had the Hussarya 33 fully starred. This seems pointless to point out since everyone will be at a different points/SC amounts depending on what cars they already have unlocked as well as what path they choose. Pinned Missions SC given: Among Skyscrapers I: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers II: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers III: 10,000.Among Skyscrapers IV: 20,000.Among Skyscrapers V: 30,000.
11. Twilight Getaway
The main races are done in Rome. For the Apex AP-0 (the wiki page): 1* 45BP 2* 17BP 3* 23BP 4* 32BP 5* 45BP Twilight Getaway I: Hazard 3 2626 (1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway II: Hazard 3 2926 (2*) Hazard 2 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway III: Hazard 3 3189 (3*) Hazard 2 2926 (2*) Hazard 1 2626(1*) Pinned Missions: 15,000 SC Twilight Getaway IV: Hazard 3 3547 (4*) Hazard 2 3189 (3*) Hazard 1 2926(2*) Pinned Missions: 30,000 SC Twilight Getaway V: Hazard 3 3810 (5*) Hazard 2 3547 (4*) Hazard 1 3189(3*) Pinned Missions: 45,000 SC Twilight Getaway VI: Hazard 3 3980 (1*) LVN (INCLUDING IMPORT PARTS!) One pack is 1250 SC, (10-pack 12500 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 2500 SC. I don't know how much is goes up nor how many are available, as I already had this fully starred. If it is the same as the BMW, it will go up 10% after each one bought. *Someone hit me up and I will add it! Epic Card for Apex Ap-0 : 69,444 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (6944 more) each time you buy one. The difficulty has stepped up in this set, at least for me it felt that way. Be sure to play only Hazard level 3 missions through Twilight Getaway III if you can, as 3* Apex is REQUIRED to move on. As stated above, if your goal is to fully upgrade the Apex AP-0, do so before finishing Twilight Getaway VI, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available. In Twilight Getaway VI, you will use the Bugatti La Voiture Noire, which will require upgrades to stage 3 . This requires 12,000 SC each for all four parts, a total of 48,000 SC. Thisneeds three import parts EACH, which are 18,000 SC each, for a total of 216,000!! (CONFIRMED 12/24) The last stage also is a 1v1 race with a time of 1:46 to beat. You (probably) won't be able to beat the other racer, as the Green Lizard is supposed to have a superior ride at this point. *30 BP for the Porsche 911 GT RS is given as a reward at the end.* It takes 55 BP (according to the wiki page) to unlock. You can get the remainder from the shop when Twilight Getaway VI is completed.
12. Burning Pursuit
The main races are done in Cairo. *NOTE: This is the first section of the event that needs a 4* car to advance. Also, thanks a bunch to broius for info of parts beyond what I could get! Proof For the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (the wiki page): 1* 55BP 2* 18BP 3* 24BP 4* 32BP 5* 47BP 6* 47BP Burning Pursuit I: Hazard 3 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit II: Hazard 3 2458 (2*) Hazard 2 2109(1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit III: Hazard 3 2806 (3*) Hazard 2 2458 (2*) Hazard 1 2109 (1*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit IV: Hazard 3 3285 (4*) Hazard 2 2806 (3*) Hazard 1 2458 (2*) Pinned Missions: 20,000 SC Burning Pursuit V: Hazard 3 3677 (5*) Hazard 2 3285 (4*) Hazard 1 2806 (3*) Pinned Missions: 60,000 SC Burning Pursuit VI: Hazard 3 3893 (6*) Hazard 2 3677 (5*) Hazard 1 3285 (4*) Pinned Missions: 100,000 SC Burning Pursuit VII: Hazard 3 UNKNOWN.4007 (2*) YUP YOU READ THAT RIGHT! YOU GOTTA STAR UP THIS THING!45,000 SCfor 10-pack, so probably around 900,000+ SC if you are lucky! Not to mention the upgrades themselves. I have yet to see a single person actually do it. Here is a vidof a dude with 400,000 SC spending on the packs. Spoiler, he didn't get it. One pack is 2000 SC, (10-pack 20000 SC). Individual BP are available starting at 4000 SC. Epic Card for Porsche 911 GT3 RS : 111,111 SC Each additional epic costs 10% more (11,111 more) each time you buy one. As stated above,if your goal is to fully upgrade the Porsche 911 GT3 RS, do so before finishing Burning Pursuit VII, as the purchasable BP and the Epic Parts will no longer be available(Update 1/3)If you are reading this, you won't be able to progress further, so take your time getting the epics if that is your goal. (to be continued [edited] as I clear more/more becomes available if someone can actually get farther) I really hope I can get all the way through the DS even :/Won't happen, sadly...
Really sobering (heartbreaking) interaction I had with an ICU nurse today
Hi Everyone! So to start out; I’m only a layman. I can’t hack it in medicine. But I thought I’d share this. The point of the post will be summarized at the bottom. So, my Dad has a lot of pulmonary problems. He’s 70. So COVID is something my family has been doing our best to avoid as if it were Chernobyl. Well, so far we’ve done it. However he wound up with pneumonia. Today he was moved from the PCU to the ICU. I’ve been trying to avoid going up there simply because I didn’t want to risk exposing anyone to anything. It’s not a necessary risk. But I didn’t have a choice today. They asked if I’d stop by. Rather than go on about my Dad, what I found telling was just how taken back his nurse was by the precautions we were taking along with my having asked her what she needs from me to make sure that we make it as seemless as possible to help out Dad. I said to her “Look, I really appreciate you letting me come here and see him. If this were any other time, I’d refuse to leave his side. But with everything going on, I simply can’t risk taking chances with Dad or with you. So unless things go south, I’ll try and keep us checking in to once a day unless you tell me otherwise.” Me, not one to pick up on subtle details easily kept going with “Thank you for taking such good care of him. I can’t imagine what you’re dealing with up here but I’m glad all of us have you”. Then I noticed it. She was standing next to the computer with tears in her eyes. She somberly choked out a “Thank you! We don’t get many people these days who are so willing to work with us and honestly, I’ve not heard a thank for in nearly a year.” My heart absolutely shattered for that woman. I asked about her patient ratio’s (2:1), if the hospital was looking after them with PPE (she swears yes, but I’m not totally convinced) and said I really hope they were giving them things like counseling and hazard pay (of course too professional to vent to me one way or the other). Guess what she did next? She grabbed a tissue, dried her eyes, said “thank you so much!” And went right back to work on Dad. I could hear the alarms going off in other rooms, saw other nurses/staff/doctors sprinting up and down the hallway; so I know she’s got more on her plate than she let me know of. And yet, she kept going. And for the first time in 11 days, I had a good feeling about Dad making it through this. I won’t say your name. But thank you V! I wish you weren’t going through all of this. I wish people would take your advice and stay home and wear the masks. And I wish this burden weren’t falling onto your shoulders. You’re an amazing nurse and I’m genuinely grateful that it’s you watching over my father right now. I hope what you told me about getting your first COVID shot in a day or 2 happens as well. The point of the post: this woman (likely not older than 25) is, like everyone of you, taking on a burden that most of us can’t imagine. You all have to listen to people down play it, ignore you, attack you and then turn around and smile and save our lives when we undoubtedly come running to you to save us. This isn’t acceptable. We owe you more. We owe you and everyone in medicine more. And the most important part: Thank you all! I’ve never in my life been this scared. I genuinely can not imagine my life without being able to stop by and see or talk to my father. And in 20 minutes, V gave me peace. Just like each and everyone of you have done for the last year. You all are amazing. We’d genuinely be lost without you. Please stay safe! And for whatever it’s worth coming from one stranger online; THANK YOU ALL!
Just did 18-6 platinum run with Jeskai tempo. Losses include two games to double Tibalt's trickery, by the way. Good stuff. Izzet tempo used to run out of gas just before the finish line and with new saga it does not. Decklist Creatures: 4x Riddleform - dodges removal, triggers itself and sprite dragon 4x Sprite Dragon - can run away with the game if not answered 4x Bonecrusher Giant 4x Brazen borrower - it's OK here, good tempo play and adventure side plays well with saga. It rarely attacks as a creature, though. Spells: 4x Spikefield Hazard - makes LSB sad 4x Roil Eruption - I've found that it's better to have sorcery that goes face than instant removal. 4x Shock 3x The Royal Scions - good tempo play, mostly used for +2/0 ability, can help discard dead cards. Bad on the draw against aggro. 2x Shatterskull Smashing Engine: 3x Whirlwind of Thought - questionable against aggro but can win you game against control. Probably should be 2 of. 4x Showdown of the Skalds - amazing in this deck. You have empty board and hand, play saga. Next turn play sprite dragon, couple of spells and attach with 5/5 hasty flier. Lands: 4x Raugrin Triome 4x Riverglide Pathway 4x Needleverge Pathway 4x Hengegate Pathway 2x Mountain 2x Island 26 total including dual-faced cards. You have to hit first 4 land drops with this deck. Didn't make it: Opt and Crush Through - you have to be proactive with this deck. One mana cantrip is a bad tempo. Stormwing Entity - It's hard to cast and dies to removal too easily. Phoenix of Ash - it's OK against Rogues but has no interaction with Whirlwind or Riddleform More white spells - you can't afford to have unflexible white mana in early game Counter magic - this deck wants to play spells on your turn to trigger Dragon and Riddleform. Probably in sideboard, but in BO1 it's a bad tempo. So. The deck is fun. It is fast, interactive, takes skill to pilot, and it can win by burning control player's face. What's not to like. I don't play BO3, because one game against "answer, answer, answer, swiper, answer, answer - BOMB" is fun enough. But probably this deck has potential there as well. UPD. Platinum, not diamond - sorry. Right after rank reset. UPD 2. Went through platinum with about 37-15 win-loose ratio. Deck looks consistently good, definitely the most fun I've had in magic in a while. Notable matchups: Grull: 3 - 1 Rogues: 1 - 3 lost one to a mana screw and one to triple freaking Crab. Hard but doable. Yorion piles: 7 - freaking - 0 I am so happy. People put all sorts of crap into their Yorion piles now, so it will not be as goon in the future, but still. Mono red: 6 - 4 - addition of Soul Sear helps a lot. White: 2 - 0 Tibalt's coin flip: 5 - 2 Winotas: 3 - 0 Rakdos: 2 - 1 Lost to clear misplay, Whirlwind of Thought is really hard for them to deal with. Control: 2 - 2 Lost two to Izzet dragon control, close matches, interesting to play against. Strategy against aggro: Kill their things, outvalue in the mid to late game. Sometimes it is possible to kill them faster, but beware of Cleave. Against control: apply early pressure, cast Whirlwind of Thought, finish with burn spells. Final list changes: minus two Shocks, one Borrower, one Scions. Plus three Soul Sear. Thanks for bearing through my English :) Cucumber out.
BCRX 22% Short squeeze, it's fucking real, loaded, and the margin calls are beginning today.
Position: BCRX 12/18 5C's 12/18 10C's Shorts and bears bet big on this company (Biocryst pharmaceuticals) hoping it would fail in 1-2 ways; not getting FDA approval, or having to dilute their shares in order to get more cash to keep operating. Shorts really fucked up though; because they didn't get just 1 wrong, they got both bets wrong and now 22% of the float on loan are trapped in short positions underwater. (the dumb bears/algo's have been trying to short in the mornings to trigger a selloff, but it's not going to work and it's just digging them in deeper.) To make it worse for these shorts, they haven't begun to cover their positions but... Japan may weigh in and give it's approval for the drug any day now. Tutes/Hedge fund data accessed from here... (https://fintel.io/so/us/bcrx) https://preview.redd.it/iw9ascivs6461.png?width=592&format=png&auto=webp&s=424ee368d3158240cc514c31630b1853e4a62975 The bears really fucked up though, because not only did they get FDA approval for their drug, they got 325 million in non-dilutive funding. They have ~ 475 million in cash access and a pill form for a medical condition which previously required people to self inject medications, it was awful but people did it to stay alive/safer. This company now has a single pill a day to treat this condition known as HAE. Here's what it used to look like for everyone in the world... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_qxbb5HiuM&feature=youtu.be Now it's a single pill a day worldwide because of Biocryst. That's a huge improvement for Quality of life for these people. (seen here https://ir.biocryst.com/news-releases/news-release-details/biocryst-announces-fda-approval-orladeyotm-berotralstat-first) Looks like Major institutions have continued to buy more, we may be beyond 100% ownership on paper now if the other big guys bought in these past few days: https://www.tickerreport.com/banking-finance/6807178/biocryst-pharmaceuticals-inc-nasdaqbcrx-shares-bought-by-blackrock-inc.html More reasons to own this baby as it's a pandemic protection play as well via their anti-viral drug (Galidesivir) that stops viruses; which is still greatly needed, even with vaccines on the market, as vaccines are known to not work on a large % of people in reality vs lab testing: https://ir.biocryst.com/news-releases/news-release-details/galidesivir-stops-zika-viral-replication-primate-model https://www.biocryst.com/our-pipeline/galidesivi Positions: 12/18 5C's, 12/18 10C Get in before the mega squeeze begins! Since I was asked, I will actually do this. I was already mulling over this market response and why it's been deemed bad news when it's really not... Here's the reality here: The leader of the NIAID and NIAIH (Dr. Fauci) changed the rules of clinical trials specifically for COVID treatments only after Remdesivir received "full approval" to where even Phase 1 trials were required to provide some form of "efficacy." This is 100% a lobbyist/political change to impact the current or incoming president because people are stupid enough to believe a drug approved under 1 person vs another increases their status or image (real petty shit I know.) Here's what the reality of what real clinical standards have long been established as (Table of phases below) and will likely revert back to (if their politically aligned person takes office or the lobbyist gets removed) once they get called out for this anti-scientific political bullshit being pressed into science we could maybe have this happen but it's unlikely. https://preview.redd.it/5dow87ryhy661.png?width=1592&format=png&auto=webp&s=1ed025ddc05078507f77a3d49157a135dfe33cbb As you can see above; Phase 1 has NEVER EVER BEEN A CHECK FOR EFFICACY, PERIOD. There's just not enough people within the test group, 20-100, to provide any statistically meaningful results towards efficacy. Even phase 2 trials are iffy as they only take a sample size of 100-200, it's a check on the dose ranging to determine if they are in the correct range or to change the dosing slightly for Phase 3 which is 300-3000 people. Phase 3 is where the real efficacy check is, and is why it's the final check for all drugs coming to market. The safety profile gets well established during this phase as they are more likely to include people with other health problems (unrelated to the treatment target/problem) into the trial pool as to better represent the real demographics of populations. When this trial was changed to need to establish efficacy, obviously Phase 2/3 standards using only 20 people, it would never ever pass muster and will never happen. Here's data and the example as to why: Remdesivir's efficacy could not be established until data got cherry picked by the NIAIH/NIAID even though they had data on 10,000+ people from MULTIPLE Phase 2-3 studies on Remdesivir vs COVID performed early 2020. The FDA used data on 1060 patients: The Kaplan–Meier estimates of mortality were 6.7% with Remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo by day 15 and 11.4% with Remdesivir and 15.2% with placebo by day 29 (hazard ratio, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.52 to 1.03). Serious adverse events were reported in 131 of the 532 patients who received Remdesivir (24.6%) and in 163 of the 516 patients who received placebo (31.6%). What you see here is actually a very small % differential of "efficacy" and it's not good. It's likely the worst data of "improvements and efficacy" to ever receive full approval since 2000 or maybe even dating back to the 80's and here's why... Remdesivir's "efficacy" was 5.2% improvement in short duration treatment and 3.8% improvement for the longer term use. Long term use should almost always show greater improvement but in this case it didn't. If you want to be upset about the great information BCRX published which met every single standard of Phase 1 trial standards, don't be. Instead look towards the lobbyist's of big pharma (Gilead) and the people changing the rules (NIAID/NIAIH director Dr. Fauci.) This unethical change of Phase 1 studies required to produce "efficacy data" on 20-100 patients is to prevent better therapeutics from coming to market for the treatment of COVID and we will likely see other drugs halted under this new anti-scientific political standard. Sorry folks, this is our world, the leaders are all politically motivated and they really don't give a shit about saving people over public image of who they do and don't politically align with/like.
As for the other measures of association, a hazard ratio of 1 means lack of association, a hazard ratio greater than 1 suggests an increased risk, and a hazard ratio below 1 suggests a smaller risk. We have presented here how to calculate the measures of association. j–1) 1 – d j Defining a hazard ratio The hazard ratio is an expression of the hazard or chance of events occurring in the treatment arm as a ratio of the hazard of the events occurring in the control arm. The term hazard ratio is often used interchangeably with the term relative risk ratio to describe results in clinical trials. This is not Now let’s take a HR less than 1. Let’s say that in your experiment the calculated Hazard Ratio is equal to 0.65. This is how you can interpret and report it. The mortality rate in a group of smokers drops by 35% compared to the group of high-calorie diet. The mortality rate among smokers is 0.65 times of that among patients with a high-calorie diet. Hazard Ratio (i.e. the ratio of hazards) = Hazard in the intervention group ÷ Hazard in the control group Hazard represents the instantaneous event rate, which means the probability that an individual would experience an event (e.g. death/relapse) at a particular given point in time after the intervention, assuming that this individual has survived to that particular point of time without experiencing any event. A hazard ratio of 1.0 indicates that the variable has no impact on the outcome. A hazard ratio of less than 1.0 indicates that the variable decreases the likelihood of the outcome. A ratio exceeding 1.0 indicates that the variable increases the likelihood of the outcome. Key facts about the hazard ratio • Hazard is defined as the slope of the survival curve — a measure of how rapidly subjects are dying. • The hazard ratio compares two treatments. If the hazard ratio is 2.0, then the rate of deaths in one treatment group is twice the rate in the other group. According to ScienceDirect.com, The hazard ratio is the ratio of (chance of an event occurring in the treatment arm)/ (chance of an event occurring in the control arm). The HR has also been defined as, the ratio of (risk of outcome in one group)/ (risk of outcome in another group), occurring at a given interval of time. An average hazard ratio of 1 indicates no difference in survival rates / event rate over time between the two groups being compared, on average. If the hazard ratio is larger than 1 it means an increased risk of an event across all time points, on average, while if it is less than 1 there is a reduction in that same risk. Hazard ratio is a ratio of two hazard functions HR(t) = 1(t;x 1) 2(t;x 2) (3.1) and we remind the reader that the hazard function is defined as (t;x) = lim +t!0 P(t T<t+ tjT t;X= x) t and that hazard is connected to the survival function via the following formula S(t;x) = e: 1)) = 1 1) = + p) Die Hazard Ratio (HR) errechnet sich mit 0,8. Eine Ratio von 0,8 bedeutet in diesem Beispiel, dass die Patienten der Gruppe II eine um 20% höhere Abheilungschance haben als die Patienten der Gruppe I. Bei einer HR von 1, besteht kein Unterschied zwischen den Gruppen.
This video introduces Survival Analysis, and particularly focuses on explaining what the survival functions is, what the hazard is, and what the hazard ratio... Kaplan Meier curve and hazard ratio tutorial (Kaplan Meier curve and hazard ratio made simple!) - Duration: 52:54. Eric McCoy 16,925 views Hazard Ratios are frequently used to report the results of research in the medical and social sciences. Professor David Spiegelhalter explains how they're ca... Difference between Safety, Hazard and Risk: ... 1:34:52. Certification ... How to Interpret and Use a Relative Risk and an Odds Ratio - Duration: 11:00. This is the second part of a Cochrane Learning Live webinar explaining how to undertake a meta-analysis of time-to-event data. Aula do Curso MBE: http://medicinabaseadaemevidencia.com.br Ref: Student4bestevidence.net Kaplan Meier curve and hazard ratio tutorial (Kaplan Meier curve and hazard ratio made simple!) - Duration: 52:54. Eric McCoy 17,120 views. 52:54.
