It's Back! Fortune Cookie Fortune
You Just Don't Know When To Quit, Do You?
Nope. Based on the last Fortune Cookie Fortune post I did, people either thought I was crazy, sought to give me life advice, or decided I was attempting to be humorous. Emphasis on attempting.
I appreciate any and all comments, so don't worry if you think I'm off my rocker, need help or aren't that funny. Comment away. I will, however, try to be more clear about what I'm doing with these fortunes, even if I have to figure that out for myself.
Image by Glen Anthony Albrethsen
First A Story
When I first saw this—Don't be tempted by shortcuts—they're never worth it in the end—I immediately thought of the shortcuts my Grandpa would take when I was a boy, probably not more than 12. Back then, cars didn't come equipped with GPS, your smartphone didn't give you directions (there were no smartphones), and there was no such thing as OnStar. No, you carried physical maps and you poured over them before and during your trips to make sure you were going the right way, along with the road signs.
Except if there weren't any road signs. Then you went with the map. Except if you were taking a less traveled road that cut through the Idaho wilderness, then you kind of guessed at what was happening because it didn't show up that well.
Which is precisely what my Grandpa decided he would do one summer afternoon. I don't remember where we were (other than somewhere in the panhandle of Idaho), where we were going, or what the circumstances were. I just know that the shortcut on paper took twice as long to transverse as the main road. What's worse, a cousin of mind who was staying with my grandparents for a couple weeks, too, got car sick really easily, so we stopped at least once to let him out so he could try to recover from all of the curves we were constantly slowing down for.
Strangely enough, once we got off that road, my Grandpa got a ticket for driving too fast trying to make up for lost time with his shortcut.
At the time, I didn't think anything about taking the shortcut. I loved my Grandpa (he's since passed on but I still do), and it was an adventure, except for my cousin turning green with me in the backseat. Now, though, I recognize that what we did wasn't necessarily safe, since it could have been hours or longer before anyone came across us if we had stalled or needed some kind of assistance.
In that way, shortcuts, I've found, are very rarely that. In miles, they may be shorter, but in actual time taken to drive, not-so-much. I have tried shortcuts on occasion, and under the right circumstances, you can shave off time. However, there's almost always a higher risk involved, one that would not be worth it if you go over a ravine and get seriously injured or die from the impact.
Back To The Fortune
As far as any real interpretations of this fortune, let alone applications, I think it's important there be context, especially since I've more or less learned the lesson of actual, physical shortcuts. Right now, there's not much going on in my life where shortcut taking is a possibility, and less an allure. The only thing of any major significance where shortcuts could apply is STEEM.
Now, I know many don't believe in Fortune Cookie Fortunes. I don't either. I've made fun of it in the past, but I don't believe there's someone in the restaurant eyeing the customers and saying, "Give him this one." They've got a box or bin of fortune cookies, they're grabbing the one on top, and they're all pre-packaged and coming from somewhere else.
However, I find it very peculiar that I keep getting ones that have something to do with what's going on in my life, or at the very least, can be directed that way. So, what then, would constitute taking shortcuts on Steem?
I think that's a very good question, and probably could be addressed outside the scope of a Fortune Cookie Fortune post. However, the three things that I have contemplated doing lately, mainly because of posts I've read in the last couple weeks, for and against, is self-upvoting, leasing delegation and buying votes.
To date, I have not done any of it, at least not intentionally. Nor do I intend to. I've been on Steemit for six months now, 10-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, so I'm not an oldtimer, but I can't really be classified as a n00b either. However, the idea of doing one or all of them has crossed my mind more than once over the last couple of weeks.
Now, I haven't really thought of them as a shortcut, so that might not even be the message. And, since I'm not on board with the whole Fortune Cookie Fortune thing, I'm not about to ascribe anything to it. All I'm saying is, these fortunes get me thinking about things going on in my life and maybe what I could do about it and that's pretty much it. It becomes a time to reflect on things, more than advice or confirmation of what I'm doing.
Plus, I think it's fun to throw it out there for discussion. Breaks up the monotony. Who else is providing you with Fortune Cookie Fortunes? Okay, there's probably hundreds of us out there. Regardless, taking time to reflect on what's going on in life, regardless of the catalyst, is a good thing.
I have another crazy shortcut story ... two years ago, in Denmark, between the islands of Møn and Falster. It was sandy terrain and shallow outside the shipping lane. I didn't have updated sea maps, the shipping lane went south towards Germany, the safe route would be to follow the shipping lane for a while and then turn sharp port as soon as the water was deep enough and continue northeast.
Not only that it would be a big detour, but I would also face lots of work/problems with the sails due to change of wind direction (probably - don't remember the details) - and I was alone (with my two youngest children) on board. According to the map, it should be possible to do a direct shortcut through a smaller "channel" (I think it even had a name ending with "renne" on the sea map). It was like 5-6 metres deep, more than sufficient.
Indeed, there was a written warning on the sea map that the sand banks was shifting and that the depths could not be relied on, but I took the chance. I had quite much wind, and it was coming more from behind than from front. I had around 7 knots of speed.
The water become more and more shallow, and I got quite of a panic when I realized I could see the sandy bottom! Well, the sand is at least much softer than rocks - but still, I didn't want to experience going aground in seven knots speed! I rolled in the genoa as quick as I could, but there was no time for me to even attempt doing something with the main sail. I started the engine and put it in full reverse ... but it didn't seem to do any significant breaking, at the other hand it did make it impossible to steer the boat, so I had to give up on that. I still had something like 6 knots.
It went OK in the end, I got over ... but I believe there were only some few cm with water between the keel and the sandy bottom at the "worst".
I hate detours - so I'm taking shortcuts as often as I can, particularly when walking or biking - and as a pedestrian, the shortcuts can really make sense. Even with the boat I'm finding myself doing more and more shortcuts. To me, "shortcut" is a positively charged word. Adding to that, on side roads there are usually much more to see and experience than on the main road ... and the air is definitively fresher along forest trails than on the highway.
Although map and GPS technology has come really far, I still find myself a bit like in your granddads situation quite often. When walking, there are still times when one looks at the map and just considers "of course, it must be possible to get from that place and over there, I'll save myself from a 300 metres detour by going there". Usually one really saves a lot of walking that way - but every now and then one ends up having to go through private gardens, go back the same way one came, or have to get through some dense forest. The signs are almost always designed for the car drivers, like, I believe a great majority of the stub-signs here in Norway are either due to regulations stopping motor drivers to continue, a gate designed to stop car drivers from driving there, or the road stops but it's possible to continue along a path through the forest. Every now and then, one ends up on a real stub - and that's bad, particularly when one is walking and have to walk all the way back again.
Of course, countless of times I've ended up having to walk or carry my bike through the forest, countless of times I've ended up wasting twice as much time trying out a new "shortcut" as what I would have done following the suggestions from Google Maps.
One particular case; I joined a group of mothers going for a walk with prams and babies in the forest, along the forest roads. We came to a cross road, we realized we had gone the wrong way (and I guess that was partly my fault). Instead of going back to the previous cross road, we decided to take a "shortcut". I guess I was partially responsible for that decision. The trail looked perfectly OK from the cross road, we could continue with our prams without problems ... but of course, the longer we got on that road, the worse it got, and in the end we ended up having to carry the prams most of the way. I don't remember the details ... but probably I could have done that "shortcut" in 15 minutes without a pram, and we probably spent something like 1.5 hours on that "shortcut". In retro-perspective, we should of course have turned around and gone back as the trail got worse.
There's been quite a few people in the comments pointing out shortcuts as a positive thing when it comes to slow moving traffic or traffic jams. I guess those could be considered shortcuts, but I've always thought of them as alternative routes that I only use when there's too much traffic. Otherwise, the way I'm going is faster, and thus the shortest route (timewise).
You like taking the road less traveled, and I agree, in many cases, there's much more to see and it can be very healthy. I don't know if they're shortcuts if they're taking longer. Which I think is what I learned from the story about my Grandpa. Shortcuts aren't really shortcuts if they don't save time.
So, I'm not familiar with the word pram, but I looked it up and you must be referring to a baby stroller, since there were small children with you and their mothers. I can see where that would make everything much more time consuming.
We just recently made a trip to a mountain where we did some hiking. None of us had ever been there before and it seemed like a long drive out there. The drive back, however, didn't seem nearly as long, even though it was the same distance and took more or less the same amount of time. So, perception and attitude play a part in all of this, too. I don't think if I were going by myself the trip would have seemed so long, even if it were. :)
I see a major typo snuck into my comment: I wrote "driving" instead of "biking". To me, "shortcuts" is a word that makes much more sense when biking or walking than when driving. Usually, when driving, following the biggest highways is the fastest - though, for local transportation it can often be at least fuel-saving to go the shortest route rather than first drive to the high way and then off the high way. When walking, the shortest route is often - but not always - the faster route.
Regarding avoiding slow-moving traffic, yes, I would typically call those routes "alternative routes" rather than "shortcuts". To me, shortcuts is about saving distance. Quite often it's undesirable that there is a lot of traffic on smaller roads, here in Oslo it's quite typical that there are roadblocks every here and there preventing cars from taking "alternative routes" through residential areas.
And yes, often roads tend to feel much longer the first time one rides them. Sometimes it goes faster as well, less stops to read the map, one goes faster, takes the right choices in every crossroad without thinking, knows what shortcuts are worth taking and which ones aren't.
When sailing, a short cut may go through narrow straights or shallow channels, and it's not always clear from the sea maps if it is possible or not to travel there with a sail boat. Earlier I would always chose the "safe" detour, now I'm increasingly taking chances.
I guess it truly depends on what we're talking about with regards to shortcuts. I can see where walking or biking could provide all kinds of shortcuts that driving would not allow. I suppose if fuel economy is the desired outcome taking a shorter route that takes longer because of winding turns would be appropriate, especially if it helps to extend the fuel long enough to make it to the final destination.
I think it's all impatience on the part of my family. Instead of enjoying the trip, they only want to get to where we're going, even though there's plenty of scenery to see along the way. Of course, it's hard to reason with a one-year-old, so if she's fussing, everyone else gets in a hurry. :)
I try to avoid situations of uncertainty as much as I can. I like to know where I'm going, know how long it's going to take, where there might be places to stop if necessary, etc. But I do take a few more risks when I'm by myself than I do when I'm with others, simply because I feel I can deal with whatever might happen. Some of that might still be foolhardy on my part, but taking some risk, calculated risk, is a part of life.
On a similar note, some people plan their vacation in details long time before they go at vacation. At the other hand, I'm usually not planning much, throwing myself into the unknown, sometimes letting the wind decide where we're going and how far ... though, I remember my wife found it a bit stressful when we were in China with a child and didn't book any hotels in advance.
Thanks for this well-written post!
Truth is, I believe God uses an infinite number of ways to get our attention. I take my 'fortune cookie' after a meal seriously. It usually speaks to me on some level, that makes me take note.
Taking a shortcut to not sit in mile-long traffic is worth it. But, I know that's not the shortcut meant in this post.
Regarding Steem/it, I accepted long ago, that the rules are very broad. And, nearly everything goes. Long story short, it results to "follow your conscience."
Sometimes, you have to help those who have no voting power. Otherwise, you will churn out a whole lot of posts with zero 'reward'.
If you're on the platform 12-16 hours a day, whoa...you should seek recompense on some level...jmho...
Lastly, regarding life, I don't believe one can genuinely take shortcuts. Eventually, roadblocks and hurdles will force us to 'pace' and arrive at the designated time.
Best regards.
Peace.
I agree. God can use all kinds of ways to get our attention. This isn't the way I'm used to Him getting mine, but I suppose He can switch it up if He wants to. :) Regardless, I'm definitely thinking about the fortunes I'm getting.
It's more like 10-12 hours a day, but still, I agree, there should be some kind of recompense for being here. And I believe little by little that is happening.
Isn't it amazing how we can try to circumvent certain roadblocks or hurdles only to have them show up again, and probably larger because we didn't try to confront them in the first place? Going through them seems to be the best way. Putting them off only seems to delay the inevitable.
The platform is so full of...let me phrase this delicately...people with a goal to gain profits AT ALL COSTS...that it would be difficult to institute a recompense reward. Of course, any additional earnings would be a mega blessing; but, I think until that surfaces...voting your conscience is wisdom.
Lol…no doubt God is using you to speak to me…
Again, I hear Him echoing some recent reminders of things I did in ‘my convenient time’ instead of obediently finishing projects when He initially called me to. And, as noted, delayed obedience has more negative consequences; than, doing the difficult task straightaway.
Thanks for this reply; certainly timely. And, for sure, God uses every opportunity available in the universe to get our attention, and make HIS WILL known…
Geez, it’s true…Learning is a lifelong journey…gleaning seeds of wisdom to cast forth onto others as authentic knowledge. Of course, a lack of wisdom/knowledge will cause most to learn from hard-gained experience.
Btw, sometimes I will affix my 'fortune' as a reminder. One truism I have kept for a few years is:
YOUR HEALTH IS OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE. (Panda Express)
Best regards.
Peace.
I think that is funny your grandpa was speeding to make up time for his shortcut. Shortcuts hardly ever workout unless there is serious traffic and know another route. May not be shorter but will be quicker.
Shortcuts in life will always bite you somewhere. I have learnt you do a job properly otherwise you have to re do it. On one occasion my father in law was asked to get something from a storage unit for his wife. She knew exactly where it was and how long it would take to get. We opened up the unit and basically dragged the item out from underneath a few other items. When we arrived back she knew we had made a mess and went back with him to sort it. Moral of the story is either we should have done it properly or she should have gone herself.
Your mother-in-law sounds like my wife. :) But it's true, if the job doesn't get done right the first time, there's clean up/backlash/fallout from the first attempt that will always need to be dealt with, and then comes actually doing the job right, and probably with more precision and time than it might have taken the first go had it been done right, because the second time there's going to be added scrutiny.
Lol. You sound as though you speak from experience. It is true what you are saying though and we have to learn the hard way. i have had to do things over again because I didn't take my time and do it right first time. There is that saying measure twice and cut once.
Oh, I'm sure I am speaking from experience (thought nothing specific comes to mind), just as you are. We all fall into that trap either accidentally or purposefully. It's tough to maintain discipline in light of whatever else it is we're trying to speed up the process for. We want to go home early. We don't like what we're doing and want to get it over with. Whatever it is, discipline has to take precedence.
And it's nothing new, which is why we have the adage you quote. Someone's messed up before us and is trying to save us the pain of making the same mistake. If we'll only heed the warning. :)
howdy there @glenalbrethsen! you can't stop reading those dang fortune cookies can you? lol pretty soon they'll have you hooked and believing in them! lol. the comments are excellent and I don't have anything to add, I just wanted to show my support, very fun and interesting post as usual. wasn't that in a fortune cookie too? lol
More to the point, I can't seem to stop having Panda Express! It does, though, tend to give me something to write about. I think I'm good as far as believing in fortune cookie fortunes go, but as someone else pointed out, God can use all kinds of ways to get the message to us. I tend to like the still small voice way, though, but hey.
It's kind of different that you don't have something to say, but thanks for stopping by and for the support. :)
howdy back there @glenalbrethsen! the still small voice is the way to go over fortune cookies everytime so that's wise. I like those posts though, very interesting that you keep getting those fortunes that can pertain to your life and it's entertaining.
hey I don't have anything to say a lot of the time, especially when there are many comments and they are so well written and intelligent that I don't want to ruin the flow of things! lol.
I'm not that good at commenting, I'm just good at getting OTHER people to comment.
I would say you do well with your commenting,but I'd also say that the greater talent is getting people to comment back. Can't really hold much of a conversation without people answering back. Sadly, I think more people could stand to learn how to do that. Maybe you could write a post?
Yeah, I figure the still small voice is more reliable.
Well, I hope the fortune cookie fortune posts are entertaining. I seem to get some decent engagement on them, too. Still have some posts to pump out in order to hit double digits this week, so if I'm successful, you may (or may not) see a flurry of activity from me tomorrow and Saturday. :)
howdy Glen, on some of these posts I see so many foreigners trying to make conversation and I feel bad for them but they sound terrible! The ones with broken English that sometimes are funny because the language is butchered. So I don't know what happens to most of them, I assume that most quit. anyway I was just thinking about poor commenters and thought of those poor people, you can tell that some of them are trying so hard to write intelligently.
If I were to write a post about how to get people to comment back I think that would be the worlds shortest post. lol. All I would say is to ask people questions. lol.
It's definitely hard to decipher some of the non-native English speakers comments. I don't know what happens to them, either, other than hopefully they find a community that speaks their native tongue where they can actually get some rewards. Some of the language communities are so small, or lacking in accounts with higher SP, that it's tough to get anywhere, which is why I assume many of them venture out into the general English areas hoping to make something happen.
They, however, aren't the only ones who need to know how to comment. There are plenty of English speakers, even ones who aren't spamming, that end up with three or four words, or a short sentence, and that's it. I'm not sure why. If you've got nothing or next to nothing to say, is there really any worth in doing it?
There's two reasons for commenting—hoping it will be worth it to someone to upvote it, and to further discussion on the topic (or even off topic). How often do small sentence comments get rewards? Not a whole lot. How often does the one line spur a conversation. Not that much. Either the one liner has to be really good (and most aren't), the one replying knows the person and gets what they're saying because of other conversations they've had, or the replier has to get creative and push it along as if something was actually said.
So, there's a lot of that short sentence replying going on here, and I'm not sure why, except people's times are really, really valuable and short on Steemit that they don't have the time to put in a complete thought.
I'm not saying people need to write multiple paragraphs every time. I understand that there are times where one sentence is adequate. There's also times where no comment is best. But if I find something worthy to comment on, where I can actually add to the conversation in a meaningful way, I feel like I should include my thoughts on the matter and then stop when it's sufficiently covered.
re: commenting post
Yeah, I suppose you're right. "Ask questions!" would not make for a very long post. :)
yes sir I agree completely. it's strange on some posts to see like 5 or 6 comments consisting of a few words. I do that but only if I think it's funny, otherwise I don't comment if I can't add anything or if I get there late and everyone else has commented what I was going to, but better.
I truly feel bad for some of the foreigners but they need to find another platform unless they can find a group with their language here like you said, seems to be a lot of Indonesians.
I think cryptos in general have been seen like the get-rich-quick schemes for many people. This is evident from hearing/reading about stories of people taking out second mortgages, or even investing their life savings, etc. just to buy in.
That worked out for some people, but I'm willing to bet a majority of them either winded up as bag holders or sold at huge loss. Unless you are a shrewd trader, I think it is unrealistic to expect everything to profit.
Even last year's massive bull run was a build-up from 2016; only the price skyrocketed around December.
Investments, in my opinion, are passive. Unless you want to help building whatever you put your money into, it's best to just let the market work itself out.
I agree about what you've said here, and it's sad regarding the crypto get rich schemes, but before STEEM, there really wasn't much of anything else to do but speculate. With STEEM, things can shift if we'll let it shift, from a rollercoaster pump and dump opportunity to an attention economy to a global digital currency.
But that means people start looking at the long term and what's good for more than just their wallets. And I'm not saying good as in losing out on opportunities or giving up on earnings—I'm talking about things that can be done to at least try to make the world a better place, rather than ensuring we all go down together as hard as we can possibly hit.
Coming from the anti-abuse side, there are a lot of people on the Steem blockchain who are looking for hit-and-runs.
This is evident with how fast they cash out any liquid asset they have on the platform once they have reaped their share from using uncapped ROI bot services.
I wish people would hang in and power up, and there's definitely plenty of folks just here to try to get what they can. I don't know all of their needs or reasons. Using bots just to cash out is a problem that somehow needs to be addressed. Code would be nice. Voluntarily stopping would be better, both user and owner. The more we do things because we want to and the less we're forced to do, the better off we'll be and the longer we'll remain that way.
It is up to the bot owners to set caps on bids. I've seen underutilized bid bots where some easily get 2x in STUs for the 0.1 SBD they bid. Some go as far as 1.50 STU per 0.1 SBD.
One way to resolve that in a win-win situation is make their service popular so people can't game them. Otherwise, I see it too difficult to force people using @buildawhale blacklist or change their operation model.
Your grandfather sounds like Brian. He hates waiting in traffic and is always scouting out a shortcut :) Sometimes efficiently, others, not so much! You saw my post today, so no steem shortcuts for me.
And that's what fortune tellers prey on :)
If there were actually fortune tellers on the other end of this, I wouldn't even bother. I'm getting handed a fortune cookie with my meal. Up until a couple of years ago, I would get maybe one in ten that might make me think. Now it's like two out of three. So, I suppose that's a shift in my ability to be introspective, but still. You will reunite with and old friend is usually easier to debunk (since it didn't happen) than ones that cause some reflection to occur. :)
I think the writers were given a little talking to @glenalbrethsen :)
Hey wait! Couldn't you get a job like that??!! 😅
Don't walk down that one street tonight. You know the one. No good will come of it.
Your actions of the last few days are suspect. Remember. Big Brother is watching.
You need a puppy.
Watch for strangers bearing gifts. Unless they're Milk Duds, then receive them with open arms.
You have a bright future ahead of you. Too bright, actually. You might want to dim it down a bit.
Try not to load up on alcohol a week before voting day. It may be seen as an act of unwanted aggression.
That thing you want is coming. Soon. Very soon.
hahaha @glenalbrethsen, you've found your calling 😎
I'm thinking, though, I'm going to need more space than the little strips of paper, and then probably larger fortune cookies to put them in, which the customers might appreciate, but maybe not so much the fortune cookie manufacturers. They might have a cost efficiency ratio go out of whack due to a larger form factor. That might cause the cost of my already rather expensive Panda Express lunch to go up, and I don't think I want that, considering it's not the first thing I generally go for. It's usually what I eat, believe it or not, when I've exhausted nearly all other options. Problem is, the other places don't hand out fortunes, so there's not as much to post about. :)
Well then, way to burst that bubble :) Back to the drawing board I guess!
That sounds like quite the adventure. For the most part I try to stick to the main roads. And as much as I don't want to depend on Google, their maps are normally correct. Follow the directions.
I had been contemplating leasing out my SP so I could get some SBD in return for it. It has been tough to not be able to get a return for my investment as a direct result of my work. I've decided against it for now though.
It was. I just remember it being a lot of winding forest road and that we were in the car for a long time and my grandmother wanting to say something but never getting around to it. At least not in front of us. :)
Man, we're so spoiled. There's getting fewer and fewer reasons to get lost. Back in the day, it was almost a reverse badge of honor, and don't you dare stop to ask anyone! Those days don't come back. :)
It's strange, but I've never thought about leasing out my own SP. I should, but it's like, I need it! I need it for the time being to be able to leave $0.03 on comments and more on posts. I'm not sure where I will finally be comfortable with it, but maybe when I'm in the mid-Dolphin range, 20,000-30,000 SP. I might get used to dropping $1 on people though. :)
Good ol' Grandma and not wanting to start a fight in front of the kids.
I mainly use my maps app to check traffic, but every once in a while I use it to know here I'm going. Mostly if I know where the place is, I can get there without help.
I've never had any issue asking for help or directions. If I don't know where I am or where I'm going, I ask. I'd rather get there sooner and get to enjoy whatever the event is rather than stick to some hubris or machismo, and not get to be there. Never made sense to me.
Hey, I wouldn't mind if you got to the point where you could drop $1 votes. That would be great! Although at that point, Steem is probably over $100, so we'll all be dropping $1 votes. Ha ha.
It's just another way to increase your stake. I never really considered leasing SP because unless you're using it to boost your own account, it's not really going to benefit you. It would make more sense to buy the Steem and power it up so you have it in your account to grow (by your Mvests growing). I'd rather have a smaller thing that I own than a much larger thing that I lose after a little while.
Who knows, maybe Steem will drop down to $0.01 and we'll all be able to pick up a bunch for cheap. Then when it rises back to to $20, we'll be sitting pretty, dropping major votes on everyone. :D
Such would be nice. Right now, we keep having exchanges breaking out with different prices, jumping around, inflating, deflating, dancing and spinning around like tops.
It seems to me that there would be some major issues if STEEM went back to $0.01, but yeah, we could all load up, with the hope that our loading up would actually make the value rise.
I think I can make dolphin status by the end of 2020, sooner if I actually manage to invest more. But then, I'm hoping STEEM prices will at least be in the teens by then. I also have this sinking feeling in the back of my mind that it's just going to keep treading water.
I didn't like stopping for directions. Inevitably I'd run into the one guy who didn't know anything but would try anyway. Use to drive my wife crazy when I wouldn't stop, but she wanted me to do it in a left hand turn lane at a busy intersection with a person coming at us from the crosswalk.
"Hey, you! Yeah, you! Come here! Do you know how to get to Fresno?!"
—glenalbrethsen
I don't know who or how, but I think the markets are being manipulated. I'm not sure if the goal is to push it up to cash out, or down to buy in, but there seems to be weird stuff going on. When you have 40% of the market volume at 40% higher price than everywhere else, something is up.
Hey, I'd throw down $100 if the price of Steem dropped to $0.01. If it was just dropping and there wasn't news about someone running off with the master keys or something, why not? That would buy me 10,000 Steem and I could be an instant dolphin. Heck, if I had lots of extra money that hadn't been spent on silver, I could spend $500 and become and instant Orca. That would be nice.
I would be impressed if you could make dolphin by the end of 2020 without extra investment. It seems the returns are rather slow. Also, if the price of Steem rises to the teens, it will be much more difficult to get rewards. I have a feeling you're right about it treading water.
You have to be strategic when you ask for directions. Like don't do it from a person in a crosswalk. They're trying to get across the street before they have to flee for their life. Just pull over somewhere and ask someone in a convenient location. Heh
Believe me, I'll be impressed if I'm able to make dolphin by the end of 2020, but it's something to shoot for and I'm a third of the way there. Supposedly, earning rewards is supposed to be easier the higher SP you have, so I'll be putting that to the test.
Something weird is happening right now with STEEM. The average price was at $1.80 just twenty minutes ago and now it's above $2.35.
So, I agree, someone is manipulating it on Bithumb still, and they're accounting for more than 80% of the volume there, too, while the rest of the cryptos are just kind of going sideways a little.
There are incidental ways that having more SP helps you earn more. Like if you have more, then higher SP people are supposed to want to connect with you and vote for you because you can vote them back at similar levels. A lot of the other ways are things like joining voting groups, selling your vote, powering down your SP so you can get liquid Steem and then using that to self-vote.
Other than that, I'm not sure how having more would get you more. Well, there's the natural growth, but 2% gains aren't a whole lot. It would take you 36 years just to double your investment, and that's assuming that the rate of growth stayed the same.
Not sure what's happening with the markets. I'll have to look into it more.
Did you include higher curation rewards? You're supposed to get those. And what about rewards going to the higher rewarded content? Since most folks who end up on trending are higher SP, because they're the ones who can afford to pay the bid bots exorbitant amounts to get up there, or have the friends to circle vote, or the high self-upvote to actually make a difference, then it stands to reason that higher SP gets more rewards.
It’s no mystery why you always get the fortune cookie messages that apply to your life, but it takes a smart person to be be able to recognize what is going on in his life. That’s the power of interpretation: you see what you need/want to see. At least, that’s what I believe.
I probably don’t have to explain my issues with taking shortcuts - I know you’ve been reading the discussions earlier.
At the moment, I’m taking them. At least some of them. Self-voting (which I never did before), using the bid bots (which I never did, and then did, and then decided to stop using them... lol), I plead guilty. The thought behind it is that how bigger I grow my account, the more people I can support.
But I’m still not 100% sure I can actually live with the fact that I’m taking these shortcuts. I’m doubting these decisions every time again.
I know it would be even more profitable to simply delegate my SP to the bid bots, but for some reason I feel that would be a bridge too far.
I don’t feel very comfortable taking these shortcuts - it feels like I’m acting against my own morals. Or that it is cheating while I’m all for fair play.
But I also tell myself that the end justifies the means...
I don’t know how I will feel about taking these shortcuts tomorrow, or next week. I might change my mind again and start doing the complete opposite. I’ve changed my mind about this so many times already...
I think we must all at least think about doing something like self-upvotes or buying votes. Some come here and without seeing any other perspectives just naturally fall into it and don't give it a second thought until they around afoul of someone who doesn't like what they're doing.
I think looking at it and trying to figure it out is better than doing things without thinking. I also think it's even better to look at what it's really doing versus what the perception is.
I know in my life when I've had a conflict, where I didn't know what to do, other than asking for advice, praying, etc., it always helped to take a deep breath, step back from the situation and really identify what it was that was either bothering me or holding me back. What specifically did not feel right. Then, proceed. It may make things easier, or it might complicate things because there's more layers to it than what I thought there was to begin with, but at least the conflict was identified.
My thought about the ends justifying the means in general, not just with Steemit is this—when does that ever stop? At won't point do the means not justify the ends? Where are those limits? Are there any? If not, what does that mean? What am I giving up as a person in the process? What part of me, if any, and I'm leaving behind?
All I know is, it's hardest to take the high ground and hold it, because any time you move off of it, someone else will take it and hold it over you. Once you take the high ground, you're pretty much stuck with it. Which means you have to be okay with that, too, even if it doesn't get you the rewards you seek. :)
That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out at the moment...
That reply has definitely given me some food for thought. You make some good points there. I need to reflect on those first before I can react to thise.
Thanks!
Thinking it is a matter of interpretation. One man's shortcuts are another mans bread and butter. An extreme case of this is how many pile on the hate for the self voting TA guy. I figure it is his stake, why shouldn't he be allowed to self vote with it. Same with the bots. Its their stake, the persons SBD to rent it for a vote. Now do I believe overdoing this is self defeating? Yes I do. But in the scheme of things, they are utilizing their stake for its maximum potential. And anyone who says they are here for purely altruistic reasons is one I would suspect might be a liar or delusional.
I have a bit of OCD when it comes to doing things that need doing quickly, not liking the thing to keep hanging over me. I also have a thing about doing it right, so there will be no going back (or at least less chance of having to) to redo it.
They say enlightenment is a glance away, and when one is ready one will see it in everything they look at. I have experienced it myself, although it is fleeting from my experience as one gets lulled back into the routines quickly. Sounds like something has set your reference points rocking and you are seeing past them into enlightenment.
I believe that's true. It's also possible to see what you want to see, and differentiating between the two is key.
When I was doing layout for the newspapers I owned, I cut out a lot of things that were more or less extraneous steps and got to the heart of the matter. I was able to shave hours off of production that way. I believe that to be called efficiency. Would someone consider what I did a series of shortcuts? Perhaps. I saw it as the essentials. That for me, is the difference.
I've had a hard time with what's been happening regarding the individual you reference, as well. It is his stake, and the whale aiding and abetting, it's their stake, and everyone who votes for his stuff, be it duplicate accounts, bots, real people, himself—all have that right.
And yet, when you boil it down, he's getting $10-$20 tops if neither he or the whale upvote.
Are his posts worth over $200, of which he and the whale are giving him 90%? I answer that question with, is any article worth $200 a pop? In my mind, not many.
So, then you have folks exercising their right to downvote him. Personally, I'd rather he get a clue, throttle back some, and the dozens of folks that are flagging go back to upvoting content they like, but I don't think they're going to be satisfied until they've run him off of STEEM.