Video isn’t dead. Recently I got talking with my friend Nick Box, who is a bit of a legend in the UK Indy Cinema world – I’d worked with him on several titles from his company Dead Good Films like – and he told me about his quest to open a video store. Nick’s dream was to create his own cave of treasures, a shop where you could find all those amazing titles you just can’t get anywhere else. Videos, Beta-Max and more can now be acquired, retro style deep in the recesses of “The Crypt” in Blackpool.
The Crypt just happens to be owned by Kurt Dirt, known for his bizarre performance art and work on several Troma films. Naturally, as fellow cinemaphiles we did what we could to help bring the dream to life, and like Frankenstein’s monster, a little juice got the whole thing up and running. Nick’s created something marvellous with Dead Format, and I cannot wait to see it flourish. I’d like to share with you a small podcast of the Dead Format podcast featuring Stuart Fitzsimmons, who I’ve also had the pleasure of working with on Mycophobia. I’m so happy that finally, one of my good friends is helping live this dream. I hope Dead Format will be around for many years to come.
My god it’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog! So – I’ve been working recently on increasing the scope of what I do on the website and I’d like to share some of the content of my other creatives who have been doing great things in the world. I’ve started a series of channels on the website, which I’ll be building a page for soon, and I’ve been building pages for those of my friends who’ve been involved in content creation for a while.
Rebecca Gold – is a series by Ian David Diaz which tells the story of a rogue female assassin. It’s a great webseries and I helped working on it! Eggs over Willis – is a labour of hate by my old friend Adam Willis, who hates eggs and forces himself to eat them for your amusement. The Cider Drinker – is the channel of my good friend Rikki who helps me work on Chan Walrus: Space Adventurer, and is one of the best friends I’ve ever had. He gives the rundown on every single cider he can get his hands on! Channel Pup – Is the channel of my good friend Will who I force to act for me from time to time.
So Sajid Javid has finally admitted that the covid death rates are bogus. He has finally pointed out that there are comorbidities which have played their part in huge death counts, but that’s not all there is to this miasma of nonsense. So let’s have a think about what other issues there are…
From the very beginning the statistics have been sketchy. What right do I have to say this? Well I’ve been trained in statistics. So how can I show you easily. Simple! If we are being honest about statistics, we have to show both the number and percentage when discussing things. Imagine this: Breaking news! Coronavirus death rates are up 300% from yesterday! Instantly, there is a panic. 300% is a lot. Let’s say yesterday one person was listed as a covid death, then the next day, 3 people allegedly died from the virus. 4 people isn’t a lot for a pandemic, but with such high percentages, it sounds scary.
You should note that when they mention coronavirus, they are not necessarily referring to covid, as there are many strains of coronavirus, so with the statistical adaptions they made in order to skew this and take advantage of people’s fear, we have around 28 days from having any form of coronavirus infection, a person has died. Now this doesn’t even mean that they died from the coronavirus or from covid. What it means is that they died within 28 days of having any form of coronavirus. Is it even a contributing factor? Possibly not, but it’s still listed as a covid death statistic. When you consider how common coronaviruses are, the fact LFTs can pick up multiple strains and the media wanting to keep everyone in a mad state of panic, we have a massive fear campaign.
Do I think people have died of covid? Without a doubt. I’ve worked on the front lines during the pandemic and volunteered to work infected units due to my immunity. I know it can be dangerous.
Let’s break things down:
How do we know how someone has died? – We perform an autopsy. The autopsy or post-mortem is an analysis of the body after death to find out the cause of death. Ask yourself, how many autopsies have actually been done to come up with the numbers we see. If we do not know for sure, then numbers are just estimates. We cannot work with unreliable data, however everyone has been drinking unreliable data for the past few years, so they’re used to it.
Coronavirus or Covid? Covid is one form of coronavirus, known as SARS-COV-2. The other two dangerous forms of coronavirus are MERS-COV and SARS-COV. Then we have HCOV-OC43, HCOV-HKU1, HCOV-229E and HCOV-NL63. Covid deaths refers specifically to deaths from Covid, or SARS-COV-2, and Coronavirus deaths are defined as anyone who has died from any form of Coronavirus, which includes the other forms. If Covid numbers are high, then Covid is dangerous. If Coronavirus numbers are high, that’s normal. But we also have to take into account the extension of rules that allow for higher statistics and more public panic.
Numbers and statistics. I mentioned this earlier: You need a number and a percentage, and what’s more they need to be properly defined. “Today there have been 20 Covid deaths, up by 100% from yesterday where there were 10.” Is good definition, though if timeframes were properly included, we’d have it close to perfect. We know the numbers, we know the percentages and we know the comparison. As I mentioned earlier, if you just see a percentage or number, you are not getting the bigger picture, especially if it’s not defined. “Coronavirus deaths are up 247% from last week!” Could mean coronavirus deaths this week could be being added together from one specific day last week. We’re also talking coronavirus deaths not Covid deaths. So Covid might be down whereas coronavirus is up. The less definition, the more bogus the statistics.
Phrasing: If A reporter says, “138 more people died from Covid today than yesterday!” this can actually mean one of two things. Firstly that yesterday, there were 1000 Covid deaths, and today there have been 1138 Covid deaths, or this could also mean that yesterday there were 1000 covid deaths and today there have been 138 covid deaths, a drop of 862. But this statement will always sound like it was more, and you will have noticed this in the news.
Basically
We’ve been being exploited, lied to, and manipulated by a sick media and politicians for a long time. We have no accurate information on Covid or Coronavirus. Considering that LFT tests are not accurate, PCR testing can have issues, there are few autopsies and little evidence that Covid poses a real risk to people who have no co-morbidities. I can only think that this is not a pandemic, rather it is a test of public fear. If masks worked and were effective, Boris would not backtrack on them. He wouldn’t backtrack on them because it would not be in the public’s best interest. If this was a real pandemic, the army would be on the streets and the logistics corps would be delivering supplies.
I will leave you with information on a real pandemic. This is an article about The Black Death. It was one of the worst pandemics in known history, and bodies were piled high in the streets. People painted crosses on the doors of people with the plague in red or black. Carts would go by pushed by people calling out “Bring out your dead.” Families were devastated, friendships destroyed, everything in the world was ruin. In this time of the great, terrifying Covid-19 pandemic Politicians frolic maskless and drunk. Love him or hate him, Paul Joseph Watson gets it right. This nonsense has been going on, and we’ve all been played for fools…
One thing I’ve learned from moderating the Shib Army is that there is a website called the motley fool, or fool.com and to be honest, with some of the things they say, I think it’s definitely the right name for them. Having scanned more than my fair share of articles, I have noticed that they just seem to be either for or against and offer little context or noteworthy information, whilst also showing little knowledge about the cryptocurrencies they talk about. I read in an article that gives us three reasons to sell Shiba Inu, which comes shortly after their article which gives us three reasons to buy Shiba Inu written in November, and which is sadly just as dumb. Since this article on selling Shiba Inu, fool has put up another post calling out naysayers… In all honesty, at this point I’d take everything with a pinch of salt, as a look back on their hype and panic has little to real direction. I thought though I’d dissect the 3 reasons to sell post as it annoyed me.So what are the facts? As I write this Shiba Inu is currently at a value of £0.000022. This is down from £0.000036 which I first saw it at. £30,704.41 comparatively is the value of Bitcoin. (I will use this later.)The reasons the author gives are as follows:
1: Shiba Inu doesn’t stand out from the crowd.
This one I find funny because it stood out to me. The development of the Shib ecosystem utilising Leash and Bone tokens is absolutely beautiful, meme worthy and comical but actually with a nice amount of utility, as is the consistent expansion of their work. Shiba Inu is consistently working towards real world utility and their ideas of expanding into the metaverse, combined with their developments are impressive, considering the “meme token” has only been around a year. I saw SHIB and I wanted it and it was one of the first cryptocurrencies I invested in. Shib got me into investing and through my trading of Shib I’ve made a nice amount of money.
2: Limited Potential for Gains
This is obvious as most things have limits, however, it has a larger scope for gains than both Bitcoin and Etherium at this time at least realistically, (eth being one the author likes.) Eth is valued at £2,352.06 as I write. The author adds that it is unlikely that Shiba Inu will reach $1 and I think that is true. What I think though is that this is an unrealistic standard, and I would be happy if it hit 1/10 of a penny. The fact that the author sets this unrealistic standard is laughable because why the hell should it hit a dollar? Shib doesn’t ever need to hit values like this to be hugely successful. Let’s look at money for a few minutes.The dollar is estimated at £0.74 GBP, my currency, so let’s do some quick maths.
Currently for 74 pence we can buy a whopping 33,636.3636 Shib.
Currently for 74 pence we can buy a stunning 0.003146178244 Eth.
Currently for 74 pence we can buy a staggering 0.0000241007249 Bitcoin.
So to hit one dollar or 74p, Shib would have to be 33,636.3636 times it’s current value. Let’s apply this to our writer’s other currency, Eth.Eth times the number Shib would have to grow totals at £79,114,745.37.Bitcoin would have to reach £1,032,784,699.00I think we can all say without doubt that if we were to smarmily state that pff, Etherium will never reach £79,114,745.37 per coin, snort, guffaw and chortle! Or pfah, Bitcoin will never ascend to £1,032,784,699.00 per coin – most people would say: “well duh.” Now the odd thing is that this isn’t necessarily true. They could hit these values; it’s just very, very, ridiculously unlikely, and would require a lot of inflation. The author should be aware when talking about finances that values of crypto do not have to correlate with set goals for a currency to be valuable. If my money in Shiba Inu goes up 10 times to £0.00022, I will make ten times my investment. A hundred becomes a thousand. If it goes up 100 times, I will make a hundred times my investment. That would be ten thousand. Honestly most people are happy at 50% or 60% more than they put in. To me that’s a win as it’s earned me more than my lousy bank. Take that Lloyds!
A few days back before the crash, I doubled my money with Rarible and transferred most of it into other cryptos because I knew the good times wouldn’t last, but you can bet your bottom dollar I’m gonna invest in it again when it takes a hit in the volatile market. Crypto shifts and adapts in value in the volatile markets. I invest in strong currencies like Algorand when they take a hit because I know they’re gonna get right back up after. So I can invest in Algorand then transfer to another currency I trust when Algorand is high and the other takes a hit. Also I get that cool staking advantage on Coinbase, mmmm juicy. But staking annoys me as it interferes with my maths, so my darned spreadsheets have to have another stupid input when I’m doing my maths to ensure I’m making bank and not messing up my numbers.
3: Growth of Rivals
This whole section is dedicated to talking about Blockchain networks, Solana, Etherium and Cardano. I own tokens in each of these, except Eth. All of them are good, however, they are significantly different from Shiba Inu. They are therefore not rivals as whilst their utility is good, they are altogether different and shouldn’t be put in the same boat. It would be like me saying well, Solana might have a team of over 200 developers, but is it meme enough? Does it look Doge? Different use, different utility, ignoring the work Shib is doing in the background to empower itself and ignoring the way it functions as a coin utilising burn strategies to increase its value.Wouldn’t it be more realistic to say: well Shiba Inu has Shibaswap, which is a decentralised exchange. Why not talk about Uniswap, Sushiswap, or 1inch? IDEX v3 launched about a month back and could become a strong contender. These are rivals to Shibaswap.
I have money in 1inch and Aave currently because I have good faith in what the platforms represent. I also have money in Cardano and Solana too. The thing is, if you’re going to talk about rivalry, you need to look at the scope of what it is to be a rival. In Tekken, I play using Lee. My brother slaps me down using that overpowered cheat Marduk, but we are playing the same game. It would not be fair if I used Piccolo from DBZ or Majin Buu to fight either of these. It’s a different game and a different arena. Same with Shib and Solana. For the record, I love both of them, but they shouldn’t be compared like this. Rumours state that Shiba Inu is going to be developing its own blockchain, Shibarium, but until it becomes a solid functioning reality, it’s not really rival competition.
Because of the fact this is written and released during a massive crypto market crash, dragging Shiba Inu down to a mere two thirds of it’s value, this malicious information does lead me to suspect that the fool writer will be taking full advantage of the cheapening Shiba Inu and investing as people panic sell. This behaviour I see as exploitative. I am very aware of panic selling as I myself did it on IoTeX a while back. I sold what I had bought at 10p for 12p. If I had waited, I could have sold at 16 or 17 and made bank. I still made a profit, but because I panicked, I was kicking myself. Today it’s worth just under 10p, and I bought more at 11. I know it’s going to be going up next year, so I refuse to sell or swap until I make a significant profit. I now have a rule that I won’t sell or swap out of anything until I make 20+ percent profit.
It is stated bluntly at the end of this article that the author owns Etherium, which is great. The fool also owns Etherium and Bitcoin. They also have a disclosure policy.Whilst this is fantastic news and I am very happy for the author and the fool to own Bitcoin and Etherium, it’s sadly very obvious to me that this article looks like it is written maliciously and with not enough understanding to provide validity to the author’s claims. I do not know whether or not Shib will reach 1 dollar and I frankly couldn’t care less. The value of the currency is meaningless to me as long as it rises. If I wake up and make 20 or 30 percent. I’ll be happy. As with all cryptocurrencies, there is hype and there are dangers so do your own research when investing.
I personally like Shib, and I have faith in it. I don’t feel a hint of worry when the value drops and I dutifully invest more. Do not take my word for it, but if you trust me on anything, invest a few quid or dollars in it and forget about it for a few years. Maybe it’ll be a winner, maybe you’ll lose it. If you spent the money on a dinner out instead, that investment won’t get you very far. Shib might not hit a dollar but it might hit enough to make you feel a little happy, pay for a holiday or get that feather boa you always wanted. Whatever you do, buy on a dip, and you’ll probably be happier.If you want to send me some Shiba Inu or other cryptocurrency I have it on my donations page. All donations will be added to my wall of support and you’ll get a thank you on my sci fi series next episode if and when it’s made.
For a long time, I have moaned about the increases to the cost of living brought about by the minimum wage. These increases drive me absolutely mad, because they always, with no exception, do more damage than good. People are lulled in because they are heralded as a solution to inflation, which could be more easily dealt with by reducing things like VAT, allowing more personal income before Tax and enforcing price drops in shops in tandem with a reduction of VAT and Corporation Tax.
So what does this mean for us economically?
So I look at my bank account every now and then. If I save 1000 pounds, that’s 1000 pounds I will have in my savings. If I spend it immediately, I will get 1000 pounds worth of value, however if the prices of everything will naturally go up along with the cost of living, which the minimum wage always bumps up much higher than any benefit gained, that means my savings will always deteriorate in value. Even if I am earning a larger number, I face higher percentages of my income being taxed across the board, from income tax to VAT, and this affects everyone, most of all people on or close to the minimum wage.
Inflation allows people to write off annoying debts much easier, as the real world value of the numbers you owe deteriorates the more inflation is pushed, and this is why the Government likes to create it, as well as using it to increase the total percentage of income paid in tax among other things. Basically it’s a giant trap, but I digress, and this is where Cryptocurrency comes in for me.
Cryptocurrency value increases and decreases based on massive varying factors, and an investment in it can either lead to riches or a complete loss of finances. Naturally, this both excites and terrifies me accordingly! Stagnancy can also follow, along with depression and despair however, the volatility allows for a massive chance to gain a lot of money, sometimes very quickly. My fingers itch with the prospects!
A lot of new currencies start off being super cheap and gain in value extraordinarily over time, sometimes creating millionaires in a matter of days. It only takes a small investment and a bit of luck and the results can be better than playing the lottery. Heck if I got lucky, I’d just cash out and be happy, get my family sorted and friends and call it a day. I’d also buy a sailing boat because I like sailing and cut my work nights down somewhat.
Crypto is a Risky Business!
As we have some altcoins that will deteriorate over time, and some ventures that will crash and burn, we have to accept every investment comes with risk. I started crypto trading a while back and I enjoy it. I’ve made a reasonable amount of money, not enough to quit my job or retire but through a little research and analysis, I’m doing reasonably. I have some crypto currencies I like, some I don’t and some that are pretty much just meh. I am invested currently in over 20 different cryptocurrencies, a large spread to increase my chances of getting lucky.
I’ve decided to accept cryptocurrency donations on my site because I enjoy the game and it will allow other people like me to support me in my weirdness in a different way.
Rules that have worked for me:
Don’t Panic! At the start I used to panic sell, only to watch the Cryptocurrencies I’ve sold massively upscale in value costing me a lot of money.
Remember this is an investment, invest only what you can afford to lose and don’t think of what you have in crypto as being your money. Once it’s in the system you can easily lose everything you put in, so losing the thought patterns and attachment to the money is key to keeping a cool head and avoiding mistakes. You have to be prepared to take the loss the second your money has turned into Crypto and not let that phase you.
20% rule: After preemptively trading my cryptocurrency to a new coin, I have seen horrendously large rises in some of the currencies I’ve traded away. It’s always good to keep at least 20% in your previous crypto because you never know when it’s going to boom. This rule has helped me save myself several times from potential disasters and allowed me to ensure that some of my coins have done well for me, even after I’ve decided a different currency will be better considering their market plans.
Research the cryptocurrencies that you are interested in, and focus on their news, rather than the news of certain sites. What they are doing to improve their systems is more valuable than the speculation of people who mostly do not know what they are doing.
Be diverse and pick reliable currencies. It doesn’t pay to take horrendous risks. Diversify your investments among a number of different currencies, and i must emphasise to please research them before you chunk in a lot of cash. I tend to use reliable currencies that move against each other in the market, so when one is doing well the other tends to do badly. Transferring the successful one to the other has massively increased my profits when the market turns around. Whilst patterns are rarely predictable, it can be good to work with multiple currencies that reliably gain and fall in tandem.
10, 20, 50, 100. Whenever I trade between cryptocurrencies, I trade using these units so I can quickly see if a currency has gained massively and know which of them is doing well at a glance. This allows me to utilise the next strategy well.
Trade out profit. If you have a currency you really like and it’s doing well, but you wish to invest in something else, trade the profit out, rather than putting more money in. If the cryptocurrency reduces in value again, you’ve lost nothing but your profit, whilst opening up a new investment opportunity. As the cryptocurrency you traded out was at a higher value than before it fell, you will not lose so much when it drops down in value and your new investment might earn you a nice chunk. I’ve done this a LOT and it’s fairly successful.
If you consistently lose at cryptocurrency, only do trades with what you earn on the platform, stop investing your money until you understand what you are doing!
Don’t buy on a high. All crypto dips at times, get it in the dips, and wait for them – they will come.
Set a rule for profit. At the moment my rule for profit is approximately 20% profit before I trade one cryptocurrency for another that is going to go up. I will always save some in reserve, 20% just in case the crypto keeps scaling well, as I’d hate to miss out on one Bitcoin level coin.
Don’t blame yourself if you screw it up or think you are a god if you make it big, Cryptocurrency is a dangerous game and it can easily kick you between the legs if you’re not careful. It’s dangerous if you think you are the best trader ever if you luck out for a month or so, then do something dumb only to lose thousands. I’ve seen it happen with other people and when I started it also happened to me.
As with anything on the Internet, take my advice with a pinch of salt. None of what I am telling you is professional financial advice as I’m just a hobbyist. I’ve got super lucky at times and at others, I’ve screwed myself over, oh boy have I done that! Even today, whilst writing this, I lost 40 quid to just not waiting for a few minutes, but how would I know that the currency was going to peak even higher! Thankfully I saved 20% on it and made a nice chunk before it dropped again.
Do I recommend getting into Cryptocurrency?
If you have an addictive personality – no. Addiction is a serious problem when it comes to something like this. An addict doesn’t think with the mind, but more so with the need or desire that comes from the addiction. Addiction makes people make really terrible mistakes, such as losing everything then putting more money in before they understand it’s disappearing. Spotting an opportunity and investing badly can end up costing thousands. So if you are easily addicted to things, you need to be very, very careful with Crypto.
If you have money, then give it a shot, even if you just work one or two extra overtime shifts in a month to give it a go. The only thing you will lose is a few hundred, and if you give up, leave everything there, or trade it into a few different currencies and come back in a year to see if anything is different. You never know when one thing may pay off. 100 pounds will give you around £3.00 plus in 20 currencies on Coinbase. One of them might increase thousands of percent in value over the next year or so. Nothing is guaranteed, but you never know what could happen until it does. You don’t win any games you don’t play.
If you want to try investing with Coinbase, if you’re going to invest over $100.00 and you use this link you will get some extra bitcoin when you spend your first $100.00 or other currency equivalent.
Which Currencies do I like?
I actually like loads of cryptocurrencies! My favourites are:
Shiba Inu: A cool classy meme coin that’s nice and volatile. Buy low sell high leads to some valuable results and with a little luck I could become a shiba millionaire. Not that I think that’ll happen any time soon. I invest in the currency when it’s doing badly and then trade out for other cheap currencies when Shiba Inu is doing well. Doing this I’ve saved a hell of a lot of money.
Algorand: Reliable, effective and intelligently designed, Algorand feels like a crypto that will do well. I like their staking rewards on Coinbase, which ensure my value in Algorand increases with the power of the currency. Algorand was developed by Silvio Micali who is a prestigious Turing Award winner. It’s a great Cryptocurrency, just make sure you invest on the dips.
IoTeX is a secure and scalable cryptocurrency with a solid team behind it. Whilst not exceptional by any means compared with some cryptocurrencies in terms of results, IoTeX has been a reliable cryptocurrency for me that has helped me both hold and expand on finances when other cryptocurrencies have not given me the percentages I set myself for growth. I personally love it, but others may not revere it as I do. As anything else in this market you cannot always judge on past experience, but it’s pretty reliable at the best of times.
Tezos is also a great cryptocurrency to get into on Coinbase, and holding it will result in rewards over time. Tezos have a nice pulse for people who are in it for the long game and wait. It’s easy to grab them when they are low and sell them when they are high, as price fluctuation can be insane during a week. Tezos like IoTeX are one of my go to currencies if the timing is right.
Investing in any of these should not be taken as financial advice, they are my personal favorites, and previous experience isn’t always going to repeat. Every time I make a trade, I ensure that I am trading sensibly and not taking dumb risks. I always keep some reserves handy just in case something goes horrifically wrong as well, as losing money is the opposite of why I got involved in Cryptocurrency.
If you found this useful and want to donate to me, please click here to choose a cryptocurrency to donate! If you’d like to sign up to Coinbase, the platform I use, and click this link you will get a small crypto gift, as will I when you spend your first 100 dollars.
Whatever the case, stay safe and only play with money you are prepared to lose. I started on £10.00, realised the scope of what could be achieved and went a bit crazy, but it’s paid off so far. From around £2,400 investment, I am just over £4,100. I am very wary and know this could change in the wink of an eye. Personally I am enjoying the system, and I’m hoping it’ll make me rich.
