This game is SO FUN, I want to play it on the train! What's a good laptop computer to run it?
Money is no object

I'm always bored in computer class.... someone help out please. thanks!

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This entire post represents my personal views and opinions, and should not be taken as financial advice (or advice of any kind whatsoever). I encourage you to do your own research, take anything I write with a grain of salt, and hold me accountable for any mistakes you may catch. Also, full disclosure, I hold a net long position in GME, but my cost basis is very low (average ~$67--I have to admit, the drop today was too tasty so my cost basis went up from yesterday)/share with my later buys averaged in), and I'm using money I can absolutely lose. My capital at risk and tolerance for risk generally is likely substantially different than yours. In this post I will go a little further and speculate more than I'd normally do in a post due to the questions I've been getting, so fair warning, some of it might be very wrong. I suspect we'll learn some of the truth years from now when some investigative journalist writes a book about it.
Thank you everyone for the comments and questions on the first and second post on this topic.
Today was a study in the power of fear, courage, and the levers you can pull when you wield billions of dollars...
Woops, excuse me. I'm sorry hedge fund guys... I meant trillions of dollars--I just briefly forget you control not just your own but a lot of other peoples' money too for a moment there.
Also, for people still trading this on market-based rationale (as I am), it was a good day to measure the conviction behind your thesis. I like to think I have conviction, but in case you are somehow not yet familiar with the legend of DFV, you need to see these posts (fair warning, nsfw, and some may be offended/triggered by the crude language). The last two posts might be impressive, but you should follow it in chronological order and pay attention to the evolution of sentiment in the comments to experience true enlightenment.
Anyway, I apologize, but this post will be very long--there's just a lot to unpack.

Pre-Market

Disclaimer: given yesterday's pre-market action I didn't even pay attention to the screen until near retail pre-market. I'm less confident in my ability to read what's going on in a historical chart vs the feel I get watching live, but I'll try.
Early in the pre-market it looks to me like some momentum traders are taking profit, discounting the probability that the short-side will give them a deep discount later, which you can reasonably assume given the strategy they ran yesterday. If they're right they can sell some small volume into the pre-market top, wait for the hedge funds try to run the price back down, and then lever up the gains even higher buying the dip. Buy-side here look to me like people FOMOing and YOLOing in at any price to grab their slice of gainz, or what looks to be market history in the making. No way are short-side hedge funds trying to cover anything at these prices.
Mark Cuban--well said! Free markets baby!
Mohamed El-Erian is money in the bank as always. "upgrade in quality" on the pandemic drop was the best, clearest actionable call while most were at peak panic, and boy did it print. Your identifying the bubble as the excessive short (vs blaming retail activity) is money yet again. Also, The PAIN TRADE (sorry, later interview segment I only have on DVR, couldn't find on youtube--maybe someone else can)!
The short attack starts, but I'm hoping no one was panicking this time--we've seen it before. Looks like the momentum guys are minting money buying the double dip into market open.
CNBC, please get a good market technician to explain the market action. Buy-side dominance, sell-side share availability evaporating into nothing (look at day-by-day volume last few days), this thing is now at runaway supercritical mass. There is no changing the trajectory unless you can change the very fabric of the market and the rules behind it (woops, I guess I should have knocked on wood there).
If you know the mechanics, what's happening in the market with GME is not mysterious AT ALL. I feel like you guys are trying to scare retail out early "for their own good" (with all sincerity, to your credit) rather than explain what's happening. Possibly you also fear that explaining it would equate to enabling/encouraging people to keep trying to do it inappropriately (possibly fair point, but at least come out and say that if that's the case). Outside the market, however...wow.

You Thought Yesterday Was Fear? THIS is Fear!

Ok short-side people, my hat is off to you. Just when I thought shouting fire in a locked theater was fear mongering poetry in motion, you went and took it to 11. What's even better? Yelling fire in a theater with only one exit. That way people can cause the financial equivalent of stampede casualties. Absolutely brilliant.
Robin Hood disables buying of GME, AMC, and a few of the other WSB favorites. Other brokerages do the same. Even for people on 0% margin. Man, and here I thought I had seen it all yesterday.
Side note: I will give a shout out to TD Ameritrade. You guys got erroneously lumped together with RH during an early CNBC segment, but you telegraphed the volatility risk management changes and gradually ramped up margin requirements over the past week. No one on your platform should have been surprised if they were paying attention. And you didn't stop anyone from trading their own money at any point in time. My account balance thanks you. I heard others may have had problems, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt given the DDOS attacks that were flyiing around
Robin Hood. Seriously WTF. I'm sure it was TOTALLY coincidence that your big announcements happen almost precisely when what has to be one of the best and most aggressive short ladder attacks of all time starts painting the tape, what looked like a DDOS attack on Reddit's CDN infrastructure (pretty certain it was the CDN because other stuff got taken out at the same time too), and a flood of bots hit social media (ok, short-side, this last one is getting old).
Taking out a large-scale cloud CDN is real big boy stuff though, so I wouldn't entirely rule out nation state type action--those guys are good at sniffing out opportunities to foment social unrest.
Anyway, at this point, as the market dives, I have to admit I was worried for a moment. Not that somehow the short-side would win (hah! the long-side whales in the pond know what's up), but that a lot of retail would get hurt in the action. That concern subsided quite a bit on the third halt on that slide. But first...
A side lesson on market orders
Someone printed bonus bank big time (and someone lost--I feel your pain, whoever you are).
During the face-ripping volatility my play money account briefly ascended to rarified heights of 7 figures. It took me a second to realize it, then another second to process it. Then, as soon as it clicked, that one, glorious moment in time was gone.
What happened?
During the insane chop of the short ladder attack, someone decided to sweep the 29 Jan 21 115 Call contracts, but they couldn't get a grip on the price, which was going coast to coast as IV blew up and the price was being slammed around. So whoever was trying to buy said "F it, MARKET ORDER" (i.e. buy up to $X,XXX,XXX worth of contracts at any price). This is referred to as a sweep if funded to buy all/most of the contracts on offer (HFT shops snipe every contract at each specific price with a shotgun of limit orders, which is far safer, but something only near-market compute resources can do really well). For retail, or old-tech pros, if you want all the contracts quickly, you drop a market order loaded with big bucks and see what you get... BUT, some clever shark had contracts available for the reasonable sum of... $4,400, or something around that. I was too stunned to grab a screencap. The buy market order swept the book clean and ran right into that glorious, nigh-obscene backstop limit. So someone got nearly $440,000 PER CONTRACT that was, at the time theoretically priced at around $15,000. $425,000 loss... PER CONTRACT. Maybe I'm not giving the buyer enough credit.. you can get sniped like that even if you try to do a safety check of the order book first, but, especially in low liquidity environments, if a HFT can peak into your order flow (or maybe just observes a high volume of sweeps occurring), they can end up front running your sweep, pick off the reasonable contracts, and slam a ridiculous limit sell order into place before your order makes it to the exchange. Either way, I hope that sweep wasn't loaded for bear into the millions. If so... OUCH. Someone got cleaned out.
So, the lesson here folks... in a super high volatility, low-liquidity market, a market order will just run up the ladder into the first sell order it can find, and some very brutal people will put limit sells like that out there just in case they hit the jackpot. And someone did. If you're on the winning side, great. It can basically bankrupt you if you're on the losing side. My recommendation: Just don't try it. I wouldn't be surprised if really shady shenanigans were involved in this, but no way to know (normally that's crazy-type talk, but after today....peeking at order flow and sniping sweeps is one of the fastest, most financially devastating ways to bleed big long-side players, just sayin').
edit *so while I was too busy trying not to spit out my coffee to grab a screenshot, piddlesthethug was faster on the draw and captured this: https://imgur.com/gallery/RI1WOuu
Ok, so I guess my in-the-moment mental math was off by about 10%. Man, that hurts just thinking about the guy who lost on that trade.*
Back to the market action..

A Ray of Light Through the Darkness

So I was worried watching the crazy downward movement for two different reasons.
On the one hand, I was worried the momentum pros would get the best discounts on the dip (I'll admit, I FOMO'd in too early, unnecessarily raising my cost basis).
On the other hand, I was worried for the retail people on Robin Hood who might be bailing out into incredibly steep losses because they had only two options: Watch the slide, or bail. All while dealing with what looked to me like a broad-based cloud CDN outage as they tried to get info from WSB HQ, and wondering if the insta-flood of bot messages were actually real people this time, and that everyone else was bailing on them to leave them holding the bag.
But I saw the retail flag flying high on the 3rd market halt (IIRC), and I knew most would be ok. What did I see, you ask? Why, the glorious $211.00 / $5,000 bid/ask spread. WSB Reddit is down? Those crazy mofos give you the finger right on the ticker tape. I've been asked many times in the last few hours about why I was so sure shorts weren't covering on the down move. THIS is how I knew. For sure. It's in the market data itself.
edit So, there's feedback in the comments that this is likely more of a technical glitch. Man, at least it was hilarious in the moment. But also now I know maybe not to trust price updates when the spread between orders being posted is so wide. Maybe a technical limitation of TOS
I'll admit, I tried to one-up those bros with a 4206.90 limit sell order, but it never made it through. I'm impressed that the HFT guys at the hedge fund must have realized really quickly what a morale booster that kind of thing would have been, and kept a lower backstop ask in place almost continuously from then on I'm sure others tried the same thing. Occasionally $1,000 and other high-dollar asks would peak through from time to time from then on, which told me the long-side HFTs were probably successfully sniping the backstops regularly.
So, translating for those of you who found that confusing. First, such a high ask is basically a FU to the short-side (who, as you remember, need to eventually buy shares to cover their short positions). More importantly, as an indicator of retail sentiment, it meant that NO ONE ELSE WAS TRYING TO SELL AT ANY PRICE LOWER THAN $5,000. Absolutely no one was bailing out.
I laughed for a minute, then started getting a little worried. Holy cow.. NO retail selling into the fear? How are they resisting that kind of price move??
The answer, as we all know now... they weren't afraid... they weren't even worried. They were F*CKING PISSED.
Meanwhile the momentum guys and long-side HFTs keep gobbling up the generously donated shares that the short-side are plowing into their ladder attack. Lots of HFT duels going on as long-side HFTs try to intercept shares meant to travel between short-side HFT accounts for their ladder. You can tell when you see prices like $227.0001 constantly flying across the tape. Retail can't even attempt to enter an order like that--those are for the big boys with privileged low-latency access.
The fact that you can even see that on the tape with human eyes is really bad for the short-side people.
Why, you ask? Because it means liquidity is drying up, and fast.

The Liquidity Tide is Flowing Out Quickly. Who's Naked (short)?

Market technicals time. I still wish this sub would allow pictures so I could throw up a chart, but I guess a table will do fine.
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Date	Volume	Price at US Market Close
Friday, 1/22/21	197,157,196	$65.01
Monday, 1/25/21	177,874,00	$76.79
Tuesday, 1/26/21	178,587,974	$147.98
Wednesday, 1/27/21	93,396,666	$347.51
Thursday, 1/28/21	58,815,805	$193.60

What do I see? I see the shares available to trade dropping so fast that all the near-exchange compute power in the world won't let the short-side HFTs maintain order flow volume for their attacks. Many retail people asking me questions thought today was the heaviest trading. Nope--it was just the craziest.
What about the price dropping on Thursday? Is that a sign that the short-side pulled a miracle out and pushed price down against a parabolic move on even less volume than Wednesday? Is the long side running out of capital?
Nope. It means the short-side hedge funds are just about finished.
But wait, I thought the price needed to be higher for them to be taken out? How is it that price being lower is bad for them? Won't that allow them to cover at a lower price?
No, the volume is so low that they can't cover any meaningful fraction of their position without spiking the price parabolic almost instantly. Just not enough shares on offer at reasonable prices (especially when WSB keeps flashing you 6942.00s).
It's true, a higher price hurts, but the interest charge for one more day is just noise at this point. The only tick that will REALLY count is the last tick of trading on Friday.
In the meantime, the price drop (and watching the sparring in real time) tells me that the long-side whales and their HFT quants are so certain of the squeeze that they're no longer worried AT ALL about whether it will happen, and they aren't even worried at all about retail morale to help carry the water anymore.
Instead, they're now really, really worried about how CHEAPLY they can make it happen.
They are wondering if they can't edge out just a sliver more alpha out of what will already be a blow-out trade for the history books (probably). You see, to make it happen they just have to keep hoovering up shares. It doesn't matter what those shares cost. If you're certain that the squeeze is now locked in, why push the price up and pay more than you have to? Just keep pressing hard enough to force short-side to keep sending those tasty shares your way, but not so much you move the price. Short-side realizes this and doesn't try to drive price down too aggressively. They can't afford to let price run away, so they have to keep some pressure on at the lowest volume they can manage, but they don't want to push down too hard and give the long-side HFTs too deep of a discount and bleed their ammo out even faster. That dynamic keeps price within a narrow (for GME today, anyway) trading range for the rest of the day into the close.
Good plan guys, but those after market people are pushing the price up again. Damnit WSB bros and Euros, you're costing those poor long-side whales their extra 0.0000001% of alpha on this trade just so you can run up your green rockets... See, that's the kind of nonsense that just validates Lee Cooperman's concerns.
On a totally unrelated note, I have to say that I appreciate the shift in CNBC's reporting. Much more thoughtful and informed. Just please get a good market technician in there who will be willing to talk about what is going on under the hood if possible. A lot of people watching on the sidelines are far more terrified than they need to be because it all looks random to them. And they're worried that you guys look confused and worried--and if the experts on the news are worried....??!
You should be able to find one who has access to the really good data that we retailers can only guess at, who can explain it to us unwashed masses.

Ok, So.. Questions

There is no market justification for this. How can you tell me is this fundamentally sound and not just straight throwing money away irresponsibly?? (side note: not that that should matter--if you want to throw your money away why shouldn't you be allowed to?)
We're not trading in your securities pricing model. This isn't irrational just because your model says long and short positions are the same thing. The model is not a real market. There is asymmetrical counterparty risk here given the shorts are on the hook for all the money they have, and possibly all the money their brokers have, and possibly anyone with exposure to the broker too! You may want people to trade by the rules you want them to follow. But the rest of us trade in the real market as it is actually implemented. Remember? That's what you tell the retailers who take their accounts to zero. Remember what you told the KBIO short-squeezed people? They had fair warning that short positions carry infinite risk, including more than your initial investment. You guys know this. It's literally part of your job to know this.
But-but-the systemic risk!! This is Madness!
...Madness?
THIS. IS. THE MARKET!!! *Retail kicks the short-side hedge funds down an infinity loss black hole\*.
Ok, seriously though, that is actually a fundamentally sound, and properly profit-driven answer at least as justifiable as the hedge funds' justification for going >100% of float short. If they can be allowed to gamble INFINITE LOSSES because they expect to make profit on the possibility the company goes bankrupt, can't others do the inverse on the possibility the company I don't know.. doesn't go bankrupt and gets a better strategy from the team that created what is now a $43bn market cap company (CHWY) that does exactly some of the things GME needs to do (digital revenue growth) maybe? I mean, I first bought in on that fundamental value thesis in the 30s and then upped my cost basis given the asymmetry of risk in the technical analysis as an obvious no-brainer momentum trade. The squeeze is just, as WSB people might say, tendies raining down from on high as an added bonus.
I get that you disagree on the fundamental viability of GME. Great. Isn't that what makes a market?
Regarding the consequences of a squeeze, in practice my expectation was maybe at worst some kind of ex-market settlement after liquidation of the funds with exposure to keep things nice and orderly for the rest of the market. I mean, they handled the VW thing somehow right? I see now that I just underestimated elite hedge fund managers though--those guys are so hardcore (I'll explain why I think so a bit lower down).
If hedge fund people are so hardcore, how did the retail long side ever have a chance of winning this squeeze trade they're talking about?
Because it's an asymmetrical battle once you have short interest cornered. And the risk is also crazily asymmetrical in favor of the long side if short interest is what it is in GME. In fact, the hedge funds essentially cornered themselves without anyone even doing anything. They just dug themselves right in there. Kind of impressive really, in a weird way.
What does the short side need to cover? They need the price to be low, and they need to buy shares.
How does price move lower? You have to push share volume such that supply overwhelms demand and price therefore goes down (man, I knew econ 101 would come in handy someday).
But wait... if you have to sell shares to push the price down.. won't you just undo all your work when you have to buy it back to actually cover?
The trick is you have to push price down so hard, so fast, so unpredictably, that you SCARE OTHER PEOPLE into selling their shares too, because they're scared of taking losses. Their sales help push the price down for free! and then you scoop them up at discount price! Also, there are ways to make people scared other than price movement and fear of losses, when you get right down to it. So, you know, you just need to get really, really, really good at making people scared. Remember to add a line item to your budget to make sure you can really do it right.
On the other hand..
What does the long side need to do? They need to own as much of the shares as they can get their hands on. And then they need to hold on to them. They can't be weak hands either. They need to be hands that will hold even under the most intense heat of battle, and the immense pressure of mind-numbing fear... they need to be as if they were made of... diamond... (oh wow, maybe those WSB people kind of have a point here).
Why does this matter? Because at some point the sell side will eventually run out of shares to borrow. They simply won't be there, because they'll be safely tucked away in the long-side's accounts. Once you run out of shares to borrow and sell, you have no way to move the price anymore. You can't just drop a fat stack--excuse me, I mean suitcase (we're talking hedge fund money here after all)--of Benjamins on the ticker tape directly. Only shares. No more shares, no way to have any direct effect on the price whatsoever.
Ok, doesn't that just mean trading stops? Can't you just out-wait the long side then?
Well, you could.. until someone on the long side puts 1 share up on a 69420 ask, and an even crazier person actually buys at that price on the last tick on a Friday. Let's just say it gets really bad at that point.
Ok.. but how do the retail people actually get paid?
Well, to be quite honest, it's entirely up to each of them individually. You've seen the volumes being thrown around the past week+. I guarantee you every single retailer out there could have printed money multiple times trading that flow. If they choose to, and time it well. Or they could lose it all--this is the market. Some of them apparently seem to have some plan, or an implicit trust in certain individuals to help them know when to punch out. Maybe it works out, but maybe not. There will be financial casualties on the field for sure--this is the bare-knuckled capitalist jungle after all, remember? But everyone ponied up to the table with their own money somehow, so they all get to play in the big leagues just like everyone else. In theory, anyway.
And now, Probably the #1 question I've been asked on all of these posts has been: So what happens next? Do we get the infinity squeeze? Do the hedge funds go down?
Great questions. I don't know. No one does. That's what I've said every time, but I get that's a frustrating answer, so I'll write a bit more and speculate further. Please again understand these are my opinions with a degree of speculation I wouldn't normally put in a post.

The Market and the Economy. Main Street, Wall Street, and Washington

The pandemic has hurt so many people that it's hard to comprehend. Honestly, I don't even pretend to be able to. I have been crazy fortunate enough to almost not be affected at all. Honestly, it is a little unnerving to me how great the disconnect is between people who are doing fine (or better than fine, looking at my IRA) versus the people who are on the opposite side of the ever-widening divide that, let's be honest, has been growing wider since long before the pandemic.
People on the other side--who have been told they cannot work even if they want to, who wonder if congress will get it together to at least keep them from getting thrown out of their house if they have to keep taking one for the team for the good of all, are wondering if they're even living in the same reality.
Because all they see on the news each day is that the stock market is at record highs, or some amazing tech stocks have 10x'd in the last 6 months. How can that be happening during a pandemic? Because The Market is not The Economy. The Market looks forward to that brighter future that Economy types just need to wait for. Don't worry--it'll be here sometime before the end of the year. We think. We're making money on that assumption right now, anyway. Oh, by the way, if you're in The Market, you get to get richer as a minor, unearned side-effect of the solutions our governments have come up with to fight the pandemic.
Wow. That sounds amazing. How do I get to part of that world?
Retail fintech, baby. Physical assets like real estate might be a bit out of reach at the moment, but stocks will do. I can even buy fractional shares of BRK/A LOL.
Finally, I can trade for my own slice of heaven, watching that balance go up (and up--go stonks!!). Now I too get to dream the dream. I get to feel connected to that mythical world, The Market, rather than being stuck in the plain old Economy. Sure, I might blow up my account, but that's because it's the jungle. Bare-knuckled, big league capitalism going on right here, and at least I get to show up an put my shares on the table with everyone else. At least I'm playing the same game. Everyone has to start somewhere--at least now I get to start, even if I have to learn my lesson by zeroing my account a few times. I've basically had to deal with what felt like my life zeroing out a few times before. This is number on a screen going to 0 is nothing.
Laugh or cry, right? I'll post my losses on WSB and at least get some laughs.
Geez, some of the people here are making bank. I better learn from them and see if they'll let me in on their trades. Wow... this actually might work. I don't understand yet, but I trust these guys telling me to hold onto this crazy trade. I don't understand it, but all the memes say it's going to be big.
...WOW... I can pay off my credit card with this number. Do I punch out now? No? Hold?... Ok, getting nervous watching the number go down but I trust you freaks. We're still in the jungle, but at least I'm in with with my posse now. Market open tomorrow--we ride the rocket baby! And if it goes down, at least I'm going down with my crew. At least if that happens the memes will be so hilarious I'll forget to cry.
Wow.. I can't believe it... we might actually pull this off. Laugh at us now, "pros"!
We're in The Market now, and Market rules tell us what is going to happen. We're getting all that hedge fund money Right? Right?
Maybe.
First, I say maybe because nothing is ever guaranteed until it clears. Secondly, because the rules of The Market are not as perfectly enforced as we would like to assume. We are also finding out they may not be perfectly fair. The Market most experts are willing to talk about is really more like the ideal The Market is supposed to be. This is the version of the market I make my trading decisions in. However, the Real Market gets strange and unpredictable at the edges, when things are taken to extremes, or rules are pushed beyond the breaking point, or some of the mechanics deep in the guts of the Real Market get stretched. GME ticks basically all of those boxes, which is why so many people are getting nervous (aside from the crazy money they might lose). It's also important to remember that the sheer amount of money flowing through the market has distorting power unto itself. Because it's money, and people really, really, really like their money--especially when they're used to having a lot of it, and rules involving that kind of money tend to look more... flexible, shall we say.
Ok, back to GME. If this situation with GME is allowed to play out to its conclusion in The Market, we'll see what happens. I think all the long-side people get the chance to be paid (what, I'm not sure--and remember, you have to actually sell your position at some point or it's all still just numbers on your screen), but no one knows for certain.
But this might legitimately get so big that it spills out of The Market and back into The Economy.
Geez, and here I thought the point of all of this was so that we all get to make so much money we wouldn't ever have to think and worry about that thing again.
Unfortunately, while he's kind of a buzzkill, Thomas Petterfy has a point. This could be a serious problem.
It might blow out The Market, which will definitely crap on The Economy, which as we all know from hard experience, will seriously crush Main Street.
If it's that big a deal, we may even need Washington to be involved. Once that happens, who knows what to expect.. this kind of scenario being possible is why I've been saying I have no idea how this ends, and no one else does either.
How did we end up in this ridiculous situation? From GAMESTOP?? And it's not Retail's fault the situation is what it is.. why is everyone telling US that we need to back down to save The Market?? What about the short-side hedge funds that slammed that risk into the system to begin with?? We're just playing by the rules of The Market!!
Well, here are my thoughts, opinions, and some even further speculation... This may be total fantasy land stuff here, but since I keep getting asked I'll share anyway. Just keep that disclaimer in mind.

A Study in Big Finance Power Moves: If you owe the bank $10,000, it's your problem...

What happens when you owe money you have no way to pay back? It's a scary question to have to face personally. Still, on balance and on average, if you're fortunate enough to have access to credit the borrowing is a risk that is worth taking (especially if you're reasonably careful). Lenders can take a risk loaning you money, you take a risk by borrowing in order to do something now that you would otherwise have had to wait a long time or maybe would never have realistically been able to do otherwise. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes it's due to reasons totally beyond your control. In any case, if you find yourself there you have no choice but to dust yourself off, pick yourself up as best as you can, and try to move on and rebuild. A lot of people had to learn that in 2008. Man that year really sucked.
Wall street learned their lessons too. Most learned what I think most of us would consider the right lessons--lessons about risk management, and the need to guard vigilantly against systemic risk, concentration of risk through excess concentration of leverage on common assets, etc. Many suspect that at least a few others may have learned an entirely different set of, shall we say, unhealthy lessons. Also, to try to be completely fair, maybe managing other peoples' money on 10x+ leverage comes with a kind of pressure that just clouds your judgement. I could actually, genuinely buy that. I know I make mistakes under pressure even when I'm trading risk capital I could totally lose with no real consequence. Whatever the motive, here's my read on what's happening:
First, remember that as much fun as WSB are making of the short-side hedge fund guys right now, those guys are smart. Scary smart. Keep that in mind.
Next, let's put ourselves in their shoes.
If you're a high-alpha hedge fund manager slinging trades on a $20bn 10x leveraged to 200bn portfolio, get caught in a bad situation, and are down mark-to-market several hundred million.. what do you do? Do you take your losses and try again next time? Hell no.
You're elite. You don't realize losses--you double down--you can still save this trade no sweat.
But what if that doesn't work out so well and you're in the hole >$2bn? Obvious double down. Need you ask? I'm net up on the rest of my positions (of course), and the momentum when this thing makes its mean reversion move will be so hot you can almost taste the alpha from here. Speaking of momentum, imagine the move if your friends on TV start hyping the story harder! Genius!
Ok, so that still didn't work... this is now a frigging 7 sigma departure from your modeled risk, and you're now locked into a situation that is about as close to mathematically impossible to escape as you can get in the real world, and quickly converging on infinite downside. Holy crap. The fund might be liquidated by your prime broker by tomorrow morning--and man, even the broker is freaking out. F'in Elon Musk and his twitter! You're cancelling your advance booking on his rocket ship to Mars first thing tomorrow... Ok, focus--this might legit impact your total annual return. You need a plan, and you know the smartest people on the planet, right? The masters of the universe! Awesome--they've even seen this kind of thing before and still have the playbook!! Of course! It's obvious now--you borrow a few more billion and double down again first thing in the morning. So simple. Sticky note that Mars trip cancellation so you don't forget.
Ok... so that didn't work? You even cashed in some pretty heavy chits too. Ah well, that was a long shot anyway. So where were you? Oh yeah.. if shenanigans don't work, skip to page 10...
...Which says, of course, to double down again. Anyone even keeping track anymore? Oh, S3 says it's $40bn and we're going parabolic? Man, that chart gives me goosebumps. All according to plan...
So what happens tomorrow? One possible outcome of PURE FANTASTIC SPECULATION...
End of the week--phew. Never though it'd come. Where are you at now?... Over $9000^\)!!! Wow. You did it boys, and as a bonus the memes will be so sweet.
^\)side note: add 8 zeros to the end...
Awesome--your problems have been solved. Because...
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..
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BOOM
​
Now it's EVERYONE's problem. Come at me, Chamath, THIS is REAL baller shit.
Now all you gotta do is make all the hysterical retirees watching their IRAs hanging in the balance blame those WSB kids. Hahaha. Boomers, amirite? hate when those kids step on their law--I mean IRAs. GG guys, keep you memes. THAT is how it's done.
Ok, but seriously, I hope that's not how it ends. I guess we just take it day by day at this point.
Apologies for the length. Good luck in the market!
Also, apologies in advance for formatting, spelling, and grammatical errors. I was typing this thing in between doing all kinds of other things for most of the day.
Edit getting a bunch of questions on if it's possible the hedge funds are finding ways to cover in spite of my assumptions. Of course. I'm a retail guy trying to read the charts and price action. I don't have any special tools like the pros may have.

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50019
This week at Bungie, Hawkmoon is back on the menu.
The new Harbinger activity went live this week to accompany the Hawkmoon Exotic quest... like a proverbial peanut butter and jelly. You can now finish this new activity to earn your catalyst to add some extra spice to Hawkmoon. The new activity also lets you earn random rolls so you can start hunting for the perfect one to fit your style. Play the tape!
Video Link
Completing the Hawkmoon catalyst from the Harbinger activity will not only bring your winged weapon to its full potential but also unlock the Bungie Rewards long-sleeve shirt for purchase. This Hawkmoon inspired shirt is the latest Seasonal offering available on your Bungie Rewards page.

Sticking Around

As we have mentioned in the past, we are moving to make Seasonal content stick around longer to reduce the amount of FOMO, otherwise known as “fear of missing out,” in Destiny 2. Our goal is to help players experience narrative beats and activities even if they start playing later after the Season has ended.
Here’s a look at what’s sticking around from Season of the Hunt until the end of Year 4.

• Story missions will be able to be launched from a node in the Director.
• Wrathborn Hunts
• Adored quest will continue to be available.
• Crow’s vender screen on Tangled Shore.
• Hawkmoon Exotic quest and Master activity.
• Seasonal Seal and Warden Title.
  
  • Seasonal Seal must still be earned by the deadline on the Bungie Rewards page. Due to an issue blocking the Triumph we will be adjusting this deadline.

Here are a few things that will no longer be available at the end of the Season:

• Crow’s Bounties
• Messages from the Field
• Seasonal Artifact
• Season Pass

Shifting to keep more of this content around after the Season ended has created some weirdness for Season of the Hunt, which was initially designed assuming the old model. This is why Crow was still hanging around in Spider’s lair right after being unceremoniously kicked out earlier in the Season. You may see other anomalies involving Crow in Season 13 as he'll be moving to a new destination while also remaining on the Tangled Shore to enable Season of the Hunt content tied to his inventory.
Season 13 should avoid these rough edges as its content has been designed from the outset to remain throughout Year 4.

Umbral Engrams Are Back! (They’re pretty insane)

Back in 2020, Season of Arrivals introduced a new feature called Umbral Engrams which allowed Guardians to Focus rewards to the type of weapons and armor rolls they most desired. The system was well-received by the community so we decided to do a little tuning and bring them back for Season 13 as well as future seasons in Year 4.
While the new Seasonal activity will always provide the fastest path to earning new rewards. We want to ensure that regardless of how you spend your time in Destiny, Umbral Engrams allow you to chase new rewards.
Similar to Season of Arrivals, Umbral Engrams will drop from completing a variety of content. We have pared back the number of activities they will drop from so you can focus on the following activities if you are looking to farm some Umbral Engrams:

• Patrols
• Strikes
• Crucible
• Gambit
• The Ordeal
• Public Events
• Blind Well
• Nightmare Hunts
• Exo Challenges
• Empire Hunts
• New Seasonal Activity

Note: Umbral Engrams also have a chance to drop from defeating enemies anywhere in the game, so even if you're not grinding this list of activities and playlists, you’ll still be earning some Umbral Engrams.
You may notice fewer umbral engrams sitting in your inventory than before. While it was fun to watch umbral engrams rain down on players in season 11, the drop rates were higher than expected and so we are rebalancing the drop rate.
There will be a short quest to show players how to use the new Prismatic Recaster (read more about this below) to Focus Umbral Engrams. This quest is account-wide so you only have to do it once.

Prismatic Recaster

The Prismatic Recaster returns as a kiosk with the capability to change Umbral Engrams into Focused Umbral Engrams, which contain a smaller loot-table. Because Umbral Engrams are here to stay, the new Recaster will have different pages for each Season, and you will be able to Focus engrams to the Season of your choice.
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Once you have used the Prismatic Recaster to Focus your Engram, you will still need to take it to the Umbral Decoder to claim your new reward!
Note: Season of the Hunt’s Wrathborn rewards will not be featured on the Prismatic Recaster in Season 13, because players can still use the Wrathborn Lure to chase specific weapons and rolls.

Prismatic Lens

We have a new way to unlock different Focusing options for your Umbral Engrams through a new reward called Prismatic Lenses.
A Prismatic Lens will unlock a new Focusing option so you can:

• Target a narrower collection of gear.
• Target specific armor stats.

You will be able to earn Prismatic Lenses by doing various activities in the game and you can track your progress towards unlocking lenses at the Prismatic Recaster. We don’t want to spoil everything though - so we’ll let you discover how to start earning these in Season 13.

Titles - A Gilded Age

One of the most satisfying feelings in Destiny is watching your list of completed Triumphs fill up to unlock new Seals and Titles. We have some plans to further improve this feature and give you yet another way to flex on other Guardians in the Tower. Here is the Triumphs Design Team with the details.

Triumphs Design Team: Hey everyone, welcome to a new year!
We wanted to share a change coming to Seals and Titles in Season 13. As I'm sure you've noticed, we've been shipping a Flawless and Conqueror Title each of the last three Seasons. We liked the idea of reengaging with Titles Season over Season, but we don't like the challenge and time commitment of doing the entire thing every Season. So, it's time to make a change!
As always, we start with the goals:

• Allow players to show off their engagement with the core rituals season over Season.
• Preserve the value of earning the base Title.
• Decrease the amount of grind required Season over Season for players that want to earn them all.

Starting with season 13, if a player has completed the Seal for one of our core ritual Titles (Unbroken, Dredgen, Flawless, Conqueror), players will have a series of additional Seasonal objectives to gild that Title.
But wait, what does gilded mean?

• A series of Seasonal objectives to gild a core ritual Title.
• A new border around the Seal in the Triumphs UI.
• A pip tracking how many times in your career that you've gilded a given Title.
• A new color and symbol for the Title over your head. So that you can show off, of course.

Image Link^imgur
What do I have to do to gild a Title?
Once you finish the base Seal and claim your hard-earned Title, a list of optional Seasonal objectives will be revealed. By completing these Seasonal objectives you'll earn your gild for the Season.
Image Link^imgur
What happens when the Season is over?
Each Season, the optional gilding objectives will reset and may even change to fit the unique experiences of any given Season. All of the base objectives of the Title will be preserved, and your Title will revert to its typical purple coloring.
Which Titles will be affected?
The four core rituals of Trials, The Ordeal, Crucible, and Gambit.

• Flawless
• Conqueror
• Unbroken
• Dredgen

Feedback please!
These changes are a result of the constructive feedback we get from all flavors of players in the Destiny community. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep that feedback coming and happy Triumph hunting.

Guardian Giveaways
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This week, the Bungie Store is celebrating Guardians everywhere with the third annual Guardian Giveaways contest featuring curated collections of Destiny gear, including prizes like the sold-out Beyond Light Collector’s Editions signed by the Bungie team. For a limited time, a variety of discounted merchandise bundles and a free gift with purchase are available on bungiestore.com and eu.bungiestore.com.
To enter, follow @BungieStore on Twitter, retweet the current giveaway post and add #GuardianGiveaways. The contest ends January 30, 2021 at 8:59 AM PST. Entries from EU, UK, USA, & CN only (see rules for excluded provinces and states). 18+ to enter. Please see the Official Rules for more information.

Knowing is Half the Battle

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Now we throw it over to our esteemed Player Support team with updates on known issues and important topics.
This is their report.

LEAVING SOON

We are currently investigating issues surrounding the completion of certain Triumphs related to the Warden Title, and will adjust the code claim and Seal pin purchase deadlines accordingly.
We are currently investigating issues surrounding the completion of certain Triumphs related to of the Warden Title, and will adjust the code claim and Seal pin purchase deadlines accordingly. Stay tuned for more info.

DUST AND ECHOES

Almost nine years ago, stats and files from our previous franchise, Halo, stopped getting updated on Bungie.net. Since then, all stats, files, and other data from Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach have lived on in remembrance at halo.bungie.net.
On February 9, the halo.bungie.net website will be taken offline permanently. Everyone is welcome to save their stats and files, however they can, if they'd like to save anything. Please keep in mind that our News articles, Forums, and Groups were imported into the current version of Bungie.net back in 2013.
Additionally, personal custom Halo avatars that are currently used on Bungie.net will be removed on February 9 due to its functionality living on halo.bungie.net. We are exploring options to bring those back in some capacity, but we recommend saving them to your computer in the meantime.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

• We're investigating an issue with Sony where Playstation users can't send invites through the Companion App or Bungie.net.
• The Lightseeker Triumph isn't unlocking after claiming all five feathers from the Harbinger mission.
• The Birds of a Feather Triumph is not unlocking when players complete the Harbinger activity when all players have Hawkmoon equipped.
• VO lines are not playing during the Harbinger activity.
• The black Blight orbs left behind by the High Celebrant won't open portals if shot by Sidearms.
• The High Celebrant will always show "Immune" damage, even with the Wrathborn buff active. The High Celebrant will still take the proper damage if the buff is active. This will be resolved in a future update.
• The Augment lockout timer occasionally resets during the final encounter against Taniks.
• Sometimes the wrong tether box gets tethered during the final encounter of the Garden of Salvation raid.
• The plates in the puzzle room during the Shuro Chi encounter in the Last Wish raid sometimes won't work if a Titan Ward of Dawn or Warlock Well of Radiance touch them.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Shhhh

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It’s still early into 2021 but we are already seeing some great new Movie of the Week entries. Here are a couple of our favorites for your viewing pleasure.
Movie of the Week: Salvation Suite
Video Link
Movie of the Week: Thunder
Video Link
The creators of these fine films will be rewarded with a spiffy new MOTW emblem we added this Season. If you are one of the winners, congratulations! Please make sure you post a link to your Bungie.net profile in the description of the video. Want your shot to win? Submit your video to the Creations page or share it on YouTube or Twitter – honestly, anywhere we might find it works for us.

Creatives

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I am a very poor artist and have never been able to draw very well. This makes the beautiful community-created art that fills up my timelines even more impressive to me. It’s truly amazing seeing what you all come up with using the world we built. Here are a few amazing pieces from this week.
Art of the Week: The Wrath of Banshee

The Wrath of the Banshee - Destiny 2 Fanart
"...his Sword wailing like a Banshee, carrying the weight of thousands of lost souls."

• Support me for more! - https://t.co/yScowcsWVj
  
• Prints! - https://t.co/6eDetK9awh#Destiny2 #Bungie #artwork #DestinyArt pic.twitter.com/TZWoGO8thQ
  

— Gabriel Flauzino (@attacus_x) January 19, 2021

Art of the Week: Letter 8

"Papa started crying then. I got back into bed and piled all my penguins on my head to block it out. It didn't really work because then I started crying, too."https://t.co/fYxTxmBOlG#destiny2 #beyondlight #destinyart pic.twitter.com/lFau0kMyPe
— 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐲𝐫𝐢𝐞 (@LaurinofEarth) January 19, 2021

If you won, make sure you post a link to your Bungie.net profile as a comment under your winning art post so we know that you are you.
We know there are a lot of community conversations happening around the current state of the game. I don’t want to lean too far into the “We’re listening” meme but it’s 100% true that we take community feedback to heart and are absolutely considering community concerns and suggestions as we continue to evolve our plans for 2021 and beyond. Earlier this week, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn put out a Tweet mentioning this and that we will give an update to the community with a deeper dive into the state of Destiny.

Last year, I said Destiny's Best Days are ahead. Seeing what's coming, I believe this more than ever. But we have work to do to get there. 2021 is going to be a little different for Destiny. Taking some time to validate our plans, but expect a state of Destiny 2021 next season.
— Joe Blackburn (@joegoroth) January 19, 2021

We love Destiny 2 and love having the privilege to work on it. We’re excited about some of the changes we have next Season and will have some more to lay out over the next few weeks as well. Thanks for playing.
<3 Cozmo

If you came to it through lore first, what happened when you finally played the TT game?
The reason I ask is this. I got into the lore first. Read everything I could get my hands on. Thought the little plastic guys were sort of neat but wasn’t in a rush to play the game.
Finally a few months ago me and a friend started playing it on table top simulator. We tried about 8 times before i just had to be honest with myself. I fucking hate the game. Hate.
It just isn’t fun to me. The rules are fairly baffling and not at all intuitive ( did you hit something? Did you really hit it, no seriously roll again and again.) Double check to see if the hit is a hit and if that hit is a wound or a non wound.... no but wait there are other points you can use to roll again to do something but then your opponent uses his points and so your hits aren’t hits. Then keep track of these things. Then these other things.
I’ve been gaming a long time. First edition AD and D War games like Harpoon. 6th fleet. Pseudo military RPGs like Twilight 2000. Casual war games like axis and allies. I’ve never played something that was just as baffling frustrating and not fun as this.
The bummer for me is now that I realize I have no interest in the actual game it’s made lore less fun to get lost in. I love the books. I like the computer games. The art and lore are super cool. Text to speech is pure inspired brilliance
But damn the game. I don’t get it.
Anyone relate?
I’m gonna tag this onto the end of my main post. I always saw 40K in the various hobby and game shops. Never understood it. Then took a job way out in the country where I’d be alone for a week at a time and just decided to start looking up information about it.
My delivery systems were total war. Text to speech and 1d4 Chan.
Second Edit. I absolutely have loved reading all of your stories as to how you got into the lore. My main takeaways here are that TTS is not a fun medium in general for playing the game. That making the miniatures and then throwing them in a game is way more fun.
I have been sitting on a box of Khornate Bezerkers for a while now. Assembled and primered. just held off on going full paint. Ill prob get them painted up. Hopefully when papa nurgle decides he is done with our planet for a while ill be able to meet up with some table top players and actually give the game a go.
Thank you for the responses everyone. Been a pleasure to read them all.

Photos here: https://imgur.com/a/67P8dz5 First build in ~20 years...I decided to get the best gaming PC little money can buy, for Christmas for my 11yo son -- and, in all honesty, for myself too :)
He was playing the likes of Minecraft, Roblox, and various Flash games online, on an old laptop.
The guideline for the build was: budget £400, best bang for the buck, cut corners where possible.
I got to have fun researching and building. The kid got a gaming computer, an understanding of what's inside the black box, and hands-on experience. We both had a great time together!
TL;DR:
AMD Radeon RX 580 (SH): £125 Intel Core i3 10100F: £76 Gigabyte mobo: £58 Seasonic S12 III 550W: £50 256GB SSD + 2TB HDD: £0 (see below) Crucial 2x8GB, 2666 MHz: £40 CiT Flash case + extras: £40 Mechanical keyboard: £22
\* Grand total: £411. Close enough!
Do you think there's anything obviously wrong?
The long story, piece by piece.
Case: CiT Flash: £35
Could have saved £5 on something even cheaper, but it's a really small price to pay for side and front tempered glass panels and 4 oh, so bling fans! The kid loved it.The metallic walls are super thin, as expected. It's fine, just don't use it to hammer nails.
For the price, it turned out to be great: adequate hidden space behind the right panel for "cable management" (euphemism for the jumble of cables, but hey, they're out of sight), 4 very RGB fans (but not addressable, they just connect to a SATA power cable and there's a button to change modes)Unexpectedly, even the wife loved liked it!
The 3 front intake fans were place very close to the front panel, but were easy to move further back inside the case for more adequate air flow. One exhaust fan in the back. Positive pressure FTW!
It even has metallic mesh dust filters on top (magnetic) and bottom (not).The one thing it does not have is a dust filter where it actually matters - the front panel, which brings me to...
Ghetto dust filters: £5
I ordered a pack of dryer sheets and a strip of magnetic tape to hold them in place, and covered the front fans. Sorted, and I tell myself it doesn't look too bad!
CPU & Mobo: Intel 10100F: £76, Gigabyte H410M S2H: £58
I was sure it will be an AMD system (Ryzen 3100) for the longest time, but was swayed to the blue side by lack of availability or price hikes. The cheapest Intel motherboards were also a bit cheaper than the cheapest AMD counterparts.
It had to be a gen 10 Intel, to have some chance of upgradability later, without replacing the motherboard too.
The motherboard was the winner of the race to the bottom. No frills. 2 RAM slots (but hey, no way to install the RAM in the wrong slots!).
I assume it will support the current line-up of gen10 CPUs and future gen11's.In a couple years it will be time to look at the SH market for CPUs. [EDIT: It appears I was wrong. Bummer.]
Also, "BONUS"! - cheaper memory, since this combo only supports RAM < 2666 MHz. Thanks, Intel! \s
RAM: Crucial 2x8 GB, 2666 MHz: £40
Again, cheapest one that fit the bill. Black friday-ish price drop. No XMP. Oh well, Intel won't let me use faster RAM anyway.
PSU: Seasonic S12 III 550W 80+ Bronze: £50
Could have gotten something cheaper, but remembered the advice of our forebears:don't skimp on the PSU, don't meet the fire brigade.Seasonics are widely regarded as some of the more trustworthy PSUs, and this had enough power for the GPUs that would fit the budget.
Of course it's not modular. Why pay extra for modular when I can spend 5 minutes of my life to secure the unused cables to the case?
At some point I could have bought the 650W version for the same price, but I had already bought this one and had opened the package.
Storage: Micron 256GB SSD + Seagate Desktop SSHD 2TB SSHD, £0!!
Gutted an old laptop for the SSD.
Remembered I had a box of PC parts laying around, unused for years. There were a bunch of hard drives, one of which I was thrilled to discover had a quite decent 2TB capacity, and it's a SSHD! (is that even still a thing?)
GPU: Sapphire AMD Radeon RX 580 Pulse 4GB: £125 + blood, sweat and tears
I didn't expect it to run an eye-candy game like Forza Horizon 4 at 3440x1440, everything maxed out, at ~55 FPS. I'm impressed. So far, of all Xbox Game Pass games we tried, the only one that gets choppy is MS Flight Simulator.
The GPU saga
I started looking at GPUs in November. Was considering a GTX 1650 Super (new) or a GTX 980 Ti (SH), each going for about £140 and wondering if that's a good enough deal.
Then December 1st came and the global GPU drama kicked in!"You thought £140 was too much for a GTX 980 Ti? How does £210 sound? HA!"
For weeks, I couldn't find anything half-decent within the budget. I saw "recently sold" cards at decent prices, but they were getting sold so fast I didn't stand a chance. Xmas was getting closer and I was getting desperate.
So I wrote a bot.
It scours eBay and messages me when cheaper cards show up. The 'buying' part is manual.There are definitely other people out there that have automated the process, because the time to react for a deal seems to be 1-3 MINUTES!
That's how I could get my hands on the RX 580 for an acceptable £125! Xmas was saved!
Peripherals
Dell ultra-wide monitor, 3440x1440, 60 Hz: £0
I happened to have one around.
Keyboard: Aula Assault RGB, mechanical, £22
This one was firmly in "splurge" territory, but the kid was chuffed with the crazy lighting patterns and the (way too) clicky blue (probably knock-off - but still) switches.At the end of the day, £22 for a new mechanical keyboard (that turns out to be built like a tank) is not a bad price.

It's about 3am for me. I'm writing this after another long 6-hour straight session on Overwatch. I don't expect anyone to see this, but I want to post this both to clear my head and because I feel like this may be the only community that will understand me.
I've been playing Overwatch since the first Halloween event on October 11, 2016. I remember picking up the game at GameStop after wanting it for so long, and finally having the money for it at 14 years old. I quickly fell in love with its competitive team-based style and its strategics. I had been playing Call of Duty for a long time, which to me never really required much brain power, and I was already good at that. The new added challenge of strategy was incredible. For me, it was a new hurdle to climb.
But it was less about the actual gameplay, and more about getting good at it. The SR system was a totally new idea to me, and gave me a very visible metric to see how good I was, in comparison to other people. It began as a simple contest, to see if I could climb to beat my English teacher's SR score. I started in Bronze at 1300 as a PS4 Tracer main, fighting to get better and better in order to get better. I climbed into Plat, switched to Support, and have been there (I did switch to PC at the end of 2019) ever since. But I have always strived to prove to myself that I really am good at Overwatch, and really could be.
And that there is where my issue lied. I stopped playing to enjoy the game, but instead to prove something. I played to watch my SR go up. I'm well over a thousand hours in at this point, probably close to 2000 by now. I touched Diamond once. I never improved, no matter how hard I tried. And I hated that, and for years now I have played to get better and raise my SR, but I've now come to realize that the fun is gone. It's been gone for a long time.
I plateaued, and I'm okay with that. But habitually, I still play like a madman, racking in at least 10 hours a week in a slow week, hoping to see that SR go up. But it doesn't. I stay in low Plat, high Gold, and that's okay - it's average.
I am addicted to Overwatch. Not the game, but the system. The constant grovel to prove to myself and others through a meaningless point system that I am good at some computer game has taken too much of my life. I don't even enjoy it anymore. My free time for years has been dedicated to playing Overwatch. I want to improve. I think about the game when I'm not playing. I get urges to play, not because i want to play, but because sometimes I think "I could be climbing right now" while sitting in classes, hanging with friends or my girlfriend, or at work. I spent my last year of high school abroad in Germany, and I can only imagine how many hours of my exchange I lost to Overwatch. I wish I could get back all of those hours playing + streaming and dedicate them to what I went abroad for. Time which I could be spending reading for my college courses or hanging with friends or working has instead been spent "grinding my SR" - with nothing to show for it. My dream of competing for national awards is gone because I did not study as hard as I should've last semester, and instead played Overwatch.
It's become a constant losing fight against myself, the toxic assholes, the throwers and smurfs, and my lack of mechanical skill for four years, and I give up. I am uninstalling and moving on. I hope it sticks.
​
EDIT: The support from this post is... overwhelming. I read every single comment and plan to keep reading them. I'm surprised there are so many people here who are in such similar positions as me. It's scary, but it reminds me why I need out. I'm going to leave the game uninstalled, and hopefully never touch it again. I just installed Borderlands 2 and Wither 3, some games from my backlog that I've always wanted to play but never touched because Overwatch took all of my gaming time.
Also added some more information to describe exactly how bad my addiction is.
Thank you to everyone who felt like reading this whole thing, and everyone who took the time to comment about their experiences. It is really appreciated!

Note: Because this drama began between 2010 and 2011, many of the sources have disappeared. I’ve had to rely on interviews, screenshots, my own memory, and other retellings to fully capture this story. I’ve told this to the best of my ability, but I understand there may be some errors. Thank you to u/BICEP_MCTRICEP for providing me further information!
Every fan community has The Story. It’s the incident older members of the fandom always pass down, a warning to the newer members of the line not to cross. In Harry Potter, it was My Immortal. In Voltron, it was the Sheith-Klance shipping war. In Mass Effect, it was the Tali Sweat Post.
Mass Effect is an RPG series created by Bioware, a titan within the genre. It originally centered around the player character, Commander Shepard, and their journey to save the galaxy from the Reapers, a race of machines bent on destroying all organics. The Mass Effect series almost immediately became not just a video game classic, but a classic of the scifi genre. With its immersive plot, fun setting, and fascinating characters, how could it not?
Tali’Zorah nar Rayya was one of the game's many fascinating characters. A cheerful but sarcastic, nerdy engineer, Tali was an alien forced to live inside a suit, due to her race having an extremely sensitive immune system. She proved so popular that she, along with fellow fan-favorite Garrus Vakarian (don’t ask), became love interests in the later games, and constantly rank among the most popular characters.
With Tali’s immense popularity, she drew much speculation, namely about what she even looked like. Over on the now-defunct Bioware Social Network, she had several private groups, fan communities, and discussion threads dedicated to her.
The BSN was one part forum, one part social media site, one part private-message board host, one part digital market, one part mod host, and one part save-game host. What was relatively impressive about the BSN however was its private-message board. The private-message boards were effectively miniature forums, complete with their own subforums, moderation team, and community rules.
Our story begins in one such private-message board, in a group called Clan Zorah.
Clan Zorah was, as you can likely guess, a private-message board dedicated to Tali. It consisted primarily of people who romanced her. This group, like many of its kind, spent much of its run discussing Tali’s character; sharing fan-art, theories, and more about her.
Mass Effect, like many fandoms, drew people of a wide variety of backgrounds. One of these people was an individual with chemistry experience, known today as Thundertactics. According to a former acquaintance of theirs, Thundertactics was a “quiet and reserved” person, and very smart. They liked figuring out answers to questions, not necessarily out of a curiosity, but out of a genuine enjoyment for solving mysteries. I wasn’t able to ascertain how popular they were within the BSN as a whole, but within the Tali fan community, they were considered easy to get along with and were relatively popular.
With Mass Effect 2 having recently come out, and Tali now being a love interest, the Tali fan communities were in full-fledged fan mode, and Thundertactics was no exception. The constant fervor around Tali, excitement for Mass Effect 3, and TT’s own life experiences would eventually lead them to a question they wanted an answer to: what did Tali’s sweat smell and taste like?
Don’t freak out. TT had a reason for this. And I am assured it was not actually sexual. Allegedly, anyway.
At the time, TT was taking a class on organic chemistry, and had to analyze human sweat for an assignment. While discussing their class on Clan Zorah, TT and their fellow Tali fans realized that because Quarians had a different reaction to bacteria and were forced to live in a suit (think Bubble Boy but more skintight with a bucket on the head), their sweat would likely taste and smell differently from a human’s. At that point, TT decided to reverse the chirality of the analysis. Now, I passed high school chemistry with such a low grade that my teacher was literally in the middle of talking to me about summer school before opening the computer and discovering I passed, so I clearly do not know enough to debate this theory. I also don’t know what was in TT’s hearts. For now, please read their post and come to a conclusion yourself.
The Clan Zorah community reacted positively to the post, with some finding it weird, others finding it interesting, and almost everyone finding it humorously enjoyable. With this exciting reception, TT chose to make their chemistry analysis public, some time in late 2010 or early-to-mid 2011.
With the positive response they received from Clan Zorah, TT was likely excited to share their findings with the rest of the community. It’s important now to note that the BSN was already infamous for being a bit...over the top with characters. There had been meta posts about Garrus Vakarian’s feet structure, the reproductive cycles and genitalia of asari (a monosexed race that could reproduce with all races to create more asari), the taste of Garrus’s sexual fluids (again, don’t ask), and other similar questions and arguments. TT likely assumed their post would go over on the same level as the posts that came before it.
They were wrong.
Sadly, due to the BSN being wiped from the internet, it is impossible to find the exact original thread. But based on testimony of people who were there at the time, it triggered disagreement and argument on the science used in the analysis, mockery, and derision. The thread topic was copied onto Fextralife in July 2011, so a similar reaction can be viewed there. Amusingly, it got relatively humorous acknowledgement from then-Mass Effect writer Patrick Weekes.
Within days, it became the symbol for everything wrong with the BSN, and Tali fans in particular. TT would never live it down.
I didn’t see the Tali post itself while it was up, but I did see Thundertactics around on the forum from time to time. Almost any time they posted publicly, they were called out for the post. Eventually, they began posting less and less, likely moving into the Clan Zorah group almost exclusively. Still, they kept their post public, and they became forever known as the creepy Tali Sweat Poster.
At the same time, forum-wide shipping wars were taking place. Although the Tali fans and Garrus fans (again, please don’t ask, you’ll only understand the Garrus hype if you play the games) mostly got along, the two groups were often in conflict with the fans of the more humanoid characters. The Tali Sweat Post, because of its increasing notoriety over all other LI meta posts, became the most popular ammo against the Tali fans. If you wanted to shut one up, all you had to do was remind everyone that it was that fan group that created the Tali Sweat Post. Yeah, there were tons of other weird crap online, but at least no one else wrote a full chemistry argument to explain the taste and smell of someone’s sweat. Still, Thundertactics refused to take down their post. They stood by their work. But that would all change with the release of the Citadel DLC, in 2013.
The Citadel DLC was the final chapter in the story of Commander Shepard, and served as a goodbye to characters like Tali. Its biggest selling feature was the chance to party with players’ favorite characters. In the DLC, Tali could end up incredibly drunk, and during her drunken stupor, she would say:

Tali: It just smells like sweat. Why would you even ask that?

Now, the Tali Sweat Post was exposed not just to the BSN, but to the entirety of the Mass Effect fanbase. Anyone across the internet could find the post. Having already faced two years of bullying, harassment, and embarrassment, Thundertactics finally deleted the post. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, they would leave the Mass Effect fandom entirely, disappearing from Clan Zorah and the internet.
To this day, in 2021, the Tali Sweat Post still lives on in Mass Effect fandom infamy, a permanent mark on the reputation of Tali fans everywhere.

I wanted to clear the air a little bit, especially with Mike leaving the channel he created.
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First off, this is the real Justin. I know there's been a lot of fake Screenwave people on here over the years, but... I think you'll tell from my post that it's me. It's going to be too inside-baseball to be faked. Plus, mod GreatBowser confirmed it in Twitter DM.
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I also wanted to do an AMA for a while, was going to do one on Facebook in that Assposting group... but they started contacting family members on my Facebook profile and stuff. So... I left all Cinemassacre fan groups I was in and locked my profile down. I feel that this subreddit is probably the best place for the AMA... since you guys clearly care about the channel a lot and wouldn't hold back any punches. I was on here a few years ago. But, I jumped ship pretty quickly and didn't really engage after that, or even lurk. I would get sent threads from time to time. Yet, over the years I noticed the Truth went from heavy trolling and hyperbole, to more shitposting and constructive criticism. That's something I can get behind. Plus, you guys aren't going away... and Screenwave isn't going away. So, I wanted to meet in the middle.
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I wanted to step out in front of a lot of your questions. Answer them for you. I am going to use the Megathread and newer top posts to pull questions from. (But, feel free to ask stuff below. I'll only be monitoring this thread the next week or so, if that's alright.)
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Lastly, I do not speak for James, Mike, Ryan, Screenwave Media, or the other guys... it's just how I see things, or what I know personally.
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Who owns Cinemassacre now? Screenwave Media?
James owns it. I don't know the specifics after that or with the AVGN movie, but I know Screenwave Media owns 0% of any of it. We only have a stake in the AVGN games we produce. Yes, we take a percentage of monthly revenue, like we do other partners on the network... but we don't have any control of the Cinemassacre company... OR have any creative control. James can do whatever he wants with both. He decides to work with us, and we like working for him.
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So, do the Screenwave guys work for Cinemassacre or what?
"The Slobs," as we are called (thanks for that) don't have any creative control or financial stake, as said before. We are just employees of Screenwave Media. Hell, Cinemassacre isn't even my full time thing here. I do a lot of producing of our games and social media content, plus direction for the company kinda stuff. Tony and Kieran are the only full-time employees at Screenwave working for Cinemassacre... and that is mostly writing, filming, and editing.
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Why wasn't there a better way to introduce "The Slobs"?
That's the last time I'll call us the slobs, haha. Honestly, we probably should've introduced ourselves better. Mind you, we were working on the channel for a while at that point... and, when you're James or whatever, you're already really acquainted with us... so, when Tony slips into that Halloween 6 review or we start doing Rental Reviews, it doesn't really come to your mind to roll out the red carpet and send out flyers to everyone, because you assume people follow his socials where we're mentioned or at conventions or whatever... you just kinda do it... which, I don't think people would have cared too much about... if it wasn't for the departure of Kyle and Bootsy still stinging.
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What about Kyle and Bootsy then???
I started working for Screenwave in 2015... and on Cinemassacre in late 2017... so, I wasn't really there for the behind the scenes of Kyle and Bootsy. I met the guys a bunch beforehand though. I like the guys now too. You also know I did the stupid AVGN Roast in 2013... and I think I gave them that cake/award thing at TooManyGames the year before too... so, I knew Kyle and Bootsy well enough and we'd talk at after parties and whatever. Only saying that because I just want to put it out there that I don't harbor any animosity for them. None of us do. I'd like to work with them in the future if it's ever possible. Oh, and if you watch the Silvermania 2016 MAGfest video you'll see Bootsy. Really surprised none of you saw that yet... anyway... yeah, no idea why there was a falling out 100%. I know Kyle wanted to get more involved with his contracting company... and Mike and Bootsy had a falling out. Friends sometimes do, especially when they start working together and being in business together. All I know is what Mike posted publicly a while ago. Be cool to see them again one day regardless.
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Why did Mike leave?
I think he was pretty clear about it in his reddit post. We were planning 2021 and I guess Mike was feeling disconnected for a while... and honestly, loves to stream on Twitch. So, it just made sense for him to bounce. All the old stuff he made is still there, and I guess there's some burnout mixed with enjoying his new thing. I don't blame him. Yes, James barely talked about it in the update video... but, Mike specifically didn't want a huge send off or too much said about it. So, James said as much as Mike wanted him too. That simple.
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What about all the Mike drama over the years?
Same with the Kyle/Bootsy stuff. I wasn't around for it. I know as much as you know, maybe less. I think Mike has apologized for all of it... so, I am going to leave it there. I have no problems with Mike, he's always been good to me. Hoping to stream with him eventually from time to time or just hang out.
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Why doesn't James write the AVGN episodes anymore?
Well, he does... and he doesn't. It's collaborative. Sometimes we play all the games together, sometimes just he does. Sometimes we'll come up with an outline for a script and he fills it in, sometimes it's the reverse. Sometimes he comes up with ideas for games, sometimes we do. It's so back and forth that I can't really separate it at this point... I understand they don't feel like stuff from back in the day... but, not much you can do about that. He's older, back in the GameTrailers day he had something to prove. I think the movie burned him out... plus his family life and side projects. It takes its toll, I think we were moving in a good direction but Covid kinda fucked stuff up, for all of us. Our goal is to make 2021 a great Nerd year. We have been working on the plan for a while now with more time to focus on writing, acting, all that. I think 2020 had us flying by the seat of our pants. I was editing stuff 24 hours straight sometime. Sorry if it doesn't seem that way, haha. We put a lot of time and effort into making what we can, but we want to improve and we want the content to improve.
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What's with all the brand deals and lack of cursing?
As you know, YouTube is a minefield of demonetization, limited ads, and de-platforming. We're trying our best to make the channel money and keep views up. The brand deals really help, because a lot of our content gets limited ads, especially the older stuff. As you know, our backlog is huge. Cursing in the first minute is an instant limited ads. Which hurt money, sure, BUT it also makes the algorithm push you less. So, if a YKWBS gets limited ads it'll get half the views it would normally get, or less... so, we had to make these changes to stay afloat. Even the AVGN theme gets pinged... that's why a lot of AVGN episodes did worst this year (aside from whatever quality issues you have)... Bad Final Fight Games got limited ads because the Nerd said "blue balls," and that's too sexual. See what I mean? If we get hit, it kills views. So... we do brand deals, we put the theme after a minute, we changed it to BS in the front... if not, views would suffer, and future stuff would be pushed less and less. It's weird. Sure, we could do a Patreon and all that, but views would still suffer. And, we never want to just take your money... if skipping forward in a video is all you have to do, whatever. If you want to support us, merch is the best way to do that. And yes, James gets most of the profit from merch. It's not us running some scam.
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Why are the Screenwave guys such SLOBS?? (Oops, used it again.)
I don't want to talk about how Ryan, Kieran, or Tony (from Hack the Movies) feel... but, I know Kieran really took a lot of the stuff here to heart. Especially after the years of fat jokes, caveman jokes, and people pretending to be his dead father. He went off the edge a few times. I think he's in a way better place now, and I think he's really been taking good care of himself. Shit, I lost 80 pounds this year but gained a lot of it back when the world started opening back up... that's the thing about being fat your whole life. It's hard to dig yourself out, it's easy to diet and exercise if you're already thinner. I was fat in like kindergarten, those habits and addictions just continue on with you. Plus, food has always been a comfort for me. Not to go into a sob story, but my Mom died in '99 because of drugs and stuff... and I grew up with 3 sisters across multiple states in a poor family... and, being teased your entire life just goes on and on. Honestly, if you're 20 pounds overweight or 200... it feels the same when you're ridiculed, so, what's the difference, just get bigger, you'll never be small enough to not catch shit. I mean, not to go into my psychology or whatever, sorry... BUT, my goal is to get healthy in 2021... it's a "rebuilding year" for me... that's a sports term. I mean, I doubt it'll affect my personality much... so, if that's your problem, then shit... but, clearly us slobs don't want to be slobs. Even Tony (from hack the movies) and Ryan have been working on themselves too... plus, I always put others before me... from work, to family, to my girlfriend... I'm usually the last stop. Any advice or whatever you guys wanna give, please do. My Twitter DMs are always open.
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Coat-tail riding MUCH??
I mean? Not really? Not sure how much fame we can get out of this. It's just our job, and we like helping James and shooting the shit on the internet. Plus, I had two failed YouTube shows before working with Cinemassacre (why the fuck did they hire me??) so, I don't really care about the clout. It's cool when people high-five us at conventions and other content creators give us the nod... but, we're just trying to make videos, build up Screenwave more, and keep James making the content he wants to make. That's it. I mean, hasn't really helped Hack the Movies much (LOL).
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What do you think of the AVGN movie?
It's alright. I think it could be better here and there, but it's really hard to make a movie. Anyway, back when it was being planned... I was trying to get James to do it locally, with the Underbelly guys and people I knew into film. Do it cheap. But, I also understand wanting to make a big movie in Hollywood. That's a dream. Anyway, at the end of the day, I hope James gets to make another movie one day. I really liked his horror script, but clearly that's on the backburner if not cancelled... but, my goal is to get something to happen one day for him.
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Now I wanted to dive a bit into my past...
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Why do you defend Bob and still talk to him to this day?
So, as you might know, Bob (who used to be on my old YouTube show Silvermania) was busted for having child porn several years ago, after we stopped working together anyway. He went to jail for a year and has since been off the grid. I don't talk to him anymore and I completely cut ties. I've talked about the matter before, saying he "did his time" and stuff. Which, I meant like... I don't want to dogpile on a guy whose life is completely ruined... and who already fucked up a ton. I wanted him to get the help he needs and never work with him again. But, as I said before, I haven't talked to him in years and I don't plan to.
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Why did you make fun of Total Biscuit's cancer?
I regret everything that happened between Silvermania and TB. The short version, is we were invited on his podcast accidentally. They thought we were another show... my original show Underbelly, I think... which was a really different thing, and we were frustrated our YouTube network at the time (MakeTGS) didn't know the difference. Silvermania was me and my old roommate, who posted on here a few times as you know. They wouldn't let us on together and kept asking questions before the show about Underbelly and stuff that didn't pertain to us, but whatever. Watch it, it even says UnderbellyShow under my face. Things went south really quick... and honestly, I shouldn't have been a dickbag on the call... but, as I said, it was weird from the get-go. The energy was really off between all of us on the call, and I just played into being the bad guy. Anyway, we got kicked off the podcast halfway through and a wave of TB fans started attacking us for months. Now, there were like 5 people with access to the Silvermania YouTube at the time... plus I think mods and stuff. So, I'm not sure who did it. Hell, it could've been me under the influence. I drank way too much back then... anyway, someone made fun of TB's cancer down the road and it's been screen-grabbed and passed around. I mean, there's not too much context to it... aside from just being a shitty thing to say because we felt burned by the guy and his fans. Anyway, after that I met with him at a convention and we put it past us. He never actually saw the insult. I was really upset when I heard he passed, I always liked him and his content. Especially all the PC gaming stuff.
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Why did you post "I'm a pedo, watch out" on Twitter?
AH, right. I know that sounds like foreshadowing about the Bob stuff, but it wasn't. Back then, I think it was 2013... I didn't really use Twitter much. We had the SilvermaniaShow handle... which connected directly to our Facebook fan page. So, if we posted on Facebook, it would auto-post to Twitter. Also back then, we would have huge parties at our apartment and stuff, like 50 people would show up once a month... a lot of friends and fans of the show too. Anyway, someone "hacked" our Facebook account... as in, went on the computer that was playing music, typed that in as a joke, and hit send. We immediately deleted it... but, we forgot it auto-posts to Twitter and forgot about it. Anyway, when the show ended... I changed the handle from SilvermaniaShow to JustySilverman, the one I am using now, making it my personal account. But, the wayback machine or whatever, just makes it look like my current profile said he's a pedo. That's the story. Someone was playing a joke, it went to Twitter, and we didn't realize it. I am not a pedo, but sadly, I worked with one for a while... well, kinda, Bob was kinda a guest on the show more than a member.
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Why did you make such shitty/troll content anyway back then?
Man, it's been a real rollercoaster... if I knew back then what I know now... I think Underbelly or Silvermania would have made it... I let too many cooks in the kitchen, let friends have business control or creative whatever... I should've just been a solo act and just made fun shit... I mean, I think we did a lot of good stuff too... like, Underbelly was partnered with ScrewAttack and Normal Boots for a time... we were with the first ever YouTube network... but, all that pivoting fucked the channel up because of release schedules or what they wanted us to make... the production has always been good... Underbelly was the first YouTube channel with every video being in full 1080p back in 2010... but then we deleted every video and reuploaed them because our network needed us to for whatever reason... just a ton of issues... from back-end stuff to it not being fun anymore... to seeing others soar with similar content... it made me bitter. Which led to Silvermania becoming a weapon of trolling. I always skimmed the surface of making YouTube successful for me... hell, we pissed a LOT of content creators off too... I am STILL rebuilding those bridges even with being on Cinemassacre. I was just pissed off at the world and thought I knew better... when, we should've been focused on making fun stuff consistently and less toxic. That simple. Trying to do that now I guess.
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Why did you say the N-word?
I really regret this. I mean, even without cancel culture and all that. It was just stupid. The one time was back in 2012, on YouTube, and was part of a skit where I was saying the N-word was actually "Nerd," because of the Big Bang Theory or some point I was making about Nerds being taken advantage of or whatever by Hollywood... it was a really dumb comparison. I even had my black roommate in the video with me to sell the joke... it was dumb, but edgy humor was cool at the time. I have since removed the video and apologized. The other time was just being a drunk-comedian with my friends trying to say the most fucked up stuff possible, same year. Kinda like when Kramer from Seinfeld did that dumb stand-up routine when he said it. But, I guess my ex-roommate decided to record it and post it this year for clout. That said... I am not a racist, I've never said anything remotely racist after the fact, and never from a place of hate. I'm a pretty liberal guy, not that it matters. But, I apologize, clearly won't ever happen again... and hasn't in 8 years.
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Why are you dressed as a Klansman next to Nazi and confederate flag?
Whoops! Okay, this is a bad look. I can see this coupled with the N-word thing looking really bad... or being a Jewish guy next to a swastica. Clearly, this was a skit. The flags were from a WW2 and Civil War reenactment troop I knew, someone has to play the bad guys and their gear was really authentic. I don't own racist or facist flags. (Though, I kinda want a Mobile Infantry flag from Starship Troopers.) People share the photo around, but never notice the game collection behind me or the minture Hitler on my shoulder... it was a skit we filmed, but never fully released, and has since been taken down... it was part of our Lost Episodes clip-show. The joke was that I'm the "Racist Video Game Nerd," because everyone else on YouTube already picked all the names to sound more like AVGN. Like the Sad Video Game Nerd or whatever. So, the "RVGN" was going to review a game, then get thwarted by a group of racially diverse characters... so... just a stupid skit... that was never fully finished because we knew it was bad. Plus, the RVGN is the bad guy... he's shown in a negative light.
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Okay, I think that'll answer a bunch of questions you may have... so, yeah. AMA.
Oh, and sorry if I blocked you on Twitter or whatever. I'll add you back if you want.
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[EDIT]
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I will get to EVERYONE'S QUESTIONS, there are just a ton and I like to work and sleep and eat and shit.

Hello Epic Gamers,
EDIT: u/kingblair4 made a pretty cool tool with this data that let him do some interesting analysis. Putting it here in case people are interested in some analysis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeLF87JYQxo
Lately I've seen people on this subreddit interested in gathering RTA data and also seen some scuff ways of going about building datasets such as manually logging tournament results, or image-processing Youtube videos.
Ive long hoped that E7 would open up an API for RTA statistics so the community can make some cool tools, though that will never happen.
So, I gathered the RTA Battle Logs of a sample size of 8210 accounts, accounting for a total of ~60k distinct matches and stored them in an sqlite database.
I am primarily posting the data because I hope there are some users who are smarter than me and can do some data anaylsis/visualization.
DATASET CAN BE FOUND HERE - https://gofile.io/d/tam6ke
Some quick notes in Q/A format to for easier browsing -
Q: Why? For a long time I wanted to make a tool for E7 similar to DestinyTrackeFortniteTrackeOP.GG/etc, but I dont really have the time or money right now to commit to a project like that.
Q: What can this dataset be used for? This data is a processed form of the battle logs you can see on your own account when you open up "Battle Logs" in the RTA menu. The data was captured yesterday, 2/7/2021. I don't think this data is particularly useful for analyzing long term trends, however I think it is an interesting dataset to 'snapshot' the meta, at all rankings - hence it is called 'rta_snapshot.db'.
Q: But, muh battle logs / stratz! I anonymized all the data I collected so all you high champ players wont get exposed. If you want to see if your account was sampled for this set here is a list of all accounts that were touched on https://privatebin.net/?381ec799166686b0#58gN6co58peAKx16WXCdzCCucHoCdDyxDu1LVZqUTV84 (expires in a day or so, some of the usernames were too lewd for pastebin lol).
Also, some of you guys have absolutely hilarious in game names. Shoutout to BentaiBaven for cracking me up.
Q: Did you hack my account to get these? No lol.
Q: What is sqlite3? Sqlite is a type of database. If you download the dataset you can open it online at https://sqliteonline.com/ if you are new to sqlite and dont have database tools on your computer.
Q: How do I know this .db file isnt malware? If you don't know how to verify an sqlite .db file is not malware then simply don't download it.
Q: How did you get this data? My uncle works at SG, of course.
Q: Will you share the tools you used to get this data? No, too much potential for misuse. Do not dm me regarding this.
Q: Will you post more of these? If people find this useful I will consider periodically sampling battle logs, maybe bi-monthly or something. It took me about 3-4 hours to collect the logs of 8000+ accounts. I would ballpark that this dataset reflects 10-20% of total accounts with RTA logs I could have processed - but I did not have the patience to let it run for a week. I have also considered collecting legend only battle logs and making an automated "meta report" since it takes far less time.
Here is some basic summary analysis of the dataset. I doubt the results will be all that surprising if you play RTA.
Again, this data is from 60k RECENT matches, encompassing ALL RANKS.

TOP 20 MOST PREBANNED UNITS Arbiter Vildred 16109 Cerise 15388 Fairytale Tenebria 15220 Fallen Cecilia 12636 Last Rider Krau 11042 Remnant Violet 9412 Faithless Lidica 8698 Ruele of Light 4090 Falconer Kluri 3524 Ambitious Tywin 2866 Tempest Surin 2340 Seaside Bellona 1863 Top Model Luluca 1681 Sage Baal & Sezan 1477 Basar 1327 Specter Tenebria 1242 Champion Zerato 836 Auxiliary Lots 811 Kayron 802 Challenger Dominiel 560 --- TOP 20 MOST POSTBANNED UNITS Arbiter Vildred 8413 Fairytale Tenebria 7640 Cerise 7336 Seaside Bellona 5564 Top Model Luluca 4491 Remnant Violet 4331 Falconer Kluri 4215 Faithless Lidica 4158 Roana 3645 Auxiliary Lots 3551 Champion Zerato 3541 Fallen Cecilia 3467 Tempest Surin 3208 Last Rider Krau 3197 Specter Tenebria 3110 Ruele of Light 3033 Basar 2799 Kayron 2613 Landy 2140 Assassin Cidd 2074 --- TOP 20 MOST PICKED UNITS Arbiter Vildred 32023 Seaside Bellona 27163 Fallen Cecilia 26127 Cerise 23559 Fairytale Tenebria 23517 Falconer Kluri 19980 Tempest Surin 19236 Remnant Violet 18644 Last Rider Krau 18467 Specter Tenebria 17284 Kayron 16633 Top Model Luluca 16094 Krau 15610 Auxiliary Lots 13425 Landy 13062 Faithless Lidica 13019 Ruele of Light 11871 Challenger Dominiel 11868 Lilias 11674 Roana 11488 ---- TOP 20 MOST LAST PICKED UNITS Seaside Bellona 7240 Kayron 4973 Specter Tenebria 4454 Tempest Surin 4075 Roana 3160 Ravi 3068 Top Model Luluca 3065 Landy 2957 Arbiter Vildred 2898 Dizzy 2783 Celine 2673 Ruele of Light 2662 Remnant Violet 2603 Champion Zerato 2572 Lilias 2206 Martial Artist Ken 2191 Alencia 2071 Auxiliary Lots 1989 Briar Witch Iseria 1904 Krau 1894 

I think there is a whole lot more that can be done with data such as getting WR's for individual units, unit matchups, WR's for pick order, dividing stats by Ranks, etc, etc.
If you have some skills working with data, or just want to peruse it for fun, I hope this post was useful.

This is more recent and during lockdown, as before I have 1 neighbor with a child with developmental delays EK and of course his mother EM. Now I had been furloughed for a week when one of my nicer neighbors who has a 14 year old autistic boy who I will call NA is as sweet as pie and loves everyone's pets, he asked to hang out at my house. Hell I paid him to watch mine when my fiance, R and I were out of town. NA's mom, NM is super fun and we planned stuff to distract NA during this rough time.
EM though kind of wrecked this though because she wanted us to include EK. NA really dislikes EK and while I enjoy NA who loves crafts and cooking, EK demands so much attention and has attacked NA on many occasions.
NA had to stay with EM due to a distance learning activity and from what I heard as I was writing. It was pretty upsetting.
EM: YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LET EK WIN
NA: .... (is upset and walks out door shutting the door)
EM: YOUR MOM IS AT THE STORE GET BACK HERE
NA: NO YELLING (practically the only thing I heard until he is frantically knocking on my door)
I answer
Me: what is going on? EM I am trying to work on my novel. NA you okay?
NA: she yelling at me.
Me: get inside I will tell your mom you came here
EM: he is supposed to be doing games with EK, he is cheating.
Me: sounds like you are being bully to me. I was in special ed and you never yell at children like NA. Or should I yell at you too like last time?
F (fiance): hey NA want to play Minecraft in our server?
EM: you don't even have kids how dare you tell me how to take care a mine!
Me: Uh...funny you have one kid and you barely are able to handle him. (I close the door and call NM and tell her what happened)
Within ten minutes EK is knocking on the door.
EK: mom said I can come over
Me: Go home EK, NA doesn't want to play your game right now.
I am thoroughly aware that since I let NA in, that EM has it in her heard I will let EK in. I shut the door and EK starts crying.
NA: I don't like your game, F and M are letting me play my games. Bye.
NM shows up with EM telling her how we kidnapped NA and turned him against her and her son.
While I explain what happened and how I heard it. NM is a little more concerned about NA who has the developmental age 11 or 12. He is vocal about what happened and about the "game" EK wanted to play with him. He had already told F and I. I was about to call CPS on EM who looked surprised when we told her what EK attempted to do.
Me: Doctor is certainly not watching Doctor Who, now is it, EM?
EM: Uh I am sure there has to be a mistake, EK would never do something like that he is mentally 5 years old and NA should have told me.
Me: he tried but you felt that he was lying, he went to the safest people in the townhouses, F and I since we been furloughed. Just imagine what would have happened if we weren't.
Honestly I didn't want to.
There was no yelling after that and NM not only never allowed EM to watch NA. She informed her husband who decided to work from home in order to make sure it never happened again. NA was still allowed to come over since his dad had to build a new computer for Minecraft for NA and he has been playing Roblox with my nephew since May 2020.
EM is still banned from babysitting and has since agreed to send EK to therapy.
(Cast: Me (yours truly), F (fiance), EM (the evil one), EK (the nightmare child), NM (neighbor mom), and NA (neighbor child with autism who is a gem))

Alright, I really didn’t want to post this, but I couldn’t stay quiet, I did check the rules before writing this but if mods deem this as witch hunting I can delete.
After the post titled “Does he think he’s cool? “ I decided to check Weak3n’s stream tonight to see if what ppl were saying was true. The man was trying real hard to shit talk and defend himself in the comments so to double check I joined. At the time of posting this, Weak3n is streaming and named it “Does this make me look ‘cool’” Right when I joined, he was talking about the actual Reddit post. He was just constantly calling redditors dumbasses, just invalidating their opinion, and then started saying something about when he was 50 he was gonna connect his brain to a computer and block everyone that says dumb shit to him. What’s even more surprising is that his chat is all supporting this behavior. I saw three persistent accounts act all mushy and kissing his ass in chat, and his ego was just getting boosted by it. One guy says, “I’m gonna be gone for 3 weeks, so no smite, but it’s gonna be fun to see you shit on these morons every night.” This is just an example of what his chat says. Have you guys seen FineOkay’s chat? Literally everyone is wholesome there, along with FineOkay. I hope that man succeeds.
He says in stream, “ Oh Reddit thinks that I’m the reason smite is toxic”
Weak3n, you might not be the sole reason, but as a streamer who has a consistent 2k watcher base with an impressionable audience, it’s your responsibility to set a good example. Seeing a streamer with 8 years of experience get away with saying the stuff you do makes them think they can do that also, and I don’t want to play with ppl who have the same attitude as you.
In the video where he clickbaits the ban, one of the comments respectfully tells him that the video wasn’t in good taste, and his response was to insult the commenter, calling him toxic, and claiming that he did help the jungler. When I watched the video, all Weak3n did was shit on deaths toll, trans, and frost bound, didn’t give one suggestion as to what he should build. The like to dislike ratio should be enough to tell him what he did was wrong, but nah, let’s pin a comment calling his viewers unintelligent
A couple seconds later, he wins the game and calls the Scylla in his casual game garbage. He went 3/8, Scylla went something like 4/7. Neither he or the Scylla did well, yet for some reason he’s almighty.
At the end of the day, it’s his stream, his YouTube channel, he can do whatever he wants. He’s no where near DM’s toxic levels, but it’s sad to see ppl like this stream, and back in the day before his ego got inflated, I liked his videos. He’s popular, and I hope new players don’t run to him for advice cuz clearly he ain’t as good at the game as he thinks he is.
TLDR: Weak3n just doesn’t seem to take criticism well and just gets exponentially more toxic everytime someone points it out. The post was just explaining what I’ve found through a couple minutes of research.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here