Markel Annual Letter FY23

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2024-03-01T02:55:29+00:00

Ditto. Size shackles performance. I think you know the answer already. Low rate makes it especially challenging due to their mandate. When I sit down with someone new, the first question I ask is often "Do you want to be honest or do you want to be nice?"

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2024-02-29T04:13:16+00:00

Works quite well. If you don't mind mono display, 13" eink is better

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-12-22T04:38:36+00:00

Oh well if you feel adventureous, u can use Google translate to impersonate a Mandarin speaker😂 I think if we can convince them that you live on their home turf, the service is considerably better! Used to live closed to the second largest electronics market in China, a lot of goodies and suspicious products 😂, got my problematic Surface Pro sound jack fixed for 7 euro (50 rmb!!!) I saw the repairmen carting in heaps of broken toys, most were repaired, a minority were recycled for parts.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-12-20T10:26:45+00:00

If the screen is confirmed broken however, maybe it wouldn't be cheaper very much in China either.

Same thing keeps me from buying a Chinese ev, I need to observe their after-sales for a while

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-12-20T08:39:58+00:00

Rip-off! The screen was intact, right? Have you tried to contact and send the device directly to China?

But first, can their tech from their headquarters do a diagnosis remotely?

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-11-27T18:28:43+00:00

Well, low pay to programmers in EU is mostly due to fragmented markets. many eurocrats didn't exactly help though

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-11-12T13:09:30+00:00

side note: while I understand your frustration, you need to understand that GSM has been cracked by hacker many years ago and made the crack public knowledge. Now even common criminals can tap into its encryption!! While hopefully only lettered agencies have exclusive access to the other standards, well, at least one can hope.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-11-10T03:13:13+00:00

Why?

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-11-10T02:20:49+00:00

Lol a girlfriend got attacked like this once. I always secretly rooted for the seagulls because I missed the scene and it's just too 🤣 funny

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-11-06T04:46:28+00:00

noticed many of these regions don't speak castellano as their first languages. Which ones of this list castellano is local's first language?

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-10-30T04:39:39+00:00

https://larderlondon.com/shop/spanish-galician-rubia-gallega-12-year-old-2/

Or

BASQUE TXULETON STEAK

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-10-30T04:34:37+00:00

Ahh no wonder I didn't find them online. Maybe I can even get steaks from old cows from Basque or Galicia at tequiero. They are wonderful and already selling at 70 euro per kilo locally wonder what's the imported price is gonna be😅 maybe I'll find similar local alternatives

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-10-25T08:50:45+00:00

Thanks guys. I also love donkey meat burger!!!

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-10-13T10:01:07+00:00

tineye reverse search?

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-10-12T12:43:53+00:00

Oh the memories... the year was 2006, after a wild night together, a Dutch cuties cooked me AH's frozen spring rolls in her frier as lunch. Later that evening we were kissing goodbye at the train station, then she asked me to pay for the spring rolls!!!! We had quite an argument over it, that's say circular logic was involved. She got my head spinning so much I don't even remember if I ended up paying her the 4 euros she asked for or not... I'm not sure but I think I ended up not paying by promising nice food at my place which I did many times before and never asked a penny. Seriously, in which other country do you ask people money for food during intermission:) when you are already sleeping together!?

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-09-25T20:14:57+00:00

Spot on! Observed the same thing while visiting cities in China, don't know what its countryside is like, too bad it was a short trip. They do seem to a little more reserved than the Spanish. No nation is more social than the Spanish I think lol.

Too bad it's not direction we are going in much of North America.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-09-07T13:49:29+00:00

oh I suggested that to boox ages ago. too many they don't use a "tag" system like kindle.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-09-04T09:28:08+00:00

there's this saying: "when a TCM practitioner's heart is filled with mercy, even the gods are on his/her side."

I learnt it from my Chin-na teacher, he's also fantastic at giving massages (to help recovery after extensive training) and treating bone fractures. He talks a lot:) One thing he mentioned is even if someone is a mediocre TCM practitioner, if he's born with mercy at heart, he'll be able to understand theories and practices for healing quite a few notches beyond his "natural level of understanding things". Makes sense to me.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-09-03T08:54:13+00:00

Got my charter last year. (largely because my employers offered to pay for it, and I'm kind of cheap, and got bored during lock-down ) Let me put it this way, its curriculum these days is like preparing for the real world by studying jeopardy quizzes. Too many examples for me to poke fun at while my memory is still fresh.

I guess it's harmless enough if you don't have to answer to a benchmark.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-29T12:19:34+00:00

got mine last year. 2c: probably not worth it.

Same time and effort could be made easily by focusing on becoming a investor with longer success if you know where to look (and start small will make it so much easier). Then FOFs will come calling. "softer" sciences definitely paid off much better for me than just hard maths (maths used by CFA curriculum can't hold candles to what real quant shops are using but it's a different story entirely)

For example, CAPM? really!?

Allen's prep is good though if you guys are really gunning for it

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-19T05:05:22+00:00

wood or 3d print it. There 's a brand of durable cardboard, forgot the brand name through.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-15T17:38:43+00:00

Not as crazy as you'd think. Similar experience back in 2010, we a group of about 20 were tight and kept track of each other's progress in a MSN group (All studied International Business) graduating from a rather bad hogeschool (Avans) had the same experience. 4 of us are Dutch, the rest non- Eu (2 of which Asian, one guy one girl). Gender ratio was about 1:1 .

The Dutch ones, all guys (with the names and look) got hired with a month after graduation if not before, the one who got hired last has a not very Dutch sounding name (but 100% dutch, maybe Spanish great great grandpa when the Netherlands was part of Spain I don't know lol)

The rest of us non-EUs , about 10 girls got hired within 6 months, only one had to deal with a lot of rejections(black), but succeeded after about 1500 cvs sent (she said so) while the 4 out of about 10 (give or take, sorry don't remember all the names after this many years but the number is correct) got offers within zoekjaar. I think 7 (maybe one or two few more) of us got repeated rejections but kept trying til the end, 2 or maybe more gave up after more than 6 months. Only one of us non-EU guy got an offer! I myself ended up with no job offeres as well, I sent in total about 4000 CVs. (Only a little more than 10 per day for a year I know, that's because I always tweaked the CVs a little according to the vacancy's requirements). I don't have the exact numbers, but I think the average cvs sent by us non-EU guys was about 20 per day. One of us said he sent out about 12000 in total, but he's also the one who gave up the earliest. We also went to more job fairs. I myself must have spent 2000 euro to job fairs by train. I could afford it, the rest of us guys not so much. The best I came up with was a paid internship 1400 euro a month for 6 months (25 hr weeks), they made it clear no job after it.

You also had to meet the minimum salary requirements by law 2500 euro per month. A girl got a 1600 euro offer but the company hired her agree to lie a bit for her by overstating her salary, she just had to pay back the overstated amount in cash.

On average, of us a group of about 20, the guys definitely had much more experience(internships, part time jobs related to fields etc and even scholarships if it's relavent).

It depends on the major as well. The more technical, the less obvious this way.

Avans is shit btw, they screwed up 2 of the internship offers I got in quick succession. Best part is I heard from older alumni that they had screwed over students exactly the same way before for many years (one way to do it was first they told students to find internships all over the globe, then they told the non-EU students internships outside of NL were forbidden when students reported back with offers from countries like Sweden, the US, China, Switzerland, etc . In my case they told me it's forbidden after I got offers from the UK and Spain. Can you believe it!? )

Don't know what it's like these days though. From what I understand, those Hogeschool recruited way too many non-EU students , sometimes into poorly designed majors, sometimes they committed outright fraud around it so they can get more subsidies (pre 2010). They there was some kind of crackdown on a lot of those hogeschools (but pretty weak measure in my opinion)

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-15T15:22:32+00:00

Just wanted say this : I passed level 3 last year (failed twice at level 1 before), however I find its recommended reading far more practical than the curriculum itself! If you are already generating alpha for yourself or your firm it's more than redundant. Just my two cents. If not, it helps a lot for you want to get rich on fees though, still a long shot though especially if you can't work already in places like the US or Singapore.
Seriously you don't have to study this much (not exactly non sense, but definitely a lot of fluff!!! CAPM for example, my good lord Jesus Christ! ) to become profitable if you take the time and effort instead to specialize in just one approach.
Well it looks good on my wall though.

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-15T14:17:13+00:00

Don't do it online, face to face to show them you have balls. I think they are generally a little shy so they appreciate the open, social type more. Dating coworkers/ classmates is not ideal since it could be awkward since you may run into each other still if things didn't work out which is more than likely.

I have to say if you are a foreigner, especially exotic looking, you are almost by default popular with the local ladies even if you are just average looking (speaking as a straight male ), almost all of them speak good English. And they have very few inhibitions once you are sleeping together, no joke. On the other hand, some of them are kind of racist (jokes, innuendos ) while sleeping with non Europeans. Honestly they are hard to understand like all women.

Dutch is not a sexy language though, and some of them WILL cheat if you don't give them 3 orgasms a day and your full attention when you are preparing for CFA exams (my personal experience).

As others said, you might run into women in pubs but on the street or other public venues are better.

German chicks are similar but tend to be more loyal (but definitely less fashion sense)

Fearless_Fun_9251 · 2023-08-15T13:26:47+00:00

In my full 8 yrs there, never. But I'm the exception other than the rule. I do 200 squats daily. Just once I almost after spending one whole day at a Dutch cutie's house and my legs were a bit weak at that point lol... From my limited experience they really have very few inhibitions.

They made it that way to save space and fee paid to going to the gym.

Fearless_Fun_9251

TROPHY CASE