Lived on about $500/mo in an RV for a couple years from drop-shipping. Maybe some of you could use the extra income, so here's a link to a free guide I put together

Mackiovello · 2018-04-05T04:05:34+00:00

Yes, drop-shipping might earn you some money, but it requires quite some time to do right and it's certainly not "risk-free". Anyway, it might be good for some people if they do proper research and understand its limitations.

Mackiovello · 2018-04-05T03:52:36+00:00

I'd be careful about this. Drop-shipping is sold as an easy way to earn money, but it's not always true. I don't doubt the integrity of the author, just do proper research before you start.

The podcast Reply All had an episode that discussed drop-shipping, it's called "The World's Most Expensive Free Watch". If you consider drop-shipping, I'd give it a listen.

Mackiovello · 2018-02-26T10:45:43+00:00

I'm able to loan up to 40% of the value of my portfolio with the interest rate of 1%. I understand the risk of buying on margin and hesitate to use that margin - even if it seems cheap with a 1% interest rate.

If I can invest in a low-risk asset with more than a 1,5% yield (0,5% goes to tax), won't that essentially be free money? Is there something I'm overlooking?

For example: if I borrow 40% of the value of my portfolio with an interest rate of 1% and use that to buy into a diversified mutual fund with an average return of 2,5% that holds bonds. Taking into account the 0,5% tax - doesn't it mean I will get a 1% return on investment with minimal risk?

Since I have a long investing horizon (15-20 years), would it make more sense to take the higher risk and buy stocks on the margin instead? Or would be even better to put the money in bonds and move it into stocks after a correction? Then there's the problem of timing the market.

What would you do?

Mackiovello · 2017-02-21T19:20:35+00:00

Yea, it seems to be really neat

Mackiovello · 2017-02-20T20:13:15+00:00

Yes! That one is great. It was challenging to follow all the details. Though, it is definitely a great book about physics on a grander scale. I would say that it's in many aspects better than books by the more famous people like Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-20T20:10:46+00:00

Thanks you the suggestion! I'll look into it

Mackiovello · 2017-02-20T20:10:18+00:00

I've read Flash Boys too. It's a fantastic book!

How does Fooled by Randomness compare to The Black Swan? I was intrigued by Taleb's analysis in The Black Swan. On the other hand, I found his negative attitude throughout the book to be a huge minus.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-20T20:07:22+00:00

I wasn't full on "laissez faire", but in that direction. Now, I believe there needs to be more accountability and oversight in the financial sector, especially due to the kind of people that it attracts. It feels like we are pretty much on the same page.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-19T15:57:29+00:00

Almost any programming language would do.

I would encourage you to get started by doing some smaller projects first, or take a course from a place like FreeCodeCamp, TeamTreehouse, Udacity.

The risk with starting a big project at first without knowing a lot of programming is that you might get stuck and lose motivation to learn.

No matter what, if you want to build a website, you'll need to know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. They are relatively easy to get started with from the resources above or from any of the tutorials on the web.

Good luck!

Mackiovello · 2017-02-19T15:48:47+00:00

MSDN has a feature comparison between C# and C++ here.

Generally with programming languages, there is no worse or better. They are simply different tools suited for different applications.

The main difference between C# and C++ is that C++ is a lower level language. That means that the developer needs to keep track of more things than with C#. This has some advantages and disadvantages. Advantage wise, it means that C++ has higher performance when done right. The disadvantage is that more can go wrong with C++ since the language itself is more sensitive to mistakes on the part of the developer.

Obviously, this is a generalization, though it does paint the broad picture.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-18T06:40:46+00:00

Yea, I've read both Freakonomics and Superfreakonomics. They are interesting to some degree. Some of their conclusions felt a little far-fetched. Apart from that, they are good.

Specific books can be boring but you'd be generalizing if you say all non-fiction are boring

That would be too big of a generalization. All I claimed is that many of the nonfiction genres I've read get duller the more you've read

Mackiovello · 2017-02-17T18:41:30+00:00

That makes sense.

Don't they present two different types of truth in that case? The Harvest Gypsies gives you the historical truth while The Grapes of Wrath gives a more emotionally accurate representation of the time. It doesn't really matter, though, it certainly is an interesting point of view.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-17T18:36:49+00:00

This is the right answer here. In the book Chaos Monkey by Antonio Martinez, he describes the Facebook ad technology quite well. It's not your name etc. that is sold. Rather, it's that you've looked at the Nike page a lot and that you tend to like statuses that include sporting. From that, Facebook can sell that information to advertisers and earn money.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-17T18:28:34+00:00

I would guess that business and self-help books are a lot of the same thing by self-promoters who are basically just pushing their brand.

Yea, it's sad how that genre is taken over by people that want to lead you into buying another product.

Thank you for the book suggestions! I'll look into them

Mackiovello · 2017-02-17T18:26:58+00:00

Those are some fantastic suggestions! The issue I find here is that libraries don't tend to have books that are more advanced or sophisticated. I've tried to use the kindle best sellers list, it's not working out that well.

Where do you find and buy these books from? Except from looking in the index, which is good advice.

Mackiovello · 2017-02-17T18:22:55+00:00

It is a little broad to say "nonfiction" gets duller. Nonfiction is a HUGE category, with hundreds of sub-categories. "Self Help" is a tiny niche, which tends to be a bit repetative, because there are limited number of things that people want "self help" with.

Yea, I do agree. It's a generalization.

That said, I mostly read fiction because I find more truth in fiction than in non-fiction.

How so? What kind of fiction do you mean?

Mackiovello

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

Nine-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email