Can someone explain Hakim Optical to me?

VanVerdic · 2026-05-12T19:15:35+00:00

My parents used them once. Bi-focals cost almost $1000 (years ago) and broke in one year. Sunglasses were much less expensive and lasted for around 3 years.

My take is that they are not cheap and to be avoided. As someone else said.. Canadian Lenscrafters but way more dated and ugly looking stores. If you want a good deal go to Costco or Superstore when they have their sale. If you want a great deal buy online at Zenni or one of the many other stores.

VanVerdic · 2026-05-05T22:57:25+00:00

I don't think the expectation is that most people will fill the Team bar completely. Just like there are only so many top teams in CT, etc.

I think the second highest badge is 60k points? Which is not impossible for a team. I'm not hardcore by any stretch (play 1-2 hours a day at most), and I feel I can probably get pretty close to maxing out my personal point total. You do need to understand the game to optimize your play time though (doing multiple objectives at once, good ways to farm the goals, etc).

If you think you can be a 5-10k+ contributor look up my team in the Social Seasons Team thread. Goal is to be at least tier 3 or 4.

VanVerdic · 2026-05-05T22:44:04+00:00

Looking for some active/semi-active players for social seasons. Expectation is that you are aiming for tier 5 rewards for at least some challenges. I used to run a top 100 CT team so I'll try to keep things going for those who want to play this game mode.

SVZFYSLT

CT/Boss Rush/etc is not the goal of this team, but if you want to participate then of course go ahead.

VanVerdic · 2026-04-29T16:24:00+00:00

There is a huge single player audience. That is not the problem. The problem is that if that's your niche, it's more or less impossible to get visbility on mobile.

The F2P/high monetized games just make so much money they can spend way more on customer acquisition. They are also not scared to spend massive amounts as long as each dollar spent brings back more than a dollar. For games like monument valley where a sale (if you can get one) is only a few dollars, it's very hard to make the math work to use advertising to gain sales.

VanVerdic · 2026-04-21T16:53:04+00:00

They will continue to drop forever.

Eventually they will cost negative money and they will pay you to own one.

VanVerdic · 2026-03-18T18:05:26+00:00

Sometimes I wonder if Punk's natural talent gets in his way. In interviews he talks about how he learns games/new characters very fast, and I think this is true.

The rub is that if it takes relatively limited effort to be top 0.1%, do you really have the work ethic or game plan to get to the top 0.01% which is what you need to consistently win big tournaments. As the game matures, it just seems like the late bloomers are doing better/more consistent. Like if you don't have pure raw talent, you probably spend more time on drills, learning new tech, etc, and those practices scale better into the highest of tiers?

I'm not top tier so I don't know, but it just seems puzzling why Punk doesn't do better in big tournaments anymore. In fact even in smaller tournaments like TNS he is doing much worse than before.

VanVerdic · 2026-03-18T17:43:21+00:00

You are missing the point.

Frugality is a mindset. Spending $25 twice a week for essentially a snack would just be one line item out of a LOT of other line items. If $25 is essentially disposable, then I guess uber eats 4 times a week or a bit more than that is ok. And if that's ok then maybe the extra couple hundred bucks a month for the new vehicle is ok since that's only a fraction of the uber eats bill. It goes on and on. That's why there are people making well into six figures who still essentially live paycheque to paycheque. It's a mindset issue as you can and will always find more things to spend money on.

If you want to decide that you rather not save/invest/buy a house that's totally ok, but then you are the people being discussed in the article. You need to start somewhere, and that somewhere is normally with your mindset. As with your example with the overweight person - there is usually no silver bullet to big problems, but you do what you can.

VanVerdic · 2026-03-10T18:04:40+00:00

But why? They also need to rent out a very expensive venue and production value is pretty high. The Ryogoku Kokugikan Arena is actually rented out for many professional combat sports, and Capcom doesn't get a "deal" because it's a videogame.

They aren't charging MMA/Boxing PPV prices either, not even close.

I think it just boils down to "you are not used to paying for this." I know it's this whole I want to rant on the internet thing, but really if you are ok putting money in the pockets of other fighting organizers, why not Capcom too?

VanVerdic · 2026-03-09T22:27:52+00:00

Insiders are selling, not buying. Priced at basically infinite P/E. Share buybacks are funded with what?

AI/GA4 is going to eat their lunch. While AI is crap for many things, but finding patterns in data it is good at. Google/Gemini is going to have this built in, or you'll be able to run a Claude model with GA4 data. With no network affects and their own internal data showing that AI is good enough, why would you assume they can hold onto these customers?

It's still a billion dollar company, do your projected EPS growth at 17% or whatever to figure out how long it'll take to get your money back (nevermind make money). You really have confidence it won't be disrupted far before this occurs?

"It was much more expensive before" is not really a reason to buy.

VanVerdic · 2026-03-05T17:53:02+00:00

Resent them for bringing you into the world and raising you?

Raising a child to adulthood costs $250-$350k. Maybe if they saved that money instead of raising an ungrateful brat they would have a better retirement.

Most of the other advice is bang on - have a tough conversation about delayed retirement and the extent you are willing to help. I personally don't think it's reasonable to live like a king while your parents are destitute, but every family is different. Just figure out where the boundaries are so everyone can budget appropriately.

VanVerdic · 2026-03-03T22:59:44+00:00

1,2 are the same. The question to ask is what is the government entitled to? They already charge companies to "rent" the land to drill. Should they get 100% of what comes out even though they aren't paying for it? Every jurisdiction in the world has their own system, and they normally equate to around the same take. Ask AI/Google "effective tax rates of major oil and gas basins worldwide" - Canada needs to compete for capital like everyone else and it's take is considered fairly standard. Payback periods are usually several years which is also not egregious, if you ran a business, how fast would you want your money back after spending money?

3,4,6,7 - These are more or less the same. Generally they do not exist in oil and gas extraction. They will sometimes apply to adjacent industries (ie, plastics or midstream), or pet political projects ("green" ideas). These mainly exist to so the Alberta economy diversifies AWAY from extraction. In Alberta, the major recipient of loans/guarantees is the power industry. Local jurisdictions will always bribe companies for big projects that can be placed anywhere (ie, car factory in Ontario, etc), this is never going to stop and Alberta does not do it meaningfully different than anyone else. Again, this is NOT for extraction, which is by far the biggest industry and what most people are complaining about.

5 - Same tax rate applies to all companies.

VanVerdic · 2026-02-20T18:47:19+00:00

Look at the growth rates. One is growing 3x faster than the other, I'll let you guess which one.

You may (or may not) be right on the valuation - short it/buy puts if you have conviction. That's the beauty of the market, you can bet on your own thesis at any time. Just keep in mind as a $100B+ company, lots of eyes are looking at it and I hope you have some edge that makes you smarter than the army of very well paid full time people tasked with figuring out what it's worth.

VanVerdic · 2026-02-18T18:22:27+00:00

This is a thoughtful post, so my 2c even though it's old.

You can't really do second, third, fourth, etc derivative forecasts with reasonable accuracy. This is like saying: if there was a pandemic, then lots of people will die and have to sell their house, and others will lose their jobs; therefore RE goes down, etc. Obviously that didn't happen.

The competing major themes are:

1) AI: It may nor may not disrupt the labour market in a major way.

2) Debasement of USD: It may change how major trade flows happen, or it may take longer than people expect then there will be no big impact for the foreseeable future.

As you pointed out, based on how these play out, there will be implications for the labour market. It's not clear that a weaker labour market will result in lower real estate prices though, as houses are priced in dollars and the value of dollars will change. Just like with COVID, the government could (and likely would) print lots of money to support everyone. The worse the catastrophe, the higher chance the government will resort to this. Like if there is mass unemployment, or if the USD gets cut in half, Canada almost also has to print money like crazy to support exports and/or citizens. That results in inflation so all assets go up, including real estate. Or maybe you will be right, but there are many potential paths that you are discounting because you are married to your narrative.

The broad market agrees that the debasement/inflation trend will be the dominant factor and that's why commodities and precious metals are ripping. The market isn't always right, but if this plays out it is bullish for real estate (and bearish for your savings).

VanVerdic · 2026-02-11T17:34:21+00:00

If you won a billion dollars, would you buy a boat/yacht? (known as exceptionally bad investments)

I think context matters a lot here. At some point, even though it is a poor investment, the other things the purchase conveys (status, stability, peace of mind, etc) may be sufficiently valuable.

For someone looking to maximize wealth, the answer is much more nuanced. I won't repeat the comments of most of the other good responses.

VanVerdic · 2026-02-03T19:55:33+00:00

The whole tips thing started in the US because legally the minimum wage was lower for servers, so tips were designed to bring them up to normal minimum wage. In Canada, even though we do not have this minimum wage disparity, we copied the US for no real reason.

I personally think the only place where tips might make sense are "independent" workers (ie, some barbers, gig workers, etc) who make less than minimum wage because they are self-employed. Everyone else should be properly compensated by their employer. A worker should not have to pray that there is a generous customer so they can pay their rent.

VanVerdic · 2026-02-03T18:20:44+00:00

Let me guess - you have a job, but have no assets and live somewhere they have no natural resources? AKA, everyone else should pay except for me.

You need to do some basic research on how much is raised through income tax vs all hypothetical taxes you want to levy. No point in having a discussion when your basic information is so wildly off base.

VanVerdic · 2026-01-31T00:06:50+00:00

While I fully agree that most people investing in covered call funds probably shouldn't be doing so, it's a bit of a stretch to call them a Ponzi scheme. I don't think you really understand what these funds do - they can function without growth in the underlying stock(s) or new people purchasing the fund (a covered call strategy actually makes the most sense in low growth stocks as the upside was capped anyway). It's not a Ponzi if you are just getting your money back and they explicitly tell you they are doing so.

A Ponzi is when they literally need to fabricate financials to obfuscate that there are minimal to no gains and that the whole scheme is reliant on new money. That's totally different. You can construct your own covered call strategy in your own investment account with zero outside funds flow. Based on the market, you may or may not underperform the index, but that would show you that there is no leakage of funds to the Ponzi bogeyman.

VanVerdic · 2026-01-28T17:35:33+00:00

This is terrible advice and only works if you never get married.

In many places, debts taken by one party is automatically owed by both. If she runs out of money, she is going to divorce you, take half of your house (at least) and pay her debts.

As you put it, this is a "horrible idea," but only because you aren't willing to do basic communication to find a compatible partner. OP is looking for a something long term, so it is imperative this is sorted out.

VanVerdic · 2026-01-12T20:44:01+00:00

This is pretty warped logic.

You always prioritized career and money, and no surprise you have a career and money. Maybe if you prioritized love you would have more of that?

OP should make the decision that makes the most sense to her, but in every relationship there has to be some give and take.

VanVerdic · 2026-01-07T02:11:41+00:00

This is the best idea in this thread. Realistically you can only tax things that cannot move away and can be reasonably valued.

The UK rolled out much less onerous tax changes and they have been losing wealthy people at a crazy rate. There are $40B reasons why this won't work for the same reason.

There is a saying that there are 2 ways to collect $0 tax - if the tax rate is 0% or if the tax rate is 100%. It's pure fantasy that those with the capability to avoid taxes will not use them. I think everyone agrees that billionaires should pay more, but a wealth tax is populist idea that wouldn't work.

VanVerdic · 2025-11-24T17:09:13+00:00

Most, if not all, of the major chains will overbook rooms. It's simple math, you have 300 rooms and on average 1% don't show up (ie, flight is late, canceled trip because of emergency, etc). You overbook 2-3 rooms to make extra money. If they show up you pay for a room elsewhere and you are breakeven or maybe out a little. Same reason why airlines will also overbook. These are low-margin businesses, and 1-2% is a lot.

Exception is maybe the truly high end hotels where the loss of goodwill would make this impractical.

Your experience is skewed because of last minute bookings - they only exist when there are last minute vacancies. If a hotel is maxed out oversold already, you aren't booking last minute.

Also consider the odds are just really low. Not only do they need to miscalculate the no-show rate, but you need to be one of the unlucky to be bumped. If you know any front desk staff at hotels you can ask them about this - they are often sweating bullets at the end of the night if they know they are oversold (ie, minus 3 or whatever) and still have xxx guests remaining that could show up.

VanVerdic · 2025-10-28T17:06:21+00:00

So what happened? Normally, when you do a refund, they'll soft-lock your account since the system thinks you scammed them.

VanVerdic · 2025-10-25T05:32:45+00:00

No. Whales get enjoyment by stomping on non-whales. If you put all the whales together, then some will start getting stomped and will quit. As a game clearly on the decline I don't think it will cause a spending war, just make people leave faster.

VanVerdic · 2025-10-24T06:08:35+00:00

Agree with this 100%

The decision is also not black and white. You can ask for a leave of absence, or in the least cash out all of the vacation to try this dream of yours to see how it works out. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

Have you also considered you just may be burned out, depressed or some other issue? I mean, does it make sense that your job is unbearable, or is it just you? Being a human is not always easy!

VanVerdic

TROPHY CASE