The "Shit I just bought" thread

Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Prova_sl said:
I've taken the CFA before, brutal exam. Studying for the GMATs is a lot easier by comparison. A little apples and oranges, but the sheer volume of material on the CFA is unbelievable. The CIISP is for IT security professionals, a friend of mine has one. He actually works for blizzard now doing IT security work for them. I feel you though, there are a ton of investment related exams with similar names: CIMA, CIMS, CPFIM, CCIM. After a while, I stepped back and really looked at the sheer time investment of the CFA and realized that its value for the time you put into it is fairly lopsided. I have immense respect for anybody who has passed all three levels, but it doesn't open nearly as many doors as it should for its difficulty level.
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Yeah, totally agree. We have a ton of people here at work that either already have their CFA, or are in the process of getting one, and it really doesn't influence your pay that much considering the major effort needed in obtaining the certification. Seriously, some people here at the office have been studying almost daily for years and are now finally doing the level III. Having a bachelor's in finance and a CFA making 80K a year is pretty bleh if you ask me-- and this is what you'll earn MAX at a KPMG or Ernst&Young until you get many years under your belt.

Where I've seen it pay off is as a complementary certification to an existing career. Say like being a lawyer and getting your CFA opens the door to being in house counsel at a financial firm, which pays far better than being a general counsel at some other company.
 
Nester

Nester

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Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
Umm, why didn't you just use DLNA on your PS3 along with any media player on your PC to spool movies/music from your PC to your TV?
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I am not 100% sure what DNLA is, but I did stream from my Comp to my PS3 for years with PSMS. It worked but had issues, I went wireless so it would get choppy or really slow for large files and only play certain types (when it felt like it it seems) it also raped me with Cinivia quite often, my Samsung apparently does not have any Cinivia issues and has yet to be choppy with huge files. Maybe I am missing what you are saying. I am saying my smart tv (which was included in every tv I looked at) seems to be a huge step up, it should tho as it is 8 years newer tech!
 
Deruvian

Deruvian

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Frenzied Wombat_sl said:
Yeah, totally agree. We have a ton of people here at work that either already have their CFA, or are in the process of getting one, and it really doesn't influence your pay that much considering the major effort needed in obtaining the certification. Seriously, some people here at the office have been studying almost daily for years and are now finally doing the level III. Having a bachelor's in finance and a CFA making 80K a year is pretty bleh if you ask me-- and this is what you'll earn MAX at a KPMG or Ernst&Young until you get many years under your belt.

Where I've seen it pay off is as a complementary certification to an existing career. Say like being a lawyer and getting your CFA opens the door to being in house counsel at a financial firm, which pays far better than being a general counsel at some other company.
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The only problem with the last piece is that you actually need several years of investment experience in order to actually be eligible to get the designation after you past the exams. They aren't very clear what constitutes investment experience, but I doubt that being a lawyer or non financial professional would count. There are some firms here in Boston, Eaton Vance, for one, that are huge cheerleaders for the exam, but it just doesn't seem to carry the weight that it should. MBA's from top tier universities can easily earn $100+ a year out of school, and also open the doors to a huge variety of really lucrative positions. Meanwhile, you can get a CFA while being a fund accountant for State Street and barely even guarantee yourself a raise, let alone a lucrative placement at a top firm. I have read that there are a few fields where CFA's make sense, such as portfolio management, but at 150-300 hours of studying per exam, it's a really high price to pay for a 'nice to have'.
 
Frenzied Wombat

Frenzied Wombat

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Prova_sl said:
The only problem with the last piece is that you actually need several years of investment experience in order to actually be eligible to get the designation after you past the exams. They aren't very clear what constitutes investment experience, but I doubt that being a lawyer or non financial professional would count. There are some firms here in Boston, Eaton Vance, for one, that are huge cheerleaders for the exam, but it just doesn't seem to carry the weight that it should. MBA's from top tier universities can easily earn $100+ a year out of school, and also open the doors to a huge variety of really lucrative positions. Meanwhile, you can get a CFA while being a fund accountant for State Street and barely even guarantee yourself a raise, let alone a lucrative placement at a top firm. I have read that there are a few fields where CFA's make sense, such as portfolio management, but at 150-300 hours of studying per exam, it's a really high price to pay for a 'nice to have'.
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Yeah, I don't think their requirements are too stringent concerning the investment experience. We've gone through a few general counsels that have CFA's but only previously worked at law firms. I'll ask but I believe if your law firm handles transactional matters, you can paint your way in.

That being said, my point is that it only seems to make big bucks as a "complimentary" cert to a different career. An MBA+ a CFA won't make you much more (if anything) over just having an MBA. But being a lawyer that has a CFA means you can go from doing general law to transactional matters or financial litigation, and that pays FAR more.

Your example using State Street is a perfect one. A fund accountant getting a CFA won't make jack more, so I don't get it. I think they take it just for the hopes to distinguish themselves amongst peers for a promotion.
 
Deruvian

Deruvian

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Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. If a lawyer can actually earn the credential, I could see value in branding you with savvy from a different field. Their website is very vague on the matter and I haven't had much reason to research as my field would quite likely qualify.

What's more-so surprising to me is why it seems to hold so little value in investment circles. I felt that the level 1 CFA taught me more about finance in 3 months than college did in 3 years. Passing all three exams, to me, seems to imply a very thorough knowledge of the investment field that you couldn't otherwise confer from a simple Bachelors in Finance. Part of me just feels like companies like being able to say that their analyst has an MBA from MIT. Just having a CFA cert doesn't seem to have that same ring of we're smarter than you', especially considering how generally misunderstood the cert is.
 
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Tenks

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Nester_sl said:
I am not 100% sure what DNLA is, but I did stream from my Comp to my PS3 for years with PSMS. It worked but had issues, I went wireless so it would get choppy or really slow for large files and only play certain types (when it felt like it it seems) it also raped me with Cinivia quite often, my Samsung apparently does not have any Cinivia issues and has yet to be choppy with huge files. Maybe I am missing what you are saying. I am saying my smart tv (which was included in every tv I looked at) seems to be a huge step up, it should tho as it is 8 years newer tech!
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PSMS was a huge pile of shit for me attempting to stream HD content. I just bought a 64gb flash drive and just plug it into the USB on my PS3 now. Use the XMB to go over to video, select the drive, hit triangle and all the shit is there. No hassle or anything.
 
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Seventh

Golden Squire
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Prova_sl said:
The CIISP is for IT security professionals,
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Haha, my bad. I'm a systems engineer, so the acronym was on the brain.
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I thought there was some next-level for the CFA that was called something else. My buddy passed all of the tests, and did a monumental amount of complaining them. (And drinking afterwards)
 
McQueen

McQueen

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There was a quality setting in the old PSMS that you could adjust based on the speed of your ethernet connection, which helped a lot with playing 1080p over WiFi. One of the better builds of PSMS spun off into Universal Media Server, so you might want to take a look at that instead.
 
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Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Deathwing_sl said:
Besides having to load your shit onto a flash drive every time you download something new.
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In practice I generally bulk download things. So I'll download all the seasons of a show or a bunch of movies at once then just transfer over. If your habits aren't like me then yes it would be a giant pain. But I only transfer shit maybe once every 3 months.
 
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Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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Chromecast seems cool but too limited for me at the moment. I may buy one once the Twitch.tv app supports it.
 
Eomer

Eomer

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Picasso_sl said:
I may switch to faggot socks because they seem incredibly easy to match
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I just made the switch myself bro, it's great. I don't even worry about what color they are now. Amusingly enough, it was after I picked up half a dozen pairs of Happy Socks for super cheap while I was in Chicago. Coincidence?
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Got this in yesterday:

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Thing is a beast. I had a really shitty iron before and this thing is such a major upgrade. Plugged it in to test it and it was 750 degrees F in the blink of an eye. I wish I had more to solder just so I could play with it.
 
Lenas

Lenas

Trump's Staff
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Single stud Peerless wall mount for $50. Good shit, holds like a baws and is easy to reposition.

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Seventh

Golden Squire
892
15
Noodleface_sl said:
Got this in yesterday:

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Thing is a beast. I had a really shitty iron before and this thing is such a major upgrade. Plugged it in to test it and it was 750 degrees F in the blink of an eye. I wish I had more to solder just so I could play with it.
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I have the same one, thing is definitely awesome. Kicks total ass for melting old blobs of soldered grounds.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

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Seventh_sl said:
I have the same one, thing is definitely awesome. Kicks total ass for melting old blobs of soldered grounds.
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Good to hear! Was 50/50 between this and the weller (I've used the weller before too), but the reviews were a lot better for the Hakko.
 
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Seanwin

Lord Nagafen Raider
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A new hot water tank since my blew over the weekend!! The one good thing is at least we caught it right away instead of it going Friday right after we left for the weekend, it started leaking between my shower and laundry. Else I would have been buying new carpet and drywall for the basement
 
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