Christopher Larson

Historically, gold has almost always  performed very well during times of recession. As the novel Coronavirus sweeped across the world, leaving scorched economies in the wake, many were surprised at the enormous sell-off that paper gold prices initially saw. Both paper and physical gold prices have been climbing since, slowly and steadily marking the beginning of the Modern Gold Rush. I am not in the interest of debating the source of the Coronavirus, be it a lab in Wuhan, consumption of bats, or as some conspiracy theorists are starting to believe, 5G cellular waves. I am much more interested in discussing what the repercussions are, how long this crisis will last, and where money can be made from it. One of the most frustrating things about the Coronavirus' impact on the economy is that no one knows quite what to believe right now. It would seem that Corona has people stuck at home with nothing better to do than dabble in Wall Street, as markets have seen record volumes ...

We are in the midst of an industrial revolution, one even larger in scale than any in history. Historians generally agree that our would has experienced three great and distinct industrial revolutions: the Mechanical Revolution that came as a result of the steam engine, the Revolution of Science and Mass Production, and more recently, the Technological Revolution. This very moment, we are experiencing the mere start of the Information Revolution. Jake. Image: thispersondoesnotexist.com This is Jake. Jake looks like a normal guy. He may even look vaguely familiar to you. Jake, however, does not exist. He was never born and has never breathed. Jake is the result of a general adversarial network, or GAN. Simply put, a GAN is the competition of two neural nets, powerful, adaptive artificial intelligences, being used to improve itself with every use.  In a way, GANs are similar to two people playing chess. As one player tries new tactics and positions, the other learns m...

Tesla's Q3 Earnings Report blew the roof off. Analysts expected a loss of $0.42 per share, but were slapped in the face with a profit  of $1.86 per share yesterday afternoon. As a result, stock soared nearly 20%, topping at $308 per share, then evened off today just short of $300 during market hours. This is a huge spike from yesterday's open of $251. Tesla Model 3. Source: Tesla Many of the obstacles that once plagued Tesla and much of the negative fodder for media conglomerates has proved irrelevant; Tesla reported making huge strides in nearly all the areas that skeptics claim will prove Tesla's demise. Part of the success, Elon Musk attributes to the accelerated timeline of Gigafactory III Shanghai. Elon said that he has never heard of a factory of this scale being built so quickly. Gigafactory III construction started 7 January 2019 and was seen producing cars as early as September and October. Elon said that the speed of Gigafactory III's opening "....

Upon transferring to a new university, I was shocked by the overall attitude of professors towards students using notebook computers in class. Many of my educators claim that the note-taking potential is not worth distracting other students in the room. I have written some of my opinions in regards to this topic. My opinion is best summarized by the final sentence in the fourth paragraph: "...This is pandering to the assumed lowest common denominator, and such catering lowers the potential of everyone in the class." Without further ado, I give you my strong opinions on why typing leaves scribbling in the dust. -- The current atmosphere on university campuses in regards to laptops in class is reminiscent of the attitude my high school teachers had on cell phones in the early 2010s. I not-so-fondly remember teachers having a no tolerance policy for phones in class, many claiming that there was no proof that cell phones were more so a boon than a burden. Even in many of ...

Tomorrow I will be moving back to Texas, where I grew up. It's an interesting feeling heading back. I will be looking for work again. I figured I'd write a quick post as a supplement to my resume. Since graduating High School, I studied two semesters at Brigham Young University in Utah. Between those two semesters, I served for two years as a volunteer service missionary across the different provinces of Thailand. These experiences are detailed in a book I have just published titled Four Thousand Miles to Faith. After finishing my service, I worked and studied, both full-time. I worked at ASEA Global, managing the accounts and websites of associates all over Asia and Oceania. I spent Summer 2019 in Thailand, following up on some things in regards to my missionary work, as well as visiting my Fiance and son. I will start school this fall at Texas State University, seeking a Bachelor's of Finance. I am passionate about self-improvement, interpersonal relations and man...

Hey all! This is the fourth section of chapter four in my book Four Thousand Miles to Faith. Posting this for free here for anyone who might want to read. Enjoy! Chapter 4 Part 4: The Flood Chiangmai had consistently heavy rains while I was there, and Thailand is notorious for flooding. One day, Elder Xayavong and I woke up to a phone call from our zone leaders. They asked if we could meet them on the north side of the city to help a small village with flood damage. We got on our bikes and set off toward the airport. Getting to this small village was no easy task; we had to ride down twisted back roads and alleys until we arrived at a small, dense group of hand-built houses. The houses had been built right along the banks of the river to provide easy transportation into the city and worry-free trash disposal. Over many years of dumping trash down the river, they had inadvertently clogged it, and the heavy rains brought more trash from upstream, creating a thick and tight dam o...

It's finally done! I have been working for a few months on a book titled Four Thousand Miles to Faith. I wrote about my experiences, some anecdotes, and the lessons I learned from spending two years as a full-time volunteer and ordained minister in Thailand. The missionaries in my organization weren't allowed to ride motorcycles (safety reasons). As such, we either used public transportation or our mountain bikes. As I was leaving the stateside training center getting ready to leave for Thailand for the first time, one of our instructors told us his only regret was not buying a speedometer for his bike to know how many miles he rode in total. I bought one on my first day in Thailand. On my last day, I had ridden 3,722 miles (not including miles I rode on other bikes, when traveling, etc.). 4,000 Miles to Faith is about how living life with nothing to my name helped me to figure out who I was and who I could be. It's about learning what is really important in life. I...

My boss has been applying for her direct supervisor's position, as that supervisor is resigning soon. I'm usually my boss's go-to guy for side projects, and this was one that made me smile a bit while working on it with her. Where I work has some aspects of a call center, in that while we're working on accounts and shipments, we get phone calls and emails from our clients across the word in the markets we work in. My boss Chelsey wanted me to put together a chart that displayed everyone's comparative statistics. For the sake of privacy, I've censored the names of my co-workers. One of the T's and the K are on a different team but work our shift, so the total percentage contribution is about 5% off. Allow me to define some terms -  Total Contacts - The total amount of emails and calls handled by the representative in the time frame. Missed Calls - Total missed calls Calls per Hour - The average number of calls/emails a representative was able ...

Updated my Resume today. It's interesting how one's vocabulary changes over time. I had several sentences in my resume that I reread and couldn't bear to keep the same. I've also been working for a while on a report on the social media usage of my current company. It's been interesting to analyze the usage and effect of our posts on different platforms. I've learned quite a bit, just in the week or two that I've been working on the report. The book I read for February of this year was The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk. This book went into great detail about the usage of social media by companies large and small. Gary wrote the book in 2010 and 2011, but the principles he wrote about, the usage of Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms, still hold true today. I've been thinking a lot about marketable skills recently. I decided with my site that it would be a lot more interesting and impressive if I had coded the whole thing myself. In 2019...

I 've been doing a lot of budgeting lately. It's not as bad as I thought. The way I hear everyone talk about budgeting, I figured it'd be difficult for me. As a bit of background, one of my New Year's Resolutions for 2019 was to become completely financially independent. In December 2018, I worked a decent part-time job, and I had the easy life of keeping basically everything I earned, and having mommy and daddy paying for all the important things (food, gas, etc). Anyway, I used my newfound Excel skills to start keeping track of my income and expenses. My first few spreadsheets were very  awkward and clunky. They started simple, but very quickly, money started to kick me in the face. I'll skip pointing out the plentiful design flaws in my spreadsheet. Trainwreck. This is my second attempt. I didn't quite finish it. This one was going better, but it got interrupted when I got my second job. I am all about the grind. I love the feeling of b...

2 things we know about you! Christopher, 1. Love love love your excitement for life, being at ASEA, supporting the field in Thailand, attending events (on your day off) - Pretty much you are just GREAT  to work with! 2. You are so SMART!  Really, 100% on your tier 1 right after you started! So jealous Love Sandy

"Treat a man as he is and he will stay as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be."    -Goethe

“Change happens when the pain of staying the same [becomes] greater than the pain of change.”      -Tony Robbins

Soylent is a blend of vitamins and nutrients sold as a liquid meal replacement drink. Soylent tends to spark controversy among many, so I sought out to clear up some of the mysteries regarding Silicon Valley's favorite food.  Sources [i] Rosa Foods. "Soylent FAQ." Soylent. Accessed November 10, 2018. https://soylent.com/pages/faq. [ii] Mahdawi, Arwa. "I Tried Soylent, Silicon Valley’s Favourite Foodstuff. It’s Everything That’s Wrong with Modern Life." The Guardian, September 11, 2018. Accessed November 2, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/11/i-tried-soylent-silicon-valleys-favourite-foodstuff-its-everything-thats-wrong-with-modern-life. [iii] Grover, Zubin, and Looi C. Ee. "Protein Energy Malnutrition." Science Direct56, no. 5 (October 2009). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031395509000868?via=ihub#! [iv] Merchant, Brian. "Soylent: How I Ate No Food For 3...

My current company is amazing at perpetuating a positive and non-toxic culture in the office. We pride ourselves on a set of values that guides the way we work. We have many methods of motivating and praising each other, some of which have rewards that we can choose to give. My perfect culture includes the same civility I have seen at my current position. I, in fact, recently watched a speech on this subject, in which Christine Porath tells of the cost of incivility. People who believe they are treated unfairly are far less productive and creative than those who are praised and feel empowered. Being kind, yet firm, will get you far.

"He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail."     -Abraham Maslow (rephrased)

Welcome to my site! If you're seeing this on the homepage, I'm probably still getting things set up. Bear with me, I've been working on this site a lot lately. For now, here are my links and a nice headshot of myself. LinkedIn Instagram Facebook