rkbabang

+1 when I first clicked on it I expected it to be a story about a child or a teenager, but don't worry about it, I couldn't post in Italian.

"launched her company after "thinking about what is the greatest change I could make in the world."" "Holmes spends every waking hour in her office and doesn't even own a TV at home." "no longer devotes time to novels or friends, doesn't date, doesn't own a television, and hasn't taken a vacation in 10 years" "She abstains from caffeine, limits the amount of time she sleeps, and works seven days a week" Amazing indeed. While I am grateful that there are people like this in the world dedicating the entirety of their lives to the progress of mankind and making us all better off, I could never be that devoted to my work. The world needs more of these types of people, they are few and far between.

I haven't read it yet, but I did click on the link to start it, the moving graphics on the sides of the page are annoying and distracting. If I do go back to read it I think I'll cut and paste the text into a text editor. I first taught myself to code on my Commodore 64 when I was about 10 or 11. I'm a hardware guy, but I do a fair amount of coding at work. Mostly embedded C and assembly, and a fair amount of Python and Perl scripting as well.

Yeah, I'm sure they will. Really, the first time? I've cursed out loud reading the news many, many, many times.

Bad news: SpaceX Rocket Disintegrates After Launching

Sure here's a rough sketch to get you started: ____________________________________ | > | > | __________________________________________ >

SpaceX Is Hosting A Hyperloop Pod Competition And Will Build A Test Track "The Pod competition is open to anyone, and is geared towards university students and independent engineering teams. The competition is open until September 15, 2015, at which point submissions will be vetted by the company, and SpaceX hopes to build the one-mile test track near its Hawthorne, CA HQ by June of next year, at which time SpaceX hopes to host a head-to-head competition of pods from submissions"

Amazon is just not good at designing their own products/hardware. Even the Kindle, which is their only technical product that's been real successful, isn't a great product. It's value comes from Amazon's vast eBook library. The operating system is still pretty bad. The Kindle HD is also terrible. My wife had one and got so frustrated with it that she just started using my iPad all of the time, so I had to buy her an iPad too. Amazon should stick to letting other companies handle the hardware and focus on delivering books/ebooks and other products. But as far as e-ink readers go there is no really good product on the market. I've owned a Nook and the Kobo Aura-HD, and the operating systems on both of those are difficult to navigate and library management is an impossible task if you have more than 10-20 books on it (I have over a thousand). I haven't tried the Kindle because a) I've heard that it is no better than the others, and b) most of my books are in epub format and I don't wish to spend the time it would take to convert them all to mobi. So back to the topic of this thread: My product wish is an excellent e-reader with an 7-8 inch e-ink screen (300+ DPI, capacitive multi-touch) , built in lighting like the newest Kindle and Kobo's have, an easy to use OS, easy library management of thousands of books, good wi-fi and web browser, supports all common formats (mobi,epub,PDF, doc, etc), handles PDF files well (none the ereaders I've tried do a good job with PDF files), has expandable memory or at least 32GB built in, light weight, thin, waterproof, a fast processor (for snappy web-browsing, quick page turns, fast app opening, etc), and under $400. I'd buy it in about a second.

I understand the economics of scarcity and of supply and demand. My bafflement isn't about the economics of the situation, but the human motivation. Let me try to explain. Say a bunch of very rich people all decided that it would be awesome to own a stool sample from a famous person. Somewhere someone found a piece of turd from Albert Einstein and it was in high demand. I understand that because so many people want it, and it is a one of a kind item, that the price could be extreme. My question wouldn't be an economic one such as: "How could the price get so high?". Rather it would be the same question I have for this art: "Why do people want it at all, it's just a turd?".

You are correct to a point. Art is very personal. But when people start spending $M on movies which look like they are filmed by 3 year olds I think I'll start complaining about that too. :) I might not like every movie, but even Killer Clowns From Outer Space couldn't have been written, directed, and filmed by a 3 year old. Yeah, I'd love to find something I could buy cheap and sell to one of these art collectors for real money. The greater sucker theory.

Amazon is pretty damn good at this. Maybe not for TV shows yet, but I assume they'd get there for fireStick users. I agree with SpecOps: none of the recommendation services are good. Amazon is not good either: they push the stuff that is already in my wish list; they push the stuff that I recently bought: no, I don't need another GPS unit if I just bought one, I don't need another travel guide to Spain if I just bought one. Even with books they sometimes veer onto really weird directions. No, I am not interested in technical analysis or stock options, did I ever buy a book on this? :) With music - I don't think I got a single recommendation that I either did not know/own before or was any good. Overall though, this is a very hard problem even though there are tons of recommender systems and research on them. The fact that I like Matrix movie does not mean that I will like Matrix sequels that are horrible. The fact that I like "Paul" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1092026/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 ) does not mean I will like "Hot Fuzz" ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425112/?ref_=nv_sr_1 ). Ratings of other people (even friends) are not a reliable indicator of your preferences. You might agree with someone on 10 movies, but violently disagree on the 11th. Sure, statistical machine learning approaches work somewhat, but not greatly. You pretty much need a full-AI psychologist entity to analyze users' worldview/thoughts/feelings/etc. to figure out what they like and why. ;) This seems like an easier problem than, for example, driverless cars, but in reality it is likely harder. :) I agree this is a much harder problem. I've been using Amazon multiple times per week for at least 10 years now, and less often for years before that and in all that time I don't think I have ever purchased something I found as a recommendation. I go there looking for something and I search until I find it. A good recommendation system would recommend things I wanted before I even knew I wanted them, I've never experienced that. The only recommendation system I've been somewhat happy with is Netflix, but that is an easier problem, because they already know the general category (you are looking to watch a TV show or movie) and they have many years worth of data on what you've already watched. When I go to Amazon.com they have no idea what I am going to search for. They don't know that my meat thermometer just broke and I am now interested in one of those even though I've never bought one from Amazon before. It is an impossible problem to solve. Maybe they should use the Amazon Echo to listen in to the conversations going on in peoples home so that they know when someone mentions that they need a certain item...

This is unbelievable. I can't be the only one who thinks these sculptures aren't any good. They look like a high school art project gone wrong where the teacher gave the student a D because he didn't even try. The same goes for Picasso's cartoon character paintings that are selling for crazy amounts. I've seen better paintings at the flea-market. I have a few oil paintings in my house (all of which I paid a lot more for the frames than for the art) which where all painted by people with more talent than Picasso in my opinion. I have no artistic talent at all, so I obviously need to become an artist. After I'm dead my family can sell my "art" for millions. If you actually paint a realistic person or a landscape that looks like something, it is crap. If you paint abstract finger paintings or cartoon boobs on cartoon women (like the recently sold Picasso "masterpiece") you are a genius. The funny thing is my kids could finger paint just fine when they were 3 years old. Adults do it and they are geniuses. I don't get it. What a waste of money.

A great novel! :) Thank you very much, Gio No problem Gio. It was really good. I just finished the Musk book last night and loved it. I read it in 3 days, which is pretty quick for me. A book that size would usually require 5-7. I started reading at my normal time then stayed up later than I should have all 3 nights. Between Seveneves and the Elan Musk biography I've been doing that too often lately. I'm going to have to read something a little more boring next so I can get some sleep. :)

TSLA, NFLX, CMG The stocks are not priced reasonably, but one of the reasons for that is that the management have done amazing things building these companies from the ground up. AMZN belongs on this list as well, but it has already been mentioned.

Wow, these guys sound horrible. Luckily, since they're so awful, you should have no problem convincing the electorate to vote for someone who will abolish them. Democracy rocks--it's so awesome that you can have a huge gripe like this and, when you convinced the electorate to agree with you, vote in a government to address your concerns. It's such a great example of true accountability, society avoiding fringe views only held by a few ideologues who haven't really thought things through in any depth, while still providing justice for people like you with righteous causes that everyone cannot help but agree with. Most people literally don't care who Obama murders. They've been programmed from their earliest age by the state to worship it. Look at the programming by the church hundreds of years ago, it doesn't mean the majority are correct in their thinking simply because they are the majority, especially after undergoing decades of extensive brainwashing. I know I'm wasting my time here, it is like trying to convince a cult member that their charismatic leader isn't really going to lead them to the comet which will carry them to the promised land as soon as they drink the cool-aid... Hundreds of millions have died at the hands of the state and hundreds of millions of more will die before humanity wises up.

Therein is the answer you seek. Elected positions in the USA aren't mostly unaccountable, they just seem that way sometimes. Good one! I almost forgot about the yearly calls from the IRS fund raisers detailing what the government plans on doing with my money in the next year (what companies they plan to subsidize, what weapons they plan to build, who they plan to send drones to murder, etc) and asking me if I'd still wish to contribute. "Can we count on the same generous donation as last year?"... Silly me, I'm acting as if I don't pay they'd send armed men to kidnap me and put me in a cage like an animal, or kill me if I resist.

Does anyone see the glass as refillable? Refillable doesn't necessarily mean it will ever be filled past the half way mark, but the entrepreneur would certainly see it as an opportunity to sell the owner more to drink.

The next paragraph is good as well: "A pessimist sees the glass as half empty. An optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass as twice the size it needs to be.” To the others, the glass is a metaphor. Nonsense, the engineer says. The specifications are off. He doesn't give free rein to temperament; he assesses the object. These jokes, like many of the jokes people tell about themselves, are grievances. The engineer doesn't understand why the rest of us can’t make sense of the world the way he does."

The only true premise is that people are inherently selfish and will act in their own best interest. That's it. Trying to catch up on all the posts here, but I'll respond to this one now. People always act in what they think is their own self interest at the time (it doesn't always turn out to be obviously). This is the reason a government made up of people can not work. People can't be trusted, but they somehow get a set of angles wings once being elected or appointed to a position of mostly unaccountable power? How does this magic happen? People do not change their stripes, as a matter of fact quite the opposite is true. Power brings out the worst in otherwise good people. Power both corrupts and attracts the already corrupted.

There are 9 states with no state capital gains taxes (just one of the reasons I moved to NH). Alaska Florida Nevada New Hampshire South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington Wyoming http://www.fool.com/personal-finance/taxes/2014/10/04/the-states-with-the-highest-capital-gains-tax-rate.aspx http://g.foolcdn.com/editorial/images/146424/states-highest-capital-gains-tax-rate_large.PNG

Whoa thanks for posting! Never seen this before, seems like the best way to browse. No problem, I suspected that a lot of people never noticed it, because it was a long time before I did.

This is the link I use most often when visiting the board: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/unread/ It is up at the top of every page right under your username where it says: "Show unread posts since last visit." It will immediately show you all of the recent posts that you have not read by topic. You can quickly scan the topics and click on the ones that interest you while ignoring the ones that don't. It is much better than going to the home screen and just seeing the last so many posts.

You can't get rid of crime, obviously. Even with all the police and force of government crime still exists. Even in jails where people are kept in cells and guarded 24/7 crime still exists. You can turn society into a high security prison and crime would still exist. Calling someone else's ideas "Nirvana" is just trying to use ridicule by creating a straw man argument. No one ever said we can get rid of crime. When you say how would X (crime, education, roads, torts, etc) be handled you are making the implicit assumption that it is being handled well now, but in many cases it demonstrably isn't. I don't think you can get rid of crime completely, it is about minimizing it the best you can and protecting yourself from it the best you can. It is quite possible that private theft would increase in my ideal society, but I don't think the average person would loose over half of everything they produce to theft, the way they do now to taxation. In our current society we loose very little to private theft and an enormous amount to public theft. Would you pay an insurance company $900,000.00 to insure your $30,000 car from theft? It just doesn't make sense. I'm not envisioning an Nirvana paradise where people are good to one another, but I think children could be educated and roads could built without theft, and I think we could protect ourselves from private criminals (sufficiently, but not perfectly) without becoming criminals ourselves. I have no problem with defensive force only the initiation of force. Yes calling government taxation theft is meant to be shocking. But if you put your programming aside and think about it, it is only shocking that you have lived this long and never thought about it from that angle. We are all so heavily trained to see things from only one point of view that simply calling the forcible taking of wealth "theft" becomes shocking when someone says it. It is like saying "invading another country makes you an aggressor and war criminal, it is the people shooting back that are protecting their country from you" or simply "war is murder" it can be shocking to hear that if all you ever hear is "support the troops", "The troops are protecting your freedom", "Freedom isn't free" etc.. The reason for government run schools has nothing to do with education (there would be a huge market for education in a modern free society as everyone wants their children to be educated) and it has everything to do with installing these statist points of view into the minds of next generation. Stand up, put your hand on your heart, and repeat after me "I pledge allegiance to the flag..."

I suppose not. Democracy is the system based on the theory "there are more of us than there are of you, so do what we say or else". The political manifestation of might makes right. Yes there are more people who think like you than who think like me, and yes the threat of violence from the majority is what keeps me paying my taxes. Force is additive while things like intelligence, empathy, and morality are not. It is the tragedy of the human condition. You are stronger so for now you win.

I never understood the whole "count yourself lucky" line of thinking. Unless you live in the worse society imaginable, it could always be worse. So anyone, in any place, in almost any time in history could have counted themselves lucky that it wasn't worse. Yes, I am glad that I live in modern America rather than medieval Europe or Soviet Russia, but that doesn't mean there is no room for improvement. In fact I think there is quite a bit of room. The whole join the mob and change it from the inside line of thinking is ridiculous when the whole system is based on violence. All I'm asking is to be allowed to opt out.