rkbabang

Us Blackberry users have a holster, thank you very much. It sits nicely on our sides, out of the way not like those tween girls shove them in their back pocket with the sparkly cover. Much like the pocket protectors from days gone by................. 8) Oh yeah, holsters, that's right. It is nice when your pager goes off you can grab your blackberry out of its holster and return the call right then and there without needing to go find a pay phone. I heard they're teaming up with Sears on this, Chen was quoted as saying "We think two failures will make a success when we work together." They'll be offering a Blackberry app that makes ordering from the Sears catalog a lot easier. Users have also been asking for a CB Radio app so they can keep in touch with the ever changing traffic conditions reported real-time by truckers... I heard about that partnership with Sears. I think they are going to be doing a promotion where if you buy the new BB they give you a K-Mart. "Attention K-Mart shoppers! There's a blue light special right now in the cell phone department"

At first I was kind of chuckling at how much John Chen is sweating in the photo attached to the story, but then I thought if I was in his shoes and had to introduce this product to the world I'd be sweating a lot worse than that. He actually looks pretty cool considering. http://ei.marketwatch.com//Multimedia/2014/09/24/Photos/ZH/MW-CU832_bbry_b_20140924110818_ZH.jpg?uuid=ad8edeaa-43fc-11e4-bff3-6fde369198aa%5D

Us Blackberry users have a holster, thank you very much. It sits nicely on our sides, out of the way not like those tween girls shove them in their back pocket with the sparkly cover. Much like the pocket protectors from days gone by................. 8) Oh yeah, holsters, that's right. It is nice when your pager goes off you can grab your blackberry out of its holster and return the call right then and there without needing to go find a pay phone.

Yeah, I can't wait to get home, put my Blackberry in the charger, and put a good tape into my Betamax. After I stable my horses from my commute, of course.

Where Scotland failed, could New Hampshire succeed? One in four Americans want their state to secede from the U.S., but why?

These fuel cells look interesting: http://www.redoxpowersystems.com/ They claim that they will cost about $1K/kW, so these 25kW models that are coming out soon should be about $25K. I wonder how cheap they are to run and how long they will last. Certainly a lot quieter than a generator.

i have 12 currently. all are held because they in some way help me maximize the number of points/miles i receive from signup bonuses and spend. I have like 6 now. That's down a couple already. Those sign up bonuses are very lucrative. Wow, I guess I don't work as hard taking advantage of the cash back/points. I only have 3 cards. Not counting my debit card for my checking account which has a VISA logo on it, but it isn't a credit card and provides no cash back benefits. I only use it at ATMs to get cash, never to buy anything. Once you are already getting 2% cash back on everything you buy the extra effort to get a few bonus points here or there doesn't seem to me to be worth the extra effort.

I have no idea if it will pass, but I hope it does. Only because I like the precedent it sets. If a U.S. State ever does similarly (such as New Hampshire :) or Texas) the US FedGov will look like a bunch of bullies if it doesn't let them leave. Then again. Not that the rest of the world doesn't already think of the US as a bunch of bullies and not that the US cares.

Do people really hold 10 credit cards? Why would you have more than one from each company? I use my AmEx, unless it isn't accepted, then I use my Mastercard. Why would I need 5 AmEx cards and 5 Mastercards(or Visa cards)? Liberty's explanation makes more sense to me now that I think about it. If you make less than $50K/year before taxes, you can't possibly spend $2K/month on your card (without quickly getting to your credit limit).

I'm actually surprised by how low these numbers are even for American Express, but especially for the more common cards. I thought everyone used their card for almost everything the way I do, all their shopping (food, gas, etc), as many of their bills as possible (netlfix, cable, heating oil, electric, LP/NG gas, etc), and everything else they spend money on (discretionary spending, vacations, car maintenance, home maintenance, etc). I would have expected numbers in the ball park of those amounts to be monthly not yearly.

You might want to consider the equipment/construction industry. DE (or maybe CAT) for dividends or ASTE for a smaller growth pick with a smaller dividend (Astec is an excellent company).

I spent few minutes looking at the AmEx cards offered on their website. It seems that they are oriented strongly towards people who fly a lot. I don't. I prefer cash back. Right now I have 3 credit cards. A Fidelity AmEx which pays 2% cash back deposited into my brokerage account. With no limit on the cash back per year. This is the card I use most often by far. An Amazon.com Visa which I only use at Amazon.com, because it pays 3% cash back on Amazon purchases. And I have a Citi Master Card which I only use if I'm somewhere that doesn't accept AmEx. It pays 2% cash back, but has a $300/year limit on the rewards. None of the cards have an annual fee or give air miles or have airport privileges, but I'm not interested in any of that anyway.

I know when I get my 2% cash back on my charge card that I am free-riding off of the people who don't pay their balance every month, but I'm not sure I understand the charge card business. They provide the bonus points and service all for a $300-$500/year annual fee and never collect interest? How does AmEx make money on the charge cards? Float?

I have the same card. We probably don't get the service that other AmEx cardholders get, because we don't pay an annual fee.

+1 This is can't be stated often enough. As it is true for everything created by humans, including companies.

Agreed that is also part of their moat. It is just the flip side of saying that one of the things their brand represents is seamless integration of hardware and software. The Apple brand represents this, because they are the only company in the world that has pulled this off correctly. Not only do they design their own devices, but even their own IC's. They are a device design company, an IC design company, a software company, a services company, all rolled into one. I can't think of any other company that has pulled all of that off successfully and been world class in every area. Apple has a moat.

The notion that Apple doesn't believe in moats is absurd. Yes, they are willing to cannibalize existing products with new ones (abandon one moat by digging a new one in a different spot), but Apple's moat is: its design, its high build quality, its eco-system (breadth of products that all work together), its simplicity (all the features that are necessary, but none that are not). Apple has built a brand that stands for all of these things and more. That is its moat.

Would that make you a dummy? I love arguments that start out: If you disagree with what I'm about to say you are stupid.

My house is 246 years old (built in 1768). I don't want a sci-fi roof.

I just need a product like this: http://www.solarreviews.com/news/colored-solar-panels-address-concerns-of-aesthetics-historic-preservation/ Something like this might work for me, if they can get it to look more like roofing shingles. It is still pretty noticeable. http://www.dowpowerhouse.com/

Okay, so how much pre-tax income does that cost you? Solar panels generate a tax-free imputed income stream. The higher your income tax rate, the cheaper residential solar becomes. Take for example the peak 50% income tax rates in California... and you pay your utility bill with after-tax income... One kWh consumed at noon that costs 49 cents on my utility bill in fact costs me 98 cents in income. The higher and higher you jack up my tax rate, the cheaper and cheaper solar looks compared to coal/gas... Unless I purchase a coal/gas fueled residential electric generator... I'd love to try getting a permit for one of those ::) I live in NH, no state income tax at all, nor a capital gains tax, so just federal income taxes. Permits? You don't need no stinkin' permits. I'd love a coal generator, especially if it has some automatic way to feed the coal into it, but I don't think you could install one and not have it noticed. Depending on the noise and how close your neighbors are a gas fired generator in your back yard (or maybe in a small well insulated/soundproofed outbuilding with the exhaust vented out), could probably go unnoticed. http://www.kohlergenerators.com/small-business-generators/generators

That's also an issue for me even if it was affordable. Ideally you'd like the front of your house facing north so that the panels would be on the back side facing south, but the front of my house faces almost exactly due south.

There is no investment if you go with Solar City. Just a lower utility bill ;) Perhaps they are value shoppers and you are the one paying more? Eric, have you signed up for SolarCity? I remember you were looking at some alternatives a while ago, but I don't think you mentioned picking anything.. First, I wanted to put solar panels on the detached garage. I could fit a 10,000 watt system up there (40 250 watt panels). The roof though is "flat". The fire marshall has to sign off on the permit, so I had him out to the house. He wants a 3 foot wide perimeter around the east and north edges of the roof, as well as a 3 foot wide path right down the center of the roof. Suffice it to say, I can only fit a bit less than 1/2 as many panels as I'd like because of him. He's really messing it up. They want to be able to punch holes in the roof to vent it during a fire without walking on solar panels... give me a break... can't I just say "fine, I don't care if you walk on the panels...". So that nixed that idea... or at least I'm not going to come back to the idea quite yet. I couldn't do Solar City because I need to own the house first. I'm still renting with a purchase option. The whole solar lease thing puts a lien on the house -- I can't do that as it violates what the current owner wants. So while it is a sure-fire way to reduce the electric bill with no capital investment, it does require you to be the owner and willing to take on a lien. Not until I own the house first. I do own my house, but I've moved 3 times in the 18 years since I bought my first house. I've never been in any house for more than 8 years. I'm not comfortable with a long term contract and the lien and all of that. I'm going to buy them outright when it makes sense to do so or keep paying 14 cents/kWh for my electricity.

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D Only on a value investing board would you find such people, every house I go in besides mine has a monster TV hanging on the wall in every living room. My kids were literately jumping for joy and high-fiving one another when we replaced one of our 2 tube TVs with that 32" HDTV two years ago. We still have the tube TV in the other living room though, I didn't want to get too crazy. That's my experience too. Even the poorest people I know have cable (which we don't have) and a TV larger than 45 inches. We actually bought our 32" as a floor demo with a small scratch on the non-screen part, so we got a discount. It was a good value... I still don't have a flat screen TV, still using an old tube TV. Prices are dropping to the point where I think it's worth it for me to upgrade. My wife really wants one :) What do you guys watch on tube TVs ? All In The Family re-runs. And everything that anyone else watches. I just watched the latest episode of Boardwalk Empire last night on my tube TV. If I ever replace it (maybe soon) I'm looking at these: http://www.amazon.com/TCL-40FS4610R-40-Inch-1080p-120Hz/dp/B00K7NCS9G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410268501&sr=8-1&keywords=tcl+roku For $330 you get a 40" HDTV with the Roku box built in. We have a 1st gen Roku (no HDMI output) on our tube TV and love it. The so-called "Smart-TV" functionality on our VIZEO 32" HDTV sucks completely. So this is like buying a Roku box for $99 and getting a 40" HDTV for $230. I'm seriously considering it.

You need to buy a building in a downtown location and get the huge "Parsad" sign up immediately.