rkbabang

I'm reviving an old topic, because I've been looking to replace my gen-1 nook. I'm interested in the Kobo Aura HD. Anyone have one of these? If so, how do you like it? (Screen/software/web browser/etc). I'm not really interested in the Kindle, because I've got hundreds of epub format books which the kindle can't read. The Aura HD has 256dpi with a 6.8" screen, 1GHz processor, and from the online reviews a better built-in light than the kindle. I like the idea of the bigger screen with the built in light. The other issue is that Kobo only has it available right now in brown. I inquired about the other colors and received this in reply: I don't really like the look of the brown, either black or white would be okay.

Hi property taxes to make up for what you don't pay elsewhere... Maybe I'm biased - I lived there for years and I'd take florida anytime - I like Manchester though (except for winter). In fact I'll be flying there later today.. It depends on what you call high and what town you are moving to. The rates vary from $0/$K to about $29/K depending on the town (yes there are towns with no property tax. New Hampshire 2012 Property Tax Rates by town I moved to NH 2 years ago from MA and the property taxes were almost the same between the town in MA I moved from and the town in NH that I moved to, but I no longer pay all of those other state taxes, nor a huge water bill, my car insurance is less than half of what it was. I only moved about 70 miles, yet the cost of living is much lower here. Florida? No way. I'm not a big fan of heat, humidity, insects, or old people on the roads, all of which is why winter is my favorite season in NH.

Don't forget New Hampshire. No income tax, no capital gains tax, no sales tax. A lot of healthcare in the Manchester/Nashua area, plus a short commute to MA 128 tech region/Boston (from southern NH) as a last resort. Drive 5 minutes from Manchester and you can live in a rural area, yet have a short drive to Manchester, Nashua, Boston(MA), Worcester(MA).

Wasn't he the one that after one of his topics was deleted by Sanjeev he started another topic just to complain about the previous topic being deleted?

IIRC Sanjeev had to delete many of his postings and even entire threads because they got nasty.

Many great books have memorable first lines (i.e. "Who is John Galt?", "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", etc), this great work is no exception. "I always knew that the people of Planet Earth would need me one day."

An IQ of 100 is just average (50th percentile), where 120 is well into the above average category (89 percentile). I'd believe that someone with an IQ of 120 would do measurably better in most tasks which require some amount of analytical analysis, such as investing. No one would find it surprising if a study found that on average investors with a 100 IQ beat investors with an 80 IQ. But when you are talking about the difference between an investor with a 130 IQ and one with a 160, both of which are above the 90th percentile already, I think the increased intelligence doesn't matter as much. I think once you are "smart enough" (being above some minimum threshold) having the knack for finding good investments isn't something that is measured by an IQ test. It can only really be measured by your returns over a long period of time.

What would be a good way to do it would be a link that takes you to a site, where you put in your COBAFF username and the password: "COBAFF" or something (just to keep random people from the web from voting even if they find the page. Then it takes you to a form, where you have 2 columns of 10 rows. You have 100 points to spend. You put in a stock ticker in column 1 (or a $ for cash) and the amount you wish to put in it in column 2 for up to 10 stocks. Then hit submit. If your points you assigned are greater or less than 100 it tells you to try again. The site then compiles all of the data and lists the stocks and the percentages of points that they have received by everyone who's voted. That way you could do something like this (not my real choices): $5 TSLA29 BAC2 AAPL11 FRFHF1 BBRY52

I have no doubt that there is a bubble and it has probably topped out for the time being, but there are a lot of new gun owners out there as a result. I took my kids the the range on Sunday and the place was full of first timers looking for instruction on how to use their new guns. I work with a number of people who are all gun owners for the first time as well. The promising thing about this is that in non-bubble times the thing that most gun buyers have in common is that they already own guns. More gun owners can only be good for future sales. Not too many people own just one gun. Also in your first post you mentioned a question about the "replacement cycle". I'd argue there really is no replacement cycle with firearms. Most guns last a lifetime and are passed down to future generations. It is more about adding to your collection than it is about replacement of broken or worn out items. A good strategy would probably be to buy these in the middle of a republican administration then wait for a democrat to be elected and cause another panic. This cycle has happened exactly this way before and probably will again.

Another problem is weighting. I might pick 5 stocks thinking that my #1 pick is 10 times better than my #5 pick, but you are going to weight them equally. You might assign each person 100 points and let them distribute those points to as many ideas as they wish.

Have you purchased it? It does seem pretty cool My situation is complicated by a few factors: 1) I'm not a homeowner so I'd need the landlord to be a cosigner for the loan or agreement (not happening) 2) I'm exploring have a carport built later this year and having the solar installed there (I have a purchase option so the house is going to be mine in 3 years) 3) I want to look into the cost efficacy of using batteries to buy power at night and spend it in the day. Might be better than buying solar panels, but the company (BYD) refuses to answer their email (two weeks now, two tries at different departments). BYD is really irritating me. I don't like waiting a week and not getting a response to a basic question like price. And people think BYD has a rich future -- not if they routinely behave this way. Wouldn't solar panels with net-metering accomplish almost the same thing? You would be using the power you generate during the day when it is expensive to buy, and selling any extra to the utility during the day when it is expensive. Buy a few more panels than you need so that you sell back electricity everyday. Then you would only be buying power at night when it is cheap and your credits have run out. The only exception to this would be on cloudy days. BYD not getting back to you would be disconcerting to me if I were a shareholder. How do they expect to make any sales in the US with customer service like that?

This is an amazing video from the Grasshopper test yesterday. "On August 13th, the Falcon 9 test rig (code name Grasshopper) completed a divert test, flying to a 250m altitude with a 100m lateral maneuver before returning to the center of the pad. The test demonstrated the vehicle's ability to perform more aggressive steering maneuvers than have been attempted in previous flights. Grasshopper is taller than a ten story building, which makes the control problem particularly challenging. Diverts like this are an important part of the trajectory in order to land the rocket precisely back at the launch site after reentering from space at hypersonic velocity."

I don't know if anyone has posted this yet, (I haven't seen it). Here is Musk's Hyperloop proposal. It's an interesting read. http://www.teslamotors.com/sites/default/files/blog_images/hyperloop-alpha.pdf

Don't worry, someday you'll be able to upgrade your memory and maybe your processor as well, so that you'll be able to handle the increased speed. Being 40 I'm personally long overdue for a memory upgrade myself.

An interesting article, they guy has a few minor complaints, but mostly positive. Life With Tesla Model S: Owner's Report After 5,000 Miles "The Stubborn Vampire Big Problem No. 2 is the Tesla's "vampire" thirst for kilowatts even when it's turned off and parked. I've measured idle power losses of around 4.5 kilowatt-hours a day, for a total of about 750 kWh during the time that I've owned it. That's almost half the electricity I've used to drive the car! The 15,000-odd Model Ses now on the road collectively squander about 60 megawatt-hours of electricity a day. That's the equivalent of about 50,000 60-Watt light bulbs left on 24 hours a day for no reason--what a waste."

I have to slightly disagree with Buffett's assessment on who the "ablest CEO in America" is. Bezos is great, but this guy may be one step better! Bezos revolutionized retail...Musk may make the world a better place for your grandchildren. Cheers! This is something I'd agree with 100%. I think because of Musk your great-grandkids may vacation on Mars or even chose to live there. My prediction is that when all is said and done Bezos may be remembered as someone who built an industry, but Musk has the potential to be someone who changes our society at a more fundamental level (transportation, energy, spacefaring, ...)

Some of these were already mentioned, but the books my kids loved to read over and over were: [amazonsearch]Knuffle Bunny[/amazonsearch] [amazonsearch]What Color is your Underwear[/amazonsearch] [amazonsearch]Green Eggs and Ham[/amazonsearch] [amazonsearch]I love you Stinkyface[/amazonsearch]

If it was Germany the ads would have naked women in it.

On the bottom of the brochure for that system lists the contact info as: BYD North America 1800 S. Figueroa Street, Los Angeles, CA 09915, USA Tel: +1-213-748-3980 Email:bydenergy@byd.com

He says in the article that management does not work for the shareholders. If the shareholders own the corporation then management does work for the shareholders. I know there is a legal fiction called a corporation, but it is a fiction, there is no consciousness that can make decisions there are only people. If I tell you that you work for a unicorn that I own, but you do not work for me, it doesn't make it so. Something needs to actually exist in reality to make a decision about what to do with assets.

The company's assets belong to the company which belongs to the shareholders. That's like saying your marital assets don't belong to you nor your wife, only to the organization of your marriage. This has got to be one of the worlds dumbest articles. The owners don't own it, the management doesn't own it, the board of directors doesn't own it, the fictional "organization" does? Huh? And he goes around calling others stupid.

Of course we all have a bad impression of taxis, but that impression is due to government interference in the marketplace. In most cities you need a license or medallion to drive a taxi. There are so many problems with this that I'm sure people have written books on the subject, but briefly they limit the number of these so that gives the existing holders a sort of guaranteed monopoly on the market and they are less likely to need to innovate. 2nds they are expensive and highly regulated, the issuance of them is a political pull issue, not at all an issue of who will best serve the public. And in many cities the medallion is tied to the vehicle itself, meaning companies will be driving these vehicles long past the time they should or otherwise would. All of this (and more) virtually guarantees that you will not get good, quick, affordable, reliable, friendly service in a clean vehicle by an innovative company determined to please you. If government (city, state, or federal) heavily regulates autonomous cars, none of these predictions will pan out in any way shape or form.

That is my suspicion too. I almost hope it turns out that way, because that will mean there are a ton of companies competing at each others throats to serve us better and lower costs.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but the one contrasting point I'll make is that I think the saturation levels in terms of public and private transport are so high in some cities now that perhaps a far more efficient and vastly more affordable system does finally make sense even if it clearly didn't 60 years ago. It isn't all about being more efficient, although that can be part of it. I don't ride on buses, because I don't like to be in a vehicle with that many other people who I don't know. The only reason I ride on commercial aircraft is that I can't afford Netjets or even charter, so economy wins out in that case. A Taxi has almost the same problem as a bus, you need to deal with people you don't know. Getting in an autonomous vehicle alone or with your friends/family without strangers around is still just as independent feeling as driving yourself. The other issue is cleanliness, I'd pay a lot more for a service that detailed their cars a few times per week and looked more like a personal car and less like a bus or a taxi. That isn't to say that there won't be discount services out there which will operate vehicles that look, feel, and smell like today's taxis. It will be up to you which level of service you'd like to pay for.

The other thing to consider, and I think this is the future of transportation, is that there is no way to have an investing thesis based on this model today. You can't know how it will look or what companies will be involved. People outside the cities may own their own self-driving cars, as well as human controlled vehicles. Maybe Hertz licenses tech from Google and buys from GM, or maybe those companies don't end up being involved at all. Look 20 years into the future and it could be something no one would predict today. Maybe the 2 major car manufacturers are Tesla and Apple, and they not only have their own auto-drive systems, but they also rent cars by the minute which will pick you up in 3min or under anywhere in the US when you call it from your communications device, as well as manufacture cars, and sell cars direct to consumers who want to own them outright. Who knows at this point. Here were my thoughts on this from a little over two years ago in the google thread: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/investment-ideas/goog-google/msg44185/?topicseen#msg44185