rkbabang

ARO +21%

I don't really like the look of the brown, either black or white would be okay. In case anyone else was interested in the Aura HD e-reader, I got mine in last week. I ended up just buying the espresso (brown) one and it doesn't look too bad. It is very dark brown and looks almost black. I don't know how this compares to the other new e-readers, but the only other e-reader I've ever used was my 1st-gen Nook and this thing is a huge upgrade. There is so much improved in this over my old nook that it would take a huge post to go over it all, but briefly: - The screen: Much darker text on a much whiter background and noticeably sharper as well. Also the larger screen 6.8" rather than 6" makes reading more comfortable on the eyes with more text on the screen and fewer page turns or larger text, almost like the difference between reading a hardcover vs. a paperback. - Page turns are much faster with not as much blinking. - Touch screen is nice and much easier to navigate. It's very responsive and quick compared to navigating around my old Nook. - Light. I was worried that this was going to be heavy after reading some reviews. Maybe it is heavier than some other new readers, but compared to my old Nook it is noticeably lighter and more comfortable to hold. - Light. The built in light is just awesome and probably its best feature and makes reading at night much easier. I was using an LED clip-on book light with my Nook and it didn't illuminate the whole screen evenly and the batteries didn't last long at all with daily use.

Of course not. He's the head of a state. Which in my books makes him one of the worst criminals on the planet.

"It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation." Yes I would agree with that 100%. The form of government may be exceptional (ours used to be) or your situation, location, access to resources, etc..., but people here are just as human as people anywhere else and visa verse. In fact people here came from those other places in recent history. The best way to get a population ready for war is to dehumanize the enemy. Since the U.S government. seems to want to be at war with half of the world, they need to demonize everyone else just to be safe. His comments on nuclear proliferation was right on target as well. "The world reacts by asking: if you cannot count on international law, then you must find other ways to ensure your security. Thus a growing number of countries seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This is logical: if you have the bomb, no one will touch you. We are left with talk of the need to strengthen nonproliferation, when in reality this is being eroded."

An ex-KGB big-wig pleading with a Nobel peace price recipient not to start a war. I'm no fan of Putin (an understatement), but he making a hell of a lot more sense than Obama right about now.

My advice would be to not thinking of a home you intend to live in as an investment. I'm on my third home so far and of the 2 I bought and sold I made money on the first one and lost money on the second one. My first home was a small 1300sqft starter home, which I bought when I was 23 and my wife was 21. We sold that for more than double what we paid for it 6 years later, so that we could build a larger home. Our second home, which we built was about 2500sqft. We stayed in it for 8 years and lost about $125K on it when we sold it. We upgraded once again 2 years ago and the only thing that makes me feel better about losing $125K on that second house is that the people who sold me my current house sold it to me for over $250K less than they purchased it for 5 years earlier. A home that you live in is just a depreciating object. It doesn't produce income, it doesn't have any earnings, it doesn't grow organically. It isn't even an object like gold coins which don't take any maintenance or wear out. A home just sits there and gets older. Sure you can maintain it (which costs money) and it will hold value, but due to market swings in one direction or the other there is no way to predict how much value it will have in 30years or even in 3 years. My advice would be to live where and how you want to live without consideration to your home as an investment. Some people like renting and the freedom from maintenance and the ease of moving on to somewhere else. Some people are like me, I enjoy owning my own home. I like being able to do what I want in and to the place where I live. If I want to paint a wall I paint it, if I want to tear down a wall I tear it down, re-do kitchens and bath rooms, replace the flooring, or put in a pool. I can own pets, raise chickens and goats, tear up a 2000sqft section of my lawn and plant a vegetable garden. All things I've done. There is a kind of freedom to not answering to anyone when you want to modify the environment where you live in order to make it more fitting to your own needs or liking. I am more than willing to pay extra for that. If it turns out in the end I didn't pay extra or even made money, that is just gravy. In life there are no do-overs, you only get one chance to get it right. If you have any goal at all when it comes to your personal housing, it should be to find a way to live where and how you want to live. Long story short, if you enjoy renting you should keep renting.

Well put. DTE: do you think that the government can do anything that doesn't involve legalized theft? (this is rkabang's cue) Sorry I'm late, I just started reading this topic today. Taxation is the taking of property under the threat of violence. Unless someone has a difference definition of "theft" than I do, I think your question answers itself. You can think of the taking of this persons house as simply an increase in his tax rate to 100%. There is no moral difference between taking 1% and 100%, it is the same crime just perpetrated to a different degree. Sure if I'm mugged on the street I'd be happier if the thief takes $10 rather than $1000, but the crime is the same either way. Whether you pay a 2% property tax or they take your whole house, you've still been mugged.

The cheap hack can damage the environment, which is why detergents today are less powerful than in the golden age of whiter than white. Compared to the tons and tons and tons of phosphates that are dumped on lawns and used in farming the amount from home detergent use was negligible and even that negligible amount can be filtered out effectively as beerbaron stated above. There was no reason for the ban other than over zealous green politics. Making everyone's life worse so some greenies can feel good. We won't even talk about all of the millions of dishwashers that were thrown out and replaced because they no longer cleaned well and the owners thought it was the machine (not knowing the soap had changed). That probably had more of a negative effect on the environment than the phophate in the detergents ever had.

I've been using Keepass, I first heard of it from someone here on this board. I tried it out and have been using it ever since. My old method was very tedious in comparison. I used to save all my passwords in text files organized into directories based on what they were, then I encrypted the whole directory structure with truecrypt and stored it on Google Docs so I could access it from anywhere. This was no where near as easy as using Keepass, there was no way to decrypt it on an iPad for example. Now I store my keepass file on Google Docs and I can access it from any computer/tablet/phone/etc.

+1 While I don't know how hackers got hold of Sanjeev's password, I would also recommend using a password management application like, for example, 1Password. They help you remember all those unique passwords: http://alternativeto.net/software/1password/ This image is also relevant: https://xkcd.com/936/ Thanks Guys! Not sure if it was a hack or an email spoof emulating an email with my address, since there was no indication of any activity in the account...deleted emails...etc. Regardless, passwords have been changed and I probably will use the 2-step verification. Cheers! So how do we know this is really you? :)

^^^ Yes. Also, I spill coffee on myself far too often. No detergent gets the stain out of my shirts unless some TSP is added.

If you're interested in detergents read this article on why none of them work as well now as all of them did 30 years ago, along with a cheap hack to fix that yourself at home. Why Everything Is Dirtier

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