rkbabang

Fortunately you don't need to read threads on any message board which don't interest you. You are correct however that all political discussions are nothing but opinions. Unfortunately political opinions are not harmless like "I think sunsets are nice", rather they are opinions backed up by the violence of the state. More like "we're going to steal half of everything you earn then use it to build weapons to slaughter people oversees and there is nothing you can do about it". Oh wait, you can vote. What a joke. A sick joke with massive piles of bodies as its punch line.

Absolutely. This is what Intel came up with to make CMOS work at the 22nm node. Many people are assuming that there is only one or two shrinks possible from here, maybe maxing out around 12-14nm. I think with billions of dollars thrown at these problems Intel or some other company will find a solution to take us to 7-8nm then down to about 4nm. At 4nm the transistors would literally be a few atoms wide so that will be about the physical limit of silicon and some other type of device, most likely made of some form of carbon will need to be developed for Moore's Law to continue. --Eric

Whew! Looks like radio isn't the only place one can find over-the-top generalizations. OK, I'll be more specific. Any show I've tried to listen to, both nationally syndicated and local to the Boston radio market has hosts that fit that description. I have no idea if EVERY conservative talk radio host is a blood-thirsty bigot. But judging by the candidates in the Rep. Primary. The only one not looking to continue the old wars and anxious to start a new war or two is widely referred to as "unelectable" simply because he lacks the blood-lust needed to be a Republican presidential candidate. Not to pick on republicans too much. After all Obama is every bit as much of a war criminal as BushII.

Dictators? Limbaugh isn't a dictator, just a loud-mouth bigot. Dictators use force. The astonishing part is that all of his listeners are actually choosing to listen to him. I do have to admit that I used to listen to him for a while myself in the early 90's when I was in my late teens/early 20's. My views have evolved since then. I'd still listen to him in the late 90's, because no one would go after Clinton like he would and I quite enjoyed that, even if I did hold many of his views to be appalling. Once Bush II was elected however I could no longer listen to him, and after 9/11 I could no longer listen to any conservative talk radio at all. Just a bunch of blood thirsty, flag waving, bigots looking to murder darker-skinned people who talk funny and live far away. Good for the boycotters.

I suspect you're probably 8-10 years off wrt the end of silicon transistors. If I was a betting man I'd wager that Intel will find a way to manufacture some form of CMOS down to around 4nm device sizes. Which is a lot smaller than most people are assuming to be possible currently and which will put us well into the 2020's and even that will not be the end of Moore's Law as processing at the molecular and atomic level will follow. But I agree with you about quantum computing, it is coming. It works differently than traditional computers however. It can solve problems quickly that traditional computers can not solve at all, but does not work well for traditional type sequential programs. I suspect you will eventually see a quantum processor sitting next to a multi-core traditional Von Neumann type processor working together. The traditional micro will run the program and offload certain things to the quantum co-processor. One other thing that will be interesting is the development of neural-network-brain-type processors using memristors. Maybe in the medium-to-long-term there will be systems that contain massively multicore Von Neumann CPUs with quantum co-processors all controlled by a neural-memristor processor. We are at the very beginning of all this stuff, most people have no idea what's coming.

I also forgot to mention that Windows 8, which will be released this year will support ARM processors as well as Intel. You could very well see an ARM based PC running windows. I'm not sure how likely that will be for desktops or workstations, but you will almost certainly see, not only ARM based Windows 8 tablets, but laptops as well. This will erode Intel's moat even further as ARM eats into its Windows laptop market share.

I'm a tech guy as well, although more on the hardware side (I'm an IC designer). You are correct in that Intel isn't going away anytime soon. They have a stable business and are clearly the market leader by quite a long way when it comes to desktop PCs, workstations, servers, etc. But where will the future growth come from? If you want a growth story starting from a smaller base and representing more of where we are going you have to take a hard look at ARMH. ARM has a great business in the mobile processor space and also a long held deeply entrenched position in the IP business (embedded processors / standard cell libraries / as well as various other IP) so that it isn't going away any sooner than Intel will, yet its embedded processor business will almost certainly grow faster than any business Intel is in. I haven't done any research into these companies recently as far as the stocks go so I won't speak to their current valuations, but I think as far as where the technology is headed ARM is in a much better position to take advantage of current and near-term trends. Also one word of advice on circle of competence. You can (and probably should) work on building a circle of competence for investing purposes in a number of areas outside of technology and I highly recommend you do so. As a recent college grad in the mid-90s I used to invest exclusively in tech stocks, because I believed that I should stick to what I know best. Needless to say I got hit pretty hard by the tech crash of 2000 and have been working on extending my circle of competence into other areas for investing purposes ever since. I have been investing in restaurants, restaurant equipment companies, insurance companies, construction/farm equipment companies, and with ISRG, a surgical device manufacturer. The only tech stock I now own is GOOG and restricted stock in the semiconductor company that I work for. I'd highly recommend picking an industry that interests you outside of technology and start doing some research and trying to build some competence in that area. It can never hurt to widen your circle, especially when your initial circle of competence only includes one industry which is very difficult to invest successfully in.

Eric Schmidt thinks technology will help save the world. I tend to agree, if governments get out of the way (and stop murdering people and destroying things) there is a lot we can accomplish as a species. And even if they don't get out of the way voluntarily, as Schmidt points out, technology may just help us push them out of the way. Google: Technology is making science fiction real "People who predict that holograms and self-driving cars will become reality soon are absolutely right," Schmidt told thousands of attendees at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the planet's largest cell phone trade show.... It will redefine the relationship these people have in the world. In times of war and suffering, it will be impossible to ignore the cries of people calling out for help," Schmidt said. "In this new world there will be far fewer places for dictators." That already happened during the Arab Spring that saw governments in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fall, with more turmoil still under way in places like Syria. "With information comes power and with power comes choice, and smarter resourceful citizens are going to demand a better deal for their communities," Schmidt said.

You can disagree with someone on taxes (or views on other things) yet not hate the person or even disrespect them. I couldn't disagree more with Buffett on taxes yet I highly respect the man. I'm an atheist and an anarchist, if I hated everyone with whom I disagreed, I wouldn't like too many people. The corollary to the above article is that some people who highly respect Buffett will take anything he says on any subject as if it was handed down from god himself. Which is equally ridiculous. Warren Buffett is a human being like you and I, and shocking as it may seem to say it, can at times be wrong. --Eric

Hi Ragu, Do you care to elaborate on your reasoning a little? Saying simply "reason dictates" is not really a strong argument without sharing the reasoning. I was a BH shareholder (as well as a WEST shareholder and I invested alongside Biglari a number of times). I sold all of my BH as a result of the compensation package and its effect on IV. I'd love to understand why I'm wrong. Thanks, --Eric

This is going to change the way we are all connected. Giving us a connection to the noosphere every waking hour of the day. Navigation by slight head movements is genius. Not saying that Google will corner the market on this or even that Google's version will be successful. Just that something like this will be ubiquitous in very short order and will change the way we interact in both our personal and business lives. Leading eventually to contact lens type versions and ultimately to implants which tap into the optic nerve or directly into the vision centers of the brain. Google to Sell Heads-Up Display Glasses by Year’s End To get an idea of the type of tech and societal changes that are possible with this read the sci-fi books "Daemon" and its sequel "FreedomTM" both by Daniel Suarez. --Eric

Back when I was a Biglari follower/fan/shareholder I kept a pretty extensive file on him. I just dug up the interview that I think you are talking about. It is from 2004. InterviewWithSardarBiglariOctober2004.pdf

The current one is called Adblock Plus. I've been using it since it was just called Adblock going back probably 8-10 years. I haven't seen an ad on the internet for so long it always strikes me as weird when I see someone else surfing the web and sites like facebook, yahoo or others have these ads everywhere filling up the screen real estate and flashing at them, or even more annoying, popping up windows in their face. I guess I'm glad other people are paying my way by viewing and responding to all these ads and allowing web-sites to make money from them so that they are available for free to me. But I don't know why they do it when an easy and free solution is available. <editing my post> I forgot to comment about FB. I wouldn't invest in FB due to it being in the "I can't predict the future" category. It could very well turn out to be a good investment from the IPO price long term, but even if it does it will go down at some point before then. There is no way anyone has enough information to know right now. My profession is in high tech (Integrated Circuit design) yet I almost never invest in technology companies. I know enough about technology to know how unpredictable it is. The only tech stocks I own are GOOG, ISRG, and restricted stock in my own company that I've been given as compensation. And I've been trying to re-evaluate my ISRG position, my cost basis is $108 and I'm not sure my original thesis for buying it still holds at its current valuation. But like usual when I'm not sure what to do I do nothing until I am sure. --Eric

To this day I've never purchased a PC from a retail store. I built my first PC (a 25MHz 386) in 1989 and I've built every PC I've owned since. I've run DOS, Windows, and Linux at various times and for the last 10 years or so I've been dual booting various versions of windows with various version of Linux. I've never (and I mean never) used Internet Explorer with the exception of using it right after installing windows to go to mozilla (netscape before that) and download a real browser. I've never considered Microsoft a monopoly. Government (any government) should just stay the hell out of technology. I don't like Microsoft or its products, but I don't think costing it millions in legal costs to defend itself from government parasites benefits anyone (other than said parasites).

Just 7.4K in my personal account (7410 to be exact). Not tendering.

I don't think Fairfax has a DRIP plan, but Fidelity will reinvest dividends on most stocks for you. They do it for all of my dividend paying stocks except ITEX. I don't know why not ITEX, maybe it is too thinly traded. They reinvest my fairfax dividends even though I own the pink sheets version. --Eric

I just re-invest the dividend. Fidelity does this for me automatically giving me the exact amount in fractional shares and all without fees. So when Fairfax issues a dividend it increases my ownership stake in the company. Most of my shares are held in a retirement account so I don't pay taxes on the dividend of those shares, it goes directly to buying new shares (new shares which will earn a dividend the next year). Taxes do need to be paid on the dividend in my regular account though. What I do is have Fidelity reinvest 100% of the dividend and I pay the taxes for it when I do my taxes in April of the next year. So it does cost me some extra in taxes a little more than a year later. Yes it would be simpler if the company just bought back stock, but I'm OK with the dividend too.

If it goes up by the same percentage tomorrow you can do enhanceGoogle.com while your at it. --Eric

I don't know if I should admit this, so I'll just say that "someone I know" when he was a kid would dress up in his baseball uniform and sell candy bars door to door for $1 that he bought at the store for 25cents, never mentioning that it went for anything, just saying "would you like to buy a candy bar? They're $1" people would make an assumption that it was for charity. This person never corrected them.

Yeah, that's what Google tells me too (Yahoo as well). I prefer to believe Fidelity in this case.

Congratulations! Let us know when EnhanceBiglariHoldings.com goes live. As soon as I can cash out of CCLR I'll buy 100K shares of BH to help get you on the board. --Eric

Sure. You want to buy it? I'm not greedy, I'll sell it all to you for only $5000 per share! That's half off! You'll be buying 50¢ dollars! --Eric

I just took a look at my fidelity account and almost had a heart attack. My investment in Chanticleer Holdings has increased 497518.94% and is now worth over $76Million! Unfortunately Fidelity seems to be the only place on the web quoting CCLR at $9999.999 per share. I of course took a snapshot of the page. It's not everyday I can look at a high 8-figure brokerage account balance with my name on it. --Eric

I have a son and a daughter who are 11 and 10 years old. What my wife and I did with our kids when they were younger (starting about age 4 and 5) and continue to do today is whenever the kids earn or are given money they break it up into 3 containers. My son and daughter each have their own 3 containers and they are: 1) SAVE: 60% goes into the “save cup”. 2) SPEND: The spend cup is money they can use whenever and however they wish. 30% goes into the spend cup. 3) SHARE: 10% goes into the share cup and once per year the kids get to decide how to donate this money. The last two years it’s gone to feed children in Haiti. I have UTMA investment accounts in each of their names and every time one of them has a hundred or two in their save cup I put the money into their brokerage account and let them “help me” decided what to invest it in. This has worked out really well. They get to learn the 3 basic things you can do with money (Save it, spend it, donate it) and have had a hand in making the decisions about how those things are done with their own money. They have learned how easy it is to spend the money in their spend cups versus how hard it is to earn it. As well as seeing the save money grow to become a significant amount. They frequently decide to take from their spend cups and add more to their save cups and sometimes even their share cups. They also put a lot of thought into how to use their share cup money. As far as where the money comes from in addition to birthday money that they get from relatives, they are expected to work for an allowance around the house and add more jobs if they want more. These are things like helping clean (including bathrooms), taking out trash, stacking firewood, yard work, cleaning cars, etc… Hope this helps.

I've put off reading this forever it seems (probably because the size of it and I always find other books that sound more interesting), but everyone who reads it seems to recommend it. Is it really a must read type of book? It is a bit of everything but specially a long novel (not a very good one though). But I tend to recommend it to people so that they realize the power of structured thinking (do you think in trees?) and technology but also on its limits. I imagine it had a big impact in the 70s and I would not be surprised that is the type of book that Steve Jobs liked to read. I think it is a pretty good novel. I was assigned it in high-school in the late 80's, I think it was the only book I was ever told I had to read that I really loved. I think a lot like the main character in the novel (yes he was insane, but that's besides the point). It's probably the engineer in me. Anyone who really loves to read books by Neal Stephenson, Corey Doctorow, etc, will love that book. And conversely, if you loved Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, try reading something by Stephenson. --Eric --