EdWatchesBoxing

I agree. It's funny how I've come around 180 and view MSFT in a different light now. I used to be so anti-Microsoft when I was in school. It was the cool thing then. I see the value in a lot of their products now. LOL, imagine how crazy the activity would be on this board if that had happened. It would be amazing because Fairfax would not need to stick to insurance and would be able to focus on pure investing and/or acquiring companies outright.

Anyone watch the Office? Buffett had a cameo appearance on it this past week. Just caught it on the Global TV website. It should be on the NBC site for the Americans. You don't have to wait too long too see him. Edit: Oops, just realized Sanjeev already mentioned this in the BRK section.

Not a surprise. I guess Linnartz really was a straight-shooter.

He probably didn't care much for the traveling then. I remember hearing how Bill Gross was successful at card counting as well.

Someone drives you to work?

I was led to Thorp over 13 years ago after my first casino trip to Reno. The 21 bug bit me and I ended up in a library gathering all of the card counting books. "Beat the Dealer" was a source of inspiration at the time in my pursuit to beat the house. My next trip to Vegas I pulled off a 10+ hour session playing $2 blackjack. I imagine no one would give a shit about you counting at a full $2 table. It's not like you'd be racking up any comps either. Was probably no more than $10-20 up. Card counting was an interesting challenge. Casino games have taken way too much time off my life though. He probably wrote "Beat the Dealer" when he was blacklisted from enough casinos in Vegas.

OK, I see now. Yes, MS helps out a lot with that!

Yes, that's that type of thing that I was thinking about. This Software as a Service model is one reason why independent software vendor models can become so successful. Find something that adds value, you make your product subscription based. With MS, they will just be converting all the businesses that have purchased licenses over to a subscription. I am guessing that they will also be doing the same thing with office. I don't know how much they make off their Office web services integration with SharePoint, but I can easily see this as an add-on with Azure that will bring in additional subscription revenue. New companies probably outsource from the get go and bring in business/tech people that are scrappy to get things done. I'm amazed with the free tools offered for DB development. The stuff that comes by default with VS 2010 express are pretty cool and this is the free edition (Java developers have some cool tools too). The simple stuff that wasted a lot of coding time in the past doesn't get written anymore. Your time is freed to solve business problems as opposed to being just a code monkey. The valuable developers are the ones that realize that their job rely on business knowledge. MS is set up to take on a big chunk of the support risk from their clients. I am pretty sure that MS will thrive due to Azure. Almost all of their clients who use their servers and tools have no choice.

I read about SQL Azure last year. At some point a lot of those in-house SQL Server databases and .NET apps will be moving to Azure. I think it will end up shrinking a lot of the support staff in IT departments. Some will still be required to deal with sync/network issues between the in-house network and the cloud. It will probably be partially offset by additional hiring on the development/business analysis side. At my office, it's taken them a while to warm up to using the virtual servers, but they have slowly come around to using them. The cloud could be a next step.

Wow, VWAP scalping. It actually makes a lot of sense. Algo trading is interesting, but it adds no real value to society/finance.

http://www.planbeconomics.com/2011/03/24/housing-bubble-in-2-minutes/ Interesting video. Surprising to see how high Detroit got. It was crazy in Vegas.

Just a thought, how about other admins? I'm not sure if this was already discussed, or if it's possible.

Ah, the MSN board, brings back many interesting memories.

I think there is a lot of value in Tariq's post. It helps to understand how to play the game if you're looking for a job in finance.

Try running Firefox, it gives you a spell checker everywhere. Ha ha, you know what? I've been a firefox user for years and I only noticed this feature was turned on by default when I read this post.

In that case, disregard my comment, haha. Well, then the corporate tax cuts may be one immediate benefit.

How true, fix problems from within.

This sums up how I feel about Harper. He sounds like a person who only wants to surround himself with "yes" men and women. Otherwise, his attitude is a quiet "f**k you" as Al mentioned. Now that the election is over. I think that the conservatives will be fully blamed for the housing correction that will occur soon enough. I suspect that housing will correct painfully over the duration of the majority gov't. The net positive having the conservatives in power is the TFSA limit increase ;D I imagine this benefits every Canadian on this board.

You mean "nose" right? I don't think I was complaining before, just putting my thoughts out there. My goal is to leave the world a better place, but I also understand that I will need resources to do what I want to do. Funny you mention audit and engineering. I see auditors on an annual basis at our office and many don't know much. I used to work in design at a semiconductor company and I could see then that my work wasn't going to matter much. Oh, and rocket science isn't all that either ;) I have started to gain traction with my personal investing approach, but I don't see myself managing other people's money (well, not anymore anyways). I have come to the conclusion that very few people will ever be completely happy with their work/job. I think it helps me to think practically. Being happy 75-85% of the time sure beats being happy less than 50% of the time. Your message was good, but I always find the use of this term disturbing. Maybe it`s the anonymity of the internet. I used to lurk on a poker forum where the average user was probably between 15-25. They used that term liberally. Hell, people posting their video game recordings on youtube used it a lot too. Maybe I`m too sensitive, but this bugs me a lot.

I picked up on that watching the results last night. It's interesting that he has a practical approach to trying to solve his problems. It would be even cooler if we heard about investing talent coming out of the native population, doing good for their communities.

I was looking at the results in the Mississauga ridings this morning. I imagine the rest of the GTA showed similar results, but man, the vote split killed the liberals.

This thread got me doing some research and I just found out Burnett was on the cover of Maxim, just in case any of you cared.

I always think about Munger's thoughts when it comes to this stuff. It's unfortunate that smart engineering/science grads are looking at options in finance. It won't really do the world any good and they may not succeed in finance even if they do get in, which would make it even worse. I guess a lot of people are motivated by the dollar signs. Shane, I'm not directing this towards you (or anyone else thinking about investment mgmt) it's just me thinking out loud. Working in finance, sometimes I think, "sure, I am earning a living," but I'm not really making anything better out there in the world.

It is hard to read about how the natives have been treated in Canada. Extremely hard to think of how they're being treated today. However, the only thing I do that's remotely on the same wavelength is sponsoring a girl through WorldVision. I sometimes wonder if I am doing the right thing by waiting until I'm financial more secure before helping out in the community. I guess I'm too busy with work and looking out for number one for now. A few weeks ago, I was walking out of the office (downtown Toronto) and a guy stopped me, said he just got out of the Don jail. He also said he was from Rama and was $16 short for the bus ticket. I don't know what it was, but I gave him a $20 and he went off. I guessed he was native and I hoped that it was the start of a better life for him. The funny thing is that he stopped me and asked if I spoke English. It makes sense because I'm Asian, but it was funny to hear one Asian-looking guy asking another if they spoke English. My parents were pretty damn poor where they came from, so I feel extremely fortunate to live in Canada.

I think proportional rep would work for appointing the Senate. At least it wouldn't be a useless waste of money then, or maybe less of a waste.