nodnub

So Warren has stated that he has never smoked and never drinks alcohol. Maybe this is the secret formula? --kidding ;D Does anyone here know if Charlie Munger drinks alcohol at all? I could only find the following Munger quote. "Drugs and alcohol impair judgment without awareness". but no reference to his personal habits. It had me wondering: Are value investors more likely to be teetotallers?

nice one bronco :) you should have been a pro wrestling announcer. you missed your true calling.

Bronco, that's a great idea. I suggest starting a new thread to make it easier to keep track of.

cwericb, I read once that within 10 years of winning a large payout in the lottery, a large percentage of winners have spent the vast majority of the money or are completely broke. (I wish I could remember the source of that quote). A majority of people that buy lottery tickets are bad at managing their money. Winners also have trouble managing the expectation of friends, distant relatives, etc. In many if not most cases, that money gets blown pretty quickly. It's kind of like NFL players, NBA players, etc. within 10-15 years of retirement many of them have no savings left and have to come out of their retirement and get a real job. Most of these guys had no training for handling money, and consequently spend foolishly, get swindled in business deals, etc. This becomes a problem when the endorsement and sports salaries stop coming in.

All three are obviously huge companies. The result of this is that within each of those three there will be great teams and projects to work on, and lousy teams and projects to be working on. These factors would matter to me more than the general company.

beerbaron is referring to using a proxy server based in another country to allow you to circumvent geographic content restriction.

A large number of media sites and television network sites block content outside of their own country. This is nothing new. If you visit Canada sometime you will find that you can't watch a television show on cbs.com, hulu.com or http://www.thedailyshow.com They are all blocked. The broadcast rights are sold separately for different countries. For the same reason that Netflix Canada has a different (much more limited) selection of movies for streaming when compared to Netflix US.

Not directly related, but I think it's relevant. http://www.cnbc.com/id/37759560/Now_Hiring_Fake_Executives_in_China_No_Experience_Required If fake execs don't have to do much work maybe a person could hold down 3 or 4 such positions at a time and earn the corresponding multiple in salary:)

What we know, and don't know, about Japan's reactors Panel of MIT nuclear engineers aims for clarity about the state of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/nuclear-panel-japan-0136.html

That is what people thought in aftermath of Kobe earthquake back in 1995.

Alek, I had the same intitial thought when I heard that the tsunami knocked out the backup cooling systems. ( I mean, who builds a reactor on the seashore and doesn't plan for tsunamis). This is no excuse---but it's important to remember that a magnitude 9.0 earthquake releases 1000 times more energy than a 7.0

very interesting, thank you.

via http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-03-14/japanese-stocks-fall-most-in-two-years-on-earthquake.html Tokyo Electric Power will start service outages in parts of the greater Tokyo area today, according to a statement. The biggest supplier of electricity in the capital will divide its service area into five groups, each with three-hour outages from 6:20 a.m. to 10 p.m. The company’s shares were poised to plunge by the daily limit of 500 yen, or 24 percent, to 1,621 yen from the last close of 2,121 yen. The Tokyo Stock Exchange sets a limit on how much higher or lower a stock can be traded from the last closing price. For example, for stocks that are between 2,000 yen and 2,999 yen, the price movement limit is 500 yen. Toshiba, Hitachi Drop Nuclear power generator-related companies slumped. Toshiba, a maker of nuclear reactors, fell 16 percent. Hitachi Ltd., which provides nuclear power generation systems, dropped 15 percent. Toa Valve Engineering Inc., which makes valves for electric power generation, plummeted 21 percent. Construction companies were the only group in the Topix that advanced today. Kajima Corp. soared 32 percent. Obayashi Corp. surged 16 percent. Shimizu Corp. jumped 18 percent. Taisei Corp. leapt 23 percent.

No specific company ideas. But perhaps companies that specialize in rebuilding infrastructure would be worth looking at. With ~25% of national power capacity knocked off line, and the prescribed rolling blackouts... a lot of traditional businesses could have trouble growing and maintaining previous productivity levels. This will be tough for any manufacturing businesses that run 24 hours a day. The work to rebuild and repair the nuclear reactors alone will be pretty significant. They may have to rebuild some of that capacity from scratch, if they can't repair the existing reactors. Are there any construction/engineering firms in Japan that specialize in nuclear reactor design/construction?

hi Roger, This is actually pretty common. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_code_top-level_domain#Unconventional_usage .tv (Tuvalu) and .fm (federated states of micronesia) are examples of two that are widely used ------------ I am not convinced of value of the new web domain www.o.co -- My guess is that half of online shoppers will not not notice and think it is o.com and type that in instead. And they will get a blank page and be very confused (o.com is a reserved address).

bsilly and crip? I'm very curious to know more about these people or sites that you are comparing in usefulness to this board. Care to elaborate? bsilly and crip were members of the first incarnation of this message board.

Plan, A few of my imperfect recollections---hope to give you a slight taste of the hedgie attack era. lots of members here can correct and add to this. I highly suggest you read the lawsuit. Before Fairfax launched the lawsuit against the hedgies: -Some board members here noticed that certain FFH options very getting very cheap (the hedgies were using options to create a synthetic short. -The hedgies developed or paid for a website that attacked the character of Watsa. -People in the know started discussing naked shorting, here on this board, and elsewhere on the net. -If I recall correctly, there were times when shares short were greater than twice the entire float. (and remember that a lot of the float was held by investors that were long Fairfax). -We discussed on this board how to prevent having our shares lent without your permission: hold your Fairfax shares on TSX, and use cash account instead of margin account or consider taking physical delivery. (TSX has better forced buy in for "failed to deliver" to prevent naked shorting). -There was a lot of discussion about stock settlement mechanisms and how badly they were broken in the US. People that complain about Prem pulling the US listing have to remember just how much of this manipulation occurred on NYSE which would not have been possible on the TSX because of improved buy in procedures. You might enjoy reading the Fairfax lawsuit against these parties. I think it was published on Fairfax's website as PDF when their lawsuit was launched against the hedgies. When I read that lawsuit, it confirmed a lot of things that we had speculated about in terms of how deep the hedge manipulation and collusion between related hedgies and journalist went. It confirmed a lot of the "nutty" stuff we read about on Deep Capture but was described more rationally.

I use Google Alerts based on certain keywords. That picks up a few.

Depending on your age and how much you travel.... the Odyssey gold card from Desjardins Financial might be an option for you. Annual fee is $110. You don't need to have any other banking relationship with Desjardins. http://www.desjardins.com/en/particuliers/produits_services/cartes/or_odyssee/ Emergency Health Care Coverage This coverage, offered by Desjardins Financial Security, is automatic. The insurance covers you and family members in case of accident or illness outside your province of residence. It provides up to $5,000,000 per covered person for eligible required care and services, including transportation, repatriation, living expenses and dental care. Length of protection: (# of travel days outside of country that will be covered under plan) * Under age 60: 48 days * Age 60 to 64: 23 days * Age 65 to 75: 14 days * Age 76 or over: please contact us

the rest of the story (via http://www.betasia.com/features/how-to-win/business-life/88/syndicate-betting.html ) --------- There the luck pretty much ran out. The taxman stated that a 30% tax on gambling winnings should be imposed, as it was a professionally-orchestrated operation rather than winnings by chance. The CIA, FBI and Internal Revenue Service in the United States, and the Australian Securities Commission, National Crime Authority and the Victoria Police gaming squad all became involved, although no wrongdoing was proved. The members of the syndicate fell out, Mandel fled to his native Romania and in August 1995 was declared bankrupt, with debts in excess of A$500,000. --------- obviously, I can't know all the details, but it seems like a lot of work only to end up bankrupt a couple years later. I hope Mandel managed to escape to Romania with a few gold bars stashed away in his luggage.

uncommon a last option is to get an iPhone "jailbroken". It allows you to install apps and add content to the device without going through the iTunes store interface. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOS_jailbreaking However, this does make the device less secure and exposes the device to new security risks.

May I ask what model of notebook you bought? I'm looking to buy a lightweight notebook in that size range (13.3" or 12.1")

I have a Nokia Smartphone. I would describe it in almost same way. Very logical, no bugs, very stable. Only problem is that every setting requires that you go through 10 cascading menu screens before you get to the option you want to change. It takes me forever to access the features on the phone. it is obviously designed by an engineer, not by a designer. (i am a tech guy too, but I appreciate things work efficiently like the iPhone interface). I read this article yesterday and it drove home the same point. Read the quote about the product demo using a cellphone to order a soda from a vending machine. it's just PAINFUL to use. http://gigaom.com/2011/02/21/former-nokia-designer-nokia-bosses-have-no-taste/ Apple solves this problem by locking the platform and restricting the choices you have. They also limit the number of settings and features you have control over. This makes it easier to use for 95% of users. Unfortunately, I am the other 5%.

Yes, music and videos. It syncs with the Zune software on your PC. that was bronco's "quick joke". Hardly anyone bought a zune, let alone paid for downloaded music to it. I know more people with the nickname "Zune", than I do Zune owners.

Shortly after this meeting, my host informed me of an audit recently done on one of the largest hospitals in Athens. This hospital was hemorrhaging Euros, and the Greek government is required to make up the deficit with capital injections. Officials began an inquiry into these losses and found 45 gardeners on staff at the hospital. The most interesting fact about the hospital was that it did not have a garden. The corruption is endemic in the society, and it is no wonder that Greece has been a serial defaulter throughout history (91 aggregate years in the last 182 – or approximately half the time). It is unfortunate that it is about to happen once again. Although – as we have previously stated, restructuring is actually the gateway to renewed growth and prosperity over time – we have identified at least two assets that we would like to own in Greece in a postrestructuring environment. That sounds like a pretty good job if you can get it. :D