Liberty

I live somewhere where we have tons of very cheap hydro power, so we have electric heating. I figure I might as well have that electricity do something useful for humankind before it heats the place :) It would be even better if I had a dozen old PCs that I could use to heat the whole place from one end to the other during the cold months.. Comfort from science, literally!

Look at CLF...

Lovely frickin' ending to day. Wonder if it's the start of a new mini-panic..

I second that. People who are generous with their ideas - like many of the people on this forum - usually get more in return than what they give away anyways, so it makes a lot of sense.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/20/technology/microsoft_bing/index.htm?source=cnn_bin The 9 billion is since 2007, probably a lot more if you go back to the early 2000s or even late 1990s.

What a mess. I wonder what happened.. It's the same board that just approved Appoteker's (sp?) big plans, after all..

:) Do you also run distributed computing stuff? If so, which projects are your favorites?

I've played FoldIt, it's nice (and very challenging). There's also the automated version developed by the same lab at the University of Washington that you can run in the background on your computer (it only uses CPU cycles that would be idle). It's called Rosetta@home and it does very cutting edge science (the computational design of proteins is a holy grail of biology and would totally change medicine): http://boinc.bakerlab.org/ I've been running it since 2005 (mostly in the winter, since it heats up the apartment with electricty that is actually useful) and have accumulated 3.6 million credits :)

This is a smart way to look at things, IMO, and not only in the abstract. Over the long-term, being right for the wrong reasons (and not entirely realizing it) can throw you off the correct path and later punish you because your mental model is flawed. We control the process, not the results, so we have to focus on process.

To be more precise, do you know of any 'superinvestor' that used margin on a personal account (not float in a company or whatever) when they were young? I can think of many leveraged companies, but I'm drawing a blank when it comes to these investors borrowing in their name to invest. I'm sure some did, though..

I'm curious, who are some of the current 'gurus' that have used leverage when they were younger? For the record: I'm genuinely asking because I don't know, and because I think looking at how very smart people who've proven they can do it decided to manage their money can tell us something about this. This isn't a hidden message (I know some people love to never actually say what they mean, but I always strive for clarity).

I'm getting Dell at the top and "Gold Delivered to your Door" at the bottom ;D

Before drawing conclusions from that I'd look at how the statistics were compiled and if they are trustworthy and comparable. Just a reflex I have. On this topic, a fun little book: http://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/0393310728/

Bloomberg had a profile of Hastings and he did seem very smart and competent. Maybe there are some things we don't know that make the situation much harder for him than we think.. But still, I have a hard time seeing how he could have been totally forced to do this Qwickster stuff, or even raise prices in exactly the way they did..

I know why they had to increase prices and (at some point) deemphasize DVDs, what puzzles me is the execution. They've been pretty savvy so far, so it's surprising that they seem to have lost their touch recently and everything they do seems to be digging a bigger hole.. Maybe it'll turn out to be just a temporary problem, but even if that's solved, it doesn't solve the lack of a moat. There's some interesting discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3012214

I'm totally puzzled by NFLX's recent moves, but it has always been way too pricey for me, so I never owned any (and I don't short) and so it has no impact on my wallet. Just spectator sport for me. I'm not convinced that it is possible to have a decent moat in the streaming business. with DVD, at least they had lots of expensive infrastructure and could be the low cost producer in the way that COSTCO or Amazon is.. With streaming, all that keeps people coming back are the brand, quality of service, and price. If they screw up any of those too badly, people can easily switch, and competitors can more easily set up to compete (especially those who own lots of content - that's the only real kind of moat in streaming). It makes sense to want to de-emphasise the DVD side of the business, but IMO they were a couple of years early and they did it badly (Qwickster? wtf?).

Now they're splitting the DVD and streaming sides of the business: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576579903892361530.html

Hi MoI, thanks for the quick reply! I have another question for you: I listened to the Henry Singleton podcast and loved it. Do you do much audio stuff, or is most of what you produced text? Are any of those podcasts also available on SeekingAlpha (where I found the Henry Singleton one)? Thanks!

I wonder if he has discounts for members of this forum ;)

Actually, it probably would pay for itself now - my portfolio is many multiples of 50k - but like many other value investors, it takes a lot to make me open my wallet (especially when the public library and internet contain so many free resources). I'll check out a few of the other free samples, and that might convince me to take the jump, or at least put it on the list of stuff I want to buy someday...

I'm now about 2/3 through the Singleton episode, and I must say that if they're all of this quality, I would consider subscribing, especially if I can grow my portfolio enough to become a full-time or part-timer investor. Probably too expensive for me now, but if I had more money and was doing this for a living, this seems like a valuable resources that could pay for itself.

I just discovered this site: http://manualofideas.com/index.html Via the link in the Singleton thread. Anyone a subscriber? Any comments on overall quality? It seems ridiculously expensive to me (over $1200 per year), but I'm Mr. El Frugal Cheapo...

I wonder if it's because they are perennially selling for much lower than book... That would help with timing for sure :)

Thanks for posting this, looks like a good overview!

Thought many here would enjoy it: http://www.scribd.com/doc/18173672/fs1979 If you know of other sources (online or offline) to learn more about him and his thinking on capital allocation, please post them here. I've read a good chunk of Distant Force, but sadly the book can be pages and pages of lists of acquisitions and it seems like while chapters barely mention henry and rarely go very deep in his thinking. Not very satisfying so far, though maybe it gets better later on in the book...