Liberty

Very sad news indeed. I really liked his socratic approach to running his business, almost being more a teacher than a boss, teaching people metrics and how to think about the underlying economics, putting the right incentives in place, and then giving them a lot of control over operations.

I've held MIDD since 2005. I've sold a lot along the way and added back on dips, but I've had some amount of MIDD in my portfolio for over 13 years. I really cleaned up when they aquired Turbochef and CHEF was trading as if the acquisition was not going to happen (this was right after the financial crisis and a lot of announced mergers where being cancelled), I bought a ton of CHEF and even converted most of my MIDD to CHEF only to get it back and then some after the acquisition. I had held MIDD for a while by then and knew that MIDD had the cash and that they would go through with the acquisition even if the market was skeptical. What I like about MIDD is its CEO Selim Bassoul. He's a serial acquirer, only unlike most CEOs who try to do this, he makes it work every time. He is a master of making acquisitions work, integrating the companies, finding synergies, and getting them to add to earnings quickly (most of the time in under a year). He's been doing this again and again, multiple times per year, successfully at MIDD since (IIRC) 2003 or so. It's definitely a bet on management. It's not like everybody in that industry is doing that well.

MIDD's an interesting one. I passed on it many years ago (2011?) because I wasn't sure about a few things, and then looked at it go multi-bagger. I haven't really looked at it in a while. How would you describe what you like best and dislike most about it these days, if you want to share?

Each chapter is about the important work done by various agencies that most people know little about, and the last 1/3 was about NOAA and weather services. I thought it fit well in the book. "....yet the government still manages to function." Of course, all the people doing the actual work at the bottom of the pyramid are still there. The point is that it's directionless and getting less prepared for problems if/when they come, and that many of the people that were put in charge have no idea what they're doing.

"Nearly half of US stocks are now down more than 20% from their 52-week highs"

I've finished it. Glad I read it. Maybe a bit overlong (like most non-fiction books), but important-enough stuff to make it worth reading. As I said earlier, I already thought sleep was very important, but I was under-estimating it a lot... And now notice a lot more of the crazy things that our society does that are extremely counter-productive (financially, health-wise, etc).

Sounds like you have some kind of malware messing with you.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-it-comes-to-sleep-one-size-fits-all-1540481975

After today those charts certainly look different...

https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/ben-thompson-tyler-cowen-stratechery-amazon-google-facebook-4bd230276a14 Podcast and transcript both available.

The pie charts only show how down from peak. There is a slice in the pie that says "flat to up 10%" My bad, it was so small I didn't see it. Not sure. Doesn't seem to make sense. Could be a mistake. If it was based on YTD numbers, it might make sense, but they say from peak, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The pie charts only show how down from peak. As you talking about the other chart? I think that one only looks on each day how many are making new lows and how many are making new highs, day by day.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-stocks-underwater/inside-sp-500-most-stocks-in-correction-or-bear-market-idUSKCN1MX33D Interesting piece looking below the surface of the indexes.

Yeah. I've been learning from multiple sources in recent years the importance of the immune system when it comes to cancer, and the impact of sleep on the immune system certainly should be taken seriously in that light.

Independent fed? https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-steps-up-attacks-on-fed-chairman-jerome-powell-1540338090

Oh, thanks for that, I somehow missed that there was a book about it. Do you like it so far?

At what time do you usually fall asleep?

Here's a movie idea for Hollywood, rather than more super-hero sequel, how about a real-life hero: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/22/obituaries/joachim-ronneberg-dead.html Joachim Ronneberg, Leader of Raid That Thwarted a Nazi Atomic Bomb, Dies at 99

https://www.amazon.ca/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-Dreams/dp/1501144316 I'm 50% through the audiobook of 'Why We Sleep' (Matthew Walker, director of UC Berkeley’s Sleep & Neuroimaging Lab). It makes a pretty convincing case for the multi-faceted powers of sleep. I came in thinking it was *really* important, but it's even more important than that. Huge demonstrated effects on physical performance, mental performance, health & diseases of aging, mood/happiness, memory, etc. Kind of obvious when said like that, but as I said, I also would've said this was all obvious, but it's more matter of degrees than anything else, and learning about the science has recalibrated my views and - hopefully - it helps me make sleep a higher priority in my life.

This looks promising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2u4nCtyBCo Premiere is January 20. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7406334/

Many people have sad lives when spending a lot of money. Not wasting money doesn't magically make people better at living. But it can certainly free those who do want to do things with their lives to have the ability to do so.

Whether it's a risk factor for dementia or not, air pollution certainly isn't good for any of us. But this may be one more piece of evidence on the mountain that should already be pushing us to cleaner technologies. The World Health Organization has already concluded a few years ago that diesel emissions cause lung cancer... And I've seen things about how bad it is for cardiovascular health. Every time I see a big diesel truck spewing black soot every time it accelerates from a traffic light, I can't wait for diesel to go away. https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/pr/2012/pdfs/pr213_E.pdf

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/brain-pollution-evidence-builds-dirty-air-causes-alzheimer-s-dementia

I agree. He also provided the sole funding for SpaceShipOne. I know he died young, but to say he was first diagnosed with cancer in 1983 he got to live a relatively long time. And it seems he made the most of it. Ben Thompson quotes from Allen's book, Idea Man:

Sad news.. He was a generous man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Philanthropy