New Year's Resolutions

[peter1234]

Emoticons should be subject to the 20 punchcard. If they were, people would think long and hard before using up one of their allotted emoticons.

 

I fully agree with Kraven. 20 emoticons per post must not be exceeded.

;D

[augustabound]

It's short-hand. They prevents all kinds of misunderstandings that happen all the time with text-based communication (without tone of voice, body language, comedic timing, etc).

 

I use them frequently to express myself.  :P

I've started putting them on estimates now. Nothing says professional more than 8) after the price.

I should have used them when I built custom homes. "$300000  :o  ;) :-\ "

 

But some do for the opposite reason as your example. Make a flaming statement then end with  ;) .

I want to be an ass and tell you you're an idiot but let me put this winky face after it to make you think I'm joking.

[thefatbaboon]

I resolve that no one will write "Cheers!" ever again.

[augustabound]

Why is the banner ad at the botton a Weight Watchers ad en francais?

 

I only took adblock off CoBF the other day when Al and I joked about posting about porn but now I'm really curious to see how the ads pick up adwords. (the weight I get since it would be tagged with NY resolution)

 

Realizing after the fact that Google would have adult content filters in place.

 

........damn it.

[Guest longinvestor]

Emoticons should be subject to the 20 punchcard. If they were, people would think long and hard before using up one of their allotted emoticons.

 

You've brought this up again and again over the years. I'm now genuinely curious why you seem to be bothered by them so much. I can understand someone not liking them and not using them, but I don't get why someone would be riled up enough to periodically lobby for others to stop using them.

 

The only reasons I can think of are of the "damn kids, get off my lawn" variety, or "things weren't like this in my day and I don't like change, so if I don't like it nobody should like it, like kids and their damn rap music and snapchat", or maybe some form of snobbism, because what kind of discourse could possibly be elevated by cartoonish pictures, right?.

 

It's short-hand. They prevents all kinds of misunderstandings that happen all the time with text-based communication (without tone of voice, body language, comedic timing, etc). Everybody except a few face-blind people immediately understand how they modify a statement, and since few of us are Hemingway types who will be consistently great at perfectly writing out the nuances of what we mean, they are a very useful tool and safety net. They also encourage economy, because you can get the same thing across with fewer words (imagine how much longer my crap would be!).

 

So basically, this:

 

You suck Kraven ;) :D

 

Is very different from

 

You suck Kraven  >:(

 

or

 

You suck Kraven  :-[ :-\

 

So what's the deal? Did a smiley kill your parents when you were but a boy?  ???

 

+1

 

To clarify my +1, I'm saying the following:

 

-  That Liberty is completely correct; My thoughts also.

-  That it is articulated similarly but actually better than I could have.

-  That I like that Liberty is not going to back down in challenging the original post of this thread.

-  That I especially agree with Liberty's read of the snobbishness attitude of "Damn kids, get off my lawn..." in play here.

-  That everyone, please make their own %@#*ing new year resolutions.

 

So, here it is again, to Liberty especially, for raising the civility of this board which I visit more than any others.

 

+1

 

And oh, anticipating any responses to this effect, I  understand that the ignore feature is available to me as it does to all. I also tune out stuff in other ways. And by replying to this post this way, I have easily dusted off something that was trying to get under my skin.

 

 

 

[Guest longinvestor]

So basically, this:

 

You suck Kraven ;) :D

 

Is very different from

 

You suck Kraven  >:(

 

or

 

You suck Kraven  :-[ :-\

 

So what's the deal? Did a smiley kill your parents when you were but a boy?  ???

 

Can we stop this please?  Kraven has helped a lot of people on this board, myself included, and I'd prefer not to lose his input due to some stupid flamewar.  If you disagree with his thoughts, be a good person and disagree with them inside your head, and then move on.  You don't have to add fuel to any fires just because they're there.  In fact, it's pretty amazing how fast threads, good or otherwise, die down on this board when no one is actively replying to them.

 

Actually, Liberty should not stop anything. I am 100% behind Liberty on this one.

 

If there is any flamewar or stupidity involved here, it started with the original post.

 

And there are people like me who come to this board only because of the Moniker which has Berkshire and Fairfax in it. To me, that is the same thing as saying "AskBuffett" or "AskPrem" or "AskCharlie". There is plenty of learning left for me from their quotes, speeches, articles, interviews etc. If there is other learning possible from others, let me figure that out myself.

[yadayada]

Kraven show us on this doll where the smileys touched you.

[Liberty]

Oh boy. This is kind of what I meant about text easily leading to miscommunication. If we were all sitting with a beer, my meaning would not doubt come across better.

 

Disclaimer first: I'm not attacking Kraven or saying anything bad about him. He's a great investor and a great guy and I've learned a lot from him. Nothing that I wrote is personal or intended to have an ounce of malice. My default mode as a person is always to discuss ideas as being separate from people, so if I do something stupid, it doesn't mean that I am stupid, and if someone does something that I disagree with, it doesn't mean that I disagree with that person as a whole, all the time or won't find their next idea utterly brilliant...

 

Here's more context:

 

I've been on this board for a few years. The first time Kraven posted about not liking smileys and wanting people to stop using them, I thought it was tongue in cheek and light humor.

 

The 15th time, I was genuinely curious to hear his thinking and figured I'd ask him, and also explain why I thought they were useful because maybe he would agree with my arguments, or maybe I would end up agreeing with his arguments.

 

Why ask? Because as someone who uses emoticons and other markers of context/tone, I was starting to feel a disapproving gaze at the back of my head every time I used one, and that wasn't a nice feeling. These things have been around for decades and they only seem to improve communication, unlike, say, texting/leetspeek (I C U have lotsa fun brah, Y U so... whatever, I can't even really write like that, but that does degrade clarity and I can understand the argument for not using that kind of writing on a forum).

 

So I wrote what I thought was a light-hearted message last night asking my question and explaining why I thought smileys were useful.

 

It was obvious to me that I didn't mean the "you suck" part - I was just looking for something that could mean extremely different things depending on the tone - and I'm sorry if anyone thought I actually meant it. See, text being ambiguous again. Around a beer, it would've been a lot clearer.

 

So West, I don't mean this to be a flamewar or anything, and frankly, it doesn't have anything at all to do with Kraven being a good investor and a good contributor here. I just wanted to ask him why he hated emoticons so much, which doesn't seem like such a taboo question to me.

 

See, no emoticons in this post so far. They were not needed this time :)

[Andy Dufresne]

Guys,

 

I'm really tired from this emoticon quarrel and I feel like you've completely hijacked the thread. If you wish to continue, please open a new thread - thanks.

 

And now, back to the original intent ... resolutions, after I just finished my first full year of investing:

 

1. Be more efficient and systematic with my investing;

2. Find an original idea to share with the Board, and do some real research rather than read 10Ks

3. Think more about portfolio and risk allocation

 

Cheers!

[cobafdek]

So West, I don't mean this to be a flamewar or anything, and frankly, it doesn't have anything at all to do with Kraven being a good investor and a good contributor here. I just wanted to ask him why he hated emoticons so much, which doesn't seem like such a taboo question to me.

 

Kraven (not his real name:  his real initials are I.K.) was born in 1905.  I'm older than he, and can't remember when I was born.  I can remember as far back as the first page of this thread, and I was the curmudgeon who added fire to this fun flame war.  Now I can't restrain myself from donning my schoolmarm hat to correct myself, and to prove I can be both more correct and more up-to-date than the young whippersnappers:  strictly speaking, they're not emoticons.  They're emojis.  Let's get it right, and give the Japanese their just due (or blame).

[cobafdek]

Here's a wonderful idea, from last Saturday's Wall St Journal:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paula-marantz-cohen-a-year-of-15-minute-daily-doses-from-the-harvard-classics-1419637070

 

You don't even have to scrounge the used bookstores for all 50 volumes.  It's all free here:

 

http://www.mensetmanus.net/inspiration/fifteen_minutes_a_day/

 

Fifteen minutes a day.

 

Edit:  unfortunately, the page links on the mensetmanus.net site don't take you to the actual pages. You'll need to use a site that has the volumes in PDF like http://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212

 

[innerscorecard]

There's an ignore feature?

[augustabound]

There's an ignore feature?

 

No.

[augustabound]

Here's a wonderful idea, from last Saturday's Wall St Journal:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paula-marantz-cohen-a-year-of-15-minute-daily-doses-from-the-harvard-classics-1419637070

 

You don't even have to scrounge the used bookstores for all 50 volumes.  It's all free here:

 

http://www.mensetmanus.net/inspiration/fifteen_minutes_a_day/

 

Fifteen minutes a day.

 

Edit:  unfortunately, the page links on the mensetmanus.net site don't take you to the actual pages. You'll need to use a site that has the volumes in PDF like http://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212

 

This looks interesting, thanks for the link. I missed that in the Saturday wsj.

[west]

There's an ignore feature?

 

There is.  Go to Profile -> Account Settings, then Modify Profile -> Buddies / Ignore List.  I don't use it myself though since most of the people that I'd want to ignore still have enough good posts (perhaps too many?) that if I ignored them outright I might miss out on something that I wouldn't want to miss out on.

 

But that being said...

 

Happy (soon) New Year everyone!

[augustabound]

There's an ignore feature?

 

There is.  Go to Profile -> Account Settings, then Modify Profile -> Buddies / Ignore List.  I don't use it myself though since most of the people that I'd want to ignore still have enough good posts (perhaps too many?) that if I ignored them outright I might miss out on something that I wouldn't want to miss out on.

 

But that being said...

 

Happy (soon) New Year everyone!

 

I stand corrected. Had no idea.....

[Palantir]

My resolution is to pray 5 times a day to Warren while facing Omaha. Do you guys think that is enough?

[Guest JoelS]

Here's a wonderful idea, from last Saturday's Wall St Journal:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/paula-marantz-cohen-a-year-of-15-minute-daily-doses-from-the-harvard-classics-1419637070

 

You don't even have to scrounge the used bookstores for all 50 volumes.  It's all free here:

 

http://www.mensetmanus.net/inspiration/fifteen_minutes_a_day/

 

Fifteen minutes a day.

 

Edit:  unfortunately, the page links on the mensetmanus.net site don't take you to the actual pages. You'll need to use a site that has the volumes in PDF like http://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120212

 

Hey this is great, thank you.

[cknucks]

1. Get weight down by at least 12 lbs

2. Embrace the muck at work...From time to time, I get to thinking that since I'm a Managing Director at my boutique IB that I am a big picture guy and more than just an analyst.  Back to the basics this year.

3. Minimize investment mistakes.  The realized losses on my mistakes last year (most notably, CVEO in December, HNR, IBM leaps being chief among them) cost me a good 5~6 points of return.  This year, I'm going to be less concerned with making $$ and more concerned with avoiding value traps.

3. Back to adiposity: get body fat % below 20%.  Wanna get back into < size 34" waist genes (@ 5'5" tall) and generally get back to the shape I was in 5 yrs ago.