Microsoft makes the Magic Formula!

[ERICOPOLY]

Microsoft has already "allocated" $100b to non-technology related businesses -- it was the return of capital to shareholders.  Berkshire would have decided on your behalf where those funds are best deployed -- Microsoft doesn't make that decision for you, you are on your own.  But then Microsoft isn't an investment holding company so it's not their role to be your investment fund manager.

 

Microsoft isn't Berkshire -- just like BNSF isn't Berkshire.  BNSF's managers don't allocate capital outside of railroads, and Microsoft's managers don't allocate capital outside of technology.  In both cases, they return the excess earnings to the owners and the owners can decide where to invest those earnings.  In BNSF's case that owner is Berkshire.

 

I think this is why Gates hasn't directed Microsoft to reinvest earnings outside of technology.  Microsoft isn't a holding company, Berkshire is.  The whole point of Berkshire is to have Buffett allocate the capital rather than pay it out to shareholders.  If you are a Microsoft shareholder, you have your choice of managers to allocate your earnings -- you can reinvest directly in Sanjeev's fund, or in Fairholme, whatever you choose. 

[Guest Bronco]

One of my favorite lines from gg in Wall Street: 

 

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

 

 

[ERICOPOLY]

My MacBook Pro is actually crashing more often than my Windows Vista ever did (I've actually never had a system crash with my Vista laptop).

 

That's twice in 106 hours!  Yeah Steve Jobs!

 

 

Interval Since Last Panic Report:  383259 sec

Panics Since Last Report:          1

Anonymous UUID:                    B7D14614-39D1-41DB-A928-B08E798113F6

 

Mon Dec  6 17:22:08 2010

panic(cpu 0 caller 0x2aab55): Kernel trap at 0x002347d7, type 14=page fault, registers:

CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x00000028, CR3: 0x00100000, CR4: 0x00000668

EAX: 0x00000000, EBX: 0x00000030, ECX: 0x00000028, EDX: 0x03643d74

CR2: 0x00000028, EBP: 0x00fc32c8, ESI: 0x00000000, EDI: 0x0a20f400

EFL: 0x00010202, EIP: 0x002347d7, CS:  0x00000008, DS:  0x00000010

Error code: 0x00000000

 

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)

0xfc3058 : 0x21b50c (0x5d42fc 0xfc308c 0x223974 0x0)

0xfc30a8 : 0x2aab55 (0x59616c 0x2347d7 0xe 0x596336)

0xfc3188 : 0x2a09a8 (0xfc31a0 0x0 0xfc32c8 0x2347d7)

0xfc3198 : 0x2347d7 (0xe 0x48 0x10 0x10)

0xfc32c8 : 0x220633 (0x3643d74 0x1 0x1 0x5551ff)

0xfc3308 : 0x220673 (0x30 0x1 0x0 0x0)

0xfc3328 : 0x52e7e4 (0x30 0xa20f400 0x1000 0x0)

0xfc3348 : 0x96c965 (0x30 0xbd80a000 0x1000 0x0)

0xfc3368 : 0x96dc66 (0x8208dac 0xd9ab200 0xa20f400 0x52b5c000)

0xfc33c8 : 0x9d69f0 (0xbd80a000 0x0 0x1000 0x0)

0xfc3408 : 0x16a975e (0xbd80a000 0x0 0x1000 0x0)

0xfc3478 : 0x16a99ce (0xfc34e8 0xfc34e4 0x1000 0x0)

0xfc3508 : 0x16a9fa7 (0x2 0x94a2004 0x0 0x0)

0xfc3568 : 0x178acf9 (0x94a2004 0x9548804 0xdda4404 0xfc35b8)

0xfc3618 : 0x176050c (0x94a2004 0x9549804 0x4c231014 0xfc3748)

0xfc3768 : 0x1799e87 (0x94a2004 0x950c004 0x0 0x3)

0xfc37e8 : 0x9cf780 (0x94a2004 0x3f 0x0 0x0)

0xfc3888 : 0x9d3826 (0xc1d00021 0x4000000 0x41 0x2)

0xfc3a38 : 0x9d48f7 (0x0 0x600d600d 0x703a 0xfc3a68)

0xfc3b08 : 0xbd6ba1 (0xc1d00021 0x4000000 0x41 0x2)

0xfc3b88 : 0xbcae7c (0x4423d000 0xfc3dbc 0x0 0x13dc221)

0xfc3ca8 : 0x96aae6 (0x4423d000 0x1 0xfc3d3a 0x84)

0xfc3d08 : 0x95d90f (0x8dc8000 0x1 0xfc3d3a 0x84)

0xfc3d78 : 0x95e0ec (0x8dc8000 0x19 0xfc3dbc 0x4ff931)

0xfc3de8 : 0x95eb01 (0x8dc8000 0x2 0xfc3e18 0x4ff5ae)

0xfc3e58 : 0x945159 (0x8dc8000 0x70777273 0x2 0x1)

0xfc3e98 : 0x945348 (0x8dc8000 0xb1 0xfc3ec8 0x949791)

0xfc3ec8 : 0x94e884 (0x8d8ac00 0xb1 0x0 0x2a35a1)

0xfc3f08 : 0x54c4db (0x8a91180 0x8a96100 0x1 0x0)

0xfc3f58 : 0x54b50c (0x8a96100 0x0 0x202 0x0)

0xfc3f88 : 0x54b966 (0x8a91180 0x8a91180 0x0 0xab9a000)

0xfc3fc8 : 0x2a06cc (0x8a91180 0x0 0x0 0x0)

Backtrace continues...

      Kernel Extensions in backtrace (with dependencies):

        com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal(6.2.4)@0x1694000->0x1aa8fff

            dependency: com.apple.NVDAResman(6.2.4)@0x967000

        com.apple.NVDAResman(6.2.4)@0x967000->0xc54fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6)@0x927000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.2)@0x95a000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.2)@0x938000

        com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport(2.2)@0x95a000->0x966fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.2)@0x938000

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6)@0x927000

        com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily(2.2)@0x938000->0x959fff

            dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.6)@0x927000

 

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

 

Mac OS version:

10H574

 

Kernel version:

Darwin Kernel Version 10.5.0: Fri Nov  5 23:20:39 PDT 2010; root:xnu-1504.9.17~1/RELEASE_I386

System model name: MacBookPro7,1 (Mac-F222BEC8)

 

System uptime in nanoseconds: 74059766557762

unloaded kexts:

com.apple.driver.AppleMCP89RootPortPM 1.11 (addr 0x1440000, size 0x20480) - last unloaded 156130369438

loaded kexts:

com.apple.driver.AppleHWSensor 1.9.3d0 - last loaded 21108703735

com.apple.filesystems.autofs 2.1.0

com.apple.driver.AGPM 100.12.19

com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyHIDDriver 1.2.0

com.apple.driver.AppleHDA 1.9.9f12

com.apple.driver.AppleMikeyDriver 1.9.9f12

com.apple.driver.AppleUpstreamUserClient 3.4.5

com.apple.driver.AppleMCCSControl 1.0.17

com.apple.driver.AudioAUUC 1.13

com.apple.driver.SMCMotionSensor 3.0.0d4

com.apple.kext.AppleSMCLMU 1.5.0d3

com.apple.Dont_Steal_Mac_OS_X 7.0.0

com.apple.driver.AudioIPCDriver 1.1.6

com.apple.driver.AppleIntelPenrynProfile 17

com.apple.driver.ACPI_SMC_PlatformPlugin 4.5.0d5

com.apple.driver.AppleLPC 1.4.12

com.apple.driver.AppleBacklight 170.0.34

com.apple.GeForce 6.2.4

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCButtons 200.3.2

com.apple.driver.AppleIRController 303.8

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBTCKeyboard 200.3.2

com.apple.iokit.SCSITaskUserClient 2.6.5

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBCardReader 2.5.8

com.apple.BootCache 31

com.apple.AppleFSCompression.AppleFSCompressionTypeZlib 1.0.0d1

com.apple.driver.AppleHPET 1.5

com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIBlockStorage 1.6.3

com.apple.iokit.AppleBCM5701Ethernet 2.3.9b6

com.apple.driver.AirPortBrcm43224 426.36.1

com.apple.driver.AppleFWOHCI 4.7.1

com.apple.driver.AppleAHCIPort 2.1.5

com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM 1.4.0

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBHub 4.1.7

com.apple.driver.AppleRTC 1.3.1

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBOHCI 4.1.5

com.apple.driver.AppleSmartBatteryManager 160.0.0

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBEHCI 4.1.7

com.apple.driver.AppleACPIButtons 1.3.5

com.apple.driver.AppleSMBIOS 1.6

com.apple.driver.AppleACPIEC 1.3.5

com.apple.driver.AppleAPIC 1.4

com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagementClient 105.13.0

com.apple.security.sandbox 1

com.apple.security.quarantine 0

com.apple.nke.applicationfirewall 2.1.11

com.apple.driver.AppleIntelCPUPowerManagement 105.13.0

com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothSerialManager 2.3.8f7

com.apple.iokit.IOSerialFamily 10.0.3

com.apple.driver.DspFuncLib 1.9.9f12

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileReadCounterAction 17

com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusController 1.0.8d0

com.apple.driver.AppleSMBusPCI 1.0.8d0

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileTimestampAction 10

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileThreadInfoAction 14

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileRegisterStateAction 10

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileKEventAction 10

com.apple.driver.AppleProfileCallstackAction 20

com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireIP 2.0.3

com.apple.iokit.IOSurface 74.2

com.apple.iokit.IOAudioFamily 1.7.9fc4

com.apple.kext.OSvKernDSPLib 1.3

com.apple.driver.AppleHDAController 1.9.9f12

com.apple.iokit.IOHDAFamily 1.9.9f12

com.apple.iokit.AppleProfileFamily 41

com.apple.driver.AppleSMC 3.1.0d3

com.apple.driver.IOPlatformPluginFamily 4.5.0d5

com.apple.nvidia.nv50hal 6.2.4

com.apple.NVDAResman 6.2.4

com.apple.iokit.IONDRVSupport 2.2

com.apple.iokit.IOGraphicsFamily 2.2

com.apple.driver.BroadcomUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.3.8f7

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBBluetoothHCIController 2.3.8f7

com.apple.iokit.IOBluetoothFamily 2.3.8f7

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMultitouch 206.6

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBHIDDriver 4.1.5

com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIMultimediaCommandsDevice 2.6.5

com.apple.iokit.IOBDStorageFamily 1.6

com.apple.iokit.IODVDStorageFamily 1.6

com.apple.iokit.IOCDStorageFamily 1.6

com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIBlockCommandsDevice 2.6.5

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBMassStorageClass 2.6.5

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBMergeNub 4.1.5

com.apple.driver.AppleUSBComposite 3.9.0

com.apple.driver.XsanFilter 402.1

com.apple.iokit.IOAHCISerialATAPI 1.2.5

com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIArchitectureModelFamily 2.6.5

com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family 312

com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily 1.9

com.apple.iokit.IOFireWireFamily 4.2.6

com.apple.iokit.IOAHCIFamily 2.0.4

com.apple.driver.NVSMU 2.2.7

com.apple.driver.AppleEFIRuntime 1.4.0

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBUserClient 4.1.5

com.apple.iokit.IOUSBFamily 4.1.7

com.apple.iokit.IOHIDFamily 1.6.5

com.apple.iokit.IOSMBusFamily 1.1

com.apple.kext.AppleMatch 1.0.0d1

com.apple.security.TMSafetyNet 6

com.apple.driver.DiskImages 289

com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily 1.6.2

com.apple.driver.AppleACPIPlatform 1.3.5

com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily 2.6

com.apple.iokit.IOACPIFamily 1.3.0

Model: MacBookPro7,1, BootROM MBP71.0039.B0B, 2 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB, SMC 1.62f6

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 320M, NVIDIA GeForce 320M, PCI, 256 MB

Memory Module: global_name

AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D), Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.1)

Bluetooth: Version 2.3.8f7, 2 service, 19 devices, 1 incoming serial ports

Network Service: AirPort, AirPort, en1

Serial ATA Device: Hitachi HTS545025B9SA02, 232.89 GB

Serial ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R  UJ-898

USB Device: Internal Memory Card Reader, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8403, 0x26100000

USB Device: Built-in iSight, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8507, 0x24600000

USB Device: BRCM2046 Hub, 0x0a5c  (Broadcom Corp.), 0x4500, 0x06600000

USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8213, 0x06610000

USB Device: IR Receiver, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x8242, 0x06500000

USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, 0x05ac  (Apple Inc.), 0x0236, 0x06300000

[Myth465]

One of my favorite lines from gg in Wall Street:  

 

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

 

 

 

How did I miss this Gem.

 

and Ericopoly I think you are a bit biased with regard to MSFT. Macs dont get sick or break  ;D.

[ERICOPOLY]

One of my favorite lines from gg in Wall Street:  

 

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

 

 

 

How did I miss this Gem.

 

and Ericopoly I think you are a bit biased with regard to MSFT. Macs dont get sick or break  ;D.

 

I love the improvements -- the scrolling on the touch-pad and the zooming by moving my fingers on the screen.

 

I have an IPhone4 and a MacBook Pro (both acquired in past 3 months).  Generally, I like them -- but the bugs are starting to really irritate me.  The MacBook system crashes -- I'm accustomed to better reliability.  If I pay more, I expect more.  Usually on a Vista system if you're getting crashes you can track it down to a faulty driver -- it's just too difficult to police all the hardware drivers out there.  Apple has no excuse as their not an open hardware platform -- they are the OEM.  They don't have to test Dell/HP/Acer/Toshiba configurations... only their own.  With a test matrix that simple, they just have no excuse for this kind of quality control.

 

I've had Safari crash on me several times -- this is a lower level of reliability that Internet Explorer.  I know Internet Explorer's reliability rather well -- for several years it was my job to stress test it.  Normally (the vast majority of crashes) it would come down to some third party software running in-process.  Think of a search toolbar control that somebody installs -- if it's got a bug it takes down the process.  So on my machines I don't allow any of that stuff to run in-process and I get no crashes.  Apple has no such excuse -- they have no such open model.  This is just Apple code that is going down.

 

Then Safari has this supremely annoying bug where I get no response sometimes clicking on links -- typically I hit this a lot on the midwayusa.com web page when you try to navigate their search results or at the InteractiveBrokers website when I'm trying to do a funds withdrawal transaction.  The work around I've found is to open the site in a new tab -- that seems to snap it out of this state.

 

Then my wife has an IPod that she syncs to ITunes running on her Vista laptop -- it hangs the ITunes process and this appears to only happen to the Apple ITunes software written for Windows.  Searching online it turns out that a LOT of people have that problem -- seems to be some sort of file system corruption that Apple doesn't admit to but people on the forums have the advice to fix it.  You have to reformat the IPod, then reinstall the software, then sync all your old stuff back to it.  Then it works for a month or two and you have to do it all over again -- I've been through it twice already.  Frustrating.  "It just works".  Nice.

 

They have a lot of work to do before I'll feel like they are living up to their hype.  We're they to be as reliable as Windows I'd give them the nod for sure -- it's frustrating trying to use my Windows laptop these days because I find myself trying to scroll the page by moving my fingers across the touchpad and trying to zoom by dragging them on the screen.

 

I was a reliability (stress) tester because that's the only kind of testing I was interesting in doing -- it's what annoys me the most.  I started with the team on IE4 Beta2 and left during the IE8 product cycle -- largely I was getting extremely bored because it was getting damn hard to make it crash.

 

 

[Myth465]

One of my favorite lines from gg in Wall Street:  

 

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

 

 

 

How did I miss this Gem.

 

and Ericopoly I think you are a bit biased with regard to MSFT. Macs dont get sick or break  ;D.

 

I love the improvements -- the scrolling on the touch-pad and the zooming by moving my fingers on the screen.

 

I have an IPhone4 and a MacBook Pro (both acquired in past 3 months).  Generally, I like them -- but the bugs are starting to really irritate me.  The MacBook system crashes -- I'm accustomed to better reliability.  If I pay more, I expect more.  Usually on a Vista system if you're getting crashes you can track it down to a faulty driver -- it's just too difficult to police all the hardware drivers out there.  Apple has no excuse as their not an open hardware platform -- they are the OEM.  They don't have to test Dell/HP/Acer/Toshiba configurations... only their own.  With a test matrix that simple, they just have no excuse for this kind of quality control.

 

 

This is a good point and something I hadnt considered. Now that Apple is gaining in popularity it will be interesting to see what happens when people start writing viruses for it. How is switching OSs, and what caused you to switch, given your familiarity with Windows? I like the Idea of it, but get everything I need out of Windows. I am dual booting with Linux Mint in a few days on my new laptop just to give it a whirl. It should be interesting.

 

I think Apple has a nice sweet spot. The true nerds who bug people and point out flaws / stress test applications are on Linux or are bitching about Windows. The masses get confused and usually screw up their own system and then blame Windows, and Apple picks up the best share of customers. Hip, Cool, Early Adopters, and the Johnny come lately friends of theirs. These customers either are power users for relatively few apps (media typically), or dont use it for much but surfing the web. The general quirks either are unnoticed or overlooked due to the cool factor.

 

 

I cant believe you worked on IE. It annoys the hell out of me, every time I open it. Firefox is just so much better, I never had any stability issues out of it over the past 10 years or so, it was more the lack of features which caused the switch. Thanks for the detail regarding your previous gig. Did any of the work translate to investments, like do you stress test investments in a similar process? Also did you ever own MSFT stock? I have worked for a company over the last 3 years that I think is fairly overvalued, I have to stop myself from pointing it out to coworkers when they talk about the stock movements.

 

What are you guys doing still using Vista?

[bargainman]

Speaking of which, has anyone noticed that Apple made the magic formula!?  (At least it did over the weekend, haven't checked today...)

[jasonw1]

If any of you still using Vista, you should definitely upgrade to Win7, it's such a pleasure to use, everything just works.

 

I have had my share of frustration with IPad software upgrade, it's a really cool device and I pretty much ditched my Kindle and laptop most of the time and use it for surfing and reading (don't try to write anything though, it's pretty frustrating). But right after upgrade the old button, a physical button, to lock orientation doesn't work anymore, instead it becomes switch to turn on/off sound. This is really annoying as I read on bed and it'll shift orientation automatically to make it unreadable. I couldn't find anywhere I can set this and finally found out Apple just repurposed the switch to be the volume switch in iOS 4.2, although there is a way to work around this but you got to do quite a bit leg work to find it. I don't understand why they make the switch as there is already volume control which makes the additional button to switch on/off sound redundant. If this were Microsoft it would have made headline news, but this is Apple and they could do no wrong.

 

Apple has been on an amazing run in the last several years, but as investment its best days are behind it. Now they'll have to face upgrade and compatibility, and put some real test on their software.

 

Things are going pretty well for Microsoft at the moment. Old cash cows are doing well, Bing is climbing back up, XBox/Kinect is such a hit I couldn't get one anywhere in States, Windows Phone 7 is decent which gets it back to the mobile game. Stock is cheap...  ;D

 

[Myth465]

I need a catalyst. Its too big, but Leaps would help. 2013 leaps are cheap. I also dont trust Balmer with that cash horde.

[jasonw1]

Cash under Ballmer would be my least worry. There are plenty things MS could have done better and need to do better, but they have wasted no cash and pretty much returned them to shareholders, except for the $6 billion aQuantative aquasition which is a total waste IMO.

 

I don't know what the catalyst would be, maybe value itself, maybe one day people wake up and just feel different.

[txlaw]

I have a 15" Macbook Pro that I really love.  It's never crashed before, and I love the way the interface has been designed in OS X.  I have also had no problems using Firefox on my Mac.  

 

My iPhone 3G, on the other hand, has been a nightmare.  I upgraded to the new OS a couple of months ago, and the Google Maps function is almost unusable on the iPhone now because of the way it hangs, which is ridiculous since that's the feature I use the most.  Instead of rolling back my OS, I have been waiting for an update that will fix the phone.  But Apple hasn't come out with one yet.  

 

I'm seriously considering buying one of these Nexus S phones that's coming out in a week or two so that I can untether myself from the iOS ecosystem.

[Myth465]

Cash under Ballmer would be my least worry. There are plenty things MS could have done better and need to do better, but they have wasted no cash and pretty much returned them to shareholders, except for the $6 billion aQuantative aquasition which is a total waste IMO.

 

I don't know what the catalyst would be, maybe value itself, maybe one day people wake up and just feel different.

 

If Jerry Yang wasnt an idiot. You wouldnt be saying that.

[jasonw1]

I thought the offer price for YHOO was insane and was certainly happy to see the YHOO deal fell off. Now I think even if YHOO deal went through it's not waste of money, YHOO is worth more than current quote. Jerry knows it, he may be stubbon and attached to the company, he's no idiot though. He's got some really nice assets for YHOO.

 

Most of the managers at tech compaines don't think like value investors, if they do there won't be much innovations and disruptions, and when they do, that means it's not much a growth technology company anymore, but rather an established business living off its past glory.

[Myth465]

Most of the managers at tech compaines don't think like value investors, if they do there won't be much innovations and disruptions, and when they do, that means it's not much a growth technology company anymore, but rather an established business living off its past glory.

 

I agree with this, and am happy that we are a small niche. I would hate to live in a world run by and populated with value investors.

 

YHOO has a history of destroying value, and INMO that will continue. They will calculate those asset values while all of their moats both here and abroad continue to be attacked. Value is great, but in Tech you cant sit on it. Either way inmo the acquisition would not have helped YHOO or MSFT inmo, Bing seems to be doing well enough but I think the search game is lost unless Google screws up over privacy or something.

 

The real value is in the OS and Office. I actually liked Windows Mobile and cant wait to get rid of my Blackberry for Windows 7 Mobile. With that said I would prefer for MSFT to muscle in and take over stable business vs. trying to grow their own. It just hasnt worked very well and when it does (XBox) nothing drops to the bottom line.

[Guest Bronco]

Jason...it sounds like you prefer $15 per share in yahoo over $30 in cash.  Now that is what I call value investing!

[jasonw1]

Jason...it sounds like you prefer $15 per share in yahoo over $30 in cash.  Now that is what I call value investing!

Not sure your logic in deriving this.

I like the $15 quote on YHOO, so much so that I bought the stock this year, thinking it's worth more than what I paid.

I estimate YHOO could worth up to $25, if someone comes in to buy the company and offer a premium, $30 is not impossible.

 

[ERICOPOLY]

Did any of the work translate to investments, like do you stress test investments in a similar process? Also did you ever own MSFT stock? I have worked for a company over the last 3 years that I think is fairly overvalued, I have to stop myself from pointing it out to coworkers when they talk about the stock movements.

 

Did I ever own MSFT stock?  I got stock options starting when I was hired in 1997... at age 26 I think I was suddenly worth about $500k on paper (largely unvested) and then all of it but about $80k blew up.  I know I won't get any sympathy complaining about an $80k options paycheck in 2001... but I had psychologically locked in that $500k so the anchoring made it very tough.  Better to have loved and lost?  Hmm...  Serves me right though, because I argued with my recruiter (Lyzette was her name) that the stock was overvalued (she told me that the stock would likely appreciate 20% a year).  She retired in 1998 -- didn't buy her own story perhaps?

 

I think there are two ways in that my work experience translated to my investment success, and neither of them had anything to do with stress testing.  One of them was the stock bubble (and the experience of that devastating paper loss), and the other was the DOJ trial.  IE was an interesting place to work because it was ground zero.  I learned that the story in the media can be completely false, yet people believe it because it's in the media.  These people who say that the market is efficient because all the facts are known... well they are naive rubes apparently.  They assume the media is reporting unbiased facts!  That's a freaking obvious weakness of that argument -- for the market to be efficient you have to take a tremendous leap of faith that the market participants are getting unbiased facts from the news outlets.  I can't really get into the details, but there were numerous instances where the facts were clearly distorted and despite a tremendous effort by the PR folks the media just wouldn't budge.  It was just a fiasco and my view of what I read in the newspapers has been forever changed by that experience.  The media is not accurate, so therefore there is opportunity for profit as prices therefore won't be accurate.

 

 

What are you guys doing still using Vista?

 

Why do I still use IE and Vista?  People who have ugly kids still love them all the same I suppose.  I really don't mind Vista because I use it to browse and to run my jscript files.  It works just fine as far as I'm concerned -- all the bugs that really pissed me off I complained about and had fixed while I worked there.  It sits by my bed and I pick it up first thing in the morning, check a few stocks and read some news.  It never gets rebooted so the shutdown/reboot time is inconsequential.  I also know why many features exist in their present form -- somebody else might find a particular feature really stupid and annoying but in some cases I remember the product manager telling me the justification for not changing it... sometimes it makes sense after hearing his reasoning.  There was actually a guy on the IE team who was still running Win95 on one of his computers because he liked it's speed on new hardware (and as you might guess, he was on the Win95 product team).

 

I also worked 3 doors down the hall from this guy:

http://www.mostwantedhoes.com/sex/dibee-j.php

 

He worked on the team with me for years (he was there I think from day one, or maybe hired just after me), I even shot him in a paint ball game that we had as a team morale event (that's more than the FBI has been able to do by the way).  So it's funny, you go to lunch with the same group of guys every day for years on end, and then one day the guy doesn't come in to work.  After a couple of weeks his office is locked off and it's a big secret what happened to him -- then I hear about him on the news.  Turns out he got mixed up with some people in Oregon who were burning down animal research laboratories -- just, you know, radical animal rights activists.  They always made sure that nobody was in the building -- nobody was ever hurt.  Now, granted, that's vandalism and arson.  But terrorism?  Come on.  Somebody in the FBI is desperate for some political headlines.  Ten years ago I doubt it would have been "terrorism".  That word evokes images of people flying planes into buildings full of thousands of people -- not people who deliberately make sure that those buildings are vacant.  Whatever.

 

 

 

 

[Guest valueInv]

One of my favorite lines from gg in Wall Street:  

 

"A fool and his money are lucky enough to get together in the first place."

 

 

 

How did I miss this Gem.

 

and Ericopoly I think you are a bit biased with regard to MSFT. Macs dont get sick or break  ;D.

 

I love the improvements -- the scrolling on the touch-pad and the zooming by moving my fingers on the screen.

 

I have an IPhone4 and a MacBook Pro (both acquired in past 3 months).  Generally, I like them -- but the bugs are starting to really irritate me.  The MacBook system crashes -- I'm accustomed to better reliability.  If I pay more, I expect more.  Usually on a Vista system if you're getting crashes you can track it down to a faulty driver -- it's just too difficult to police all the hardware drivers out there.  Apple has no excuse as their not an open hardware platform -- they are the OEM.  They don't have to test Dell/HP/Acer/Toshiba configurations... only their own.  With a test matrix that simple, they just have no excuse for this kind of quality control.

 

I've had Safari crash on me several times -- this is a lower level of reliability that Internet Explorer.  I know Internet Explorer's reliability rather well -- for several years it was my job to stress test it.  Normally (the vast majority of crashes) it would come down to some third party software running in-process.  Think of a search toolbar control that somebody installs -- if it's got a bug it takes down the process.  So on my machines I don't allow any of that stuff to run in-process and I get no crashes.  Apple has no such excuse -- they have no such open model.  This is just Apple code that is going down.

 

Then Safari has this supremely annoying bug where I get no response sometimes clicking on links -- typically I hit this a lot on the midwayusa.com web page when you try to navigate their search results or at the InteractiveBrokers website when I'm trying to do a funds withdrawal transaction.  The work around I've found is to open the site in a new tab -- that seems to snap it out of this state.

 

Then my wife has an IPod that she syncs to ITunes running on her Vista laptop -- it hangs the ITunes process and this appears to only happen to the Apple ITunes software written for Windows.  Searching online it turns out that a LOT of people have that problem -- seems to be some sort of file system corruption that Apple doesn't admit to but people on the forums have the advice to fix it.  You have to reformat the IPod, then reinstall the software, then sync all your old stuff back to it.  Then it works for a month or two and you have to do it all over again -- I've been through it twice already.  Frustrating.  "It just works".  Nice.

 

They have a lot of work to do before I'll feel like they are living up to their hype.  We're they to be as reliable as Windows I'd give them the nod for sure -- it's frustrating trying to use my Windows laptop these days because I find myself trying to scroll the page by moving my fingers across the touchpad and trying to zoom by dragging them on the screen.

 

I was a reliability (stress) tester because that's the only kind of testing I was interesting in doing -- it's what annoys me the most.  I started with the team on IE4 Beta2 and left during the IE8 product cycle -- largely I was getting extremely bored because it was getting damn hard to make it crash.

 

 

 

You may have faulty memory. I've had a MacBook pro for 4 years and have seen it crash about twice. And I pound it pretty hard.

[ERICOPOLY]

You may have faulty memory. I've had a MacBook pro for 4 years and have seen it crash about twice. And I pound it pretty hard.

 

That's a possibility.  When memory goes bad you get these single bit corruptions where registers have values that cannot possibly be so according to the preceding instructions (leading to totally random crashes).

 

It's rare though -- but possible.

[twacowfca]

Did any of the work translate to investments, like do you stress test investments in a similar process? Also did you ever own MSFT stock? I have worked for a company over the last 3 years that I think is fairly overvalued, I have to stop myself from pointing it out to coworkers when they talk about the stock movements.

 

Did I ever own MSFT stock?  I got stock options starting when I was hired in 1997... at age 26 I think I was suddenly worth about $500k on paper (largely unvested) and then all of it but about $80k blew up.  I know I won't get any sympathy complaining about an $80k options paycheck in 2001... but I had psychologically locked in that $500k so the anchoring made it very tough.  Better to have loved and lost?  Hmm...  Serves me right though, because I argued with my recruiter (Lyzette was her name) that the stock was overvalued (she told me that the stock would likely appreciate 20% a year).  She retired in 1998 -- didn't buy her own story perhaps?

 

I think there are two ways in that my work experience translated to my investment success, and neither of them had anything to do with stress testing.  One of them was the stock bubble (and the experience of that devastating paper loss), and the other was the DOJ trial.  IE was an interesting place to work because it was ground zero.  I learned that the story in the media can be completely false, yet people believe it because it's in the media.  These people who say that the market is efficient because all the facts are known... well they are naive rubes apparently.  They assume the media is reporting unbiased facts!  That's a freaking obvious weakness of that argument -- for the market to be efficient you have to take a tremendous leap of faith that the market participants are getting unbiased facts from the news outlets.  I can't really get into the details, but there were numerous instances where the facts were clearly distorted and despite a tremendous effort by the PR folks the media just wouldn't budge.  It was just a fiasco and my view of what I read in the newspapers has been forever changed by that experience.  The media is not accurate, so therefore there is opportunity for profit as prices therefore won't be accurate.

 

 

What are you guys doing still using Vista?

 

Why do I still use IE and Vista?  People who have ugly kids still love them all the same I suppose.  I really don't mind Vista because I use it to browse and to run my jscript files.  It works just fine as far as I'm concerned -- all the bugs that really pissed me off I complained about and had fixed while I worked there.  It sits by my bed and I pick it up first thing in the morning, check a few stocks and read some news.  It never gets rebooted so the shutdown/reboot time is inconsequential.  I also know why many features exist in their present form -- somebody else might find a particular feature really stupid and annoying but in some cases I remember the product manager telling me the justification for not changing it... sometimes it makes sense after hearing his reasoning.  There was actually a guy on the IE team who was still running Win95 on one of his computers because he liked it's speed on new hardware (and as you might guess, he was on the Win95 product team).

 

I also worked 3 doors down the hall from this guy:

http://www.mostwantedhoes.com/sex/dibee-j.php

 

He worked on the team with me for years (he was there I think from day one, or maybe hired just after me), I even shot him in a paint ball game that we had as a team morale event (that's more than the FBI has been able to do by the way).  So it's funny, you go to lunch with the same group of guys every day for years on end, and then one day the guy doesn't come in to work.  After a couple of weeks his office is locked off and it's a big secret what happened to him -- then I hear about him on the news.  Turns out he got mixed up with some people in Oregon who were burning down animal research laboratories -- just, you know, radical animal rights activists.  They always made sure that nobody was in the building -- nobody was ever hurt.  Now, granted, that's vandalism and arson.  But terrorism?  Come on.  Somebody in the FBI is desperate for some political headlines.  Ten years ago I doubt it would have been "terrorism".  That word evokes images of people flying planes into buildings full of thousands of people -- not people who deliberately make sure that those buildings are vacant.  Whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not really terrorism because no one was in the building?!  Seems like the same reasoning used by the Klansmen who blew up the church in Alabama in the 1960's.  "Those little girls weren't supposed to be in the church that early."

[ERICOPOLY]

Not really terrorism because no one was in the building?!  Seems like the same reasoning used by the Klansmen who blew up the church in Alabama in the 1960's.  "Those little girls weren't supposed to be in the church that early."

 

I've seen realtors compared to Klansmen, but that's the first time I've seen the animal huggers painted!

[Myth465]

Did I ever own MSFT stock?  I got stock options starting when I was hired in 1997... at age 26 I think I was suddenly worth about $500k on paper (largely unvested) and then all of it but about $80k blew up.  I know I won't get any sympathy complaining about an $80k options paycheck in 2001... but I had psychologically locked in that $500k so the anchoring made it very tough.  Better to have loved and lost?  Hmm...  Serves me right though, because I argued with my recruiter (Lyzette was her name) that the stock was overvalued (she told me that the stock would likely appreciate 20% a year).  She retired in 1998 -- didn't buy her own story perhaps?

 

Damn, very interesting . I have learned to never trust HR. Sounds like she was the smart money lol. I have had $8k - $10k losses and they still sting. $420k would be extremely painful, especially if I knew it was overvalued and couldnt do much about it. Could you have hedged out the risk, or would that have been an issue.

 

It must have been interesting having that first hand account with regard to the media, and you have just pointed out another big whole with EMH and rationale markets. Thanks again, I will have too bookmark that one.

 

Why do I still use IE and Vista?  People who have ugly kids still love them all the same I suppose.  I really don't mind Vista because I use it to browse and to run my jscript files.  It works just fine as far as I'm concerned -- all the bugs that really pissed me off I complained about and had fixed while I worked there.  It sits by my bed and I pick it up first thing in the morning, check a few stocks and read some news.  It never gets rebooted so the shutdown/reboot time is inconsequential.  I also know why many features exist in their present form -- somebody else might find a particular feature really stupid and annoying but in some cases I remember the product manager telling me the justification for not changing it... sometimes it makes sense after hearing his reasoning.  There was actually a guy on the IE team who was still running Win95 on one of his computers because he liked it's speed on new hardware (and as you might guess, he was on the Win95 product team).

 

I also worked 3 doors down the hall from this guy:

http://www.mostwantedhoes.com/sex/dibee-j.php

 

He worked on the team with me for years (he was there I think from day one, or maybe hired just after me), I even shot him in a paint ball game that we had as a team morale event (that's more than the FBI has been able to do by the way).  So it's funny, you go to lunch with the same group of guys every day for years on end, and then one day the guy doesn't come in to work.  After a couple of weeks his office is locked off and it's a big secret what happened to him -- then I hear about him on the news.  Turns out he got mixed up with some people in Oregon who were burning down animal research laboratories -- just, you know, radical animal rights activists.  They always made sure that nobody was in the building -- nobody was ever hurt.  Now, granted, that's vandalism and arson.  But terrorism?  Come on.  Somebody in the FBI is desperate for some political headlines.  Ten years ago I doubt it would have been "terrorism".  That word evokes images of people flying planes into buildings full of thousands of people -- not people who deliberately make sure that those buildings are vacant.  Whatever.

 

Another LOL moment with the kids quote. Hopefully I never know whether thats true or not.

Also very interesting to see how people get when they have a hand in creating something. That sucks for Dibee, terrorism just has a different ring to it after 9/11.

[twacowfca]

Not really terrorism because no one was in the building?!  Seems like the same reasoning used by the Klansmen who blew up the church in Alabama in the 1960's.  "Those little girls weren't supposed to be in the church that early."

 

I've seen realtors compared to Klansmen, but that's the first time I've seen the animal huggers painted!

 

 

I think that at least one scientist who used animals in his research has been murdered by these harmless people.

[ERICOPOLY]

Not really terrorism because no one was in the building?!  Seems like the same reasoning used by the Klansmen who blew up the church in Alabama in the 1960's.  "Those little girls weren't supposed to be in the church that early."

 

I've seen realtors compared to Klansmen, but that's the first time I've seen the animal huggers painted!

 

 

I think that at least one scientist who used animals in his research has been murdered by these harmless people.

 

All arson is terrorism then, because there is a risk of killing someone.  An arsonist of any stripe is a domestic terrorist, and a group of them is a "terror cell".  I can tell you that when I hear on the news today that there are "terror cells" in the United States, I feel like (after the Joe Dibee incident) they are talking about a broad stripe of criminals including people who have absolutely no motivation to kill people.  Accidents happen... a kid driving a car drunk at 100 MPH can kill two little girls just like some drunk driving Klansmen once did.  So does that make him a drunk driver that should go to prison for involuntary manslaughter, or does it make him a "domestic terrorist".

 

I'm drawing a distinction between "accidental" and "deliberate".  It's semantics, I think arson is a crime and he should go to prison for it.  My gripe is that I think this is political.

[twacowfca]

Not really terrorism because no one was in the building?!  Seems like the same reasoning used by the Klansmen who blew up the church in Alabama in the 1960's.  "Those little girls weren't supposed to be in the church that early."

 

I've seen realtors compared to Klansmen, but that's the first time I've seen the animal huggers painted!

 

 

I think that at least one scientist who used animals in his research has been murdered by these harmless people.

 

All arson is terrorism then, because there is a risk of killing someone.  An arsonist of any stripe is a domestic terrorist, and a group of them is a "terror cell".  I can tell you that when I hear on the news today that there are "terror cells" in the United States, I feel like (after the Joe Dibee incident) they are talking about a broad stripe of criminals including people who have absolutely no motivation to kill people.  Accidents happen... a kid driving a car drunk at 100 MPH can kill two little girls just like some drunk driving Klansmen once did.  So does that make him a drunk driver that should go to prison for involuntary manslaughter, or does it make him a "domestic terrorist".

 

I'm drawing a distinction between "accidental" and "deliberate".  It's semantics, I think arson is a crime and he should go to prison for it.  My gripe is that I think this is political.

 

I have nothing more to add.