Larry commented on Clueless Employer Phrase "Hit The Ground Running".
I have been seeing this stupid phrase ("Hit The Ground Running") quite a lot now that I have been job hunting. It turns me off.
Fitty Stim commented on Brian Banks, Victim Of A False Rape Accusation.
Yeah, but who is he going to sue? You can be sure that Wanetta doesn't have that dojo anymore.
One can not sue the government for character defamation or emotional distress. He can't sue the government for false imprisonment since he pleaded "No contest".
The best he can hope for is to sue his "overworked public defender" for gross professional misconduct. He might not get any money but he just might get her dis-barred.
M commented on A Common IPO Fallacy.
I would say that common IPO fallacy is that it people believe that by buying shares they buy ownership in the company. Nothing can be further from the truth, as with almost any IPO the controlling package(i.e. that enables to appoint directors) never leaves hands of the owners. IPO=Scam
That's one of my arguments against investing in the stock market. You can't prevent the CEO and controlling shareholders from lining their pockets at the expense of small shareholders.
Some corporations, such as Facebook, Google, Viacom, and Comcast have incorporation rules that give insiders special supervoting shares. Even without such rules, insiders have a lot of influence, and a small shareholder has no influence.
Justin commented on The Latest Flash Is Buggy - v11.3.300.257 64bit.
Adobe has been suiciding flash as fast as possible it seems. Did you know they outsourced the AdvancedDataGrid component? Its 3000 lines of crap :)
I don't follow Flash programming. I decided that HTML5+Javascript is more worth learning. Also, I have to pay $$ for a Flash SDK.
Flash on phones is a problem. There's no "mousehover" operation on phones, which is a key to much flash content. Apple banned Flash from the iPhone, due to their "no 3rd party runtimes" rule.
After dealing with PDFs at my most recent job, I hate Adobe. They wanted to gouge for $30k plus a percentage of sales, to sell software that allowed PDF markup in a browser via Reader.
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
Suppose you don't invest in a diverse section of the share market.
Suppose you just invest in gold and silver mining companies.
Suppose you just invest in mining, oil and natural gas companies.
Suppose you just invest in hardware tech companies that have their part of the market by the balls and win regardless of Nokia, Windows, Google/Android, Blackberry battles?
That's a variation of "If you make the right bets, you can win at Roulette." The stock market is stacked against non-insiders. You may think "If I make the right picks, I can crush the indexes and beat gold." I don't believe that, but you're free to try. If you waste your money in the stock market, there's more gold available for those of us who don't believe everything they see on The Communism Channel.
For example, Apple (AAPL) did crush gold over the past 10 years. However, that would have been a lucky pick. There's no guarantee it will outperform over the next 10 years. I can't think of any corporations besides Apple that crushed gold over the last 10 years.
Even if a corporation has a near-monopoly, that money goes to insiders and not to shareholders.
Gold mining stocks are a bad idea. Many of them hedge future production, so you don't profit fully if there's inflation. As with any corporation, the CEO of the gold mining business can still rob shareholders via option and equity grants.
Gold has higher return and lower volatility than the stock market.
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
Thank you for your careful analysis.
The thing is with resource companies with stated mineral reserves and a known cost to extract and purify per ounce or per barrel of oil, there is a hard real floor below which the share price cannot fall. There are other things to consider such as mine failures and lack of transport links, but if you are reasonably careful your portfolio can't sink that much - assuming of course there isn't some big disaster - and of course these do occur.
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
I forgot to mention the share price can fall due to hedge fund manipulation and misleading press reports etc.
Well maybe you are right after all! Or partially right!
With mining companies, their expenses *DO* rise when there's inflation. They have to pay for salaries, equipment, etc.
You mentioned another risk. They own a mine in a 3rd world country, and the government nationalizes the mine or raises the export tariff.
If the mining business hedged with short futures, they can actually lose money when commodity prices rise.
You have the same "CEO robs the shareholders" problem that occurs in any large corporation.
This is common state propaganda. "Invest in gold mining stocks." That's a way to trick stupid people into investing in State paper, rather than investing in physical gold and silver.
When you own stock in a mining corporation, you think you own something tangible, but it's just another type of worthless State paper.
However, if you invest stupidly, that's more gold and silver available for those of us who aren't fools. Sadly, I own no physical metal (yet).
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
One Kitco forum poster recommended that people have their portfolios organized as below.
1) One-third cash
2) One-third gold and silver
3) One-third stocks
Presumably in a deflationary environment, gold and stocks will go down and your cash will be worth more.
In the event of a financial meltdown or other disaster, your gold will be worth less than food and tools, but worth something when the system starts to form again.
When the economy picks up, gold will be worth less but stocks will go up.
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
>When you own stock in a mining corporation, you think you own something tangible, but>it’s just another type of worthless State paper.
Your thesis is that over a large number of stocks and without inside information or without the ability to manipulate the market (high frequency trading), that the little man (or woman) cannot protect himself as well as saving in gold.
However if you invest in a mining or exploration company that has good reserves and is a take-over candidate, then you can really get good returns on your investment. Even if you come in fairly late in the game, you can make 40% returns if your company is taken over.
But I do see your point. You might win one and lose one and at best just stay even with inflation. Overall you might invest a lot of your time and still not get much back.
Anonymous Coward commented on Gold Outperformed The S&P 500, 1995-2011.
What is your take on China buying up gold and the talk about India using gold to buy oil from Iran?
What is your take on the BRICS nations talking about setting up their own bank clearing system (not sure about this)?
Some of China's leaders aren't complete tools. They know hyperinflation is coming. They're keeping their currency reserves in gold instead of inflating US dollars.
When China holds paper US dollars as reserves, they're indirectly subsidizing US military power. China's leaders aren't that stupid.
I read that China is much more liberal than the USA, when it comes to individual gold ownership. In the USA, gold dealers are heavily taxed and regulated. Allegedly, in China, you can walk into many banks and buy or sell gold, which is something you can't do in the USA.
In many 3rd world countries, individuals have been though hyperinflation, and hold gold as a hedge. Without reliable banks, physical gold is the only way to save.
Currently, the US dollar has a monopoly for oil. All oil transactions are in US dollars. Other countries want to start using their own money to buy gold. Also, if other currencies are used for oil transactions, that's a loophole around US sanctions. Gold-for-oil as a barter trade is a loophole around US export restrictions.
Anonymous Coward commented on Design Patterns Suck!.
I read the Design Patterns book over a decade ago.
My first thoughts after reading the book was that very little was of use to me.
I already knew about the Model-View-Controller pattern from having to use the Swing user interface classes in Java. The Java libraries themselves have the Observer-Observable design pattern.
The thing is that learning these design patterns is not an intellectual feat.
I suspect some people go on about design patterns to try to make themselves sound grand.
The difficult part about writing software is:
a) Getting the software to work.
b) Testing it while you write it so that is really works well and there are no bugs
c) Writing lots of software but still getting it to work
d) Writing lots more software and growing the software, but making it still work
e) Writing fast software
f) Writing software that people love to use
Solving problems is difficult. Writing large amounts of software that is bug free is a talent. Learning Design Patterns for which you will only use 2 - 3 per project is NOT AN INTELLECTUAL FEAT.
If you can't write good software, you are a clown and will you bleat on about design patterns.
Anonymous Coward commented on Design Patterns Suck!.
Actually I have the attitude that when I read a book, maybe only a part of it will be directly used by myself.
I was a bit lazy/distracted when I was at university. So a few years ago I re-read an algorithms book. Despite reading the whole book, only one section of one chapter was directly usable by me in the next 6 months.
Of course I already knew the basics and so that's why reading it again only helped me slightly.
jennygold commented on Glass House Frivolous Lawsuit.
Hi -yes, i agree with you regarding the show Glass Houses - big brother is much better. Silly lawsuit. Great blog.