Jurgis

Yes, if I highlight a sentence and click "quote", the text box should only have the highlighted sentence featured as the quote. Another one is auto-scaling of images (prevents posting an image and having it blow up the viewing screen). I hope Sanjeev is not spending money to implement a forum engine from scratch. If he is, then it's IMO a waste of time and money. And the upkeep/fixes/maintenance is likely to be money pit too. OTOH, if CoBF is going to use off-the-shelf engine, then the engine-specific features in the wish list are pretty much DOA.

Let's take more hypotheticals: Apple at iPod release: good manager handles iPod sales and ecosystem fine, never creates and releases iPhone. great manager does. 10x? Amazon from beginning: good manager handles book sales and expands into selling everything online. great manager also adds third-party sales and AWS. 10x? Microsoft at beginning: good manager works fine with MS DOS ecosystem. great manager also expands into MS Office, etc. 10x? FB at beginning: good manager handles FB growth just fine; great manager also buys Instagram, WhatsApp. 10x? OTOH, back to EXPE/BKNG/TRIP: good manager manages growth with tailwinds just fine, great manager - ??? not much more ??? - maybe not even 2x?

Would not buy company B. If you want a number, let's say 10x. In reality though, this is a very difficult question. Is the comparison of Apple vs Nokia? Microsoft vs IBM? Tesla vs GM? Or is it more like BKNG vs EXPE vs TRIP? And what if Dara Khosrowshahi leaves for Uber? What about Uber vs Lyft after Dara Khosrowshahi came to Uber? Is he great manager enough to have Uber kill it? How about JPM vs BAC vs WFC? Is Jamie worth a lot? 10x? (No, he's not). Edit: is the "great" manager Steve Jobs v1? Or Steve Jobs v2? Cause that matters too.

Yeah, there's a french-language forum that I frequent that has the ability to upvote things. It doesn't do much, doesn't feed into a huge algorithm and things aren't sorted by votes, but it's a nice positive feedback and encourages good behavior and adding value. SiliconInvestor allows upvoting. I think it's OK though there's still a possibility of cliquish behavior. Might not be a big issue with politics gone. Although I think there will be some abuse in battleground stocks.

It's interesting. People talk Africa and unknown markets for 30%+ returns. But then you look at Fairfax India and Fairfax Africa and they've done really crappily. And small/micro cap value international investors with small capital pools that I follow have not done greatly either.

Maybe a large holder is selling off their entire position :D ;D Very underappreciated comment. :P

What kind of teas are you interested in? Black? Black flavored? Green? Green flavored? White/flavored? Herbal? I definitely can post what I buy/where in the categories you're interested in. With usual caveats that tastes vary, I'm not a tea gourmet, etc. 8) Wife likes pretty much anything. I’m generally a green tea guy. You're killing me. 8) Black tea, not flavored: I bought this, and I like it: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003H7KV8Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Black tea flavored: https://smile.amazon.com/Tea-Czar-Nikolas-Premium-Black/dp/B00N4Z5TI6/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=nicholas+tea&qid=1594306300&sr=8-3 ( I only tried the black package. There are packages with other colors with different flavoring, which I have not tried ) Earl Grey: I buy this, but it's OK, not supergreat: https://smile.amazon.com/Akbar-Tea-Earl-Gray-Metal/dp/B003LRWCR8/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3F3VACKMCTPEJ&dchild=1&keywords=akbar+earl+grey+tea&qid=1594306396&sprefix=akbar+earl+g%2Caps%2C159&sr=8-5 ( note that there were reports that 3rd parties send smaller boxes for the price. I buy this in the store, but it is available on Amazon ). I might be interested in any great Earl Grey's that people like. Green tea not flavored: I don't have a favorite that's accessible online. I buy a bunch of green teas in Lithuania ( Lithuania is the tea capital of the world. :P ). Including some flavored green teas. These are not available online. Jasmine green tea: this is bags, but I thought it was great: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B003MQTVHC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 White tea flavored: I liked Youthberry from Teavana ( https://www.amazon.com/Teavana-Youthberry-Loose-Leaf-White-Tea/dp/B007G92C6I#:~:text=Teavana%20Youthberry%20Loose-Leaf%20White%20Tea%2C%202oz.%201%20The,in%20recommended%20tea%20amount%20per%208%20ounces.%20 ). I might buy it again, since I ran out. But OMFG the price.... they are kidding, no? :'( Herbal teas: I have recently discovered that I don't like the over-hibiscussed herbal teas, which is most of them. :'( So I don't have favorite herbal teas right now. What are the teas you like either from David's or from other places?

My thesis was mostly 3D sensors for phones. But, yeah, they've been acquiring a lot of stuff. And I'm not sure Osram is great business. I'm afraid, I'd have to go through all their (moving) parts to figure out if this company is going anywhere or just nowhere. I guess that's (part of?) the reason for low valuation. People don't like the scattershot conglomerate.

What kind of teas are you interested in? Black? Black flavored? Green? Green flavored? White/flavored? Herbal? I definitely can post what I buy/where in the categories you're interested in. With usual caveats that tastes vary, I'm not a tea gourmet, etc. 8)

There might be people who did 20% or even 30% per year in the last 5-10 years. I am sure that I would never make myself hold their portfolios. ::) I am not Mozart. But then if/when I look at the documented returns of pretty-famous or at least quotable people who started and run (hedge)funds, none of them have made 20%+ annual in last 5 or 10 years. In fact, most of them struggle against SP500.

I’m sure we could find cheaper teas, but the wife and I like them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ If I liked their teas a lot, I'd possibly pay the prices. But the ones I bought I did not like and the prices are too high to keep experimenting. I have a bunch of looseleaf teas from various places that I like way better than the ones we got from David's. And most of them are at quite cheaper prices. But definitely, if you like them, keep buying. 8)

I bought some AMSSY, but likely I won't hold long and I am not sure it's a great idea. The sexy part is their 3D sensors for iPhone and other phones. That's the cause of the high stock price in 2018. The concerns are: - Apple treating their suppliers like crap - Competition? - Covid/downturn/etc. - Capital allocation: they acquire a lot of companies and I don't really know if their capital allocation is good. They might be diworsifying across the bow. - Overall semi companies are in tough field and not necessarily great long-term holds. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ams_AG But hey, maybe this is a value idea. 8) Disclaimer: I may sell the position at any time.

I disagree. dissenting opinions on the true quality of management, on the decision to not sell assets immediately and grow the company, and on the right value of the stock, and on the sustainability of extremely tight cap rates in industrial have been voiced throughout that thread. And that is somewhat crux of the matter: people see the same discussion differently. And what is a great discussion for some, is not great discussion for others. And things considered to be covered by some are either not sufficiently covered by others or dismissed or attacked too much or whatever. This becomes a big deal in the battleground stocks, but it also sometimes becomes an issue in "quiet" stock discussions too. Anyway. I don't have a solution for this. ::)

I'll post mostly mea culpa. 8) I am (mostly) not interested in deep value ideas, so I don't contribute in deep value idea threads. Though I appreciate the work that people put in. You know who you are. 8) In terms of GARPy ideas, usually they are known and I don't necessarily have much to contribute that hasn't been said. I also don't see a value to try to persuade other people that my idea is good or their take is wrong or whatever. IMO usually not much benefit comes out of battleground fights. Some examples: FB was cheap last year. I bought a bunch. I probably wrote something on FB thread, but clearly this was known. I bought EXPE and DFS in March. I still don't know if these were good purchases. Both are 50%+ up from the bottom, but I have some shares that are still in red too (I started buying EXPE way before March). I think both of these are known too. Actually DFS is "value idea" even. Not much to say though. I bought a ton of AAPL before Buffett. I sold some recently and I may think that it's overvalued. Again, this is known and I'm not very interested in arguing for or against selling. On the other hand, I have offered to discuss the GARPy stocks to a-bunch-of-people-you-know-who-you-all-are on the outside channel. Crickets. That's fine with me. I might post about another probably-not-great idea that I bought recently. Just to see whether that causes any interesting discussion. Peace. 8)

Sorry to hear. OTOH - sorry merkhet - I think their teas are overpriced. Funny story. We went to Boston the last weekend before lockdown in March. And we went to David's Tea shop and bought two cans of tea and a collection of their teabags. I did not like either of their looseleaf teas that we bought. My wife kinda liked the teabags, but thought they were just OK, nothing special. I looked at the teas they sell online and the prices are IMO too high for me.

No shit! 8)

Low sodium is very likely good.

Pre-civilized humanity was pretty interesting in terms of life expectancy. It was essentially a tri-modal distribution: lots of deaths around birth/infancy, around 25-30 (usually dying of tooth infections), and the remainder actually living into their late years (50s, 60s, 70s). Sources? 8) I'm not gonna dig it up for you, but I know that Sweeden has kept good mortality tables going back a long time. I was really surprised when I first found out. Big surprise, life expectancy isn't really increasing by much and it isn't increasing more than before. I did dig a bit, see my edit. And it's not as good as the "ancient humans lived to old age just fine" crowd presents. Sweden mortality tables clearly do not cover pre-agricultural society either. Edit: I have to acknowledge that I'm not an expert in this and 5 minutes of Google may be uncovering as much mis-information as information. Unfortunately, I am not sure anyone else on this thread is an expert either. So knowing what's true and what's debunked by scientific community would take much longer. I think I'm gonna cede the podium and not try to reach a definite conclusion. Have fun. Edit2: Actually, screw it. I pretty much believe these folks: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy And they show it's not just child mortality that affects life expectancy. They don't cover the pre-agri societies though and they only have long data from England (and the data you mentioned from Sweden in another graph). So FWIW. 8)

Pre-civilized humanity was pretty interesting in terms of life expectancy. It was essentially a tri-modal distribution: lots of deaths around birth/infancy, around 25-30 (usually dying of tooth infections), and the remainder actually living into their late years (50s, 60s, 70s). Sources? 8) Edit: I just Googled for 5 minutes and the picture is not really what you present. Even from the people who acknowledge huge number of infant deaths dragging down the averages: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-evolution-human-origins/life-expectancy-myth-and-why-many-ancient-humans-lived-long-077889 http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specific-mortality-lifespan-bad-science-2009.html https://jasoncollins.blog/2013/10/21/life-expectancy-and-the-dawn-of-agriculture/ http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/seminarpapers/dg09102006.pdf Edit2: This is IMO pretty definitive: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy but does not cover pre-middle-ages. So FWIW.

This line of thinking forgets that pre-agricultural people did not live to 70 or 80 years old. So you don't really know whether pre-agri diet was good or not. You don't know which parts of the omnivorous diet were good ones and which ones were not. You know that pre-agri people mostly did not die from food problems, but that actually hurts your reasoning and does not help it. Throwing genes into the discussion muddies the waters even more. I'm pretty sure nobody in this thread actually knows how genes interact with diet and again which components of the diet (and genes) are geared to make humans survive to 20-40 years in food-deficient society vs. which parts are good for living to 90-100+ in food-excess society. BTW, I am not sure where you are going with this too. I'm pretty sure pre-agri people did not eat Keto diet. So are you now arguing that some kind of balanced omnivore (paleo?) diet (whatever that is) - is the best? I am (not very strict) vegetarian. I acknowledge that it's possibly not the best diet. In fact, as vegetarian you are limited, which makes it harder to avoid "bad foods". But then I am vegetarian based on ethical reasons - not killing animals without necessity - and not because of health reasons. (If anyone is going to pursue this line of discussion, please open a new thread in politics, TYVM). I think this line of non-thinking is not productive. The actual studies are way more nuanced than you try to portray them. I am not sure how many have you read and if you have expertise in the topic. (I don't.) Sorry, but you sound like a Robinhood investor who would say: "I don't know what to think about investing studies anymore. For years we were told that low P/Book is good. It did not even distinguish between p/book of banks and software companies. Dividends were bad, dividends were good, share repurchases were good, share repurchases were bad. This investing science is all crap". (Last sentence added for emphasis ;)).

Damn you leftist, granola eating, hippie!!! :) (Please forgive me Eric in the name of a little humor) Asking vegetarian about meat prices is a missed steak.

Everything I know about ethics, I learned from computer games . Here's the hypothetical situation that was presented in the beginning of Baldur's Gate II: A sorcerer kidnaps you and your brother and places you both into cells. You cannot communicate. There's a button in each cell. If you press the button, you die, but your brother goes free. If your brother presses the button, he dies, but you go free. If no one presses the button, you both die. If both of you press the button, also both die. What would you do? Spoilers: assuming you and your brother are both homo economicus and both know game theory, what would you do? Spoiler interlude: can you do better than the obvious answer? Spoilers 2: It's interesting how ethics ties into information theory and game theory. At least for homo economicus. ;)

Parler CEO would be a bad CEO if he did not try to get people to join his platform. Fragmentation is/was real before and it is going to be real in the future. Hey, look at investing universe. There's CoBF, SI, bogleheads, Motley Fool, and a bunch of more investing forums, not even counting Fidelity and other broker internal forums. If that's not fragmentation, then I don't know what is. The real question for mainstream social media universe is whether there will be significant (10%+) shifts to/from new/old/different platforms. I am not sure. I think this is very hard to predict. Let's put it this way: the shift is hard in the beginning since your "friends" are on the old platform and your audience is on the old platform. If significant portion of either/both shifts, then it becomes easier. Overall though, I am not sure if people would prefer shifting to niche platforms. But if the niche platform somehow is very attractive, then people will shift. I think that the demographical shifts are way more dangerous than the niche platforms. I.e. if young people abandon Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/WhatsApp, that is a way bigger audience loss than if some 0.01% of population consisting of righties/lefties/whatevers move somewhere. I also mostly agree with fareastwarriors that "anything goes" platform is not going to work. It's going so self destruct really fast or become superniche. Hey, 4chan still exists. 8) But sure there's always a risk that something appears that gets huge traction and huge move.

$4.99 sale on Amazon today: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07SBX56MC/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_KKq-EbD1BSE2Z

Not sure if you want raw data or something that track hospitalizations in all states in single graph. I look at https://public.tableau.com/profile/peter.james.walker#!/vizhome/COVID-19SeeYourState/YourStateKeys which has hospitalizations, but you have to select particular state. Maybe there's a way to get underlying data or different graph(s), I'm not sure. There's also this: https://covidtracking.com/data/state/massachusetts#historical It is also per state and numbers only, so you'd have to scrape/graph yourself.