Jurgis

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/26/science/chess-artificial-intelligence.html - A bit glowy but makes some good observations about AlphaZero vs. older rule based chess programs.

For fun: http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/2016-results-thread/ - 2017 CoBF results (ignore the title, these are 2017 results) http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/your-returns-in-2016/ - 2016 CoBF results

Article from 2011. 8)

Why wouldn't they just sell the stock after it's released? Especially if they have another year of locked stock coming and "The company in question doesn’t have a good track record of building value. Sideways stock." Personally, having worked for a similar "company in question doesn’t have a good track record of building value. Sideways stock." with ESPP, I've always dumped the stock asap (in my case there was zero lockup). Yeah, you pay taxes, etc, but it's a guaranteed X% return (where X% is the discount). Holding would not have accomplished anything. If you are talking about holding and/or options after lockup, then this really becomes an investment discussion about the company you are talking about... And likely based on your description the answer is really "sell".

Not sure about Canadian companies in general and your specific company in particular, but employees may not be allowed to buy puts (and sell calls?) legally. Whether anyone would check/catch them is another question though. OT: I think in US employees are (theoretically? legally?) not allowed to invest into competitors either. Which would remove a huge chunk of investable space for some tech company employees...

https://smile.amazon.com/Tribe-Mentors-Short-Advice-World-ebook/dp/B071KJ7PTB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1546374427&sr=8-1&keywords=tribe+of+mentors - on sale @Amazon today at $3.99. I read the Amazon free sample and decided it's not a book for me, so I did not buy. 8)

I knew it.

https://qz.com/work/1481224/the-most-screwed-up-employee-perk-in-america-and-the-man-who-just-might-fix-it/ - Longish article about Gawande and BRK/JPM/AMZN healthcare effort (no details). Lots of links to other articles.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612644/we-tried-teaching-an-ai-to-write-christmas-movie-plots-hilarity-ensued-eventually/

CTL bonds might be attractive again with ~8% yields to maturity.

Barron's had an article this week that closed end funds got superwhacked by recent market drop. So perhaps an area for people to look at. Just FYI.

I am holding what I have had for X years now, but I'm not buying. BRK seems more attractive and so do some other stocks (including the ones that BRK may be buying).

Buy BRK or buy banks/AAPL that BRK is holding/buying... Eh decisions, decisions. 8) Edit: just for fun, potentially interesting potentially buy list: AMCX, AAPL, BAC, BRK, DIS, EXPE, FB, FDX, GOOGL, IPGP, JPM, CVS, WBA, MSGN, NVDA, OTCM.

;D

Happy Holidays to everyone! 8)

It's about Love. Do I need to say more?

Then perhaps we should tell your client to let you take the first bite, then wait 30 minutes to see what happens. There's also something about switching plates or pretending to switch plates. It gets complicated.

Also a bit early perhaps? The situation is interesting: there's a number of large (mega) cap good and great companies that are not very expensive. Some even cheap(ish). But also a lot of moaty companies still very highly valued. (That's just from the universe I track... no idea about the companies I don't track.) So on one hand, it would seem we should not get another 20+% drop but on another hand it would seem we could. FWIW, I think markets will rally after the year-end dumping of "losers" ends. So in January. But then there's politics, tariffs, etc., so my prediction is possibly not worth a share of BAC.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/612645/how-much-money-would-you-want-to-quit-facebook-for-a-year-most-people-say-1000/?set= I have a great investment idea: 1. Get $1000 for quitting Facebook for a year 2. Buy FB stock 3. ... 4. Profit

Might be a bit early. 8)

writser is the special situation capo di tutti i capi. 8)

Why FB-bears hate FB: 2 year old Instagram influencers make more money than they do: https://www.fastcompany.com/90278778/the-2-year-old-instagram-influencers-who-make-more-than-you-do 8) ;D J/K. FB bears may be making more than some 2 year olds this year. :P Which cannot be said about FB bulls. :'( ::) 8)

It very much will depend on whether "regular people" will actually care or do anything. rb's narrative is as one sided as the "nerds" narrative. So far majority of "regular people" don't give a crap. And majority of young "regular people" either don't give a crap or think privacy is dead. It is possible that mainstream press article shitstorm will change the mind of "regular people", but it's not given or guaranteed. It's also possible that EU (and much more unlikely US) may go for heavy regulations even if "regular people" don't give a crap. We'll see. Disclosure: I own positions in FB, GOOGL, Tencent and a bunch of other evil nerds .

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement As a comment I'm just gonna post my favorite quote-of-the-day from FB thread:

Quite a bit of the FB data leaks to partners are from 2011-2017 timeframe. I'd say that yeah, they did not care much about it then. And it's quite possible that some of the access remained opened and unused after 2011. Some maybe even after 2017. If I had to bet, I'd bet that some set of FB engineers just got their holidays f&^%ed and are sitting in the cold cubes closing the access that was still open. would be just too funny if it was not sad. Overall I agree with what Schwab711 is saying, so I won't spend too much airtime here.