Liberty

I don't think patent trolls are starving for patents, or even caring very much about what the actual patents are, because their business model is mostly to extort money without going to court to justify the patents.

IMO One thing with patents is that with the way they are used, there's such a thing as enough. Google needed to spend big money because they didn't have enough (as a younger company without a culture of "here, fill as many of these forms as possible and then go spend a few days with the lawyers") and other companies who felt they didn't have enough for a particular sector (mobile) beefed up their portfolio. But once pretty much all the big players have reached the point of mutually assured destruction, why spend hundreds of millions for more of those possibly worthless things? That's what could cause de patent bubble to deflate, IMHO. Just an outsider's guess, though.

Welcome to the board, thanks for posting the presentation! :)

Moore, if that's what it it, then Einhorn misunderstood Buffett, because Buffett doesn't like cash anymore than he likes gold. He likes productive assets, and that was his point (and Munger's point as well about "jerks"). But is Einhorn a gold bug? I think maybe he was making a different point (you can dislike cash and gold, as Buffett does, it doesn't have to be one or the other). Or maybe he is... I don't know. Either way, painting Buffett as a fan of the US dollar or any other currency is a misrepresentation.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Liberty group just got the same price as Hebei, which was exactly 3.42.

Good point. Valuing patents at the top of a possible patent bubble is risky.

Thanks for posting. I'm looking forward to Taleb's next book.

But would they get better results as a private company? It's not my impression that the public nature of the company is what pushed them in the wrong directions.

I would expect that the morale at the company is pretty low right now. That doesn't help.

That pretty much describes how I look at things too. What I want is independence and freedom, not shiny stuff. Most of what I like to do doesn't cost much anyway.

That's really the root of it: The market seems to have zero memory. I don't know how much of this is encouraged by the financial media - they don't care, they just want to fill airtime - and how much is just fundamental human bias, but it's really impressive and sometimes kind of depressing. But as Ben Graham would say, the thing to do is to either ignore it or take advantage of it, not be guided by it.

May 25: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-25/consumer-sentiment-in-u-s-climbs-to-highest-since-2007.html May 29: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-29/consumer-confidence-in-u-s-fell-in-may-to-four-month-low.html ??? (I know it's not the same survey, but it was funny to see both headlines in a row, and it does show how hard it is to try to predict macro based on these kinds of things)

That's the one I almost bought. But my 50$ used desk does the same job since I never sit while working at that desk anymore anyway :) (when I sit, I go to the sofa and pull out the Macbook or iPad)

http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=377 Elon Musk speaking at Stanford in 2003. A lot of it about the nascent SpaceX, some about his other businesses. You can click "play all" at the bottom, since they split it in short clips.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/12/05/28/rim_to_cut_40_of_workforce_as_another_top_exec_resigns.html

I've been thinking about a standing desk. Can you say more about the experience? I got a used ikea fredrick desk for $50 and set it up to standing height. It took me about 2-3 weeks to adapt - at first my feet hurt a lot - but after that adaptation period, I feel absolutely fine. My legs gained tons of muscle, I walk around every time I need to think, and I feel better physically. Initially, I wanted to get a motorized desk that can be adjusted for both sitting and standing, but I went with the cheap ikea desk as an experiment before spending over a grand on a motorized desk. I'm glad I did, because I'm not going back to sitting, so the expensive desk would have been a waste...

i have a Humanscale Freedom chair that I paid up for and it's great, but since then I switched to a standing deak configuration, so it doesn't get as much use... I highly recommend standing desks! We haven't evolved to sit so much...

I don't pay up for much except the electronics that I use all day long. I have a Mac Mini connected to my living room TV and stereo, a Macbook laptop, a Mac Pro workstation (connected to a 27 inch, IPS LCD screen at 2560x1440), and an iPad 3. Very happy with all of them.

[amazonsearch]Devil Take The Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation[/amazonsearch] History of financial bubbles and speclation. Haven't read it yet, but I have it on hold at the library.

I'm not sure the number was exactly that, but it was high mostly because they got thurso, afaik, which was a great deal and game changer for the company. Iirc, some of that was part of a multi-year compensation plan. That's more money than I would strictly like, but if the deal turns out to be worth hundreds of millions over the long term, it's worth rewarding the key man who made it happen. I do wish everybody was like Buffett on compensation, though. He did give up all bonuses for 2011. Edit: see here http://www.stockhouse.com/Bullboards/MessageDetailThread.aspx?sv=2&p=0&m=29845189&r=0&s=FTP&t=LIST

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/meet-the-canadian-billionaire-whos-giving-it-all-away/article2444154/

Hey Bonechip, nice to see you posting again. I think you were one of the people who initially made me check out FTP, so thanks (but if it doesn't work out in the end, I'll blame you :P ;) ). That's a good point. Another thing that isn't mentioned often is that even within its price collar, FTP isn't selling DP at just the basic spot price that we often see quoted. They are selling it at the price of "comparable quality" DP. So f.ex. (hypothetical numbers), if DP spot price is 1200, but DP with an alpha of 96% (very high) sells for 1300 and that's what they have, they'll get the higher price. That's part of their contract. It's not quite as big a premium as if they got certified on the specialty market, but it can make a difference.

WRB would make for a good insurance foundation, but I don't really know how to answer that question. Obviously FFH and MKL are closer to mini BRKs than pretty much everything else..

He's a superb writer, which I think is a sign of extreme clarity of thought.

Thanks!