I’ve bought eyeglasses online before. This time I ordered from 39DollarGlasses. All told, I paid just over 60 dollars for a pair of UV and anti-reflection coated lenses.
As you can see, it comes with a high-quality case and some accessories. Overall, I am pleased with my purchase and would buy from them again.
David Weidner’s commentary on Berkshire Hathaway’s investment into BOA is misleading. This is a great investment by Berkshire since they are getting a 6% annual return and receive options which are already in-the-money. Furthermore, Berkshire protected their investment by getting preferred stock.
The only thing surprising about this rush to slaughter is that Buffett has played this game before. His investments in bailout babies General Electric Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have played out terribly for mini-Buffetts who love to follow the oracle.
This is misleading, since the people who bought into GE and Goldman Sachs bought common shares. Obviously, the common shares did not do as well, since the companies were forced to cut dividends to their common shareholders.
The upside for the shareholders is that GE and Goldman Sachs still exist today. Berkshire isn’t an ordinary investor. In each of these deals, Berkshire stepped in to provide “last resort” financing to stabilize the enterprises. Other firms have paid back Berkshire’s loans, so it is entirely possible that this bank will do the same.
It would be folly to follow Berkshire into Bank of America since you are not getting the same deal terms as Berkshire. On this point, David Weidner is right. If you want to be a “mini-Buffett”, it’s better to buy Berkshire than to follow Berkshire.
(Disclosure: I own Berkshire B shares.)
I had no idea that the Boston Bruins marketing department stole the premise of the bear commercials from Panda-brand Cheese.
I purchased a MiniTrangia cookset before I went for an overnight camping trip with Tracey. The cookset comes with a pot, a lid (which doubles as a non-stick saucepan), a pot gripper, windscreen, flame adjuster cap, stovecap, and stove.
I accidentally put the tongs into the set sideways which resulted in a small scratch in the non-stick surface, so be careful that you don’t do that. Other than that the set is wonderful for light backpacking. Since it is alcohol based, it is much easier cleanup. The stove is quick, but not as quick as some propane or butane stoves. It weighs next to nothing.
In the photograph above, you can see that I am using the MiniTrangia stove with my old school camping mess tin. I found a rock to rest the saucepan handle against. You can’t tell from the picture, but it was rainy and windy, but the stove served its purpose.
The MiniTrangia isn’t great for more than one person though. For that, I’d recommend an upgrade to a larger model or different stove. This is a great buy for 37 dollars. It saves you from hacking together a stove made out of discarded tuna fish and tomato cans.
I never thought I’d see the day. The Bruins have won the cup!
It must have been something in the water. Thanks to Nathan Horton for bringing the water to Vancouver.
The 5 Hour Energy bottle looks eerily similar to the Start Your Engines bottle to me. Just make sure you put the right one in your engine.
I go to the gym because I want to get a cardiovascular workout and to lift weights and build strength. My bicycle has totally spoiled me, and I cannot bike for long distances at the gym sitting on a padded couch. I never seem to push myself hard enough when I am on an elliptical machine. Unfortunately, my current gym does not have the highly-effective Jacob’s Ladder.
I am not a serious runner, and I don’t know anything about mechanics, pronation or podiatry. I have some moderate experience with knee pain though, which is why I was forced to explore my options when it came to running.
When I went to get a real pair of running shoes, I went into a shoe store that had a good reputation for assisting runners. They asked me to lift my pant cuffs, and by looking at me, they pronounced me a “neutral” footed runner and promptly fitted me with a $100 Asics. Needless to say, it didn’t work out. I tried running for a bit, and I started getting knee pain. I attribute my knee pain to running and doing squats and other bent-knee exercises.
About two years ago, someone recommended to me that I should think about switching my running method, and to go for a fore-foot or mid-food strike, instead of landing on my heels. This was right at the beginning of the barefoot running craze, and I had seen my first Vibram five fingers in the wild. I tried it, and sure enough, my knee pain subsided and I could run a mile without feeling a pinching sensation in my knee.
Not that I care too much what I look like, but I was attracted to the Saucony Kinvaras, which are minimalist runners without the skeletoes look. After running a few miles in them, I will never go back to a normal running shoe. The shoes flex and feel very natural on my feet. I do not feel like I am running with concrete blocks stuck to my ankles. I can’t speak to the durability of these lightweight shoes, but they seem to be made well.
I noticed that they just released the next generation of these shoes, the Saucony Kinvara 2.
I was given a MacBook at work, and I decided to install Eclipse and the Android SDK to do some investigation around Android Mobile development.
I noticed that I had a 45 second delay in getting a Hello World function to compile and output to standard out. Loading up the Android Emulator tested my patience. I used to have a coworker who was incredibly impatient, and anytime there was a delay in getting a report or data, she would always yell “I can feel myself aging. I’m getting gray hairs just standing here…” or some variant of those phrases. This is exactly how I felt.
It turns out that although Java and Eclipse have a terrible reputation for speed, the actual culprit was the McAfee anti-malware software installed on the MacBook. Specifically, “McAfee on-access scan protects your Mac from threats in real-time.” There is a setting for “Maximum Scan Time” that you can set, the default for me was at 45 seconds. You can reduce that amount to 1 second, but I actually just disabled the virus scanner altogether to save time and prevent gray hairs.
In the past few months, I have looked at the mobile application space. One particular topic has piqued my interest. Before my research, I held the opinion that the market was a free-for-all, and that small and individual publishers had equal footing with large developers.
This is not completely true. With hundreds of thousands of apps, and with each category reaching saturation, it is necessary to differentiate yourself to get noticed. Sure, adding the appropriate description to your app and putting it in the right category will help, but what about offline marketing? How do you work with similar apps? How do you price your application? Large development houses and content providers have an upper hand when it comes to marketing applications, with their experience and scale.
The mobile app space adopted a familiar organizational structure or pattern. There are a number of app development houses that are branching into publishing services. For example, Bottle Rocket’s Thruster is essentially a publishing agency for mobile gaming apps. Everyone knows that Rovio and Angry Birds wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without teaming with Chillingo.
The business model is crystal clear. You partner with the publisher, they take a cut of the proceeds, and in return they provide marketing and development support. In a market filled with individual developers and authors, this seems to be a natural organization with an attractive value proposition for all participants. The new market resembles the old market.