mholmes680

(disclosure: long amzn)

Walmart made a smart play with Jet.com, but I think they'll only ever do retail. They won't do AI which Amazon uses to drive more sales of Prime, etc... I also think they don't need to compete with them necessarily. Its good to have both Walmart and Amazon.

I think the closest competitor to AMZN is BABA. Souq purchase was huge to fend off that competition.

I'm long Amazon because they're the best company i see at figuring out a problem and solving to it for the long term with innovative, scalable, solutions.

Toshiba/Westinghouse is a writedown as well

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2017/02/14/toshiba-cha...

how twitter/periscope hasn't figured this out already is beyond me.

I was toying around with a similar idea, but figured a local newspaper should provide local services -- hyper data-gathering at the local level. Like I'd love to see a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of where my [specific] property taxes are going, so I can be more informed when voting locally. Make it a special feature, and charge $5 per sub. Gets their $72k to $84k (say half your subs can't refuse @ $5) easy. (assuming i can trade one of those journalists for a data scientist)

I also think "local ads" needs a whole new approach, for a variety of reasons. You have local business associations shooting themselves in the foot every time a fellow business is not somehow advertised in any other member store.

Also, syndicate [free-ish] articles from bloggers who can help your community better itself. Also, extend into the schools - get a HS writer to report the sports there to pick up more subs.

OK, I'm not covering all the expenses yet, but that's just a few ideas...

I don't know about that. As a fellow NJer, I agree on your assessment of Montclair, but this story is about a couple who got in touch with the community and wants to share knowledge in that community to help it grow. I don't see how that doesn't apply elsewhere, or how they're wrong in approach. Actually, I even believe the part about not in it for the money.

I think Scott Adams, of all people, would argue that the context under which something is done twice is more important to its outcome.

Pre-suade someone one way, then tell them A, and you will get B. Pre-suade them another way, tell them A, and you will get C.

i know what you're getting at, but they started to address this. Send some stuff to Goodwill with your box in the meantime [0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/xde6cauvpfp66o2

I would suspect first, in the winter, mold/mildew -- including the foods list in link here. https://www.achooallergy.com/learning/mold-allergies-in-wint... . Tho, i'm sure you tested for that as well... hope you find the trigger.

I have also found that most typical minor "cold" symptoms for me stop immediately by taking Claritin D. I suspect its drying out things in the sinuses, and reducing some inflammation.

same here. apropos xkcd:

https://xkcd.com/1279/

My most entertaining email yet was a group thread that kept track of a young missionary's progress as he traveled through South America. He's home now, so I don't get weekly updates anymore :( I almost miss it.

I was only being half-flippant - maybe there's a better way to leverage this situation. Alas, tho, I don't have one.

Isn't this just nature trying her best to redistribute the radiation threat? Or does radiation not work that way?

Ok i'll bite...

Setting some context: I have two kids, 2 and 1. And a mortgage thats too big and a job situation much like yours (do we work for the same company?? :))

Use this time right now to figure out what YOU want. That includes a general life path which prioritizes work or family - or for the rare person, both. And also what you want immediately-take risks now if that so interests you. Figure out what works and what doesn't in office politics. Expand your network. Expand it with quality connections. Then expand it some more, as if you were a politician. Learn.

The ability for you to remain at one job more than 3 years will be rare, and thats ok. Assume you won't have serious FU money, and so you need some backup plans for things you can't control.

If you do none of the above, at least don't just sit around waiting to get laid off. Its not good for the company, you, or your future.

Fair enough, I think I mean distribution of wealth. Capitalism is VERY good at moving money up. But, lately, in America, there's been not enough ways to get money going back down.

>>cooking and gardening

two examples of many, admittedly probably too personal. Others: technology obsolescence, and the move toward not actually OWNing anything so nothing to learn to repair.

>>If you even half-believe the 'technological unemployment' worry, the scary part is that the non-automatable jobs that involved providing goods and services to those displaced by technology will also suffer.

Yes... My context is now that as a parent, I'm seeing windows closing for the kids' future that I had. I mean programming (maybe; I hope) and robot repair will be very lucrative. So will professions like plumbing and electricians.

I think its more dissatisfaction with life in general, with unemployment maybe being one of many triggers.

You're probably right about addressing at the demand level. But, I see the problem being more societal - think no one really understands everything. You take away self-reliance of people (whether they realize it or not) at many levels... its cheaper to get some good-enough quality food at 13 places near my home, so why should I learn to cook. I can get any vegetable I want at the store, so I probably don't need to learn how to tend a garden. In both instances as examples I'm losing a little control of my life. And then....

TV gives me entertainment, and the internet even more so, so maybe i'll just sit back and let it entertain me. So maybe I don't need to read anymore. Its easier to have short non-contextual entertainment bits, which rewire my brain further to think differently [wrongly?]... [0]

And, now capitalism has made all margins of businesses so slim that there's no real way to enter a business and still have a safety net in case you fail. You either need to disrupt an industry, create a marketplace, find a niche, or fail hard.

I think we're just starting to see the uglier stuff here. Short of some great awakening I also don't see the correct prescription. Pun intended.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

I has similar experiences with Ashley and Bobs. The Farmhouse Store is decent. They ship their orders out to Amish country (or so they say), which is also a good resource. But its solid wood and some hint of craftsmanship. (I've heard Restoration Hardware also, but can't confirm directly.)

I've been through a house fire and needed to replace furniture in most rooms over the past year or so. What I've learned is to pick and choose for quality. Family dining table to last until we move out of the house, where we're going to congregate daily for laughs, tears, homework, meals, holidays? High-quality for this family. Bookcase? Kids furniture? Cheaper the better (Sauder, Ikea) and anchor them to the wall - they're going to get beat up and are potential safety issues.

(edit) Oh, Estate Sales might be the only way to get out of that scale that Danny Bee is speaking of. Get some old furniture, and tweak it to your style (assuming thats enjoyable work to you). Just dont assume if it was made in 1960 there won't be some laminated wood veneer.

I'd rather you looked at it this way: If Icahn has an incentive, then the company has a management problem. You might not like the outcomes of his investments, but hes top-notch at recognizing shortcomings in existing management and their own businesses.

For me, despite ever maybe owning 0.0000000000001% of a company, the power of mutual ownership means all perspectives are taken into account. And that generally means more accurate valuations, and therefore safer investments.

is that true? I'd like to see one of your awesome infograms to prove/disprove.

FWIW, I set up IFTTT to export to a Google Sheet daily. Not sure if it will give you the level of detail unless the API is already providing it though.

>>students who are gifted have specific learning needs that require:

>> tailored learning strategies

>> education supported by a challenging curriculum

>> teachers trained in gifted education

>> more exposure to students of similar ability

>> opportunities for acceleration

I find this interesting, coming from the "gifted" track in HS and being married to a special education teacher at a public school. The same list applies to both groups, and i don't see why it wouldn't apply just to all students.

How could any of these be more important for some students and not others? They can't be. Its just that public schools don't have the ability to deal with a class of students 25 large and deal with 25 different ways of teaching. Technology and public school funding hasn't caught up here... huge gap. So, we've dreamed up schools where we group kids to deal with the shortcoming. We're not helping students here, we're helping ourselves ignore real solutions.

alas, i have one at my driveway in NJ and cross my fingers everyday.

and pour gallons of pesticide on it...

"Their estimates did not include potential costs and investments required to deploy the technology."

well, of course not... because then there would be no dramatic teaser headline. Accenture money grab here - presumably they've positioned themselves accordingly already?

On top of that, I thought I understood this news, then got a prompt from yahoo logon that I may have been compromised. So, I mean, I still don't understand the implications and I consider myself considerably more tuned in than my mother.

quite honestly, I'm about to start changing her password monthly for Yahoo... because I can't think of any reason to trust them.

Agreed. Anecdotally, my mother called me last night asking what she needed to do about Yahoo's new breach. I said, no no, dont worry we already changed your password. She said nope, NEW news!

My mother (and her news) heard this loud and clear. Thats a problem, and VZ has every right to renegotiate -- this has passed the point of "we're yahoo so we're big and an unlucky target". This is, in my mother's words, "what the hell is wrong with those people, I'm done, how do i get everything to go to gmail".

No, this is Ruth Porat saying, "silly engineers, we need businesses that MAKE money, lets get smart."

...Alphabet's stock price is going to go higher, but the trade-off here is talent walking away. Given the HN post the other day about the CFO, I'm sure there's much more to come - google's not going to be a company where the dreamers go for much longer. Lets see how it goes...

Thought the same thing immediately -- but then again, why not just have a thing that flashes a few LED lines with text; no need for bendy tech.

My second reaction -- if i'm reading it right -- the solution was to remove inflexible glass, and replace it with flexible plastic?! What took so long? (i'm sure there's some cool technical challenges here, but this was one of those articles where i was expecting really cool solution, but instead got... "duh, plastic")

heartbreaking when you see elementary schools in blue on the map.

recipe? I've never tried Indian at home, mainly because its intimidating and seems time consuming to learn what each of the cooking words means (for this very limited american palate at least). I dont necessarily have time to remember when atta or maida should be used (or what they are again), and what my convenient american-kitchen equivalent of a tava or tandoor could be...

Now... "put some yogurt, milk, water, AP flour and X,Y,Z in a cast-iron pan and fry it"? Yes that I can handle...and will probably come back to.

I guess I've never found the right "bridge" to Indian cooking... any links would be helpful.

point taken, but two observations:

1) its ridiculous to also "fix" the zestimate history. Put the old one in the history, and explain near the chart what rejiggered.

2) The market in my immediate area, as evidence by the comps from zillow and the sales prices in the newspaper, has only increased. The conservative comps are near the old zestimate - this is a suburban area. The wild ones are higher than my private estimate.