Warning, this vid is not suitable for work - or some sensibilities. On the other hand, it's hilarious if you've been following the exploits of John MacAfee of late. For those not in the know, well, it isn't his fault anymore - he sold his POS antivirus company 15 years ago, and has been a travelling millionaire nutcase ever since...and this kind of proves it in a fun way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... Kgf5PaBzyg
For those who might be wondering about why this thread has changed direction so drastically, it's because I got out of the markets for awhile - vacation among other things. I've always made money despite knowing how rigged they are - but they've gone so insane it's just dumb to play - even if you're the house, which I am not. I *knew* they were going to go down, darnit, but there's a short sqeeze that's killed me too many times in a row, so I decided to just get out for awhile. There might be the short of a lifetime coming up - but I'll wait for the middle of that move, if there is one, to get back in (probably short). We'll just have to see.
Right now, leverage is at an all time high. Bad paper swaps are at way over 10x the world GDP, bankers claim they are net zero hedges, which is *almost* true if no counter-party fails and drops all the dominoes.
But, according to some recent news, since the EU hasn't directly recapitalized their banks, like we did (actually we went past that point), DB, whose only bailout is indirect through the EU giving the Greeks money to give the Germans - is at a cap ratio under 2% - over 50x leverage, no room for error at all. With JGBs and Abenomics going nutzo - there WILL be an error, and that's one hell of a counter-party that could easily go down - and do one hell of a lot of collateral (pun intended, there's a world wide shortage of un rehypothecated collateral just now) damage to everyone else.
So, we have Japan as a bug in search of a windshield. We have the largest German bank so undercapitalized they didn't list it on the recent stress tests, because as Juncker said "when times are really hard, you have to lie". Every single asset class is overbought, and by far riskier than most assume under the old models due to this overleverage, and the unregulated 700 trillion plus shadow paper market. This could go "Boom" anytime now - from tomorrow to a couple years - no one can pick the moment, as Kyle says here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... JfvLADP3HE
But for me, it's just time to be out and enjoy life a little with less stress. More fun to do things in the lab anyway, and lose this addiction to sitting in front of a computer for 16 hours a day, trading, reading news, planning trading, worrying money and so on. So, I'm taking a break - it's fun-time in Floyd anyway. Kyle's good for those of you who still want that kind of thing, however. That man is a genius. And all just by collecting available data and doing simple math to it - seems everyone else has just been too lazy to look for the obvious, or to cognitively biased to think to look.
The daily link
Forum rules
The usual. Be nice, be informative, tell it like it is.
The usual. Be nice, be informative, tell it like it is.
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Wed Jun 19, 2013 4:59 pm
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
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Re: The daily link
by solar_dave » Wed Jun 19, 2013 5:10 pm
I watched that Kyle video as well, Makes you want to put it all into cash and put your head where the sun don't shine (maybe cash isn't right either). If that thing pops the dominoes will all come a calling.
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Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Thu Jun 20, 2013 1:31 pm
Depends on where you hold your cash. Most people aren't aware that as part of recent legislation, banks will no longer be bailed out. They'll be "bailed in" by essentially taking your cash and giving you stock (new issue, diluted, of course) in the bank. With today's yields, bank of mattress might actually be a reasonable option. Further, the new legislation allows money market funds (like where my money is now that it's not in equities) can prevent "runs" by refusing to give you your cash back, or charging usurious fees to get it back in times of "stress". Some of that is detailed here: http://www.pmbug.com/forum/f4/no-banks-safe-2237/
Pretty scary stuff. That's a link to the least radical Precious metal group I'm aware of, so of course you have to take a little grain of salt on some of it, but knowing many of these guys pretty well - they're not the wing-nut type, many are stinkin rich because they're good at this game, and not dumb. A couple of them are retired prop traders from the major banks, and really know their stuff.
A possibility, predicted by many (some of which ARE crazy - but who have also done well, so not stupid) is that due to events, we should see a quick bout of deflation (well, in everything but food and energy) followed by quick inflation. If you look at gold, just now breaking major support to the downside, this might be the right scenario. The big inflation comes if the world continues to reduce use of the dollar as reserve currency - already in progress. Then it matters not if they stop printing bucks - all those foreign held bucks (already printed but till now, not causing inflation *here*) flood home and there's your fast inflation.
It doesn't take a very deep look into how important it is for the US to retain world reserve currency status to understand why we are doing what we do in the middle east.
If oil gets traded in other than dollars, we're in deep doo doo, period, and the bombers fly. Just look at recent history there - Iraq started demanding euros or gold, we bomb. Libya the same - we bomb. Syria? Iran? Something is going to happen because they are saying the same stuff every other country said just before the bombs started dropping. It's serious business. The US has taken far too much advantage of being able to print, and export the inflation, due to reserve status, and our trade partners are waking up to this. It's our exported inflation that caused Arab Spring in large part. For us, a 30% rise in the cost of grain means nada - adds a couple pennies to a $4 box of Cheerios - the input isn't a price driver there. In a poor country, where one buys a sack of flour to feed their family - it's a flat 30% increase, and it means going without food, not simply a minor annoyance in the price of breakfast like it does here (at the moment). Something to ponder.
We are for example seeing the unwind of an unhealthy and unregulated (till just now) fake copper swap (arbitrage) trade in china, causing the unwind of huge positions of heavily rehypothecated copper - and look at the price of Dr Copper for the last few...it's a big deal, and usually pretty predictive of things to come.
For those who don't know - rehypothecation is using the same collateral for more than one loan - it works till it doesn't and a bunch of people realize they loaned money out to someone on collateral that someone else already had a legal call on - this allows super-leverage - it works till it doesn't. This is actually legal in London, the real hotbed of financial corruption, exceeding even wall street!
Today, we're seeing assets that normally move opposite of one another - all fall off a cliff, holding hands. Could be a good time to buy gold, though even it has broken chart support on the downside and might still go down further - deflation. I might nickel and dime into a little more physical here. Note that the big GLD and other ETFs and gold futures are disconnecting hard from what you have to pay to get the stuff you can hold in your hand, rather than a paper promise - it's been theorized and almost proven that the big gold ETFs and some other instruments don't actually have the gold (and neither do the major PM exchanges that trade futures)...so the "in your hand" prices haven't dropped anywhere near as much as the paper price has. It's looking like the system is developing cracks in the armor - bad sign.
Not that I'm a gold bug, or have a big fraction of my assets in it - but I do have some, and a dollar-cost-averaging move here doesn't look totally stupid. I tend to wait for a bit o a bounce (fibonacci retrace) of some of the drop to buy - hoping it's not a bull-trap.
Had I done that market short just one more time (after getting squeezed out on the last couple drops at a loss) I'd be able to quit this year and live on what I've made already - spxu (a synthetic short S&P ETF) is up quite a lot over the last couple sessions (6.17% today alone) - a big bet there would have been killer - but that's woulda/coulda/shoulda, only useful in hindsight - so you learn what would work next time. I'm not sure how many know this, but while you can't in general go short in an IRA, you can go long an ETF that goes short, same idea, just that those do have a fee load.
Herds usually overshoot - I expect a bounce whether this is "The big one" or not. It could be a time to open a short, but it's very easy to get head faked, and events (the fed backing off taper talk, the world doing whatever it might do) might cause you to get hammered again if you do it now - the easy money shorting has been made, I fear - but I've been wrong before, and this might just be "it". If so, I missed the first part by sitting out, but this does not make me unhappy.
I noticed in Kyles talk this time that he waved off even discussing the "off balance sheet" shenanigans - not taking into account known future obligations for things like the social safety net in his calculations. The more aggressive bears would happily point out that those far exceed the current on book debt...Could just have been Kyle making a point that it's bad enough without that - he's that way.
Notice I'm using a lot of qualifiers here in my verbiage - if I knew, I'd be saying "do this, I am" but I don't and am not playing this game at the moment - just watching.
Part of being a good trader is knowing when to not trade...maybe the biggest part. I think there will be some real juicy setups - near sure-things, to come down the pike, and having the dry powder to obtain that "pearl of great price" will seem wise if that it a correct guess. The only reason I'm watching is the timing is not easily predictable, and to keep up my "chops" - a feel for the market is a perishable skill, and you have to keep up to date on the context if you plan to go back to trading, as I do. Could be soon....
This is the type of situation that creates huge winners who get famous for it by taking long-odds bets on fat-tail events no one else recognizes, because they're way out on the probability curve (and thus, cheap bets to make due to options pricing), and a ton of losers you don't hear about - trading news is kind of the opposite of the MSM news, where bad news is what you mostly hear. In finance, you hear about the wins more than the losses most of the time - it's largely cheer-leading sell side stuff to get mom and pop's money. But some of the huge winners turn out to have been one-trick ponies, stopped clocks that got lucky as the time rolled around and they were correct for once. It's not fun to be one of those most of the time, it's better to make an assessment, and keep updating it to reflect reality (or such as you can use that word in markets where the central banks are really the main drivers, not fundamentals at all).
The trick here for a bit might just be timing the lumps on the trend. Almost always, after a steep drop, there's a bounce as some money (many mutual funds have rules that say they have to be nearly all in, nearly all the time) considers each dip a good buying opportunity. Then that batch runs out of dough, and the decline continues.
This usually repeats a few times on the way down, if history is any guide - go back and look at the last couple big crashes in detail, they weren't straight lines down.
This gives an astute timer some bumps to get short advantageously on, for example, or perhaps get really hosed buying the dip (known as BTFD) only to get hosed in a couple more days. I learned that one the hard way in the last crash - lost some real money buying the dips on the way down as those bounces occurred. I think the BTFD mentality is still out there fairly strong due to inertia - if you'd done that since last November, you won big...maybe not this time, but that's how human nature works, it tries to ignore the possibility that what worked last time won't continue working.
If this market should for whatever reason return to fundamentals, we are looking at a HUGE drop at some point - in the 25 to 50% range, and it'll be bear heaven. It will happen, or it'll sit flat till fundamentals catch up. But I don't see a lot of signs of the fundamentals improving (actually, no signs at all). I do expect a bit of a bounce near-term as this looks like an overshoot, but you just never know - dead cats don't always bounce too well. What's telling is the troubles in China right now (their version of libor went to 25% last night for awhile - total liquidity lockup) - those could really make things move as China stops being the demand at the margin for a lot of things. They're more over leveraged than we ever were in the boom...and it's on the same dumb junk - real estate, and in their case, often not even occupied, bought with high leverage, so when things start to drop, the exit ramp gets very crowded. If you're leveraged 10x (lower than the norm for the big boys right now) - a 3% drop you'd normally hold through becomes a 30% drop to you, and it makes it very easy to create a panic.
Pretty scary stuff. That's a link to the least radical Precious metal group I'm aware of, so of course you have to take a little grain of salt on some of it, but knowing many of these guys pretty well - they're not the wing-nut type, many are stinkin rich because they're good at this game, and not dumb. A couple of them are retired prop traders from the major banks, and really know their stuff.
A possibility, predicted by many (some of which ARE crazy - but who have also done well, so not stupid) is that due to events, we should see a quick bout of deflation (well, in everything but food and energy) followed by quick inflation. If you look at gold, just now breaking major support to the downside, this might be the right scenario. The big inflation comes if the world continues to reduce use of the dollar as reserve currency - already in progress. Then it matters not if they stop printing bucks - all those foreign held bucks (already printed but till now, not causing inflation *here*) flood home and there's your fast inflation.
It doesn't take a very deep look into how important it is for the US to retain world reserve currency status to understand why we are doing what we do in the middle east.
If oil gets traded in other than dollars, we're in deep doo doo, period, and the bombers fly. Just look at recent history there - Iraq started demanding euros or gold, we bomb. Libya the same - we bomb. Syria? Iran? Something is going to happen because they are saying the same stuff every other country said just before the bombs started dropping. It's serious business. The US has taken far too much advantage of being able to print, and export the inflation, due to reserve status, and our trade partners are waking up to this. It's our exported inflation that caused Arab Spring in large part. For us, a 30% rise in the cost of grain means nada - adds a couple pennies to a $4 box of Cheerios - the input isn't a price driver there. In a poor country, where one buys a sack of flour to feed their family - it's a flat 30% increase, and it means going without food, not simply a minor annoyance in the price of breakfast like it does here (at the moment). Something to ponder.
We are for example seeing the unwind of an unhealthy and unregulated (till just now) fake copper swap (arbitrage) trade in china, causing the unwind of huge positions of heavily rehypothecated copper - and look at the price of Dr Copper for the last few...it's a big deal, and usually pretty predictive of things to come.
For those who don't know - rehypothecation is using the same collateral for more than one loan - it works till it doesn't and a bunch of people realize they loaned money out to someone on collateral that someone else already had a legal call on - this allows super-leverage - it works till it doesn't. This is actually legal in London, the real hotbed of financial corruption, exceeding even wall street!
Today, we're seeing assets that normally move opposite of one another - all fall off a cliff, holding hands. Could be a good time to buy gold, though even it has broken chart support on the downside and might still go down further - deflation. I might nickel and dime into a little more physical here. Note that the big GLD and other ETFs and gold futures are disconnecting hard from what you have to pay to get the stuff you can hold in your hand, rather than a paper promise - it's been theorized and almost proven that the big gold ETFs and some other instruments don't actually have the gold (and neither do the major PM exchanges that trade futures)...so the "in your hand" prices haven't dropped anywhere near as much as the paper price has. It's looking like the system is developing cracks in the armor - bad sign.
Not that I'm a gold bug, or have a big fraction of my assets in it - but I do have some, and a dollar-cost-averaging move here doesn't look totally stupid. I tend to wait for a bit o a bounce (fibonacci retrace) of some of the drop to buy - hoping it's not a bull-trap.
Had I done that market short just one more time (after getting squeezed out on the last couple drops at a loss) I'd be able to quit this year and live on what I've made already - spxu (a synthetic short S&P ETF) is up quite a lot over the last couple sessions (6.17% today alone) - a big bet there would have been killer - but that's woulda/coulda/shoulda, only useful in hindsight - so you learn what would work next time. I'm not sure how many know this, but while you can't in general go short in an IRA, you can go long an ETF that goes short, same idea, just that those do have a fee load.
Herds usually overshoot - I expect a bounce whether this is "The big one" or not. It could be a time to open a short, but it's very easy to get head faked, and events (the fed backing off taper talk, the world doing whatever it might do) might cause you to get hammered again if you do it now - the easy money shorting has been made, I fear - but I've been wrong before, and this might just be "it". If so, I missed the first part by sitting out, but this does not make me unhappy.
I noticed in Kyles talk this time that he waved off even discussing the "off balance sheet" shenanigans - not taking into account known future obligations for things like the social safety net in his calculations. The more aggressive bears would happily point out that those far exceed the current on book debt...Could just have been Kyle making a point that it's bad enough without that - he's that way.
Notice I'm using a lot of qualifiers here in my verbiage - if I knew, I'd be saying "do this, I am" but I don't and am not playing this game at the moment - just watching.
Part of being a good trader is knowing when to not trade...maybe the biggest part. I think there will be some real juicy setups - near sure-things, to come down the pike, and having the dry powder to obtain that "pearl of great price" will seem wise if that it a correct guess. The only reason I'm watching is the timing is not easily predictable, and to keep up my "chops" - a feel for the market is a perishable skill, and you have to keep up to date on the context if you plan to go back to trading, as I do. Could be soon....
This is the type of situation that creates huge winners who get famous for it by taking long-odds bets on fat-tail events no one else recognizes, because they're way out on the probability curve (and thus, cheap bets to make due to options pricing), and a ton of losers you don't hear about - trading news is kind of the opposite of the MSM news, where bad news is what you mostly hear. In finance, you hear about the wins more than the losses most of the time - it's largely cheer-leading sell side stuff to get mom and pop's money. But some of the huge winners turn out to have been one-trick ponies, stopped clocks that got lucky as the time rolled around and they were correct for once. It's not fun to be one of those most of the time, it's better to make an assessment, and keep updating it to reflect reality (or such as you can use that word in markets where the central banks are really the main drivers, not fundamentals at all).
The trick here for a bit might just be timing the lumps on the trend. Almost always, after a steep drop, there's a bounce as some money (many mutual funds have rules that say they have to be nearly all in, nearly all the time) considers each dip a good buying opportunity. Then that batch runs out of dough, and the decline continues.
This usually repeats a few times on the way down, if history is any guide - go back and look at the last couple big crashes in detail, they weren't straight lines down.
This gives an astute timer some bumps to get short advantageously on, for example, or perhaps get really hosed buying the dip (known as BTFD) only to get hosed in a couple more days. I learned that one the hard way in the last crash - lost some real money buying the dips on the way down as those bounces occurred. I think the BTFD mentality is still out there fairly strong due to inertia - if you'd done that since last November, you won big...maybe not this time, but that's how human nature works, it tries to ignore the possibility that what worked last time won't continue working.
If this market should for whatever reason return to fundamentals, we are looking at a HUGE drop at some point - in the 25 to 50% range, and it'll be bear heaven. It will happen, or it'll sit flat till fundamentals catch up. But I don't see a lot of signs of the fundamentals improving (actually, no signs at all). I do expect a bit of a bounce near-term as this looks like an overshoot, but you just never know - dead cats don't always bounce too well. What's telling is the troubles in China right now (their version of libor went to 25% last night for awhile - total liquidity lockup) - those could really make things move as China stops being the demand at the margin for a lot of things. They're more over leveraged than we ever were in the boom...and it's on the same dumb junk - real estate, and in their case, often not even occupied, bought with high leverage, so when things start to drop, the exit ramp gets very crowded. If you're leveraged 10x (lower than the norm for the big boys right now) - a 3% drop you'd normally hold through becomes a 30% drop to you, and it makes it very easy to create a panic.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Mon Jul 08, 2013 10:41 am
Yup, back when I worked as a beltway bandit - been there and done this, I find this both scary and very believable.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1134 ... rs-danger#
Now, some of those "$500 pliers" really were worth that - try assembling one of those super duper mill spec multi pin connectors without the special tools - made in ones in machine shops, since only the military uses those connectors, there's no volume.
They are actually worth it...in many cases. Much more common are little beaurocratic infights like described above - that's where the real money gets wasted - in this case, resulting in unnecessary deaths.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1134 ... rs-danger#
Now, some of those "$500 pliers" really were worth that - try assembling one of those super duper mill spec multi pin connectors without the special tools - made in ones in machine shops, since only the military uses those connectors, there's no volume.
They are actually worth it...in many cases. Much more common are little beaurocratic infights like described above - that's where the real money gets wasted - in this case, resulting in unnecessary deaths.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Fri Jul 19, 2013 6:22 pm
I normally wouldn't link anything from this rag, but this was so funny - or so true - I couldn't resist.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-you ... e_carousel
This details the old OSS manual about how to infiltrate and sabotage an organization. The behaviour they describe is so similar to what I've seen in every rotten company I've ever seen - and that was a lot as a consultant, that heck, maybe either the guy is right - we're totally sabotaged - or he's right - we do it to ourselves. I'm sure anyone who has worked in any beaurocracy (eg all but the tiniest of small businesses - and even some of them) will howl on this one.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-you ... e_carousel
This details the old OSS manual about how to infiltrate and sabotage an organization. The behaviour they describe is so similar to what I've seen in every rotten company I've ever seen - and that was a lot as a consultant, that heck, maybe either the guy is right - we're totally sabotaged - or he's right - we do it to ourselves. I'm sure anyone who has worked in any beaurocracy (eg all but the tiniest of small businesses - and even some of them) will howl on this one.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Sat Jul 20, 2013 11:47 pm
I saw this on ars, about the utter fail of win RT tablets - this was a piece of their advertising. They had a caption of "What? I don't even" - but I get it, and I think it's funny as hell. Goes beyond face-palm to face-smash-desk, no, really.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... G-ORLkMiyY
Now, how you sell crap tablets with this, I don't even... but on the other hand, what a cool way to put on makeup fast (if it worked...).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... G-ORLkMiyY
Now, how you sell crap tablets with this, I don't even... but on the other hand, what a cool way to put on makeup fast (if it worked...).
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Sun Jul 21, 2013 12:21 pm
Hey! I'm on this map: http://www.cato.org/raidmap
Or someone so close to me it isn't funny. I did tell y'all (I think) that a few years ago I was attacted by the DEA and full SWAT? Yup, and completely innocent. Profiling - how could this well-off guy live in the middle of nowhere, have other well off people come and go at all hours (otherwise known as employees on flex time), and so on? Has a chemistry set - must be making drugs. Actually, I was making high explosives for some things I wanted to try - in small amounts....Told them that, and that they sent the wrong guys, DEA vs BATF. So they then sent the BATF, who when they saw what I was doing - didn't have any problem with it, and actually asked to be invited to any demo shoots I was doing, nice guys. And about an 80% personell overlap with the first batch, which is a little odd.
FWIW, when they came crashing through my fence (rather than taking the driveway?) to "suprise us" and held guns on us - we went completely limp, and tried to comply totally. Which can be hard. Suppose you suddenly find 3 guys pointing MP5 machine guns at you yelling "freeze" while 4 other guys with .40's are yelling "come out" - which do you do? You can't do both - and they shoot for ignoring orders. That was a little tricky, as I was behind a glass door, with my hands up already, and no way to "come out" without taking my hands out of their view...I wound up using my knee to open the door.
The local cop they brought along apologized - he'd told them no way I was in that business. But it was out of his hands at that point.
Turns out they broke quite a few laws doing this - no warrant showed up till hours later...they'd picked my locks (broke one) before we got back from lunch, etc etc - and they wound up apologizing and asking me to please not sue their pants off.
But it still cost me in legal fees - they always can find (or place) something....and after spending, what, $50k to put on such a huge raid (5 vehicles worth of guys with guns, and an ambulance) - they had to "find something" - even if they brought it themselves. Good thing I had witnesses...
Or someone so close to me it isn't funny. I did tell y'all (I think) that a few years ago I was attacted by the DEA and full SWAT? Yup, and completely innocent. Profiling - how could this well-off guy live in the middle of nowhere, have other well off people come and go at all hours (otherwise known as employees on flex time), and so on? Has a chemistry set - must be making drugs. Actually, I was making high explosives for some things I wanted to try - in small amounts....Told them that, and that they sent the wrong guys, DEA vs BATF. So they then sent the BATF, who when they saw what I was doing - didn't have any problem with it, and actually asked to be invited to any demo shoots I was doing, nice guys. And about an 80% personell overlap with the first batch, which is a little odd.
FWIW, when they came crashing through my fence (rather than taking the driveway?) to "suprise us" and held guns on us - we went completely limp, and tried to comply totally. Which can be hard. Suppose you suddenly find 3 guys pointing MP5 machine guns at you yelling "freeze" while 4 other guys with .40's are yelling "come out" - which do you do? You can't do both - and they shoot for ignoring orders. That was a little tricky, as I was behind a glass door, with my hands up already, and no way to "come out" without taking my hands out of their view...I wound up using my knee to open the door.
The local cop they brought along apologized - he'd told them no way I was in that business. But it was out of his hands at that point.
Turns out they broke quite a few laws doing this - no warrant showed up till hours later...they'd picked my locks (broke one) before we got back from lunch, etc etc - and they wound up apologizing and asking me to please not sue their pants off.
But it still cost me in legal fees - they always can find (or place) something....and after spending, what, $50k to put on such a huge raid (5 vehicles worth of guys with guns, and an ambulance) - they had to "find something" - even if they brought it themselves. Good thing I had witnesses...
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Fri Jul 26, 2013 4:15 pm
Wanted to preserve this one. Modern prophet - I kinda wish he'd not been so correct.
Huxley - 1958 - I was 5 years old then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... TQZ-2iMUR0
Huxley - 1958 - I was 5 years old then.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... TQZ-2iMUR0
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Tue Aug 20, 2013 5:09 pm
Saddening and a bit frightening. Groklaw is shutting down due to the NSA.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 8120421175
For those who don't know already, Groklaw was a collaberative, teaching, legal site, following the IP wars, beginning with SCO suing world+dog (all but MS, since as it was later revealed, it was MS money funding this)
for the concept of the opsys itself, and the copyrights they claimed to own on unix that applied to linux (which it turned out they didn't even own). This site has changed the world and many people in it for the better, exposing in a large group effort things no one outfit could ever do without a ton of bucks - and therefore a bucks-driven agenda. They just told the truth, educated us all, and we group sourced information that kept some very bad people running companies from "getting away with it".
I may cry. Really.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 8120421175
For those who don't know already, Groklaw was a collaberative, teaching, legal site, following the IP wars, beginning with SCO suing world+dog (all but MS, since as it was later revealed, it was MS money funding this)
for the concept of the opsys itself, and the copyrights they claimed to own on unix that applied to linux (which it turned out they didn't even own). This site has changed the world and many people in it for the better, exposing in a large group effort things no one outfit could ever do without a ton of bucks - and therefore a bucks-driven agenda. They just told the truth, educated us all, and we group sourced information that kept some very bad people running companies from "getting away with it".
I may cry. Really.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
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Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
Re: The daily link
by Doug Coulter » Fri Sep 20, 2013 5:32 pm
Humor, kind of. Viral ads against Obummer-care...
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/20/bedfo ... uncle-sam/
http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/20/bedfo ... uncle-sam/
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.
-
Doug Coulter - Posts: 3515
- Joined: Wed Jul 14, 2010 7:05 pm
- Location: Floyd county, VA, USA
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