vboring

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    • Tue Dec 11th 14:25 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Do You Still Need a Land Line?
      information wants to be free.

      my wife works in a skype-only office under the auspices of a large, slow university employer. our house only has one copper connection - for power. all information transfer is wireless. no cable tv, no land line, no cable internet access.

      we're one mesh network away from freedom from corporate "service"
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    • Fri Dec 7th 14:54 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Subprime Risk Plan: A Step in the Right Direction
      any homeowner in their right mind will walk away from their loan if they are already underwater today and expect further declines before the market recovers.

      a leveraged investment in a depreciating asset with high transaction costs is fit to be abandoned at any interest rate.
      View article »
    • Fri Dec 7th 14:46 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Why Lenders Love the Mortgage-Freeze Plan
      everyone underwater on their loans should wake up and walk away.

      a leveraged depreciating asset is a loss at any interest rate.

      except for the rare case where they would have to pay more to rent than to service their loan.
      View article »
    • Fri Dec 7th 14:01 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Imax Jumps on 100 Theatre Deal With AMC
      imax screens are terrible to watch normal movies on. you end up either sitting so far away that it looks like a normal screen or you are close enough that you have to keep looking back and forth to follow what is going on.

      plus, it seems unlikely that many filmakers will switch to imax equipment, so the theatres will project standard quality films on bigger screens, resulting in grainy, blurry images.
      View article »
    • Thu Dec 6th 11:49 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Housing: After the Bust Comes the Freeze
      nobody will be saved by this. if i owe more than i can afford today because i lied about my income and am scraping by on a teaser rate, my situation won't be any better in five years unless my 1) house appreciates significantly, 2) my income increases significantly, or 3) i find a bigger fool to sell it to.

      1) the lending practices of today indicate that prices will continue to decline
      2) incomes are unlikely to leap up while the economy is in recession
      3) because lending standards have changed, you have to be both a bigger fool and have real cash-money to put into the deal to bail a current owner out. i imagine those are in short supply today

      something i haven't heard mentioned is whether the loan balance will continue to increase as per the original teaser rate loan conditions or will the lenders subsidize the rates and write it off?
      View article »
    • Tue Dec 4th 20:42 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      ARM Loan Modifications: Delaying the Inevitable
      even if they find a way to keep some of the borderline cases in houses and paying something for the service, there will still be the hopeless cases who will be foreclosed on and drag the market down, causing the borderline cases to move closer to the hopeless category.

      not to mention the fact that some fraction of the inflated property value was a speculative premium. if stability is the best case scenario, then the speculative premium is gone and prices must drop.
      View article »
    • Tue Dec 4th 16:44 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      First Solar Not as Fun as SOLF Today
      Somebody must have forgotten to tell them that Tellurium is going to supernova and destroy them and their profit margins too.

      Personally, I'd worry more about next generation organic solar panels and companies like nanosolar, with their scalable roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques.
      View article »
    • Mon Dec 3rd 11:25 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Is EPA Ethanol Mandate a Joke?
      the current generation of ethanol is so energy intensive to produce that some studies have claimed it actually increases CO2/mile, that 1 barrel of fossil fuel produces less than 1 energy equivalent barrel of ethanol fuel.

      biodiesel is energy positive, but not by much.

      ethanol is a great subsidy for Midwestern states, but pretty useless for anything else
      View article »
    • Fri Nov 30th 11:20 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Electric Vehicle Makers are Riding on Sunlight
      the reason why automakers don't bother with solar panels on the roofs of their cars is that it would provide very little practical benefit at a very high price.

      today's solar panels produce 100 watts per m^2. say you can put 4 m^2 of panels on your car. at most, under ideal conditions, that will give you .4 kWh of power for each hour you leave your car in the full sun (even a small amount of shade will drastically reduce this generation) or 4kWh for a full 10-hr day. any real car will take at least 20kW to drive at a steady 60 mph. so, a full day's charging will give you 12 miles at freeway speeds. not very impressive.

      alternatively, you can buy 4kWh worth of electricity anywhere in the modern world for less than $.60. in my neck of the woods (Seattle), it'd only be $.16.

      so, how much are you willing to pay to save $.60/day, assuming ideal conditions?
      View article »
    • Wed Nov 28th 15:39 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Google Muscles in on Alternative Energy
      my gut tells me they are optimistic software types accustomed to solving involved but fundamentally simple problems that be broken into bits and fixed through being organized and a little bit creative. this in no way prepares them to address energy questions, which are constrained by fundamental laws of physics, mature industries set in their ways, and suffocating (but obviously necessary) environmental agencies.

      I wish them the best, but expect very little.
      View article »
    • Tue Nov 27th 11:33 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Palladium: An Investable Metal That Defies Physics
      Fuel Cells use Platinum and much of the research in the field has been in the area of how to reduce platinum requirements.

      To believe that cold fusion is a hoax, all you have to do is look at the history of unfulfilled promises of demonstrations.
      View article »
    • Tue Nov 27th 11:18 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Cadmium Telluride Casts Shadow on First Solar
      Sounds like more unjustifiable alarmism, Mark.

      If every company is having trouble complying with the new RoHS standard, the standard will be changed.

      The other option will be to let the economy die.

      And even if Europe did close its borders to all FSLR product, California and Texas will be more than happy to soak up the supply.

      I'm afraid the crash you are shorting for has no foreseeable cause today.
      View article »
    • Mon Nov 26th 18:16 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Palladium: An Investable Metal That Defies Physics
      I'm not so sure that buying a commodity based on a theoretical future use that flies against modern physics is such a wise idea. Certainly not for the short run, anyway.

      If you believe the cold fusion scientists, they claim the process can be done using a variety of more common metals, not just Pd. And the process will open the door to the transmutation of elements, devaluing rare metals, including Pd.

      If you believe more traditional scientists, cold fusion is impossible, so the Pd market won't be effected.

      So, the best case scenario is that there will be a breakthrough in a taboo field of science, that this breakthrough process will be constricted to Pd use only despite the claims of its supporters, and that devices will be brought to market based on the process despite a pervasive and very reasonable public fear of all things nuclear, especially the ones that nobody can explain.

      This is strike two, Mark Anthony. Maybe you should stick to your own blog, instead of spreading crazy all over seeking alpha.
      View article »
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