raytayzmd

Cypress Bioscience: Investing in Pain

If your dog was a neurologist, what would it do all day? ...obviously -- perform PET scans!

How to Hold Gold

..."..we have entire regiments of Pakistani gardeners who would doubtless be only too keen to handover any gold they dug up."...uh-oh!...sounds a tad politically incorrect!...bad, Peter, bad!...

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior

...I also came across this post on the Wired website:

"The new kindle is awesome. What’s even more green is a) the amount of books it saves us from and b) nobody really talks about the publishing side - authors can publish directly to kindle. If you take a look at something like Ian McGrady’s book, it’s totally hypermodern: a guy read a blogpost about The Gospel According to John, then got the text from WikiSource, then posted the new book to Kindle. Kindle readers may actually be a more elite audience because authors with very specific messages may be able to reach their hyperintelligent audiences with hyperlinked, whisper-net books."

...think about the possibilities...students might be able to make money publishing their own study guides geared to specific courses at specific colleges or by specific professors...and professors may be able to write their own textbooks to suit their own needs and then be able to modify them according to classroom experience...the possibilities are simply mind boggling...and I'm not even bothing to mention the thousands of acres of forests that will be spared in consequence...or the vast quantities of air and water pollution spewed from paper and ink manufacturers...etc, etc, etc...

A Bull Market That Few Are Buying

...eventually, we have to pay the piper -- so to speak...we enjoyed almost twenty years of prosperity...in so doing, we allowed banks to make some loans that perhaps they shouldn't have...on the other hand, had the Federal Reserve NOT started raising interest rates in Fall of 2006 then perhaps adjustable rate mortgage holders would have been able to meet their obligations...and MAYBE those loans wouldn't have gone bad and then maybe institutions using those loans as "assets" against which they could borrow 30 to 1 wouldn't have gone belly up...of course, then maybe we would be having to deal with 30% inflation...maybe we should have forced the economy into a SMALL recession back around 5-6 years ago to clean out the "junk"...but everyone raise their hand who would have supported such a move back then...yeah, that's what I thought...regardless, I'm quite confident we'll cope with the situation and come out basically okay on the other side...just like they have in the other "panics" of the past million years.

Piracy May Be the Kindle DX's Savior

...they just get dumber and dumber!...the "Newspaper Strategy" argument presented is valid-- for anyone with tunnelvision!...on the other hand, anyone with an IQ greater than a gnat might realize that there are OPPORTUNITIES:

"On the internet, media companies have developed an unfortunate habit of destroying – or allowing others to destroy – value in their products. So when a device comes along that promises to create value for media businesses, it is worth celebrating. It leads to a different, and altogether happier, set of problems: how best to capture the value created, and how to share out the goodies among the various players in the digital media value chain.
"
...from:

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/46b...

..."pirates to the rescue"????...they just made the announcement and ALREADY you think they need someone to rescue the Kindle?...everybody dissed the original Kindle...yet its sales are far exceeding even Amazon's expectations...and they haven't even begun to market the thing worldwide!...gosh, I guess SOMEBODY must like them for SOME reason!...oh, and then there's a hundred dollar price difference for the bigger Kindle...why, someone might have to go without a couple of tanks of gas or maybe pass on a few frappachinos to make up that difference...I suggest going to the Kindle website and study ALL of the features and then TRY to apply just a LITTLE creativity to come up with the WEALTH of possibilities a Kindle would offer a student...just IMAGINE having ALL of your textbooks plus ALL of your reference books at your finger tips...IMAGINE being able to search through ALL of them as well as through the entire Kindle store AND the web for information....IMAGINE being able not only to add annotations to text but able also to edit, delete, and export your notes at your lesiure...IMAGINE being able to highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use...IMAGINE future development -- perhaps a day when you will be able to search for and check out books out from the library without leaving your home...and maybe not having to worry about returning them because they simply expired on your device...wouldn't THAT be nice?...when I think back to my college days, I literally could spend all day writing about what I COULD have accomplished if the thing had been available then!

Fannie's Huge Loss: Did Anyone Even Notice?

...I really don't see the point of this article...does the author want the government to simply go ahead and buy the outstanding stock and make it into a government agency?...that would simply hide the problems in the morass of the government budget...at least this way there is some visibility as to what is going on.

A Bull Market That Few Are Buying

..."As I keep saying the trend is your friend till the bend at the end..."...a point that I keep trying to make to people who are bound and determined to tell the market or a particular stock where it SHOULD be going.


On May 10 11:51 AM InvestBaboo wrote:

> The title "A bull market that few are buying" is correct but with
> an entirely different line of reasoning than this author.
>
> There is a vast amount of cash waiting on the sidelines that is yet
> to buy into this market that will provide rocket power boost once
> it starts coming in. It is a matter of when this money will start
> flowing in and not if the money will start flowing. The money that
> the author and his friends have will also come pouring in once they
> realize that you can't fight the trend but given just how much reservation
> the author has about this I am affraid he may be the last one to
> get on the train and left as the bagholder.
>
> What I am saying is that facts can be looked at with colored glasses.
> I could get on either side of the fence and make extremely bullish
> or extremely bearish arguments. I have been wrong in the past when
> I have trusted my opinions and invested contrary to the the trend
> in the market. One day I woke up and realized that fighting the trend
> was a mistake and I will always invest with the trend and from that
> deduce either a bullish or bearsih bias. This is because the markets
> are always right and anyone who argues against it is wrong!
>
> As I keep saying the trend is your friend till the bend at the end
> and there ain't no bend to see at the present my friends. Articles
> like this are healthy in the sense that some doze of bearishness
> is good for the bull market but I urge the readers of SeekingAlpha
> not to miss the bull market and once-in-a-lifetime wealth creation
> opportunity that the market has presented us with.

Amazon's New Kindle-DX: $489 for an E-Reader?

...I am soooo tired of reading dimwitted, shortsighted, narrowminded criticisms of Kindle...but it's made worse by the fact the authors always resort to the same inane arguments...regardless, this is simply a copy of one of my responses to some other similar post:

"gag!...it is SO annoying to read criticism from people when they clearly know NOTHING about the device!...READ the description and THEN lodge your criticisms:

www.amazon.com/Kindle-...

...note what it says:

"By using the QWERTY keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes. Using the new 5-way controller, you can highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. You'll never need to bookmark your last place in the book, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read."

...and if you want to find something all you need to do is SEARCH for it:

"Kindle makes it easy to search within a book, across your library, in the Kindle Store, or even the Web. To use the Search feature, simply type in a word or phrase you're looking for, and Kindle finds every instance in your book or across your Kindle library. Looking for the first reference of a character in your book? Simply type in the name and search. You can extend your search to the Kindle Store to find related titles you may be interested in. Explore even further by searching Wikipedia and the Web."

...can a hard copy book do that?...geez, what is it about Kindle that renders people so they can't look past their own narrow minds?"

...and did I mention that Kindle books are about hald the cost of hard copies?...did I mention the extraordinarily environmental impact of electronic books versus hard copies?...MOST IMPORTANT -- go to the website and study ALL of the features and then TRY to apply just a LITTLE creativity to come up with the WEALTH of possibilities a Kindle would offer a student...when I think back to my college days, I literally could spend all day writing about what I COULD have accomplished if the thing had been available then!...

Mission Accomplished: Time to Sell

...your blog indicates you sold naked SPY May 87 calls on April 21 with SPY at 85...and now SPY is at 93...hoooeeee, I understand why you think it's time to sell!...man, more than your back's going to be hurting in a couple of weeks if the market doesn't fall!

Book Review: Great Depression Ahead

...Harry Dent??...ohhh -- yeah, that's the guy who predicted the DOW would be at 41,000 in 2008, right?...GREAT CALL, HARRY!!...and he's the one who preaches incessantly that everyone should hire a financial advisor and then gets something like $40,000 an appearance for making speeches to insurance companies and brokerage firms...hmmm, that smacks of financial prostitution, doesn't it?...why, I bet if you had listened to him you'd probably be on food stamps and living in a cardboard box somewhere...

Vanda Snaps Up Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

...response to "jerph"...your family M.D. may or may not prescribe anti-psychotics -- certainly, if Janssen had their way, he or she would use it to treat everything from dandruff to hemorrhoids...neverthe... they are capable of providing an reasonably informed opinion...as I said, if risperdal is aprroved then iloperidone should have been approved as well since they are basically the same...that said, the fact is that several studies have shown that second generation anti-psychotics don't improve quality of life any more than first generation ones...studies have demonstrated that second generation drugs are less cost-effective than first generation drugs...in fact, the primary determinant of effectiveness in both classes is patient compliance...and that typically is very poor with less than 25% maintaining their regimen as prescribed...in other words, billions and billions of dollars have been spent with the net effect of zero progress...VNDA continues this fine tradition by seeking to market two drugs -- iloperidone and tasimelteon -- that are neither needed nor wanted...and why do they do this?...for no other purpose than to line the pockets of venture fund capitalists and the company's management at the expense of a naieve public....

Black Swan author Nassim Taleb says today's crisis is "vastly worse" than the 1930s, because global economies have become uncontrollably intertwined. The NYU professor of risk engineering says gold, copper, and other assets "that China will like" are the best investment bets.

...I'm absolutely confident that Taleb has all the prophetic ability of a coin toss...he works as a professor of risk engineering...risk engineering, for God's sake!...how big is his yacht?...oh, he doesn't have one, does he?...why -- BECAUSE he's a professor of risk engineering -- get it?!

How Fortune, Forbes and BusinessWeek Can Save Themselves

...I've never read Fortune in my entire life...I once read Business week while waiting at the dentist's office...and I once actually had a subscription to Forbes -- about 10 years ago...HOWEVER, I read articles on their websites probably at least several times a week...now, how much should an advertiser who wants to reach me pay for a print ad versus a website ad?

Kindle DX: Has Amazon Misread the Student Market?

...gag!...it is SO annoying to read criticism from people when they clearly know NOTHING about the device!...READ the description and THEN lodge your criticisms:

www.amazon.com/Kindle-...

...note what it says:

"By using the QWERTY keyboard, you can add annotations to text, just like you might write in the margins of a book. And because it is digital, you can edit, delete, and export your notes. Using the new 5-way controller, you can highlight and clip key passages and bookmark pages for future use. You'll never need to bookmark your last place in the book, because Kindle remembers for you and always opens to the last page you read."

...and if you want to find something all you need to do is SEARCH for it:

"Kindle makes it easy to search within a book, across your library, in the Kindle Store, or even the Web. To use the Search feature, simply type in a word or phrase you're looking for, and Kindle finds every instance in your book or across your Kindle library. Looking for the first reference of a character in your book? Simply type in the name and search. You can extend your search to the Kindle Store to find related titles you may be interested in. Explore even further by searching Wikipedia and the Web."

...can a hard copy book do that?...geez, what is it about Kindle that renders people so they can't look past their own narrow minds?






On May 08 09:58 AM mastiff0 wrote:

> I agree with this article and really don't understand the market
> for the Kindle except for technophiles who have to have the latest
> gadget, regardless of whether they need it. The only people carrying
> around multiple books are students, so I get the potential market
> there. But have the desginers of the Kindle ever seen how students
> use books? First of all, even if the average cost of books is $489
> annually, most students resell their books and get a chunk of that
> money back. Can't resell ebooks.
>
> And if a student doesn't resell a book, its probably because that
> book is valuable and they intend to keep it on their shelf for reference.
> Over a course of a semester they have made notes, dog-eared pages,
> and highlighted sections, and they don't want to lose this extra
> knowledge. I believe the Kindle has notetaking features, but this
> is one of those cases where old school paper beats technology. <br/>You
> can't easily "flip through" a Kindle, looking for that highlighted
> section or that important table like you can a book. I'm sure the
> notetaking isn't as seemless as using a pin to write notes in the
> margin. You can't put two ebooks side by side to compare sections,
> which happens a lot when you study. Maybe it will get there, but
> the Kindle in its current form can not replace textbooks.
>
> This is not to say, however, that it won't be a big hit. Hey, students
> aren't necessarily rationale, and I'm sure many will be able to justify
> paying the $$ for a cool gadget.

Vanda Snaps Up Victory from the Jaws of Defeat

...if risperdal has approval then ilioperidone should have approval as well since they basically are identical...does that mean VNDA is worth a dime -- no......risperdal has been around like 15 years and is already marketed as a generic...Hoechst Marion dumped ilioperidone onto Titan Pharmaceutical 13 years ago...Titan sold international rights to Novartis in 1998 and Novartis didn't do anything with it...Titan messed with it for a while but apparently realized what a waste of effort it was and sold it to VNDA in 2002...ostensibly, VNDA's chairman had some of genotype test that would allow him to identify patients on whom ilioperidone MIGHT work better...at one point there were several lawsuits being bounced around about the drug but I don't know whatever happened to those...if you want to know ilioperidones's real potential ask your family MD...VNDA is also wasting time and money on tasimelteon -- which is nothing more than a variant of the currently available rozarem...the funny thing is that rozerem has never been shown to be any more safe OR effective than just taking plain old melatonin!...so VNDA might successfully develops yet another drug that no one needs -- whoopee!...VNDA is nothing more than a stupid Wall Street trick that was probably never meant to do more than enrich some venture capitalists and company management at the expense of naieve investors.