Off-topic thread - talk about anything

[tunnanxwd]

Ah rpiereck! Have you been to Bavaria yet? Where the men are men and the sheep are nervous! Just kidding but when I saw your sheep pics ...

I spent only two days in Bavaria and it is one of the most peaceful and beautiful spots. I would have considered retiring there but that was not to be. The people were friendly and the paintings on every shed and barn were just wonderful. Of course 45 years of skiing and instructing would have never played any part in my instant love affair with the area. Sadly some medical issues took away my skiing (at least 4 days and nights a week).

The roads seemed to be perfect too. The only bother was that you could go like schnell for 10 miles on a beautifully banked twisty but smooth as glass road, only to encounter a crew maintaining the road which meant a 15 minute wait.

You're a lucky guy!

[Dave T]

Another win! This one is of a different sort. The BBC News allows comments. I never comment on stories. Today, I did along with 400 other people. The BBC chose 5-6 comments as "editor's pick" and puts them at the top. Mine was chosen as #2! The comment was neither left wing or right wing, just analytical.

[Burnsside42]

White House on 'Death Star' petition: No

"The White House has provided a detailed response to petitions calling for construction of a "Death Star" for national defense, but it boils down to one word: No.For one thing, a Death Star is estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000, writes White House official Paul Shawcross.
"We're working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it," adds Shawcross, chief of the Science and Space Branch with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
When the White House set up its petition website, it pledged to respond to any requests that received more than 25,000 signatures.
More than 34,000 people seconded a Star Wars-themed petition to construct a Death Star by 2016, so that "the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense."
In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek response -- entitled "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For" -- Shawcross writes:
"The administration does not support blowing up planets.
"Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"
Shawcross also noted that the United States already finances a space station:
"Yes, we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that's helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations.
"The Space Station has six astronauts -- American, Russian, and Canadian -- living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc.
"We've also got two robot science labs -- one wielding a laser -- roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet."

[Dave T]

Is there a good political forum online?

The Death Star petition got a decent amount of online fan coverage, which is why it reached the minimum threshold to get a White House reply. Yet, there are more pressing issues that do not get a White House reply. Does that reflect poorly on society?

Death Star is impractical. Even the easier goal of sending people to the moon cannot be done by 2016 even if the President screams and stamps his feet. The technology, like Fogbank (ask Frank mentioned in one of the first posts), has been lost and it takes many years to recover. Currently, the United States is unable to send even one person into space. It must contract with the Russians to get people in orbit. Of course, one could argue that manned orbital presence in not needed because automated satellites can do much of the needed work while manned spaceflight is put on hold.

[nordwulf]

Marty McFly: Hey, Doc, we better back up. We don't have enough road to get up to 88.
Dr. Emmett Brown: Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.

[Dave T]

Anyone know anything about investments, particularly picking stocks? If one is good, do it. If one is bad, don't. If one is in between, then maybe picking some stocks and putting more money in mutual funds, which is professionally managed, is better?

My advice is not to pick junk. Today, I just got rid of junk, namely Dell. For months, Dell was junk. This week, there were reports that Dell might become privately owned and pay current shareholders $13-14 for their shares. At the height of the dot com boom in 1999, Dell was trading for $50. Recently, it was $10. After the news, it jumped to about $13.

If the deal goes through, one would get $13-14 or whatever the price in the deal is. If the deal fails, expect it to sink to $10 again.

I just wanted to get rid of the piece of junk. In the end, sold it for $12.82, making $800. What a relief. I didn't want to hope to see it go to $14 and but watch it sink to $10 and negative territory for me. Lesson learned....don't pick junk.

[nordwulf]

I bought some Apple stock when it was around $12 a share. I think I bought about 100 shares. A risky move because it recently shot up from well below $10. I made a very good profit when I sold it again at around $100 and I thought I did good. I should have invested all my savings when it was $12 a share and sold it a year ago.

I also made some other pretty dumb purchases around 1999 - 2000 when internet stocks were going crazy. It is difficult to trust 'experts' and you have to know about business and finance in order to figure out yourself if certain stock is a good buy or not. I still have a TD Ameritrade account but haven't invested recently. They do have a lot of good research information and tools.

I am thinking of investing in gold or a gold stock. The market still seems very unpredictable and only in the last few months I feel a bit more confident to open up my 401K statement.

[Dave T]

I bought some Apple stock when it was around $12 a share. I think I bought about 100 shares. A risky move because it recently shot up from well below $10. I made a very good profit when I sold it again at around $100 and I thought I did good. I should have invested all my savings when it was $12 a share and sold it a year ago.

If you sold your 100 shares a few months ago or now, you would have gotten between $500k and $700k!

$500k is quoted as the minimum amount needed for retirement if one also gets social security. $1-2M is much safer. $2M yields $20,000 a year if you deplete 1%, which should be small enough to last forever. $2M yields $60,000 a year if you deplete 3%, which should be enough for several decades. Using up 4% a year will eventually mean you'll run out of money if you live long enough.

[nordwulf]

If you sold your 100 shares a few months ago or now, you would have gotten between $500k and $700k!

One 0 too many. But yeah, $50K is still better than $10K. Maybe in 5 years, Apple stock will be $1000 or $300 a share. It's a crap shoot, really.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Stock To Hit $1,000 In 2013: Analyst

He is positive that Apple has a great opportunity to increase its stock value by more than 60 percent within the next twelve months. This means Apple’s existing stock price at $630 per share will become $1000 per share. His estimate is based on an assumption that the company will continue to trade on the same depressed valuation. If Apple’s valuation improves, he thinks the stock value of the company will reach a $1000 per share by July of 2013.

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderd...t-ebay-rising/

Another day, another set of Apple (AAPL) expectations. The stock is down $1.43 at $504.66, reversing pre-market gains, following rather different recommendations from J.P. Morgan’s Mark Moskowitz, who cut his price target to $725 from $770, and from Goldman Sachs’s Bill Shope, who reiterates a Buy and a $760 price target.

[Burnsside42]

Anyone good for legal advice? Current job gave me position with pay plan contract - 2 months in they are retracting the deal and killing my income earnings. I could use legal advise before I cut my losses and get the hell out of dodge back to BMW or elsewhere....