I think it is very important for someone like Alice to speak up and hold Warren accountable while his mind is still very sharp. I think Warren has set up some bad precedence for the next CEO. (Or may be this mess will paradoxically serve as what NOT to do?)
“What were they thinking? How could Warren Buffett excuse David Sokol’s trading in Lubrizol Corp. (LZ) stock while Sokol was pitching the company to Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) as an acquisition candidate?
Buffett and Sokol both say that nothing “unlawful” was going on (Sokol even went so far as to tell CNBC he did nothing inappropriate). Their explanation is that, because a deal with Lubrizol hadn’t actually been struck and wasn’t likely when Sokol bought his shares, it was all right for Sokol to profit from his knowledge of a possible deal.
On Wall Street, we call this kind of trading front-running, and everybody knows that it is wrong. People get fired for doing it. [...]
Lottery Tickets
In substance, when Sokol pitched the deal to Buffett, he was holding stock in Lubrizol that had the equivalent of free lottery tickets attached. These 96,400 lottery tickets gave Sokol unfair odds — odds far better than in the kind of lottery the general public gets to play. Read the rest of this entry »
Paradoxically, the most damaging bit may be the second last paragraph, “I have held back nothing in this statement. Therefore, if questioned about this matter in the future, I will simply refer the questioner back to this release.” To me, this is in full prep mode to fight with lawyers (SEC lawyers, et al). A totally silence after issuing such an “unusual” statement is asking for serious headline news trouble! (see more excerpt at the end) I hope I am wrong here.
“Finally, Dave brought the idea for purchasing Lubrizol to me on eitherJanuary 14 or 15. Initially, I was unimpressed, but after his report of a January 25talk with its CEO, James Hambrick, I quickly warmed to the idea. Though the offer to purchase was entirely my decision, supported by Berkshire’s Board on March 13, it would not have occurred without Dave’s early efforts. Read the rest of this entry »
“Where I was curious to study everything in sight, Bill would focus on one task at a time with total discipline.“
“Shoehorned into about 3,200 bytes, roughly 2,000 lines of code, it was one tight little BASIC—stripped down, for sure, but robust for its size. No one could have beaten the functionality and speed crammed into that tiny footprint of memory: “The best piece of work we ever did,” as Bill told me recently. And it was a true collaboration.“
“From the time we’d started together in Massachusetts, I’d assumed that our partnership would be a 50-50 proposition. But Bill had another idea. “It’s not right for you to get half,” he said. “You had your salary at MITS while I did almost everything on BASIC without one back in Boston. I should get more. I think it should be 60-40.” At first I was taken aback. But as I pondered it, Bill’s position didn’t seem unreasonable. I’d been coding what I could in my spare time, and feeling guilty that I couldn’t do more, but Bill had been instrumental in packing our software with “more features per byte of memory than any other BASIC we know,” as I’d written for Computer Notes. All in all, I thought, a 60-40 split might be fair.Read the rest of this entry »
Peace is a quiet film with an unusual power to move. By following the ordinary lives of people and cats, the camera leads the audience to discover the concept of peace in its most fundamental sense, not as a state of negotiated, reluctant coexistence, but as an idea that lies at the core of our humanity. The film reveals the sublime through the mundane.
I was touched by what Soda wrote on Facebook,
“What I said at the Award Ceremony: I’m from Japan. I’ve been so overwhelmed by the tragedy my country is experiencing that I almost cancelled the trip to Hong Kong. But I’m a filmmaker. It’s my job to make movies and to show them to people. So I changed my mind to come here. I’m now confident that I made a right decision. I’ll continue to make movies.“
Personal note: Since watching Soda’s films for the first time and interviewing him over the years for a few times, Soda has been a true inspiring documentary filmmaker for me. I try to find my own path in documentary filmmaking and it is nice to be inspired by filmmakers like Soda.
Love is more enjoyable and easier to write than heartbreak. And it is no expectation in writing about Lovemark and what I will coin as “unLovemark”. I will try to keep this one short.
* Just before Christmas 2010, the court has concluded that Bernard Callebaut the businessman tried to launch his new brand Papa Chocolat using misappropriated bulk chocolate and moulds from his old company that was in receivership. Taking and using things that are not his personal property anymore. Unfortunately, I don’t know if Papa Chocolat will have much chance of survival.
* Bernard Callebaut the business is still in operation (by receiver Deloitte & Touche) but it is hard to imagine all these negative news about the founder and namesake of the company/brand are helping businesses or regaining the lost charm and love of the chocolate.
CALGARY – The increasingly bitter fallout from Bernard Callebaut losing his chocolate company ended Thursday with a judicial rebuke and $150,000 in fines levied against the Calgary chocolate maker. Read the rest of this entry »
Former California Court of Appeals judge Hon. Richard Neal, a neutral arbitrator from JAMS, a private alternative dispute resolution (ADR) provider, has been selected to handle the Charlie Sheen Case. Worth a read, if nothing else to understand/recognize ADR may be a less costly way to handle dispute.
“Meet the man who could decide Charlie Sheen’s legal fate:
Hon. Richard Neal has been chosen as the neutral arbitrator overseeing the fight between Sheen, Warner Bros. and Two and a Half Men co-creator Chuck Lorre over Sheen’s firing from the hit CBS show, multiple sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
The parties to the arbitration were notified of the choice late last week by letter from JAMS, the dispute resolution company overseeing the private proceeding. Attorneys for Sheen, Warners and Lorre had submitted a “strike list” of possible JAMS neutrals, winnowing down the group of possible arbitrators to only a few before settling on Justice Neal.”
Lesley Ciarula Taylor
Staff Reporter
Actor and comedian Roger Abbott, one of the founders of Canada’s long-running beloved comedy troupe the Royal Canadian Air Farce, has died after a 14-year battle with leukemia. He was 64.
“I’m heartbroken to tell you that our beloved friend, Roger Abbott, died last night at Toronto General Hospital, 14 years after being diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, a progressive disease that he kept secret from all but a few close friends and family until a week ago,” friend and co-star Don Ferguson said on the show’s website on Sunday.
“Roger was the guiding light of Royal Canadian Air Farce since it began in 1973, and all of us who have had the honour of working with him and the pleasure of knowing him will dearly miss his kindness, generosity, integrity, leadership and wonderful sense of humour.” Read the rest of this entry »
I was surprised to hear a good friend was recently bitten by the Sudoku bug and was battling against a tough puzzle. I have never caught the Sudoku bug. In order to satisfy my curiosity and help my friend, I did some research and looking around. I hope the following results can help.
*** Sudoku Bug First Aid Kit ***
Solver
After a few Goolge searches and testes/confirmations, I found an online 9×9 Sudoku Solver that seems to work very well and it comes with some helpful functions like hint, show candidates, and solve! The Solver can certainly be used to help train the mind to recognize patterns and thinking more logically when looking at a puzzle. Also check out the nice Sudoku background/Solving techniques.
“The patent covers a feature that previews low-resolution versions of a moving image while recording still images at a high resolution. Higher resolution requires more processing power and storage space. Kodak, which generated $838 million from patents last year, contends the image-preview feature is used in every digital camera and phone with a camera.”
“What is peace? What is coexistence? And what are the bases for them?
PEACE is a visual-essay-like observational documentary, which contemplates these questions by observing the daily lives of people and cats in Okayama city, Japan, where life and death, acceptance and rejection are intermingled.
For the record Opposition Motion (LP) Confidence in the government.
Clock at 00. Getting ready to vote.
12:13pm MST The moment of truth has started. The fall of the Harper government is in progress.
12:25pm MST The moment of truth. Opposition Motion (LP) Non-Confidence in the government vote – (yeas 156) (nays 145). The Harper government has fallen.
Go out and vote and exercise our democratic rights, the same rights that citizens of other countries are willing to die to have.
“[Speaker of the House Mr. Peter Milliken's] tenure will be remembered as historic on a number of fronts, but his ruling last year on Afghan detainee documents and his rulings this year on statements made by International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda and the government’s refusal to turn over documents requested by the House will likely be of significant and lasting consequence. Amid much gnashing of teeth over the state of our parliamentary democracy, Mr. Milliken reasserted the power and preeminence of the House of Commons. As a legacy, a Speaker could not ask for much greater.“
I may disagree with our elected politicians’ views and policies, but I understand it is not easy to run in an election, to serve constituents, and have ones’ private and public lives be constantly scrutinized. As I watched many retiring Members of Parliament said their goodbyes in the House today, I want to thank them for serving our country.
I know it is easy to be critical of ”politicians” in general but today, I want to thank our our retiring Members of Parliament for making our democratic system work.
Without MPs – Who will run our country, be tasked to make our great country better, and be held accountable?
This is cool! As a big fan and frequent user of Google US Patent search, it is real nice to see Google opening up the world of patents in other languages. Sure, the translation may be bad/very bad to start but it will help a little. For the record.
Google said Thursday it has reached an agreement with European patent authorities to use its online technology to translate some 50 million patents.
Google Inc. (GOOG-Q586.294.130.71%) and the Munich-based European Patent Office will co-operate to use Google Translate technology to translate patents into 28 European languages as well as into Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian.
The deal with enable researchers and the curious to search for patents in the EPO’s three official languages — English, French and German — and translate them on the fly on the EPO’s website. The translations are to serve informational and research purposes only, and will not replace legal requirements for patents to be translated by professional translators.
You would think no Canadians should be blocked from following minister’s *public* policy announcements and *public* discussions/debates with Canadian journalists/citizens, right? Well, you would be wrong. I had to jump through hoops (very time consuming, if possible at all) in order to follow what is going on.
When the current Canadian government is charged of contempt of Parliament and will likely fail a confidence motion because of said contempt, I thought it is time for me to take my own democratic right more seriously. Democracy is not free, so I took some time to write and send in the following complain. I know my chance of seeing any positive changes is really small but sometimes one has to do what is right.
Here is an excerpt for the record.
To: Prime Minister Mr. Stephen Harper (Member of Parliament for Calgary SW)
cc: Heritage Minister Mr. James Moore
Opposition Party Leaders
Mr. Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal Heritage critic
Mr. Charlie Angus, NDP Heritage critic
March 24, 2011
Dear Mr. Harper,
I am writing you as a Canadian living in your Calgary SW riding. I hope you can promptly help me to restore my democratic right to be an informed citizen so that I can vote in an knowledgable manner.
Recently, ministers have been announcing important policy decisions on the social media platformTwitter and using Twitter for active debates and discussions with Canadian citizens and journalists. With a possible election coming soon, Minister James Moore‘s (note: new Twitter account, the letters “MP” have been expunged and _org added) discriminatory act of blocking me from following his Tweets (see background info below and attached files) has become impossible to ignore. Let me emphasize, Moore’s discriminatory act of blocking me on Twitter has become increasingly detrimental to my ability to exercise my democratic right and duty to be informed & engaged in public discussions/debates, and to stay informed on Canadian government policies when I vote in an election. Read the rest of this entry »
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