Here is a monstrosity called a seven-string bass. Designed by the same twerp who wants to build the 154 key piano and, no doubt, the 3-1/2 wheel bicycle. I’ve got twenty that says the guy is a guitar player. Because 99.99% of them think up the same repetitious bottom-level nonsense and think they are the other 0.01%. They have primitive brains. If four strings is good, why then five must be even better. Do they dare think--six? They are so smart I can barely stand to be in the same room they are.
Silver hits a low since mid-2010, bottoming at $21.41 around noon today. There is no explanation for this but that doesn’t stop all the experts from trying real hard to cook things up. Can I add anything useful? Sure. Buy when prices are falling. The explanation goes like this. Silver and gold never stay at the same price, they are always rising or falling. So the naïve would say buy while it is rising because the price is getting higher. It would work if it were possible to know when the peak price has been reached. In a word, impossible. Now look at the “opposite” strategy. If you purchase systematically over a period when the price is falling, you are certain to eventually buy at very near the lowest price before the next upswing. Ah, I hear someone ask, how do you know when to sell? The answer is when you've made 60% on speculation. After that, greed sets in and the chances of a bubble increase dramatically after 60%. Get out while you can.
The method I use is average price. This is grade six arithmetic. After each purchase, calculate the average price you paid for your total hoard. That average should be falling as long as you buy on the downswing. Now watch for when prices rise above that average. My method is a bit more, shall we say, refined. Little joke there. When prices fall faster, I buy at an increased rate, so my average is more affected by lower prices. This is the only “leveraging” I allow. As for selling, I’ve long abandoned the concept of breakeven.
My first sell point is when a price rise works out to a 60% annual return rate, at which time I sell a predetermined fraction of my holdings. Why 60%? Because I know from experience you cannot operate in this market for less. Even when you make a small fortune, that’s the percentage that has to be retained to stay in business. That’s why I smile when I hear the old boys at Dunkin say they made some ridiculous figure on the stock market.
The drill press opens a new dimension in accuracy and production. But it is missing the vise assembly. The part that keeps your work clamped in place. Here’s a sneak peek at the ROM keyboard in production. Is that DIY enough for you? I could throw in a few tear stains for how things got this far.Needing the time off, I spent a few hours on this keyboard design, only to take it apart and salvage the pieces. The amount of specialized tools needed to make these simple gadgets runs into the hundreds of dollars and the learning curve is exponential. At the last minute I had to convert the system to six volts because of all the extra wiring. Things like voltages I leave up to some design engineer if the product has to be made pretty. I listen to Prairie Home Companion while doing this type of assembly. It helps one lose track of time.
NOON & NIGHT
Did you ever read one of those books that left a crummy aftertaste? I managed to pick up a high-school text on anthropology that immediately had me cringing. I understand that all texts are prejudiced in some person’s viewpoint so I dislike books which pretend to be neutral. That pretence is a serious bias in itself. I’ll expand a little. Theories, by their very nature, are used to predict, not to explain. A little learning tells us that any theory that has a following, no matter how reprehensible, must have some basis in fact, some body of evidence that makes it appealing.
Thus, one may not believe in theories like evolution, racial superiority, and gravitation but disbelief does not disprove a thing. For theories to persist there must be another side of the coin. So that’s where this textbook, “The Essence of Anthropology” was getting my goat. It is almost pure indoctrination, every other paragraph and chapter has the same undercurrent. That AIDS is not a sexual disease, but a “social condition”. That genetic similarity “has proven” all races are alike. That despite 16,000 documented violent attacks on defenseless victims, Muslim fanatics are just a regular bunch of guys and we should quit profiling them. On and on. With your tax dollars.
I’m not siding or attacking the theories. But I am saying if you got a point to prove, out with it. None of this trying to be cute by slipping in moral hang-ups into school books. Present the facts and let the student decide for himself. I suppose what irks me is that this theme of “right-thinking” is prevalent in just about every current school book. And I disagree with teaching kids what to think. That’s how generations get screwed up--when conditions change, their thinking can’t cope.
And I was just grumpy enough after four days in the house to keep reading it. Grrrr, the author starts off a chapter with some interesting facts, but then like a Jesus freak you just know where he’s gonna go with this. Slowly twisting, slowly adding entirely contrived sentences and paragraphs and little reminders along the way so in the end he can slip in his hidden agenda.And that was my day. Another Florida broiler, so this is my fifth day indoors except for momentary tasks and band practice. Didn’t I promise you a photo of a Florida sausage tree? Here you go. One of the biggest trees in the state, the seed pods fall and litter the ground. The pods are hard to see in this photo, but they are the greyish brown objects hanging vertically from the tree limbs. Go look it up on Wiki, I'm not climbing up there for a better picture. Forget that.
ADDENDUM
The results of my second lab in a week are back and there is a problem. My readings indicate a number of bad habits. However, I don’t have those habits. For example, they show I eat tons of red meat and various other high-protein foods. Not for ten years running. My blood levels are checked considerably more times than average. If anything goes wrong, it never gets a head start. So what in tarnation is wrong?
Matters now point to some genetic tendency to over-metabolize. I say tendency as there is no definitive test for this condition. They want me back in a month to see how the new cholesterol inhibitor is working, but I’m on Lipitor for life. What confidence am I supposed to have when these tests show I over-eat beans daily when I may eat them once a month. I happen to like beans and they don’t give me the whoofs, by the way. Baked red beans in brown sugar bourbon barbeque sauce with a hint of maple.
I talked with the drug provider about the cost of the pills. I understand recovery of development costs and the structure of American companies. But they needed pointing out that a drug designed for the mass market cannot be priced over $200 per month. Particular a drug like this one meant to be taken in conjunction with other already-expensive medications. Above that is gouging the very people who can’t afford to be gouged. I know the mantra of the big companies is health at any cost. But that isn’t realistic at street level. They seemed, what’s the word, alarmed? Alarmed when I told them I almost decided against the study because of the price tag.
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