FAANNG continues to work. Facebook. Amazon. Alibaba. Netflix, Nvidia and Google. And, of course Square.
I don’t like one product things — like gold, bitcoin, marijuana, today’s cure for cancer (or tulip bulbs).
But I do like Amazon. They have more products than Carter had liver pills.
Amazon just opened a store on 34th Street, down the road from Macys.
Inside they have stands like this:
In contrast Barnes & Noble has this in its store on 86th Street.
Where would you rather shop?
On Monday, I plugged Goldman Sachs (GS) as the cheapest of the big banks. It’s working. On Monday it was $261. It closed last night at $269.01.
How paranoid do you want to be?
Here’s how it works in security:
The more secure you (or they) make it, the more inconvenient you find it. Hence, the more complaining you will do to your hard-working, unappreciated IT department.
One most “convenient” is ACH.
ACH stands for Automated Clearing House, which is a network used for electronic payments and money transfers. ACH is a way to move money between banks without using paper checks, wire transfers, credit card networks, or cash.
You give your bank account number and ABA routing number to your landlord. And he helps himself to the rent each month. Most convenient.
Except you can’t stop it. Well, you can can. You tell your landlord to stop helping himself to your money. And maybe he will. And maybe he won’t.
Your bank can’t stop it — unless you change your account number, which is a huge pain in the place where the sun doesn’t shine.
The only solution is not to use ACH, but to use your bank’s Bill Pay system. They send out their checks to pay your bills. You can stop them and start them. Neat.
Favorite recent gear
+ My iPhone 8 plus. It’s fast. It’s huge. The battery lasts forever.
+ Anything Roku. One tiny equipment charge and you can binge-watch your life away. A friend put one on each of his zillion TV sets. Far cheaper than cable boxes.
+ The “BIG” bargain from mot cable companies is higher Internet speed. Tell them you’re going to their competitor and they’ll up your speed. High Internet speed is the best technology you can buy today. Bar none. If you can get 50+, you’ll be happier than a pig in sh*t. Trust me on this one. I’ve been at that trough for years.
+ Go somewhere. Airline fares are ridiculously cheap. I’m paying $103 to fly between New York City and Palm Springs. That’s 2600 miles and a 6+ hour flight. And it’s totally ridiculous.
+ Google Flights has dramatically improved. Now, for the first time, I can actually find out who flies between A and B. All the other travel web sites are on the take and hence unclean. Ditto for TripAdvisor.
+ Three external screens and one laptop screen all made into one gigantic desk. You can move your mouse between them and drag and drop software. On my left screen, I run Fidelity Active Trader Pro. In the center I run Chrome. On the right I run Outlook. And on the center laptop screen, I typically run a simple text editor that I need for this blog. Email me if you want to know how to do this magic.
How to take your 2-year old to the tennis court
Photo taken yesterday on my iPhone 8 plus at Shadow Mountain Tennis Academy, Palm Desert, California.
A blonde city girl named Amy marries a Colorado rancher
One morning on his way out to check on the cows, the rancher says to Amy: “The insemination man is coming over to impregnate one of our cows today, so I drove a nail into the 2″ by 4″ just above where the cow’s stall is in the barn. Please show him where the cow is when he gets here, OK?”
The rancher leaves for the fields.
After a while, the artificial insemination man arrives and knocks on the front door. Amy takes him down to the barn. They walk along the row of cows and when Amy sees the nail, she tells him, “This is the one right here.”
The man, assuming he is dealing with an air-head blonde, asks, “Tell me lady, cause I’m dying to know, how would YOU know that this is the right cow to be bred?”
“That’s simple.” she said…. “By the nail that’s over its stall,” she explains very confidently.
Laughing rudely at her, the man says, “And what, pray tell, is the nail for?”
The blonde turns to walk away and says sweetly over her shoulder, “I guess it’s to hang your pants on.”
Harry Newton, photo by Dan Good in southern California, eons ago. I look much handsomer today, though that could be fake news, since no one has confirmed it, least of all Snopes.
Enjoy the desert Harry!