Someone already suggested she become a quant.

Yes, no one would suggest ZFS as the filesystem for your phone. You might have to do things like disable checksums if you have an older or otherwise underpowered CPU, and it's tuned by default to use memory quite heavily. That anecdote isn't very relevant for today's desktop or server environments though.

The first of the new 7-11 stores in Manhattan opened in the summer of 2005. As of January 2011 they were up to 10 stores, and there haven't been too many more built yet. They seem to be spaced about every 15 blocks right now. Compare to, say, Duane Reed, which is closer to every 5 blocks across the entire grid. 7-11's goal is to be closer to that, with more like 100 stores across the city.

The trade-off I've found when programming is that I find it easier to enter into a flow state when I have music playing. That seems to be from a mix of blocking out distractions along with being more upbeat when hearing things I like. Whether things are familiar is key too; music I've never heard before is distracting, it's old favorites that go into my "flow mix".

It's possible for what I'm describing to be true and all of these other results to be as well. I wouldn't expect a programming flow state to be the best thing for either concentration for optimum memory (what's tested in TFA) or for detecting unusual patterns (the Peopleware study).

The more useful chart is Comparison of notetaking software, which shows how few of the interesting note taking features the alternatives provide. The only reasonable alternative for OneNote if you value written notes is Jarnal, which is still rough and resource heavy compared to OneNote.

At its peak in late 1999, Yahoo's market cap was over $100B. You don't just kill a hundred billion dollar company all at once; they have been doing a solid job of strangling it slowly for the last twelve years though. Shouldn't be too much longer.

I, along with a number of other people, second this.

As a long time PC user with well over 20 years of experience: buy a Mac. If you need Windows applications there are options (bootcamp, or virtual machines) and if she never -needs- a Windows version of anything she'll probably never have to call you for support either, or it'll be simple things like 'How do I sync my music?'.

And really, it takes about 10 minutes to pick what you want. Done.

(I've owned 4 Macs, a G5, an Intel iMac 17", a MacBook Pro 15" (2006 / Core Duo) and my latest purchase: an i7 15" 2.2Ghz machine with 8 Gigs of ram. (which I upgraded myself because Apple does charge way too much for ram).

And the best thing? Unix command line... (ok, your sister won't care.)

Buffett was always interested in companies where he had inside information of some form, especially things that allowed him to push toward a "control situation" to improve the value of the stock once he owned enough of it. One of the major investments that built up his early trading cash pile was in GEICO. That came from personally interviewing someone at the company, rather than using the publicly available information about it.

If that happened today, it would have insider trading questions all around it, with the company principals involved compelled via Fair Disclosure to tell everyone the same information. in 1951, that idea wasn't fully formed yet, as well as being difficult to detect/enforce. By the time that sort of thing did get cracked down on, mainly through the 1984 through 1988 insider trading changes, Buffett had moved onto more complicated things.

Certainly most Buffett's wealth came from legitimate innovation in value estimation. It's mainly in the last ten years that's become shockingly blatant and abusive. But even from the beginning, it was clear Buffett didn't have a problem with using his private information or research as a competitive advantage--even though that sort of thing is discourged by public company Fair Disclosure rules.

When rich people give away excess money to charities, that does not absolve them of guilt for the actions that made them wealthy in the first place. Just because Bill Gates gives away a bunch of money, that doesn't excuse he got that money using illegal monopoly tactics. You can't get credit for giving away money that you stole from taxpayers in the first place.

In recent years in particular, Buffett's wealth has been acquired using insider information from his cronies in the White House, actions that would have resulted in jail time for a less connected investor. Here's the way the circle works:

• Buffett and Goldman Sachs contribute buckets of money to the democratic party and the Obama campaign.
• When Goldman was in risk of going under, Buffett invests $5B in them to keep them going. It was a no risk bet because Buffett's buddies let him know before the general public that GS was getting a bailout. Notes on that at Trade With The Ultimate Insider.
• Buffett publicly thanks the US government for bringing stability to the markets, by which he really means money in his company's pockets.
• All the borrowed money plus $1.6B divident profit flows back to Buffett within 3 years.

There's endless stories on this theme, including major trades around the US auto industry bailout too. I believe the most recent is the Keystone XL mess. Peter Schweizer's "Throw Them All Out" book has a whole section devoted to Warren Buffett's tricks where he abuses his political ties for profit. Here's a video segment from Schweizer summarizing that. Buffett's money is just as dirty as if he'd robbed you with a gun; don't like the kindly old man disguise fool you.

Killing everyone with illegally downloaded software? You're really taking this Blue Screen of Death thing seriously.