After A Year, Windows To Get Thunderbolt

Last year, Apple's customers were delivered a lightning-fast new multipurpose peripheral bus called Thunderbolt. Apple's displays now get their video via Thunderbolt, and the displays' USB ports and other expansion options transmit their data back to the Macs via the small but fast Thunderbolt cable.

Based on the work of Intel software engineers' work on drivers, machines running Microsoft's operating system will get access to Thunderbolt later this year. Thunderbolt has two effects. First, small-factor machines with a little Thunderbolt port will be able to connect to things requiring a larger interface when connected to a Thunderbolt display (e.g., Gigabit Ethernet ports are larger than Thunderbolt, and don't fit on a MacBook Air). Second, whole controllers that previously had to be inside a machine and could not be made plug-and-play (e.g., SATA or RAID controllers) can now be made part of a peripheral, and the OS will be none the wiser because Thunderbolt hides these details from the OS. On OS X, this means hot-pluggable devices that could not have been hot-pluggable; forthcoming "certified" drivers will enable this under Microsoft's operating system, too.

Another point in favor of Thunderbolt is that with 20GB/s throughput, it should handle all the system's I/O just fine (including the monitors). As more Thunderbolt devices are made, the cost should come down for Mac users who want them. Moreover, as MS-Windows begins to access Thunderbolt hardware, more Thunderbolt monitors will appear and will offer some competition for Mac users who presently have but one monitor vendor.

The good news? Customers may never need a RAID card again. Hardware controllers can live just fine at the end of a Thunderbolt cable. This promises to free users from the risk of obsolete controllers. Let's just hope our Thunderbolt buses keep up with our outrageous demands.

Humor Through the Ages

When asked about the anachronistic appearance of incessantly recurrent vulgarity throughout the scripts of his HBO's hit Deadwood, its head writer David Milch suggested that historically strong language leaning on profanity rather than on vulgarity would have left the characters sounding like Yosemite Sam. However, The Onion thinks blasphemy can be funny to the modern audience. In a recent "This Week In History" video, authors show this as the top of the Sears Tower ...
... which they describe as having been designed to provoke divine intervention still wanting after a middle-finger-clad twin-tower structure was erected in New York.

So, why are vulgarity and profanity interesting to entertainers? Apparently, they are supposed to be shocking. Shocking people gets their attention, and attention is viewership is money. It's probably why a lot of humor aimed at kids depends on fart jokes and insults rather than on clever language: it doesn't require much brains to get, and – and here I tread on thin ice as I don't write in this area – may be easier to write.

When I saw Deadwood with L, we laughed quite a bit about the recurrence of "cocksucker" and "cunt", but the thing that made it interesting was character development and conflict that kept moving through Season One and then seemingly died. Don't bother with anything after Season One. The Onion is pretty funny, though, mostly because if its absurd depiction of a fictional history. The punch line is probably New York's buildings – another intrusion on an American taboo.

MTGE's 1Q2012: More Growth

Having Your Cake And Eating It Too At American Capital Mortgage explains how MTGE's 1Q2012 amounts to getting a dividend while the company reinvests a copy of the same dividend. The big question is to what extent – with time and asset growth – MTGE will enjoy the lower costs now enjoyed by AGNC.

Unexpected Sanity at TSA Following Gun Plant

A man attempting to fly to Detroit with his son was surprised that TSA screeners stopped him over his 4-year-old son's stuffed animals. Three stuffed animals had been used to conceal a disassembled .40 cal handgun. After interviewing the man, the TSA reportedly concluded that the incident was the result of a domestic dispute.

Read in plain English, the TSA appear to have believed that the man, picking up his son under a visitation order, had also picked up the firearm planted on the boy to put an early end to the visitation.

Figuring out that the man didn't need to be immediately confined is something this author would previously have suspected to be beyond the capabilities of the TSA. This sentiment is, no doubt, precisely why the handgun was planted on the man by giving it (in pieces) to his son as they left for an airport.

Sometimes, surprise is good. Even in a TSA screening line.
Bad Mickey!

American Capital Update

Shortly after American Capital Ltd. announced its quarterly results, so too did American Capital Agency Corp.

The important figure for ACAS – the NAV growth to $15.71 – is discussed in the article Why American Capital Is Buying American Capital. That article rebuts a thin work at The Motley Fool, which pitches ACAS share buybacks as a waste of shareholder funds. Its evidence? ACAS "can't afford" a dividend. Uh, it can afford share buybacks. The only difference is that shareholders aren't taxed on the NAV increases caused by below-NAV share buybacks, whereas they would be taxed on dividends. Were share price above NAV, the same funds would be directed into dividends under the recently continued (through 2013) dividend/buyback policy first announced last year. News the Fool apparently missed.

At American Capital Agency, NAV grew even more than the dividend over the quarter. Share price was more volatile, but that's of more import to traders than to investors. The key for investors is that the dividend remains safe while management reinvests further earnings with the added boost of some hidden tax deferral.

Meanwhile, American Capital Mortgage Investment Corp. announced its 1Q2012 results. As with AGNC, MTGE grew NAV in an amount exceeding the dividend it paid (net of the dividend payment, so it's like getting the dividend and having them reinvest it for you, both). Article to follow :-)

Fool Lives Up To Its Name

The Motley Fool once more published that buying shares below NAV was bad for shareholders at American Capital Ltd. Unfortunately, it still hasn't managed to make an even slightly plausible case that management somehow is injuring shareholders through funds mismanagement, when it raises NAV per share by retiring shares at one third below NAV.

A Jaded Consumer rebuttal to the Fool's latest missive is called Why American Capital Is Buying American Capital.

Forrester Says Apple to Decline, But ...

On Seeking Alpha, there's a new Jaded Consumer article responding to the CEO of Forrester Research, who blogged that Apple would decline because it had lost its charismatic leader. His thesis, fully explained in his blog, suggests he's reading the wrong books.

In other news, an old Apple video made for a marketing retreat, featuring Steve Jobs as President Roosevelt, is now available for the entertainment of the masses.