Some 'Splainin' To Do -- November 4, 2023

Locator: 45944BRK. Tags: BRK, Berkshire.

Link here. Link here. Link here.

Mark-to-market.https://www.sec.gov/files/marktomarket123008.pdf.

Chart: link here.

Graphs:

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For Traders Only -- BUD -- 12% In One Month -- November 4, 2023

Locator: 45943INV. 

XFinity Championship -- Phoenix -- A Great Finish -- Custer Wins -- November 4, 2023

Locator: 45942XFINITY. 

Tomorrow: 2:00 p.m. CT (?). Remember to set your clocks back at midnight tonight.

Tonight:The four competing for the championship are running 1 - 2 - 3 - 4, with 28 to go:

• Custer
• Nemechek: - 0.260
  
• Allgaier: - 1.83
  
• Mayer: - 3.365
  

Now, with ~ 20 to go, #24 into the wall; a yellow. Just what Custer did not need. Re-start. Place your bets.

• Hemric: lead 
• Custer: - 0.00
  
• Allgair: - 0.00
  
• Nemechek: - 0.00
  
• Hill: - 0.00
  
• Mayer: - 0.00

Now, after the re-start, with 10 to go:

• Custer: lead
  
• Allgaier: - 0.308
  
• Nemechek: - 0.442
  
• Mayer: - 0.737

With 5 to go:

• Custer: lead
  
• Nemehek: - 0.733
  
• Allgaier: - 1.68
  
• Mayer: - 2.135

Yellow; #8 spins out, with 5 to go. At the re-start, place your bets again. It will go green, white, next flag, finish:

• Custer: 0.00
  
• Nemehek: - 0.00
  
• Allgaier: - 0.00
  
• Mayer: - 0.00

Winner: CUSTER!

Nemachek faded ...  not even in the top five! Finishes 28th!

Apple: The Heat Is On -- November 4, 2023

Locator: 45941APPLE.

Link here. 

Microchips are hot. Literally.

As engineers cram more functions and power into chips, they require more energy and, thus, produce more heat than ever before. To beat that heat, which limits the performance of the computers and other gadgets we use, Silicon Valley is looking to some surprising materials.

Chip companies large and small are experimenting with slices of synthetic diamond, pieces of ultrapure glass or even an obscure material only recently synthesized in quantities sufficient to test its properties. Heat is an old problem for engineers.

The first practical lightbulb by Thomas Edison was a success largely because he prevented it from burning out quickly.

Traditional gas engines need oil and coolant to prevent a breakdown, and nuclear reactors famously require cooling to avoid a meltdown.

If you have an old enough laptop — one that can get uncomfortably hot on your legs—you’ve already got an intimate understanding of the primary barrier to making computers faster.

“The hard limit on chip performance is the maximum temperature on a chip,” says Andy Bechtolsheim, who co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 and was the company’s chief hardware designer.

Silicon microchips can’t run any hotter than about 221 degrees Fahrenheit or they become unreliable. To achieve higher speeds without a breakdown, chip developers aim to dissipate heat—or move it away from the source—as quickly as possible.

Apple Silicon -- November 4, 2023

Locator: 45940APPLE.

Bottom line:

• Apple is competing with itself.
• as such, earnings will be a drag for two to three years.
• for investors: no rush to accumulate shares; be methodical, consistent, and stay the course.
  
• the gap between Apple and Android will show itself to the average user no sooner than five years from now.

Apple Silicon: the complete guide.

Apple Silicon: ZDNet — a really good explanation.

Apple Silicon: pre-M3.

I "break down' Apple's $3-trillon market cap into three sectors;

• hardware, consumer retail 
• services (which, by the way, set all-time record sales in 4Q23)
• chips (Apple Silicon)
  

Link here. This is a huge, huge, huge deal.

I could be wrong, but my hunch is that Apple designs more families of chips than any other chip designer, and their chips are tailored for specific hardware products:

• smart phones
• wearables
• the cloud
• spatial computing (Vision Pro)
• laptops
• desktops
• servers
  

By the way, before I forget, my hunch is Apple will use Vision Pro technology to turn the 24-inch (and hopefully, the 27-inch) iMac into "spatial computers: one hard screen; multiple virtual screens, and no headset. [November 6, 2023: Apple says there won’t be a 27-inch iMac.]

Now, back to Apple Silicon.

I can remember the days ComputerWorld did not publish articles about Apple.

Now, see this.

The first M3 benchmark figures are showing up, which means it's a good time to look at why (and how) Apple already won the processor wars.

Apple introduced the first three members of its M3 processor family this week: M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max.

The M3 Ultra (two M3's side-by-side) may show later if the company feels there is demand.

We’ve also seen the first claimed Geekbench benchmarks for two of these chips:

M3 chip: Single-core performance of 3,030 and multi-core performance of 11,694.

M3 Max: Single-core performance of roughly 3,000 and multi-core performance of around 21,000.

It is important to note that this degree of performance is being achieved in computers that use just 50 watts of power at peak performance, deliver 100% performance for up to 18 hours when using a battery, and barely get warm.

The chips already seem superior to Intel’s 16-core Meteor Lake processors, which top out at around 13,000 multicore, but use more energy.

Apple’s new chips also raise the bar against Qualcomm, which just last week introduced a processor that almost competes with Apple’s now old M2 processors.

Sure, while you will find more performant chips, these won’t fit in the same slim Mac chassis, generally use much more energy, and cost a lot to obtain.

Geekbench: how it works.

Processor benchmarks: link here.

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. 

All my posts are done for my benefit. I don't expect others to read anything I post nor do I expect others to agree on anything I post. I started the blog to help me remember things since I have such a poor memory.

 All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

 

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