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- Manlobbi
Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A)
No. of Recommendations: 8
from this months Sports Illustrated,
“In this month’s Sports Illustrated series “The Playbook,” Mark Cuban credited Warren Buffett as a key inspiration for his ongoing drive and work ethic. Cuban said about Buffett:
“My inspiration for still grinding while others start thinking about their retirement plans comes from Warren Buffett—who at 94 years old only just announced plans to step back as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
‘I want to see what he’s going to do next,’ Cuban said.”
ciao
No. of Recommendations: 25
‘I want to see what he’s going to do next,’
Love it.
I'm reminded of the story of an orchestra conductor who got a pacemaker installed at age 96, with a built-in one-time battery. He asked the doctor, what happens when the battery runs out? The doctor answered "It's good for five years". The patient said "And....?" The doc says "Tell you what, if you come back in five years we'll do a new one for free".
That's what happened.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 2
Yeah, but that's probably wrong.
When my wife got her pacemaker installed the doctor said the battery in them lasted about 10 years. It was 12 1/2 years later when the battery got low enough to qualify for a new pacemaker. And that's with it pacing 95% of the time.
Her new pacemaker is supposed to last about 15 years.
No. of Recommendations: 11
Yeah, but that's probably wrong.
When my wife got her pacemaker installed the doctor said the battery in them lasted about 10 years. It was 12 1/2 years later when the battery got low enough to qualify for a new pacemaker. And that's with it pacing 95% of the time.
Well, two comments:
First, the story of the conductor's experience is over 20 years old. I presume the technology has moved a bit : )
And second, the batteries aren't that perfect. A friend of mine woke up last summer, less than a year after getting a pacemaker, with a shrill beep-beep-beep coming from his chest, which rapidly turned into to "beeeeoooo...ooo...errr...errr...." and halted. (the beeping is supposed to give months of notice, not minutes) The battery was just a bad one, and they had him into surgery within an hour for a replacement. Back home by dinnertime, with some killer bruises.
Fairly young guy, too. His first heart symptom was his heart stopping for 22 minutes. Keeled over while teaching a class, and an off-duty EMT happened to be walking by the doorway at the time. He looks pretty good for a dead guy.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 2
A while back, they dealt with shorter battery lifetimes via Plutonium-powered pacemakers. Leading to this fact sheet: "What to do if you find a nuclear-powered cardiac pacemaker:"
https://osrp.lanl.gov/pacemakers.shtml
No. of Recommendations: 1
Plutonium powered seems like overkill. But I wonder why they don't use wireless rechargeable technologies and then recharge them periodically wirelessly? Maybe it could work for 6 months or a year and then simply recharge it for a few hours by wearing a device with a coil on your skin near the device.
I just did a quick search and apparently they are already working on such things -
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9944998
No. of Recommendations: 1
Plutonium powered seems like overkill. But I wonder why they don't use wireless rechargeable technologies and then recharge them periodically wirelessly? Maybe it could work for 6 months or a year and then simply recharge it for a few hours by wearing a device with a coil on your skin near the device.
My mother-in-law has a spinal nerve stimulator implant that recharges wirelessly. So I don't think it would be a big leap to go to a pacemaker.
No. of Recommendations: 0
But I wonder why they don't use wireless rechargeable technologies and then recharge them periodically wirelessly? Maybe it could work for 6 months or a year and then simply recharge it for a few hours by wearing a device with a coil on your skin near the device.
How long does your phone run on a charge? How many months? Weeks?
Do you realize how small pacemakers are? About the size of a 50 cent coin, maybe a little thicker but not much thicker. The whole thing is smaller than the battery in a cell phone.
People who need a pacemaker REALLY NEED that pacemaker. When it shuts off, like turning off to run a self-test, your heart rate drops back as low as when you had to get it in the first place.
My wife had to get her cardiologist to disable her pacemaker's daily self test, because when it went into selftest at 9PM she didn't have enough energy to stand up.
The batteries in these things are magical. Maintaining power for 10+ years. Amazing. I wish my phone battery would hold up for even 10 days.
