patrick.net

But the whole undertaking also stalled Sony’s inroads into Home Entertainment and opened future possibilities for MS. So there are intangible benefits.

I am sensing a dark future for Sony. Who is still carrying a Walkman?

Not investment advice.

For whatever it is worth, patrick.net _IS_ one of the better known bubble blogs and is likely to be a target for subversion.

We need a Secret Police!

Randy H. wrote:

> I don’t even call FAB a Troll, and he
> makes hunting me a daily sport.

I’m happy to see that Randy doesn’t think I’m a Troll (even is we do disagree at times with the difference between “per capita” and “household” income and how it relates to historic income/housing price multiples and the impact of women joining the workforce on housing prices and family life) …

Then astrid wrote:

> I never thought FAB was a troll…
> he can be iconoclastic, but he’s not a troll.

I’m surprised that astrid feels I’m iconoclastic, since open minded people rarely have anything “closed for discussion”… (I’ve got to remember to keep adding a “but not all” to my posts).

Then DS wrote:

> FAB’s like one of those vampires or demons that
> turn to the light side for some reason in Buffy or
> Angel or sundry spinoffs — but keep fighting within
> themselves and can’t help reverting to their evil old
> ways once in a while…

As a libertarian my liberal friends are always happy when I support equal rights for everyone, the decimalization of drugs, and elimination any government regulation of the internet and radio and refer to my opposition of taxes and government regulation of business as my evil dark side (just like my conservative friends who like lower taxes and the government to stay away from their business can’t believe I have a evil dark side that would allow homos to be Boy Scout leaders, let people smoke pot at rock concerts and allow immoral adultery to be on TV at night)…

Do I hear cowardice from our ranks? Come on now, did the Germans give up when we bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! The asshole known as Confused Renter posts the same tired fucking diatribe on craigslist, why offer the Troll the opportunity for more attention? Is this something we aspire to be? A knock-off craigslist haven for BA assholes?

My friend’s husband is with a start up that makes tiny computers that run Windows and stuff.

The beauty of Windows CE machines is that they run 12+ hours on a charge and they take almost no time to boot up.

However, they run very few applications. But most people need only a web browser and an e-mail client anyway.

The fact that the regulars here are unlikely to fall for a RE-pumper is irrelevant. Trolls aren’t out to convince us - it is the general message that they want to weaken.

Maybe a solution is the be more vigilant for their lies from an admin/threadmaster standpoint and delete posts that are blatantly misleading.

My friend’s husband is with a start up that makes tiny computers that run Windows and stuff. I forgot the name, but I am going to see her in about 1/2 hour. I think they are expensive though ($3000 or something, I remember my husband commenting that it was twice what his laptop cost).

Are they thin client workstations? e.g. Wyse, etc. I've been trying to source a cheap 'thin client laptop', but they come in at twice the price of an ordinary laptop, as there's not much demand -- and this is from a cheap Indian manufacturer I managed to locate. The whole idea of NetPCs is that they are meant to be cheaper hardware (or at least reduce TCO -- fewer or no moving parts, not susceptible to malware, centralised admin, etc)

Can you give me a link to their website, SF? Curious to see their offerings.

Peter P Says:
I reserve my judgement regarding which one is better. I’ve heard many bashings of CE. I want a small palmtop computer with keyboard, wifi and Half XGA running Windows CE. Why did they kill those palmtops? They are light (~1lb) and they turn on instantly.

There's embedded XP and so on available also these days. I'm trying to source a laptop-sized portable NetPC that's not attractive to steal for a biz idea... sort of a 'dumb laptop' that still has wifi, CD/DVD player, multi card reader, and so on... trying to be the next Internet millionaire...

Trolls can be good for dropping a few bombs and stirring up sh*t if things gets a little stale. Those are the ones that lurk and agitate, saying a lot with a little & wearing an impish grin.

We can deal with those, and tolerate them as the yeast that raises the dough.

The other trolls, the interminable dolts and conceited asses, like the late Marina "I got mine" Prime--and a few other lost souls--merely drone on and on, saying very little with a ton of hot air. They should be scalped.

Other than that, let this site morph with the times & let 'em roll...

FAB,

I think of iconoclasm as neutral or complement. I think of myself as an iconoclast. Does it have a primarily negative connotation for you?

i thought i was the iconoclast, vs the evil market idolaters... :(

M. Cote,

I'm the rare exception to your rule about smart regulars. I almost failed HS stupid math senior year because I couldn't comprehend trigonometry.

I think a new reader would either be charmed by this blog's quirkiness or completely put off by its chronic OTness long before he/she gets around to reading trollish comments.

DS,

(since you decided to latch into my conversation, I don't think I can be accused of snarkily butting into your parade...)

I don't think of you as an iconoclast. I think of you as a postmodernist.

I am sensing a dark future for Sony. Who is still carrying a Walkman?

I don't have an 8088 XT-PC either, or run MS-DOS 1.0... and my Apple IIc isn't worth much except for the tech museum exhibition...

hmm, a postmodernist can be iconoclastic -- almost by definition!

"Please no flame wars in the thread on treatment of trolls. That’s too narcissitically ironic for even me."

ROFL. Nice.

Anyone posting under multiple ID's should be permanently banned.

People with opposing viewpoints should not be considered trolls, even though they offer little evidence. Several posters on this blog also use anecdotes and cheerleading in place of hard evidence, but because they agree with the viewpoint people just applaud them. If this is to be a rational discussion instead of sour-grapes ranting, there has to be hard data.

I find ConfusedRenter useful because he posts occasional datapoints against the grain of the site. He also posts a lot of warm-and-fuzzy fluff, but at least he's not vulgar. The way some hardcore posters here talk, the "inevitable" RE bubble burst is a complete guarantee, a "fact" to be worshipped with religious fervor. I like to see the dissenters. If the slide is such a predictable thing, why only just buy a house once prices are down? You could definitely find a way to make money on the "guaranteed" pop.

I guess that kinda makes me a fence-sitter, since I neither believe in the fantasy of ongoing spectacular returns based on shady loans, nor in the doomsday scenario of a complete RE crash where prices come down 50%.

Am I in the minority, or are there other fence-sitters lurking as well?

Allah,

Feel free to sign up as a threadmaster and write your own post.

CG,

None of which demonstrate why Fudan is the Yale of China. A much better argument can be made for why Fudan is the Stanford of China, actually - see greencrabs.blogspot.com.

I have a second cousin who went to Shanghai No. 1 Medical School -- smart guy, boorish family.

Actually, he's a fairly noted cancer researcher.

astrid Says:

> FAB, I think of iconoclasm as neutral or complement.
> I think of myself as an iconoclast. Does it have a primarily
> negative connotation for you?

I’ve always thought of an iconoclast as one who bashes religion or an idiot that tried to stir up shit by making stupid statements that (almost) everyone knows is wrong such as “the world is flat”…

I can’t recall mentioning religion on this BLOG before (other than an off hand comment referring to “right wing religious nut balls”). Despite my dislike of crazy religious republicans who are convinced that their sons will start listening to Streisand and/or reading Details magazine if we don’t ban male hand holding from TV I actually have a lot of respect and admiration of the major world religions (and to the dismay of my atheist/objectivist friends) I believe in some kind of god…

Since I try and have at least some support to my arguments (even if it is anecdotal at times) I don’t think I fall in to the second camp of iconoclasts that just spout off things like “real estate can never drop in price since they don’t make land any more”…

It looks like the time stamp on the BLOG didn't "fall back" an hour...

FAB,

Gosh, I just thought iconoclasm means you're willing to entertain thoughts outside of the mainstream. I suppose your opinions on gender relations might qualify as assailing against BA conventional wisdom, but in any case, my "iconoclasm" comment was not intended as criticism.

CR wrote:

> I still think Yahoo at 25-26 is a great buy...

I think that Bay Area real estate prices will look a lot like the Yahoo chart below (the Jan. 2000 for Yahoo is the Oct. 2005 for Real Estate) the Yahoo chart even has a few "dead cat bounces" (like real ester will) on the way down...

http://tinyurl.com/y94zhv

Forsaken Says:

> btw since most of you all are bay
> area guys you may like this:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/227775522.html

The guy is probably not “desperate” since he bought the place for $575K 12/03 (from a guy that bought it for $410K 11/00).

He just needs to admit that there is no “good” part of El Sobrante and dump the place since even with under $500K in debt the place will not have positive cash flow any time soon…

CG

I am not so sure about the part of MS reverse-engineering the competitor’s products in your blog entry “The Instincts of a Monopolist Die Hard.”

That is the blog author's perspective, not mine. That blog is run by a b-school colleague and Wall Street financial analyst, not me. We just syndicate one another's blogs. Mine is Capitalism 2.0.

OQO is nice...

Geez, SFWoman, you seem to know all the big guys. Do have have a friend who knows Dick Cheney?

Late to the discussion. I used to post often but now a lurker.

Banning trolls should be done very rarely - reserved for only those who make extremely offensive OFF-TOPIC comments (regarding sexual preferences, or religion etc) or those who are here just to steal bandwidth and hamper regular discussions (like posting the same listing multiple times).

This is a GREAT blog. Awesome information. But without dissenting views, it will get very narrow-minded, and then it won't be great. So please keep banning as an extreme option

Earlier, I said:
For whatever it is worth, patrick.net _IS_ one of the better known bubble blogs and is likely to be a target for subversion. A clear policy for banning trolls needs to be enforced.

I guess a clarification is in order, since I didn't exactly mean to suggest we go Gestapo on the trolls. The point is that there needs to be a clearer _policy_ on what constitutes unacceptable trolling, and whatever this policy is, it needs to be enforced.

As others have already said, we shouldn't ban people for expressing dissenting views - as long as they are done in an honest, constructive and transparent manner. IMO, asshat-realtwhores who try to pump the market while pretending to be renters are not exactly contributing this kind of dissent.

SP

SFWoman Says:
Might it not be OK if the bulls had their posts responded to in a ration way using data, that we point out that our data is better (and point out why), that we point out where the bulls are wrong and educate?

Under the current circumstances, this is the best approach. However, the exchange is rarely conducted in an honest and constructive manner. And the resulting arguments end up increasing the (near-topic) noise level.

Off-topic noise is generally easily filtered out and less harmful. Spurious exchanges that are on-topic are more damaging to a discussion.

SP

off-topic for this thread, but on topic for a RE blog:
Here is a price-history for a property at 1605 EASTBROOK AV, Los Altos. Now just WTF kind of stunt is this guy up to??
Price Increased: 10/12/06 -- $1,185,000 to $1,185,888
Price Reduced: 10/12/06 -- $1,185,888 to $1,185,000
Price Increased: 10/19/06 -- $1,185,000 to $1,185,001
Price Reduced: 10/21/06 -- $1,185,001 to $1,185,000

SP

SFWoman Says:

> I think 888 is a good luck number for Chinese people.
> I have a couple of Hong Kong friends with that in their
> email addresses and I have seen it on custom
> license plates.

I’ve been told by (Chinese American) friends that 8’s in general are lucky (not just 888). I have friends of Chinese decent with business numbers with lots of 8’s since they say Chinese like to call a number with 8’s and I’ve had Chinese leasing broker friends say that is easier to lease a building to a Chinese guy if there is an 8 in the address (and almost imposible with unlucky numbers in the address)…

SFWoman Says:

> I consider him a dangerous and immoral person.

Then goober Says:

> He’s shot people……..

I saw a bumper sticker in Orange County that said:
“I would rather be hunting with Dick than in a car with Ted”

SF Woman wrote:

> I bought my place in 1994, for considerably LESS
> than the people who bought it five years before me
> paid for it. Yes, that is anecdotal, I know.

There is nothing wrong with anecdotal comments since they often let you see problems with the raw data.

Realtors love to find areas with new big homes going in and will say “prices are going up in this area” (but never mention that price per foot is going down).

I have never seen or heard of a single CA home that sold for more in 1994 than it sold for in 1989 (most of N. Cal was a little lower and most of S. Cal was still a lot lower)…

Late to the party as usual.....

Re: patrick's being OT all the time - I like it!
Although, if it upsets too many people, maybe reformatting a la Piggingtons, where there is a seperate section for 'off topic' would mollify.
Personally, I like the way the conversation veers all over the place: it reminds me of being at a party - where you're having a conversation while simultaneously eavesdropping on the conversation next door to you - intitially confusing, but the intersection of the two makes some unique combinations.

Re: Trolls. Personally, I have no problem with people wanting to pose dissenting opinions - after all this is a country of Free Speech (supposedly) - and (dare I say it) Patricks can be a wee bit of a closed society, especially if you haven't personally met other members at a gettogether, or live in the BA...

Intelligent disagreement and argument is one thing, but anything insulting of a personal/sexual/political and/or religious nature should be verboten.
You only have to skim the comments section on HousingPanic to see what can happen if trolls are left to thier own devices.
Inane repititions of the same thing (ie Marina with the "X place YOY 20% PRIME" bleat) are just boring, and I for one simply ignore them and move on. They're a bit like banner ads...no one is making you click on them, so don't.

Anyway, thats my tuppenceworth.
Now - back to applyng a heat-pad to my strained lower back, while looking after my flu-ridden husband and limping cat. Its amazing how stressful that post-vacation 'recouperation' period can be.

speedingpullet,

That's part of the problem w/trolls. Saying we should steer clear of personal/political/sexual and/or religious comments is all fine and well but where so many RE perma bulls are concerned the very presence of this blog is an affront to their "religion". Namely The Unified Church of Perpetual Appreciation.

That's what happened at SFWoman's cocktail party. SHE damn sure didn't bring up the topic. Touting RE at this point is done more for perma bulls sense of self reassurance than anything. (This is so typical, isn't it). The original context was "tisk, tisk such a shame young people can't afford, priced out alas!" (Feigned concern) then it's off to "It Nevergoesdownland"

These components are at the core of virtually all trollish comments. I realize that it looks very generous, even patriotic to allow trolls free reign but aren't we subjected to enough of this abuse in real life situations let alone here?

SFWoman has too much class. I used to have class too. Now when I'm confronted w/comments of that nature I gives it the patented southside eyes rolling into the back of the head (jaw askew) exhaling as if last worldly breath with the "you're killing me here" look. Enough.

You're killing me here!

Allah,

Wrong.

Interesting.........

But wrong.

This is absolutely revolutionary! There was a time when Americans did this of their own accord. Now we need to package it so they stay on track! This is EXACTLY what I've been hinting at here for months.

True, the MB's are using this as just another way to get you to re-fi and get a fee out of the deal BUT properly applied this should be your LAST re-fi! We've gone from a 20 year to a 30 year to a why bother worrying about paying it off mentality! This financial platform should be warmly welcomed.

Mind you this in no way excuses buying an overpriced POS! I'm not running out to buy "some place" ANY PLACE just so I can use this application but when I do, you better believe I'll be using this system! It just makes sense!

@speeding,

RE: your husband's cold/flu, I assume you guys flew to and from your vacation spot? Airplanes bring out the worst of my OCD-like paranoia about germs. I try not to touch anything public at all with my bare hands, but the recirculated air is probably full of all the aerosolized viruses sneezed out by the other passengers. It's almost as bad as my child's daycare.

Hope you all feel better.

Allah,

I have studied these for about a year now and am just now comfortable introducing/discussing them with younger clients that still have a mortgage balance. The mechanics differ from plan to plan but the general idea is to have your mortgage (and in some applications) ALL your debt paid off years in advance saving you hundreds of thousands in unecessary interest payments! Please, before you throw this exciting development "under the bus" study as I have and then let us know what you think!

Caution: Just b/c your effective rate of interest will be in all liklihood BELOW 3% does not in any way excuse running out and over paying for your home! The right tool, at the right time!