patrick.net

That’s my basic belief. I had constructed an intelligent design model for myself way before it became hip.

The case for intelligent design is very strong, at least intuitively.

Gilbert, an area near Phoenix has listings that are 25% less than they were a year or two ago. I've been tracking 4 bedroom homes there out of concern for a friend who I had hoped would sell. His house at one time was worth $300K, now similar homes have listings only asking $225K.

I’ve been always amused by the notion that the destinies of the people born on the same day are somehow ruled by the same astronomical objects.

The influences are similar. But the outcome can be quite different.

I also could not figure out how come kids being born at the same moment in Tokyo and Honolulu would have different horoscopes (taking in consideration differnet timezones).

The will have drastically different house positions, which are related to the local solar time.

I also don’t understand how one object of the Kuiper belt (Pluto) is more significant than a much larger one (Eris).

It is all symbolic. Why are tarot cards more significant than credit cards, even though you can buy stuff with the later? :)

I'd normally dismiss it, but everyone who is seriously into astrology correctly guesses that I'm a Leo.

I’d normally dismiss it, but everyone who is seriously into astrology correctly guesses that I’m a Leo.

I am not so easy to guess. I am a Sagittarius but I have Taurus rising, so they see this conservative person who loves food. I do have a risk-taking side but that is hidden from view.

LILLL,

Yeah, not as satisfying as it *should* have been. Perhaps you should have goaded him into holding out for his wishing price:

"You're not giving it away like that, are you? Hrrrmphh!!
You know the market always takes off in the summer, right?
Don't let them "insult" you like that --you're the "owner", you tell THEM what the price is!"

One will be born on Thursday and the other one on Wednesday, yet the local solar time will be exactly the same

The analysis will be the same. The universe does not care so much about political interpretation of time.

Peter P Says:
Randy, what did you run on Vista 64?

SP

That's about it. Then I ran PartitionMagic to recover my hosed dual-boot config.

Seriously, I just need the add'l memory. I have a few 64 bit apps, but I'd just like to use that extra GB of RAM I paid for.

Astrology plays on the same ground as a conventional science, that’s why it’s so easy to demonstrate its shortcomings by using conventional scientific analysis (or common sense) - not applicable to religion.

I don't see it as a science. I see it as a tool of self-understanding.

Seriously, I just need the add’l memory. I have a few 64 bit apps, but I’d just like to use that extra GB of RAM I paid for.

Why do you need 4GB if you do not run Vista?

Would you consider using virtual memory on a dedicated RAM disk?

I use more than 3GB of memory regularly. It swaps. And swaps. And swaps. And swaps.

Did I mention it swaps?

With 4GB of memory I won't have to swap as much.

I use a ramdisk for my neural net software too, but I shouldn't have to, if Windows memory management worked properly. Regardless, I still can't address beyond 3GB because of the OS.

My disks are hyper fast anyway. All tuned for maximum system drive throughput. But swapping still is way too slow.

I use a ramdisk for my neural net software too, but I shouldn’t have to, if Windows memory management worked properly. Regardless, I still can’t address beyond 3GB because of the OS.

Which NN package do you use? I was interested in that stuff for a while.

The commuting paradox reflects the notion that many people, who are supposedly rational (according to classical economic theory, at least), commute even though it makes them miserable. They are not, in the final
accounting, adequately compensated.

Burbed's Theorem: People love things that make them miserable.

Slavery is freedom.

Here's an article from MSN's "Real Estate" Section:
"5 lousy excuses for not buying a home"
"Hard-core renters can come up with all kinds of reasons to avoid real-estate purchases. Here are some of the usual stories -- and why they just don't wash."

http://realestate.msn.com/selling/Article2.aspx?cp-documentid=4706111&GT1=9323

I should email the 47 (points) arguments that Patrick publishes on this site to the author. :)

I have twin sister who was born at the same time as I and has nothing in common with me. I blame gender, genetic variations and upbringing

Well, the influences should be similar. What commonalities were you looking for?

Slavery is freedom.

Only because debt is wealth.

@DP,

Hilarious!! Thanks for that (unintended) comedy piece! I've filed that one right next to the infamous NYTimes Fear of Committing? REIC psych-ops piece.

What exactly is a "hard-core renter" anyway?
(Please keep your responses full of vulgarity and obscenity --er, meant to say 'free' of those things... ;-) )

"Im sorry we cant offer the rental to you
we have another offer, can you go higher?"

Hum! How come I dont see that around in Santa Clara or any place.
The stat is 50/50% rental vs owner as with many other cities.
There seems to be plenty of more multiple bids on homes
but none for rentals. What gives!

Five absolutely bad reasons for buying a home should be the title.

The latest numbers from RealtyTrac, which records foreclosures across the U.S., show 837 homes are in some stage of foreclosure in Tracy.

Those include 467 cases in which people have missed payments or received notices of default, 103 that are up for auction and 267 now owned by banks.
http://tracypress.com/content/view/8848/2/

This is how Fortress BA will fall (some day). City by city, advancing from the burbs (or hinterlands, as the case may be). Town by town, mano a mano (one foreclosure at a time). A monthly commuter pass on ACE from Tracy to SJ is only $225 (yes, sleep your commute away).

Peter P really is just trying to stir things up with his posts.

Huh? That was an honest opinion. Usability is very important and I think MSFT has done a lot in that area.

GC,

Does Word 2007 do a better job of rendering to HTML? I'm having a nightmarish time trying to cut and paste Word docs into Wordpress.

DP,

Is that photo at the top the author?

The layout of that article is like a sex sells ad.

Striking, upscale looking woman thinks its great to buy. You should to.

Looks like the same tactic used to sell cars, cigs, and beer.

"Sorry if that was confusing, “Y!” refers to yahoo. All my friends there use Y! or just Y as short form, so I got into the habit."

Sorry. I figured, but I wanted to throw in a (lame) Boolean joke.

I use a ramdisk for my neural net software too, but I shouldn’t have to, if Windows memory management worked properly. Regardless, I still can’t address beyond 3GB because of the OS.

If you used a Real Operating System(*), you wouldn't have this problem.

*-Any flavor of Unix, OS/400, or VMS.

I actually think that the job prospect of the entire Bay Area will be relatively strong, and I am more and more leaning towards the soft landing scenario for very select pockets in entire America.

I work in a very niche industry that serves the government, so the outlook is quite secured, particularly, and my wife works in finance for a major tech company. We feel generally secure about our jobs not because of the general job market, but because we are both very frugal, have almost 0 debt, and enough savings. We live way below our means and our hobbies cost almost nothing. Even in a 1929 situation, we can both take 50% pay cut while still managing to put aside some savings.

Aside from headhunter feedback, we also browse on alumni job database from time to time. There seem to be more job postings for people with 10+ years of experience than for entry level positions. This is exactly the same situation a world over in Asia. I was told repetitively by my friends in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan that the job market cannot be better (probably the best in the last couple decades) for experienced managers, while entry level jobs seem to have evaporated. The placement rate for China's college grads has been hovering around 50-65% for the last 4 years. Put this in perspective, that is a country producing only 4-5M college grads a year, while its economy has been growing at double-digit for the last 20 years. Where do all the jobs go?

So I have a theory for this. Globalization, along with advances in information technology is making LOTS of entry-level jobs obsolete. When I grew up in Hong Kong, one of the main entry-level positions was typist. The ad usually listed how fast a person should type a minute (usually 50-60 words), nowadays, this entire category of typist job is just gone. I also recall in my high school history class that prior to the Nazi Germany, industrialization made the whole job category of roofer obsolete, and these ex-roofers accounted for a significant part of the unemployed crowd who eventually sent Hitler to where he was.

Another example is London. In the 1929 depression, the least hit country, apart from Japan for some odd reasons, was UK. London was in the midst of electronics innovation so after a brief dip in realty price, London was the first metropolitan to recover in real estate. I have a feeling that New York and Bay Area will somehow replicate London's story. London in fact thrived as the northern coal mining towns sunk real deep in the 1930s as unemployment rate went above 40%.

Yep, what I am saying is, select pockets in New York and Bay Area are special, because no matter how bad the whole economy becomes, there are still people with money. In a polarized society like ours, moneyed households tend to huddle together in certain enclaves. Maybe I am over-estimating the wealth of our people, but I think there will enough smart Americans out there who not only won't be affected much by the downturn but thrive on such an upcoming bargain opportunity.

I think the job prospect for high wagers will be better than those of low wagers. Just take supermarket for example. Albertson's is experimenting with this self checkout stands. They started the pilot about 2 years ago, and now I see them everywhere. Initially I didn't like scanning my own stuff, but then unless I am buying veggies or stuff that requires special input, I use almost exclusively these self checkout stands. What does that mean for cashier positions? While low-end cashier jobs are eliminated, higher-end data interpretation jobs may be added. Now that we have far more data on the customers, who is going to do the analysis? What other metrics we should start to track? What innovative marketing programs should we add after a thorough analysis of the customer data?

It is going to work the same for neighborhoods. The prospect of Portola Valley and Hillsborough will be better than that of, say, San Mateo and Redwood City. Unfortunately I don't see any forces that can possibly reverse such polarization in almost everything.

BB,

I live in South Bay, not SF. I don't think the price will go up much even in Los Altos Hills or Pacific Heights, but I don't think they will crash either. In the neighborhoods that I track, homes between $1.0-$1.5M headed higher than 05 peak earlier this year. However, homes between $1.5-2.0M seemed to have come down a little bit. Compared to some free-fall situation in the rest of the country, select pockets in the BA have shown persistent stickiness at least for now.

I believe that in general, housing as an asset category is a bad choice for the next 10 years, because even in the best neighborhoods, there will be little appreciation potential left. Either for self-occupation or for investment, I will steer away from buying a home for at least 5 years if I can help it.

BB,

the economy is booming - for only a certain segment.

One thing makes me hesitant about digging my roots deeper (ie. trading up to a bigger nicer house) in America is, I don't know how livable we will become if such polarization continues. Will it be too dangerous to live it up while surrounded by ghettos?

It seems that SoCal housing is close to NorCal prices. It seems less ludicrous to want to move there now. Except for the beaches, of course.

Bay Area FB's may stay F'd...

"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pledged at least $20 billion to help homeowners caught in the subprime meltdown, but those in the Bay Area could be left out. ... The loan limit on government-sponsored enterprise loans for single-family homes in California is $417,000."
http://tinyurl.com/32dgqg

SP

BigBrother,

So... I take it you've got some investment properties that aren't selling then? That's ok. Wherever they're located I'm sure it's "special" and will weather the coming 5-year tidal wave of subprime & Alt-A ARM resets no problem.

Credit Suisse ARM Reset Chart (2007-2013)
(CLICK TO ENLARGE):

Funny how the housing market is tanking practically everywhere in the country, NODs and foreclosures are reaching peaks not seen since the last RE bust --and yet, as you say, unemployment remains stubbornly low. Plus, S&P just hit a new all-time high. Isn't the correct order supposed to be: recession & high unemployment first, followed by housing crash?

What gives, I wonder? It's almost like this time, it's the housing market crashing first, possibly to trigger a MEW shutoff recession later on. Or, perhaps there won't be a general recession at all, and the RE market will simply stagnate for several years or more. Meanwhile, incomes and rents catch up and inflation eats away at the real value of your depreciating assets.

Either way, buddy, looks like you're screwed while the rest of us earn double-digit returns on our stocks, ETFs & housing shorts. Sorry to disappoint you, but no Doom 'n Gloomers here, pal!

Sure must suck to be you, all overleveraged and caught with your pants down. Anyhoo, good luck to ya' --you'll need it! Oh, and say "hi" to the boyz at the NAR for us. :-)

Does Word 2007 do a better job of rendering to HTML? I’m having a nightmarish time trying to cut and paste Word docs into Wordpress.

The best way to produce HTML is to hand-code it. I do not trust any tool.

Word 2007 does have a blogging feature.

Big Brother
I know this will sound like heresy to many of the posters here, so I just want to preface what I am going to say by saying that the following is only one person's opinion (mine.)
I used to live in San Francisco and my daughter and a good friend of mine are currently living in San Francisco. The city had lots of appeal 20-30 years ago. I don't know if the City has changed or my perception has changed but it seems dirtier. Whacked out people used to be confined to the Haight but now they are everywhere. Even though real estate is expensive, many of the neighborhoods look poor and run down. The values ( not monetary) there have changed dramatically,also.
If you are young and single, it may hold a certain appeal but it seems as if many people move out past a certain point in their life. If you have super big bucks, you can insulate yourself somewhat.

I think this is the first time I heard Danville described as undesirable. I'll take Danville (esp. area of danville woman's former residence) over the vast majority of SF.

Peter P,

Ughhh, I guess I better pick up

I think this is the first time I heard Danville described as undesirable. I'll take Danville (esp. area of danville woman's former residence) over the vast majority of SF.

GC, I always prefer Microsoft products. The UIs are just so well-designed.

I used to think that. Some of the logic in their menus annoys me a little now though -- e.g. how Options are set up in Outlook (all over the place), Excel is a bit quirky, and the suite concept and convergence seemed to be something of an afterthought at times. But I don't like Adobe UIs much at all, having said that. What about the OpenOffice suite? Is it any more integrated?

I use OpenOffice at home. It's a little maddening, largely because I'm so used to the Word interface.

I have a twin sister who was born at the same time as I and has nothing in common with me. I blame gender, genetic variations and upbringing

That is a fraternal twin (being different gender)? Fraternal twins are no more similar than any 2 siblings, but helps prove the 80% genetic loading on phenotype... identical twins separated very early on show very similar temperaments when studied later, apart from the effects of disease or other environmental insult...

What happened to Lotus Notes and Domino servers? Their groupware was pretty good -- offered a lot more integration and promise than a bunch of disjointed MS server products...