patrick.net

SQT Says:
I’m surprised the RE industry isn’t putting out more propaganda about how now is a “good time to buy.”

I still hear this line from RE shills Realtwhores - but even they seem slightly nervous about saying something that is so easily refutable.

For every new leap we create even that much more work which needs to be done, because each leap is progressively harder, requires more energy, and is more fragile.

While we're probably (not?) disagreeing, I tend to frame the discussion differently. I would argue that up until now we have been riding the EROEI curve (exploiting increasingly concentrated energy supplies) supplemented by technological innovation to live more productive lives. The energy part of that equation is about to go south. We will have to go from using historically accumulated energy flows (ie - fossil fuels) to a sustainable option of harnessing existing energy flows (solar, wind, geothermal, biological...). The next leap had better require less energy, not more; we simply don't have it (give or take a hundred years). Efficiency is/will be the name of the game.

"Where’s my flying car, moon condo and anti-grav suit?

or...

"Where's my tax cuts and rising property values and cheap gas and upwardly-progressive, consumerist lifestlye?!!"

What a letdown; someone must pay dammit!

Realtwhores don't just hope for higher prices, they're actually praying for them...

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/6725

The accelerating pace of technological progress and change is frightening to some, who think we are inevitably heading towards achievement of self evolving artificial intelligence.

The singularity is coming. Everything then changes. It's a very interesting concept.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. Technology cannot improve the hierarchical relationship among people. Those who are hopeful for a better future through advanced technology will surely be disappointed.

Star Trek was a TV show.

No, but Cthulhu is.

Cthulhu?

You mean tako?

Guess who won the BA Sales Volume Decline Derby last month? According to DQ, Marin barely edged out Alameda with a 48.8% decline in volume. At this rate we may yet see 50% declines next month. Randy, don't give up on the hot tub just yet. I've laminated my Web 2.0 RoR social networking pitch and it just wouldn't have the same impact if I gave it in a pool with all the kids splashing around.

The singularity is coming...

...called the credit implosion

EBGuy

You have my number. Damn. We just passed up on a Novato new constr. w/ pool.

Entering another year lease (with cancelation option, of course; I can dream).

AC is essential in Novato. :)

For anyone not aware of singularity concept.

Earth's electronic systems have been self-organizing, in a symbiotic relationship with human society, at rates approaching the speed of light since Faraday's time. Grossly, this generalized rate of evolutionary development is at least seven million times faster than the speed of thought in biological systems (the speed of an action potential and synaptic diffusion in a human brain).

From http://www.accelerationwatch.com

NVR,

Ugh, just looking at that website hurts my eyes.

And for once I'll have to disagree with you. The futurists that think that self-evolving artificial intelligence is on the horizon are way off base. Just look at microsoft. They can't evolve Windows into something halfway usable in 20 years, even with the help of lots of human intervention.

NVR,

I also have some trouble with people claiming a special meaning for the word "singularity", completely ignoring all the existing usages of the word.

I realize they mean "technology singularity", but they should say so. Otherwise it sounds just like some kooky cult. Which may not be to far off the mark :)

Since I'm late to the party, let me see what I can say about what
started out as the "debt" subthread.

It started with comments about debt explosion, consumption explosion,
followed by observations about productivity increases, Headset on
debt/inflation, Patrick talking about how workers will never be allowed
to work substantially less, Solow theory from Randy H, Peter P on human
nature , somebody said that the fruit of the productivity increases are
largely accumulated by the ruling classes, and so on, EBGuy observed how technology really is about using more energy. Those were some of the main points, I think.

Here's my take:

Productivity is not only a function of technology and organization, but
also very strongly a function of the "state" of world society in the
sense of control system theory:

The state of the society consist of many elements such as infrastructure
of all kinds, population, properties of the population such as
knowledge, education, state of satisfaction, free time, hunger,
organization, what have you.

There is any number of state variables that affect the evolution of
the system. Along with the state variables there are fundamental
parameters such as physical constants, the distance of earth from the
sun (affects incoming energy levels), and so on.

Both physical/pshycological state and physical parameters play into
"productivity", which is the output that feeds back and changes (part
of) the state again.

The human aspect of the feedback consists of all the individual
objective functions that people are trying to optimize (or think they
are).

Where this will all end is anyones guess.

Keep in mind that patrick.net is also part of the system. The objective
function of patrick.net is to drive down the cost of housing and to
reward those who refused to participate in the "productivity" of getting
something for nothing.

I would argue that enabling platforms/technologies/groups/organizations often do not have an objective function, per se. Or, if they do, that objective function is self-altering over time, non-linear, and lacks clearly objective maxima (minima). Not that there aren't objective functions; clearly there are. But I believe that notion breaks down beyond a relatively simple and small unit. Once you start looking at something like this blog there is no single function. It just is, until such time as it ceases to be.

I also agree that "technological singularity" is further away in terms of time than those guys linked above suggest. Just like Bill Joy's "grey goo". Sure, it's a concern. But not for a while. Not for a long while.

I'm partial to the Kardashev scale of ranking, which describes my views towards advancement and productivity. The constraining factor for all civilizations is energy in its availability and usage. Of course state of civilization and all those other things are relevant, but there is no single, objective "best" state which enables advancement. Energy is the only objectifiable constraint.

We surely need an objective function to train a neural net. ;)

@ Dennis,

Why stop there - Dow 36,000 anyone?

http://tinyurl.com/3row55

How much would the price of a gallon of gasoline be if the Dow were at 36,000?

at least 3 to 4 times more like $12 - $15 would be my guess!

UK is so ahead of us, BOE is taking on credit card debt
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/19/ncrisis419.xml

Sterling definitely has peaked.

Randy H,

>I would argue that enabling platforms/technologies/groups/organizations
often do not have an objective function, per se.

I'm not disagreeing. At some point, there was an objective that led to the creation of said technologies, but after they have been created they become just part of the system *state* (there it is again), and the *usage* of said state now becomes part of the next step of the evolution of the system, governed by some other partial objective. Once technology exists it just becomes part of the infrastructure state.

I purposely did not say anything about the other mathematical properties of the system, but I'm quite certain that it is non-linear, time-varying (and therefore not stationary). I'm fairly certain that it is causal. It may or may not be reversible. All the preceding words are used in the mathematical/technical sense, which are not always the same as what the general public infers(*).

(*) Example: I have heard the the term "non-linear thinker" more times than I care to. I think it might be codespeak for "scatter-brained" or "cannot hold a train of thought for more than 60 seconds without getting derailed". Not necessarily a compliment in my book.

How much would the price of a gallon of gasoline be if the Dow were at 36,000?

at least 3 to 4 times more like $12 - $15 would be my guess!

No, the real question is what is the Dow going to be at when gasoline is $12/gallon?

OT: What experience do people have with people that are on anti-depressants? Say, family, friends, coworkers and so on.

I have this uneasy feeling that anti-depressant make people nasty, insensitive and uncritical of themselves, and hence big pains in the asses to deal with.

Is there any substance to my suspicion? Any stories? I realize I may be threading on dangerous ground here, given the number of people that (according to stats I have read) are on these medications, but on the other hand that means many people have seen the effects (but may or may not have recognized the connection at the time).

Any realtwhores on anti-depressants :-) ?

My experience with people on anti-depressants is that it blunts their affect, so rather than being nasty, they are indifferent. I would agree that it tends to lower empathy levels as well, but I think that is part of the intended effect of the drug.

I know a woman who is on anti-depressant. She looks fake most of the times, fake smile, fake laughter, etc. but there are these rare occasions that she completely overreacts to certain issues. It is almost as if she had this pent up emotion the entire time looking for an outlet.

I don't know why she got on anti-depressant to begin with. I suspect that it is a symptom of over-prescription of drugs in this country. It's really easy to get hold of these drugs, all you need to do is to complain to your doctor that you are not feeling happy, losing sleep, and voila, here's your anti-depressant.

I am seeing some very attractively priced homes in Elmwood, including one short sale. When is DQ going to come out with the new zip code sales numbers?

What was she like before OO? Did you know her before and after?

I knew her after, so I have no reference point of what "normalcy" should be like. I also know of a senior who is on anti-depressant, and she is exactly like what you described, complete apathy, to the extent that she didn't show any regret or sorrow knowing that her son was dying. But that could be a sign of aging too, I know old people can become really blunt in emotions.

Have you people considered the possibility that while you are waiting with fat down payments in hand, tongues hanging out and a puddle of drool on the floor waiting for prices to fall so that you can consummate your desires, the recession / depression will take out your incomes forcing you to use the fat down payments to feed your families?

I know a number of people who've been on varying sorts of anti depressants. Some temporarily as a way to cope with terrible losses, others more permanently to help with some ostensible imbalance.

It's pretty hard to broadly generalize what kind of "effect" they have on folks because everyone has a unique set of initial circumstances and responses to the different sorts of meds. And not all meds are the same. Most people on "antidepressants" are on really weak forms like Wellbutrin, which in low doses is probably not noticeable to observers. They even prescribe things like that for non-emotional sorts of applications like eating disorders and smoking or alcohol treatment.

I'm sure there is some long-term effect being introduced by all the meds. But I think you have to keep that in perspective. By far, orders of magnitude greater (and often much more terribly so), alcohol alters people and our society. And a huge percentage of the population self-medicates with copious quantities of alcohol daily, without the aid of clinical studies, pharmacy oversight and a doctor's diagnosis.

Just my $0.02 nominal.

And a huge percentage of the population self-medicates with copious quantities of alcohol daily, without the aid of clinical studies, pharmacy oversight and a doctor’s diagnosis.

Not exactly, since the effects of alcohol have been studied quite intensively. Two glasses of wine a day, help your heart but probably weaken your brain. Turns out you need your heart more than your brain :-)

But I am sure you general gist is quite correct: that alcohol has a much greater detrimental influence on society. Probably worse than all illegal drugs put together, even.

There was a time when I was dating and happened to meet a string of girls that were taking meds. It was either Prozac or Zoloff or Zanex or something. I noticed that these women had definate sexual side effects from their meds. They wanted sex but could not climax. Now, feel free to make a joke and blame it on me but I'm telling you that the most interesting thing about it was that I had a difficult time reaching orgasm too when I was with these women.
OK, sorry to be off topic.

Well, now I have another set of friends affected by the bubble. They are renters being foreclosed on. Yet another prediction coming true. I sensed something was wrong when I knew the landlord had paid 800K for the house and was renting it for $2,000 a month.

galtieri Says:
Have you people considered the possibility that while you are waiting with fat down payments in hand, tongues hanging out and a puddle of drool on the floor waiting for prices to fall so that you can consummate your desires, the recession / depression will take out your incomes forcing you to use the fat down payments to feed your families?

And have you, galtieri, while you were wanking off with your pale little willy in hand, tongue hanging out to lick your boyfriend's pucker, considered the possibility that those of us with down payments also have additional savings set aside to cover living expenses in the event of losing our jobs during the recession / depression?

You may also take the obligatory surfer-X reference to your corn-fed mother as implied.

Thatcher_whupped_yer_ass,

In a prolonged recession/depression, your "savings" will disappear like drops of water on a hot stove. Your jobs will be gone to India/China.

What seemed to go un-noticed on this site, was the rise in Libor on Thursday and Friday.

From Saturday's WSJ: The rise followed a review by the British Bankers Assoc. "amid growing concerns among bankers that their rivals weren't reporting their truly high borrowing costs, for fear of signaling to the maket they were desperate for cash".

"Libor's Rise May Sock Many Borrowers"
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120856108868827857.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

What's your point galtieri that you bought recently and are underwater? Thanks Thatcher for the sentiment. We need more of the Surfer X-type bluntness on this blog.

I didn't really sense that Galtieri was an underwater loanowner. Obviously a loanowner would be the most screwed in a depression, because they have a big liability hanging over their heads during unemployment. I picked up more on either jealousy of those with downpayment hoards, or perhaps the tone of someone recently laid off. Perhaps a tinge of the "end of the civilized world" hobbyist.

At any rate, it was lousy logic, as others have already proved.

I've got a question to the seasoned landlords and property hunters. I'm looking at some properties up by the University in Old Town. Typically these houses were built between 1900-1935. Many have a legal (or illegal) duplex in the back or basement.

What are the typical checklist points for considering necessary maintenance on these older properties? And what additional items must be considered when the house has been a long term college student rental?