About half of this seems to be telling us that he should have used pre-built Microsoft(tm) technologies instead of rolling his own.
I wonder how this article would have been different if it were not posted on MSDN, where the self-interest of Microsoft in its current context is, um, obvious.
Being rich by the Los Angeles definition requires at least the ability to purchase, say, a $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 house.
Even what you get for that kind of money isn't going to look very impressive to someone living outside of California. But you can get a nice ocean view for that amount.
Being really rich means you can afford a $5,000,000 Malibu road beach house AND a $7,500,000 Bel Air estate.
Aaron Spelling's house cost around $46,000,000. Not sure how much he could sell it for, since not many people need or even want a 3/4 scale replica of the Beverly Hills Hotel. But that's what he put into it.
I am but one insane person in a housing market that's equally insane. Unfortunately, all indications are that the insanity will continue for some time to come.
I'm actually putting $0 down, as you could have seen if you read my message more carefully. I did a lot of research comparing the zero down alternative with the cost of continued renting, and I think I made the right decision, even though I know it has its risks.
I was really soured on condos when a good friend of mine had his severely damaged in the Northridge earthquake. The insurance deductible was 10% of the total value and even people who were financially solid (capable of affording their fair share) were seriously damaged by it. Despite being financially solid, he was out of his house for two years(!).
It is true that normal earthquake insurance has similar deductibles. However, in a condo, you are shackled to your neighbors, who may or may not be able to afford the deductible. It can - and did, in that case - take years to straighten the whole thing out.
But perhaps the most important thing about condos is that they are ugly, unpleasant places to live in.
I have only seen one condo that could be described as truly beautiful. 101 Ocean in Santa Monica goes down the cliff from the top side, and of course has spectacular, awesome ocean views. It's a stunning architectural masterpiece.
Units in it go for $2 million each. Homeowners' association dues are $1,375 a month.
I love that place, but I could get the same view in a lovely Malibu home for under $1,500,000, without any association dues.
I'm actually already on top of this, but it's excellent advice for anyone reading this thread.
In my case, the payment cycle is more than a little bizarre. My taxes are due in Feburary and November. They are delinquent in April and December. So sometime before April 10th, I have to find $2,800-odd. And then I can coast until December and come up with $2,800 more. This is based on the new value of the home, not the old.
Fortunately, the sellers are leaving the washer and dryer, but I did have to get a new refrigerator, and I'm buying furniture and lighting stuff at a pretty high rate. I'm using a combination of my holiday bonus and the balance left over from my deposit money, which is refunded at the close of escrow.
I'm setting aside enough money each month to pay the taxes.
Since it sounds like you've been through this before, perhaps I could ask a question.
The house presently has a 40 amp electrical service, plus an extra 40 amp breaker for the air conditioning.
How much should it cost to replace this with a 200amp panel?
As a slashdot geek with a home network, multiple computers and the occasional need for video lighting (about 2,500 watts but only for short periods), do you feel I need to upgrade my service?
There's also something called "winter", where, from what I understand, there's bitter cold and this odd white substance that falls from the sky.
Since I left New England in 1980, this has been but a rumour for me, and I like it to stay that way:-).
Of course this means that, unfortunately, the government walks over us because they know that haters of the cold have no place to go save Hawaii or Florida:-(.
Find the MLS web site in your area, or realtor.com if there isn't one, and study it religiously. (The only thing worse than realtor.com is no site at all, but often that's what you have to deal with:-( ).
Visit the homes that look interesting on the MLS. See what they look like. Get an idea of where you'd like to live.
That's what I did, for a long time, and that's why I'm confident now that I'm making a good decision in buying the house.
I live and work in Edge City. Have you read Joel Garreau's work? It's quite fascinating because it shows what people really want, not what planners want to give them.
My new house is ten minutes away from my work. I'm not one of those guys who buys a $279,000 house in Pacoima or Lancaster and spends $1,000 a month keeping my car running and insured. No; I realize that's folly. So I buy a $428,000 house so I can be ten minutes away from my work. I should be a Hero of the New Urbanism, except that I think light rail is as much of a folly as heavy commuting.
In order to convince me that sprawl is bad, you're going to have to create a more convincing alternative to it than has been hithero created.
The condo is not in the same, exceptionally nice, area the house is in. Instead, it's surrounded by similar concrete ugliness. In fact, a house in the same area is very similarly priced once you add on the HOA dues to the condo's price.
Now, I have some questions for you that are very important.
Does this condo make you feel good when you look at it?
Would you feel pride, if you worked and slaved very hard for years, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments, and the end result was ownership of this condo?
Would you feel good about making a $2,000 monthly payment (including homeowners' dues) to buy this concrete monstrosity? Remember that homeowners' association dues make it very nearly as expensive as a single-family home in the same area.
Personally, I think I would have been nuts to buy the condo.
Here is an example of what you can get for $247,500. It's the cheapest house in an area where you take your life in your hands when you walk out the front door:
http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1031941129
For $350,000, you can get a house in Canoga Park, a fairly unpleasant area of Los Angeles (although better than the first one). It's still on the first page of realtor.com's listings for the area. (Many areas have incongruously cheap homes, mostly those in unsound structural condition or very small. In the case of Canoga Park, there is one house for $245,000 that's a one-bedroom of under 500 square feet. But that's an analomy that need not concern most home buyers).
For $428,000, I'm buying this:
http://www.amazing.com/new-house/new-house.html
It's in a woodsy hillside, which is a huge point in its favour compared to homes on "the flats", which tend to be in ugly places with lots of concrete and few trees. It's also an extremely safe neighborhood.
So it's a good solid upper middle class area. The average home price is pushing $650k, maybe even $750k.
To be "rich", an area would have to be like Beverly Hills and Malibu and have average prices around $1,500,000.
A lot of what makes homes so expensive is economic opportunity - LA is a city with money. A lot of money. That means potential as well as insane home prices.
It's also a place where it's sunny most of the year. Right now, we are facing our rigourous frigid winters, with temperatures in the 50s and (gasp!) actual rain. But don't worry; this is about as bad as it gets, and we have sunny weather back in the forecast for today. High of 57degF.
This is the literal price we have to pay for that.
I was being slightly high, because I didn't want to grab the book and do the arithmatic. It's actually 0.0125% of assessed valuation, which of course begins as the price of the property.
So 428,000 x.0125 = $5,350.
There's also about $150-$200 in "special assessments" covering things like "extra" police and fire "investments".
So the actual cost is around $458 a month.
It might be added that for this sum of money, you get ghastly schools and lousy police. Figure about a half hour for police response time. In wealthy parts of town, the police have been practically replaced by institutions like the Bel Air Patrol, a private police force that basically duplicates functions of the "real" cops.
I don't think the tax rate is particularly high compared to other areas, but since property is so expensive, tax amounts are very high.
It's worth emphasizing again that the house I bought is a 1000 square foot "entry level" house. It's in the hills, is well constructed and has central air conditioning, but it's on a tiny 5250 square foot lot. You'd laugh at it pretty much anywhere else in the country.
I just bought a $78k house sitting on $350k of land, so I know how the original guy feels.
I actually researched the idea of building my own house. In Southern California, where virtually all of the buildable land is already developed on, the whole process is fraught with peril and pitfalls.
Most land offered for sale is illegal to build on, and construction can only be attempted after a horrorific, multi-year planning and permitting process.
If you have ways around that sort of question, I'd love to hear them. But if your answer is just "Well, move to Oklahoma where land is cheap and there is no Coastal Commission to prevent you from building", I salute you, but do not propose to emulate you.
Based on my experience in researching construction in Malibu or Topanga Canyon (the two areas where I really thought the hassle might be worthwhile), I wouldn't recommend the process at all. You will spend less money and have fewer hassles if you simply buy an existing, functioning house.
The nice people who are suggesting that you build your own house are probably not considering life in a major urban area as desirable.
I would count it as extraordinarily difficult to save enough money for a downpayment for a house in, say, Southern California (where I live) and similar areas. For the entry level house I just bought in Woodland Hills, the price was $428,000. Woodland Hills is an upscale suburb but doesn't have the cachet of, say, Beverly Hills or Malibu, where entry-level homes start at around twice that. If you consider that typical entry-level homes in the downscale suburb of Canoga Park start at close to $350,000, I think I got a real deal.
I'm presently renting a house for $1,400 a month, which is way under market. My landlord sold it out from under me, and I checked rental options and found them all horribly expensive. So I talked to a very nice realtor, and he, together with a great mortgage broker, showed me that a good house wasn't beyond my means, despite my lack of savings other than company 401(k).
In the end, I had to withdraw money from the 401(k) just to rarise the 3% deposit needed to prove that you're serious about the house, and to pay closing costs. My lender gave me 100% financing in a first and second mortgage, with a total payment of around $2,750 a month. Property taxes add another $500-odd a month. However, virtually all of this is tax-deductible, on both federal and state returns. The bottom line is that I get about $1,000 of that from the taxman, so my net cost is $2,250 a month.
I used some extra money from the 401(k) withdrawl to pay back all my debt. With my debt paid down to zero thanks to the 401(k) withdrawl, my net cost of housing + debt - tax deductions is actually going to be a bit lower than were I was before.
A nice bit of fiscal alchemy.
If - and only if - you believe your real estate market will continue to do well, 100% financing may make sense, even though it doesn't sound like a good idea when you first look at it. The tax deductions really help hugely, taking really scary numbers and bringing them down to reality.
Here in Southern California, there are huge population pressures, and the economy is diversified enough to continue to do well. So on balance, I think home ownership here is a reasonable gamble. The fact that my home, being a tiny but beautifully made place on a hillside, is in a unique area with extremely low housing turnover also helps.
I have lots of plans for my new home, and I think it's going to be a great experience. And to be honest, I don't think I could have ever saved the amount of money needed without 100% financing.
If you want to own a home, I think it's well worth considering.
D
Question for answering machine fans
on
Linux Toys
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
One of the projects in the book is an answering machine/IVR/voice mail system.
It made me wonder if there is there any free or inexpensive Linux software, even highly experiemental, for taking a voice file and producing a crude translation to text?
I notice that IVR systems nowadays aren't bad at translating "David Dennis" to my extension, so surely we should be able to translate speech to text.
I really, really, really, really hate listening to voice mails, so it would be so cool to do an answering machine that would create that. I know the project in the book can do text to speech, but speech to text, even crudely, seems a lot more interesting.
This sounds suspiciously like a troll, but just in case, you would go to System Preferences, click on Networking and things are pretty much obvious from there.
By being cooperative with the weapons inspectors instead of confrontational. Then it would have been easily proven that he didn't have them, and he could have gone on.
I think he had WMDs; he was just good at hiding them. It's a big country. But if he didn't, that's the course of action he should have taken.
Before MacOS X, there was simply no meaningful built-in remote access, and therefore no remote exploits.
Now, MacOS X comes with all services disabled by default. You can hook a MacOS X system to the Internet and you are not instantly vunerable.
By striking comparison, I hooked a Windows XP system to the Internet and it was almost immediately infected by Blaster.
There are no known worms or viruses for MacOS X. Part of this is because MacOS X is not common enough for a worm or virus to spread. But MacOS X also doesn't have things like RPC and Windows Messenger Service enabled by default.
By refusing to give up his WMD, and stonewalling when inspectors tried to find it, Saddam gave just about everyone the impression that he had WMD. This includes most UN weapons inspectors, who saw enough of the runaround to last a lifetime.
If he had been cooperative to the weapons inspectors, he could have gotten out of the mess, even pretty late in it. It would have been easy enough for him to simply throw his doors open. But he didn't.
If he didn't have WMDs, he was truly the master of bluff. And maybe he was. But certainly not to his advantage.
Bush worked the diplomatic angles for over a year before invading. I'd say he gave Saddam every reasonable chance to back down. Saddam didn't blink.
If you feel there are other ways Bush could have succeeded in his goal of getting rid of Saddam, I'd like to hear them - but I would say the burden of proof is on you. Certainly Bill Clinton didn't have any more success with his own diplomatic initiatives.
I'd consider Mark Steyn the best conservative columnist writing today. He's not as well known as those you cite, but he makes his points with wit, verve and humour. You might want to check him out.
Once I know how to drive, I expect to be able to go into any kind of car and use it successfully. For instance, I own a Mercedes, but if I get a BMW next time, I expect the accelerator, brake and door locks to be in the same position. If they aren't, I'll get a little upset.
Understanding a firewall, ports and services is pretty esoteric knowledge to expect a non-expert computer user to have.
Your efforts to defend your mention of the equivalence of Bush and Saddam in your mind are simply semantics. You said you dislike them equally, so you consider them morally equivalent. Easy enough.
I've made a point to go to anti-war rallies as an observer, and the hatred of Bush was very obviously greater than people's hatred of - or knowledge of - what Saddam has done to get in Bush's sights.
I do not believe we put Saddam in power, but we did support him as a counterweight to Iran at a time when Iran looked like the real danger. I'm sure you remember that tiresome hostage situation.
And if we did put Saddam in power, or if we did help Saddam, doesn't that mean we have a moral responsibility to get him out before he does more damage? If we created him, as we may have, and if he ran amok, as he did, is it not our responsibility to bring him to justice?
If you want to be consistent in your moral outrage, you sould be praising Bush II to the skies, not condemning him. You can condemn his father with some justice, but George W Bush is doing the morally correct thing, insofar as I can determine.
Before the war, you were likely to be shot or tortured if you disagreed with Saddam Hussein, or even appeared to disagree with him.
Now, you're not.
And if you disagree with our forces, they won't kill you.(*)
I just don't understand how that couldn't be considered a major improvement.
I think a few people should read the human rights report on Iraq and ask if Bush has even come close to doing what Saddam has.
Has a happy, modern democracy arisen in the place of Saddam's thugocracy? Well, no, not yet. But this interregnum is a darn sight better than thugocracy, no matter how you slice it.
D
(*) Well, yes, if you tell our forces you disagree with them while pointing a gun at their heads, yes, they will kill you. But they won't kill you for saying what's on your mind.
Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, in cold blood, often simply because they disagreed with him, or he thought they might have disagreed with him.
Bush conducted a war in which under ten thousand people were killed. I don't like war, and I don't like killing. But in exchange, he managed to stop Saddam's murder express. By this time next year, the war will have saved many more lives than it cost.
In the end, Iraq and Iraqis are way better off then they were before the war, and the situation in their country is set to improve substantially over the next few years.
I am not saying that everything is perfect over there. Of course there are problems, and of course there are situations unfavourable to us. But at the same time, they are no longer under Saddam. They can say what they want. They can believe what they wish.
Much of the State Department opposed the war, preferring diplomatic solutions to the problem. Here is their report on the human rights record of Iraq and Saddam.
Getting rid of that beast of a ruler is, in my opinion, the best investment we could make for a better, safer middle east.
You are, of course, free to disagree with me.
But to say Bush is just as bad a ruler as Saddam Hussein is simply not a supportable argument, even as hyperbole.
Um, do you mean he is NOT paranoid, arrogant, etc?
Chick-fil-a sells what are probably the best chicken nuggets in the business, but whenever I feel a deep craving for them, it's Sunday and they're not open!
I can admire his consistency to sticking to principles, though. I'm sure that's what keeps him sane.
Slashdot Mirror
About half of this seems to be telling us that he should have used pre-built Microsoft(tm) technologies instead of rolling his own.
I wonder how this article would have been different if it were not posted on MSDN, where the self-interest of Microsoft in its current context is, um, obvious.
D
Wish I was.
Being rich by the Los Angeles definition requires at least the ability to purchase, say, a $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 house.
Even what you get for that kind of money isn't going to look very impressive to someone living outside of California. But you can get a nice ocean view for that amount.
Being really rich means you can afford a $5,000,000 Malibu road beach house AND a $7,500,000 Bel Air estate.
Aaron Spelling's house cost around $46,000,000. Not sure how much he could sell it for, since not many people need or even want a 3/4 scale replica of the Beverly Hills Hotel. But that's what he put into it.
It's a bit sobering how wealthy Los Angeles is.
D
I am but one insane person in a housing market that's equally insane. Unfortunately, all indications are that the insanity will continue for some time to come.
:-).
I'm actually putting $0 down, as you could have seen if you read my message more carefully. I did a lot of research comparing the zero down alternative with the cost of continued renting, and I think I made the right decision, even though I know it has its risks.
I was really soured on condos when a good friend of mine had his severely damaged in the Northridge earthquake. The insurance deductible was 10% of the total value and even people who were financially solid (capable of affording their fair share) were seriously damaged by it. Despite being financially solid, he was out of his house for two years(!).
It is true that normal earthquake insurance has similar deductibles. However, in a condo, you are shackled to your neighbors, who may or may not be able to afford the deductible. It can - and did, in that case - take years to straighten the whole thing out.
But perhaps the most important thing about condos is that they are ugly, unpleasant places to live in.
I have only seen one condo that could be described as truly beautiful. 101 Ocean in Santa Monica goes down the cliff from the top side, and of course has spectacular, awesome ocean views. It's a stunning architectural masterpiece.
Units in it go for $2 million each. Homeowners' association dues are $1,375 a month.
I love that place, but I could get the same view in a lovely Malibu home for under $1,500,000, without any association dues.
So I'll stick with single family homes
D
I'm actually already on top of this, but it's excellent advice for anyone reading this thread.
In my case, the payment cycle is more than a little bizarre. My taxes are due in Feburary and November. They are delinquent in April and December. So sometime before April 10th, I have to find $2,800-odd. And then I can coast until December and come up with $2,800 more. This is based on the new value of the home, not the old.
Fortunately, the sellers are leaving the washer and dryer, but I did have to get a new refrigerator, and I'm buying furniture and lighting stuff at a pretty high rate. I'm using a combination of my holiday bonus and the balance left over from my deposit money, which is refunded at the close of escrow.
I'm setting aside enough money each month to pay the taxes.
Since it sounds like you've been through this before, perhaps I could ask a question.
The house presently has a 40 amp electrical service, plus an extra 40 amp breaker for the air conditioning.
How much should it cost to replace this with a 200amp panel?
As a slashdot geek with a home network, multiple computers and the occasional need for video lighting (about 2,500 watts but only for short periods), do you feel I need to upgrade my service?
Many thanks for your thoughts.
D
There's also something called "winter", where, from what I understand, there's bitter cold and this odd white substance that falls from the sky.
:-).
:-(.
Since I left New England in 1980, this has been but a rumour for me, and I like it to stay that way
Of course this means that, unfortunately, the government walks over us because they know that haters of the cold have no place to go save Hawaii or Florida
D
Go to open houses and talk to realtors.
:-( ).
Find the MLS web site in your area, or realtor.com if there isn't one, and study it religiously. (The only thing worse than realtor.com is no site at all, but often that's what you have to deal with
Visit the homes that look interesting on the MLS. See what they look like. Get an idea of where you'd like to live.
That's what I did, for a long time, and that's why I'm confident now that I'm making a good decision in buying the house.
D
I live and work in Edge City. Have you read Joel Garreau's work? It's quite fascinating because it shows what people really want, not what planners want to give them.
My new house is ten minutes away from my work. I'm not one of those guys who buys a $279,000 house in Pacoima or Lancaster and spends $1,000 a month keeping my car running and insured. No; I realize that's folly. So I buy a $428,000 house so I can be ten minutes away from my work. I should be a Hero of the New Urbanism, except that I think light rail is as much of a folly as heavy commuting.
In order to convince me that sprawl is bad, you're going to have to create a more convincing alternative to it than has been hithero created.
Here is my $428,000 house
Here is a condo in the same general area. Note that I'd be nuts to buy a "condo downtown", because I would have to commute for an hour to get to my job!
The condo is not in the same, exceptionally nice, area the house is in. Instead, it's surrounded by similar concrete ugliness. In fact, a house in the same area is very similarly priced once you add on the HOA dues to the condo's price.
Now, I have some questions for you that are very important.
Does this condo make you feel good when you look at it?
Would you feel pride, if you worked and slaved very hard for years, making hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments, and the end result was ownership of this condo?
Would you feel good about making a $2,000 monthly payment (including homeowners' dues) to buy this concrete monstrosity? Remember that homeowners' association dues make it very nearly as expensive as a single-family home in the same area.
Personally, I think I would have been nuts to buy the condo.
What do you think?
D
Here is an example of what you can get for $247,500. It's the cheapest house in an area where you take your life in your hands when you walk out the front door:
http://www.realtor.com/Prop/1031941129
For $350,000, you can get a house in Canoga Park, a fairly unpleasant area of Los Angeles (although better than the first one). It's still on the first page of realtor.com's listings for the area. (Many areas have incongruously cheap homes, mostly those in unsound structural condition or very small. In the case of Canoga Park, there is one house for $245,000 that's a one-bedroom of under 500 square feet. But that's an analomy that need not concern most home buyers).
For $428,000, I'm buying this:
http://www.amazing.com/new-house/new-house.html
It's in a woodsy hillside, which is a huge point in its favour compared to homes on "the flats", which tend to be in ugly places with lots of concrete and few trees. It's also an extremely safe neighborhood.
So it's a good solid upper middle class area. The average home price is pushing $650k, maybe even $750k.
To be "rich", an area would have to be like Beverly Hills and Malibu and have average prices around $1,500,000.
A lot of what makes homes so expensive is economic opportunity - LA is a city with money. A lot of money. That means potential as well as insane home prices.
It's also a place where it's sunny most of the year. Right now, we are facing our rigourous frigid winters, with temperatures in the 50s and (gasp!) actual rain. But don't worry; this is about as bad as it gets, and we have sunny weather back in the forecast for today. High of 57degF.
This is the literal price we have to pay for that.
D
I was being slightly high, because I didn't want to grab the book and do the arithmatic. It's actually 0.0125% of assessed valuation, which of course begins as the price of the property.
.0125 = $5,350.
So 428,000 x
There's also about $150-$200 in "special assessments" covering things like "extra" police and fire "investments".
So the actual cost is around $458 a month.
It might be added that for this sum of money, you get ghastly schools and lousy police. Figure about a half hour for police response time. In wealthy parts of town, the police have been practically replaced by institutions like the Bel Air Patrol, a private police force that basically duplicates functions of the "real" cops.
I don't think the tax rate is particularly high compared to other areas, but since property is so expensive, tax amounts are very high.
It's worth emphasizing again that the house I bought is a 1000 square foot "entry level" house. It's in the hills, is well constructed and has central air conditioning, but it's on a tiny 5250 square foot lot. You'd laugh at it pretty much anywhere else in the country.
Hope that helped.
D
I just bought a $78k house sitting on $350k of land, so I know how the original guy feels.
I actually researched the idea of building my own house. In Southern California, where virtually all of the buildable land is already developed on, the whole process is fraught with peril and pitfalls.
Most land offered for sale is illegal to build on, and construction can only be attempted after a horrorific, multi-year planning and permitting process.
If you have ways around that sort of question, I'd love to hear them. But if your answer is just "Well, move to Oklahoma where land is cheap and there is no Coastal Commission to prevent you from building", I salute you, but do not propose to emulate you.
Based on my experience in researching construction in Malibu or Topanga Canyon (the two areas where I really thought the hassle might be worthwhile), I wouldn't recommend the process at all. You will spend less money and have fewer hassles if you simply buy an existing, functioning house.
D
The nice people who are suggesting that you build your own house are probably not considering life in a major urban area as desirable.
I would count it as extraordinarily difficult to save enough money for a downpayment for a house in, say, Southern California (where I live) and similar areas. For the entry level house I just bought in Woodland Hills, the price was $428,000. Woodland Hills is an upscale suburb but doesn't have the cachet of, say, Beverly Hills or Malibu, where entry-level homes start at around twice that. If you consider that typical entry-level homes in the downscale suburb of Canoga Park start at close to $350,000, I think I got a real deal.
I'm presently renting a house for $1,400 a month, which is way under market. My landlord sold it out from under me, and I checked rental options and found them all horribly expensive. So I talked to a very nice realtor, and he, together with a great mortgage broker, showed me that a good house wasn't beyond my means, despite my lack of savings other than company 401(k).
In the end, I had to withdraw money from the 401(k) just to rarise the 3% deposit needed to prove that you're serious about the house, and to pay closing costs. My lender gave me 100% financing in a first and second mortgage, with a total payment of around $2,750 a month. Property taxes add another $500-odd a month. However, virtually all of this is tax-deductible, on both federal and state returns. The bottom line is that I get about $1,000 of that from the taxman, so my net cost is $2,250 a month.
I used some extra money from the 401(k) withdrawl to pay back all my debt. With my debt paid down to zero thanks to the 401(k) withdrawl, my net cost of housing + debt - tax deductions is actually going to be a bit lower than were I was before.
A nice bit of fiscal alchemy.
If - and only if - you believe your real estate market will continue to do well, 100% financing may make sense, even though it doesn't sound like a good idea when you first look at it. The tax deductions really help hugely, taking really scary numbers and bringing them down to reality.
Here in Southern California, there are huge population pressures, and the economy is diversified enough to continue to do well. So on balance, I think home ownership here is a reasonable gamble. The fact that my home, being a tiny but beautifully made place on a hillside, is in a unique area with extremely low housing turnover also helps.
I have lots of plans for my new home, and I think it's going to be a great experience. And to be honest, I don't think I could have ever saved the amount of money needed without 100% financing.
If you want to own a home, I think it's well worth considering.
D
One of the projects in the book is an answering machine/IVR/voice mail system.
It made me wonder if there is there any free or inexpensive Linux software, even highly experiemental, for taking a voice file and producing a crude translation to text?
I notice that IVR systems nowadays aren't bad at translating "David Dennis" to my extension, so surely we should be able to translate speech to text.
I really, really, really, really hate listening to voice mails, so it would be so cool to do an answering machine that would create that. I know the project in the book can do text to speech, but speech to text, even crudely, seems a lot more interesting.
Thoughts?
D
Strange.
I've been using DHCP on one of my Macs, and it's been working just fine. (Most of my Macs presently run on static IP-based networks).
Since I gather you no longer have the machine, I guess I can't be of much help - but I found it trivial to configure a DHCP network on the Mac I had.
D
This sounds suspiciously like a troll, but just in case, you would go to System Preferences, click on Networking and things are pretty much obvious from there.
Hope that helps.
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By being cooperative with the weapons inspectors instead of confrontational. Then it would have been easily proven that he didn't have them, and he could have gone on.
I think he had WMDs; he was just good at hiding them. It's a big country. But if he didn't, that's the course of action he should have taken.
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Actually, yes.
Before MacOS X, there was simply no meaningful built-in remote access, and therefore no remote exploits.
Now, MacOS X comes with all services disabled by default. You can hook a MacOS X system to the Internet and you are not instantly vunerable.
By striking comparison, I hooked a Windows XP system to the Internet and it was almost immediately infected by Blaster.
There are no known worms or viruses for MacOS X. Part of this is because MacOS X is not common enough for a worm or virus to spread. But MacOS X also doesn't have things like RPC and Windows Messenger Service enabled by default.
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By refusing to give up his WMD, and stonewalling when inspectors tried to find it, Saddam gave just about everyone the impression that he had WMD. This includes most UN weapons inspectors, who saw enough of the runaround to last a lifetime.
If he had been cooperative to the weapons inspectors, he could have gotten out of the mess, even pretty late in it. It would have been easy enough for him to simply throw his doors open. But he didn't.
If he didn't have WMDs, he was truly the master of bluff. And maybe he was. But certainly not to his advantage.
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Bush worked the diplomatic angles for over a year before invading. I'd say he gave Saddam every reasonable chance to back down. Saddam didn't blink.
If you feel there are other ways Bush could have succeeded in his goal of getting rid of Saddam, I'd like to hear them - but I would say the burden of proof is on you. Certainly Bill Clinton didn't have any more success with his own diplomatic initiatives.
I'd consider Mark Steyn the best conservative columnist writing today. He's not as well known as those you cite, but he makes his points with wit, verve and humour. You might want to check him out.
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Except that's not quite true.
Once I know how to drive, I expect to be able to go into any kind of car and use it successfully. For instance, I own a Mercedes, but if I get a BMW next time, I expect the accelerator, brake and door locks to be in the same position. If they aren't, I'll get a little upset.
Understanding a firewall, ports and services is pretty esoteric knowledge to expect a non-expert computer user to have.
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I buy a packaged consumer product and install it on my computer.
Why should I be expected to know there is such a thing as a firewall and that I should install it?
To put it simply, that's unrealistic. Sure, geeks should know better, but the general public shouldn't have to.
Period.
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Your efforts to defend your mention of the equivalence of Bush and Saddam in your mind are simply semantics. You said you dislike them equally, so you consider them morally equivalent. Easy enough.
I've made a point to go to anti-war rallies as an observer, and the hatred of Bush was very obviously greater than people's hatred of - or knowledge of - what Saddam has done to get in Bush's sights.
I do not believe we put Saddam in power, but we did support him as a counterweight to Iran at a time when Iran looked like the real danger. I'm sure you remember that tiresome hostage situation.
And if we did put Saddam in power, or if we did help Saddam, doesn't that mean we have a moral responsibility to get him out before he does more damage? If we created him, as we may have, and if he ran amok, as he did, is it not our responsibility to bring him to justice?
If you want to be consistent in your moral outrage, you sould be praising Bush II to the skies, not condemning him. You can condemn his father with some justice, but George W Bush is doing the morally correct thing, insofar as I can determine.
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So do you believe we'd be better off with Saddam in power?
If you ressurected Stalin and asked him if Saddam's defeat was a good thing for his side, I think you can guess the answer.
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Before the war, you were likely to be shot or tortured if you disagreed with Saddam Hussein, or even appeared to disagree with him.
Now, you're not.
And if you disagree with our forces, they won't kill you.(*)
I just don't understand how that couldn't be considered a major improvement.
I think a few people should read the human rights report on Iraq and ask if Bush has even come close to doing what Saddam has.
Has a happy, modern democracy arisen in the place of Saddam's thugocracy? Well, no, not yet. But this interregnum is a darn sight better than thugocracy, no matter how you slice it.
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(*) Well, yes, if you tell our forces you disagree with them while pointing a gun at their heads, yes, they will kill you. But they won't kill you for saying what's on your mind.
I can dislike both equally.
Which is exactly the problem.
Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, in cold blood, often simply because they disagreed with him, or he thought they might have disagreed with him.
Bush conducted a war in which under ten thousand people were killed. I don't like war, and I don't like killing. But in exchange, he managed to stop Saddam's murder express. By this time next year, the war will have saved many more lives than it cost.
In the end, Iraq and Iraqis are way better off then they were before the war, and the situation in their country is set to improve substantially over the next few years.
I am not saying that everything is perfect over there. Of course there are problems, and of course there are situations unfavourable to us. But at the same time, they are no longer under Saddam. They can say what they want. They can believe what they wish.
Much of the State Department opposed the war, preferring diplomatic solutions to the problem. Here is their report on the human rights record of Iraq and Saddam.
Getting rid of that beast of a ruler is, in my opinion, the best investment we could make for a better, safer middle east.
You are, of course, free to disagree with me.
But to say Bush is just as bad a ruler as Saddam Hussein is simply not a supportable argument, even as hyperbole.
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Um, do you mean he is NOT paranoid, arrogant, etc?
Chick-fil-a sells what are probably the best chicken nuggets in the business, but whenever I feel a deep craving for them, it's Sunday and they're not open!
I can admire his consistency to sticking to principles, though. I'm sure that's what keeps him sane.
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