My question is, we're just about ready to upgrade to a larger condo or house and I'm wondering if anyone has URL's for historical perspectives of the time lag between unemployment jumps, "for sale" jumps, and drops in prices...
Living in the valley and not being tempted by the big $ offers of startups has meant that my fiancee and I are still employed and ready to upgrade from the 1-bedroom condo to someplace to start the family life, now that the market should be more sane...
(Admittedly, we're starting to see $500k 3-bedroom places in the valley but they're few and not in the best neighborhoods...and we'd much rather pay $400k. Then again, my condo has appreciated ~3x since I bought it in '95 so I suspect there'll be a fixed delta between the sale price of it and the purchase price of the new place.)
I suspect you may be right, friend. If some other distributor comes up with a reasonable offer, I'm sure Disney will relinquish the rights. As an example of that, note that Disney sold the rights to distribute "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "Watcher in the Woods", two odd-men-out for Disney's stable of saccarine. See for details:
http://www.dvdreview.com/fullreviews/something_w ic ked_this_way_comes.shtml
The winner of the best paper at the AAAI conference was on AI used to play a board game. So yes, it is taken fairly seriously by existing organizations, but it is good to see more focus on this. (Gamasutra.com has some good research-level information on techniques as well.)
I would think (esp. in the Silicon Valley/Alley/Seattle areas) that there would be a third category:
* Experienced/knowledgable/capable in all of the areas you're looking for but wanting about 2x the salary you're willing to pay 'cause they've been working hourly contracts for $200+/hr.
'course, many of these $200+/hr workers need those wages to pay for their new, big house ($1M+) and gas-guzzling SUV.
Possible?
Needless to say, I am glad there's a slump and I hope it continues to decline. I've been wanting to upgrade to a 2-bedroom condo (without stretching myself thin, as many in the valley have done) in the near future. Now if only we could have a medium-sized earthquake to scare away all of the right-coasters who haven't ridden the waves of earth yet.
There are photographs at NASA Ames (where I happen to work) of blimps being used to raise the girders of the 40'x80' wind tunnel (near where my office is) in the 1940's. Ames is located on the south-west end of the San Francisco bay and gets fairly constant winds (great for kites) but not terribly strong winds (surely 25mph.) I'll keep my eye out to see if winds are much of a problem for blimp-based construction...
A small version of the photo is available at:
http://www.arc.nasa.gov/about_ames/timeline.html
Nonetheless, if you get a chance and can find your way onto the base (likely to become easier once that end of the base is converted into the research park) there's a wonderful aviation museum in Hanger 1 covering the dirigible that was housed there and used in WWII as an observation vessel (the U.S.S Macon.) Also see:
http://code.arc.nasa.gov/jf/history/
(P.S. Ames is the west-coast "hub" for blimps, maybe you'll see more blimps in the valley with increased interest...There haven't been any blimps around for about a year now.:( )
Having used a Casio Fiva E-501 tablet (with the same 800x600 8.4" screen) for about 5 months now, I can agree that the size of the screen is small, but it's quite functional. The density is so high and the screen is clear enough that you can sit "book" distance away and the display is quite clear. 'course, with a keyboard, you can't type from that distance from the screen (another reason for using a tablet.)
I've loved the computer since I've gotten it, the formfactor/weight is wonderful, especially when travelling.
There are some downsides to consider:
* heat - the tablet gets VERY warm over the period of a day, esp. if it's sitting flat on top of something (or in it's port expander.)
* battery life - although the extended battery (at a steep $200+US) does extend the battery to 4+ hours, batteries remain a key and heavy component
* tablet support in Windoze/Linux - spotty at best (certainly not as functional in pure-tablet mode as a Palm/PocketPC. Gesture/graffiti-style input methods seem to be sorely lacking...? Full text handwriting recognition works ok but is insufficient for programming [but great for playing crossword puzzles on the plane].) I know this article is talking about their subnotebook, but they announced an E-501-formfactor Crusoe machine as well so it's soon to come surely.
I decided late last year to invest in a Casio Fiva MPC-501 (see Casio's web site) and I love the form-factor. It's a Cyrix-based platform so it runs Win98SE and the usual Office apps without a hitch.
Only problems I've had are:
* that the Win98 UI relies so heavily on right-mouse-button clicks/drags, something that is difficult with the pen input. Also, you can't "hover" your mouse without clicking (although some serious coding could use the hardware buttons as clicks and the pen as only positioning.)
* input methods are poor (much worse than WinCE), handwriting recognition shouldn't be the only option for input (given that I want to program on it while on the road.)
It seems that more vendors are coming out with tablet formfactors (and hybred desktop tablets, this seems to be a waxing/waning cycle, IBM and Compaq made x86 tablet computers in '94, for example.)
All I can do is *hope* MS would offer the Tablet PC O/S to the existing user base...
(Haven't tried Linux yet, not having found much in the way of web sites discussing Linux on an x86 tablet...people are way too busy porting to PocketPC form factors right now. Pointers would be appreciated.)
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My question is, we're just about ready to upgrade to a larger condo or house and I'm wondering if anyone has URL's for historical perspectives of the time lag between unemployment jumps, "for sale" jumps, and drops in prices...
Living in the valley and not being tempted by the big $ offers of startups has meant that my fiancee and I are still employed and ready to upgrade from the 1-bedroom condo to someplace to start the family life, now that the market should be more sane...
(Admittedly, we're starting to see $500k 3-bedroom places in the valley but they're few and not in the best neighborhoods...and we'd much rather pay $400k. Then again, my condo has appreciated ~3x since I bought it in '95 so I suspect there'll be a fixed delta between the sale price of it and the purchase price of the new place.)
I suspect you may be right, friend. If some other distributor comes up with a reasonable offer, I'm sure Disney will relinquish the rights. As an example of that, note that Disney sold the rights to distribute "Something Wicked This Way Comes" and "Watcher in the Woods", two odd-men-out for Disney's stable of saccarine. See for details:
w ic ked_this_way_comes.shtml
http://www.dvdreview.com/fullreviews/something_
The winner of the best paper at the AAAI conference was on AI used to play a board game. So yes, it is taken fairly seriously by existing organizations, but it is good to see more focus on this. (Gamasutra.com has some good research-level information on techniques as well.)
I would think (esp. in the Silicon Valley/Alley/Seattle areas) that there would be a third category: * Experienced/knowledgable/capable in all of the areas you're looking for but wanting about 2x the salary you're willing to pay 'cause they've been working hourly contracts for $200+/hr. 'course, many of these $200+/hr workers need those wages to pay for their new, big house ($1M+) and gas-guzzling SUV. Possible? Needless to say, I am glad there's a slump and I hope it continues to decline. I've been wanting to upgrade to a 2-bedroom condo (without stretching myself thin, as many in the valley have done) in the near future. Now if only we could have a medium-sized earthquake to scare away all of the right-coasters who haven't ridden the waves of earth yet.
There are photographs at NASA Ames (where I happen to work) of blimps being used to raise the girders of the 40'x80' wind tunnel (near where my office is) in the 1940's. Ames is located on the south-west end of the San Francisco bay and gets fairly constant winds (great for kites) but not terribly strong winds (surely 25mph.) I'll keep my eye out to see if winds are much of a problem for blimp-based construction... A small version of the photo is available at: http://www.arc.nasa.gov/about_ames/timeline.html Nonetheless, if you get a chance and can find your way onto the base (likely to become easier once that end of the base is converted into the research park) there's a wonderful aviation museum in Hanger 1 covering the dirigible that was housed there and used in WWII as an observation vessel (the U.S.S Macon.) Also see: http://code.arc.nasa.gov/jf/history/ (P.S. Ames is the west-coast "hub" for blimps, maybe you'll see more blimps in the valley with increased interest...There haven't been any blimps around for about a year now. :( )
Having used a Casio Fiva E-501 tablet (with the same 800x600 8.4" screen) for about 5 months now, I can agree that the size of the screen is small, but it's quite functional. The density is so high and the screen is clear enough that you can sit "book" distance away and the display is quite clear. 'course, with a keyboard, you can't type from that distance from the screen (another reason for using a tablet.) I've loved the computer since I've gotten it, the formfactor/weight is wonderful, especially when travelling. There are some downsides to consider: * heat - the tablet gets VERY warm over the period of a day, esp. if it's sitting flat on top of something (or in it's port expander.) * battery life - although the extended battery (at a steep $200+US) does extend the battery to 4+ hours, batteries remain a key and heavy component * tablet support in Windoze/Linux - spotty at best (certainly not as functional in pure-tablet mode as a Palm/PocketPC. Gesture/graffiti-style input methods seem to be sorely lacking...? Full text handwriting recognition works ok but is insufficient for programming [but great for playing crossword puzzles on the plane].) I know this article is talking about their subnotebook, but they announced an E-501-formfactor Crusoe machine as well so it's soon to come surely.
I decided late last year to invest in a Casio Fiva MPC-501 (see Casio's web site) and I love the form-factor. It's a Cyrix-based platform so it runs Win98SE and the usual Office apps without a hitch. Only problems I've had are: * that the Win98 UI relies so heavily on right-mouse-button clicks/drags, something that is difficult with the pen input. Also, you can't "hover" your mouse without clicking (although some serious coding could use the hardware buttons as clicks and the pen as only positioning.) * input methods are poor (much worse than WinCE), handwriting recognition shouldn't be the only option for input (given that I want to program on it while on the road.) It seems that more vendors are coming out with tablet formfactors (and hybred desktop tablets, this seems to be a waxing/waning cycle, IBM and Compaq made x86 tablet computers in '94, for example.) All I can do is *hope* MS would offer the Tablet PC O/S to the existing user base... (Haven't tried Linux yet, not having found much in the way of web sites discussing Linux on an x86 tablet...people are way too busy porting to PocketPC form factors right now. Pointers would be appreciated.)