Most kids will spend time reading "Monster Truck Mash-azine" and therefore do poorer than the few kids who read "Scientific American". Therefore, magazines are bad for a majority of children.
I suspect there is also a good bit of "finger dyshomonymia" (a word I just made up). Frex, my fingers often type "won" when I meant "one", and will do so without consulting my brain, which knew perfectly well which word it meant.
"And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well."
I suspect the reason is because computers are more often used, both by teachers and by students, as a way of INDEXING DATA, rather than LEARNING STUFF.
It's all well and good to know where to find everything, but it does you no good if you don't know how to process the information once you've got it. And I think that is probably what is happening. Instead of learning the basics as they would by interacting with a teacher, average kids who use computers at school learn where to FIND the basics.
This is very much akin to the ongoing/. debate about geeks vs lusers [term used for this discussion; I don't personally believe that mere everyday users are "lusers"]. A geek has actually LEARNED not only how to find stuff on their computer, but also how to build it, set it up and secure it, why stuff works how it does, etc. A luser only knows superficial use of everyday apps, but nothing about how the computer works.
Computer-oriented schooling may well be raising a generation of informational lusers, who know how to FIND data, but nothing about how to USE it or what it MEANS.
I have to agree with you. Over and over I've seen people run out and buy NEW! SHINY! when old and rusty was still overkill for the work expected of it.
I still run a P3-550, a P3-500, and a P233 as everyday work machines. The slowest here that has a Real Job is a P120/64mb/Win95-OSR2 -- it still does everything asked of it, so why pitch it out just because it's old?
"I've also seen the performance degradation in Windows boxes as the registry gets junked over time. So, a PC that started out "fast" eventually seems "slow" artificially unless you do a re-install."
Actually, this is a symptom of neglect. To prevent the "old age slows", do the following religiously once a week:
That's all there is to it. This will also cure the majority of stability issues that aren't directly caused by iffy hardware, bad drivers, or (on Win9*) applications with resource leaks.
As to installing new applications that are too much for old hardware, or that expect Win2K/XP and therefore don't bother to clean up memory after themselves, there I can't help you:) But a good rule of thumb is to not install any application that is more than 4 years newer than the hardware and/or OS it's expected to run on, because chances are it won't be well-behaved on the older OS, or it will overwhelm the hardware of that previous era.
I have Win95 setups that are 9 years old and no bitrot. There are freeware tools available to keep the registry in pristine condition, and no excuse not to use 'em. I use Toniarts Easycleaner: http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/
But areas with strict building code enforcement tend to have much higher insurance rates. If my house were over the line in Kern County, just four miles away, my property tax and insurance would both be about half what they are here!
Building codes are like unions: in their day they were necessary to prevent harm to the poor sucker living in the house. But now contractors have become expert at skirting the requirements, leading to tract homes that are falling apart after only 20 years, despite being built to code. And the permit process operates pretty much like union dues and "join or we'll break your kneecaps" -- if you built without paying for the permits first, the county will make you tear your house down, even if it's completely to code and built well above the required standards. It's happened several times that I know of here in L.A. County.
Good points, and there are a variety of outfits like.. what's it called, Habitats for Humanity? who can help out, such that you wind up with a better house anyway. Hell, go ask your local Amish or Mormon community to help with the construction. They just might do it.
And as you say, if someone is able-bodied enough to build a crap house, they are able-bodied enough to build a more-permanent house even if it's from scrap lumber, or one of those kit houses you used to be able to order from Sears, or whatever. And $35k is pricey for a kit house that's a permanent structure, let alone a cardboard house with a questionable lifespan. Kit houses can't be that much more trouble to put together!
BTW my house was built from a "U-Build-It" kit back in 1956. If that wasn't marked on the original building permit, you'd never know it wasn't a standard contractor-built house. The cost? About $5000!!
I agree with the folk who point out that a cardboard house isn't realistic for long-term living, but could be very useful as Q&D shelter for expeditions, the seasonally homeless, disaster relief, and the like.
Exactly so. What's scary is that what's been there for 50 years without complaint by anyone, can be run out by some yuppie who moves into the neighbourhood and makes everyone's life hell until they get their way. Hey, if you want Beverly Hills, STAY in Beverly Hills; don't move out to the middle of farm country, then demand that everyone else meet YOUR standards.
But unfortunately, that's how it's been going, and these yuppie-come-latelies have the money to enforce their notion of "neighbourhood standards".:(
While I agree with you in spirit, what you're ranting about is not building codes, but rather, CC&R (covenants and restrictions).
Building codes are good and useful, and help prevent shoddy construction (or at least give you grounds to sue if the contractor fucks up). But CC&Rs have no mission in life except to "enhance and maintain property value". Which is to say, to keep the riffraff out, aka anyone with less income than the rest of the neighbourhood. Which unfortunately tends to be driven by whoever is the richest around, not by the average of the neighbourhood, and gods forbid the poor should have a say in it.
(See my other rants, er, posts in this thread about CC&Rs, permits, and suchlike.)
While an established community might reasonably have some say in what can be done in their neighbourhood, this is now being taken to mean "anyone within mortar range". Frex, I live over a mile from the next nearest anything, and two miles from the nearest rural "community" (a collection of about 900 houses, mostly old modulars and older farms, but lately being invaded by a crop of fresh doctors, lawyers, and dentists, custom-home plans in tow.) Nonetheless, lately this "community" has decided that everything within 7 miles is in their "sphere of influence" and that they should be able to dictate what is or is not acceptable, including stuff like the type and amount of landscaping you have (right, you want me to plant more trees in this desert? are you volunteering to pay my water bill?? in summer it already runs over $100/mo.!!)
There was even an attempt to disallow any further modular homes, that last bastion of affordability for the working poor who are trying to buy their own homes.
Modulars are entirely up to code these days. But unlike stickbuilt houses, they depreciate (and tend to fall apart a lot sooner), so older ones tend to be sold to po'folk. This "reduces property values" for the most expensive homes in the same area. If no more modulars are allowed, the value of these new custom and spec houses (houses built by contractors for the speculative market) goes up. D'oh!!
The same goes for any sort of nonstandard construction. Being built to code isn't the issue. But they're not going to meet most CC&R requirements, and that means if they're all you can afford, you either live elsewhere (assuming that's practical or even possible) or do without.
In most areas anyone can do the work, so long as it passes inspection afterward. But in some states it is illegal for anyone not licensed to do the work at all.
As you imply, it's not the building codes that are at fault; it's the licensing and permits (which I rant about in another post).
What the parent was really talking about was not building codes, but rather CC&Rs (aka covenants). These have nothing to do with building codes, and everything to do with "maintaining property values". Except that last is being grossly overapplied, often in ways that don't make any sense.
One example was the requirement in some California communities that all roofs be cedar-shake, so they'd all look nice the same way. But cedar is a high-oil wood, and even with fire-retardant, it's like storing gasoline on your roof -- as the big Oakland fire finally demonstrated in terms that even CC&R enforcement fanatics could understand. (Over 900 houses burned, mainly due to the susceptibility of cedar shake roofs to ignition by flying embers.) Suddenly they were no longer so interested in forcing people with fireproof tile roofs to replace them with cedar shakes.
Another example: I once looked at buying some acreage out in the middle of nowhere. It was at the very end of the road, right next to the oil lease (hardly a thing of beauty), and not visible from any other buildable property. Nonetheless, the owner-before-last (who was an architect and general contractor) had put a shitload of CC&Rs on it, such as minimum house size (rather too large for the shape of the lot), type of fencing allowed, and get this, even the colour you could paint your mailbox!! Needless to say, I didn't buy the place.
In a world that actually gave a shit about affordable housing, this isolated acreage would have allowed inexpensive housing such as a trailer, or a house built of cardboard, straw, bottles, or whatever. In California, guaranteeing contractor profits trumps affordability and even common sense.
Preserving neighbourhood character isn't what the parent was ranting about. Here in Los Angeles county, about 1/4th of the cost of a new house is just for permit fees!! Not to mention that it can take months to get 'em. It's to the point where most individuals can no longer afford to buy a lot and build a house, because by the time you pay all the permit fees (which are generally cash on the barrelhead), you don't have any money left to buy the land, let alone build the house. But big contractors can handle that kind of cash outlay. The upshot is that if you want a new house, and have only average cash reserves and "lendability", you're stuck with buying whatever contractors want to sell you.
Conversely, right across the line in Kern County, permit fees are a fraction of what they are here, and are processed much more quickly; consequently, average folk there can still afford to build from scratch.
Now, what makes building a house a few yards this side of an imaginary line worth that much more in permit fees and hassles? A: Nothing.
None of this has anything to do with preserving a neighbourhood's historic character; it has to do with bureaucracy and greed.
Personally, I am appalled by this trend toward replacing nice old "character" homes with cookie-cutter tract housing. But tract housing is where the money is, and concomitantly, the lobbying power and the yuppie-class "social image".
And that yuppie "social image" doesn't allow for "substandard" housing, be it an affordable trailer for a kid just out of college, or a classic home with a hundred years of history behind it.
Older cities HAVE neighbourhoods with character, and possess enough sense of their own history to want to preserve it. But newer cities and urban-sprawl areas have no roots, and are exactly as the parent said -- in it for the greed, and to hell with anything else. Here in California, a lovely old home with a nice big yard is all too likely to be knocked down and replaced by six "townhouses" with yards that would squeeze a postage stamp. Why? that big lot is worth a whole lot more if marketed as 6 small lots. And that lovely old home with its fine craftsmanship has less resale value than a cheaply-built tract house, because an old house isn't "shiny" in the eyes of the booming yuppie housing market.:(
I don't remember where I was going with this, but I sure don't like where I wound up.
$35k is not so cheap. For only a little more, you can buy a pretty decent modular home.
However, a modular home only 20 years old is almost impossible to get a home loan on, and even newer ones are considered only as land value for home equity loan purposes. My point is... I suspect a cardboard house would have zero loan value, beyond the price of the land itself. So if you need to sell, you'd be limited to cash buyers, and most people with that kind of cash want a better investment value.
I also see it as much more practical as easily-transported temporary housing -- for research stations, disaster relief, seasonal homeless shelters, wilderness base camps, or whoever else needs a Q&D house that doesn't require longterm or resale value.
Two other points I wonder about, if using standard cardboard (not specially-treated):
Ground termites can get into ANY cellulose-based material, including cardboard. I've personally seen this happen. They don't care if it's solid wood to start with or not. All it takes is contact with the earth. (Out here in the desert, they even consume last year's weed stems.)
In event of a fire: Corrugated cardboard burns like nothing else. Astoundingly hot and once it gets going there's no putting it out, you just have to let it burn out. And it burns hot enough that once it gets a good draft going, well... I used to have a trash burner made from a chunk of culvert, and often started it with a wad of scrap cardboard -- which burned so hot that aluminum cans chucked into the fire would vapourise and vanish in just a few seconds, steel cans didn't last much longer, and by the time it got really going, the 1/8" thick steel culvert was glowing white along the edges.
However... if one starts with treated virgin cardboard, surely pest and combustion inhibitors can be added along with waterproofing? And as you say, the stuff is very strong for its weight, and it's quite good as insulation.
While I can't see investing in cardboard construction for the long haul, ISTM it would be quite suitable (even untreated) for quick and dirty shelter, particularly after a natural disaster or in areas where transporting in heavier materials just isn't feasible.
I also use GoDaddy -- their prices have been creeping back up lately and are now in the middle of the pack (they were the cheapest around when I first registered a domain), but so far they seem honest, and I've been *very* impressed with their real-human support. So long as nothing changes for the worse, I don't feel much urge to look for a new registrar. Yeah, I could save about $30/yr now, if I moved my domains elsewhere, but trust and service are worth something.
But what if the "check it out" site is in fact an unscrupulous registrar? in that case registering the domain costs them nothing. (Someone speak up if it does actually cost them something.)
MOST of the squatted domains I've encountered are owned by either registrars, 3rd party brokers, or by hosting companies who *also* broker domains. Which is why I think such outfits should not be allowed to own any domain except those they can demonstrate a need for in their business.
In my observation, the worst squatters are unscrupulous domain registrars (not just the 3rd-party brokers). Which is why I believe registrars should not be allowed to own any domains other than those they need for their business, or for personal sites, and those should be adequately documented as such.
Slashdot Mirror
Most kids will spend time reading "Monster Truck Mash-azine" and therefore do poorer than the few kids who read "Scientific American". Therefore, magazines are bad for a majority of children.
I misread your subject as "parental atrophy", but it amounts to the same thing -- letting something else do the parenting, because it's easier.
I suspect there is also a good bit of "finger dyshomonymia" (a word I just made up). Frex, my fingers often type "won" when I meant "one", and will do so without consulting my brain, which knew perfectly well which word it meant.
From TFA:
/. debate about geeks vs lusers [term used for this discussion; I don't personally believe that mere everyday users are "lusers"]. A geek has actually LEARNED not only how to find stuff on their computer, but also how to build it, set it up and secure it, why stuff works how it does, etc. A luser only knows superficial use of everyday apps, but nothing about how the computer works.
"And while students seemed to benefit from limited use of computers at school, those who used them several times per week at school saw their academic performance decline significantly as well."
I suspect the reason is because computers are more often used, both by teachers and by students, as a way of INDEXING DATA, rather than LEARNING STUFF.
It's all well and good to know where to find everything, but it does you no good if you don't know how to process the information once you've got it. And I think that is probably what is happening. Instead of learning the basics as they would by interacting with a teacher, average kids who use computers at school learn where to FIND the basics.
This is very much akin to the ongoing
Computer-oriented schooling may well be raising a generation of informational lusers, who know how to FIND data, but nothing about how to USE it or what it MEANS.
I have to agree with you. Over and over I've seen people run out and buy NEW! SHINY! when old and rusty was still overkill for the work expected of it.
I still run a P3-550, a P3-500, and a P233 as everyday work machines. The slowest here that has a Real Job is a P120/64mb/Win95-OSR2 -- it still does everything asked of it, so why pitch it out just because it's old?
"I've also seen the performance degradation in Windows boxes as the registry gets junked over time. So, a PC that started out "fast" eventually seems "slow" artificially unless you do a re-install."
:) But a good rule of thumb is to not install any application that is more than 4 years newer than the hardware and/or OS it's expected to run on, because chances are it won't be well-behaved on the older OS, or it will overwhelm the hardware of that previous era.
Actually, this is a symptom of neglect. To prevent the "old age slows", do the following religiously once a week:
Kill tempfiles, defrag, and scrub the registry with Toniarts Easycleaner (freeware): http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/
That's all there is to it. This will also cure the majority of stability issues that aren't directly caused by iffy hardware, bad drivers, or (on Win9*) applications with resource leaks.
As to installing new applications that are too much for old hardware, or that expect Win2K/XP and therefore don't bother to clean up memory after themselves, there I can't help you
I have Win95 setups that are 9 years old and no bitrot. There are freeware tools available to keep the registry in pristine condition, and no excuse not to use 'em. I use Toniarts Easycleaner: http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/
Probably worth about $5 on ebay, if you get any takers.
:)
But that sort of "old junk" is quite welcome at my house, and often finds itself with a Real Job. (My luggable is a lowly P120, how picky can I be?
Personally I can't see trashing working hardware, even antiques. It's always good for *something*.
Heh heh ... yep, buckshot and bob'wire, between 'em they'll keep the REAL riffraff out!! :D
But areas with strict building code enforcement tend to have much higher insurance rates. If my house were over the line in Kern County, just four miles away, my property tax and insurance would both be about half what they are here!
Building codes are like unions: in their day they were necessary to prevent harm to the poor sucker living in the house. But now contractors have become expert at skirting the requirements, leading to tract homes that are falling apart after only 20 years, despite being built to code. And the permit process operates pretty much like union dues and "join or we'll break your kneecaps" -- if you built without paying for the permits first, the county will make you tear your house down, even if it's completely to code and built well above the required standards. It's happened several times that I know of here in L.A. County.
Good points, and there are a variety of outfits like .. what's it called, Habitats for Humanity? who can help out, such that you wind up with a better house anyway. Hell, go ask your local Amish or Mormon community to help with the construction. They just might do it.
And as you say, if someone is able-bodied enough to build a crap house, they are able-bodied enough to build a more-permanent house even if it's from scrap lumber, or one of those kit houses you used to be able to order from Sears, or whatever. And $35k is pricey for a kit house that's a permanent structure, let alone a cardboard house with a questionable lifespan. Kit houses can't be that much more trouble to put together!
BTW my house was built from a "U-Build-It" kit back in 1956. If that wasn't marked on the original building permit, you'd never know it wasn't a standard contractor-built house. The cost? About $5000!!
I agree with the folk who point out that a cardboard house isn't realistic for long-term living, but could be very useful as Q&D shelter for expeditions, the seasonally homeless, disaster relief, and the like.
No matter, just gave me more grist for the mill :)
:)
I kinda posted wherever the urge struck me anyway, not necessarily to the intended parent
Exactly so. What's scary is that what's been there for 50 years without complaint by anyone, can be run out by some yuppie who moves into the neighbourhood and makes everyone's life hell until they get their way. Hey, if you want Beverly Hills, STAY in Beverly Hills; don't move out to the middle of farm country, then demand that everyone else meet YOUR standards.
:(
But unfortunately, that's how it's been going, and these yuppie-come-latelies have the money to enforce their notion of "neighbourhood standards".
Electric fence. ;)
What kind of toxins does it release when it burns??
While I agree with you in spirit, what you're ranting about is not building codes, but rather, CC&R (covenants and restrictions).
:(
Building codes are good and useful, and help prevent shoddy construction (or at least give you grounds to sue if the contractor fucks up). But CC&Rs have no mission in life except to "enhance and maintain property value". Which is to say, to keep the riffraff out, aka anyone with less income than the rest of the neighbourhood. Which unfortunately tends to be driven by whoever is the richest around, not by the average of the neighbourhood, and gods forbid the poor should have a say in it.
(See my other rants, er, posts in this thread about CC&Rs, permits, and suchlike.)
While an established community might reasonably have some say in what can be done in their neighbourhood, this is now being taken to mean "anyone within mortar range". Frex, I live over a mile from the next nearest anything, and two miles from the nearest rural "community" (a collection of about 900 houses, mostly old modulars and older farms, but lately being invaded by a crop of fresh doctors, lawyers, and dentists, custom-home plans in tow.) Nonetheless, lately this "community" has decided that everything within 7 miles is in their "sphere of influence" and that they should be able to dictate what is or is not acceptable, including stuff like the type and amount of landscaping you have (right, you want me to plant more trees in this desert? are you volunteering to pay my water bill?? in summer it already runs over $100/mo.!!)
There was even an attempt to disallow any further modular homes, that last bastion of affordability for the working poor who are trying to buy their own homes.
Modulars are entirely up to code these days. But unlike stickbuilt houses, they depreciate (and tend to fall apart a lot sooner), so older ones tend to be sold to po'folk. This "reduces property values" for the most expensive homes in the same area. If no more modulars are allowed, the value of these new custom and spec houses (houses built by contractors for the speculative market) goes up. D'oh!!
The same goes for any sort of nonstandard construction. Being built to code isn't the issue. But they're not going to meet most CC&R requirements, and that means if they're all you can afford, you either live elsewhere (assuming that's practical or even possible) or do without.
CC&Rs suck.
In most areas anyone can do the work, so long as it passes inspection afterward. But in some states it is illegal for anyone not licensed to do the work at all.
As you imply, it's not the building codes that are at fault; it's the licensing and permits (which I rant about in another post).
What the parent was really talking about was not building codes, but rather CC&Rs (aka covenants). These have nothing to do with building codes, and everything to do with "maintaining property values". Except that last is being grossly overapplied, often in ways that don't make any sense.
One example was the requirement in some California communities that all roofs be cedar-shake, so they'd all look nice the same way. But cedar is a high-oil wood, and even with fire-retardant, it's like storing gasoline on your roof -- as the big Oakland fire finally demonstrated in terms that even CC&R enforcement fanatics could understand. (Over 900 houses burned, mainly due to the susceptibility of cedar shake roofs to ignition by flying embers.) Suddenly they were no longer so interested in forcing people with fireproof tile roofs to replace them with cedar shakes.
Another example: I once looked at buying some acreage out in the middle of nowhere. It was at the very end of the road, right next to the oil lease (hardly a thing of beauty), and not visible from any other buildable property. Nonetheless, the owner-before-last (who was an architect and general contractor) had put a shitload of CC&Rs on it, such as minimum house size (rather too large for the shape of the lot), type of fencing allowed, and get this, even the colour you could paint your mailbox!! Needless to say, I didn't buy the place.
In a world that actually gave a shit about affordable housing, this isolated acreage would have allowed inexpensive housing such as a trailer, or a house built of cardboard, straw, bottles, or whatever. In California, guaranteeing contractor profits trumps affordability and even common sense.
Preserving neighbourhood character isn't what the parent was ranting about. Here in Los Angeles county, about 1/4th of the cost of a new house is just for permit fees!! Not to mention that it can take months to get 'em. It's to the point where most individuals can no longer afford to buy a lot and build a house, because by the time you pay all the permit fees (which are generally cash on the barrelhead), you don't have any money left to buy the land, let alone build the house. But big contractors can handle that kind of cash outlay. The upshot is that if you want a new house, and have only average cash reserves and "lendability", you're stuck with buying whatever contractors want to sell you.
:(
Conversely, right across the line in Kern County, permit fees are a fraction of what they are here, and are processed much more quickly; consequently, average folk there can still afford to build from scratch.
Now, what makes building a house a few yards this side of an imaginary line worth that much more in permit fees and hassles? A: Nothing.
None of this has anything to do with preserving a neighbourhood's historic character; it has to do with bureaucracy and greed.
Personally, I am appalled by this trend toward replacing nice old "character" homes with cookie-cutter tract housing. But tract housing is where the money is, and concomitantly, the lobbying power and the yuppie-class "social image".
And that yuppie "social image" doesn't allow for "substandard" housing, be it an affordable trailer for a kid just out of college, or a classic home with a hundred years of history behind it.
Older cities HAVE neighbourhoods with character, and possess enough sense of their own history to want to preserve it. But newer cities and urban-sprawl areas have no roots, and are exactly as the parent said -- in it for the greed, and to hell with anything else. Here in California, a lovely old home with a nice big yard is all too likely to be knocked down and replaced by six "townhouses" with yards that would squeeze a postage stamp. Why? that big lot is worth a whole lot more if marketed as 6 small lots. And that lovely old home with its fine craftsmanship has less resale value than a cheaply-built tract house, because an old house isn't "shiny" in the eyes of the booming yuppie housing market.
I don't remember where I was going with this, but I sure don't like where I wound up.
$35k is not so cheap. For only a little more, you can buy a pretty decent modular home.
However, a modular home only 20 years old is almost impossible to get a home loan on, and even newer ones are considered only as land value for home equity loan purposes. My point is... I suspect a cardboard house would have zero loan value, beyond the price of the land itself. So if you need to sell, you'd be limited to cash buyers, and most people with that kind of cash want a better investment value.
I also see it as much more practical as easily-transported temporary housing -- for research stations, disaster relief, seasonal homeless shelters, wilderness base camps, or whoever else needs a Q&D house that doesn't require longterm or resale value.
Two other points I wonder about, if using standard cardboard (not specially-treated):
Ground termites can get into ANY cellulose-based material, including cardboard. I've personally seen this happen. They don't care if it's solid wood to start with or not. All it takes is contact with the earth. (Out here in the desert, they even consume last year's weed stems.)
In event of a fire: Corrugated cardboard burns like nothing else. Astoundingly hot and once it gets going there's no putting it out, you just have to let it burn out. And it burns hot enough that once it gets a good draft going, well... I used to have a trash burner made from a chunk of culvert, and often started it with a wad of scrap cardboard -- which burned so hot that aluminum cans chucked into the fire would vapourise and vanish in just a few seconds, steel cans didn't last much longer, and by the time it got really going, the 1/8" thick steel culvert was glowing white along the edges.
However... if one starts with treated virgin cardboard, surely pest and combustion inhibitors can be added along with waterproofing? And as you say, the stuff is very strong for its weight, and it's quite good as insulation.
While I can't see investing in cardboard construction for the long haul, ISTM it would be quite suitable (even untreated) for quick and dirty shelter, particularly after a natural disaster or in areas where transporting in heavier materials just isn't feasible.
Ah. I looked at the site but didn't see the newsletter link... will look again. Thanks!
How many domains do you own?
-- 1
-- 2-5
-- 6-10
-- 11-25
-- 26-100
-- I'm a registrar, you insensitive clod!!
I also use GoDaddy -- their prices have been creeping back up lately and are now in the middle of the pack (they were the cheapest around when I first registered a domain), but so far they seem honest, and I've been *very* impressed with their real-human support. So long as nothing changes for the worse, I don't feel much urge to look for a new registrar. Yeah, I could save about $30/yr now, if I moved my domains elsewhere, but trust and service are worth something.
But what if the "check it out" site is in fact an unscrupulous registrar? in that case registering the domain costs them nothing. (Someone speak up if it does actually cost them something.)
MOST of the squatted domains I've encountered are owned by either registrars, 3rd party brokers, or by hosting companies who *also* broker domains. Which is why I think such outfits should not be allowed to own any domain except those they can demonstrate a need for in their business.
In my observation, the worst squatters are unscrupulous domain registrars (not just the 3rd-party brokers). Which is why I believe registrars should not be allowed to own any domains other than those they need for their business, or for personal sites, and those should be adequately documented as such.