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| 2009/1/22-26 [Reference/RealEstate] UID:52438 Activity:high |
1/21 One datapoint on rental prices, please post yours if applicable.
Please don't give me this "this is why I buy a home" crap. Not
everyone has money:
-S Cal, $2055/month with 9 month contract expired. Signing one
more year=$2055/month, month-to-month=$2255. Bunch of empty
parking spots and people moving out, but according to the
manager the economy hasn't diminished rental demand.
\_ Oakland, Grand Lake District: 2.5 BR, large living room,
large kitchen, $1125/month.
\_ Thanks for the data! Is the trend going up or down in this
weird economy? I expected rent to go down because of all the
empty spots but nothing changed. -op
\_ People still have to live somewhere. If anything, it might
go up because of all the people who can't afford to own
a home and have to rent again.
\_ That is true, but when I survived the dot-com, a bunch
of people moved OUT of Silicon Valley back to their
homes. I know a bunch of 2nd class engineers went
back to LA and Orange County, and a bunch of marketing
people went back to Nebraska, Arizona, Ohio, etc.
\_ Well, that is certainly happening now too (people
moving back to cheaper locations).
\_ Why do you say that? SF population seems stable,
perhaps even growing.
\_ Nevermind, what I meant is practically a truism
(it's always happening somewhere in the Bay
Area). I don't have any special knowledge on
current rates of occurrence.
\_ Between 1950 and 2000 SF gained about 1,000
people in population with a big dip in
between. Since 2000 it has declined:
http://www.usbeacon.com/California/San-Francisco.html
\_ http://tinyurl.com/am39ft
San Francisco has attained the highest
population on record with a population of
824,525 on January 1, 2008. This continues
the significant upward trend in growth that
began in 2006. The city grew by 1.5 percent
this year.
http://tinyurl.com/dmklko
The U.S. Census Bureau admitted underestimating
the city's 2007 population and raised it to
799,183, according to a statement from the
mayor's office.
Where does usbeacon get its numbers from?
\_ I rented out my house in Fremont via the Housing Authority. The
rent, determined by the Housing Authority, hasn't gone down. BTW
it's 4-bed 2-bath 1444sqft, 10-min walk from bus stop, not walkable
to BART, $2165/mo.
\_ Livermore (Far East Bay), 3Bed 2Bath 1200 sq ft, duet $1600 a month.
In Livemore rent prices have increased significantly since the
housing crash. All the foreclosed people need to rent now.
That said, my rent is pretty low.
\_ Why are you renting in Livermore when housing is dirt cheap
relative to the real Bay Area?
\_ Basically we're just biding our time a bit. When it starts
going back up, I don't think it's going to go very fast, so
we're just waiting for a house we like at a price we like.
You're correct that we could afford to buy right now.
\_ Why don't you buy? I pay less mortgage than that at 4.875%. You
can borrow about $400K for that rent (without even considering
tax deductions). With your $40K down that means maybe a $500K
place once considering taxes. You can find something for that.
\_ I'm looking for a job. Will you find me a job? Then maybe
I'll consider buying. Thanks for your thoughtful response asswipe
\_ I know of a couple of job possiblities in interesting
startups. One with languages in Menlo Park, and one with
Social networks or scientific computing in Viriginia. -jrleek
\_ Sorry to hear that, but with no income *all* rent is
expensive. However, if I lose my job at least I can live on my
home equity and, like I said, my payment is less than that
guy's $2K rent.
\_ Most likely, you bought the home when the price was
lower than it is today. If you buy the same home today,
will your mortgage still be less than $2K?
\_ I just told you that you can borrow $400K for $2100
per month. My house is worth more than $450K
according to the recent appraisal, but I have seen
houses in my neighborhood for sale for $450K. For
\_ I don't know anywhere in California desirable where
you can actually buy a non-condo, non-townhome,
real single family HOUSE for lower than $450K.
Maybe in Valencia and or San Dimas and Compton,
but not Pasadena or Santa Monica where 2nd tier
tech jobs are located. -1st tier techie in LA
\_ 1. Nothing wrong with San Dimas or Valencia.
Lots of people live there. They are no
worse than Fremont or Sunnyvale.
\_ Sorry but average income and education is
WAAAAY higher in Sunnyvale than these
dumpy places in LA. Also, if I buy in
San Dimas, how many good tech companies
will I be able to work at with a Masters
degree in EECS?
\_ Lots of aerospace companies in the
area. From Valencia you can work in
Palmdale. From San Dimas you can
work in Orange County. I don't understand
your point. We're working under the
assumption that you HAVE a job, not that
you are trying to relocate. What
does "average income and education"
get me? Do you want a nice house in
a safe suburban area or do you want to
find a mate? Make up your mind.
2. $450K or less gets you a condo in WeHo,
a house in Pasadena ($550K median in
the "not bad" ZIPs), Monrovia, Northridge,
slums of Encino, or Simi Valley. None of
these places are luxurious like Malibu,
but you can't have champagne taste and
beer budget.
\_ Monrovia not exactly cheap due to the
average large lot size. Northridge? What
jobs do they offer in San Fernando again?
\_ The SF Valley has Yahoo! in Burbank
and lots of entertainment jobs like
Dreamworks, Disney, etc. It's also
not a bad commute to the Westside if
you can work offhours. You seem to
be under the mistaken impression
that all the good jobs are on the
Westside, but there are a lot of
highpaying jobs other places. Downtown,
for instance, has the highest paying
jobs in the city, Westside included.
From pharmies like to Amgen, cool
startups like the one I interviewed at
which made fingerprint-based safeties
for guns (lots of EE jobs there),
prototyping companies like Applied Minds
(http://www.appliedminds.com and
animation companies like Dreamworks, lots
of companies need engineers and are not
based on the Westside. I think you are
too narrow-minded, like a lot of
Westsiders are. Life doesn't exist
east of the 405, I know. Get over it.
I'm not in medicine, law or porn industry.
Anyone having to commute on the 405 to
get to "save rent and get real city jobs" is
a moron or has a high threshold for pain.
\_ Redfin shows me 48 homes >$450k in
Monrovia.
\_ Redfin doesn't talk about the
Monrovia gangster. They're blacks
feuding with the Mexicans btw.
\_ In the bad area of Monrovia
by the freeway, but the
northern part is nice and not
too expensive.
3. In the Bay Area you could buy in Albany,
Santa Clara, Dublin, Concord, Pleasant
Hill, Novato, San Rafael, Pacifica, or
Milpitas - among others. These are
ordinary towns just their LA counterparts,
\_ Any of these are commutable to Silicon
Valley fortune 500 jobs or startups. When
I live in Northridge or Valencia, what
jobs will I get there?
\_ Tangent. Someone asked where in CA
you can buy a house for $450K. I
told you where. Sounds like you
agree that these are reasonable
locations so buy there.
\_ Santa Clara is in the heart of the
Silicon Valley. Milpitas is not too
far away. There are also now many
cheap homes in San Jose.
\_ I thought GOOGLE is the heart of
Silicon Valley considering they
store, process, and output more
information than any company.
ordinary towns just like their LA counterparts,
but it beats renting and you are never
going to get that house in a wealthy area
by renting and saving. Buy a starter home,
pay some down, wait for equity to build,
and move up. In 15 years when my house is
paid I can sell it and buy in Santa Monica
if I want to have another mortgage, whereas if
you rent it will be much harder to get
there - unless you rent very cheaply and
dump every last cent into the stock
market. I prefer to live in my own house
in the interim, but that's me.
$3K/month you can borrow $600K and have even more
choices. Makes more sense to me than $2400/month
for a 2 BR in SF (which is a steal BTW and not
common), but that's me. If you are going to rent
to save money then rent a cheap place with a
roommate. Luxury apartments (and their associated
high rents) are a waste of $$$. I guess some people
like to live in an apartment and drive a Porsche
(I see this all the time in luxury buildings) but
to me it seems retarded and I love nice cars. Plus,
when I bought my house I only had a beaten up
Nissan and a just-paid-off Honda. Now, some years
later, I have two luxury cars because my salary has
risen while my rent has not. In another 15 years I
won't have any rent at all except property tax.
\_ I own a 8 unit apartment building next to Downtown Oakland,
all singles and studios. I've had to rent 3 units within the last
2 months and haven't had to drop my prices. Although, I
already rent low, studio ~650 and 1brdroom ~900. My buddies
who have 2 bedroom/ 1 bath houses say that the competition is
pretty fierce these days, probably because there are so many
foreclosures going on the market as rentals lately. There is an
article in the SF Chronicle talking about the current Bay Area rental\
situation. -scottyg
article in the SF Chronicle talking about the current Bay Area
rental situation. -scottyg
\_ I just moved in to a new place in SF a few weeks ago. 2bdrm $2400.
I negoitated the rent down at this place and also several others in
the city. I did this after someone who was listing a 1bdrm for $1800
told me that the price was flexible.
\_ http://mullinslab2.ucsf.edu/SFrentstats
Rents are pretty stable in SF. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Industry/Jobs] UID:52439 Activity:high |
1/22 Layoffs at Microsoft, Intel, IBM. See, this is part of the problem
with deflation amid a recession. When prices crater, companies'
revenue decreases and people get layoffs.
\_ Poll: If you're the CEO, would you try to lay off a large
percentage of your workers, or would you implement changes
like mandatory vacation or pay cut? Either case will decrease
morale but it seems for me to make sense to me to cut pay since
it's darm hard to hire talented engineerss when you need them.
Then again, I'm not in management so maybe pay cut is a lame
thing in the first place. -dumb engineer
\_ Maybe the layoffs are an excuse to get rid of dead wood:
"Lay off your lowest 20% of people, the underperformers."
Alternately, perhaps they concentrate the layoffs in
areas where replacement is easy: leave the engineers,
fire the salesforce.
\_ Layoffs *always* get rid of deadwood, unless the company is in
a death spiral. In good times, you get fatty, in slim times,
you cut the crap. Unless of course you're in government.
\_ Seriously, here in the government, instead of firing
people, we give incentives to leave. So, the good people
take the money and get a job elsewhere. The deadwood
stays.
\_ Not all government positions are the same. When you
say "here", what is here? There's a huge difference
between DMV and NSA. Even within JPL there's a huge
difference between people who are launching missions
and people who do IT support for people who do missions.
\_ You clearly know nothing about how intelligence
agencies are staffed.
\_ I don't. Please enlighten me.
\_ Check out "Spies For Hire" which is a good
overview of this topic. Basically, large
portions of "employees" at the big intel shops
are actually (extremely expensive) outsourced
contractors, a trend which is true across the
board in the federal govt. right now. Also
check out SAIC, Booz Allen Hamilton, et al.
Random factoids:
- 50% of the clandestine case officers at
CIA are contractors.
- Virtually 100% of the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is contracted
- 70% of all US Intelligence Community funds
are spent on external contracts rather
than internal capabilities.
- Booz Allen Hamilton has 10,000 employees
with Top Secret Codeword clearances
\_ The private sector is obviously more
efficient at creating spooks than the public
sector.
\_ Your analysis would be correct, except for
the fact that most of the intelligence
contractors are massive barrels of FAIL.
\_ Your analysis would be correct, except
for the fact that most of the
intelligence contractors are massive
barrels of FAIL.
\_ BTW, finding a competent salesperson is much harder than
finding a competent engineer. Sales also has a more
direct effect on the bottom line. These two reason are
why salespeople make more money than engineers despite
the perception that they are "dumb leeches".
\_ Good salespeople make more money. Bad salespeople
get fired.
\_ What happens to bad engineers?
\_ They usually hang on much longer than bad
salespeople.
\_ #t. Bad engineers are hard to weed out
because they tend to get close to management
and management is nicer to people who are
loud and social (vs. those that are technically
good). These are the same people who move
up the chain and manage more bad engineers.
The plus side is that they create more job
opportunities for even more engineers who
have to fix up 20 year old legacy code. Heck
50% of the engineering jobs in Silicon Valley
are systems integration, QA, and bug fixing.
\_ One of the most depressing attitudes at
Berkeley is the one that social skills
and coding skills are diametically opposed.
It is possible (in fact, extremely desirable)
to have both.
\_ Sure. But the reality is that serious
coding is a rather isolating and time-
consuming activity. This doesn't lend
itself to practicing social skills.
I've noticed a definite correlation
between sociability and low engineering
skill. The sociable ones make up for
their lack of engineering prowess by
talking a lot and getting others to
give them insights. Or they constantly
make noise and are visible to management
even though in reality their antics are
a waste of time (theirs and others)
if you compare it to the quiet engineer
who just Gets Shit Done(TM) because he
is smart enough to figure stuff out.
Of course, the noisy visible stuff is
pretty much what a manager is supposed
to do; but management is really a
separate career to engineering.
Then there's marketing, which has few
performance metrics compared to sales
and engineering...
\_ Actually, I disagree. The "silent"
serial killer coder types are actually
among the worst to work with for
other engineers. A primary reason for
this is their distorted view of their
own intelligence and value, and their
inability to listen to other people.
One of the worst jobs I ever had was
populated with these "silent geniuses,"
and they spent so much time being
impressed with their own genius that
they forgot to produce a marketable
product.
\_ I agree with you. Most of the
best engineers have good people
skills. Not all of them, of
course. They are willing to talk
to people to bounce ideas around
and they are receptive to criticism.
Engineers should pay more attention
to scientists. Most scientists
are extremely smart just like
engineers and yet also more
social. Would you say Feynman
was a bad scientist because he
was social? Of course not, so
why make the same assumption
about engineers? If the social
engineers are the ones getting
ahead then maybe you should pay
attention to that. The few true
"quiet geniuses" I know who
likely are affected with something
like Aspberger's get taken
advantage of. That doesn't mean
the ones who do not display that
quality are not just as competent
or add less value to the
organization. What adds more
value to the company? A bad
engineer like Steve Jobs or a
good one like Steve Wozniak? I
can tell you they are both very
successful but one got taken
advantage of and the other made
the most of his talents. Try to
be the latter.
\_ But Jobs's value isn't
really as an engineer, that's
the point. Jobs uses other
people and makes judgement calls.
That's what a manager/executive
is supposed to do.
Wozniak did ok. But ultimately Woz
was replaceable and Jobs is not,
\_ This is the key. Good
engineer or not, Jobs added
more value to the organization.
It wasn't that he was
"loud and social" which
made his career a success.
What Bitter Engineer needs to
realize is that some of the
people he is badmouthing are
adding more to the
organization than he is
and that just because they
are "loud and social" does
not automatically make
them bad engineers anymore
than it makes Feynman a
bad scientist. He needs to
be less jealous, realize what
is contributing to their
success, and learn from it.
Otherwise, he will always
be Bitter Engineer With
Feelings of Jealousy and
Smug Superiority stuck in
a crappy role while other
move on up.
because Jobs had the market
vision. Jobs successfully
judges human desirability of
products. It's a lot different
than just making a faster CPU or
a cost-effective highway bridge.
\_ Microsoft is sitting on more cash than some sovereign nations.
They're just using this opportunity to get rid of dead wood.
\_ In my econ classes we learned that most people would prefer
layoffs to pay cuts when given the choice and just hope they
are not the ones being cut. Presumably this is because they
think they are more valuable than their peers and will be kept.
There is some truth to this (see: dead wood) but most people
also consider themselves better-than-average drivers
\_ Most people are better-than-average drivers. Learn your
medians and means.
\_ I know the difference between median and mean. I doubt
most people are better-than-average drivers. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Recreation/Pets] UID:52440 Activity:nil |
1/22 http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481426,00.html Clinically Depressed Poodle Mauls Former French President Chirac Told you Poodles are bad. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Consumer/Camera, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:52441 Activity:nil |
1/22 Amazing inaugural ceremony shot. Zoom in to see GWB and Clintons!
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/20/us/politics/2009-inauguration-zoom-photo.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/01/20/us/politics/2009-inauguration-zoom-photo.html#4-1853-904
PS Bush is probably not feeling loved compared to Clinton.
\_ One more from a different angle. It's a friggin 1474 MEGAPIXEL
stitch picture.
http://www.davidbergman.net/blog/2009/01/22/how-i-made-a-1474-megapixel-photo-during-president-obamas-inaugural-address |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Finance, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:52442 Activity:nil |
1/22 Does "A new era of responsibility" mean that I will have to take
responsibility for the mistakes that people made in the Bush era,
like paying off national debt and helping the middle class while
the rich already got richer and got away during the Bush era?
\_ Oh hell no. It doesn't even mean you need to pay your taxes. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Computer/Companies/Google, Finance/Investment] UID:52443 Activity:kinda low |
1/22 And that's why you should own GOOG.
\_ Google reported fourth-quarter net income of $382 million, down 68%
from $1.2 billion a year ago.
\_ I don't get it. How can you have 68% down but sales going up
18%? Are they getting more sales but with less money per
transaction?
\_ Profit = (Price - Cost)xQuantity - Fixed Costs
Costs went up?
\_ They wrote down the value of a few investments.
\_ $1.09B
\_ Leaving aside the asset write-down, GOOG had $1.48B
in operational profit for the quarter, up 23% from
last year. In this economy that's amazing. GOOG
is still a frieght train. -tom
\_ I do own GOOG and I am underwater on it even though I bought at
a comparatively low price. Brilliant.
\_ AAPL profits are still growing at an increasing rate.
$2.3B in adjusted net income ($1.61B GAAP profit)
\_ AAPL is another good company to own. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Computer/HW/Laptop] UID:52444 Activity:low |
1/22 Paid Sharper Image 3 years of extended warranty and now my product
is dead and so is Sharper Image. Moral of the story: extended
warranty is a complete waste of money.
\_ http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080814120850AAltd6v
\_ THANK YOU MOTD GOD. Who says Motd isn't helpful? It is by
far the most helpful thing wrt to my dead Roomba. Thank you
Motd God, you've saved me $300.
\_ Paid apple 3 years of extended warranty for my laptop and
they fixed it when it broke 2 years into the warranty. Moral
of the story: extended warranty was worth it for a laptop.
\_ Many times the extended warranty is provided by a 3rd party.
Overall extended warranties -like all insurance- are a moneymaker. |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Reference/Military] UID:52445 Activity:nil |
1/22 Virginia Tech student saws off another student's head with a kitchen
knife in a cafeteria. Several bystanders witness it but don't stop it.
Police there in less than 2 minutes. Good thing they have a gun ban!
http://www.roanoke.com/news/nrv/breaking/wb/192005
\_ What's with the violent VaTech students from the gun guy to
Michael Vick? My gf's sister went there and she and her circle
of friends seem normal, but apparently there is evil lurking.
\_ Damn. Killer is an Asian guy again also.
\- You may wish to see the movie: Dark Matter
\_ You are making assumption that lack of a gun ban would have a)
prevented this crime b) led to less violence in general. |
| 2009/1/22-27 [Politics/Domestic/California, Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:52446 Activity:nil |
1/22 We now have more government workers than manufacturing
Note the steady growth of gov't jobs
http://fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com/2009/01/20/milestone
\_ What is this guys source for data? Overall employment in the
Federal Govt shrank during the Clinton years, but state govt may
have more than made up for that, I don't know.
\_ He says what his source is, right there on the page.
\_ That source doesn't do it for me, but I tracked down the
original data, which is from the US Census. Good enough for
government work, right? The percentage of the population that
has been employed by the government has been steady at 7%
since 1980. The percentage employed in manufacturing has
declined.
\_ The numbers at http://www.bls.gov/emp/empmajorindustry.htm
match OPs chart. (and btw, these show a 14% Gubment
employment level, again not including tax attorneys and
gubment contractors.) |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Consumer/CellPhone] UID:52447 Activity:nil |
1/22 Anyone have a Samsung Omnia? Thoughts? |
| 2009/1/22-26 [Uncategorized] UID:52448 Activity:nil |
1/22 Hey, polls don't matter guys. Obama has a 62% approval rating... in
Texas.
\_ Most of the Texans who disapproved have loaded up on food and
ammo and shielded themselves from civilization, thus they
cannot be polled. |
| 2009/1/22-27 [Politics/Domestic/Election] UID:52449 Activity:nil |
1/22 http://tinyurl.com/dehplu His aides are barred from lobbying any executive agency for the life of the Obama administration. That means an appointee who leaves the White House in, say, 2010 would be barred from lobbying the executive branch until 2017 if Obama were to serve two terms. |
| 2009/1/22-27 [Recreation/Dating, Health/Women] UID:52450 Activity:low |
1/22 Celtic Women are HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT and they sing well. HOT.
\_ I saw a version of Riverdance in Branson, Missouri that was
full of very fit Irish women and in one dance they wore white
and with the lights it left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
The crowd was pretty stunned. I turned to my girlfriend and
said "Uh, what was that?" and she confirmed. If you know
Branson (conservative Christian Disneyland) you'd think it
amusing. Maybe not shocking in Las Vegas, but there was a hush over
the crowd after that. What's weird is that most Irish women are not
attractive according to some of my Irish friends who moved here. I
guess when they are hot they are *very* hot, though.
\_ That's true with any race. People in the world think every
old guy looks as good as Sean Connery and they're usually
disappointed when they get off of LAX.
\_ Some more than others. British women in general are not
as hot as Latinas, for instance. For every Liz Hurley
there are probably 20 good looking Venezuelans. Denmark
and Sweden have hotter women than Germany and Greece,
in general. Anyway, my point is that people think Irish
women look like Jennifer Connelly or Anne Hathaway (who
are both about 25% Irish), but most are stout and
unappealing (according to my Irish acquaintances, women
included). I think Australia also has a
better-than-deserved reputation as does perhaps India,
where Aishwarya Rai is a stunner but hardly represents
the typical Indian.
\_ you're an idiot, and likely an ugly one.
\_ you're ugly too, that's why your wife left you.
\_ Australia has a good proportion of fit, attractive people
though there are still plenty of corn-feds.
\_ Have you ever heard of "hybrid superiority"? |
| 2009/1/22-27 [Uncategorized] UID:52451 Activity:nil |
1/22 Just bought a LG env2. For the most part it's great, but
it's very annoying that when I open it to use the QWERTY
keyboard, it doesn't automatially capitalize the first
letter. Anyone know of a way to have it do this? |
| 3/15 |