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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I am of the opinion that most “supply” issues are due to investors. Except in certain geographic areas we do not have a shortage of actual physical housing. What we have is a shortage of available housing at a mixed pricepoints for purchase.

    All housing that investors purchase for rentals removes it from the supply.

    Traditionally investors have sought out entry level housing for rent. They invest in building rental complexes. They make all cash purchases and then rent it out to people who otherwise would have been first-time homebuyers. Investors used to be the low end offer. Blatant price fixing has increased rent outrageously. Now investors are the high end offer and removing supply constantly.

    With AirB&B, the middle and even upper range market that traditionally has had less investor competition is now a major target. This has led to price wars for investment purposes on previously safe segments.

    The first solution to the housing supply is simple: taxing income from rent so that selling the property is financially more lucrative. It will have to include a prohibition against rental increases to cover the taxes as well.

    The second is to mandate zoning and new construction to match the market needs not the needs of the investors.

    Last would be to create a program where builders who focus on entry level housing receive incentives from governments (also include hefty penalty for substandard construction).


  • I have been attempting to use Linux for 20 years now. It has found its niche used for me over the years. For example when my kids were toddlers they had a old machine that defaulted to PBSkids. Before that I used it to run a gaming server.

    Currently I have a old laptop that I dual boot with win 10 and whatever Linux distro I feel like trying at the moment.

    The win 10 on the laptop barely meets the minimum hardware requirements and takes 10 minutes to load.

    I have tried a few different distros and always had a few issues with the setup. All sorts of different ones - screen orientation, WiFi connection, printer hell, keyboard layout etc. Takes me days to fix the bugs or give up.

    Mint takes 2 minutes to load and so far is working seamlessly. It’s apt manager is the easiest I have used in a Linux distro. It found my network printer automatically. It runs smoother than windows 7 did on my laptop.

    With Microsoft ending win 10 for the shitty win 11, I imagine many people are looking for alternatives. If Mint continues to work to make setup and usage easy, it will gain market share rapidly. It’s not all the way there yet, but it’s a hell of a lot better than before.


  • Jobs was his own worst enemy for a while on the compatibility issue.

    New OS launches- all your old programs don’t work on it.

    Want to use a floppy to transfer files between a Dos/Win and a Mac? Nope, not compatible. When USB drives started coming out they dropped all support for floppy drives, even in machines with them installed.

    Constant driver issues with all sorts of things. Many never got resolved. To be fair the market share for Mac’s was so tiny, offering support for them didn’t make business sense.

    Want to play a game? Good luck. The majority of games didn’t work on Mac. Same reason as the drivers.

    As for stability issues, for a while I ran a computer lab for a college 50:50 win/Mac machines. They both crashed about equally as often.



  • Been on my own since I as 17. The first few years were rough to say the least.

    I worked 2 jobs, 30-60 hrs per week and went to college. I shared shitty apartments with some pretty creepy people. I moved so constantly I ended up paying for a post office box so I could get my mail. I did not have a vehicle (no car) so I rode a bike for up to 60 miles per day. Even all that wasn’t enough without government grants and student loans to pay for college.

    Food was something that I ate when I had it. I spent a few months with mybe 4-5 real meals. Cornflakes and ramen where the bulk of my diet for a while.

    I took the first professional job I could find. It was terrible but it paid well. I gained 50lbs to be at a healthy weight the first year. The next few years I jumped around jobs until I landed in one I liked.

    The last few weeks before I graduated college I met my wife. Her family has become mine over the past 25 years.

    Today my income alone puts us in the top 10% of earners. My wife makes close to the same. At many crucual times in our lifes we’ve taken advantage of government assistance. To be blunt, it’s not possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You need a helping hand once in a while no matter how small.


  • Mac did have a better OS than Win 95 -Win98 It was smoother and crashed less.

    The difference was that Windows still ran DOS programs, 5.25" floppy disks etc… They made the decision to maintain backwards compatibility.

    Mac decided to drop support regularly for what they considered “outdated software and technology.” For example: when USB drives came out they canceled support for 3.5" floppies in their OS. Machines that had a 3.5" drive installed could no longer use it. Put a floppy drive in and nothing happened.

    Although Mac was a smoother more stable OS, windows had more functionality and greater compatability. Windows was a far superior product because of it. Even with the regular apearance of the blue screen of death.

    Linux at the time also suffered from being a terminal based OS. Too much like DOS for way too long. I used it for specific tasks where it excelled at.