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dhex
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 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I'm pretty sure predictable-dickhole.com just redirects to Destructoid, dude. |
apparently, yeah.
| Quote: | | PS "heteronormative" is kind of a useful concept. |
for some things. for this? ehh, not so much. it's more of a "i know you are but what am i?" thing.
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dhex
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 8:30 am Post subject: |
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http://www.reason.com/blog/show/127721.html
i think this whole cycle of insanity gets on me so much because i've always gone out of my way to do the right thing - no debt (credit or loan), save wisely, invest shrewdly at least some of the time, etc. i don't own a house because i live in the most expensive real estate market on the planet, perhaps behind tokyo; and i know enough that having a skin of the teeth mortgage isn't anything remotely like ownership. unlike most people i don't think renting is "throwing my money away" any more than buying food is throwing money away because you don't get to keep it forever. that and renting is many orders cheaper than ownership here.
but at the end of the day a bunch of greedy retards, from the idiots who lied on their applications or simply thought carrying 60 to 80% of their income was a reasonable choice, to the people who approved these applications without checking them, to the banks who bought this kind of debt from everyone else and the fund managers who hyped various investments and instruments related to them.
and of course the fucking government.
fuck all of you.
of course, most people are still going to make payments. that's the kicker. and this will shut down avenues of credit for people who may never get another shot.
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kirkjerk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:17 am Post subject: |
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I follow a similar strategy as you and for similar reasons, except I'd say rent is no more "throwing my money away" than is paying interest on a mortgage.
I don't know if I disagree w/ the bailout idea as vehemently as you do; much like Iraq the situation is a fait acompli and the question is what to do now, and I think the medium and long term consequences of a giant collapse might be worse than reinforcing what's there for the edge cases. (NPR this morning was saying that loans are still flowing at an under 7% rate, at least for people who can prove their income...) I think institutions can maybe learn their lesson and change a lot of their ways without being allowed to utterly collapse.
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 9:48 am Post subject: |
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the issue is that no one has to learn anything in the end. that's a problem.
and the best part is we all get to eat a piece of it. socializing costs, as it were.
woo.
i'm not so hot on socializing costs for everyone when it comes to a chain of decisions that didn't pan out. i'm also not so hot on stealth nationalization, especially in the guise of gse's like freddie and fanny, which are already indirectly government supported entities.
not that moving ahead with a austere plan - i.e. let those "too big to fail" actually fail - wouldn't have been really rough; but in the longer run (5 years) i think it would have been a lot healthier for everyone involved.
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:44 am Post subject: |
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on an unrelated note that's sort of related if you squint real hard:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/my-talk-at-jane.html
point six in particular:
| Quote: | | 6. Wealthier economies boost human optimism and thus asset markets become increasingly vulnerable to bubbles. |
it also spreads foolishness around.
for a few years, way back when, i had toyed with the idea of a free learning annex style "don't be a fucking idiot about money" type of program. i am not rich by any stretch, mind you, but mostly because i am lazy; i am unwilling to devote a tremendous amount of my time to something that doesn't interest me that much. (har har get it? interest?) but i am free, in that i have zero obligations to anyone anywhere; hell in nyc tenants are basically gods, legally, and can default on anything, including rent-stabilized lease agreements, so i don't even have to worry about that.
then i found out the city already offers these through public/private nonprof partnerships as well as tax prep/advice and stuff like that. (i wonder what the mortgage section was like, though.)
now, a tremendous amount of debt load is unavoidable in some cases, particularly with medical bills. just getting cancer, unless you have catastrophic or specialized cancer insurance, is a ridiculous financial drain. and even in those cases, well, it's not hard to see why the idea of "universal" health care insurance is so appealing to so many; the only folks happy with the current situation are the insurance companies; doctors, institutions and patients are most certainly not.
but beyond that category of debt there's a huge spectrum of incredibly stupid behaviors - every video game forum on earth* is filled with the usual dichotomy of "i have too much debt" or "teh corporashuns" followed up by a variety of variations on "i want a giant tv so i bought it on credit" or "look this new widget was announced by nintendo, let us fellate them with our wallets" type nonsense.
the core of my imaginary program above is hammering home the difference between "need" and "want" - perhaps with a literal hammer. the confusion runs very, very deep; it is not helped by a general lack of discipline. maybe people get off on shopping in a way i cannot understand. entirely possible.
but the greater issue is that much of our current problem stems from this kind of irresponsible, fuckfaced assholery. this is the hyperindividualism that barzun freaks out about periodically in dawn to decadence; the abdication of sovereignty mixed with a simultaneously deep thirst for following one's whims.
now, it's entirely possible to hold contradictory thoughts and let them run about due to compartmentalization. we all do it on some level, no doubt. but it is one thing to deny reality when it comes to affairs of the heart or views of men and women as lovers and friends or what have you; it is another to deny reality when it comes to ones and zeros. is money magic? yes, much to the consternation of many of my libertizzles who do not care for my primitivism in this arena; but the effects of money are as real as your fingers.
now, because i've been watching this for five years, i may be seeing more or less of what's going on, but in conversations - in person and online - i've been told more than once that "no one told me about this stuff" like that is a reasonable excuse.
it isn't.
it never was.
it never will be.
you never get to not be responsible for your self. i think in part this realization is what many of the time killing drugs are used for - to destroy recognition that our lives are our fault, in one sense. but in a more specific sense, the message of "no one told me what to do" highlights the infantile reflex that has been the unfortunate fruit of greater atomization. it breaks my fucking heart because my entire political consciousness is buried in the notion that the individual is sovereign of his or her heart; to accept that this kind of existence is a temporary mutation that will be collectivized back into the fold not by force or fraud, but by popular demand, is depressing.
doug rushkoff, though i think he's ridiculously wrong on the whole mortgage/credit bubble thing by several magnitudes (to be fair he knew a lot of folk who did the whole confusing need/want thing when it came to home "ownership") has an interesting focus on localizing community that i think is worth exploring. i.e. now we have these distance peer groups - like this one right here! - but people don't generally know their own neighbors.
i don't know the full benefit of this approach here - frankly it seems mostly like an excuse for gossip and meddling, if past experiences are any indication - but at the very least knowing the folks who live on the block by name is helpful when things like vandalism or petty burglary pop up.
the collectivist monster that lives inside each of us needs to be fed. better to do it with small steps, perhaps.
*i know, because i checked.
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 10:55 am Post subject: |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/world/americas/21tijuana.html?pagewanted=2&hp
| Quote: | | Ms. Jenning has cancer, Mr. Macedone said. She faces up to 25 years in prison but probably has less than a year to live, he said. If he lodges an appeal, Mr. Macedone said, it will probably not be resolved until after her death. |
remember: no government on earth thinks you own yourself. you belong to them.
unfortunately, most people agree with them.
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kirkjerk
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| Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject: |
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I think the problem of unrestrained spending has two roots:
one is... well, there's this kind of blatantly anti-intellectual streak that seems to show up under any rock. It's a weird phenomenon... most of my friends seem reasonably smart, most interactions with strangers go pretty well, but then you see all these bizarre anecdotes about what people don't know, from the most basic nuggets of history to the most fundamental aspects of science. People who not only NEVER read, they're kind of proud of it. It's enough to challenge my basic egalitarianism, and probably is one of the reasons I'm further from being a Libertarian than I might other wise be... so many people seem so mentally out of it that I can't really get behind any system that seems to empower them further.
The second is pop commercial culture. We have this whole giant advertising industry, relatively unprecedented in the history of humanity, dedicated to making people feel a little uneasy with their current lot of possessions, and convincing them that however much they might have, add this other thing to it would make them feel that much better. We are bombarded with commercial messages in so many ways, especially for folks who watch a little TV on a daily or regular basis. Yes, our culture has then gotten very media saavy and postmodern and aware of being sold to, but I still think the constant hammering has an effect in what people feel they need to have to have a good life, what the "deserve".
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dhex
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 8:43 am Post subject: |
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i'm beginning to think that perhaps the old aphorism about people either being "spenders or savers" is perhaps far more important than anything else i can layer on top. i know people who are generally incurious or perhaps even what you might call plain old dumb, but who are very financially saavy and successful. my father only barely finished high school, but taught himself enough to secure my parents' retirement; my father in law has a a phd, but is terrible with money.
there's also the eat well/sleep well dichotomy; i'm more of a sleep well type myself, but i also don't panic about cyclical losses, either. i know for every good year (like last year's insane run) i'll have years like this year, where i am basically getting my ass handed to me.
i have wondered if political orientation contributes, but i've known more than a few folk on the left whose economic sensibilities were, if not completely at odds with their (repeatedly) stated economic analysis. perhaps that's part of it, i.e. if "the corporations" are in control of everything, their personal responsibility for buying too many xyz items (video games, drugs, shoes, whatever) is lessened.
i will say that my personal experiences puts my libertizzles on the above average side for interest and participation in economic sovereignty, even for those working in non-prof or doing the whole van tour political organizing thing. on the other hand, they're also more likely to go a little bonkers with the precious metals (as in literally buying precious metals, not just shares in funds or mining interests.)
perhaps even more than all of this is the ability to say a "little no" today in lieu of a larger payoff in the future; and following that, perhaps a lack of "future time orientation" in some people prevents them from thinking ahead. I know more than a few folk who have this kind of "well, i'll be old or dead by then" style of planning for the future, which is obviously not planning at all, but a shirking of that responsibility. a friend of mine has posited that people are caused tremendous stress by money, and only by getting rid of it as quickly as possible can they defeat this stressful reaction.
on a final note, the egalitarianism thing is quite simple, in my eyes - if i deserve a right, so do all the other able-minded adults, even if they're dickholes. rights, being largely ephemeral (i call it the intersection of magic and violence, though this annoys people to no end), require a banding together, if only to reinforce the violence end of things.
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ryan
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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I save like I already owe someone money. I have a friend that is just now starting to save at 27. I remember that he had been out of a job for a while and received $250 back on a deposit, and instead of paying towards any bills or what he already owed (he lived at home), he went to Circuit City and blew most of it on movies: "You ... you bought Point Break?" "It's awesome!" Argument ended.
But he also has that weird mentality for movies where he'll buy something if it's $20 or less instead of just renting it. I've seen that a lot on Youtube.
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kirkjerk
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | i have wondered if political orientation contributes, but i've known more than a few folk on the left whose economic sensibilities were, if not completely at odds with their (repeatedly) stated economic analysis. perhaps that's part of it, i.e. if "the corporations" are in control of everything, their personal responsibility for buying too many xyz items (video games, drugs, shoes, whatever) is lessened. |
Could you be more concrete with your first sentence? Like a lefty whose economic sensibility and economic analysis were in alignment would, what, be careless with their money 'cause they expect to be bailed out?
| Quote: | | perhaps even more than all of this is the ability to say a "little no" today in lieu of a larger payoff in the future; and following that, perhaps a lack of "future time orientation" in some people prevents them from thinking ahead. I know more than a few folk who have this kind of "well, i'll be old or dead by then" style of planning for the future, which is obviously not planning at all, but a shirking of that responsibility. a friend of mine has posited that people are caused tremendous stress by money, and only by getting rid of it as quickly as possible can they defeat this stressful reaction. |
I suppose the logical alternatives are assume things will be pretty much the same, and save accordingly, or get ready for Mad Max and invest in a stockpile of TP, ciggies, makeup, and booze.
| Quote: | | on a final note, the egalitarianism thing is quite simple, in my eyes - if i deserve a right, so do all the other able-minded adults, even if they're dickholes. rights, being largely ephemeral (i call it the intersection of magic and violence, though this annoys people to no end), require a banding together, if only to reinforce the violence end of things. |
I annoy some of more libertarian logical sparring partners with my relatively low opinion of my own ability to make wise life decisions relative to, say, a well-meaning technocrat. I kind of stumbled into a decent career, and am kind of a 'tweener when it comes to the spender/saver thing; I go for a fair amount of luxuries but I try to keep recurring costs and big purchases down. But I think my saving send is as driven by neuroses as it is by careful thought.
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dhex
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| Posted: Fri Jul 25, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Like a lefty whose economic sensibility and economic analysis were in alignment would, what, be careless with their money 'cause they expect to be bailed out? |
no, what i mean is you get a bunch of people who spend a tremendous amount of time engaging in what is basically social one-uppance with regard to the spending habits of others - including a deeply conspiratorial view of commerce and advertising - but spend no time cleaning their own house, as it were.
edit: by this i mean people who are that heavily invested in economic determinism who don't then approach the world with that mentality in practice are really just saying "i am lazy, stupid or some combination thereof, and have no means of supporting myself because i never took that next step into making thought into action."
but i don't think people - regardless of affiliation - are generally careless because they think someone else will pick up the pieces unless they come from some trust fund ish situation, and even then...i haven't met enough people with trust funds to tell one way or the other. and i don't really think it follows because poor decisions travel across political and ideological lines.
| Quote: | | I suppose the logical alternatives are assume things will be pretty much the same, and save accordingly, or get ready for Mad Max and invest in a stockpile of TP, ciggies, makeup, and booze. |
not even, paying a bare-bones amount of attention and using tax-exempt instruments to invest in index funds is really enough for nearly everyone. you'll make your 4 to 7% a year on average.
| Quote: | | I annoy some of more libertarian logical sparring partners with my relatively low opinion of my own ability to make wise life decisions relative to, say, a well-meaning technocrat. |
well, you could hire your own personal technocrat, rather than bothering everyone else about it. 
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dhex
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Scratchmonkey
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:17 pm Post subject: |
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| dhex wrote: | http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOAQKzY-aOBqDspFkEAV_ZO65vZAD92718CG0
this weekend i asked no one in particular why someone would shoot unitarians. i guess we know now. |
Because his food stamps were being reduced. Damn liberal welfare state. |
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Redeye
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 3:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Scratchmonkey wrote: | | dhex wrote: | http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOAQKzY-aOBqDspFkEAV_ZO65vZAD92718CG0
this weekend i asked no one in particular why someone would shoot unitarians. i guess we know now. |
Because his food stamps were being reduced. Damn liberal welfare state. |
Does the Wal-Mart ammo counter take food stamps?
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dhex
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:44 am Post subject: |
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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/28/080728fa_fact_samuels?printable=true
i think this may be an "only in california" kind of deal. 200,000 scripts is a lot.
i am sort of surprised, even though i've been informed otherwise by those in the know, at the giving out of scripts for "anxiety" and the like.
dunno about you guys, but treating anxiety with weed seems a bit like treating bad driving with alcohol.
the entire system is just plain ass strange. some of that is due to fed involvement, obviously, which keeps the higher end (har har) of the supply chain in a grey area. so it's more like a gradient market, from black (large scale grow operations, couriers) to very very light grey (the final user).
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dhex
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dhex
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| Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:13 pm Post subject: |
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in other news ted stevens got indicted for playing funny with money.
[insert series of tubes joke here]
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dhex
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dhex
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| Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 10:22 am Post subject: |
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25917791/
if you have donation dollars handy, the innocence project is a good place to get them.
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dhex
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Dracko
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| Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 9:00 pm Post subject: |
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| dhex wrote: | http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4097602514885833865
neato! |
You watched the response?
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dhex
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| Posted: Sun Aug 10, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: |
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most of it.
| Quote: | Dad Left His "A" Game Somewhere in the Eighties
Girl #1: Okay, so you know how my dad asked me if I wanted to see Counting Crows and Maroon 5 last week?
Girl #2: Yeah, what the hell was he thinking?
Girl #1: I dunno man, but today he asked me if I wanted to see Rush.
Girl #2: Dude, what the fuck?
Girl #1: Well in his defense, he thought they were Journey.
--Pizzeria Uno, South Street Seaport |
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Swimmy
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:12 am Post subject: |
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The last one, especially.
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Shapermc
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 10:04 am Post subject: |
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| Swimmy wrote: | | The last one, especially. |
The last one was the only to make me chuckle.
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extrabastardformula
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:39 pm Post subject: |
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Is RPS all about the pirates? I recently read the comment thread on the Bionic Commando getting a PC port and the whole place was up in arms that 15 USD was too much and they should just pirate the damn thing. Is this the face of PC gaming today?
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Shapermc
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| Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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| extrabastardformula wrote: | | Is RPS all about the pirates? I recently read the comment thread on the Bionic Commando getting a PC port and the whole place was up in arms that 15 USD was too much and they should just pirate the damn thing. Is this the face of PC gaming today? |
vocal minority dude.
though I can't understand the pricing structure myself. I mean, on average PC games are much cheaper than the console counterparts.
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 7:22 am Post subject: |
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some people are useless.
a smaller subset of that group posts on the internet.
it happens.
but no, rps is usually excellent commentary and at least a somewhat interesting commentariat; it's only when the whole piracy thing pops up that things get dumb. five bucks is just five bucks but apparently in some peoples' heads that's like shooting your dog with a crossbow.
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dhex
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Swimmy
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:45 pm Post subject: |
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That's horrifying. Pretty uplifting that they saved the baby, though.
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dhex
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 4:18 pm Post subject: |
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if the accident happened as was described, it's a fucking miracle.
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Shapermc
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| Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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When they described the accident I was pretty confused when they said that she was going to the hospital. I mean, she should've been dead.
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dhex
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| Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 9:42 am Post subject: |
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The mortgage crisis that sparked a wave of foreclosures is now responsible for a rising tide of bankruptcies across the city.
i found this particular paragraph interesting:
| Quote: | Real estate speculators
Some New Yorkers find themselves mired in debt because the wide availability of credit turned average wage earners into eager real estate speculators. They bought investment properties in the suburbs, or in places like Florida and North Carolina, hoping to get rich. Then mortgages adjusted upward or their tenants, hit by the economic downturn, stopped paying rent. And the real estate bubble burst, sending home values spiraling downward, particularly outside of the city.
Noel, a 28-year-old math teacher from Harlem who asked that his last name not be used, always thought it would be smart to invest in real estate. So when his cousin introduced him to a mortgage broker who promised he wouldn't have to put a penny down on a $1 million piece of property in New Rochelle, he jumped at the chance. Then, the same broker told him about a home in Yonkers. Again, he didn't have to put any money down.
In over his head
Before he realized what he was getting into, Noel says, he was scammed into signing two mortgages totaling more than $1.5 million. The mortgage broker even provided a lawyer for the closing.
"I make $50,000 as a schoolteacher," he says. "There's no way I should have been approved for loans that big." |
i have another way of rephrasing what noel said:
"I was greedy and stupid, and am now paying the price."
seriously, and i hope everyone everywhere realizes this at some point, if someone offers you something that seems too good to be true, it is. after all, if this was such a simple, no money down steal, why wouldn't the guy offering it to you not just take it himself?
"predatory lending" my ass.
oh shit i forgot the best paragraph:
| Quote: | | Hemmed in by monthly payments totaling more than $10,000 and bills for maintaining a third property on Long Island, Noel had no choice but to file for bankruptcy, he says. He filed without the help of a lawyer—he couldn't afford one—and he plans to walk away from the three homes and get a fresh start, this time without dreams of making it big. |
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dhex
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Redeye
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dhex
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Redeye
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Joined: 02 Oct 2006
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Location: filth
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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That guy obviously wasn't a Master Grinder.
For the room with 4 groups of 99 berserkers each, the trick is to cast Mangar's Mind Blade from 1 or 2 casters 1-2 times each. After that you get diminishing returns, and it's just mop up time anyway because the survivors would be so weakened.
Also- get the teleport coordinates for that room.
Back and forth, back and forth, until you run low on spell-points.
I spent a fifth to a quarter of the time playing that game just teleporting to that room for XP.
Never did finish: I hate mapping.
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I felt sheer anarchic joy when I ran over my first pedestrian. |
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dhex
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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i used the hintbook to get through 3.
never played one or two - a bit before my time.
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:32 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | A Catholic confesses to two priests that he once selfishly said a novena just go get a Maserati.
"What's a Maserati?" asked the Franciscan.
"What's a novena?" asked the Jesuit. |
haw haw! never heard that one before.
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dhex
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:47 pm Post subject: |
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hey someone explain last fm to me, thanks.
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dhex
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dhex
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daphaknee
just enemies now
Joined: 26 Jul 2007
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Location: YAY AREA
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| dhex wrote: | | hey someone explain last fm to me, thanks. |
it keeps track of the music you listen to and builds charts, and makes recommendations based on what you listen to
you can build playlists and tag songs nad look at what your friends listen to and judge them
it has a whole bunch of stupid programs and things so you can look at all the music you've listened to in a million different ways
it saves your playlists so like you can listen to YOUR RADIO STATION which is composed of songs you've scrobbled |
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dhex
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:34 pm Post subject: |
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so it's just like making a playlist, but with extra work built in?
woo.
so much for the inner monologue.
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Harveyjames
the meteor kid
Joined: 06 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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No extra work at all! It just saves stats and listening histories from your itunes and itunes-like players. Then it allows your friends to look at this information, and even listen to the songs!
When I had it installed it would often pop up with a radio show of music Daphny would listen to. She has pretty good taste in music and it's normally all stuff I've never heard of. So, you get to find out about all kinds of stuff you wouldn't normally.
Then of course, the music from daph's playlist gets added to your own playlist! It's a wonder! |
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