The Official Status Thread
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Status: Who is this user, and why are they trying to penetration-test our website?
And most importantly, why are they using IE6?
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@Groaner said in The Official Status Thread:
Status: beginning to believe that "if you can afford to rent, you can afford to own" is nonsense in this part of the world.
So I've been living in a 1 bedroom apartment comfortably for almost a decade that costs 25% of my take-home pay. It's a pretty good deal considering many similar arrangements in the area could run 30-50%. This year, I got the crazy idea that building equity while living somewhere might be a nice idea, so I've started to look at properties.
I've ruled out condominiums due to the fees making them cost around as much as a townhouse mortgage, and too many horror stories such as, "Hey guys, we need a new roof, so each of you now owes us $10k." That plus townhouses having a wider resale market makes them the more compelling choice. Realtor agrees, so yesterday we take a look at a handful of townhouses that I deemed to be in my price range (around 30-40% of take-home). At this price point, one's choices are grubby 30+ year-old construction in rough neighborhoods around 1000-1300 square feet in space. When we visited the best-looking and highest-priced of the bunch, we found two other realtors and a couple of couples in it at the same time, suggesting there would be some bidding to drive up that price!
Realtor has been keen on getting me into some (admittedly nice) new construction that's about 15 minutes further from the city than I am now, and would cost >50% of take-home pay. Initially, I shrugged it off as some misguided shilling, but now I'm beginning to agree with her and think that's probably one of the better options.
What annoys me most about the whole scenario is that I make about 2x what the average Joe makes, and if I have to tighten my belt to buy property, what does the average person do? Are dual incomes mandatory for the average person to own a place, or does the average person commute 60-90 minutes (without traffic!) each way to find sane property values?
Realtor believes I can afford more than I think I can afford, and has directed me to one of the finance people at her company who will assuage my concerns. I'll be meeting this person next week and look forward to hearing about the alchemy that will make numbers seem smaller than they really are. I wasn't impressed with our initial conversation, as a few of my questions got, "Well, you'd need an accountant to answer that for you, I don't really feel comfortable talking about that," as an answer. Sorry, you don't get to pass the buck like that when 1) it's my ass on the line, and 2) it's your job to sell me on the issue.
Worst comes to worst, I'll just continue renting and develop "equity" by saving up money from not paying over twice what I'm paying now to live somewhere!
I'm actually having a similar thought at the moment. I'm saving at the moment but it occurred to me that if I combined my savings and my rent I could probably afford a mortgage without too much of an impact on my life. Especially if I looked outside of London. I mentioned this to my saner half who instantly fell in love with the idea. She gets in contact with her bank friend who relays that if I could magic a deposit out of thin air I would be in an extremely strong position for a mortgage even at London prices. I like this idea except that I don't have enough for a deposit especially since I appear to be drifting from crisis to crisis that drains my finances. Tightening my belt I don't mind. Living without a savings safety net is a no-go for me. I also don't like the idea of adding house management to my list of chores. I kind of like being able to whinge at my Land Lady when shit goes wrong and then not having to follow up on the problem.
Unfortunately the story doesn't end here. Said banking friend then drops a hint that if my saner half and I combined our earnings and reigned in our spending we could probably get a really nice place and pay it off in less than 15 years.
My saner half has now become the insane one...
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STATUS A spanner has being thrown into the works.
This website must work with my batshit ad blocking settings that don't allow WebRTC
You do know that WebRTC is the cornerstone of this project.
Make it work!
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We need to make this work without WebRTC.
Fuck me sideways with a thorny dildo.
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Status: First day in new job. Supervisor gave me code to read in the morning, then assigned me to solve bug in another project. Rewritten the code using pure .NET framework without involving 3rd party component in the afternoon. Added some feature and completed without error handling at all. :p
Need some finishing touch tomorrow. No decided whether I should implement log rotation too.
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@Groaner said in The Official Status Thread:
Worst comes to worst, I'll just continue renting and develop "equity" by saving up money from not paying over twice what I'm paying now to live somewhere!
I made this same decision ten years ago. I saved enough in that time for a big (40%) down payment on a house that was way too expensive for me otherwise, in a much better neighborhood than I could have expected back then.
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@NedFodder
The other thing I like about renting is that I'm more mobile, if I get an opportunity that would require a move -- worst case renting is that I'm out 2 months worth of rent for early term. As opposed to being stuck becoming a slum lord or taking a big haircut to sell my house right now. Not to mention the 6% haircut you're going to take on selling the house, just from realtor fees.
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Status: Goddammit, how do you make shoelaces that are so poor that they don't stay tied with a double knot?
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@izzion said in The Official Status Thread:
an opportunity that would require a move
Owning a house is not for everyone.
@izzion said in The Official Status Thread:
Not to mention the 6% haircut you're going to take on selling the house, just from realtor fees.
Plus interest paid, closing costs, etc. Buying and selling a house isn't an automatic profit.
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@NedFodder said in The Official Status Thread:
Buying and selling a house isn't an automatic profit.
Yeah. Too many people treat a house as an investment, rather than as a depreciating asset (which it really is).
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@Groaner said in The Official Status Thread:
I'd recommend checking out Dave Ramsey's advice on budgeting, finances, and buying vs. renting.
I'd steer away from his hardline stance on credit though.
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@JazzyJosh
I mean, he's not completely wrong.If you bought a house with 4% interest for 30 years, you'd pay for that house a little more than twice (NOT counting the additional costs of repairs, property taxes, etc). Even a 15 year 3% loan is still paying about 50% of the purchase price in interest over the life of the loan. And if rates ever normalize back to 6-7%, then that 30 year mortgage is nearly 3 "purchases" of the house.
The borrower is slave to the lender indeed :(
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@izzion Well, I meant more along the lines of "never use credit cards ever", which is understandable if you are someone who can't control spending and fell into a giant hole of not paying the card in full every month.
Me? I'll stick with my 200k+ MR Points, etc.
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Status: Once again diving into the bowels of ASP.NET to figure out why my
OutputCachecaches properly when the site is accessed via a web browser, but not when accessed by PageSpeed Insights or a WebJob.
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@JazzyJosh said in The Official Status Thread:
Well, I meant more along the lines of "never use credit cards ever", which is understandable if you are someone who can't control spending and fell into a giant hole of not paying the card in full every month.
I'm the other way around: I have a credit card with an ever-increasing credit limit I never actually use for anything.
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@izzion said in The Official Status Thread:
how do you make shoelaces that are so poor that they don't stay tied with a double knot?
TRWTF is double knots.
Granny Knot Info
Many people are tying a “Granny Knot”, which sits crooked and comes loose. Learn the “one simple trick” for keeping your shoes neatly and securely tied.
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@flabdablet
Hu-uh. That's the really obvious source of the problem, and given my experience as a Boy Scout, that should have been obvious to me. I blame having those extra bunny ears in the knot to throw me off.
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@flabdablet said in The Official Status Thread:
@izzion said in The Official Status Thread:
how do you make shoelaces that are so poor that they don't stay tied with a double knot?
TRWTF is double knots.
Granny Knot Info
Many people are tying a “Granny Knot”, which sits crooked and comes loose. Learn the “one simple trick” for keeping your shoes neatly and securely tied.
this is why i wear flats or heels. they don't have laces to worry about.
the heels occasionally have straps and buckles, but i have a lot of experience with straps and buckles.
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The Ian Knot is the real star of the show on that site:
Ian Knot (Ian's Fast Shoelace Knot)
Tutorial for tying the “Ian Knot”, the world's fastest shoelace knot.
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@hungrier said in The Official Status Thread:
The Ian Knot is the real star of the show on that site:
Ian Knot (Ian's Fast Shoelace Knot)
Tutorial for tying the “Ian Knot”, the world's fastest shoelace knot.
I'm gonna give that one a go later I think.
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STATUS Playing with alexa now. The biggest barrier is that alexa doesn't understand us when we say the name of the skill. We had to draft in the Office Manager to help us test the skill.
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@RaceProUK It takes a bit of practice to learn the technique but once you have it, it'll save you lots of time (probably like, a few hours over your lifetime, but still)
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Status: Good job, Cortana.
Ready for the Super Bowl? Don't forget the snacks! Ask me to set a reminder for anything you need.
This morning, the day after the Super Bowl. (INB4 a really early reminder for next year's game.) Sure, Cortana, I'll get right on that.
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@HardwareGeek
Cortana is a French digital assistant, she doesn't work weekends. Or nights. Or... sound of dead horse flesh being pulverized
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@HardwareGeek said in The Official Status Thread:
Don't forget the snacks!
@izzion said in The Official Status Thread:
sound of dead horse flesh being pulverized
:/
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@izzion but how else will I use my unlimited night and weekend minutes?!
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Do you want your Maury episodes faster? Have I found the show for you:
http://www.paternitycourt.tv/img/pat-small.jpg
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Also this arrived like last week, but I haven't gotten around to posting it until now:
![0_1486412850896_IMG_20170127_172627650[1].jpg](/uploads/files/1486412851389-img_20170127_172627650-1-resized.jpg)
Fuck you, now I have chocolate.
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@JazzyJosh
E_TABLE_NOT_SUFFICIENTLY_WOODEN
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Status: Dammit, MarkDumb, why are you so open-sourcey that everyone that implements you does it differently. It's so irritating to do something that would be perfectly cromulent on Slack and Trello just barfs on it. Or use Trello syntax on NodeBB and HA HA HA NOPE. Etc, etc.
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@JazzyJosh said in The Official Status Thread:
@izzion Well, I meant more along the lines of "never use credit cards ever", which is understandable if you are someone who can't control spending and fell into a giant hole of not paying the card in full every month.
Me? I'll stick with my 200k+ MR Points, etc.
This is exactly his point, though. Most of the people he deals with have problems with controlling their spending because they feel like they have a safety net against overspending their budget. They have to get rid of the emotional pillow fort they have set up by actually getting rid of their credit card "safety net".
Generally, perks like rewards points are really only beneficial for people who don't really need them. The people who feel like they can't let go of their rewards points probably shouldn't have a credit card.
There are a few who are emotionally detached from their money, can run the numbers, and can make a decision based purely on that. They aren't most people (and I suspect most of them work in a STEM field).
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@hungrier The issue I have with "quick" knots like these is that the loops and the tails usually come out layered differently between the left and right sides of the knot. For the Ian Knot, based on the image in the one-box, the yellow loop is over the blue tail on the right side, but the blue loop is under the yellow tail on the left side. Fixing is so that the loops are above the tails on both sides takes as long or longer than just tying a regular shoelace knot.
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@djls45 That sounds like an aesthetic concern rather than a practical one. It makes no difference to me how the loops are layered, as long as the laces stay tied until I untie them, and release quickly when I do. The Ian knot has IME been just as good as any other by these measures.
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@hungrier Indeed.
That's why I bought shoes with velcro latches the last time I needed new shoes.
Now my shoes are both aesthetically pleasing in appearance and practically quick to fasten.
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@hungrier said in The Official Status Thread:
The Ian Knot is the real star of the show on that site:
Ian Knot (Ian's Fast Shoelace Knot)
Tutorial for tying the “Ian Knot”, the world's fastest shoelace knot.
Holy crap! I thought i was the strange one for not doing the retarded bunny and tree method!
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@Groaner said in The Official Status Thread:
Amusingly, some back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that in about 5 years, I could probably save up close to $100k were I to stay renting,
Did you build rent increases into that equation? In the time I've owned my home (20yrs), the locals rents have probably gone up at least 5x. My house (resale) by about 3x. But my mortgage is the same. (Well, technically it's less because I refi'd to a lower rate) Admittedly, I'd be extremely hard pressed to buy my current home now.
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@NedFodder said in The Official Status Thread:
Buying and selling a house isn't an automatic profit.
No doubt! My first house I bought for 118K. Sold for 125K 3 yrs later. The loss was around 20K as I remember (hey it was 20 years ago! I'm lucky I remember the prices!).
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@djls45 said in The Official Status Thread:
Are you a pensioner?
That's why I bought shoes with velcro latches the last time I needed new shoes.
Is diametrically opposed to
Now my shoes are both aesthetically pleasing in appearance and practically quick to fasten.
If you want to remain stylish and want something easy to put on you use a long show horn and wear a loafer.
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Status: A few related thoughts--
- There HAS to be a better way to do jury selection than stuffing a bunch of people in a room for 5-8 hours and...not calling most of them.
- HGTV is quite stupid and repetitive.
- On the other hand, HGTV is better than most daytime TV
- I really should have brought a computer or at least the test I have to grade...
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@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
There HAS to be a better way to do jury selection than stuffing a bunch of people in a room for 5-8 hours and...not calling most of them.
Do you think you are smarter than all the other legal staff that came before you.
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@lolwhat said in The Official Status Thread:
Too many people treat a house as an investment
That's extremely common in the UK, and our house building market is sufficiently broken that houses mostly work as investments, even over relatively short periods like a couple of years. Which is a horrible horrible concept when you look behind the façade; the whole thing is so bad that prices, already high, didn't drop significantly even in the 2008 crash. (The rate of rise dropped to almost zero for a few months, but hardly any actual fall.) Prices have risen in nearly every year for my entire life.
The level of dysfunction is insane. Quite apart from the bizarre contortions in the economy that it produces directly, it also distorts land zoning, tax policy, infrastructure investment, general politics, and most of all, ever so many people's lives. And no politician is brave enough to face up to it; it's a multi-decadeal bubble that nobody dares try to deflate. Which doesn't mean that it's immune, just that when it happens, it'll be awful.
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@lucas1 said in The Official Status Thread:
@Benjamin-Hall said in The Official Status Thread:
There HAS to be a better way to do jury selection than stuffing a bunch of people in a room for 5-8 hours and...not calling most of them.
Do you think you are smarter than all the other legal staff that came before you.
Nope, but seriously, today was somewhere on the enterprise-y end of the efficiency spectrum. Hurry up and wait to the Nth degree.
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Status: My colleagues on the current project have observed that Python, while a pretty great hackers' language, is b*****ming awful for long-term support purposes. It's apparently just too easy to do weird squirrelly things with it, and the standard of IDE support is just too annoying (with a “wonderful” habit of changing other random things when refactoring) even with commercial offerings. They're also running into serious performance problems; despite knowing that they're getting hit by the GIL issues (and how!) they think that they'd do better putting as much as possible into a language like Java, C# or C++ with types to bind them into being disciplined.
I've yet to really tell them that I'm less than impressed by all this, and that the majority of their problems probably come from poor choices of algorithm, data structure and message, not the type enforcement rules (or rather lack of them). OTOH, getting some of the stuff out of Python is probably worthwhile; the threading really is that bad in Cython.
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Status: Wife just announced (via message) that a girl she's nannying threw up pretty bad, and she's kind of ugh. Also, suggesting that soup might be good for supper.
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@dcon said in The Official Status Thread:
@Groaner said in The Official Status Thread:
Amusingly, some back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that in about 5 years, I could probably save up close to $100k were I to stay renting,
Did you build rent increases into that equation? In the time I've owned my home (20yrs), the locals rents have probably gone up at least 5x. My house (resale) by about 3x. But my mortgage is the same. (Well, technically it's less because I refi'd to a lower rate) Admittedly, I'd be extremely hard pressed to buy my current home now.
When I moved in in 2008, rent was mid-$900's. If I stay, my next lease will be mid-$1100's. So, that's about 20% growth over a decade.
Meanwhile, a $300k townhouse will run close to $2000 per month after taxes, PMI, and HOA fees. The $400k new construction townhouses my realtor loves will be closer to $2600 per month ("But with the mortgage interest deduction, that's really only like $1900 a month! And you don't have to pay closing costs and won't pay a dime on repairs!").
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status: birthday. really wanna go buy a bottle of wine and drink it, but i won't
also, i need to go to the gym tonight but i have two exams and an essay due, as well as a couple of job interviews in the next two days
i think this is part of why i want to drink
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@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
bunny and tree method
I never learned that one. My grandpa taught me some method without any woodland animal narrative when I was 4 or 5, and that's what I used until I learned the Ian knot.
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Coding against an SMS gateway. Balance runs out at 5.24pm.
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Status: Destroying Amsterdam_Streets_A.
