Real Estate: I don't have anything to back this up, but lots of real estate markets have been blowing up. My neighborhood is up about 20% year on year, but we've seen a lot of rentals cropping up. My guess is that either REITs or well-heeled investors are buying loads of houses at the low end and renting them out. Rent ~= mortgage payment, so you're just out the maintenance and handling, if that, and you're gaining equity.

If you go onesie - twosie, and one goes vacant for a few months, that nukes a lot of your (not tremendous in the first place) profit. At 20-25 houses (@200k/house, that's about $4-5M total capital investment), your risk probably isn't too bad.

On a personal level, I concur completely. Grow or expire, accept personal responsibility for your situation, and CYA as appropriate. Why do we fall, Alfred?

On a societal level, I doubt most people are prepared for it. There are going to be a lot of issues with the long-term un- and under-employed, especially among those nearing retirement. Even should the lost middle-class jobs come back, they're not going to be at the same financial level, and a sinking tide lowers all boats.

Notably, G5s aren't boats. That doesn't help.

We're not talking about an evolutionary change in industrial production. Yes, buggy whip makers were going to go out of business. Fine, so those guys have to find different jobs. I hear the car factory's hiring. A little retraining, maybe a year of school / vo-tech, and he (no women in the workplace) would be back in a middle class job.

That's not the case here. The destruction part of your argument remains valid. Do we need lawyers to draft, say, formative corporate documents? Never did, frankly, but now that you can do it for $50 online, that's pulling $200 out of a lawyer's pocket. Better? More efficient? Sure. No chance we'll ever go back.

Now, take the case of a lawyer. If the online thing happens enough times, they're out of work. Now what? Law schools have produced more lawyers than available positions for years, so there's somebody younger and cheaper right behind them, even ignoring globalization. Retrain? For what? Most professional degrees and certifications are in the same boat. Unless they were just short of getting their Master's in (something where hiring is actually occurring), they're not much better off than a high school graduate.

If the lawyer is 50, they could easily have 15 working years left, and 15 more in semi- or full retirement. Never mind replacement income. It is entirely possible that they will never see a paycheck again. Economic multipliers, opportunity cost, and all that.

That's what we're up against.

Just another ecosystem play.

Outside of Kinect, I can't think of a console upgrade that actually worked in the marketplace (XBox HD-DVD, XBox external HD, PS3 Move, PS2 external HD, PS2 Network, I'm sure I've forgotten some). All of those are in the "plug into console, plug in power, reboot" sort of upgrade. No way is a general user cracking a $350 console to upgrade anything.

(Sidebar: I'd be interested to see the percentage of PS3 hard drive upgrades, which requires about an hour, removing 10 screws, and a large-ish USB stick.)

So now the console provides 1080p on your living room TV. Tremendous, except that a typical Steam PC (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey) is dual or quad core, 2.5GHz, 8G, running 1080p or dual 1080p. Generally, anyway, and the PC is more likely to be upgraded over time. Now, I'm taking over the living room for an inferior gaming experience?

$350 might not be enough, and the stock console is going to age very quickly. HL3 better be exclusive for an extended period (and AWESOME), and even then, it's going to be uphill.

Well, you have to remember that the US doesn't have a political spectrum like most European countries. In those terms, I suspect the Dems would be center-right (ish), and the Republicans would be moderate right. IMS, the US hasn't had a significant socialist movement under that name since the 1920s.

As such, the connotations behind the words "socialism" and "communism" aren't the same here. Besides, that 11% is probably something like (4% communist + 7% socialist), moving both well into a "fringe/outlier" sort of space. Frankly, I'd bet that of those 11% "supporting" leftish ideals, the vast majority couldn't explain what they were supporting.

But yes, everybody hates Congress.

Fine, we disagree. I don't see how one would pitch developing one's game in Android. Too many variables:

- Screen Resolution - A free Android phone from my carrier is 480x800. It isn't, but for convenience's sake, let's call that the base. Top is 1080p (1920x1080, I always have to check), with 4k on the horizon eventually.
- Screen Size - Phone is 3.7", top "vaguely affordable living room" screen is what, now, 80"?
- CPU / RAM - God only knows, let alone the question of resources actually available.
- Local storage - How much? At what speed? HD or flash?
- Network Connectivity - GB cat5 to DSL/Cable, Wifi N to DSL/Cable, Wifi A to Coffeeshop WAP, 4G or 3G?

And yes, you could get the marketing guys to minimax the target hardware / audience, or split your offering by platform (e.g. Non-NFL Madden where roster management is done on tablet/smartphone, gameplay on Ouya or similar, data in the cloud).

But you're adding cost at every step, and your initial install probably has to be under $10, with a free taster edition. That's a lot of in-game sales.

No PHB in their right mind is going to tackle that. Even if you said "ok, only the Android game consoles," there have been, like, three or four already, with a market penetration of (pretty nearly) nil.

Trust me, I want to believe. I just don't see how it works out.

> That's a lot of potential gamers who want to play something better than Fruit Ninja.

Except that you're assuming:
a) That all 900M of those devices are still active (bitter about a shoddily made $99 tablet).
b) Of the active ones, that they're capable of gaming (my phone's fine, but the tablets weren't, Android market fragmentation).
c) Of those remaining, that their owners want to game.
d) Of that subset, that they want to play something better than Fruit Ninja.

and possibly:

e) Of THAT subset, that they're willing to pay for it, either directly or in-game.

I'm not really arguing. I'd like to see it, too. But your massive market may not be so massive.

I have an FS, which I think is similar to the 5N.

http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo-5n/index.php

That initial cost is quite the leap of faith, but dually redundant mismatched drives that I can upgrade seamlessly at my leisure (and if drives ever get cheap again)? Done.

And yes, you could build your own network of rsync shares more cheaply, and performance is frankly unspectacular (may be my crusty 100M network.) But it's a ten minute setup for a virtually inexhaustible file share that you don't ever have to worry about. Sounds about right for our tech-wary OP.

Thank you. Apparently, it's not just me.

mckwant.

Seconded, down to the TiVo comment. I'd shake hands, but I'm worried about a quantum singularity.

However, like the TiVo in 2000, it's a tough check to write. I have to admit I was edgy about getting my FS. It's tempting to think that a FreeNAS (or whatever) would be fine. For comparison, though, here's the short version of the FS install procedure:

- Unpack Drobo.
- Plug Drobo into power and network.
- Insert drives.
- Wait a bit while Drobo configures itself.
- Log into Drobo, create the shares you want.
- Hook the shares up on your desktop.

Ball game. And it doesn't break. It's in my un-A/C'd garage in Austin, and if it didn't complain last summer, it's fine.

Mild qualm about available space. To be fair, the set of drives in there is sub-optimal, and I went with double redundancy (which even I think is overkill). I have 7.5TB of drive supplying 3.08TB to the network. I don't really care, as I'm only using 2.13T, and the drives are either leftovers or birthday gifts, but the geek in me shudders just a hair. For the record, single redundancy would be something like 5T usable.

Oh, and, if you're an Apple guy, it'll work as a Time Machine box, too.

Easily one of the better $500 I've ever spent.

Sorry, I'm tired of this. Marginal cost of production, that is, the cost incurred to make one copy of the magazine is NOT equivalent to the actual cost of creating that copy. There is a fixed cost involved with making the master copy. Granted, that cost is fixed, and because it is fixed, as the number of issues produced increases, the contribution of the fixed cost goes to zero.

But asymptotic to zero isn't the same thing as zero. There are costs to be recouped, ROI to be realized, and salaries to be paid. I'm not about to argue that Linux magazine is correct in charging the same amount for print issues as digital, but "free to make and distribute" is ridiculous.

Sorry, I'm tired of this. Marginal cost of production, that is, the cost incurred to make one copy of the magazine is NOT equivalent to the actual cost of creating that copy. There is a fixed cost involved with making the master copy. Granted, that cost is fixed, and because it is fixed, as the number of issues produced increases, the contribution of the fixed cost goes to zero.

But asymptotic to zero isn't the same thing as zero. There are costs to be recouped, ROI to be realized, and salaries to be paid. I'm not about to argue that Linux magazine is correct in charging the same amount for print issues as digital, but "free to make and distribute" is ridiculous.

What do you do?

- Adam Ant

Oh, and my (exceedingly well traveled) parents have had good luck with the Rick Steves series of travel books. I find that series to be a little more "comfortable middle class" travel than the "backpacker" motif of Lonely Planet, but it might fit well here.

Seconded. London is a good destination for a beginning traveler, but, assuming you don't have some (pretty big) project, there just isn't enough there to cover two weeks. I'd have to be convinced that ANY city can fill two weeks, barring some "cooking school in Italy" idea.

Don't misunderstand. I'm not a fan of the "Death March" tour. One of my wife's friends did a tour of Europe with 25 cities in 30 days, which strikes me as horrific. There's a middle ground in there somewhere. Heck, with two weeks, you could even look at another city. Travel to the continent gets pretty simple once you get across the pond.

I concur with the Lonely Planet recommendation, but be a little wary. My wife and I used it extensively in Thailand, but since most of the commentary is user-driven, you can get led astray. For instance, there was a well recommended Italian place in Chiang Mai. We went, sat down, and listened to the chef "highly recommend the lobster." Not what we were down for (would've totally nuked our budget), so we left. I'm sure it was OK, but apply your own judgement, and don't feel bad about just walking out.