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Comment Re:A last ditch effort... (Score 1) 38

The stock market is a measure of what people believe companies will be worth in the future. The economy is a measure of how companies are performing in the last quarter. In other words, economic data is backward looking and markets are forward looking. These two things are related, but they are not the same.

The stock market does not care that companies may perform poorly in the next quarter or even next year. It cares how the companies around now will be performing ten years from now. Most of the recent stock market rebound is due investor's confidence that large tech companies will continue to grow and be around for the long haul. Similarly, stimulus packages from the government provide confidence that few large companies will have to close their doors. The belief is that post-vaccine, life will be back to normal and most companies around today will be back to business as usual. The market's current value is a representation of this belief.

Comment Re:Millennials Can't do math (Score 1) 194

I too used to live in Boston, so let me explain some things for those who have not had that joy. When the OP speaks of living outside of Boston, he is meaning nearby small cities like Cambridge or Somerville. Boston is a very small city, geographically. If you cross the river Charles, you are in one of these "other" cities. They are literally within walking distance of Boston. Guess what, the rent does not change much. This is true. It is also not 30-60 miles as the first poster stated.

Actually, Cambridge is more expensive than many parts of Boston-proper. It's a very desirable place to live. Accessible via green/red line and very trendy. I'm actually talking about places like Framingham, Quincy, Natick, Waltham. All of which are slightly cheaper, but demand paying for a car or expensive commuter rail passes.

Now, if you actually are honest, unlike the the OP, you would look at something like Hamilton. This is a small city 32 miles outside of Boston. Allow me to do the un-millennial thing like post facts instead of talking out of my ass: https://www.travelmath.com/dri... Here is an example of a nice apart sub 1500.

Oh, nice. A city that that although only 30 miles away, is a 1 hour 20 minute drive during rush hour. Excellent! And you still need a car to live there, bringing it nearly to cost parity with living in the city. I guess that's an option if you don't mind spending 3 hours in a car every working day in order to save $200/month ($2000 boston price - $1300 rent - $500 some combination of car/gas/insurance/parking/mbta pass). You're effectively paying yourself $2/hour to sit in your car an extra two hours per day ($200 dollars saved / 40 hours per month in extra commuting) and not get home until 7 PM every night.

Now, lets look at 60 miles from Boston. Since many slashdot readers live in Ca or some real state, they may not realize how small MA is. Sixty miles will often take you OUT OF MASSACHUSETTS. For example, Woonsocket, RI on the border of MA and RI is 53 miles. There are several sub $1000 dollar apartments.

And this per Google maps is 1 hour 20 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes depending on traffic. So between 3 hours and 5 hours commuting every day... Not a chance.

For the record, Providence, Ri is about 60 miles from Boston, and far cheaper.

Again, now you have a nearly $500 commuter rail pass to pay for every month. Apartments in Providence are still in the $1200-$1500 range and you're commute is 1 hour 10 minutes each way, and that's assuming you can teleport instantly to the commuter rail station.

So, what the OP really means is, he can't live within walking distance of downtown Boston, or further out from all the cool over priced millennial amenities that article of this thread is about, and live cheaply. Yeah, welcome to the real world cupcake. Nice things are expensive and lifestyle is a choice. How do you get ahead, decide what is important to you. I honestly do not begrudge your Uber/Starbucks lifestyle, just don't bitch about it or ask me to pay for it in any way.

You're pretty presumptive. I don't take advantage of any of the 'cool over priced millennial amenities' in the article. I live a minimalistic and modest lifestyle. I don't own a car, rarely eat out or order things on Amazon. All told, I spend between $1200 and $1500 per month on everything else (food, utilities, commuting, other bills, discretionary) after paying my student loans and rent, and I save nearly 70% of my income, but I also make well into six figures. Unlike you, I acknowledge that not everyone is the position to do that.

I also think I've done a decent job of refuting that any of what you've written would be a reasonable decision unless a person specifically desired the suburban lifestyle over the urban one. Every suggestion you mentioned costs nearly as much as Boston when commuting costs are tacked on and adds an extreme burden in terms of time spent commuting. It boils down to exactly what I said in my original post: Cost is the same between living in the city and outside of the city when you factor in commuting costs. It's not hyperbole. It's a fact.

Allow me to be presumptive: you haven't lived in Boston in over ten years and and are out of touch with the reality of living there as it applies to the state of commuting traffic and cost of living.

Comment Re:Ok Boomer (Score 4, Insightful) 194

No, venture capitalists aren't adding all that much value to Millennials lives by blowing cash. The problem for Millennials is that they've got $1 trillion in student load debt and and the median price for a house is $290k while they make 20% less that folks did in the 70s while having a lot more education (and no, they're not all getting degrees in Gender Studies, 75% of degrees are in STEM, Business, Accounting or Law).

I'm a Millennial, and I've lost much of my sympathy for many of cohort after spending a lot of time working around urban Millennials. Some examples:

* Complain about debt and costs, but they eat out CONSTANTLY. * Complain about the cost of housing, but they want to live 10 minutes from work when living 30-60m from work would cut that by 50% or more. * Complain about stagnant wages, but so few of the other Millennials I've worked with have any real piss and vinegar in them about overcoming that.

Literally nothing you said makes anything the parent said less true.

I'm also a millennial. I live in the Boston area and work in the financial district. A one bedroom in Boston costs minimum $2,000/month, but you don't need a car. You can live an hour outside and commute in, but you still pay $1500 and now you need own a car or pay a few hundred dollars a month for a commuter rail pass, making living in/outside of the city basically a wash. Keep in mind, both of the dwellings I mentioned are also going to be shitholes which are kept up by lowest-bidder unskilled "handymen" and owned by slumlords who have no interest in replacing the 1970's appliances in the kitchen. So, in my experience your comment about living thirty minutes outside of a city and paying 50% less rent couldn't be further from the truth.

Yes, there are millenials who eat out constantly, but there are plenty of those that don't. If someone makes six figures and still can't make ends meet, then yeah - that's on them. But living on $45-60k in the situation I described is difficult and doesn't allow you to gain any significant financial ground, even if you're being responsible with your money. This leads to situations where people in their thirties are living with roommates to make ends meet -- meanwhile, their parents are asking them why they wont start a family.

Complain about stagnant wages, but so few of the other Millennials I've worked with have any real piss and vinegar in them about overcoming that.

And I don't know what the fuck this means, but I'm pretty sure it amounts to "lol, try harder." You don't deny that wages are stagnant, just as the parent said, and the solution you offer is to tell people to climb to a higher place on the mound of people scrambling for a piece of the pie. The fact of the matter is there is less and less pie to go around and one individual working hard or getting lucky and getting a nice big piece for themselves doesn't magically create more pie.

Comment Re:Greed is ruining gaming, and everything else (Score 1) 127

At least in Counter-Strike there were plenty of good servers in the mid '00s. I still play Counter-Strike now (almost twenty years later!) and I have to say that in my anecdotal experience the rate of people squealing in microphones and using slurs has only gone up in "casual"games. My theory for that is that because most people play casual matchmaking in lieu of a community run, persistent servers, people behave badly because they don't have to worry about losing rapport with the server admins or other players. Every game they join now is with a new set of strangers they are free to abuse, rather than a community of regulars policed by the resident server admins.

Automatic matchmaking ruined casual Counter-Strike.

Comment Re:Pardon? (Score 1) 103

How can there possible be 6 books worth of information on whatever "writing code" is?
I'm going to assume this person is a con-artist and everything they say is a lie.

There can be a lot of nuance to something that isn't readily apparent to someone who isn't well-acquainted with a subject. At some level, coding is just giving a computer instructions, basketball is just shooting a ball in a hoop, mindful eating is just not shoving too much down your gullet.

And given the issue we have with obesity in 1st-world countries, even across different education and income levels, it seems like it would be in people's interest to spend a bit more time thinking about their relationship with food. People in modern society really neglect the basics: exercise, eating healthy foods, getting enough sleep. I think a lot of people could benefit from spending more time thinking about the basics -- which it turns out aren't so basic for many people!

Yes, the author of these books could be full of shit, but it's a bit daft to assume they are simply because of the volume of literature produced.

Comment Re:What is even the point of this Slashvertisement (Score 1) 103

Just want to make this clear: it's your assertion that the Slashdot community makes purchasing decisions on HP laptops based on CSGO, which "professionals" commonly are using these laptops at 1024x768 running in 16:9 instead of 4:3. Even more, you believe you are representative of people who might purchase this laptop.

No, it's not my assertion. I never said anything about speaking for the Slashdot community or consumers as whole. I'm not sure how you got that impression.

And yes, I am representative of the people who might purchase this laptop. I actually drew on my own personal experience as a long-time competitive gamer who now has a career that requires travel, but still like to take competitive gaming seriously. I try to only play league games on my desktop (it's more performant, obviously), but having a 144 Hz laptop makes practicing on the road much less painful.

Comment Re: What is even the point of this Slashvertisemen (Score 1) 103

I'll go out on a limb and guess that these CSGO pros that you "know" aren't real -- because very few professionals use high settings, even fewer play at a 16:9 resolution (favoring 4:3 instead), and literally all but a handful play at resolutions under 1080p. You don't know what you're talking about, quite frankly.

Comment Re:1080p is not very good these days (Score 2) 103

If you care about 240 Hz you generally don't care about resolution because you need to run your game at a low resolution anyway in order to get a a high enough FPS to take advantage of your monitor's refresh rate. There is no point in having a 240 Hz (or 144 Hz) monitor if you're going to render at 1440p and only push out 60 fps.

Comment Re:What is even the point of this Slashvertisement (Score 2) 103

\In any case, RTX 2070 or not, it's not pushing enough frames for a display like this to matter.

This is objectively incorrect. People who play competitive shooters (such as myself) such as Counter-Strike Global Offensive target 200 fps minimum and like to have close to 400 fps. An RTX 2070 is more than capable of that at the low settings competitive games are typically played at. I personally play at 1024 x 768 stretched to 16:9 in Global Offensive, which is a common resolution amongst professionals

And before someone replies to me here claiming that "humans can't see more than 30 fps" -- yes, they can. I can tell the difference between 60 Hz and 144 Hz with ease. And although the difference between 144 Hz and 240 Hz is less noticeable, 240 Hz still looks "smoother" when dramatic screen shifts happen, such as when quickly turning 180 degrees to face a flanker.

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