WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
No bio...
User ID: 269
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
23hr ago
Thing is, it mostly turns into a zero sum game. When rates were low, people could make crazy offers on houses because their monthly payments were so low. Now that rates are high, there's less competition and prices...well, they didn’t go down, but they also didn’t go up as much. And you can just refi in 5 years. I think you would've been fine buying a bit later.
Eh, "fine" is relative. Sometimes it feels like I really got the last house I could have gotten. We spent all spring 2021 looking, things were drying up by summer, and the noises the fed were making were increasingly concerning. One year later rates had nearly doubled. At the worst of it, when rates were topping 7% and prices were still going up, I would have been looking at a mortgage getting really close to twice the one I had. Now it's a mere 50% higher. Then again, I got a house which had plenty of room to grow, and I'm not at risk of needing to climb the "housing ladder" any time soon.
I'm building equity in the home incredibly quickly, because I pay down the principle so much quicker, making it easier to buy a new home when I have to. And the money I pocket with a lower mortgage goes straight into the S&P500 too.
I mean, sure, if I absolutely had to, maybe I could have stretched and gotten way less house for way more money with a far worse mortgage a year or two later and been "fine".
Instead I'm great, and it's a hell of a snowball effect.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
I mean, it all depends on the rate. Once you get up to 6%, it gets real narrow if you can beat it with investing. Especially after paying taxes on whatever your profits are. Maybe if you were chucking everything into an IRA in an S&P500 index fund. But the difference between a post-tax, post-inflation, highly variable "10% average return" and a guaranteed 6% return from paying down debt is extremely marginal for most people. I wouldn't fault anyone for paying down a 6% mortgage over investing. I mean, I'd probably invest anyways, because I reason I'd rather have the extra money in case of emergencies than less debt. But that's a separate reasoning than it being a better rate of return.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
Yeah, my wife thought I was insane. The federal reserve was spouting some bullshit about inflation being transitory, and I was ranting and raving "They're lying! We need to buy a house NOW if we are ever going to." Caused some friction the first year or two, but boy howdy have I been vindicated since.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
It's amazing how quickly an amortization schedule gets insanely front loaded as rates go up. I have a sub 3% mortgage, in the first year my principle to interest ratio was about 2:3, maybe 4:5. In one more year, the 6th year of my mortgage, it will cross 1:1. At current market rates for the same amount, it starts off 1:4 or 1:5 and doesn't cross 1:1 until the 225th payment, 18 years in.
I don't make extra payments. A high yield savings account offers better return than paying off my mortgage faster. Now if it were a 6% mortgage, I'd probably be throwing as much as I could at it.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
I donno. Maybe how prostitution isn't illegal if you film it, because it's now pornography, maybe Don Lemon is going with some "It's not a civil rights violation if you film it, then it's news!" defense. Although, first, that seems questionable given how much he participates and second, the people who filmed the Arbery murder are still serving life sentences just for being there, so what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
it's kind of mind-blowing that it was made by an American tech company at all.
I don't consider MIcrosoft and American tech company anymore.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
1d ago
You only are noticing this because it's Trump. Fed's sue the Federal Government, and the Federal Government just gives them handouts in the form of settlements all the time. Look up what ultimately happened with Peter Strzok. It's just another quasi-legal form of corruption, and making sure the made men of the deep state stay made.
People are going to be outraged that Trump is suing ostensibly his own government (by pretending not to know things) over a legitimate grievance, and then go back to ignoring the golden parachutes used up deep state cronies keep getting once the public (as much of the public that cared) has moved on from their crimes.
Having a functional long term memory, I actually recall what a singular, unprecedented, and highly illegal event it was having some "rogue" IRS agent leak Trump's tax returns. Dude who did it is currently in prison, and also, people other than Trump have sued. Some sued BAH who was dude's employer, some sued the IRS directly.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
Do you happen to know what exactly the evidence against him?
His livestream?!
What are we even doing man...
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
I'm perfectly happy with Civil Right's legislation being thrown at these "protesters". It's as legitimate a use of it as others I've seen. And it almost makes me believe I still have rights.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
I've been holding my nose, and my MSFT stock, for years despite all this. As much as I hate what they are doing, line keeps going up.
Until two days ago. I'm not sure if it's a sea change yet, or a mere blip. I just have no idea how much enshittification Microsoft can get away with due to lock in effect, and I don't think anyone does. But I do know, I will be advocating to migrate away from MS at every opportunity I get. Or at least have the concepts of a plan in place should the enshittification truly become so bad we are left with no choice.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
Since LLMs are all anyone can talk about...
I've been messing around in some experimental projects ahead of my new job starting. A thing I may have to do is upgrade some .Net Framework projects to .Net 10. It turns out Microsoft has actively broken every means of doing this except to use Copilot. There used to be a .Net Upgrade Assistant but it's been deliberately broken in new versions of Visual Studio. So copilot it is I guess.
It generated some very nice looking assessment.md and plan.md files, and generally walked you along, giving you the exact prompts that were valid at each step of the process. And that's about the last nice thing I can say about it.
The first thing that went wrong was after generating the plan.md file, I guess it forgot what it was doing, and prompted me to start a new @modernize prompt, even though I was already in one. Well, whatever. That new prompt found the old plan.md file and just picked up where the other got confused and forgot what it was doing. It very quickly said it was finished, and the project built and passed all the unit test.
It had actually done nothing.
When I point this out, it cheerily began actually updating projects. After probably an hour of it thinking very hard on each one, and needing constant reassurances to continue, it claimed it had finished, all projects build, and they pass all test.
This was another lie.
But it had gotten far enough along that I could manually fix the remaining issues (mostly package versioning issues it claimed it had already fixed), and viola, my simple solution with about 8 small projects was upgraded from .Net Framework 4.8.1 to .Net 10.0. Hurray! Only took me all afternoon babysitting an LLM that lied consistently, followed by manual touch ups.
This morning I discovered there is actually a CLI tool. It's no longer supported, but using that took me about 20 minutes. It still flubbed some thing, and bafflingly upgraded several projects to .Net Standard 2.0 instead of .Net 10 despite my specifically telling it not to. But that's just editing a value in the csproj file after the fact. Oh, also telling it to analyze any of the projects consistently crashed. But all in all I think it did a better job than Copilot.
I sure am glad RAM prices have gone up 3-4x for this!
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
Maybe.
But I still think anyone claiming saying those things justifies your murder is not a centrist.
And if they are a centrist, as in that is actually point of fact the centrist position, I return to my "We are in a civil war" claims.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
Your honor, it was self defense. She called me a faggot.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
2d ago
I wish I had a country I could consider going back to. Alas.
Does Poland allow any sort of returning expatriate citizenship/visa programs? Every now and again you see countries with that. Like if you can prove some sort of ancestry they'll grant you citizenship.
He can advocate for what ever he wants. If his beliefs are around restricting the negative rights of others then he can also face the consequences of what happens when people don't want their rights restricted.
Says the "radical centrist" who doesn't think we are in a civil war. Yeah man, sometimes if your speech in an abstract sense might harm others in some abstract way, you just get assassinated in cold blood. Whatever. I'm a centrist.
And this is how they lie. Launder their radicalism in under the radar as "just being normal".
No.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
3d ago
I might prove to be wrong (it happens, but rarely). I am not lying. I sincerely believe that from the very depths of my being. But radical truths often sound like inflammatory rhetoric, so I don't blame you.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
3d ago
Yes, we are currently in a civil war. Both sides have internally consistent moral claims for exterminating the other. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you can make more productive choices.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
3d ago
That there should be no negative consequences for the ICE officers who killed him?
Correct. Also, everyone involved in that riot should be charged as accessories to murder for creating the chaotic conditions where such law enforcement accidents happen. When criminals commit a robbery, and police accidentally shoot and kill civilians, the robbers get charged with those murders too for creating the conditions in which they happened.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
3d ago
Yesssss, one of us, one of us.
Pretti was the obnoxious child running up to much bigger kids, putting his finger 0.0000001mm away from their faces, and chanting "I'm not touching you" until the bigger kid punched him in the face. After which point, having accomplished precisely what he set out to do, Pretti cried that he was hit and demanded that the bigger kid be punished because technically he didn't deserve to be punched by the rules as he understands them1. And yes, technically we don't want to encourage children to punch other, smaller, more obnoxious children. But sometimes, as a parent, you have to play dumb. "I didn't see anything, just learn to get along."
We, as a nation, need to play dumb. Let however many of these adult children face consequences (even unfair ones) for the first time in their entire lives. I wasn't there, and neither were you. I didn't see anything. Now go learn to get along with ICE.
- Well, not literally. Pretti was dead, a far superior outcome for an adult engaged in such behavior.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
5d ago
New Jersey Democrats flirtations with precious metals might be a special case. Because its a major component of their corruption racket.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
8d ago
Hot Tottie. I like to brew a strong black tea, probably two bags. Then in goes fresh squeezed lemon juice, honey, and as much damned Applejack or Apple Brandy or Whiskey as I please.
Another good one is a Godfather. 1 part Amaretto and 4 to 8 parts Bourbon or Whiskey. I went through a lot of those once upon a time.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
9d ago
Dollars to donuts you both look like her father.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
9d ago
Chris Rock has this old bit about how men might see their best friend meet a nice girl and think "Man, I'd love to marry a girl like that". Women see their best friend meet a nice man and think "Man, I'd love to marry that specific man".
Now, I can't exactly speak to the truth of this. But if some sort of inverse typical mind fallacy is any indicator, way more women are worried about leaving their husband alone with their friends than men are of the same.
The singular exception seems to be the armed forces. I've known numerous men who won't let their wives on base without them. It's like dragged raw meat through a lion's den.
WhiningCoil
Ghost of Quokka's Future
10d ago
You're right. WMATA jobs are actually reparations for the permanent underclass of Washington DC.
Maybe, but let me put it like this. In 2021 when I bought my house, I sunk about 20% of my net worth into the down payment. I'm talking everything btw, crypto, 401k, brokerage, cds, gold, savings, etc. Now theoretically, and inadvisably, I could have cleaned out everything and just bought the house outright. I mean, lets pretend for a moment that I wouldn't have paid massive penalties on my 401k.
Well, 5 years later my investments have more than doubled. The value of my house has not. Also I "benefit" from the value of my house regardless of whether I've paid off my mortgage or not. I put benefit in quotes because mostly it means I just pay more taxes and insurance. To access any of that "wealth" I'd have to either take out a home equity line of credit, or sell the house, putting me back at square one. Also, now I could far more easily pay off my mortgage in full, and have 70% of my net worth left over, versus essentially resetting had I paid in full in 2021.
Also, as someone who was recently jobless, having 10 years of living expenses in assorted accounts was an enormous relief. Now I'm assuming with a paid off house, and resetting from 0, I would have probably saved up a good amount having no mortgage. But my napkin math says probably 20-30% what I actually have today. And I'd have suffered an enormous opportunity cost with my investing to boot.
All that said, rates change everything. With rates over 6% I often consider whether I would just pay in full for my next home. I likely could. But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.
More options
Context Copy link