I am of the opinion that most “supply” issues are due to investors. Except in certain geographic areas we do not have a shortage of actual physical housing. What we have is a shortage of available housing at a mixed pricepoints for purchase.

All housing that investors purchase for rentals removes it from the supply.

Traditionally investors have sought out entry level housing for rent. They invest in building rental complexes. They make all cash purchases and then rent it out to people who otherwise would have been first-time homebuyers. Investors used to be the low end offer. Blatant price fixing has increased rent outrageously. Now investors are the high end offer and removing supply constantly.

With AirB&B, the middle and even upper range market that traditionally has had less investor competition is now a major target. This has led to price wars for investment purposes on previously safe segments.

The first solution to the housing supply is simple: taxing income from rent so that selling the property is financially more lucrative. It will have to include a prohibition against rental increases to cover the taxes as well.

The second is to mandate zoning and new construction to match the market needs not the needs of the investors.

Last would be to create a program where builders who focus on entry level housing receive incentives from governments (also include hefty penalty for substandard construction).

I have been attempting to use Linux for 20 years now. It has found its niche used for me over the years. For example when my kids were toddlers they had a old machine that defaulted to PBSkids. Before that I used it to run a gaming server.

Currently I have a old laptop that I dual boot with win 10 and whatever Linux distro I feel like trying at the moment.

The win 10 on the laptop barely meets the minimum hardware requirements and takes 10 minutes to load.

I have tried a few different distros and always had a few issues with the setup. All sorts of different ones - screen orientation, WiFi connection, printer hell, keyboard layout etc. Takes me days to fix the bugs or give up.

Mint takes 2 minutes to load and so far is working seamlessly. It’s apt manager is the easiest I have used in a Linux distro. It found my network printer automatically. It runs smoother than windows 7 did on my laptop.

With Microsoft ending win 10 for the shitty win 11, I imagine many people are looking for alternatives. If Mint continues to work to make setup and usage easy, it will gain market share rapidly. It’s not all the way there yet, but it’s a hell of a lot better than before.

Bananas are clonally propagated. The pathogen is inside the vascular tissue. No way to get rid of it from plants once infected.

Fusariums have developed resistance to many fungicides. They keep becoming resistant to more.

Fusarium spores are viable in the soil for more than 30 years. They also tend to infect multiple species, once they are in a region they are there for good. The spores are transmitted around the world in on seeds or soil. The spores are found at a very low rate (like 1:1,000,000,000) on the surface of many species of seeds. It’s well below the detection level of any test.

They are cheap because they are a commodity and exploit low paid workers.

Consumers adapt to observable diversification if the product is superior and significantly different. They are almost totally ignorant if the differences are small and the product is similar. That’s not the reason.

The issue is that most of the banana production is handled by very few companies. Changing varieties complicates their internal processes, will cost them money, and they will not do it until forced to do so.

Take a really close look at your insurance policy.

They fuck you over at the beginning with deductible. Then the out-of-pocket maximums come into play. The maximium you can be responsible for is $9,450. More than enough to bankrupt most people. My plan is at $4k per person through my wife’s union job.

Depending on what state you live in you can apply for income based bill reduction as well. These are common in blue states. In red states, consider dying.

Up to 5 years to think about it.

Jobs was his own worst enemy for a while on the compatibility issue.

New OS launches- all your old programs don’t work on it.

Want to use a floppy to transfer files between a Dos/Win and a Mac? Nope, not compatible. When USB drives started coming out they dropped all support for floppy drives, even in machines with them installed.

Constant driver issues with all sorts of things. Many never got resolved. To be fair the market share for Mac’s was so tiny, offering support for them didn’t make business sense.

Want to play a game? Good luck. The majority of games didn’t work on Mac. Same reason as the drivers.

As for stability issues, for a while I ran a computer lab for a college 50:50 win/Mac machines. They both crashed about equally as often.

So you’ve got to be dumbed down a little to love the little monsters… Checks out.

Them “Just order on the Kiosk”

You mean the thing that takes 20x longer to order and tosses all sorts of bullshit ads at me?

Me “No.”

For lesser known subjects, a literature review in a dissertation works. It at least gives you a list of papers to review.

So in terms a biologist can understand: If it’s not charge what is the difference between normal and negative matter?

Would negative mass be the same as antimatter?

The odd thing about crime rates is they are often self-reported from law enforcement. Without proper controls and regulations, a motivated party could easily and routinely fudge the numbers by a lot.

What types of crimes do you think it would be easier to suppress… murder or property damage?

Been on my own since I as 17. The first few years were rough to say the least.

I worked 2 jobs, 30-60 hrs per week and went to college. I shared shitty apartments with some pretty creepy people. I moved so constantly I ended up paying for a post office box so I could get my mail. I did not have a vehicle (no car) so I rode a bike for up to 60 miles per day. Even all that wasn’t enough without government grants and student loans to pay for college.

Food was something that I ate when I had it. I spent a few months with mybe 4-5 real meals. Cornflakes and ramen where the bulk of my diet for a while.

I took the first professional job I could find. It was terrible but it paid well. I gained 50lbs to be at a healthy weight the first year. The next few years I jumped around jobs until I landed in one I liked.

The last few weeks before I graduated college I met my wife. Her family has become mine over the past 25 years.

Today my income alone puts us in the top 10% of earners. My wife makes close to the same. At many crucual times in our lifes we’ve taken advantage of government assistance. To be blunt, it’s not possible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You need a helping hand once in a while no matter how small.

It made sense when they added in indoor plumbing to old buildings that were built pre-1900’s. The old 2-up, 2-down homes are a good example. They were often retrofitted to add a bathroom at the top of the stairs above the kitchen.

The only place to add in a washing machine was in the kitchen. Since people hung their washing outside to dry in the back garden it was a logical place as well.

The previous owners purchased the company via a leveraged buyout. It’s not one quarters losses, it’s the massive long-term debt on it’s books.

This is a handy excuse to fuck over employees and suppliers.

There are a few industries that require a full-time graphic designer. It’s usually underpaid and overworked but they exist.

The companies are usually flip-flopping from doing it in-house to contracting it out. Usually every 4-5 years when a new executive parasite comes along. So lots of career uncertainty for most graphic designers.

It also doesn’t help the industry that for decades, predatory schools have been pushing out “graphical designers” as an easy fast degree. This has saturated the job market with lots of poorly trained people producing crap work.

High value crop consultants - good ones can make a surprising amount of money (200k+) This isn’t your dumbfuck row crops like corn and soy. Think fruit trees, nut trees, viticulture, vegetables, organic production etc.

Many college graduates have a job offers their junior year. Anymore you’ll want to have a double major of biology/Ag.

Weed guys can’t pay me enough. 😉