11,232 karma · joined February 11, 2013
Median family income $87k
Cost-of-living ~$36k excluding housing
With your example of a $350K home, someone making the median (presumably not 20-30 year olds but more like 40-45 year olds...) they could save up the $70k down payment in under 2 years.
P & I payment of ~$2k / month. Maybe $1k more for escrow of taxes and insurance.
So $72k total cost of living on $87k, assuming you've made it to median income.
Of course, if you're making less than $72k, buying a $350k house would simply be... untenable.
Also, based on rough guideline of "30% of income on housing", you'd definitely want to keep your mortgage under $2200 / month.
Census link indicates median home values are closer to $404K though, too.
/s
Can you name specific MFA experiences that don't work on Android?
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0a/e5/36/0ae536826bb1cf643e6f05066...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity
> a resource, that specifically has full or substantial fungibility: that is, the market treats instances of the good as equivalent or nearly so with no regard to who produced them
Uhh.. not sure where you live or what your local / regional market is like. I'm in the United States, where what car you drive is a really big decision. Many people share on social media what car they bought, and tell people around them about the new car they bought. I've yet to witness a situation where someone said "I bought an electric car" and the response was something like "Why are you telling me you bought toilet paper?" (Even toilet paper has brand names and advertising.)
That isn't to say that the car market hasn't shifted over time.
Cars began as "engine to move wheels plus a few other things" and evolved so that the engine seemed less of the central reason why you bought a specific vehicle. An electric powertrain does take things a bit further, in that most EV buyers know very little about the motors, though they certainly know a thing or two about the battery.
Batteries are generally a commodity at smaller scales, but in a car, they matter significantly. Still, brand matters, too. Ask Lucid or Rivian or Porsche how they sell their electric cars for $70K - $160K. How is it that a commodity available to purchase for ~$30K can be sold for $130K additional? (That's not how commodities work.)
No, electric cars are not a commodity. It's just a difficult market with a lot of players, and a broad market with constantly evolving tastes. Ask Toyota why they have half a dozen different SUV models. Or why the Ford F-150 comes in 200 configurations. (That's not how commodities work!)
Just because the gasoline-burning engine was replaced with electric motors and batteries, the car didn't turn into a commodity overnight. I'm open to counterarguments and persuasion to the contrary.
And I choose to use Windows for most of my personal computing, due to my gaming preferences, some needs (concussions + poor eyesight means things like scaling and brightness controls and refresh rate matter a lot to me), and my preference for DxO PhotoLab (which isn't Linux compatible.)
In the end I love, love, love DxO PhotoLab and would really like to stick with it over the alternatives.
But the talk of abuse is also heavy-handed.
I've spent months testing and trying out RAW photo editors, and months trying out Linux gaming.
Linux is incredible, but my experience with Windows is still better. As many that still use it can attest, you can disable almost any annoyance. It's extremely stable. Things just work including brightness controls, fractional scaling, high refresh rates and high FPS gaming, and my favorite RAW photo editing. I could switch to a less enjoyable experience with Linux but I choose not to after extensive evaluation. I don't spend any money on Microsoft services, no Office or OneDrive subscription.
But my decision isn't permanent. My hobbies, software use, gaming selection, etc. can change over time, and Linux is getting better while Windows is getting worse. If it's ever "abuse" and I can have a better experience with Linux, I won't hesitate to change. But it's also a lot of effort to try out alternatives, and dual booting is slow and annoying. Plus when I dual boot to Linux Mint the kernel fails to boot every other time and I have to select an older one, reboot, select a newer one, reboot. It's a huge waste of time. A bad experience and I have chosen to avoid it and try again in another year or two.
Though any kind of documentation is like Linux, scattered and inconsistent. And I'm "OK" with that, as in I think the way that Linux came to be and is maintained, and provides user choice is also the reason why it's not "user-friendly" in every scenario. You can choose your distribution, and a lot of other things. And then look in a wide variety of places for bug reports, user questions, etc. You'll get a variety of answers from "it just works for me" to "change your distribution that you chose" to "even though some guides say to use Lutris, it's easier to just put it in Steam's external program launcher and choose Proton version x.yz."
Even then, not everything will work because it wasn't written to work (for Linux). It was written to work for Windows, and then some smart people rolled up their sleeves and found ways to make a great many things work for Linux, and it's all amazing. And I find using Linux (mostly) quite pleasant. But when things don't work... there's going to be friction. It will take user effort to find a solution, or a solution might not be found.
And for me personally, being someone who really likes to poke and customize and do things my way, Linux is a blessing and a curse, because I can guarantee I'll hit "weird edge cases" like trying to use the online multiplayer part of a game instead of just single player, or try to use my laptop's brightness controls, but they don't work, or I'll want fractional scaling to work, but it won't. And maybe there's a fix out there, or maybe not. Fixes like "it works for me" or "change your distribution", though, are non-fixes. They just frustrate people. If changing my distribution fixes an issue, how many new issues does it create for me?
For the people that it just works for, well it just works for.
For anyone else, apparently they are the problem? Not Linux?
Well sorry no. I did get StarCraft 2 working with Lutris... once. Then I couldn't get it to start again. Eventually I switched to running Battle.Net from Steam and for some reason that did work. But it wasn't a "just works" or "piece of cake." It was a puzzle.
StarCraft 2 worked, oddly enough, run from Steam as an external program. (Lots of search results tried to get me to use Lutris/bottles, but I couldn't get it to work consistently under Lutris.)
I used Linux Mint for 2 full months, 99% of my personal computing. Really like it. BUT... not all games my gaming group plays work on it, and social gaming is very important to me.
That doesn't mean I'm sour on Linux PC gaming. I think it's great, and will work for a lot of people, and it's so close for me. And I might switch, since my gaming tastes are shifting.
Can you elaborate on this?
For example, it was convoluted getting StarCraft 2 to run. Then it did eventually work, though it felt ever so slightly laggy.
Anno 1800 ran though it occasionally slowed way down, occasionally crashed, and multiplayer never worked.
Hogwart's Legacy ran but crashed, and ran massively slower / lower quality settings than on the same hardware but in Windows.
All of those were not binary "runs / doesn't".
Not a big delta between that and firing squad.
Are you pro or against this?
Millions in the U.S. get "information" from a firehose of propaganda.
That defines the reality they see. Others perhaps just feel hopeless but... want to believe that our constitutional democracy somehow manages to hold on and rebound.
More like, more people should understand how EVs can easily work for them, and then try to shoehorn gas-powered vehicles into the few niche they need to be in.
How often does someone need a 400 mile range again? Towing? When is the last time you towed something 400 miles? The most I ever towed was... using a rental truck and a rental trailer when I moved. (Anecdotes are not data!) But why in a rational purchasing decision would I need an 800 mile EV battery for a car just because sometimes it's cold out?
I drive a Polestar 2, and someone asked if it was my favorite car I've owned. And I said, no that's a Mazda 3 hatchback... 6-speed manual. Lovely vehicle to drive. Economical, but luxurious for the price. Very practical, too.
But... if you asked me if I'd go from the Polestar 2 back to the Mazda 3? I'd say no. I'll keep the electric. Of course it's not a fair comparison... one had an MSRP of $27k and the other $67k. One has 186HP and the other 476HP (and all-wheel drive).
One had a lot of routine maintenance of the engine, while the other has needed wiper blades and tires. And one requires standing outside in 10° F days like today pumping gas, while the other one is charging in my garage (and warms up the cabin from the press of a button on my phone.)
The Mazda 3 was more of a driver's car, and if I had bought either new, it would be a very different equation. (I bought the 3 w/ 8K miles on it for $20k; I bought the Polestar w/ 20K miles on it for $29K.) The Mazda 3 has a vastly better interface - better auto-dimming headlights, tons of buttons for climate, stereo, etc.
But the Polestar 2 is the one I would rather be driving... for now. (I just hope more "driver's car" electric options come to our shores.)
You think we need 800-1200 mile batteries?
As for charge speed, the twice a year someone needs more than 400 miles isn't as significant in real world EV usage...
I plug in on a dopey 1.3kW (~115V, ~12A) outlet and my car is at 80% charge in the morning. For commuting, a 5pm to 7am charge is ample for most people living ordinary lives.