pbuzbee

Yes, to me this incentivizes customers to use your software as little as possible, which seems like the opposite of what you would want to encourage: lock in.

If property taxes were level across properties, wouldn't we likely see property values drop, given the presumed higher taxes in the future?

I'd rather see us adopt lower but uniform property tax rates that are revenue-neutral with Prop 13 rates.

Of course I'm only an aspiring property owner so I have a significant bias here.

Agreed. Feels like my choices are "start a new life somewhere totally different" OR "rent forever". It definitely causes some cognitive dissonance when I weigh that tough choice against my relative well-paying tech job.

I'm in this boat too. It feels like a line was drawn sometime in 2020 or 2021: either you bought before then, and now you can enjoy your appreciation and relatively low mortgage, OR you're currently desperately trying to grab onto the last rung of the ladder as it gets lifted above you.

I'm sure some people will return to cities, but I feel that many will remain in the suburbs. To me, one of the pieces of this surge in prices is due to millenials reaching prime homebuying age. But millenials are also at prime ages for starting and raising families, so I suspect many will prefer to keep the larger size of their suburban homes.

My theory is that places that are inherently more desirable, whether because of culture, geography, or employment opportunities, will remain high. This probably includes most coastal regions and trendy inland spots (Austin, Boulder, etc.).

I think a lot of 'secondary' markets could take a hit. These are places that the main appeal is their current relative affordability or proximity to a more-desirable area. I think buyers that are priced out of 'desirable' areas today are effectively settling for these secondary areas, which is raising those prices. I feel like those will be the first areas to take a hit. How big that hit will be, I certainly can't say. It could be as little as a reduced rate of property appreciation, or it could be as large as a 20% hit.

Yes, I'm also looking at buying a house in California, but I too am afraid to buy a home anywhere that could realistically burn in the next 10-30 years. It's a shame since it rules out many of the best (and more affordable) areas of the state.

While I'm driving on the freeway, my spouse sometimes counts to see how many other drivers are on their phone. It's crazy what a large fraction of people (probably about 25%, I'd agree) are splitting their attention when moving at 75mph. Like what are so many people doing on their phone while driving? Surely they can't all be texting someone that often...?

This is why I love audiophile marketing/reviews so much. They make every single equipment "upgrade" sound like a huge change in how the music sounds. Just throw in enough dull and lively sounding adjectives and you can convince the reader that yes, this expensive piece of equipment is EXACTLY what you're missing!

How is that legal?

Small nit: I think the Wikipedia entry is saying TON 618's mass is greater than all of the stars in our galaxy (6*10^10 solar masses, according to the article), not greater than the entire mass of the galaxy (~10^12 solar masses, according to the Milky Way article).

As a Googler who wants to work remote, in my personal opinion I think this makes a ton of sense. Focus on providing offices in major urban areas for people who want an urban lifestyle, and then offer remote work for people who don't.

NYC isn't for me personally, but I absolutely see the appeal for others, and I can see why Google would want to expand proportionally there.

I see it as a concern because (1) a large portion of wild lands are burning within a short span of time. I would guess (no evidence, just a hunch) that burning was more dispersed in time before modern fire prevention. I also feel that (2) climate change makes these fires much worse, and forests will have a much harder time rebounding.

I saw this map of roughly the last major fire in California:

https://projects.capradio.org/california-fire-history/#6/38....

Looks like it's missing after 2019, but what sticks out to me is the difference in scale of past fires and current fires. If you imagine where the Dixie fire or last year's August Complex would fit in, they take up relatively huge amounts of the map.

I'm sure at some point in the next 10-20 years, we'll have burned through most of the available fuel and wildfires won't be as bad. Of course, that's a pretty sad end state.

Why are property prices skyrocketing in seemingly every western country? Is this a chronic lack of supply? Inflation? Something else?

Agreed. I see less overall denial and instead more softening of the denial. "The earth's climate has always changed!" and "Sure climate is changing, but can you even say what an ideal climate is?"

- Large shift in buyer's preferences due to COVID and remote work

- Eviction moratorium

- Low interest rates

- Millennials at prime age for purchasing homes

- Inflation from QE

- Institutional investors purchasing property

- Limited new supply from construction

As a prospective home buyer, it's hard for me to see enough of these factors changing within the next couple of years to make home prices more sensible.

I feel like my choices are to (A) bite the bullet and accept that I missed out on better times for buying or (B) wait 3-5 years in the hopes that things turn around.

Even when you enjoy your job, office work on the whole isn't that glamorous. It's why you often hear non-office workers say things like "I'd hate to spend all day sitting in front of a computer!".

I would guess that many office workers choose these types of jobs in large part because these jobs typically offer good pay and stability.

Companies try to jazz up these jobs by offering workplace perks (free food, gyms, snacks, etc.), but now the biggest perk they can provide is the freedom to live where you want. Now that a lot of people have had a taste for it, it's not a surprise that many value this perk far more than generic office perks. Especially young people who don't already have roots where the office is.

As a cheapskate, an hourly charge is exactly what would prevent me from using this for extended periods of time.

Dense stop-and-go traffic is probably where I want autonomous driving the most. It's one of the most frustrating driving experiences for me. But it will be hard for me to switch on autonomous driving: Not only am I going to waste my time in traffic and my gas from idling, now I'm going to waste money per minute to let the car inch forward.

I suppose there are situations where I would enable autonomous driving, like in an unfamiliar city or if I had been drinking at all (assuming it's safe and legal). This would probably add up to something like 10 hours per year, which seems like a huge waste of a big technological advancement.

I agree, I do think building more housing would help. However, my point is that I don't see that happening anytime soon. We've only seen light forms of the policy changes this would require, and many haven't even passed. There's a lot of opposition to these policy changes, and they have money on their side. And even when (if) they do change, it will take some time for them to have an effect.

My age group is at the age of looking to put roots down and have children. For many of us it makes more sense to leave than to wait 10-20 years and hope things get better.

I feel like it's only going to get worse. California has a good number of problems: housing costs, traffic, wildfires, homelessness, ... and the high tax rate you pay for the privilege of enjoying them. But I haven't seen California take meaningful steps to solve any of these. We're still in the stage of "problems are getting worse", and any solutions will take a long time to materialize.

I grew up in California. It's still a great place to live if you're rich or if you bought property in a good location a long time ago, but if neither of those are true, you're going to have a huge uphill battle. Most people in my millennial friend groups, including me, have all talked about how we'd like to leave. We're mostly still here because our families are here and good jobs are easier to find. But each year, one by one I see people I know flee to other states.

The root of it, I think, is that mined diamonds are the standard for engagement rings. Culturally, having a mined diamond is (for many/most Americans) table stakes for what an engagement ring should be.

Getting a lab grown diamond or an alternative stone for your girlfriend can feel like you chose saving money or your personal views on diamond ethics over getting her something that meets those table stakes. It doesn't matter if it's technically superior (I rarely hear people discuss the quality of their diamonds anyway, beyond weight occasionally). What does matter is that you chose to give her something different than the standard, and the ring will always feel like it has a little asterisk on it marking this.

I agree. When I left the Bay Area at the start of the pandemic, I felt a surprising surge of freedom.

The salaries and jobs in the Bay Area are great, but they come with the big caveat of choosing between (1) living near work, but spending a fortune to rent small, old apartments forever or (2) having a better living space, but with a nightmare commute.

Why would I want to return?

Any advice for someone looking for their first home?

Based on this article and others I've read, it seems like many of these factors (low interest rates, limited new supply, etc.) are likely to continue for at least the next several years. The only change that could help a first-time buyer would be if the end of the pandemic leads to favorable conditions (reset preferences, end of eviction moratorium, etc.). I feel like I could wait another 3-5 years for it to flip towards a buyer's market, but that's certainly not guaranteed and who knows how high prices will have gone in the meantime.

You can open the destination pages in your chosen browser with the Google Search App in Android: (1) Tap "More" at the bottom of the screen, (2) Tap "Settings", (3) Tap "General". Then disable "Open web pages in the app".

I wonder this too. People who bought houses outside of major urban metros either got in early and made a great purchase, OR they paid top dollar for something that won't keep its personal and/or financial value. Feels like it could still go either way.

12,000 victims is small in an absolute sense, but per capita it is close to the US's numbers (US is about 25% higher: 1681/M vs 1340/M).

It's difficult to balance access with conservation. I don't feel that limiting access is the right approach on its own. There's clearly a demand for visiting scenic parks, and why would I have more of a right to visit than anyone else? And seeing natural beauty is important for valuing natural beauty. As others have pointed out, it's mostly the main sites in a handful of parks that are overrun. I think it's unfortunate to effectively sacrifice some of the most beautiful parts of the country, but it might still be a fair tradeoff.

There are room for improvements, though. For one, I think parks could have strict enforcement and fines for littering. Second, driving into a park usually means wasting a lot of time getting through the entrance station and finding somewhere to park. Post-COVID, I wish parks would provide better public transit into and within a park so driving isn't as necessary. Similarly, I wish they would set a cap on daily car entrances and let you purchase admission online beforehand.

I'm really curious to see how this plays out, especially for larger Bay Area companies.

Every worker has their own preference about where they work best. If you don't allow remote work, how do you weigh the risk of losing good employees who don't want to return to the office? If you go remote-first, what about employees who really value the office? If you try to do a mix, how do you do it well? And there are other effects to think about, like on costs, company culture, and productivity.

As time passes after COVID is no longer a large risk (which isn't guaranteed), I think we'll see tolerance for remote work decay at large companies. As fewer other companies offer flexibility for remote, the office will return across the board as the default.

I think the lasting change will be an increase in flexibility, though, like allowing WFH N days/week and more frequent exemptions for some employees to work fully remote. A few companies will recommit 100% to the office and a few will allow greater remote work, but the majority of employees at medium/large companies will again spend the majority of their time at the office.

This, I feel, is the issue: The decision makers don't want to work from home themselves. It doesn't have the same appeal that it does for individual contributors, and having employees out of sight is almost unthinkable.

There are certainly going to be exceptions, but anyone wanting to work remotely permanently will have an uphill battle.