Sunday, April 30, 2017

Mashups are back to make me laugh.


It's been a while since I've seen a Fauxari. This is the coolest car ever - said no one. The thing is - it's takes me a few seconds to figure out what these cars start out as, but after I know - it's the only thing I can see. This is a Corvette. I have no idea why someone would turn a Corvette into this thing, but I do love that someone did it. He was selling it for 17 grand! But this always makes me feel like the economy is getting better because.... why would you spend all your money on this if you didn't have f-u money.


Some dude put a 63 Chevy Corvair motor on a Harley. Which I also love, but I'd love it more if it were a Corvette engine. Just say'in.


I think the Corveep I love the most! It's a Corvette engine in a Jeep. Now you are talking my language. Notice it has racing wheels.

I just love that someone put makeup on their dog.



You can't say it doesn't make you laugh.


Seriously - this dog doesn't have a bad angle.

Saturday, April 29, 2017

More stupid housing hysteria.

"It's Just Crazy" (Again): 2-Bedroom LA House Sells 40% Above Asking.

This time From Zero Hedge. The Real Estate market is hot to be sure, but every time I read one of these headlines I really have to go over and explore the property.

In this case, the house is a  ~1948~ square foot 2 bed, 1.5 bath. That's almost 2000 square feet! Which is quite a large 2 bedroom house don't you think? The other thing that seems to go along with these hysteria fed headlines is that these properties haven't changed hands in decades. If I look at the tax records I can see it's being assessed for taxes in the 88 grand range. Which is probably what they bought it for decades ago. They might even be the original owners because I can't find any record of the house turning before 2017.  Which is almost always the case when these houses go so far over the asking.

If you do comps on the houses in the neighborhood, they are all going for about what this house sold for. Even with the 40% mark-up. But don't let real numbers get in the way of a headline grabbing know nothing freak out.

These over the top headlines take none of the facts of the properties into consideration. Sometimes original owners don't know how to price their properties and they are well under priced for the neighborhood. For instance, on that same street a 3 bed 2 bath house that's only 1160 square feet is going for 741,000. That's almost 50% smaller than the "its just crazy again" house. And it's sort of a real estate ploy to under price a house. It puts people in that auction bidding mindset and runs the value way up.

Back before the Dotcom bust I'd see people buying stuff on E-Bay that cost more than what it actually cost if you went to the store for the exact same psychology.

Houses double in value about every 10 years. With very few exceptions in time. The 2009 recession is one of them. There is nothing abnormal about what this market is doing. Only people who have "echo bubble" mania. The house that I lived in as a child in Santa Clara went for 30 grand at the time my grandfather bought it. The houses on that street now uniformly cost in the 1 million dollar range on average now. Even through all the recessions. 

Thursday, April 27, 2017

This whole Antifa thing is kinda fascinating to watch. These are the same "anarchists" that roll into to Oakland and trash the place whenever they feel they need to riot. Then blame it on Oaklanders. But they are always from Berkeley. They've never gotten push back before.

At least I wasn't imagining it.

Concern grows GDP report Friday will barely show economic growth.

You may remember me talking about how sad The Valley was, and that something was going on in the economy. I just couldn't figure out what it was.

 Well, I guess it's a print of .02% growth.

Update -  At least the real numbers were better than the whisper numbers. Still pretty crappy at 0.7.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

People are just insane.

Today's add - I was talking to Mr S. about this last night and he described this behaviour as "I don't care if it hurts me, as long as it hurts you. But the frustrating thing is - it never hurts rich people. Poor people only hurt themselves.

Today's narrative is that poor people would rather die pennyless than have a "rich" person get a tax break. All of this despite Obama giving "rich people" more money than any President on the face of the planet. Remember him printing off about 4.5 trillion dollars to give to the banks during the recession?
Sometimes I just can't believe people use so many words to say so little.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Are you ready for robot tipping?

POLICE SAY DRUNK MAN KNOCKED DOWN MOUNTAIN VIEW SECURITY ROBOT.

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (KGO) -- 

"Police arrested a man accused of being drunk and knocking down a robot that was built to prevent crime near Terra Bella and Linda Vista Avenue in Mountain View.

The 300-pound robot named K5 spins and occasionally whistles, so it's hard to understand why someone would want to knock it down."


I guess robots finally have something to fear, and it's drunk people. Strangely, this is not the first report of this. The other was in Japan. 

Oh Silicon Valley - you are an enigma wrapped in a riddle.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Now - that's clever.


‘Scanner Sombre’ arms you with lidar for a gorgeous, creepy explore-’em-up.

Hopefully they have learned from the mistakes of No mans Sky and make it more than a game where you just explore.
There is nothing more annoying than being a paragraph into an article and get a pop-up that covers the whole screen. Makes me not want to read the rest of your effing article.

I don't know when webmasters and advertisers will ever understand that we don't see any of your ads anymore. We have ad blindness and you all are waiting your fucking money.

--
That's why you love the Snarkolepsy blog - we never bother you with ads. (Hey - if Trump can do subliminal marking. So can I.)

Robots - taking the dead end jobs people don't want.



There is so much hysteria about robots taking jobs - but I think when robots finally get here they will take jobs humans don't want. Think about it. What a crappy job being a security guy patrolling parking lots is. It's completely a dead end job. No upwardization at all. It's lonely.

I saw this robot from the freeway. No lie. It was this weekend and we were on an overpass and I could see one in the Microsoft parking lot because it was pretty empty of cars. And even though Mr S. and I had other things to so - I made him chase this thing down. I've never been on the Microsoft campus. So it took a few tries of poking around to find which parking lot it was in. But we eventually found it - and I hopped out to take pictures.

I did think it was interesting it was branded "Global Security". There is probably some guy in Bangalore watching the video feed.







Sunday, April 23, 2017

Fremont is killing it right now.



I'm still not sure what our wildflower situation is. The hills are drying out fast, but we've been getting small amounts of rain from time to time. So this area is getting a second wind of mustard flowers.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

The March for Science was about as lame as you thought it would be. END.



This was hands down was the best, most topical costume there. Considering some guy found a 20 year old pack of sauce in an old car and just sold it on eBay for almost 15 grand!























I ran across this couple trying to chase down a dinosaur riding a Onewheel electric skateboard. Which sounds like a joke. But I never caught him.





The March for Science was about as lame as you thought it would be. Part 2.



I went to take a picture of this because I was sure it was Answer International. Everything about the sign says it was them. Colors, format, everything. To my shock is from from the Facebook Peace and Freedom group. Which is basically code for commie. I just can't believe people give them all their information.



The other interesting thing was..... the Atheists were there! I've never ever seen that before. I've been to a million marches in the Valley. Even though I'm an atheist, I don't feel I really fit into the group.

It makes me happy to some degree that you guys have holidays. I just don't believe in them, but who am I to take away your joy? Also, I'm not into converting people. I'm pretty sure I became an atheist when I was seven years old and my grandfather had a heart attack and died at the kitchen table. I don't need to convince people, and I don't need people to convince me. It's just the way things are. Have all the holidays you want.







See, this is how you know the commies are behind this. But I think they feel if you just turn the fist slightly sideways, or put a lightening bolt in it - we won't notice.



Burning man shirt!







Not a bad Johnny Depp right?



When Deadpool meets Deadpool.







It was kinda cute tinkerbell was helping out the butterfly woman.







They kept multiplying!

The March for Science was about as lame as you thought it would be.



Since people didn't accept overt socialism, the commies have gone back underground, and this time have wrapped themselves in "Science". It tries to make them seem legitimate again instead of the vague "we need to have a dialog" crap. Or socialism didn't work because we didn't do it right. As long as they stay vague, people aren't really sure what is happening to them. I'm pretty sure most of the people were from nurses/teachers unions. Luckily Comicon was also in the same place, otherwise it would have been as boring AF. There were basically NO interesting signs. If they want to get attention - be funnier! So this is going to be a mixed post.

Anyway, this is my photostream.





Spidey said he was on vacation and had taken a day off for this. He has this sign on his hat.



Lots of pussy hats. And the raging grannies were in attendance too. ALL of the usual suspects.



It was super creepy Facebook had a pop-up room. You'll see later. But to be honest, I think it was filled with people trying the oculus.