WTF?

Source. NOTE - I took this post down to check my data, because clearly the date on the above image is like 10 months old. And I hate it when people give you old data.

Turns out - it's even worse than that. Latest available numbers from April 18 2017 for California is $2,818,578,004.47" Here. Ohio is paid off now.
--
Jerry Brown was bragging about what an awesome chrony capitalist he is. Here.

"Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday dismissed as “preposterous” suggestions that he broke the law by providing district-specific projects to lawmakers to win their support for his $52 billion road repair package with tax and fee increases.

“When somebody says, ‘Here is $10,000, I want your vote,’ you got bribery. It’s illegal,” Brown told reporters in Sacramento. “When someone says, ‘You know, I think this bill would be better if you included these projects or these ideas or these rules,’ we listen, because that’s democracy and that’s openness and that is a compromise spirit that makes democracies work.”

It's pretty much an open secret that he's trying to plug the BART budget by raising those taxes. So I decided to go over and see how much we still owed on the unemployment trust fund. Because I'm a curious person. And I'm not a math genius or anything, but is that almost 3 billion dollars?!? Which is fascinating because in 2015 we only owed about 11 million. Here.

Throughout the whole recession we only owed under 10 million a year. I don't know what happened last year, but wow - that is an insane jump. In 2014 we only owed about 6 million.

I guess some financial writer finally made their way to a mall.

Vacant department stores make way for beer houses, high-end sushi joints.

It seems like just two months ago every article was a freakout about the mallpocolypse. I was like - People settle down, this is going to be totally fine.

In the article I wrote about it, Let them die already! - I literally said "Some of these malls today - the new anchor store is actually a restaurant." And what do you know? This morning all the articles I read are, high end restaurants are the new anchor store. Malls even get to charge more with new tenants.

You mean, we aren't all going to die because Sears and JC penny are?

I hate malls with a passion, but this trend has really been going on for a while. The ONLY thing keeping Valco Fashion mall in business was a hugely busy DIM SUM restaurant. Otherwise it was a dead mall times 100. But it wasn't that uncommon to have to wait a good half hour to get in. It's the major mall in Cupertino where Apple lives. Funnily enough I was a mall rat when I was a kid at the same mall.

They are re-developing it now into mixed space retail housing. But the DIM SUM place was replaced with an even more popular dumpling restaurant. A world famous one apparently with hours long waits. Seriously. People were selling their reservations for a while.

I see I'm not the only person frustrated with Silicon Valley.

Juicero Built A $400 Gadget That No One Needs. That's Great News For The Company.

All the tech blogs are on fire over this story today. But it just goes to show how slow the Valley is that this company is getting any funding at all.  Seriously - it's super sad right now. Some days I kinda think that if someone did have a good idea, all the VC's would rape you with funding they are so desperate.

"Technology Twitter is very excited today by the news that Juicero -- a $400 juice-making device built by a company that has raised $120 million, has a problem. Apparently you can squeeze the juice from the company's juice packs, which run $5-8 each, with your bare hands! "

Wait. What?

Millennial women are 'worried,' 'ashamed' of out-earning boyfriends and husbands.

I though women were outraged they didn't earn as much as men. Said in the most sarcastic way. So you'd think they would be over the moon earning even more than men.

When I read stories like this I feel like the world still works the way I think it does. You can social engineer things to death, but it's going to take long time to wipe out that evolutionary pressure. In the end, things basically work the way they always have.

"It's no longer rare for women in relationships to out-earn their husbands or boyfriends — in 2015, for example, 38 percent of American wives made more money than their husbands — but many women remain ambivalent about being breadwinners, reports Ashley C. Ford for Refinery29.

Ford, who is herself unbothered about making 70 percent more than her own male partner, tries to understand why so many of the millennials she speaks to report feeling concerned, or even ashamed, about the repercussions of their success.

The feedback they receive from the culture is clear: Men should be earning more so that they can provide for their families, and if they don't, it's symptomatic of a problem. These messages produce an "almost unavoidable emotional and psychological consequence," Ford writes. Women feel guilty. Men feel emasculated."

Okay - I'm officially freaked out about cars.

When I start getting cold calls from salesmen at dealers I've never purchased from before - it's enough to raise an eyebrow. They usually only send you stuff in the mail. I've never even owned a Nissan. So it's weird they are cold calling me. A LOT. They are super vague, so I'm guessing they are beating the streets for buyers.

The other night Mr S. and I were talking about the economy, because a lot of data is starting to look super soft.

He says - you don't think the same thing that happened with houses could happen with cars do you?

I'm like - Hell yeah I do. I never expected anyone to walk away from houses the way they did. Even people who could afford them. So they will walk away from cars in a heartbeat. And most everything sold in the past five years is probably an under water car because the leases are so long.

Him - I wonder what the tipping point will be. At some point they will be able to buy a used car for less than they could pay off their loans.

We will just force you to go paperless.

I guess now financial institutions are tired of your dumb ass not being green. If you dare want a paper statement they will charge you two bucks! I mean, no one wants a hard copy of your brokerage statements. Right? As if tax time isn't mind bending enough.

Look I'm not in love with paper. BUT THE IRS IS.

You should thank your robot overlords for creating so many jobs.

If this doesn't convince you that the rise of robots are good not bad - nothing ever will. Sure automation is scary, but self driving cars are where computers were in the 1980's/90's. This train is leaving the station, and I think at this point there is nothing that is going to stop it. There are too many benefits to people. Not as much to insurance companies though.

Say a self driving car takes one job. Or come up with the number you think it will take. Say it takes a handful. Yet look at how many jobs were created to get to this point. This rig has lidar, so many cameras that it's going to be hard to steal cars in the future, GPS sensors, and there is suppose to be new radar sensors being rolled out next year. At least 5 new companies had to be created to make this happen. And this is just for the outside. Wait until they start on the insides.

I mean, I love driving - but I'd also love to be able to get into my self driving sleep car at 2 in the morning and wake up in anther State the next day.

And just to point out how Silicon Valley see's your car right now - it's kinda wild to roll up to a car and see nothing but a video card in the trunk. Note - this trunk doesn't belong to the Lexus in the other shots. It could have one, but usually you don't get to see what is in there.

Meanwhile..... in the redundancy department.

Who knew?

I guess the way to get liberals to care about spending is to drop a bomb or two. All of a sudden they are math genius's I tell you. Obama doubles the national debt - no effs given. Drop a bomb? Now they care about crap they've never cared about before. The cost of one bomb cold fix the flint water crisis they cry. Yet under Obama, with the amount of money he spent - the flint water crisis could have been solved 200 times over at least.

Y'all going to make me act a fool up in here.

All I know is - don't ever let me get my hands on this. Today was the first day I was in a car that could be controlled by a game controller. I honestly had a physical response to this because the way I play racing games is...... no brakes. That button doesn't exist on a controller. Ever. You don't need it. Just be better and don't crash. I'm so programmed for this that I'm not sure I could be in the real world if you could drive with a controller. I was totally afraid of the possibilities because I'm a tard. (hopefully a reformed tard) And you know I'm not being dramatic because I got "the big ticket" not too long ago. For some reason I've been telling everyone about it lately because of their response. I actually thought more people had done that. Only at a younger age.

This is the difference between girls and boys.

Me- I got a ticket going 101mph.

Females - girl! WTF.

Guys - Tard laugh.

Forget all the self driving stuff. It's a super weird feeling when you can move a car with a controller. Acceleration and everything! When I texted this to Mr S., his reply? I notice you didn't say anything about the brakes. I'm pretty sure I have a problem.

For sure, this is not a new thing, but to actually feel it is another thing entirely.

Well.... that about sums it up.

Robots have plateaued again. You know it's bad when the poopbot shows up here on the blog. I saw this thing at CES. I do have to give them credit for adding a handy "to-go" package though. That way you can leave it on the doorstep of your neighbors.



Even SRI couldn't entertain me. Which is a super sad day. SRI is like the batcave.

This is a bomb disposal robot, but I think they should re purpose it to be a rescue bot. It can already cut your clothes off obviously. It just needs a few more robotic arms to stop people from seeping. I can just see it rolling up screaming - GIVE ME PERMISSIONS SO I CAN HELP YOU.

Creeeeepy.

Yesterday Mr S. and I were driving out to get some food, and he's nose down in his phone like he was reading a book.

Me - Are you reading your phone while you are driving?

Him - Well, google just sent me some new notification about permissions.

So I spin his phone around in the cup holder to see what google wants. And quickly, I'm like - I'm out.

Him - I just want Google to stop spying on me.

So we both did nothing to the phone because it's not my phone, and he was driving.

Then, all of a sudden you hear the phone say  - Give me permissions to let me help you!

We both looked at each other wide eyed and busted up.

Me - I wonder if that's going to be how robots are one day. Needing to ask your permission to assist you. But wow that was creepy. We fell into a weird future for a second.

It's confusing.

The thing about the world today is that you don't talk about politics as much as pre-Obama. Before we all had differences we could all look past. I really don't think there is anything "bringing the country" together, because a lot of us didn't know half the country felt "that" way. And we are pissed.

So it's pretty easy to lose friends or not even want to be someone's friend. Now we all try to keep that talk to a minimum. Yet today I felt like skirting the third rail. I asked one of my really anti war buddies what he thought about the Syria thing, and to my surprise he was completely behind it. And he was one of those guys who said Trump was going to get us into a nuclear war! Talk about whiplash.

In general it's really unnerving to see so many liberals banging the war drum when the past eight years - no effs given. There are tons of times over the past couple of years that I did a twitter search on Syria, and I was like - literally no one cares. Six tweets total. There used to be thousands. The Syrians eventually gave up. No one cared.

I'm mixed on the whole thing. I'm usually a hawk, but I'm also still bitter over Iraq. It was the biggest waste of time and human capital. But I also believe in what remains of hope. If people don't see some ray of light out there - it changes them in ways that might not come out for generations. For as many mistakes we make in war, we were always that hope. I'm not sure what we are now.

Nary a pulse to be found anywhere.

There is something going on in the economy. I can't figure out what it is yet....but there is definitely something up.

Parking lots are way more fun than car shows these days.

When I see the words pedestrian detection it makes me curious. Interestingly the company Quanergy is popping up again. There is one thing you learn in The Valley - Just because you make it first to market doesn't mean you will win the prize. I'm not sure if Velodyne should be nervous or not.

The other interesting thing about this car was, I didn't see any external Lidar at all. The only unusual thing about it was a square under both door handles. Possibly a placing square. Otherwise if it wasn't branded I wouldn't have noticed it at all.

Stumbled on.

I'm not sure exactly what they do. Here. But I was curious about their rig. Especially the lidar from Quanergy. Lots of people are trying to get into the cheaper Lidar business - and they are one of them apparently. Previously Velodyne had been cornering this market, but their stuff can be pretty pricey.

But hell, for 250 bucks maybe I want to buy one. Strap lidar on my rabbit.

When the never Trumpers and Obama Democrats want to go in and take Assad out - I'm sure I'm against it. Neither of these groups gave two effs about his a few months ago or for the previous eight for that matter. And anything that John Mccain thinks is a good idea, makes me feel like it's a bad idea.

And here we are...

Even though I'm a hawk, I didn't want Obama to do anything with Syria because I was sure he'd screw it up. That guy is a spineless buffoon. So I watched the rest of the world with fascination because I thought we'd made some rules about certain types of atrocities. Gas isn't the only one they've checked off the list. Barrel bombs, white phosphorus. I've forgotten all the stuff now. Oh! Once it was alleged they dropped a barrel bomb full of napalm. I saw the video and it was spectacularly flammable, but I thought we'd agreed if people used that - it was a problem.

Europe responded by trying to take in everyone they could just so they didn't have to do anything.

Now I don't really want Trump to go in because who at this point is left to save? The whole country has basically been evacuated. And really even when you try to help them, they will just turn around and stab you in the eye. We've done barely anything there, but whenever we do - all you hear is the screams of "the Americans are killing us".

Chump don't want no help - chump don't get no help,  is kinda how I feel at this point. Why should I care if you don't care? I'm still bitter at the way Iraq turned out. I was all in for that one. People were being put into shredders.

Last night I was talking to Mr S. and I said - I don't know why they just didn't help the Kurds. The Kurds are fighters, and they are the only group that seems to want to be more like America. They try to make their tiny cities into American type cities when they get the chance. The Kurds will at least fight for their own country. Ironically I think it was the Kurds that really got us into Iraq by spreading false information.

There are a few things that bother me about Syria right now. I think everything coming out of there is propaganda. I watched in the early years, there was no mistaking the mangled bodies as not being propaganda. Now I'm now as sure. It's more like the old media coverage of Iraq which was nothing but propaganda. They'd always having people crying and wailing and just wrapped up with bandages, but no wounds. Most of that stuff was staged.

For about the past year though I've started watching all the videos a little closer. If I don't see a real flesh wound, only bloody looking badges I start to feel suspicious. I mean, the first four years of the conflict was the bloodiest thing you've ever seen. Just so much blood everywhere.

I really started getting suspicious after these guys called the white helmets did a mannequin challenge. They basically staged a rescue and every since then I am super skeptical of a lot of the stuff coming out of there. And frankly, I can't even figure out who these white helmet guys are. And I've been trying for almost a year.

This video isn't the full unedited version, they removed the video soon after they put it up because it freaked a lot of people to about this group. At the end the rescued guy gets up and they all start clapping and laughing. He's completely fine.

I think we are going to get left out this year.

It's hard not to be jealous of Southern California and Texas right now. This was the best patch I could find of wildflowers. I'm not sure if the grass is smothering them, or if they are just delayed.

This is why we can't have nice things.

When you have house rabbits, you try really hard to not have your house look like a barn. So you give them a nice attractive condo to live in. And over time they do chew the inside, but this is the first one to say - what is with all this gentrification and start chewing the outside. She really did come from a barn BTW. And now she's sporting a big screen TV. It's a pretty good step up I'd say.

I guess you can take the bunny out of the barn, but not the barn out of the bunny.

This is kinda interesting.

A new self-driving car startup just spun out of Udacity to challenge Uber with its own autonomous taxi service.

Me - Mr S. what do you think of this? I hand him my phone.

Him - He's already got permission to do this?

Me - well, why do you think he has permission rather than just doing it and asking for forgiveness later?

Him - Because investors would never give him money because he could get sued to death.

Me - riiiight. What's ROS?

Him - I don't know.

(me furiously googling)

Me - It's  Robotic Operating System.  Why would they being using that for cars?

Him - Well, cars are robots. They've finally found a way to use all that robot stuff for a real purpose.

I really don't know anything about them other than I already followed one of the guys on twitter. I'm not even sure why, but it will be interesting to see what they come up with. Mr S. is right though, it's pretty interesting that's he's already gained(in all probability) permission to go live.

I haven't talked about real estate in a while.

I get a lot of stuff from agents because they are always "trying to be my friend." I've been watching this trend for a while, but today I got a little freaked. There is ONE house on the market in my neighborhood. With two pendings. For perspective,  most of the time I've owned my place there were usually about 15 houses in both categories. The number has been coming down for a few years, but it was a few months ago that I started seeing only three houses for sale with a handful of pendings. You literally start wondering what real estate agents are going to do with their time.

So - I had to go through the MLS today and it's the most distorted market I've ever seen.  I would honestly say there is no affordable inventory at all anymore. One of the most fascinating things about the recession is how the low end market has come so close to parity with the middle market. For instance when we bought our rental it was 50% of the price my place was. Now that same house is 25% away.

My house gained almost no equity until about the last year, while my rental - I have 100 percent equity now. Even so, I was quite taken back by the prices people are paying for things under 1000 square feet. To give you an idea, 1 bedroom houses are up 18% YOY.

Two bedroom houses were up 3.7%. Three bedroom up 5.3%, and four bedroom up 4.4%.  I've never known a market like this. Where the low end keeps rising and the other categories only slightly improve.

I always wondered what would happen when the Fed went on the path of raising rates. For sure no one is going to want to sell. So wow.... we've finally reached full stasis. If there is no housing to cool down, I guess it's just pain for everyone else.

I think the numbers are going to look all kinds of wonkey soon. Everyone has almost built out their lots for new housing. And with the way it looks with existing sales. Just wow. I have no idea how this is going to work out.

Phoney outrage galore.

Wow... all of a sudden everyone cares about chemical weapons being used in Syria? I mean, it's only happened at least a half a dozen times since Obama's red line. Phoney Mark Cuban was out last night on twitter saying it was so hard to watch. Even the Pope all of a sudden is horrified. They all can pound sand! These people are morally bankrupt and it's super frustrating.

Honestly dying via chemical weapons there is one of the better ways to die.

Last night Mr S. asked me if I thought we would do anything in Syria. And I replied - what difference does it make now? Which was sort of admitting that part of my soul had died. Because I'm a hawk. I wanted to go in early and take care of that shit when it was a small problem. I watched the horror for years. I mean, the things I've seen...... there are no depths to the depravity. Worse than any image I've seen out of the holocaust. Yet no one cared at all. Now it's a huge problem according to the media.

The Obama administration seemed to think that if you just ignored it, it would go away. Well, it doesn't. Having said that - even I'm resistant of doing anything about it at this point. We just always get shit on for everything we do. We are constantly called evil while people ignore the truly evil in this world. I've said before - I think some of these asshole should be forced to see the images Clockwork Orange style. Because Americans have a real distortion of evil. And I'm telling you - chemical weapons is one of the better ways to die. It was all out there for people to see, yet people turned a blind eye.

Don't we need someone who looks crazy AF when N. Korea is setting off missiles every three days? I think the Dems only help Trump when it comes to that. They keep screaming - he's crazy AF, he's crazy AF!

It's fun spending other people's money. See how.

This my friends is a 1.2 million dollar tree. The city was going to cut it down because it's diseased and the kids play right underneath it. But, 3-500 (depending on the report) neighbors got a petition together to not have it cut down. Which means they need to move the playground to the tune of 1.2 million dollars. Plus and extra 26 grand to put a fence around the tree. But really who wants to quibble about 26 grand?

I don't understand how 500 people most can cost a city 1.2 million dollars for a tree. And let me point out... there is not one effing house in this neighborhood that's worth 1.2 million dollars. Even the 3 car garage house doesn't cost that much. The playground is going to be more expensive than every other house in that neighborhood.

As I was taking pictures an old couple whom I'm sure was involved by their lands end attire started to make small talk with me. And I don't even remember what they said because I shot back with - well I wanted to see what a 1.2 million dollar tree looked like. In a snippy tone he shot back - well.... it wasn't 1.2 million. And I'm glad his wife stepped in because I probably would have gotten super shitty. We have homeless in our city, but the assholes in that neighborhood would rather have this tree which is probably going to drop dead anyway. And these assholes are apparently my neighbors. This is my neighborhood.

The other frustrating thing was I had to learn the price from every other news outlet than the one that covers my city. They completely whitewashed the price. Remember when the media used to be a government watchdog alerting you to government excess? Yeah. Not so much now. Now they basically cover up for the government.

I wonder how many days he will be hump free.

Lacy has decided she wants babies. It started a couple of months ago and turned on like a light switch. This means she's been trying to molest Mr S's arms on the regular. It wouldn't be so bad, but when bunnies get this way they want to give you little love bites in the process. Which is more like - hey! quit biting me. She never bothers with me. So, we speculated he might be a target because he has hairy arms. I obviously don't.

So.... what did we do? This weekend we shaved one of Mr S's arms. And wouldn't ya know it - it actually made a difference. She's been completely not interested for two days. But now Mr S is walking around with one hairy arm, and one shaved.  I sort of want him to keep it until someone says something to him. But people are so forgiving these days of whatever crazy shit your into, who knows when that will be. I'm curious. Right away I'd be like - um.... whats up with that?

We don't really know how long it takes to grow back. Most dudes shave both arms. But we are sort of curious how many days of stubble will be acceptable for her. The whole hair issue must be an evolutionary thing. A bunny without hair normally is a sick bunny. So maybe they just don't try to mate with hairless things. I was surprised it even made any difference at all.

This has to be one of the slowest Springs for Silicon Valley since 2009. And I think VR is dead, so it just makes the whole thing feel worse. Because apparently - that's all we've got going on. I mean, people aren't using their houses at least.

Place bets now.

I guess we get another stab at seeing what our damns and roads are made of.

So.... about a week ago I saw a meteorologist say an atmospheric river was headed to California. You could see it on radar, but it was too far out to care. Now all the meteorologists are freaking out. You think I hype the weather? These guys are hyperventilating about this storm. The moisture plume literally spans all the way to Asia.

I mean really, people have somewhat silently been freaking out about the snowpack melt. Since it's the highest ever recorded at around 183% of normal. But since March has been relatively dry - no effs given. Now I bet people's pubes are all of a sudden going to be on fire because the forecasting on this storm is going to be super fun. You know it's good when they start talking millibar ratings. This is California. Not Florida.

For example - Oroville is forecast to get somewhere in the range of 11 inches of rain. It's good thing they have a damn to catch all that water. Oooooooh. Wait. I think right now it's only slightly under 850 feet.  And Tahoe could get another 5 feet of snow as the storm stalls out over us. But who cares really because did I mention the moisture plume? This looks like at least 10 days of rain. The State park in my city that holds the reservoir hasn't even reopened yet from the last storms. They were going to open it around tax day. This is the second try at reopening. If the park floods again they will have repaired it twice already. Might as well light dollar bills on fire and just toss them in the air.

But Jerry Brown is going to fix it all by raising our gas taxes 12 cents a gallon and hike registration fees. Because as he says "he's got nothing to lose". He's retiring in two years.

Sorry for all the technical issues on the blog lately. I had one of those long power hits about a week ago, and things never seem to go back to working the same for a little while. And since I'm still in the middle of taxes, I'm limping along. Here at Che Snarkolepsy we don't get paid to write articles. So we don't have fancy administrators to handle our shit when we have problems. Please bear with me.

Can any of you awesome readers tell me how the economy is in Ohio? I can read stuff from the net, but I'd like to know from people who are close enough to really know. Is it good, bad or sluggish? Thanks a million.