patrick.net

CG,

Ughh, Peking U and Qinghua are the top two. Fudan shares about the same reputation with one or two dozen other Chinese universities. I think it's more like a Duke or UCLA of China.

Nothing wrong with that, some people prefer Duke over Harvard, and most Shanghainese I know would prefer Fudan over Beida.

CG,
I'll ask my dad about Fudan's solid state physics. My dad ought to know something about it, he got his Ph.D in it, after all.

Should we have a flambee war between Berserkeley and Junior University?

(PS - apologies to all for *yet another threadjacking*)

CG,

My food blog (though I encourage contributors to think of it as "our blog") is greencrabs.blogspot.com.

CG,

I've always hear Beida-Qinghua as the English might say Oxbridge. Similarly, Fudan is usually spoken in the same phrase as Jiaoda, and often accompanying Tongji and Huadong Normal U.

I fail to see how Fudan is to Beida as Yale is to Harvard.

'one and the same'

see the Eggcorn Database

EU is interested because they want to nurse/protect their own software industry. So any move to blunt the edge of a major US software company is welcome.

I agree. The EU is pretty anti-market.

FAB's like one of those vampires or demons that turn to the light side for some reason in Buffy or Angel or sundry spinoffs -- but keep fighting within themselves and can't help reverting to their evil old ways once in a while...

I reserve my judgement regarding which one is better. I’ve heard many bashings of CE

I want a small palmtop computer with keyboard, wifi and Half XGA running Windows CE.

Why did they kill those palmtops? They are light (~1lb) and they turn on instantly.

But the whole undertaking also stalled Sony’s inroads into Home Entertainment and opened future possibilities for MS. So there are intangible benefits.

I am sensing a dark future for Sony. Who is still carrying a Walkman?

Not investment advice.

For whatever it is worth, patrick.net _IS_ one of the better known bubble blogs and is likely to be a target for subversion.

We need a Secret Police!

Randy H. wrote:

> I don’t even call FAB a Troll, and he
> makes hunting me a daily sport.

I’m happy to see that Randy doesn’t think I’m a Troll (even is we do disagree at times with the difference between “per capita” and “household” income and how it relates to historic income/housing price multiples and the impact of women joining the workforce on housing prices and family life) …

Then astrid wrote:

> I never thought FAB was a troll…
> he can be iconoclastic, but he’s not a troll.

I’m surprised that astrid feels I’m iconoclastic, since open minded people rarely have anything “closed for discussion”… (I’ve got to remember to keep adding a “but not all” to my posts).

Then DS wrote:

> FAB’s like one of those vampires or demons that
> turn to the light side for some reason in Buffy or
> Angel or sundry spinoffs — but keep fighting within
> themselves and can’t help reverting to their evil old
> ways once in a while…

As a libertarian my liberal friends are always happy when I support equal rights for everyone, the decimalization of drugs, and elimination any government regulation of the internet and radio and refer to my opposition of taxes and government regulation of business as my evil dark side (just like my conservative friends who like lower taxes and the government to stay away from their business can’t believe I have a evil dark side that would allow homos to be Boy Scout leaders, let people smoke pot at rock concerts and allow immoral adultery to be on TV at night)…

Do I hear cowardice from our ranks? Come on now, did the Germans give up when we bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! The asshole known as Confused Renter posts the same tired fucking diatribe on craigslist, why offer the Troll the opportunity for more attention? Is this something we aspire to be? A knock-off craigslist haven for BA assholes?

My friend’s husband is with a start up that makes tiny computers that run Windows and stuff.

The beauty of Windows CE machines is that they run 12+ hours on a charge and they take almost no time to boot up.

However, they run very few applications. But most people need only a web browser and an e-mail client anyway.

The fact that the regulars here are unlikely to fall for a RE-pumper is irrelevant. Trolls aren’t out to convince us - it is the general message that they want to weaken.

Maybe a solution is the be more vigilant for their lies from an admin/threadmaster standpoint and delete posts that are blatantly misleading.

My friend’s husband is with a start up that makes tiny computers that run Windows and stuff. I forgot the name, but I am going to see her in about 1/2 hour. I think they are expensive though ($3000 or something, I remember my husband commenting that it was twice what his laptop cost).

Are they thin client workstations? e.g. Wyse, etc. I've been trying to source a cheap 'thin client laptop', but they come in at twice the price of an ordinary laptop, as there's not much demand -- and this is from a cheap Indian manufacturer I managed to locate. The whole idea of NetPCs is that they are meant to be cheaper hardware (or at least reduce TCO -- fewer or no moving parts, not susceptible to malware, centralised admin, etc)

Can you give me a link to their website, SF? Curious to see their offerings.

Peter P Says:
I reserve my judgement regarding which one is better. I’ve heard many bashings of CE. I want a small palmtop computer with keyboard, wifi and Half XGA running Windows CE. Why did they kill those palmtops? They are light (~1lb) and they turn on instantly.

There's embedded XP and so on available also these days. I'm trying to source a laptop-sized portable NetPC that's not attractive to steal for a biz idea... sort of a 'dumb laptop' that still has wifi, CD/DVD player, multi card reader, and so on... trying to be the next Internet millionaire...

Trolls can be good for dropping a few bombs and stirring up sh*t if things gets a little stale. Those are the ones that lurk and agitate, saying a lot with a little & wearing an impish grin.

We can deal with those, and tolerate them as the yeast that raises the dough.

The other trolls, the interminable dolts and conceited asses, like the late Marina "I got mine" Prime--and a few other lost souls--merely drone on and on, saying very little with a ton of hot air. They should be scalped.

Other than that, let this site morph with the times & let 'em roll...

FAB,

I think of iconoclasm as neutral or complement. I think of myself as an iconoclast. Does it have a primarily negative connotation for you?

i thought i was the iconoclast, vs the evil market idolaters... :(

M. Cote,

I'm the rare exception to your rule about smart regulars. I almost failed HS stupid math senior year because I couldn't comprehend trigonometry.

I think a new reader would either be charmed by this blog's quirkiness or completely put off by its chronic OTness long before he/she gets around to reading trollish comments.

DS,

(since you decided to latch into my conversation, I don't think I can be accused of snarkily butting into your parade...)

I don't think of you as an iconoclast. I think of you as a postmodernist.

I am sensing a dark future for Sony. Who is still carrying a Walkman?

I don't have an 8088 XT-PC either, or run MS-DOS 1.0... and my Apple IIc isn't worth much except for the tech museum exhibition...

hmm, a postmodernist can be iconoclastic -- almost by definition!

"Please no flame wars in the thread on treatment of trolls. That’s too narcissitically ironic for even me."

ROFL. Nice.

Anyone posting under multiple ID's should be permanently banned.

People with opposing viewpoints should not be considered trolls, even though they offer little evidence. Several posters on this blog also use anecdotes and cheerleading in place of hard evidence, but because they agree with the viewpoint people just applaud them. If this is to be a rational discussion instead of sour-grapes ranting, there has to be hard data.

I find ConfusedRenter useful because he posts occasional datapoints against the grain of the site. He also posts a lot of warm-and-fuzzy fluff, but at least he's not vulgar. The way some hardcore posters here talk, the "inevitable" RE bubble burst is a complete guarantee, a "fact" to be worshipped with religious fervor. I like to see the dissenters. If the slide is such a predictable thing, why only just buy a house once prices are down? You could definitely find a way to make money on the "guaranteed" pop.

I guess that kinda makes me a fence-sitter, since I neither believe in the fantasy of ongoing spectacular returns based on shady loans, nor in the doomsday scenario of a complete RE crash where prices come down 50%.

Am I in the minority, or are there other fence-sitters lurking as well?

Allah,

Feel free to sign up as a threadmaster and write your own post.

CG,

None of which demonstrate why Fudan is the Yale of China. A much better argument can be made for why Fudan is the Stanford of China, actually - see greencrabs.blogspot.com.

I have a second cousin who went to Shanghai No. 1 Medical School -- smart guy, boorish family.

Actually, he's a fairly noted cancer researcher.

astrid Says:

> FAB, I think of iconoclasm as neutral or complement.
> I think of myself as an iconoclast. Does it have a primarily
> negative connotation for you?

I’ve always thought of an iconoclast as one who bashes religion or an idiot that tried to stir up shit by making stupid statements that (almost) everyone knows is wrong such as “the world is flat”…

I can’t recall mentioning religion on this BLOG before (other than an off hand comment referring to “right wing religious nut balls”). Despite my dislike of crazy religious republicans who are convinced that their sons will start listening to Streisand and/or reading Details magazine if we don’t ban male hand holding from TV I actually have a lot of respect and admiration of the major world religions (and to the dismay of my atheist/objectivist friends) I believe in some kind of god…

Since I try and have at least some support to my arguments (even if it is anecdotal at times) I don’t think I fall in to the second camp of iconoclasts that just spout off things like “real estate can never drop in price since they don’t make land any more”…

It looks like the time stamp on the BLOG didn't "fall back" an hour...

FAB,

Gosh, I just thought iconoclasm means you're willing to entertain thoughts outside of the mainstream. I suppose your opinions on gender relations might qualify as assailing against BA conventional wisdom, but in any case, my "iconoclasm" comment was not intended as criticism.

CR wrote:

> I still think Yahoo at 25-26 is a great buy...

I think that Bay Area real estate prices will look a lot like the Yahoo chart below (the Jan. 2000 for Yahoo is the Oct. 2005 for Real Estate) the Yahoo chart even has a few "dead cat bounces" (like real ester will) on the way down...

http://tinyurl.com/y94zhv

Forsaken Says:

> btw since most of you all are bay
> area guys you may like this:
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/rfs/227775522.html

The guy is probably not “desperate” since he bought the place for $575K 12/03 (from a guy that bought it for $410K 11/00).

He just needs to admit that there is no “good” part of El Sobrante and dump the place since even with under $500K in debt the place will not have positive cash flow any time soon…

CG

I am not so sure about the part of MS reverse-engineering the competitor’s products in your blog entry “The Instincts of a Monopolist Die Hard.”

That is the blog author's perspective, not mine. That blog is run by a b-school colleague and Wall Street financial analyst, not me. We just syndicate one another's blogs. Mine is Capitalism 2.0.

OQO is nice...

Geez, SFWoman, you seem to know all the big guys. Do have have a friend who knows Dick Cheney?

Late to the discussion. I used to post often but now a lurker.

Banning trolls should be done very rarely - reserved for only those who make extremely offensive OFF-TOPIC comments (regarding sexual preferences, or religion etc) or those who are here just to steal bandwidth and hamper regular discussions (like posting the same listing multiple times).

This is a GREAT blog. Awesome information. But without dissenting views, it will get very narrow-minded, and then it won't be great. So please keep banning as an extreme option

Earlier, I said:
For whatever it is worth, patrick.net _IS_ one of the better known bubble blogs and is likely to be a target for subversion. A clear policy for banning trolls needs to be enforced.

I guess a clarification is in order, since I didn't exactly mean to suggest we go Gestapo on the trolls. The point is that there needs to be a clearer _policy_ on what constitutes unacceptable trolling, and whatever this policy is, it needs to be enforced.

As others have already said, we shouldn't ban people for expressing dissenting views - as long as they are done in an honest, constructive and transparent manner. IMO, asshat-realtwhores who try to pump the market while pretending to be renters are not exactly contributing this kind of dissent.

SP

SFWoman Says:
Might it not be OK if the bulls had their posts responded to in a ration way using data, that we point out that our data is better (and point out why), that we point out where the bulls are wrong and educate?

Under the current circumstances, this is the best approach. However, the exchange is rarely conducted in an honest and constructive manner. And the resulting arguments end up increasing the (near-topic) noise level.

Off-topic noise is generally easily filtered out and less harmful. Spurious exchanges that are on-topic are more damaging to a discussion.

SP