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johnthomas00on Ask HN: What sucks about where you live?

LA Weather is too good Women are too beautiful Beaches are too fun Hate it here

johnthomas00on Google will turn on native ad-blocking in Chrome on February 15

I've been using http://blokada.org/ on NON-root Android with good results for all apps, not just the browser. It is just a proxy that blocks domains in the customizable blacklists. The only downsides I've seen are 1) I have to whitelist apps the need to detect if they are on mobile or wifi otherwise they cannot tell, and 2) you cannot chain/use another proxy too.

johnthomas00on Excel team considering Python as scripting language: asking for feedback

Does not M$ have a track record of getting everyone on board and then murdering everything in site. I mean it sounds good, but I don't trust M$. Maybe they have changed, but I'm not yet convinced.

johnthomas00on $3 Trillion in Forgotten Debt

He said if you are going to count the monthly rent against a renter, you have to count the value of the place to live too.

johnthomas00on Ask HN: Your experience with realty investment startups like RealtyShares?

I have not looked at and do not know these companies and have no comment on these companies. I have been involved in real estate for a long time and these thoughts only relate to commercial real estate generally, not these companies.

Where to start? I'll just fire off some thoughts as they come to mind. Real estate is a long term asset. It is complicated and everyone is different, like your apps, but long term. For example, you could make returns look better by using short term loans (where interest rates could rise). A rise in rates would expose this term structure imbalance/risk. On the other hand, single family production compared to population growth looks good (opposite of when real estate crashed in 2007 or so), so housing looks good generally (every market is different). Retail is getting crushed by Amazon, etc. Office is hard to analyze as it is expensive to replace tenants. Industrial can be made to look good by building more office space in it, but then getting crushed if that tenant leaves. Oh, and winning buyers of commercial real estate have to make the most aggressive assumptions in their models. Every buyer has basically the same information.

Good luck out there people!

johnthomas00on New law bans California employers from asking applicants their prior salary

Employers will just ask employees expectations.

johnthomas00on Building a NAS

System is probably good for 3 or 4 years, right? If your cost of funds is 6%, that works out to: 3 years: $177/month 4 years: $136/month

Add $20/month for electricity: 3 years: $197/month 4 years: $156/month

Could that rent respectable enough device(s) in the cloud?