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OwnerOfCalifornia
Participant[quote=moneymaker]Anybody else get the feeling of deja vu while watching the superbowl commercials, reminded me of the year 2000 right before the dot com bust.[/quote]
The Quicken Loans commercial apparently created quite a stir. Everyone (rightly) criticized it for echoes of housing bubble 1.0. I was more appalled by the ridiculous growth/consume/waste message. It was so bad, seemed satirical.
Participant[quote=mixxalot]Is there a way to determine a real gold or silver coin from a fake when buying from a coin store in San Diego like San Diego Coin and Vault or BlueVault? I did not like the wait and check only policy at these places. If I pay 10K to buy gold, I want to take possession that time of purchase![/quote]
When I’ve been to BlueVault, I paid cash for stock on hand. But I only buy a few coins a year (at least $1500 at a time). Never tried to buy $10K worth! Their website is pretty accurate about their stock, and you can call them ofc. They’ll use the Fisch in front of you.
I don’t know how concerned we should be about fakes. I’ve only gotten real stuff from trusted retailers. Bullion is such a tiny fringe industry I don’t think counterfeiters bother too much with bullion. I’m more concerned about fake $100 bills.
ParticipantI think common sense goes a long way with transacting in PM’s. Never trade on CL, ebay, etc. Use established dealers, trade coins (I only do coins) and good delivery list bars.
[quote=gzz]There are real 100oz silver bars that people inserted lead slugs into. this is pretty hard to detect as they are still going to be silver in the outer portion.[/quote]
There are some anecdotes of this happening with 100- and 1000-oz bars, but this is actually very easy to detect. Again, reputable dealers will nail these every time
ParticipantOh yeah, another thing. In California, you’ll pay sales tax for purchases under $1500. Over that, tax-free for the whole purchase. So you can’t buy just one gold coin, but you could buy one 100oz silver bar.
I never tried to buy 1 gold coin + some silver to get to just over $1500, but that might work.
Participant[quote=flu]What exactly would be the difference between the american eagle/bufflao versus say the canada maple leaf or the Krugerrand or the Suisse bar. Isn’t 1oz of gold the same as 1oz of gold. Why the variation in price (albeit small)?[/quote]
Eagles and Krugerrands are 22-karat gold (91.7% purity = 22/24). Maples and Buffaloes are 100% 24-karat. Both types have exactly 1.000 troy oz of gold. The Eagles & Kruggerands are alloyed with a bit of silver and copper and are a bit heavier and more resistant to ‘damage’, but you obviously wouldn’t want to throw around either type. Beyond that, these are just bullion and (I’m no expert) the buy/sell spreads are pretty similar.
I’ve never bought from Apmex but I know people who have–they had good experiences. In town, I really like Blue Vault. I’m not terribly worried about fakes (yet) but China is getting better at it. The fakes will never beat the Fisch (basic physics), and I know Blue Vault uses those. Maybe you’d want to be more careful about bars if you’re into that kind of thing–but I genuinely believe good dealers won’t let fake bars through either.
You can google prices around town, and honestly I feel like they’re close enough that, as long as you trust the dealer, you’ll do best by driving to the closest one to you.
ParticipantI can’t find anything on SDG&E’s website about how exactly this works…only something about $0.75 / kWh “saved”.
How is that quantified exactly? Use less than, say, 10 kWh between 11am – 6pm? and I get the difference * 0.75? Or what limit exactly?
Solar people should totally clean up. I have solar and I “used” negative 8.5kWh during the “reduce-your-use” period yesterday (login to my SDG&E account and it breaks out power consumed per day, including the RYU power).
ParticipantWhat happens without net metering? Use it or lose it? Excess kWh dumped onto the grid when you not home, gone forever?
ParticipantRecurring theme that one should plan on spending money for “quality labor and materials” for artificial turf.
What does this translate to in ~~~ $/sqft (contract cost, pre-rebates)?
TIA
ParticipantFor anyone who knows…stable/long-term single-job W2 income, no debt, perfect credit, 20% down, more-than-adequate reserve: as a percentage of one’s income (single person), how much can one borrow right now? Still the 28/36 front-end/back-end ratio?
January 16, 2012 at 11:07 AM in reply to: OT- CONTEST!!! Guess public sector household earnings #735994ParticipantAnd since it ain’t posted yet. $292K
January 16, 2012 at 10:58 AM in reply to: OT- CONTEST!!! Guess public sector household earnings #735992Participant[quote=urbanrealtor]A bigger question is what would Brian Boytano do?[/quote]
He would blame Canada.
Participant[quote=ucodegen]This ‘normal law’/’alternate law’ behavior is something I find kind of freaky. There should be some sort of ‘audible’ or ‘visual cue’ that it is operating in ‘alternate law’, not just a warning for something else. It is like driving a car that behaves one way under ‘computer assistance’ and another without – (Stabilitrak works this way – and is kind of freaky in adverse conditions.).[/quote]
There is supposedly an audible enunciation for the switch to alternate law. Furthermore, the aircraft was necessarily in alternate law given the unreliable airspeed indication–and the pilots presumably understood this.
[quote=ucodegen]What gets me is the following:
- It looks like no-one looked at the artificial horizon, so they didn’t seem to notice the extremely high AOA. This device functions separately from the pitot tube.[/quote]
The artificial horizon displays the aircraft pitch and roll attitude, not the AoA. This instrument wasn’t necessarily displaying anything catastrophic, even after the plane was hopelessly stalled with a 40° AoA.
[quote=ucodegen]
- It also doesn’t seem that they paid attention to the dive-climb and altitude indicators. Combined with high AOA and the altitude spinning downward with a high decent rate – should have clued everybody as to what was going on. Commercial pilots are supposed to be IFR rated. The pitot tube is used for altitude, but only the side vent, not impact pressure. They did get the pitot tube working part way through (giving them good airspeed indication and altitude indication).. and started flying normally.. then with all instruments working, they crashed the plane with poor flight decisions.[/quote]
The static port is located on the fuselage somewhere (certainly on older general aviation aircraft), nowhere near the pitot tube. While it could have iced over, nothing indicates that it did. The pilots were seeing descents as high as -10,000 feet/min. They were certainly aware of what was happening to the aircraft. But…
[quote=ucodegen]
- The youngest pilot, the one in control, seems to have his driven more by panic than conscious rational decisions. When told by the superior in the cockpit to release the stick from full-back position, that this was part of the problem, this individual grabs the stick and slams it into full-back position again after hearing that they are nearing the ground. If the plane kept horizontal and made contact with the water, it would have been more of a pancake landing – and more people may have survived.[/quote]
Yes, it appears the young FO reacted tragically to the information he did still have. Aeronautical decision making (ADM) has become a critical new addition to pilot training, even starting at the basic level for private pilot students.
Also, I believe the plane did contact the water in an almost level attitude–but descending at -10,000 feet/min. That is not survivable, and the plane disintegrated on impact.
[quote=ucodegen]
- I am amazed that the A330 flight control system doesn’t consider having wildly differing inputs on the flight control as an unusual condition and proceeds to ‘average’ the controls instead. There should be some kind of feedback to the other pilots stick as well as the ability to disable one of the ‘seats’ (imagine a control that decides to fail – would want to disable it). The old systems had the yoke move together.. so you could tell if the other pilot was giving irrational input.[/quote]
I believe Boeing aircraft still have coupled controls. The uncoupled Airbus controls are certainly a point of controversy regarding the AF 447 accident.
ParticipantA new article from Popular Mechanics. An interesting (and chilling) read.
[quote]The recovery efforts they invoked were the same Airbus bragged about years ago when the debuted a new series about the aircraft being stall proof.
What the instructors did was to raise the nose, contrary to what most pilots would do in a stall, and to go flaps down with the engines to 85 percent power. This places the aircraft in a very stable configuration where the plane’s wing will generate enough lift to maintain flight in all conditions.[/quote]
A nitpick. This procedure is strictly a reaction to unreliable airspeed indication, not an actual stall recovery technique. By configuring the aircraft as described, it will remain in the flight envelope and not stall. The linked article explains that in ‘normal’ law, the A330 will remain in the flight envelope regardless of the pilot inputs to the controls (autopilot or not). Since airspeed had failed, the aircraft was operating in ‘alternate’ law, and all control inputs were taken literally.
ParticipantThanks zzz. I’ve researched the hell out of the car I am buying. I did not know about that FightingChance website; he has very interesting articles about Edmunds and TrueCar.
I am paying cash with no trade-in so this should be a pretty clean deal. Though I have wondered how that situation affects one’s negotiating position. If I am a dealer, why sell to me (for the lowest possible price) when they can milk more out of the deal, at the same price point, from 1) a trade-in and 2) captive financing.
- It looks like no-one looked at the artificial horizon, so they didn’t seem to notice the extremely high AOA. This device functions separately from the pitot tube.[/quote]
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