I've been roasting coffee stovetop for about a year. Takes me about 10 minutes to roast 12 ounces, the result is great, and it only ends up costing about $1/lb more than what I used to pay for roasted beans at Costco. If you like coffee at all, I highly recommend giving it a try!
Yep - me too, and I've used a variety of beans from that same source to great effect. Good luck. Also, if you're in the bay area, I'll be happy to give you a demo if you need it.
I used that for a while, eventually we switched to a hot air popper which seemed to do a better job with less fuss. Then, in December, I got a Behmor 1600+ which is really nice.
If you completely ignore risk then what you say is true (especially with interest rates so ridiculously low). However, if we're talking about improving lives, I personally find value in eliminating debt (including the mortgage) as quickly as possible because such obligations represent risk. I could apply all these extra mortgage payments to other things (rental property, stock market, etc.), but then I stand a varying (but non-zero) chance of losing money on those things and still being stuck with a mortgage. I'd rather wait a few years and take those risks with my own money instead of money borrowed from the bank, and I think that economic woes of late suggest we'd be better off if a few more people thought this way.
I actually think of it the opposite way: if you put money into paying down debt, you know exactly what the return on that capital will be. It's the interest rate on the debt (in pre-tax dollars for mortgages, after-tax for almost every other form of debt). Money is fungible; any money that's not locked up in debt-service is freed up for other purposes, like investing in other assets.
I tend to advise people I know to pay down debt first these days, because they're usually paying around 6-7% interest, and where else can you get a 6-7% risk free investment? T-bills are at about 3%, inflation-adjusted T-bills are often less, CDs are under half a percent, and savings accounts are basically nothing. You can potentially get more than that in the stock market, but that comes with additional risk, so for a lot of more conservative folks it doesn't make sense to carry a debt and simultaneously invest in the market.
6-7% would be pretty high for a mortgage these days. I was quoted a little over 3% a month ago, and my credit is not the greatest.
For student loans, I agree with you, and I'm putting all my extra money into them while saving the bare minimum for a bit of security if something bad happens.
>I was quoted a little over 3% a month ago, and my credit is not the greatest.
You have to consider things like origination fees and points, though. Everybody thinks they're going to stay in their new house for decades, but the average is something like four years.
If you have a fixed-rate mortgage with a monthly payment at a comfortable level, then the mortgage should represent a very low source of risk. Having 12~18 months of payments in the bank saved up for a rainy 1.5 years is a great plan to mitigate that.
The idea of personal comfort is interesting, I think people should attempt to quantify the value of being mentally released of debt burden -- maybe for some there is very high value in it. For me personally, I have always been comfortable with the idea of strategic debt as a way to advance certain goals.
I think what your approach neglects is the fact that being conservative is risky as well. In the last five years, of course, it would be hard to make that case. But unless you die soon, there will definitely be times where you will be left behind -- relative to your economic peers -- if you don't finance your activities externally.
Server also can be hit-and-miss if you've got any irregularities in your setup...I had a rough upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04 a few weeks ago (died halfway through, system left in half-upgraded broken-but-bootable state). In the end it turned out that it was due to a no-longer-maintained package (gitosis) which I'd replaced some time ago (with gitolite) but I hadn't actually removed the gitosis package and there was some hangup about deleting the gitosis user.
In fairness, after manually resolving the problem with removing gitosis and cleaning up a couple of other half-upgraded things, the upgrade process did recover and finish successfully, but it certainly wasn't painless.
The owners might also have to pay the piper with regards to their mortgage holder unless they own the property outright - I'm pretty sure my mortgage prohibits commercial activity like this without prior approval, similar to what a lease agreement would say. (Of course, a bank is far less likely to find out than a landlord.)
Generally, the mortgage doesn't prevent this -- the insurance does. It is extremely unlikely that your mortgage would be in default because of this. However, your insurance company can refuse to pay out certain damages if they feel you have an uninsured business at home. This usually requires an insurance policy with business and/or rental coverage. I don't see anywhere in my mortgage that says I would be in default if I sublet rooms, and mine is a fairly vanilla mortgage from a large lender.
In fact, many home owners regularly rent out rooms without risk of mortgage "cancellation" or default [1]. They do however need to have suitable insurance to cover losses associated with renters and the business of renting. It's possible the insurance companies might catch onto this with AirBnB the way that landlords have and put the squeeze on homeowners and require they buy greater coverage, but there's really little chance that a mortgage holder would find the homeowner in default just because they have renters.
However, the only caveat is that FHA loans, conventional loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Veteran's Administration loans as well as some State-backed loans do have a requirement that a homeowner not rent out their mortgaged property within the first year of the loan, especially if you have financed as a primary residence and/or a first-time home buyer. While the mortgage holder has the right to call the loan if this happens, in reality, they wouldn't as rental income would serve to make it more likely for you to pay your balance. [2]
And all this really applies if you are renting out your entire house and plan to live elsewhere, thereby making it a secondary residence. If the house remains your primary residence and you are subletting a room, or even the whole house while you are on vacation, then these restrictions are not in place. If you are curious, read the terms of the mortgage loan agreement. There should be something about conditions of occupancy in there.
For example, here is the Occupancy Clause in the Freddie Mac Fannie Mae Uniform Instrument:
"6. Occupancy. Borrower shall occupy, establish, and use the property as Borrower's principal residence within 60 days after the execution of this Security Instrument and shall continue to occupy the Property as Borrower's principal residence for at least one year after the date of occupancy, unless Lender otherwise agrees in writing, which consent shall not be unreasonably withheld, or unless extenuating circumstances exist which are beyond Borrower's control" [6]
In addition, some home owners associations (HOA), co-op boards, and condo associations limit rentals. If you run afoul of those rules and you could face fines. So, perhaps HOAs and Condo associations might start to take notice and put the squeeze on property owners. You can also lose first-time home buyer tax credits if you rent out your entire mortgaged property and live somewhere else, but once again, that is not the typical scenario for AirBnB hosts.
A bigger issue is that many cities restrict rentals based on zoning restrictions. Plus you have other obligations when it comes to tenants and being a landlord -- I'm not sure if the duration of the rent matters, so AirBnB hosts might have to check their local zoning and Tenant's Rights statutes. [3] [4]
But all of the above is not equivalent with a tenant violating their rental lease. In this case, the tenant can face an immediate eviction for violating their lease terms. This is much more frightening than risking uncovered liability in the case of an insurance claim, fines from HOA and Condo associations, and the extremely unlikely risk of mortgage call, if you happen to have a loan that prevents such a thing.
For the record, I switched to DDG in part because of the duck. (All right, so it was a very small part, but the point remains--the duck is awesome.) :)
Slight nitpick - the article said that the collision and missile test increased the amount of debris by 60%, not that they were responsible for 60% of debris in orbit. Still a lot, but not more than half.
I said "claims" because, for reasons too tedious to list, I don't think they do know or can know a very exact percentage (even to +/- 10%).
And note, they're talking about "number of items" (not "amount of debris" as you say -- that would imply mass, a different thing).
But if it's anywhere near half of the "number of items", then these two crashes alone are a highly significant source of junk. I did not know that, and that seemed worth a link.
The effort required to photoshop such an image (or paste your own picture on top of a stolen ID) is trivial compared to the effort required to forge or steal the ID in the first place. Thus, I don't understand how this would be anything other than an inconvenience to honest users.
Requiring IDs like this might actually facilitate ID theft because criminals could create fake host listings and then request all sorts of information like this in order to steal identities. Much easier than breaking into houses to steal them.
Oh I know it is in that service but I don't think that's what the poster I was replying to was suggesting. He's suggesting as a host that you do that (although perhaps I misunderstood).
Requiring IDs like this might actually facilitate ID theft because criminals might create fake host listings and then request all sorts of information like this in order to steal identities. Much easier than breaking into houses to steal them.
I don't know much about replication, but I'd like to learn. Can you recommend any books/courses/tutorials that address the sorts of design decisions you're talking about?
I've been roasting coffee stovetop for about a year. Takes me about 10 minutes to roast 12 ounces, the result is great, and it only ends up costing about $1/lb more than what I used to pay for roasted beans at Costco. If you like coffee at all, I highly recommend giving it a try!