Justin Long

Information is only as good as the brain can interpret it; if not, it becomes garbage in - garbage out! - Igor The Troll

Igor, unfortunately, not many realize that. The common misconception is that the more the available information becomes the more knowledge we will gain. - Hayk

That is Dictatorship and Fascism! Keep the populace ignorant so you can control them better! Brainwashing! aka Propaganda! - Igor The Troll

Igor, do you know that manipulation of rules and brainwash (for sake the the whole, the society in general) are prominently mentioned in Plato's Republic? Plato himself is misunderstood enormously because he is considered libertarian and Christian, but any moderately smart person reading him will come to realize how opposed he was to everything we hold dear. - Hayk

I am not against manipulation of society, but for what reason and what is the goal. All societies - civilizations - races -tribes have a different model that suits them best depending on era, location, ethnicity and other relevant factors. What works for one society may not work for another. America needs to reinvent itself or it will implode upon itself. And what I see in the past 10 years and the direction it is taking now, it is on the path of self destruction. - Igor The Troll

The next civilization will be based on NWO when America and Europe will join hands against China! China is formidable opponent based on Taoism! - Igor The Troll

Plato thought that freedom and rights of individuals must be sacrificed for a "greater" good, that of the society, the republic. In that line of thought, he also said that the only people who can and are allowed to lie in given circumstances are politicians, and same with manipulation of news. America, ever since its inception, tried to export its value system to the rest of the world - thinking it would be universally good and make a better world (Europe got better). Now it seems to lash back on itself... - Hayk

If America goes against China, with or without Eruope, i am not sure who will win, be it battle of wits or battle of arms. China is poised to take on America on every single aspect of life it henceforth was superior to other nations. This can eventually unfold into WW3.. - Hayk

It will, but there is no choice! That is Civilization! - Igor The Troll

portable - Hayk

Requirements: Runs either Windows XP/Home or Linux. Still possible for there to be a Mac OS X netbook, but I don't think this will stay open much longer. Atom CPU. - Dave Winer

Hayk, you're right, portability is very important. I added Battery Life as #3. - Dave Winer

Added "Rugged" to the list. - Dave Winer

Why doesn't the Macbook Air count as a netbook? (besides the Apple tax) - Eric P

It doesn't qualify under: 2, 3, not sure about 4, 5, 8. So it's pretty much not a netbook. I'm sure it's a good computer, but I didn't buy one, primarily because of the battery, but I also knew that a single USB port wasn't going to work for me. - Dave Winer

How about the, "Hey, what's that" factor? Let's admit it, we all feel cool when someone looks at one of our gadgets with awe and envy. - Robert Clockedile

People confuse Laptops & Netbooks, I think. I'm looking at a netbook to provide me with general internet access, and to minimal word processing. I'm not looking to play games on it, or do advanced graphic editing/design. Once people accept its purpose, they agree on it's specs. - clarke thomas via fftogo

Except for small size, my HP with it's 12cell battery meets all those requirements. - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

clarke: netbooks are laptops, there's no confusion there. The difference is that it is "even more portable" (1,2,3,3a,5 fit here). - ☂Marcos Marado

So which one did you end up with? I have looked at the Dell Mini but that keyboard is so daggone small. It's not sluggish at all but I'm a touch typist at about 120 wpm... - Justin Long

An Air's battery cannot be replaced by user, hardly anything is built-in. It's one of the most useless over priced electronics and IMHO, the worst "portable" product ever. (mobile phone -- even HAM radios included). Good morning, everyone! :) - Mona N.

agreed - netbooks are what it says on the tin - they have "internet notebooks" - jon bradford

I guess the mistake is that, most people look for a laptop as a replacement to a desktop. I have a laptop for a mobile/light travel device, I'm not looking to do CAD on it. I've bought a Dell Min9 with linux to be my easier travel device, for short trips for unloading photos to flickr, friendfeed, email, web surfing only - maybe video chat. - clarke thomas

Have you tried SpinRite? http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite... - Morten Prom

Macbook Air is an elegant piece of hardware and after the new MBA release, old MBA is even more advantageous. It's a choice and I choose to have the lightest with greatest screen with good looks. You might go for a netbook instead but most of them suck big time design-wise. - Burak 'cyrus' Bayburtlu

http://www.scripting.com/stori... - Dave Winer

I like my Wind MSI because now my subway ride (35 minutes each way) has become my writing time. Yes, the subway is now my writing studio. :) - Jorge Escobar

Macbook Air cannot be a netbook IMO, because it doesn't support WWAN/Mobile BroadBand internally. Ever tried sitting on a bus w/ a dongle hanging off? Well you lose them, and break your usb ports. - clarke thomas

Macbook Air is the perfect netbook for me. Asus, et al., with cramped keyboards are unusable. - Dave Gilbert

"In the end, it's not relevant who holds what title in the McCain operation, because it is not being run by campaign professionals, but by the Washington lobbying class. And no one seems to be in charge, least of all the candidate. The end result is a campaign suffering from "schizophrenia."" - Christopher Galtenberg

"John McCain is saying one thing on the stump, his running mate another. But the worst sin is that his advertising campaign is incoherent and putting out multiple and inconsistent messages." - Christopher Galtenberg

The American Founding Fathers had this all figured out over two centuries ago. They were coastal elitists. - Sean McBride

Robert +++ for this comment. - Ryo

Correction: He wasn't hanged for being a Christian. He was hanged for converting away from Islam (apostasy) which is a punishable offense under Sharia (Islamic) Law - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A... - mojay

propaganda, not remotely true .. mo j's correction is important, and further, there had to be some cross-over of a social/political norm ... just doing this quietly does not incur threat of death in iran ... the source seems to have a pro-christian agenda ... and the title here is very misleading ... - Gregory Lent

Pro-christian and a "Friend of Israel" as shown in the image on the original post. - mojay

Good spot Robert - I agree that while principles should be adopted, beliefs should not be forced upon anybody through any form of legislation. However, this happens in the West just as in the Muslim world. - Paul Johnston via twhirl

Apostasy should not be punishable anywhere. And no, this is not limited to Iran, or to the Muslim world (or even to the religious world - think John Connally and Joe Lieberman, who were denied Vice Presidential nominations). Even in the US, changing your religion (or lack thereof) can be difficult if your family or community shares the belief that you are leaving. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

They also hate gay people: http://tinyurl.com/4lf4cd Sound familiar? - Rick Powell

Thank you for sharing, Robert. - ChangeForge | Ken Stewart

The worlds biggest scam - Religion, we need to get rid of it for good. It IS the cause of the majority of the worlds issues. - SoN9ne

Thanks for correcting the record, Mo J. and G. Lent. I'm feeling warmer towards the Iranian government and less shocked that an individual soul was exterminated for their beliefs. - Christopher Galtenberg

Wow, that's horrible. Has anyone seen Religulous? the new movie? Makes some good points about religion being dangerous. - Sarah Perez

Correcting the record? A month ago, the Iranian parliament voted 196 to 7 in favour of a bill entitled "Islamic Penal Code" which imposes the death penalty for any male Iranian who leaves his Islamic faith ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... - Joel Bennett

I don't think religion is dangerous, but extremism certainly is. You can be an extremist without being religious. Just look at the Soviet Union....? And while I sort of agree with Scoble's comment about beliefs in a social code (e.g. I agree with 1st Amendment) many people's moral beliefs (e.g. do not lie, do not steal, do not murder, etc) come out of their religious beliefs....! - Justin Long

Article on hanged... in Telegraph as well http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... - Justin Long

Religion tends to create and fuel extremism, though, in the way that only a "my God says you are UNCLEAN" can do... - Jason Carreira

For the record, Ramtin Soodmand was a Christian from birth. It was his father who was an apostate from Islam. - Ontario Emperor

Religion is neither dangerous nor is it the cause of the majority of the worlds issues. The danger and cause is directly related to people who use religion to generate fear and hate for control and power. The same things that have allowed a person think it's ok to kill a gay person in the name of religion are the same thing that has allowed someone to think it's ok to kill a muslim in the name of national security. We should be prompting understanding and not blaming. BTW the link story is sad. - Shawn McCollum

Some religions seem to be xenophobic, intolerant, violent and imperialistic at the very core, at the root. The evil that they do is not a deviation from or perversion of their core message, but an expression of their innermost nature. - Sean McBride

A person's moral code does not come from their religion. But rather their faith comes from their moral code. - Alex Scoble CISSP

Two way street, I'm afraid, Alex. That's proven everyday. - Michael W. May via twhirl

when you think you know how things should be there is something terribly wrong - adolfo foronda

Thing is, Robert, people put thier beliefs into 'our social code'. Each person has a 'religion' or better put, a world view. no one, should ever be persucuted for thier beliefs. period. - Josh Mings via twhirl

So, if some of the more "extremist" Islamic countries view Obama as someone who has left the faith, how effective will he, and by extension, the USA, be in peaceful negotiations with these countries? http://www.danielpipes.org/art... - Mark VandenBerg

god I wish people would just abandon religion altogether already. I'm to the point where I honestly can't say that religion actually brings ANY good into this world. - LarchOye via twhirl

It's not religions that are xenophobic, intolerant, etc... It's people. This is a trait of people. People often misinterpret the teachings of the religions to which they belong and use their religion as a facade to hide their hatred and bigotry behind. Attacking the religion for the people's problems is problematic, b/c it empowers them to fight back by saying that you're being anti-religious. - C. K. Sample III via Alert Thingy

C.K. Sample III: I would argue that some ideologies, both religious and secular, are manifestations of the worst parts of human nature. Their xenophobia and hatred of cult outsiders expresses their innermost essence. Ideologies of this kind are essentially tools of domination and control. Any ideology which rigidly divides the world in a fundamental (and fundamentalist) way into us vs. them is probably a scam run by a power mad self-appointed priesthood. - Sean McBride

Alex, I'm not sure I agree with that. Many people are born into a religion and inculturated into it, and develop their moral code on the basis of their religion (e.g. The Bible or the Quran or whatever says...). I remember my first faith moment when I was quite young, about 5 years old. Every moral element of my code originated from religious teaching... - Justin Long

@justin "do not lie/steal/murder" are so very generic concepts. Religion framed those concepts and gave context to common sense ideas, which could have happened without religion as well. In the past if you killed the man who killed your brother was it murder or justice? A religious belief system should have as much right as a non-religious belief system, the problem is that when they clash it turns into a fight rather then understanding. - Shawn McCollum

LarchOye, people of faith do plenty of good things in the world, as a result of their faith. Unfortunately there are also people of faith who do plenty of bad things. And people are not going to abandon their religion. The majority of the world is religious in outlook.... - Justin Long

all: i find Jonathon Haidt's [http://bit.ly/4DAyN8] work on 'inborn moral values' pretty interesting. his TED talk [http://bit.ly/OFIjO] gives a quick summation of what his research sez are the five moral values built into our genetic code. - MikeAmundsen

Shawn, I agree they are generic concepts. My point was that I was taught them by my parents on the basis of our religious code. In my personal life, my moral code came FROM my religious teaching, not vice-versa. Granted that they might have originally come TO my religion FROM an earlier source, I was only talking about me personally. Maybe I misunderstood Alex's comment. - Justin Long

@C. K. Sample III - “I believe that nobody has a clue what really happens after you die. Not the Pope, not the preacher at my folk’s church, not some Tibetan monk who has meditated and pondered all his life - no one! I believe that religion is personal and is for every individual to decide for his or herself. Mostly it’s none of anybody’s business what I believe. I believe that public prayer is for show. It should be done in private and kept between you and your supreme deity, whomever or whatever it may be. I believe that maybe one day we might find some of these answers through scientific experimentation and observation.” - Tabitha Ames, from Travis S. Taylor's "Warp Speed" - LarchOye via twhirl

@LarchOye, I would generally agree with a lot of that! as a Christian I'd say that I take the afterlife on faith, that I don't have anything that conclusively proves it to me. I believe - as did Jesus - that faith is personal and a matter of personal decision. I do believe there is a place for public, corporate worship as a way of fellowship, but a lot of public prayer can be for show, as Jesus criticized the Pharisees for (and I could criticize a number of people today)..... - Justin Long

why is there evil in the world? "If there's evil, there is good, if there is good, there you posit a moral law to diferintiate between good and evil, if there is a moral law you must posit a moral law giver..... if there's no moral law giver, there's no moral law, if there's no moral law, there's no good, if there's now good, there is no evil. what is your question?" [ravi zacharias] - Josh Mings via twhirl

And there is evidently evil, or Google would just say "Don't be bad" :) - Justin Long

Despite what we think of the current administration, there's one thing we should all be able to agree on: Iran scares the crap out of me. - Fleagle

Iran doesn't scare me. If Ahmadinejad was the Supreme Leader maybe. What scares me is america's posture towards Iran. - Shawn McCollum

Fleagle - why are religious fundamentalists in Iran scarier than religious fundamentalists in the United States, Israel and other nations who are deliberately trying to provoke World War IV and Armageddon? John Hagee is a close adviser to Joseph Lieberman, and Lieberman is a high-level adviser to John McCain and Sarah Palin. Judeo-Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. have access to a huge array of WMDs. I have often heard them declare that we should use them against entire nations in a first strike. - Sean McBride

In India, there are groups (both Hindu and Muslim) that advocate killing of members of the other religion, and often commit those crimes as well. At the same time, there are people of both faiths who would like nothing better than such dickheads to get out of their lives and just let everyone live in peace. These extremists have political representation and the country has had to face communal riots time and again. But once you look at it closely, you see it is not at all about religion. It's just crime. - Vijayendra Mohanty

Wow. I can't imagine living in a society where you don't have the choices we take for granted. - Jill, Superhero Librarian

You don't get killed for apostasy in the United States, but it's not popular. - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

Interesting point of view Ontario. I never had a problem with changing religions. - Jill, Superhero Librarian

But what if a particular religion were dominant in your town, or your family, and you left that faith? - Ontario Emperor via fftogo

We are about to release a widget for Wordpress that we'll quickly move to other platforms. We costed it out a while ago and decided (quite easily) that moving to VMs on the cloud was the best solution. It's cheap initially and can scale fairly quickly. - mike

We're on the verge of going cloud. We'd probably go cloud before going dedicated. The way the balance of our needs work out, we can probably keep our site on a beefed up VPS for the time being, and move the service API workload out into the cloud. - Andrew Badera

Talk to Oren Michels or Scott Rafer at Mashery...entirely cloud based from get go... - Alan Edgett

Unfortunately we are a dedicated hosting environment. Both managed and the cheaper unmanaged. We still see growth in both areas, but the cloud makes sense for certain areas. - Chris

@ andrew leyden You might want to check out BlueLock www.bluelock.com I think their monthly packages start significantly lower then $4,000 a month - Lorraine Ball

I'm hearing a lot more people switching to the cloud. - Steve Spalding

I'm still on a dedicated server for each site. i think until you really (need to) scale up the cloud isn't a huge issue.I'm more interested in scaling 3rd party services (e.g. entry level consumer of 3rd party data) - weblivz

Those of us whose models depend on scale, or anyone whose app takes off suddenly, anyone who has predictable troughs in demand, are perfect candidates for the benefits of cloud computing. And, it's better, IMO, to already be in the cloud, if there's no additional cost associated, rather than trying to go cloud WHEN or AFTER demand hits. - Andrew Badera

I see the latest Twitter blog post - Ev admits, like every startup, they started without scale. I agree the cloud is *easier* to be part of than it used to be (Twitter used s3 for it's images since the start i think), but exclusively? - weblivz via twhirl

Can someone explain how switching to the cloud works? We are a not-yet-started startup. We have a VPS and 12-hour backups to S3. Before we go 'live' we will have a failover to another VPS as well. I understand the concept of backing up to S3, etc. but I don't understand how switching would work unless I am reading too much into the word and it means using the cloud as an extra backup location? - david

Depends on the nature of your needs. Some places, like EC2 or Rackspace, offer fullblown IaaS. Others like Google App Engine lock you in with PaaS, which restricts you to writing Python apps to serve your needs. Hadoop offers a data cloud. Nirvanix offers CDN/SDN cloud-like facilities. - Andrew Badera

If you need Google's BigTable, Amazon's SimpleDB, or Microsoft's SSDS (in beta), then you also need to recognize, and understand how to employ, access, iterate, Entity-Attribute-Value, or "horizontal" data structures. These are all graph or graph-like databases. - Andrew Badera

In my case I have a website that's relatively low traffic, but a web service API that needs to scale. So, I part my service calls out to a cloud service, let the cloud handle the demand, then pump the data down to a data warehouse for conventional OLTP and reporting. - Andrew Badera

david, amazon web services are much more than a storage facility (S3), you can have EC2 (elastic compute cloud) instances running and fire them up as/when needed. They are basically images of a OS of choice running off with the calc power and memory you chose. If a small EC2 becomes unresponsive (for example too much load on that one) you can fire a bigger one up and smoothly (and instantly) migrate to that one. you may want to give a look at the AWS developers doc, there are a lot of very nice examples - Andre

much better and more useful than the ones I can make on friendfeed... you'll find them here: http://aws.amazon.com/resource... - Andre

We have been moving clients (and our own services) to the Mosso cloud system. Capacity scales automatically, the environment is straight PHP and / or .NET from our point of view and we have non of the crazy hoops to jump through to configure for EC2. - Soulhuntre

He bought the house in 2005 and after 1 year the lender raised his rate to 16%! He could still afford this rate, just barely, but eventually had some skipped payments. Because of this they raised his rate again to 22%! Can you imagine paying 22% on a home? Needless to say by this time the housing market was in trouble so he was unable to sell the home. The lender foreclosed and he lost his home. Now tell me, who's to blame in that? That's just pure lender greed right there. - Alex Scoble CISSP

Our interest rate is high, but it was amazing to me the loans they tried to roll us into. The first lender was adamant that we get an ARM. When I kept insisting for a fixed loan, he tried to "educate" me with a buttload of misinformation. I reported him to the state. - Anika Malone

Yes there was some SERIOUS predatory lending going on. I really hope a lot of people do a lot of time as a result of this. All of their assets should be liquidated and put into the $700bn pot. - Geoff Schultz

Sorry... I just don't see how it's our responsibility to assist people that made glaringly bad financial decisions. I bought my house 20 years ago for $205,000. I couldn't get a mortgage unless I could put down $40,0000. If mortgage companies back then tried to convince me they could loan me the entire amount I would have said NO. They did offer me adjustable rates, I said NO because I was afraid that it could skyrocket. While I was doing with less over the years, the people that took the lower adjustable rates had years of the benefit of lower rates, now when that gamble failed everyone is claiming ignorance and that they were fooled into these deals. I just don't buy it. - Kevin Shannon

It's too late to assist John, anyhow. The point is that unethical mortgage lenders caused this mess! What was the point of pushing John over the edge to where he couldn't pay his mortgage? I just don't see how John is even a little to blame in this. And I bet you there are thousands upon thousands of stories just like his. My point isn't that these people need assistance, my point is that these people should never have been squeezed out of their homes! - Alex Scoble CISSP

@Kevin: true - i am not responsible for "John in Texas" accepting a poorly constructed loan. however i am responsible (we all are) for allowing lawmakers to design a lending system that has such poor feedback loops that criminals can create predatory loans, get them into the system, enable others to collect these *known* bad loans and filter them into securitized debt instruments that still others can trade for a profit. there's lots of responsibility go go around. we all need to own up to our part in it. - MikeAmundsen

Oh yes, and we put down 20%. The lender said, "Look you can put down 5% and get you a 80/15, that way if you sell in 5 years..." NO! I wasn't looking to sell in 5 years. I hate moving. They were really unhappy that we wanted to put down 20%. Hell, we tried to put down 30%, but no one would lend to us. - Anika Malone

Totally agree that it's unethical what these lenders did and something should be done about it. I'm just saying there are a lot of scam artists out there and I think you have to have some common sense and understand what you can afford. If you invest in the stock market and lose money you don't turn around and say "I didn't think I would lose money", my financial advisor is to blame for not explaining to me I could lose. I think there are a lot of people who were scammed but I think there are just as many people that expected housing prices to continue to skyrocket and ARM's not to skyrocket and now that both have proven wrong they're trying to find someone to blame. - Kevin Shannon

@Faboo: we bought quite some time ago. the realtor 'complained' that would could afford much more house on our downpmt and income. the lender was not happy that we opted for a 15 yr mort instead of a 30. in both cases, our decision meant less profit for them. we now own the home free and clear. our friends have bigger homes. we don't feel bad at all. - MikeAmundsen

@kevin generally I might agree it might be one thing if the impact of the subprime problems would remain isolated to the housing/mortgage industry but but things have gotten bad enough that it is undermining the entire financial system - Marco (aureliusmaximus)

I left the US in 1996 and moved to the UK. At that time, an ARM was typically adjusted based on the prime rate; for example, prime plus 6% was a common formula. I was astounded to learn, when I returned to the USA in 2000, that ARM now meant that the lender could "adjust" the mortgage every 6 months: could, in effect, change the interest rate to whatever they wanted. We're still renting. - Glen Campbell

The signs of this going on and TONS of reports were out. If consumers were paying attention and doing their homework, I don't think so many would be caught. But again, our focus is on the wrong stuff all the time. Not surprised to see people being duped. That's how all criminals get the advantage - when you're not prepared. - Patricia

Are you serious? R. Usurious? Usury! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... - Richard Walker

@kevin: yeah, i see your point. mine is this: it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that what was set up was going to fail. you don't need a psych degree to know that greed will overpower the commons sense of some buyers and sellers. the folks in charge knew all this. they knew it was predatory. i knew it. you knew it. that's not right. we're better than this. - MikeAmundsen

Yea, you're right kevinpshan, it's not our responsibility to assist people that make poor financial decisions but it is our responsibility when others affected those decisions for their own gain _and_ when, if we don't, it'll affect us all anyway. - ·[▪_▪]·

This is why we used our Credit Union for financing. Credit Union: "You want a 30 Year Fixed Rate, right? We don't recommend anything else." Me: "Yeah, thanks." End of story. - Tad, Fool

Patricia, you're right. We started looking for a home in 2000. We didn't find our current house until Nov. 2006. The signs were there and I warned all my friends. They laughed and bought their overpriced homes with their ARMS and horrible interest rates. Some of these people didn't even have jobs! We had a friend who bought an overpriced house, with an ARM, Mortgage was $5K a month, but they used a pay option. Idiots. I warned them, they scoffed. Now their mortgage is up to $8K/month. - Anika Malone

@Alex: "John in Texas" substituted his own thinking for those of the lender and his CPA. I'm not saying the lenders weren't greedy bastards, but ... he sounds like he knew he should do 10% but was persuaded and pressured into another loan product. For the biggest purchase in your life, a borrower should be hyper vigilant! Lenders took advantage of greed and lack of confidence/fortitude to say no or demand a different product. Do you trust the car salesman? - AJ Kohn

+1 Tad - rowlikeagirl

I agree that there was A LOT of bad lending and bad mortgages, but I've heard so many stories on NPR about people who were encouraged to buy a home that would normally be out of their income reach. They go ahead and buy it and then say things like "Well, he decided to stay home with the kids" or whatever and suddenly they can't afford it. Obviously. That kind of math won't work. I think the stories were meant to make the listeners feel sorry for the consumers, but it had quite the opposite effect. - JoEllen

Seems like finance 101 to only borrow what you can realistically afford to pay back, not what the lenders will lend you, or what you in your wildest fantasies think will be earning in the future. - Jason Kaneshiro

In some cases, lenders were steering consumers towards these loans because the loan officer recieved a larger commission. Listen to the This American Life episode "The Big Pool of Money." - Steve Lynch via twhirl

@ Steve - that was the BEST explanation of this whole crisis. I think that particular episode deserves an award. - JoEllen

This American Life gets a big +1 from me. - MikeAmundsen

All I'm going to say is who is stupid enough to accept 8% on an ARM? -- btw I haven't read the majority of these comments. I shall catch up and notice my own stupidity rather shortly I'm sure - Lindsey

How many houses does a typical person buy in their lifetime? Normally the way you learn how to make good decisions is through experience, but that's not really possible for rare events like house purchases. Realtor™s, on the other hand, spend all of their time dealing with these transactions, so it's not a fair negotiation. If you don't know what you're doing and don't know someone to ask for help, you're going to get screwed. That's why I've stayed away from real estate. - Jim Norris

I'm lucky. I got a fixed rate 5.875% mortgage that's actually about $100k LESS than my home is worth now. I bought in 2002 with 10% down, just before the prices went wild. Even with the downturn, it's still worth more than I paid. - Mike Hussein Cohen

If you sign the paperwork then you have an obligation to read and understand it. You can't blame anyone else. - Cains

If more people knew a good common-sense rule about how much to borrow, this wouldn't have happened to them. No more than 25% of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage. It is just that simple. - Dave Roth

Thanks, Dave. In Silicon Valley, that means I can afford a 300 square foot house with no floor. - Glen Campbell

@Dave, I agree. Many people I know have enormous credit card and other debt because they want to own fancy cars and live a big life but couldn't really afford it. If you can't afford something, you know you can't. It's just that simple. - Patricia

@ Patricia - I agree. I think misplaced lifestyle priorities are a huge factor as well, not for everyone - but for some. - JoEllen

I think there were a lot of sad people out there so desperate to be homeowners they unfortunately didn't take proper care to read all the fine print. Yes, they're responsible for the mess they're in. But I think there's also some people out there who were flat-out lied to and taken advantage of because of their desperation. It's not so black and white. - rowlikeagirl

Lindsey, I have worse than 8% on an 3/1 ARM and knew the deal going in. Long story short we both had crap credit and found a house at a point in time where we needed to act ASAP. But instead of the house price = 3x your gross rule, we bought a house whose price was less than 1 yr gross. Even after taxes & insurance it's rent was, paying 2yrs on the note has helped the credit IMMENSELY (along w/ other steps of course), and we bought at 75% of the appraised value (in an area that is still appreciating, unlike the rest of the country). - Stupid Blogger (aka Tina)

@Glen At least until house prices fell to come more in line with rents - which is what's happening right now. - Jason Kaneshiro

Not everyone should be buying a house. If you can't afford to buy, don't. It's not worth putting your whole financial future at risk. If you're not financially prepared, a house will become a curse, not a blessing. - Dave Roth

@ rowlikeagirl - I agree, but the proposed bailout of these mortgages doesn't allow the public to choose who was swindled and who was irresponsible - we're being asked to take care of all of them. - JoEllen

Few people were truly lied to. Mortgages come with salesmen, much like cars. They have a set of ethics to follow and if they have broken them then they need to be punished. But the majority were people who simply didn't do their homework. No government intervention is needed, just refinance and move along. - Cains

But where do you go to understand the small print? Who do you ask when you need help with your homework? Isn't that what accountants are supposed to be there for? - Jim Norris

Every mortgage is a voluntary contract between two parties. You can't say you didn't agree to the terms. If you don't understand, don't sign. - Dave Roth

... and they say nobody could have seen this coming. Makes you sick. - john conroy

nah it was everyone, goes to show u give us a gto with a full tank and were gonna floor it and not use the brake unless were forced to. - adolfo foronda

Homeowners do share the blame, but the lenders are the ones with the financial knowledge and savvy. It's an imbalance of power - how can you ethically give a mortgage to someone who may not afford it? - Bonnie Dean

Sorry, but I've been in the same house since 1980, paying down the mortgage every month and refinancing once. I've played by the rules and I don't feel at all responsible. - Dan McGinn-Combs

Dan: Downturns can hit responsible people too. One UCLA friend bought a house in 1989 (like parents & grandparents before him), put 20% down & made payments for 8 years, but the LA housing market went down ~50% between 1989-97, and he finally declared bankruptcy on an upside-down house mortgage (on the advice of his accountant). Sadly, he missed the housing upturn, but 9 years is a long-time for a 20-yr-old to wait. - Mitchell Tsai

haha Brilliant BRILLIANT! - Zee from WeDoCreative

hahahahahahahahahahahahaha - Mona N.

awesome - Yolanda ♥s Nuttycakes

How can you not Likey this? - Charlie Anzman

Awesome! Got one in an Adult XL? - Anthony K. Valley ©

:D Adorable - Mo Kargas

beautiful baby - johnpiercy

We've taken to calling Matthew "Bubba". This outfit, though still a bit roomy, is a 6-month outfit. He's just past three months. Hog. - Louis Gray

totally freakin love it - Dustin Harris

Get the outfit here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshir... - Louis Gray

Best post title today. - Jack Carlson

It's when you check for "packet loss" that there's an issue. - Chris Brogan

"Technology doesn't solve everything - humans do!" ;-) - Jesse Stay via twhirl

Yeah, heart feels like it's smiling. - Nice Fish Films

THAT IS FUNNY!! very cute indeed! IP ...ha, ha!!! - Susan Beebe

Thanks for that - I needed a laugh this morning :-) - Tim Chemacki

this is awesome. - Melissa

I know. SO want! - Mona N.

なにこれ！面白いね！カードが光るの？ - **sirop

NEED - Amber aka SDA

Uh..yeah...word - ♫ Rahsheen™

Lightweight? Could give business cards a new shine though.. - Jason Brooks

wow! where does one get this? - tsiakhyie

Awesome! - Shawn aka ringking

wow, that's really trippy! "rad" LOL Mona!! sooo 80s! - Susan Beebe

damn innovative - Zee from WeDoCreative

"screw flashlights" -> "unscrew light bulbs" :) - 9000