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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • The “speculative investors removing housing stock to drive up costs” folks tend to be corporately owned and industry coordinated properties that deliberately keep units open above the clearing rate, in hopes of driving up the prevailing cost of new housing.

    This is dependant on the market (the post didn’t say where they are), but I understand is true in the US.

    In Australia, the speculation is driven by individuals who get incredible tax incentives if their income is above a certain level. Because of this, the housing market is distorted to the point where housing values are detached from rent potential, with all the value being driven by capital gains and tax offsets. This further leads to a situation where it’s often more economically viable to leave a house empty (and therefore not have to maintain the property or deal with tenants) while the value grows and the tax is written down.



  • Because he has unrealized capital gains - in yearly income/expenditure their losing money but big picture, when they sell, they profit.

    In Australia, rental returns are paltry (less than 2%) compared to any other investment, but steep tax concessions on and insane capital growth (often higher than 6% annually) incentivises speculative investment in real estate… This is what’s driving up the cost of housing to the cartoonist levels they currently are in. It’s not unusual for these speculators to not even bother with tenants, because like op suggests they often lose money maintaining the property, it’s cheaper to speculate and maybe renovate immediately before selling.

    The problem has nothing to do with landlords and everything to do with speculators going for capital gains. Greedy landlords can be a problem where there are no rentals protections, but that can easily be resolved with regulation.



  • I used to have a pebble back in the day, and then later a pebble steel. I’ve not found a modern smartwatch that is as good for my needs (partially because it doesn’t look like a smartwatch).

    I use a Samsung Galaxy wear, which also looks like a normal watch. I’m sure competing products are used a lot and you just don’t notice them because their styling is modelled off of dumb watches.


  • If people wanted them, they’d sell them here.

    Yeah depending on where “here” is different things are available. If people don’t buy them or if dealers make more money off SUVs, then they will be gone.

    Also seems they have bigger engines and clearly a larger physical footprint than my wife’s CUV, so that argument is gone as well.

    Size and fuel economy weren’t things I mentioned above, but yeah I agree with you. Usually station wagons, like SUVs, have different engine configurations which dictates fuel economy more than ride height. The fuel efficiency argument against SUVs is a little out of date, the smaller ones are shared chassis with passenger cars often with the same engine, so fuel economy is more or less unchanged (the aero is worse on an SUV, but the kind we are discussing it’s not really significant). By footprint I guess you mean length, which in the example I have is right, obviously height goes the other way. Smaller SUVs are more comparable to hatchbacks (eg Mazda 3 is the same as CX-30), I don’t think the mid sized car platform is as directly comparable to the mid sized CUV/SUV.





  • Relative to motor vehicles cyclists cause zero damage to roads. All pay taxes. Motorists are therefore subsidized by cyclists.

    This is not at all in dispute.

    Melbourne’s bike network is extensive and goes through many areas of the city. Not just to million dollar homes.

    I don’t agree with this. The inner suburbs have good bike lanes, places like pakenham or cragieburn do not. I admit the million dollar number was a bad way of phrasing what I actually mean (and distracts because it’s a wrong claim), which is unaffordable. Yes you can safely ride from like glenroy which is well connected with bike lanes, but family homes in glenroy exceed $800k which is ludicrous for a low income family.

    Many people ride bikes because they can’t afford cars.

    Absolutely. Many others drive cars because they can’t afford to live close enough to the city for riding to be safe and practical. Different housing needs drive different outcomes here.

    Suburbia is further subsidized by cities and North American suburbs should never have existed in the way that they do.

    Absolutely agree. However they do and a conscious, deliberate effort is needed over time to correct this.

    Everything about your logic is backwards and focused on car drivers and suburbanites experiencing no discomfort during a transition to sustainability while all discomfort is placed on others.

    A lot of your points I unreservedly agree with, so if you feel they have anything to do with my logic then your contradicting yourself. In your whole.paragraph there’s only a single point that I don’t agree with.



  • I would argue that’s overly simplistic. In Melbourne, where I’m from, cycling infrastructure is passable in the inner city suburbs where house prices average well over a million dollars very high, and effectively only available to wealthier people. The outer suburbs, where there is no cycling infrastructure and limited public transport but affordablish housing, life is such that cars are necessary.

    In cases such as this, motorists subsidizing cyclists is the rich being subsidized by the poor. I would far prefer a system where cyclists (and public transit) are subsidized by the rich, and longer term plans are implemented to remove the mandate of cars to the working poor, which in my example would mean current cyclists funding current motorists (with an intention to convert them to former motorists).




  • bigschnitz@lemmy.worldtoAndroid@lemmy.worldShould I buy a Pixel or a Samsung?
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    1 year ago

    I went from Samsung S10+ to a pixel 5 which was a huge upgrade. Pixel 5 to pixel 7 pro was a considerably bigger downgrade. After my experience, I’m at least a few generations and a lot of reviews between my next pixel or tensor phone.

    P7P:

    • overheats with light use

    • between 1/2 and 1 days battery life

    • persistent screen glare

    • worst android UI I’ve seen since maybe my galaxy s3? Genuinely so long I can’t even really be sure.

    • terrible build materials. Mad slippy and will break if dropped even a small distance

    • worst fingerprint sensor I’ve used.

    • most limited customization of any android in recent memory, combined with awful stock ux


  • Mate if it’s going to make you happy, yeah I thought the crv was a different car.

    I also made a few other errors.

    It’s definitely impossible to understand what I consider to be a small SUV from the examples given, there’s no way anyone could possibly read into the context and work it out, it was wrong of me to suggest it was obvious. This oversight obviously entirely undermines the actual examples I’d given of where SUVs that have less storage than wagons, obviously a small SUV isn’t like the q3 or mid q5 like I’d suggested, it makes far more sense to start a conversation about small at the standard or full size segment with what appears to be the literal largest size vehicle from a manufacturer.

    I was also wrong to suggest that, like the hundreds of thousands who raised families before the rise of the SUV, that you could have chosen a station wagon to meet your needs. I concede unreservedly, my definition of small is wrong, everyone who needs to transport 4 people needs 7 seats. Further, though I didn’t articulate it, I naively thought that things like roof storage and bike racks and other science fiction ideas could further increase storage potential of vehicles.

    Thank you for so carefully dissecting my original points and teaching me to learn from my mistakes, I feel like such an idiot for spouting such nonsense. Have a great night.



  • The problem with making claims like this is easily refuted they are.

    I’m sure this will be entirely genuine.

    A quick Google search puts cargo space in an Audi a6 wagon at 30 cubic ft. An Audi q3 (small SUV) has less than 24 and an Audi q5 has 26.

    Ah, I see - a $68k car compares ~10% better to that same brand’s $37k and $44k small SUVs. This highlights an additional facet to the equation, that of cost-effectiveness. Are you willing to pay 83-55% more for 11-25% more cargo space?

    Cost was not mention in your claim. You said no car could compete on cargo space. I’m not really interested engaging in a straw man about cost. There are cheaper stations wagons in production, I chose one that was easy to compare.

    This trend is typical for all full sized wagons compared to compact SUVs (many share the same platform).

    If you artificially restrict your comparison to same-manufacturer e.g. Audi, sure, though I’m not sure why anyone would do so.

    I did that for my ease to demonstrate the point. If you want to choose to be wrong and pretend other manufacturers are radically different, by all means do so. If you think I’m wrong, you can spend your own time checking my claim that this is consistent for other manufacturers. I’m not motivated to spoon feed it to you, I think even if I did you’d invent new strawmen or move goalposts to justify your wrong claim above.

    Any claim to have experienced something else is clearly misinformed as demonstrated by a quick Google search.

    My Mitsubishi Outlander clocks in at 64.3ft^3 cargo space as demonstrated by a quick Google search - this seems to beat your magical A6’s 30ft^3 by double. I’m sure there are other small SUVs out there which have similar or better cargo-space. Misinformed, indeed.

    Ah yes, the “small” full sized SUV (literally the largest Mitsubishi on sale in the USA) with three rows of seats. Your post claimed “small” SUV, that implies something like a crv, q3, macan etc. 64.3ft is with seats folded down, so yes a full sized SUV boot + rear seats is often bigger than a wagon boot only (you can usually fold the seats in a wagon as well). Frustratingly I was mislead by your"small SUV" comment above.

    An honest comparison is the third row of seats folded down with second row up (presumably consistent with your two children being the car, no?). So 34 odd cubic feet, admittedly higher than the literal first wagon I thought of as a point of comparison for a small SUV. Compared to a full size SUV I don’t know offhand if there’s a wagon with more space, obviously if you move the goalposts that much it’s hard to present an argument.

    Yes, I’ve assumed that you’ve behaved in a way consistent with the overwhelming majority of people.

    I’m not quite sure how you arrived at that conclusion as you’ve demonstrated here a profound myopia regarding available options and fair comparison of those options, but hey. Thanks for re-confirming your flawed assumptions.

    A Mitsubishi outlander is not a small SUV bro. If you go back and read my earlier post you should be able to follow my logic pretty easily, I thought we were talking about something similar to an Audi q3.

    Unfortunately, the errors - in assuming one’s use case, in applying flawed logic, in generalizing from artificially-narrow subsets of data, and in riding one’s high-horse - are all still yours. I look forward to your correcting yourself.

    Well, enjoy it. Clearly I was pointing out that a small SUV does not have more cargo space than a conventional station wagon, clearly we define small differently if you think that monster is small…

    With only the third row pushed down you do have slightly more space than the audi wagon, though I am still convinced that the station wagon can accommodate kids, bikes and holiday luggage based on the many, many years I used one for exactly that. Since you’re committed to claiming that the extra 3ft of storage is make or break then I can’t objectively argue the point.

    I “will get back on my high horse” and say that the original post misrepresented the vehicle you’d chosen and reaffirm that I believe your insistence that “no car or station wagon” could accommodate your needs, as described above, is based upon being influenced by others and is not based in reality. Thousands of people have used station wagons for exactly that purpose for decades.


  • A small or mid sized SUV usually has cargo space comparable to a hatchback, definitely less than a station wagon.

    Having experience with SUVs, hatchbacks, and wagons, I’ve yet to find that to be the case.

    The problem with making claims like this, without actually having checked first, is how easily refuted they are by someone who has. A quick Google search puts cargo space in an Audi a6 wagon at 30 cubic ft. An Audi q3 (small SUV) has less than 24 and an Audi q5 has 26. This trend is typical for all full sized wagons compared to compact SUVs (many share the same platform). The compact platform is comparable to the 22 cubic ft in a vw golf (small hatchback) - this makes sense as the vw gold and q3 literally share a platform (as is common for small SUVs and hatchbacks across brands). Any claim to have experienced something else is clearly misinformed as demonstrated by a quick Google search.

    That guy correctly pointed out your logic is flawed

    They shared a faulty conclusion they’d already drawn regarding the universal supremacy of one option and universal failing of another option even before truly understanding my use case.

    Aided by a quick Google search I’ve demonstrated that your claimed experience is flat wrong. You’ve been misled (or could be knowingly lying, but that is not very likely).

    if you’ve been convinced by a salesman that the cargo space is something other than what it is, reflecting on that could make you a more informed consumer in the future

    And if you’ve assumed I had been convinced by a salesman rather than understanding my own use-cases and requirements and selecting a vehicle which meets those needs, not only have you erred, you’ve disregarded my highlight of having done so in my initial post.

    Yes, I’ve assumed that you’ve behaved in a way consistent with the overwhelming majority of people. Your claims about cargo space are wrong, so if that’s the basis of your use case as described in your previous post and you’re honestly representing what you think, you have been misled. With the information presented, knowledge of the vehicles described and a basic knowledge of how marketing works, this seems by a huge margin to be the most likely case.

    Getting annoyed at people commenting because you perceived them to have a ‘holier than thou’ attitude on it won’t benefit anyone.

    My experience has been that criticizing the arrogance and assumptions of those in an ivory tower has been more enabling - indeed, more enabling of more informed discourse - than comments defending the actual arrogance and assumptions of a rando.

    Well, I’ve now given some informed examples of cargo space so perhaps now that you’ve been presented with actual numbers (which I’d invite you to check yourself if you think I’ve invented them) you can now review your assumptions and reflect on how people are manipulated into believing that small/compact SUVs offer better cargo space or are somehow superior to conventional cars, when in fact they are not. To say no car measured up either means you didn’t check or you were misled.