That definitely looks like a guy who would have ploopy open source headphones.

I have a pretty reasonable grasp of delta V. While my comment is flippant, you can launch Eastward from the equator any day and end up in space: deep space if you have sufficient velocity (though usually you’d do that with one or more gravity assists). The sun is the only other place you can go any day, but there’s huge angular velocity to overcome to make a direct shot.

It really really is the case mathematically that if you just want to go to deep space it’s not as difficult as trying to figure out how to go to a particular place, as anyone who has ever done trajectory planning with STK will tell you. More difficult from a cost and engineering perspective, sure, but mathematically easier to just shoot in a direction at escape velocity for the sun whatever day you want.

I mean yeah, the sun is in one place, space is basically anywhere else. It’s easier to shoot anywhere than to shoot somewhere.

Eh. I don’t think you need to specify “stalk”. I would be fine with physical buttons anywhere within easy reach. If they want to make a racing wheel that has 30 switches on it, I think I’m fine with that.

I appreciate that SOME things don’t have buttons now: getting into a BMW with that has the same number of buttons and switches as the cockpit of an airliner is ridiculous.

Yeah I kinda figured that was the case but I didn’t want to sound like some rich prick that people here in the comments would like to eat lol. As I understand it, you’re just better off taking the interest off your bank accounts vs trying to swing a single rental. Flipping can work but it requires an amount of skill that not everybody has, especially if you have to hire contractors to do the work for you. But yeah if I were to do it, I would probably run straight to a management company.

It seems to me that the average “slightly above average Joe” could afford a second property; my parents are not wealthy (they are semi retired and generally gross less than 20k/year, but own all their stuff outright) but found a house to rent to my brother and I while we were in college and it was a huge boon for everyone involved. My family income is significantly higher, but we don’t have a pool full of money to swim in. From the outside it looks like real estate is an attractive, stable way to grow an investment as opposed to stock market dabbles.

As an aside, and this is all an incredibly “first world” kind of a situation, but I’m not sure how you address the bitterness of some circles (like maybe this thread?) toward the layer of people who got ROI on hard work: I’d also be a proponent of limiting legacy wealth and eating billionaires. I was in college for 15 years at a state school and worked 10 at a university before I made big boy money and got stuff on my own. Not everybody who has some extra money got it by lucky birth or by exploiting the masses and I’ve still got loans to pay, why not own some houses for people like past-me to rent and make a little extra for the effort? I guess it’s easier to see it this way from this side of the problem.

I appreciate a sane viewpoint.

Buy a second house, fix it up, then sell it OR rent it to help cover the debt and maybe generate enough income to retire early. It’s one of not very many ways regular(ish) people can reliably climb the financial ladder or not work until 75.

Nobody needs 40 properties, but I don’t see anything wrong with one or two. I’m not a landlord myself, but I’ve rented and owned and can see the appeal of a second property.

I don’t think they are called something else, but they aren’t common in the Midwest US. Most households are using central heating and air conditioning. I’ve seen mini splits before in Europe, but didn’t know that’s what they were called

For anyone else not in the know, a mini split seems to be a standalone heating and cooling appliance.