College Towns with the Best Broadband

Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence rated the broadband performance of 100 college towns in the US. Interesting. Think this aspect becomes more and more important as time goes by. No excuse in my mind for a college town not to have adequate broadband.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Why a second opinion is always valuable: if you know a lot of nurses and doctors and see the mistakes they make in their personal lives - you may rightly question their judgement. Why assume the same folks are perfect all the time in their medical diagnosis?... Wait - Cirque du Soleil is owned by the Chinese now? Not 100% ownership but enough to cross them off my list of things I'd pay to see... Heh Heh... If the Chinese do start seizing Western assets and companies as some have predicted - I wonder what would happen if they tried to seize the Tesla Gigafactory? Would Elon Musk have the ability to disable all the Tesla cars in China remotely from Texas? How great would that be?... Colleges have "shed" 10% of their employees (about 550,000) since the start of the pandemic. "Shed" seems an interesting choice of words. Normally a word associated with "unwanted" or "unnecessary" as in I "shed" 10 pounds on this new diet. Would be interesting to know the makeup of those who lost their jobs. How many were custodial or facilities, administration or professors?... 

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Hong Kong in Ireland? That would be cool but you'd think Australia would be the natural landing spot given the proximity.

- Heh Heh - Orcs march on Minas Tirith in mostly peaceful protest

- 14 colleges in New York likely to "perish" in coronavirus pandemic. List includes names like Fordham and Hofstra and St John's. 

- Tesla Model 3 three-year anniversary: How one sedan changed cars forever.

- Steven Pressfield: The King Archetype. Be the king!

- Over 100 police agencies reportedly pull out of agreements to guard DNC Convention in Milwaukee. Why would any police officers want to be at a place where they are not wanted or valued?

Real Estate

The real estate market in the US is going to topsy-turvy for the next couple of years. And there's a number of factors at play.

Yes - many people will be moving out of cities. Because of the Wuhan Virus many companies have adopted a work from home (which during the pandemic has been shortened to WFH because I guess "telecommutng" was too passe) policy. No longer do most people need to live near the city where they work. Shorter commutes will be replaced with "no commutes."

Living in cities during times of pandemic has also now been associated with an unhealthy lifestyle. Close quarters, elevators and subways have been identified as petri dishes of virus spreading. Those things don't exist for the most part in the suburbs or rural areas.

But strangely cities in Blue states will be harmed much more than cities in Red states. Riots and ridiculous pushes to "defund the police" will lead so many to flee their current city. How would you like to be trying to sell your home in Minneapolis, New York City, or Seattle right about now? Also the yo-yo of open/shutdown in Los Angeles and San Fran have people screaming "Enough!" and packing a U-Haul for freedom out of California.

Many fleeing their Red-state cities will be moving to Blue states. So there may actually be a bit of a balance in pricing overall in the US (prices go down in Blue states as there is a glut and nobody wanting to move there and prices going up Red states with people flooding in).

Also there will be a apartment rental glut in not just those Blue cities but also in college towns across the country. With many colleges and universities going to virtual classrooms in the fall there are many apartments near campus that will remain empty as students either stay at home or take a gap year. Many of these apartments were bought as investment properties and the lack of renters may cause these investments to go belly-up.

Then we have the election in November. That has the potential to not just wreck the stock market but also the housing market too.

It looks like it will be a topsy-turvy world in real estate for probably at least two years.