101–110 of 115 posts
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Good point, I didn't think about the value of being able to do other activities. Hard to quantify with a monetary value though!
Actually it's not difficult. Calculate your hourly wage (salary + benefits)/hours_worked, and value all of your time as such. It will help you a lot to avoid wasting time doing stuff you don't like that you can pay people to do for you at a lower cost to you.
None of this is relevant if you have a child or dog. I know that Uber are starting to make provisions for children but there's a long way to go. But try getting a 140lb dog to the vet without your own car...
"About two years ago I sold my Lexus GS 300 and replaced it with a sleek single-speed Pure Fix commuter bike" This brought a vision of someone trying to descend from capitol hill here in seattle on a fixie (something I saw the last week) - a fixie, while still stupid is at least workable in LA (though I'd still never own one, I prefer gears), it still seems wholly impractical for seattle.
I see single-speed bikers as the luddites of cycling. I live in a relatively flat city, Dublin, but I am still constantly shifting gears. I think a lot of people don't understand how good gears really are. In a similar way, there are a lot of people cycling mountain bikes around the city, and I didn't appreciate how much better actual road bikes are while I still had my hybrid. And for non-cyclists: 15 mph (25 kmph)…
Perhaps there's some macho fitness thing involved. Perhaps people find lots of gears intimidating or derailleurs unreliable, in which case there is the good old Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub gear.
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> More realistically, these commute times could easily be tripled in most cities Parking is a significant cost for him, which is LA-specific, but still could be a significant burden. > I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep this car unless it needs major mechanical repairs, and so far it hasn't. Your repair cost is not zero, it's the cost of a major repair multiplied by the probability of it being required. Otherwise your…
> Parking cost Yeah, I can see that. And hassle. If I lived in a sufficiently dense city with good public transit, I'd get rid of my car tomorrow. In my area, you can get reserved spots for ~$250/mo. L.A. seems to run ~$100/mo to $300/mo depending on area. > Otherwise your model is not very predictive. No, it's perfectly predictive. I have a threshold that I will not exceed in a single repair on my car or in more tha…
For a car we bought for $6500 with 179K miles and now has 214K miles (and is worth $2000+), that's pretty damned good, I'd say.
My next car is overwhelmingly likely to be another E-class diesel. This one will probably die from rust from salt usage in New England winters, not becoming mechsnically untenable.
Wife's well-used Honda CR-V has needed more work in the 3 years we've had it, but still beats the stuffing out of the AAA model of car ownership expense!
Having done these calculations a while back, I was seriously thrown off by this claim: > However, Americans who drive less than 9,481 miles in a year should seriously consider ditching their car, because UberX will be cheaper. Well, maybe. I drive 5k miles a year and determined that it would be more expensive to shift to either UberX or Zipcar. Let's see what is up with the math: > Costs of ownership The largest erro…
The only way i can see the average American paying $1300 per year or $100/month is if they are including the added cost of have a parking space at home. Remember, $1300 is the average. Most Americans pay nothing for parking except for a few $10-20 parking fees when going to a big city. I'm guessing the assumption is that if you rent a place for $1500 per month and it has a parking space, $100 of that is the cost of t…
I found his point of being a young black male and not having to be pulled over again to be striking. I am sure that black people are pulled over more times by the police then whites are. What could be the reasoning and the solution(s). Is it because... - The cops are really racist? - The cops are looking for a suspect that matches those unfairly targeted? In which and unfortunately points to a statistic that black ma…
The thing is, when white people are looking for a white suspect of a crime, they identify (for example) a heavyset 30-ish white male with short cropped brown hair, wearing a red tshirt and blue jeans. When they are looking for a black suspect, it's "a black male".
This attitude is reflected by your own (probably well-intentioned) statement that people who live in a majority-black neighborhood all resemble each other. Take it from a (white) guy who has lived in some -- they don't.
P.s. Video of LeVar Burton explaining how he talks to his son about what to do when you get pulled over: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/07/02/2245561/levar-bu.... This is what a bona fide, well-known and family-friendly celebrity has to deal with in ordinary life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point, I didn't think about the value of being able to do other activities. Hard to quantify with a monetary value though!
Actually it's not difficult. Calculate your hourly wage (salary + benefits)/hours_worked, and value all of your time as such. It will help you a lot to avoid wasting time doing stuff you don't like that you can pay people to do for you at a lower cost to you.
Even for people running their own business on the side. Times and times again we see article on HN how IT guys can't really be more productive than a few hours a day. Also, to get back to my dish washing example - I ( and other on HN too ) noticed that that sort of repetitive work is a lot better for reflection. Replacing it with a 1 hour session playing games, working or other activities may actually be overall detrimental to your side business.
What is actually useful though is to use your hourly salary to evaluate the cost of the services you buy. Like why would I expect a professional with more than 10 years experience in his field, coming to my place in the evening to work for less than 10$ a hour ?
Every article about Uber, Lyft, and electric vehicles ends up with the majority of the comments saying something along the lines of, "This is stupid because it doesn't fit my situation." For what is usually such an open-minded group of individuals it seems as if personal transportation is the topic where that open-mindedness doesn't extend. (Though that might be true for the population as a whole--gas prices is a leg…
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I looked into the AAA's "depreciation" and "interest" numbers, and it turns out the calculations are based on buying a car brand new with borrowed money, paying it off over the course of five years (at what must be a rather large interest rate given the average $900+ cost), and then selling it off the moment you're done paying it off. So let's just say that we're comparing to a really dumb and expensive mode of car o…
Not to mention the fact that a few times (at least) per year, people are likely to use their cars for much more than just a local public transport replacement, but will want to drive across the country with the car loaded to the hilt with holiday gear of some description.