Informational Geometry

I've been dreaming about houses. It's a mystery how many beautiful old victorians stand vacant in Baltimore when it lies just an hour up the road from Washington DC. Sure this is an old rust belt city but it's not like Detroit, it's close to Philadelphia and New York, there's a lot going on. We have Michael Phelps and Ace of Cakes, a symphony, opera, and one of the biggest ports in the USA. So how come there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of vacant houses in Baltimore? I explored a few rehabs last weekend in an attempt to learn if they are worth it, I'm sharing some thoughts and photos here with you. I looked at 10 different houses from a 7 bedroom mansion-townhouse in Reservoir Hill (for $200k) to a small but charming house actually in a good neighborhood, Mount Vernon (also for 200k). These homes however are in fairly bad neighborhoods and are as cheap as it gets. North Avenue Nomansland for $60k From Baltimore Rehabs Pt.1 From Baltimore Rehabs Pt.1 For see...

Here are a few fascinating news items which caught my attention this week and I wanted to share. Guess which drug is illegal? One deadens nerves, barely works, has foul side effects. The other helps you feel God By Mark Morford , SF Gate Columnist Friday, January 18, 2008 As reported by the Washington Post and the Guardian, as far as PTSD alone is concerned, some docs already see MDMA as potentially life-saving, a true wonder drug, which might even be administered to all our traumatized U.S. soldiers. Which could be good news indeed, given how an estimated 24 million Americans suffer from PTSD, whereas only a fraction of that number claim to have fibromyalgia. - - - Um... how fucking broken and downright unfair is the entire banking system? Baltimore Finds Subprime Crisis Snags Women By JOHN LELAND Published: January 15, 2008 ... Though women and men have roughly the same credit scores, the Consumer Federation of America found that women were 32 percent more likely to receive subprim...