Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

A Post That Deliberately Sucks

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Slope of Hope is obviously not a site that does consumer product reviews, but I want to make an exception this time regarding the iRobot Room 880.

I’ll start by saying I’m a bit of a neat freak. I like things clean and orderly. But I’m also, shall we say, thrifty, so I don’t want to pay a housekeeper to show up too frequently.

A number of years ago, I bought a robotic vacuum cleaner from the relatively new company iRobot. It did OK, I guess, but it was really nothing that special. After a few weeks, I pretty much just shelved it, because it was too weak to provide any true cleaning power. I pretty much wrote off iRobot as a gimmick for years and years. I didn’t want to bother trying again.

A couple of months ago, I finally treated myself to the top-end vacuum robot, which is the model 880. In spite of my lame-o experience with the iRobot vacuum many years ago, the reviews of the new model were so positive, I decided to give it another shot.

Well, I’m a fan now. This thing is terrific. It does a fantastic job, and – – maybe I’m crazy – – but the ability to press a button and have something perform labor for me free of charge and without complaint is a really nice feeling. It’s sort of like having a slave without one iota of guilt (although, queerly, I still rush to the Roomba’s aid if it ever gets stuck somewhere, since I do feel kind of sorry for it when it starts beeping).

In any case, if there are any fellow Felix Unger types out there, I heartily recommend the 880, which you can get from Amazon for less than $600 (I paid over $700, but a recent price drop has made it even more attractive). Happy cleaning!

Misremembering

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Like a lot of people through the years, I had a fairly lousy time socially in the eighth grade. I had just moved to the Bay Area, and as a smart, gentle kid, I made an easy target for bullies. I didn’t go to a rough school at all, but still, there are going to be a few assholes anywhere you go, and my new town was no exception, and they had no trouble sniffing out the nice guy for verbal abuse. (One of the few kids who was consistently nice to me was pretty much the first girl I met out here who, incidentally, became my wife and mother of our children).

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Watch Out for the “Big Freeze” (Bull Squeeze)

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From the Monthly chart of the Dow Jones Composite Index, I’m seeing a “dinosaur” formation from 1999 to the present (first the tail, then legs, neck, and finally the head and nose — where price is now). We all know that dinosaurs became extinct…my gut tells me that this present dinosaur bull run is not sustainable — and likely due for a very big fall — possibly in a 2-tier drop (big drop, small bounce, and big drop).

There are three reasons why major support lies between 4733 and 4900 on this index, which, technically, could be hit by December 2015…there is a tri-Fibonacci confluence at that spot (denoted by the red rectangle).

Watch out for the “big freeze” (bull squeeze) by Christmas.