Open Mike: Apex Products

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP, wherein Mike scats and vamps and riffs off the top of his pointy head. When all is right with the world, it appears on Wednesdays.]

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Thomas Riley Marshall, Vice President of the United States under Woodrow Wilson, was presiding over the Senate—one of the VP's duties in our country—when he was forced to listen one day to a litany of complaints from various Senators about what was wrong about America. When it came his turn to speak, he spoke a line that became famous: "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar."

The phrase, usually credited to Marshall, went on to be used by several generations of Americans to complain about anything that was overpriced or fancier than it needed to be.

Marshall, however, was probably quoting a line from the 19th-century humorist Kin Hubbard, the author of a popular cartoon that ran in newspapers from 1904 to 1930. The Senators were probably already familiar with it. Another line Kin Hubbard made famous was, "It ain't no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be," quoted later by Kurt Vonnegut in his novels Slaughterhouse-five and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater.

Another of Kin Hubbard's many maxims might pertain to more than a few photo enthusiasts: "Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men."

Guilty!

Levels
I don't smoke cigars and never have, but, without ever thinking about it too much, I've always kinda liked the five-cent cigar thing. One reason might be because I'm a Hoosier* by birth, and Hoosiers cotton to cornpone. They like, or used to like, homespun, old-timey, good-natured down-home humor. And another might be because the notion of solid, unpretentious, middle-of-the-road, good-enough products, of whatever type, has a natural appeal to me on the level of idealistic principle. I like 'em. And I enjoy the task of finding that level.

So what level is that?

Products of all sorts by nature follow a bell curve, where the left side of the graph and the lead-in tail of the curve represents woefully insufficient quality and dolorous cheapness, and the far tail over at the right is excess, decadence, one-upsmanship, greed, naked status display, and the rubbing of one's neighbors' noses in the fatness of one's wallet. Both extremes are deplorable in my view of things. Both are unbalanced; both verge on the immoral; and both are traditionally un-American. I don't care for extremes. Just because something is good doesn't mean more of it is better. Seek the middle. Find balance.

It's raining, better get back inside
I'll give you an example. I saw a memorable interview on television once with a couple who were living in a dumpster. That is, the dumpster was their address; it was their domicile; it was where they slept and kept their things. As an abode, a human habitation, the dumpster had a few shortcomings. It was not big enough to stand up in, for one thing. It smelled bad, although the man informed the interviewer that "you get used to it." (I doubt many in the audience were eager to test that claim themselves, though.) Entry and egress were awkward. The roof—AKA the hinged plastic lid—did not keep rain out entirely, nor did it provide the ordinary security of even a screen door with a hook-and-eye on it.

A hook-and-eye latch—too luxurious for a dumpster dwelling

And of course, passers-by regularly threw a varied mix of trash and garbage down on their heads, which the couple then had to remove and stack on the pavement in the alley next to the dumpster. I'm just guessing, but I'll bet the lack of a kitchen or a bathroom in the home was also a drawback.

At the end of the interview, it started to rain. The couple apologized that it was inconvenient for them to get wet, because they had no place to wash or dry their clothes. Thus they excused themselves. The camera and the television audience then watched as they climbed into their house and closed the lid.

Contrast this to where another couple lives: a 37,000-square-foot mansion with thirteen buildings, forty bathrooms, three complete kitchens, a movie theater, indoor and outdoor pools, a bowling alley, a sauna with massage tables, a 20,000-bottle wine cellar, six bars, twelve bedrooms (seven with adjacent sitting rooms), a meditation room—and so on; the list of all the features of the home is longer than it is interesting, but you get the idea—on 52 acres of meticulously manicured land. In this house, the servants' quarters occupy more square footage than, well, several average houses. (In 2015 the average American house had 2,687 square feet of living space, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That would be a pretty lavish apartment in New York City but smaller than you're allowed to build in some Midwestern housing developments).

Both of these examples, the dumpster and the estate, are beyond three standard deviations from the mean—one at one end, the other at the other. Neither are very satisfactory.

You might say one extreme is noxious, whereas the other is obnoxious.

Seek the middle way
At the apex of the bell curve might be, what, a good, solid, tidy 3,500-square-foot house, nicely constructed of good but not lavish materials, durable, safe, with one kitchen, three or four bedrooms, two and a half or three and a half bathrooms, and an attached two- or three-car garage, on a half acre or so of land maybe, in a nice, friendly, safe, and hopefully not too sterile or "Stepford-wife"** neighborhood. Affordable but not cheap; nice but not too nice; gracious but comfortable.

That or something near it would be the apex house, at least in the areas of the United States where I've lived, and according to my middle class, middlebrow values.

Of course, the apex of a bell curve is, sensibly speaking, a region, not a single point. For instance, if I were to pick the Fujifilm X-T3 as the apex product among cameras, it would perfectly sensible for you to pick a product a little to the left of it (a little more basic) or a little to the right of it (a little fancier) as your own nomination for the apex point. In automobiles, the apex product has long been said to be the Toyota Camry. Or these days, maybe it's a good mainstream small SUV like the RAV4. 

You get the concept. The point is that there's usually a segment of the line at the top of the bell curve where sufficiency is reached, economies of scale are optimized, decadence has not been breached, and the product (whatever it is) is utilitarian, not too precious, and not too difficult or expensive to maintain—a place where usability is optimized, reliability is good, resale value remains robust, and where enjoyment and pride of ownership on the one hand, and practicality and a decent modesty on the other, are in balance. That kind of product is the best kind if you ask me. Somewhere in the middle ranges, a balanced option, neither too much nor too little, nothing too extreme.

That was Kin Hubbard's good 5¢ cigar***, back when.

Mike

[UPDATE later the same day: Believe it or not, this post started to be about stereo equipment. A family of loudspeakers from Danish Audiophile Loudspeaker Industries (DALI) to be specific. I figured it had been a while since I wrote an Open Mike about audio. But I just got going, and it turned out it wanted to be about something different, so I gave the horse its head. What can I say? I usually write a post before breakfast every day, and something's gotta get written, at least in first draft, before I fix my oatmeal.

But one of the points I would have made if the post had been about speakers was this: sticking within shouting distance of the apex can help save you from OCD. Stereo equipment and OCD go together like cheese and crackers (whoops, wrong eating plan: like rice and beans), so you have to be mindful of perfectionism. I'm constantly trying to tell myself that good enough is good enough, that I don't need the perfect car or the perfect camera or the perfect whatever—to get something that works and just make do. It doesn't always work. But it's one of the reasons why the notion of an apex product—"settling" for a practical, utilitarian, mainstream choice—can be helpful in real life.]

*Born in the state of Indiana

**Oh, how clever and cunning your humble host can be. The Stepford Wives is a 1972 sci-fi thriller novel by Ira Levin (who also wrote Rosemary's Baby and The Boys from Brazil) in which a woman moves with her husband to a suburban neighborhood and gradually discovers that all the other women there are submissive robots created by their husbands. The book was made into a movie twice, once in 1975 with Katherine Ross in the lead role, and again in 2004 with Nicole Kidman as the star.

So why is that sly? Well, the protagonist, Joanna Eberhart—in the book, at least (I haven't seen the movies)—is a photographer.  :-)

***Men a century ago clearly cared about their cigars. In his bawdy poem "The Betrothed" about a man who received an ultimatum from his wife to choose between her and his cigars—spoiler alert—the rascally but entertaining Rudyard Kipling, roughly contemporaneously with Thomas Riley Marshall's pronouncement in the Senate, had his character say, "...a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke."

Original contents copyright 2019 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

B&H Photo • Adorama

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Matt (partial comment): "I feel like the best strategy is to look to the left at least one standard deviation for products you care very little about, and to move to the right at least one standard deviation for products you care a great deal about."

Al C.: "On the economic well-offness bell curve, I am now situated well to the right of apex. However, I was born and raised at slightly left of apex, which conditioned me lifelong to agonize over spending beyond +1 sigma, except, curiously, for the few big ticket items such as houses, cars, sound systems. For smaller items, including cameras, I have a hard time justifying paying more than five cents for cigars. Which, I have learned but not yet managed to correct, is often false economy, because, using cameras as examples, I end up churning through multiple good but not great apex purchases which in total cost more than if I had reached for the +3 sigma model in the first place. How many of us have a shelf (closet?) full of 'apex' cameras and lenses, gathering dust? Quality over quantity may be the better advice, and strategy. Besides, YOLO [you only live once —Ed.]."

Mike replies: Your cameras example was the subject of one of my more famous posts, "Letter to George" (2010).

Tom Duffy: "Didn't St. Thomas Aquinas say, 'Prudence is the mother of all the virtues'? Ironic since he's been described as very short and weighed over 300 pounds."

George Feucht: "Having grown up in Wisconsin with a lower-middle class background, I was absolutely raised to these same values and I would totally agree, but I've found a curveball: I moved to Los Angeles to go to school and ultimately become a cameraman. The idea of having a 3,500 square foot house here is laughable. That is far right side of the curve. The average house in my apex-of-the-curve suburb of Burbank is 1,400 square feet, three bedrooms, on a 7000-square-foot lot for about $800K. That is way left of your curve for size and way right of your curve for price. It's odd when I'm home for Christmas and tell my relatives that I'm in a house half the size of theirs but pay five times the mortgage. As for other indicators of where I like to live on the curve, I own a RAV4 and the previous middle-of-the-road camera standard: a Canon 5D."

Mike replies: I have a cousin who has a two-story house on a spacious lot about a block from the ocean in a place called Palos Verdes Estates in L.A. (He's in finance.) He said "It's a really nice house for L.A., but any place else, it's just a house."

James: I'm going to pile on and say 3,500 square feet is well to the right of the apex. Not insanely far to the right, but to say it is about at apex is pretty far from reality.

"While the AEI [American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-thank —Ed.] is not everyone's cup of tea, they do not lie about basic statistics: In 2015, in the US, the average new home was 2600 square feet. Here is a PDF from the US Census.

"Even at 2,600 square feet, I have no idea what I would do with the space. And I live in a household with three total humans."

Mike replies: Fair enough. I saw a study which claimed that most people do most of their living in about 680 square feet inside their homes, even if the homes themselves are much larger than that. Then add about 140 square feet per bedroom per adult, and 100 square feet for a child's bedroom. Even with large bedrooms which had "sitting areas" at one end or off to the side, the occupants never used the sitting areas...they used only 140 square feet inside the larger bedroom.

I think they also subtracted "halls," meaning any space that people walked through to get to another space but didn't spend any time in per se. For example, if someone has a 6,000-sq.-ft. home, they might have to walk a considerable distance to get to their bedroom, but the study didn't count the stairs/halls that were passed through on the way unless they were actually occupied or used for some other reason or at some other time.

I suspect that the 1,000 extra square feet Americans have now, per the AEI statistics, is not exactly "living" space...it's space for "stuff." We own so much stuff that one of the few recession-proof businesses these days is self-storage. The issue becomes obvious at the extreme. When hoarders fill their home entirely, leaving themselves only "goat paths" along which to walk through rooms, they radically reduce their living space even though they might live in large houses. I saw an episode of A&E's "Hoarders" TV show that profiled a woman who could not use her bed because she had heaped so much stuff on it, so she slept curled up on half of her living room couch...the other half being piled with stuff. And she lived in an apparently generously-sized two-story house. On another show, a man had blocked most of his staircase, such that he could only get upstairs and downstairs by picking his way gingerly along a very narrow pathway. No matter how much "living space" such people have statistically, they don't actually have that much space to live in. Anyway, the same is true for many of the rest of us as well, only to a lesser extent.

Comments

[Dave]

Mike, I've thought a good rule of thumb for house size is that it's too big if you need help cleaning it on Saturday -- assuming you don't let the clutter pile up during the week.

[Kodachromeguy]

You have mentioned the term sufficiency several times. Kirk Tuck and Ming Thein have also written about it. And this is the issue that plagues camera-makers now: most photographers have a digital camera that is more than sufficient for all their needs. And there are not enough gadget geeks around to keep supporting new and more feature-filled cameras (despite what you may read from the "photographers" on the infamous Dpreview). I predict some major consolidation in the industry in the next 5 or fewer years.

[Matt]

I kind of disagree with your premise here. Sure, if you don't know anything else, seeking the middle is an ok strategy. But for most people, it pays to apply a little more thought to optimization, IMO.

Sticking with your image, personally, I feel like the best strategy is to look to the left at least 1 standard deviation for products you care very little about, and to move to the right at least one standard deviation for products you care a great deal about.

For example, a lot of people really don't care about their car. A mainstream SUV or midsize sedan might be the "Apex", but really all they need is a reliable (likely used) commuter that gets them from A to B with minimum hassle and maintenance. In those cases, seeking the middle leads to a lot of unnecessary expense that could be better spent on products they do care about.

[I would just point out that you can't move to the left or the right by one SD if you don't know where the middle is...just sayin'. That's all I meant by "seek the middle." But I'll amend the post. --Mike]

[Speed]

What living in a dumpster for a year taught this professor about the things we don’t need

Jeff Wilson’s life had all the trappings of a conventional adult existence.

For starters, he was living in a comfortable, 3,000-square-foot Brownsville, Tex., home with a large walk-in closet, an easily accessible bathroom and a $1,600 monthly mortgage payment. He had a tenure-track professorship at a state university, an hour-long commute and a matrimonial social arrangement with a fellow professional.

Today, Wilson has none of those things — and insists that he’s never been happier.

Between then and now, there was a divorce, a new job in a new city, a surrendering of worldly possessions, a new social arrangement with a new romantic partner and — perhaps most importantly — an olive green dumpster that he called home.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/02/what-living-in-a-dumpster-for-a-year-taught-this-professor-about-that-things-we-dont-need/?utm_term=.35b593fec179

In this case it is both the man and the "estate" that are more than three standard deviations from the mean. And it can't hurt that he lives in a very prosperous nation.

[Jim Arthur]

Back when I was only a lad my parents would watch Hee-Haw so I am familiar with cornpone, but I don’t believe I have read the word cornpone online in the 21st century, anywhere….ever. I’m also fairly certain I’ve never come across the phrase “cotton to cornpone” either. You made me smile. Well scatted, Sir.

Maybe it’s my Midwestern upbringing or maybe it’s just my age but the middle way has usually been my way. For example, all of my digital cameras received approximate 80% scores at DPReview and I figured that was good enough. This middle of the road way does have exceptions though. In the last week I’ve researched sunblock and USB condoms (blocks data transmission at charging stations). The maker and cost of the USB condom probably doesn’t matter all that much since they merely block the data pins in the cable but when it comes to sunblock in the desert, I need the very best. Consumer Reports showed me that there are sunblock brands that provide half the protection listed on the label. Some of these weak brands are even marketed towards babies which is appalling. Bless the trusted review site. Life would be more difficult without them.

[Richard Parkin]

Not being entirely sure what form your dumpsters take I wondered why the couple didn’t tip it on it’s side to make it easier of access, more weatherproof and provide a sun porch. I googled dumpster and then “dumpster house” and if you look at the images there are quite a variety of them ;-)

[Charles Lanteigne]

The cigar thing reminded me of one of Doug Ford's (current premier of Ontario) campaign priorities: the buck-a-beer.

[Ed Hawco]

The house I live in is just a smidge to the left of your Apex house. It has two stories plus a semi-finished basement. Through a door in the basement there's a smaller section that we call "the cold room," which is a combination utilities area, workshop, and storage. It's about 10x30 feet.

I was standing in the cold room a couple of days ago and I was reminded that this lower back corner of my house is bigger than my first solo apartment where I lived for a year in my mid-20s. I have no plans to go further right on the bell curve; if anything, age and a dislike of complications might send me the other direction. But just a bit. Like maybe half a standard deviation.

[Kristian Wannebo]

Adamson's 2¢ on cigars...

https://ideellkulturkamp.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/adamson-1.jpg

Probably at more than 5¢.

[Dori]

Hello, I wonder where your apex falls on stereo equipment (say for a dac, headphone amplifier/ headphones or powered monitors)?

Coincidentally I was just watching the ZeOS ( https://www.youtube.com/user/ZeosReviews/videos ) video where he was ranting about how expensive equipment at audio shows is so he's planning on spending/crowdfunding to showcase much more affordable options at the Denver Rocky Mountain Audio Fest (RMAF).

[David Evans]

Ira Levin also wrote a dystopian novel, This Perfect Day, which I think bears comparison with Brave New World.

[Jamie Pillers]

Gotta go political here.
My tax preparer once said to me: "No one needs more than three times the salary of a public school teacher." So take all the wealth used for stuff out beyond the right side of that curve and use it to solve the myriad problems humanity faces these days!

[c.d.embrey]

From my POV, the only thing in the middle of the road is roadkill. Why strive for mediocrity? Ain't there already enough?

I'm neither ostentation or pretentious, so I tend to be well to the left side of the curve. That's why I choose to drive anonymous pick-up trucks—and live in a studio apartment.

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. I'm officially an old-man, and I'd rather waste my money on wine, women and song 8-)

[Alun J. Carr]

Mike,

To combine bawdy poetry and what is desirable in an object, I refer you to the great Robbie Burns, and his poem "Nine Inch Will Please a Lady":

https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/nine-inch-will-please-lady

Alun

[Frank B.]

I wonder if the same logic should be applied to spouses?

[Bear.]

What do you get when you cross Buddhism with capitalism? 1 standard deviation.

[Gordon Buck]

The bell shaped curve also illustrates devices performing best near the middle of their design/operating range.

[Tom R. Halfhill]

If you eliminate the impoverished and extravagant products at the ends of your bell curve, the bell flattens out and the previous middle-way products become the new impoverished or extravagant products. Think of Soviet cameras before the USSR fell. All were mediocre copies or resurrections of ancient designs. The scope was very limited.

Maybe we need really bad products to make us appreciate the average ones. And maybe we need extravagant products to show what's possible if cost is no object.

Extravagance is relative. The Leica haters don't understand this concept. For some people, a $7,000 camera is no more extravagant than a $700 camera is for someone else. To a truly poor person, spending even $70 on a camera might seem foolish, and spending $700 would seem downright crazy. So I don't care if someone drops $7,000 on a camera, unless their family starves as a result. The sales tax they pay might fix a pothole on my street.

And I don't care if someone buys a 37,000-square-foot mansion, either, although I'd favor taxing them a bit more so that nobody has to live in a dumpster.

[SteveW]

I'm an old dawg econ guy, so I enjoy these kinds of analysis, this kind of thinking.

Hmm. Well, my apex camera seems to be the Nikon D7500 these days, in spite of the lack of DX primes (curse you Nikon!). To the right is the D750 and to the left the D5300. Damn, why do I own all three?

Never mind.

[Robin Dreyer]

3,500 square feet? That's huge!

[Henning Wulff]

As one of my other interests besides photography is cars, this jumped out at me:

"Just because something is good doesn't mean more of it is better."

In North America at present, we've blown way past that one in terms of vehicles. Where I live now about 40% of the vehicles are pickup trucks, many with dual rear wheels, which at 6000lbs or so in a common configuration are way 'more' than their owners need and are driven very, shall we say, exuberantly. Another 40% are SUV's which might average at 4500lbs and are also way 'more' than their owners need. 15% are small, inexpensive cars such as the Nissan Versa and Honda Fit driven very cautiously by pensioners. 5% covers all the rest, which are some sedans, some sports cars etc.

[R. Edelman]

The apex concept reminds me of Garrison Keillor's quote that closed the weekly monologue about Lake Wobegon on "A Prairie Home Companion":
"Well, that's the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."

[Gary]

NY Times ran a story today about a Jeff Koons "sculpture" selling for $91mil at auction. Artistic and aesthetic value: far, far to the left on the curve. Price: far, far to the right. You could argue that we're not talking here about a "useful" good for which there are various models; bare-bones, competent and worth the price, and luxurious. I would say that art is "useful" albeit subject to the demands of personal taste. Anyway,when you're just talking about absurd amounts of money and not really about art at all, how do you draw a bell curve?

[Herman Krieger]

No Cuban cigar, but close.

[Dennis Ng]

Most of my camera is not apex of a bell curve but on the long tail of a Possion one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution

Many of us in our life chase the bell curve as either average or the beat the average like the peak of it. But there is another way.

Using 8x10, Pentax, hasselbald, ... is playing the long tail. Playing vinyl is playing the long tail. Sort of fun.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

[paul in Az]

I often think in terms of the 80:20 rule.
You can get to 80% of perfection with 20% of the money or time.
Its the final 20% that is either expensive or unnecessary.

[Steve Jacobs]

So you're a Hoosier... me too. I'm 38 years in California. I don't know if where you live is midwest or east. It's certainly not NYC.

[tex andrews]

Using the inflation calculator at 1913 to today, that nickel cigar would cost $1.29. But that's a pretty gross estimate and doesn't take into account how different products respond to inflation. In the case of cigars. I would argue that that would most likely be about a 5 buck cigar today. By no means the most expensive cigar by a wide margin, but I think you've got to spend about that much to get a cigar today that could be called half decent and not convenience store bad. BTW, don't ever buy a cigar from anyplace that doesn't have a proper humidor kept at the proper humidity, preferably walk-in.

[c.d.embrey]

Mike replies: ...one of my more famous posts, "Letter to George" (2010).

I have a low boredom tolerance, and was suffering from massive internet ennui, so I followed the link down the rabbithole. Several jumps later I came across this gem.

Ctein, writing about Orthodox Zonies said: "The Weston Gallery always has some examples of their labors on its walls. Think of perfectly-tuned pianos playing Three Blind Mice and you'll get the idea."

Oh so true! The Weston Gallery isn't the only place where Three Blind Mice tops the hit-parade.

[Peter Wright]

I get your general idea, and think it makes sense, but I was brought up short by the 3500 sq ft house as the functional apex. For anywhere that I have lived in the UK or Canada, that size of house would be far to the right. I think that also holds true for other countries that I am familiar with or have visited. So I suggest that your "average" 3500 sq ft house is an anomaly restricted to the less populated regions of the US. It surely depends on cheap energy for construction, furnishing, maintenance, and access to the owner's workplace. What happens if energy stops being plentiful and cheap, for whatever reason?

I am coming more and more to the realization that making a conscious decision to trend to the left (on your graph I mean!) will help me and everyone else.

(BTW, here is a book recommendation for you: David Brooks (NYT columnist) "The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life". As I read it I try your technique of applying what he says as if it was about photography. Great read!)

[I was just guessing at the specs of an "ideal house," and you're right, it's probably too much based on conventional norms in suburban and semi-rural areas of the US where land is cheap. I recently found my own "ideal house," at least for me personally at my current age, and it's one story and 1,579 square feet with a partially finished basement and a 2-car garage, and a minimal yard (my current acreage takes a lot of work and expense to maintain, and probably isn't feasible for an older me).

BTW I like David Brooks. He was once amusingly described as "the affirmative-action hire at the Times" because he's a conservative--the NYT is not known for having a lot of conservatives on its Op/Ed page. --Mike]

[Scott]

Just a data point: I just sold the 2000 sq. foot house that my kids grew up in. Four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths.
I think that's about a half sigma to the right of the apex in that prosperous-but-not-wealthy suburb of Detroit.

(We bought it trashed, for not very much, and spent just 30 years fixing it up. Then we flipped it.)

[Matthew M Liggett]

I'm a fellow Hoosier, also relocated to California, and I find the idea of 3,500 square feet insane, something only the fabulously wealthy would do as a way to share their excess money with the local community.

I did back in Indiana, too, where my 2,400 square foot house also seemed crazy, but I couldn't find anything smaller I liked better.

I currently share 900 square feet, of which about 200 ft2 is a garage, with another human. If I had more space I'd just fill it with more crap and have a tougher time sweeping up for company.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Apartments in Jerusalem that students and academics can afford apex at about 90 meters squared for a family of 4-5, 25 - 35 meters for a student alone or with a partner. We have 160 (not every meter is strictly legal, but we are discreet about it. (one square meter is about 10 square feet). Penthouses the size of a suburban singe family home are more than 3 standard deviations out to the right in any city. But we can read about them in the Sunday NYTimes.

[Steve Jacob]

The older I get, the more I yearn for simplicity. Time seems far more important than money or things, and complications eat into my time.

I downsize everything that requires too much time and energy to maintain, and spend more on things that simplify my life and give me more time, or more options for things I can do with my time.

I can't think of anything more pointless than dying in a huge house with a vast number of accumulated objects. I'd rather spend what time and money I have wandering around Budapest with my Xpro2.