buffoon

Definitely.

I wrote a mental note that that when I have to start thinking in this manor and tread carefully in a minefield then the technology does not serve me any more and I don't want it.

Time up.

Most stuff is like this. If you pick up an HP, Casio or TI calculator these days you'll find they are all Kinpo calculators with slightly different firmware.

Yep.

I paid $170 (in UK money) for a 2.4GHz i5 520M X201 with 4Gb of RAM...

You forgot the ridiculous price tag for a refurb X200. My stacked X201 8Gb of RAM, 256Gb Samsung 840 pro, new 9-cell, ultrabase with DVDRW, keyboard, mouse, 22" TFT cost about the price of their bottom end model in total (via ebay)

I assume it hasn't got a hard disk in it as well as they are technically standalone computers with closed source firmware as well these days.

Freedom is expensive.

They need a London nutcase detector for the UK. That's a whole different case. I was on a bus a couple of weeks ago and a completely naked man proceeded to walk in front of it and take a selfie of the bus and himself with his phone.

4) have three kids, work on crappy enterprise crud apps, live in a house in a nice area near good schools.

It's fine. Seriously.

Just a warning with the yubikeys. I had to use a solution that had these for a few months. The USB port of my laptop (2011 MBP) was pretty much worn out due the physical insertion and removal - other stuff would just fall out. Eventually this port blew entirely stopped working.

This is not specific to the MBP as a colleague's ThinkPad had the same problem.

Financial wit is a killer definitely. A lot of people spend a lot of money on things that they don't need then complain about their life collapsing around them. I've done this before and spent 5 years digging myself out of it. Everything I'm saying is because I've learned about it the hard way.

I'm glad to say that they teach this in secondary schools now. I have hope for the younger generations.

I was brought up on a very rough London housing association estate in the 1970s and 1980s.

Most of the people complaining do not know poverty or have anything to compare it to.

Poverty for me was being sent out at the age of 5 to nick milk off people's doorsteps at 6am because the local food canteen was empty the night before and no one would dare kick a child in because the police might actually give a shit then...

She has a mortgage that the benefits are paying interest only on and disability benefit as well for her children. She bought the house in 2002 so the mortgage isn't terrible. I think she breaks even every month on a good month.

I will add that her husband died from bowel cancer in 2006. If ever you think your life is a bitch, it's a good comparison point.

Carer. My neighbor is one for her two disabled children. She sells art and things on ebay to make ends meet.

I'm not super-rich and I'm doing fine in London. So is everyone I know and that includes nurses, programmers, artists and carers perhaps ironically. None of them are moving away.

What is a big problem is hyperbole, media and vocal whiners.

Social mobility is bollocks as well. It's perfectly possible to do it and it is easier than it has ever been due to the sheer piles of education available for little to nothing and the thousands of opportunities. Motivation and time are the only constraints.

Edit: everyone I know has moved up the social ladder, if there is one. We all appear to be in the same shit at the end of the day.