BG> imports (I bet the USR never barfs at your dialtones),

AM> Almost never.  It gets and ATZ^M for it's pains if it does. ;)

BG> Interesting that although our tones are completely different, they're
BG> still recognised exactly for what they are by the Sportster.

AM> I suspect the USRs and other good US modems concentrate more on tone
AM> _patterns_ (ie. timings) rather than being pedantic about the
AM> frequency of the tones in particular.  I suspect this is where the
AM> locals may be going wrong.  Anyone know?

Yeah, thats the general idea. And with timings its the general stuff
too, not getting pedantic about how long the beeps are in a busy tone
for example. If you just look for a longish tone, a decent fraction of a
second, with gaps whose timing is even less important, as long as there
are gaps, count that a busy and you are unlikely to get bitten on the
bum. There are a very very few systems around which have a continuous
tone with no breaks at all but they are very rare. And the requirement
for a decent tone length fixes the problem with crap like STD pips.

Some like the Supra have some extremely fancy config stuff where can
specify all the fine detail yourself like being able to specify the max
and min on time and max and min off time in S registers in terms of mS.
And the number of cycles to see before its counted as busy.

I've never needed to use other than the default tho.

AM> I noticed in Noels book about how if I put away 10k now and manage by
AM> some miracle of self restraint not to touch it till I'm 65, and
AM> maintain a return of 20%pa (presumably by means of shares or any
AM> means other than term deposit interest rates), I'll have 36 odd
AM> million.

AM> What do you more seasoned investors out there think about the
AM> practicality of doing this?

Well, 20% is a hell of a long term average compound rate in todays
inflation regime. IMO even 10% is wildly improbable.

AM> The figures essentially say now or never. It would however delay my
AM> purchase of a unit significantly.

Its a complex argument. You can NOW make a case that with the new regime
of very low inflation rates again, the old idea that real estate is
always the best, particularly owner occupied housing, isnt anywhere
near as true as it once was. One of the fundamentals of the financial
scene is that the stock market generally looks best in a low inflation
environment, But you have to remember that the stock market is
considerably higher risk. Particularly owner occupied housing never has
the same downside risk that the stock market does. Downside risk means
risk of it dropping.

And then you also have the unknown of just how long the current
extremely low inflation regime is going to be around for. If its a
relatively short term thing, say 5-10 years, you will see the boom in
owner occupied housing values that was seen in the last few decades in
Sydney again. And unfortunately predicting what is likely about the
current low inflation rate regime is almost impossible. No one, not one
financial futures predictor, predicted the current very low inflation
regime. In fact if you had predicted it in 87 say everyone would have
laughed themselves silly.

I guess I think that in an either/or situation there is a lot to be said
for the owner occupied housing still, mainly coz its still got the very
favorable tax regime, no capital gains tax, and there is an excellent
chance that the very low inflation regime wont be with us forever. And
its the lower risk of the two anyway.

Corse in theory what you are supposed to be doing is doing the investment
in a balanced fund which has a balance of real estate, shares and the
others like fixed interest. Trouble is that all those funds have the
leeches leeching off the cash flow all the time, thats what they live off.
And some of them are extremely actively involved in the latest financial
fashion which has every likelyhood of being just the latest financial
catastrophe which will likely make the stock market crash and the property
market crash look like a kindergarten punchup if the worst outcome is
seen. If you think junk bonds were a spectacular crash, you aint seen
nuffin yet.

--- PQWK202