Android Audio

Idea for Microphone Array
Ever wanted to record multitrack sound? You know like 5.1?
How, there is usually only one mic jack on a PC?
Well why not hook a bunch of microphones to a bunch of 802.11g WiFi cards and stream it over, a 44100 Hz sample rate @ 16 bits is 705600 bits/sec at full tilt 802.11g could cope with 80 such streams (well in theory), so 6 even 10 should be no problem
HOW
Now the microphone wireless module would be a soundcard style ADC a TCP/IP stack and a WiFi circuit, which would be Google's Android running on some mobile phone style contraption with an XLR socket to attach said microphone.
WHY
An array of microphones recording at the same time can be used like a virtual boon mic, moved by software rather than on the end of a pole. It would enable clearer sound, as you can cancel out the background fuzz look at wikipedia's entry on the subject

House Price in Barrels of Oil

Here is a list of Oil prices in US$ from 1946 to today

Year	Nominal	Inflation Adjusted
1946	1.63	17.76
1947	2.16	20.58
1948	2.77	24.72
1949	2.77	24.99
1950	2.77	24.42
1951	2.77	22.63
1952	2.77	22.20
1953	2.92	23.23
1954	2.99	23.61
1955	2.93	23.22
1956	2.94	22.96
1957	3.14	23.74
1958	3.00	22.05
1959	3.00	21.90
1960	2.91	20.88
1961	2.85	20.25
1962	2.85	20.05
1963	2.91	20.20
1964	3.00	20.56
1965	3.01	20.30
1966	3.10	20.32
1967	3.12	19.84
1968	3.18	19.41
1969	3.32	19.22
1970	3.39	18.56
1971	3.60	18.88
1972	3.60	18.29
1973	4.75	22.73
1974	9.35	40.29
1975	12.21	48.21
1976	13.10	48.91
1977	14.40	50.48
1978	14.95	48.71
1979	25.10	73.44
1980	37.42	97.47
1981	35.75	83.54
1982	31.83	70.07
1983	29.08	62.02
1984	28.75	58.78
1985	26.92	53.15
1986	14.44	27.99
1987	17.75	33.19
1988	14.87	26.70
1989	18.33	31.40
1990	23.19	37.69
1991	20.20	31.51
1992	19.25	29.15
1993	16.75	24.62
1994	15.66	22.45
1995	16.75	23.35
1996	20.46	27.71
1997	18.64	24.67
1998	11.91	15.52
1999	16.56	21.12
2000	27.39	33.79
2001	23.00	27.59
2002	22.81	26.94
2003	27.69	31.97
2004	37.66	42.35
2005	50.04	54.01
2006	58.30	61.37
2007	64.20	64.93
2008 (Jun)	126.33	123.88

Trouble was I could only find GBP/USD exchange rate data going back to 1971, that was on a daily basis, so after reformating it so Access could read it, I found the annual averages

1971	2.436067
1972	2.47952
1973	2.428504
1974	2.340334
1975	2.221666
1976	1.804766
1977	1.744875
1978	1.918436
1979	2.122367
1980	2.324648
1981	2.024318
1982	1.748045
1983	1.51591
1984	1.336781
1985	1.297436
1986	1.46767
1987	1.639788
1988	1.7813
1989	1.638202
1990	1.784103
1991	1.767354
1992	1.766306
1993	1.501607
1994	1.531853
1995	1.57847
1996	1.56066
1997	1.637635
1998	1.657347
1999	1.6172
2000	1.51557
2001	1.439648
2002	1.502527
2003	1.634656
2004	1.832999
2005	1.820373
2006	1.843367
2007	2.001999
2008 (Jun)	1.85448

House prices from Nationwide are by quarters, so again a bit of washing

1952	1890.74
1953	1883.754
1954	1862.798
1955	1927.996
1956	1995.522
1957	2025.793
1958	2056.063
1959	2118.932
1960	2263.299
1961	2463.55
1962	2617.231
1963	2840.767
1964	3103.887
1965	3353.036
1966	3541.644
1967	3734.91
1968	4009.672
1969	4221.566
1970	4480.029
1971	5106.394
1972	6959.878
1973	9044.568
1974	10077.66
1975	10845.61
1976	11866.37
1977	12804.84
1978	15261.4
1979	19829.94
1980	23287.58
1981	23953.54
1982	24850.98
1983	27622.98
1984	31076.12
1985	34377.71
1986	37626.64
1987	43164.24
1988	51405.05
1989	61513.78
1990	57683.31
1991	54626.02
1992	51815.19
1993	51210.66
1994	51633.31
1995	51245.26
1996	53394
1997	59199.25
1998	65200.71
1999	71121.81
2000	80365.71
2001	88798.97
2002	106406.8
2003	127245.8
2004	148658.3
2005	156324.6
2006	166469.6
2007	181363.6
2008 (Jun)	168973.4

And finaly some graphs
House price (UK) in Oil barrels


House Prices in GBP

Bottom of the housing market

Where is the bottom
Nationwide publish an Excel spreadsheet of historic house prices
Likewise we can find various inflation calculators

We look at the low point of the last housing crash we find Q1 of 1993 as the low point, at £50 128
Pumping that number into an inflation calculator, which only gives us up to 2007, hmm but its somewhere between £71,213.17 and £107,289.06

The last price on the Nationwide list is £156 828 so another 30 to 50% to come off yet

We would assume average earnings would effect house prices the most, in which case its about £87 500 for the average house, 45% to remove