Alaska's one-house town, home to hundreds (2015)

Mmm, wasn't aware of the timeline. My presumption was that the grow operation was only a problem because it was too close to a school, which is generally verboten even in legal states. My presumption being they reallocated the equipment and left the justice at that. I will retain my amusement at the reallocation but agree there may be a tragic or dystopian story we are not party to.

Alaska has had a crazy history with marijuana legalization.

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

I don't see anything particularly out of line with regular apartment rules in my experience. The only thing I can see is the quiet hours do start a little early; 11pm is more common than 10pm.

Looks like some of the few newer rules are from 2007 which is when the railroad tunnel became also accessible to vehicles. PR move for visitors, it seems.

Most of the rules struck me as being driven by necessity because a few eccentric assholes. Example:

> The tops of the elevators shall not be used to move any materials

Imagine the very deep sighs from the board when they had to institute that rule because some asshole was tripping maintenance mode on the elevator and using the top to move stuff for some reason...and when told not to, shouted "IT'S NOT AGAINST THEM ROOLS!"

The rule about kids not playing with toys in hallways seems a bit authoritarian but was probably prompted by parents not sufficiently supervising their kids and toys getting left around and stepped/tripped on.

The rules regarding entering an apartment are a bit more protective than in my state; a landlord has to provide notice (but only if not an emergency) and certainly doesn't have to leave a note, nor have a third party present, nor maintain a log.

The biggest thing I see a problem with are the laundry room policies which seem like how they leverage control (ten days, in Alaska, to get a washer/dryer if you get a laundry room? Come on) and their excessive impound fees. Fifty bucks if you leave your gear in the wrong place at the wrong time of year?

Fifty bucks if you don't return a cart within thirty minutes of using it?

Fifty bucks if you leave your car in the loading dock longer than 30 minutes after unloading it?

Basically violating any rule is "at least" fifty bucks. If you do it again, the fine doubles. It sounds like the fine doubles indefinitely, too.

I did laugh at the "Horizontal Properties Regime Act". That is some straight-up dystopian-sounding bullshit.

You might be shocked at how unreasonably repressive a lot of standard condo and apartment rules can be. I worked in the industry and recall one building where every unit had a really nice balcony, but they were almost all empty and unused because the rules were so strict.

But in practice, I think most of these types of rules are rarely if ever enforced.

Someone slipped?

"Oh yes, of course, the great slime event of 2007 ..."

First rule of Begich Towers is... we don't talk about March 2007...

The tunnel is the only way, besides helicopter to get to Whittier besides the port.

https://dot.alaska.gov/creg/whittiertunnel/faq.shtml

Why is Whittier so important to the Alaska Railroad?

From an economic and geographic standpoint, Whittier represents the Alaska Railroad's only viable freight interchange point for its barge service connecting Alaska with the lower 48 states and Canada. Seward and Anchorage are not viable port alternatives for barge interline service. Anchorage is not free of ice year-round and Seward requires traveling over a mountain pass at a 3% grade (it would take six locomotives to haul a heavy load from Seward versus two from Whittier). Whittier is a year-round, ice-free, deep-water port. It is located only 50 miles from Anchorage and has slight grades for trains and engines. For these reasons, all the Alaska Railroad's railcars, locomotives, and rail-borne freight must enter and depart via Whittier.

You’re underestimating how long the tunnel is, how many vehicles are waiting to go through, and how unwilling to follow rules people are. When I was waiting to drive through it last summer some guy decided he was tired of waiting and tried to drive around the line and into oncoming traffic. The railroad police had to chase after him and stop him before he shut the whole tunnel down.

It's a really, really long tunnel. GP's estimate of 5 minutes travel time sounds reasonably accurate. If someone ignored the light and went down it while someone was coming in the other direction, getting traffic unsnarled could be a headache. Even more so if there was a collision.

Huh! It's a lot more colourful than I'd expected, given its origins as a military base. I guess that having something bright and colourful probably helps a lot in the grim weather.

I grew up in Whittier and those photos really take me back. Apartment 510 means fifth floor, north-east side. I was 905, ninth floor north west side, same layout, but mirrored.

They have retained the original shitty steel kitchen cabinets and steel trimmed formica counters where my mom made all our meals, and baked bread and made wild blueberry jam, and all that.

Right, the interesting thing is that the people here literally do not have a choice.

In non-pandemic times, HK people live like people in any other city; they usually don't work where they live, and often times they don't necessarily do all their shopping there either, because people like variety. (Although with how crazy the real estate was getting in Hong Kong, I remember each visit that it seemed like each mall was slowly turning into the same chains and whatnot in every one.)

Hugh Howley book about life inside a subterranean shelter, where the cardinal rule is "if you talk about going outside, you get your wish." You're given a piece of wool to clean the lens on the camera before you die.

I enjoyed the first three books, but the "prequels", decidedly less so. YMMV.

First book in the Silo trilogy by Hugh Howey. I finished the 2nd book a couple weeks ago and so far, highly recommend - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silo_(series)

they heard it on a podcast

I don't think it applies at apartment windows, but I believe many sky scrapes would have UV treatments on their windows.

Sunlight through a window is much less bright according to lumen meters than when you’re outside. We have neurons that wake you up more and directly respond to bright light early in the morning. (paraphrased, source from Huberman Lab podcast).

Whether it's in your peripheral vision.

It improves your sleep / wake cycles.

common sense?

I’m pretty sure $300 worth of LED bulbs will work just fine. Getting to 50,000 lux or so in a room (which is some equation with lumens and the volume of the room, a small apartment should be easy to make bright as day vs a warehouse). It’ll only cost as much as running a few hundred watt bulbs incandescent bulbs did back in the day. The sun isn’t magic or anything.

Sounds like a habit one living near the equator would take for granted and pass off as wisdom. In Anchorage, that would mean sleeping in past 9 in the winter. Good luck keeping a job on that schedule.

I'd argue it's not so much about whether you're introverted or extroverted. In a place like this, it seems like you have plenty of opportunity to be around others, or be alone (though, the article makes it sound like sometimes even alone time can be interrupted by intruding neighbors).

This is more about handling mostly indoor life vs. outdoor life, which impacts other aspects of wellbeing vs. socialization/introversion/extroversion.

The atmosphere (people dropping by for a visit at any hour in their pjs) reminds me of a university dorm. I'm not a particularly extroverted person, but I remember enjoying my time living in a dorm. I'm not sure I'd like it so much now though.

If something like that built in a smaller town, it surely "sucks life out" of the rest of the neighbourhood as most of commerce migrates into a place with better deal for rent/revenue.

There is a village called Sanmen in Zhejiang where the manufacturer of scooters I dealt with was located.

It was a rather big village, turning into an industrial town. The moment they got a nuclear plant, a ton more of industry moved in there.

A huge residential development with 40 highrise towers was built near the industrial park, and almost anybody of notable level of income in the village moved there, and all the commerce followed

The mall taking up to 4th storey is bigger than most malls you see in the US.

Some GP mini-clinics are surely there.