172 karma · joined November 22, 2017
The existing pre-war walkable neighborhoods are all we are going to get and they are expensive. We made walking to school a thing for rich kids.
In the environment for which we are adapted, most time was spent focusing far away. In the modern world, a person may spend all day, every day, for years on end, focusing on things close up like books and screens. If the ciliary muscle is always contracted, it can get stuck; over time, even change the shape of the eyeball from constant pressure such that the cornea focuses too far in front of the retina, making the image blurry.
Perhaps I was too quick to get glasses when things first started looking blurry. If I had known, I would have tried to get the ciliary muscle to relax by focusing on things far away for at least a time every day. Instead, I went right to the minus lenses but kept my lifestyle of close up work all the time. This led to hyperopic defocus, meaning my ciliary muscle had to continue to contract to focus on near objects through the minus lens.
About 7 years ago I had the thought of improving my vision habits. I will spare HN the details, but my vision (optometrist confirmed) has improved from about -3.5 diopters to -2.25 diopters. I can now do things without glasses including working on the computer, cooking, and reading, for which I am grateful.
Single unit is the most expensive and least efficient zoning rule. Getting rid of it would bring housing costs down.
Ever visit a beautiful city like Paris, Copenhagen, Milan and wonder why we don't have that? It would be illegal to make the buildings they have under our zoning code and parking mandates!
But it really tokens that are pegged to a fiat currency. You can't redeem tethers because there is no back account holding a dollar for every tether.
Love his web page on dutch bikes in Amsterdam. Inspired me to get a real dutch bike and put 30k miles on it! https://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/
IMO, the basket is too heavily weighted towards centralized stablecoins like USDC. I rotated some of my MKR holdings to Terra/Luna, which may have a better peg mechanism (although it is similar to Titan, which exploded).
I crypto exchange I use frequently, Bittrex, allows to whitelist an IP address. Since I have a static IPv4, I did so. Problem is, my request to bittrex always goes out the IP6 gateway and Bittrex does not recognize me. I had to shut down the IP6 gateway to get into the account.
Only 1% of people are brave enough to do this.
For bikes to have a significant mode share, it has to be more comfortable than "just mix in with the high speed SUVs."
Plenty of examples of high mode share, Copenhagen and Amsterdam above 50%, and they do not ask bicyclists to mix with fast dangerous cars.
Would you say eventually everyone who wants dollars will have enough and the demand for new dollars will be zero?
Today, a person living in the same spot in China works 6.5 days per week doing the same task all day in an electronics factory, lives in a dorm with other workers and away from family, has no privacy, suffers from massive industrial pollution and noise.
Humans are adapted for the hunter gatherer life and this is likely the environment wherein human flourishing can be expected.
Each revolution (agricultural, industrial, information) has chipped away at that life more and more until it does not exist.
When Jared Diamond said in the 1990s that the agricultural revolution was the worst thing to happen to humans, there was outrage and he was forced to apologize. Now, that thinking is becoming accepted.
#1 rule of bitcoin: not your keys, not your coins
A Pete Seeger interview in the doc has particularly good commentary on the issue, with Seeger analogizing the playing and remaking of shared songs to how lawyers rewrite old laws and storytellers retell old stories to fit the new generations.
It is interesting how much the character of the site changed as it has become more popular.