pontifier

It's like shouting into the wind... I've tried a lot of things.

It's a super long story. I may be cursed when it comes to trying to interact with local politics.

I had been renting a space, but the owner wanted more than we were paying, so I tried to move into a house I owned. We were there for about a year while I was trying to acquire a 65,000 sqft abandoned jail that was owned by the city. They tore it down instead of letting us buy it, and told us we couldn't run a "business" in the house I owned. So then we were stuck in about 400sqft renting for a couple of years until I just couldn't keep paying the rent.

fast forward to finding a huge warehouse in Arkansas! https://youtu.be/qdkLzioUiAE

The price was so low, I thought it was a typo. I called the agent who confirmed it was accurate, and I immediately told my dad "We're moving to Arkansas!!"

I bought the building, and thought my troubles would be over with no landlord to worry about. The zoning seemed fine, and the planning commission even approved most of what I wanted to do. But then I ran into hostility from the city zoning and inspection department. I have had so many problems trying to fight the city.

I can't get permits for anything. I can't repair the building. They keep changing their story about what is needed, and I'm not the only one. The city seems intent on running everyone out of town. I know of at least 3 other major business efforts that either never got running, or shut down because they couldn't get through the red tape here.

Just today, a potential crypto-mining facility was denied at the planning meeting because some people from the church across the street were worried that it would be too loud... not that it was too loud, or couldn't be made quieter, just outright denied because of a worry about noise. Side note - This is in a well insulated building where they used to run newspaper printing presses, and there is an active railroad track right next door. They've been delayed since December of last year, and this was the last straw for them. They're leaving town.

I don't give up so easy, and I'm currently in the process of suing the city because of these delay tactics.

Interesting... I've heard that life is just DNA's way of making more DNA, but this takes it to a whole new level. This feels like as big a step as some of the other major steps life has taken.

That's exactly why I decided to take the makerspace I started and move across the country. I bought a 220,000 sqft building with high hopes of never ever running into the kinds of problems I was having renting. Then the pandemic hit, and the city officials decided to play stupid games, and 2 1/2 years later I still can't turn the power on, the waterjet is still packed away, almost everything else has been stolen, and I'm in the middle of a lawsuit to try to actually use the building I bought.

I may be one of the rare ones, but I'm late to the game, and am trying to set up a bunch of sensors. The biggest problem I have is that I can't get my sensors to work.

There is so much talk and focus on miners, but they need more cheap, easy to use, and functional sensors.

I was thinking about something like this a few years ago. I felt like a linear city could work if it was basically treated like a game of snake.

There would be a constantly advancing head region that pushed ever forward as new structures were needed.

It would prevent NIMBY because once constructed, changes would be minimal, yet there would always be a place where new projects were welcome.

As the snake wound its way forward, anything in it's path would be trampled or assimilated.

It's bread and circuses. I think the few in power are panicking. They know things went too far and the people are fed up. It may be too little too late.

There's a theme of overbearing control of autonomy that is probably going to reach a breaking point soon. When every move we make is held hostage, ordinary people start to think radical thoughts. I curse the supreme court every time my girlfriend makes me pull out, and before that I cursed the city of Pine Bluff every day because they are preventing me from repairing or using a building I own.

I'm sure this incompetent overreach is going to end in bloodshed. There are only a couple of boxes of liberty left to choose from.

What fond memories I have of this game. Just for fun reach over and hit "k" while it's your friends turn :)

Magnetic fields are an effect of looking at moving electric charges from relativistic points of view. There is always at least one observer that sees only an electrical interaction because of their reference frame.

In that reference frame, there are no magnetic fields that influence motion, just electrical charges attracting and repelling.

If they pay you until you die, you're not likely to care that they stopped paying you.

Wow... Very interesting idea. Bubbles in space! My mind is spinning thinking about the physics and pressures and what would different types of foam be like if they were made in a vacuum... I love it!

I was just wishing for something like this yesterday.

I wanted to figure out how to detect some very very low infrasound reliably, and no conventional microphone technology seemed like it could do what I needed.

This feels like it could form the basis of a new wave of scientific vibration measurement systems.

Honestly, I haven't seen much use for crypto. There are very few use cases where cryptocurrency actually gives a distinct advantage.

The one exception is Helium. I'm still exploring the economics of it, but on the surface it truly adds something unique.

You can link IOT devices to a wallet and authorize them to pay to send wireless messages through gateways that are set up by miners. The incentives seem to be aligned. Gateways are rewarded based on their coverage right now, transitioning to sent messages in the future. Users who want to deploy devices buy data credits that allow them to send messages.

Gateways convert data credits used into helium, and helium is burned to create data credits.

It allows IOT devices to operate with much lower cost than cellular data plans, for a similar experience.

It's a beautiful system and I can't believe I didn't find out about it sooner. I've been so jaded by other projects that I might not have given it a chance if I hadn't heard about it from a friend.

Every crypto project is garbage in my mind until proven otherwise.

Reminds me of an old site I used to love... Sodaplay or sodaconstructor... Can't remember which. You constructed little amoeba type robots, and the most simple, starting object was a very similar wheel.

Very strange story. I'm not sure what I expected, but I found the reality of the situation very enlightening. This type of situation is probably much more common than people realize. I find myself in awe somewhat about the state of mind of people in general, and found it especially interesting that Lola was so connected with the things that we struggle with.

I find myself constantly wishing that I could enjoy being around my kids more, but it feels like I always have other things that are taking my attention away.

I actually experienced something like this while in jail several years ago. I wasn't there for long, but it was like I had the perfect excuse for why I wasn't doing x,y,or z... I didn't have to think about what I was going to eat. I was able to relax somewhat knowing that there was nothing I needed to do. I could sit and think without feeling like I was procrastinating. I was actually a little miffed when they let me out before I finished the book I was reading.

There's something about letting others worry about bigger problems that I think most of us crave. I had a friend that stopped being an entrepreneur because it was just too stressful, and he just wanted to collect a paycheck and not have to worry about the future of the company or it's direction, or anything else.

There's something to the idea of having most of life's worries taken care of. Stability is truly lacking in our society right now, and it doesn't seem like any amount of work is enough to survive through conventional means.

I use these type of thought experiments all the time. The fusion reactor I have designed is completely derived from them. www.DDproFusion.com

To me, thought experiment always comes first. Sometimes the result is obvious, and sometimes it's not. The most exciting ones are when you're not sure what will happen and can do smaller experiments to refine your model over time to get closer and closer to the (possible)truth.

Thought experiments are particularly exciting to me because of the ability to scale time or space in different ways. You can watch e/m waves interact with electrons, or watch a canyon erode over millions of years.

Man I love science.

Maybe it's the real reason Rome fell?

People couldn't get the permits required to do the work to fix the problems that needed fixing, or it was just easier to just go start over in a place that let you raise your goats or whatever in peace without needing to fill out 92 forms for each one.

Red tape is a completely separate thing from regulation.

Red tape is by definition, arbitrary, purposeless, and slows things down without any beneficial effect.

Maybe the difficulty and red tape involved with starting businesses results directly in having to cut corners in other areas.

People only have so much bandwidth, and forcing someone to do a bunch of pointless stuff doesn't do anyone any good.

Maybe your city should just make sure there are enough sanitation resources that the ones you are complaining about aren't overloaded.

I ran for mayor of Provo Utah under the slogan of "Disincorporate Provo"... I didn't win.

Sounds like your neighbor did have a legal place to dump refuse so adding that rule wouldn't have helped, and then everyone in Boston would have a 93rd step in the process.

I've spent 2 years trying to get permission to have electricians put wire back into conduit that is already there in a building I own.

Saturday thieves broke into my outdoor containers (because I can't get an occupancy permit) and stole over $20,000 worth of stuff. I can't install security lighting and security systems without power to run them!

This stuff is really getting to me and I feel like I'm in an Ayn Rand book.

Tulips were up once too.

I record all my phone calls, and most in person meetings that I believe will be information dense. I also take pictures when in doubt.

It's very satisfying when someone is trying to gaslight you and you catch them in the act with evidence, or you happen to catch some tidbit you weren't supposed to know on the 3rd or fourth listen.

Pokemon cards at least have some nostalgic value. You could even burn one to release a small amount of stored chemical energy.

I had a flash of insight a few years ago that the real way to think about 3d printing. We can separate "data transfer" about desired solid regions in a volume, from what I call "locking".

Once I made this transition in thinking, I saw hundreds of new ways to do 3D printing. Ultrasound was only one of a huge multitude of other "data transfer" techniques that just kind of felt obvious all of a sudden.

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Red tape is killing the country. NIMBYs should have to vote with their feet and find a new place rather than stopping things where they are.

In the story "Kiosk" by Bruce Sterling, a girl trains an AI powered jewelry tree by carefully selecting pieces that will move the product toward what she wants.

~$1M capital gain 9 months ago and it's too late to roll it into an opportunity zone.

I'm on the point of panic about taxes right now and still trying to sort out my expenses over the last 2 years which do include about $500k in investment in one of the poorest areas in the country. My location just happens to be gerrymandered out of the local opportunity zone though.