theluketaylor

> It’s past time to reform the CAFE standards to incentivize smaller trucks

Even neutralizing the CAFE standards to stop incentivizing bigger trucks would be a huge victory. Reducing the fuel economy target for larger vehicle footprints is one of the worst perverse incentives ever created. Not only are huge trucks emitting more carbon, but pedestrians are at much great risk of serious injury and death from tall grills and poor visibility.

Apple has a slam dunk case to place a ton of barriers on browser vendors being allowed to JIT code due to the risk to the rest of the platform and the user's data.

Little emulators for NES and Sega Genesis are not going to meet those barriers and Apple will have a pretty easy time excluding them under the security provision.

Dev environments like VS Code will be more interesting. I suspect Apple will choose to build a VM layer to execute complied code inside an even deeper sandbox rather than allowing execution directly inside the iOS layer, thereby severely limiting what a binary complied on device is able to interact with. This would almost certainly be hidden behind an entitlement that Apple will be try to be allowed to gatekeep under the DMA requirement to maintain platform security.

But the DMA also requires (not just allows) platform owners to maintain the security of their platform. Many of the security model restrictions for iOS that app developers bump into are unlikely to be lifted by Apple.

Most of the places Apple has given themselves special powers is mostly a shortcut to avoid the hard work of a publicly accessible API and entitlements. Not always, sometimes it really is them favouring themselves, but I'd say that's the exception rather than a rule. I'm guessing Apple will mostly do the legwork to create entitlements and APIs and transition the Apple apps rather than actually remove the restriction.

This will result in some types of apps that are currently not allowed being possible, but I think it's going to be a lot fewer use cases than people think. For example, I don't see side loaded NES emulators being allowed to have a JIT.

You're absolutely right; I posted the wrong link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfA0ftgWI7U

Grady Hillhouse of Practical Engineering recently did a great demo of this. He was able to pull his car in neutral and an empty train car on rails with roughly the same force.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGhBHrr5CYQ

The signalling won't work, so nothing will happen.

Porsche Taycan has optional AC charge ports on both sides. DC charging is single side.

> If people can't repair it then they buy a new one

If apple has sinister intentions why are iphones supported by software updates much longer than any equivalent android device from the same era?

Not everything is a conspiracy. Sometimes it's just different priorities.

I’m not sure Apple is purposefully making things unrepairable. It’s just they have several priorities ahead of repairability like size and packaging, water and dust intrusion, and anti-theft. It does functionally mean Apple devices are very unrepairable, but I don’t think in most cases Apple engineers are sitting around trying to make something hard to repair, it’s just a natural consequence of the choices management directs them to make.

That’s not to excuse Apple; if they want to claim green bonafides they need to make repair and reuse a higher priority.

Your categories are largely correct, but #1 is way bigger than you think and not just about performance (unless it's the performance of being seen owning the car). For example, most pickup trucks are status symbols and lifestyle choices, not purely for function. If they were purely for function most of them would be transit vans.

Apple car would have absolutely been a pickup truck-like status symbol for highly urban people.

> But flights are often cheaper in Europe too despite subsidies for rail

That's because intra-EU flights are also highly subsidized, especially around taxes for fuel. Decades ago the EU punted on the complex topic of charging taxes on avgas and that is a key contributor to the existence of cheap airlines like ryanair.

The CityNerd youtube channel recently did a list of city pairs ideally suited for high speed rail based on Spain's own network. spoiler alert: the northeast corridor plays a pretty heavy part, but it's not the only place in the US high speed rail makes a ton of sense. Highly recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE5G1kTndI4

> And you make a lot of unsupported assumptions about commercial areas all being contaminated.

That comment was specifically about industrial, not commercial. We agree on redeveloping unused commercial space, but I suspect you wouldn't be interested in the sort of mid-rise mixed use neighbourhood I would be.

Your complaints basically all boil down to change isn't perfect, therefore it shouldn't happen. We've tried nothing and we're all out of ideas. The solution is to advocate for the aspects of better zoning and building codes you'd like to see, not just cynically declare the entire enterprise doomed.

> handouts to developers because they guarantee that a developer can buy one house and put up 10 units (in CA, for example) without any opposition or time-consuming permitting process

That isn't a handout. That's preventing NIMBYs from tying development up so tightly it's impossible to build anything. Handouts would be giving away public land for a song or massive subsidies to build. Developers still have to pay the going rate to acquire the property.

> the laws are on the books

The linked law is not on the books, it's a proposal.

That's only true when you can ignore building codes on things like loft stairs and other space-stealers. ADUs in my city must be permanent structures that meet all codes and be fully inspected throughout the build. Anything under 500 sq ft / 46 sq m under north american building codes is a tough scene for livability.

There is a related conversation that our building codes have gone too far and are driving up costs due to the space and materials required to comply, and yet I also like bathrooms with grab handles and wide doorways for accessibility. Tricky problem (though we need to kill the 2 stair rule for low and mid-rise apartments asap. There are tons of modern ways to prevent and suppress fires that don't require anywhere near the expense or form-constricting compliance).

That's all only a problem when supply of housing is constricted, which it has been for generations in all urban spaces. Otherwise it's just wealth generation. It's also a problem when economic activity is limited to a handful of key urban spaces, but that isn't true. There are plenty of places to go make a good living. There just isn't anywhere to live.

There should be plenty of different levels of density for people to choose to live in as everyone has different preferences. What's not sustainable in any way is exclusive single family zoning. If, as so many backers of exclusionary zoning claim, people only want to live in SFH, why would we need a law to force that to be the only built form? Surely every single unit built of any other type would fail to find a resident.

You're reading the demand/supply situation backwards. Even with all the construction in Brooklyn, supply is failing to meet demand, therefore prices are going up. We've failed to meet supply in urban spaces for several generations now and have a massive deficit to pay off before adding any supply can actually drive prices down; we're barely adding enough units to affect the rate of increase of prices.

> The city should work with architects to develop models for housing types that are pre-approved

Maybe I'm late to the party, but I recently found out some cities are doing exactly that and I'd love to see it become extremely common. South Bend, IN is an example that has plans ready to be used of housing that is reasonably affordable to build. I'd love to see even more multi-family options, but let's not have perfect be the enemy of good.

In my city I'd love to have a catalogue of ADUs shapes and configurations I could just add by right.

https://southbendin.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/SBBT_Cata...

Zoning alone can only affect prices when there is an arbitrage opportunity to build something in location A that isn't possible in nearby location B. When entire cities upzone across the board like Minneapolis there is no arbitrage opportunity, so prices are not going up specifically because the zoning was changed. Prices are increasing because there is a chronic shortage of places to lives near economic opportunity and high demand to live somewhere you can make a living.

How exactly is this a "more handouts for developers"? Removing zoning restrictions just makes building possible, it doesn't create any subsidies for building. Handouts for developers is opening good agricultural land for development. Fixing generations of terrible zoning for infill development is just unlocking existing sites to be more than exclusively single family homes.

> instead of mandating the redevelopment of blighted formerly-industrial

Economically infeasible as there isn't currently a way to rehabilitate contaminated land and hope to break even on development. More superfund-like efforts at all levels of government need to do the cleanup and then turn things loose for development.

> commercial areas and dying malls with boarded-up Macy's and Fry's

Couldn't agree more, those areas should be turned into fantastic mixed-use development neighbourhoods. That shouldn't be exclusive to tearing down generations of bad zoning exclusions and restrictions.

> prevent groundwater percolation

Advocating for affordable water management solutions being made part of any substantial renovation or re-devleopment like permeable pavement makes a lot of sense. I'd want to make sure it doesn't become another barrier that keeps construction costs high, but there isn't a reason better water management and infill density can't go hand in hand.

This is a real danger lurking among the zoning reform efforts we are seeing all over the english-speaking world. There are so many levers baked into the zoning code to prevent development that it's easy to produce a policy that appears to unwind the restrictions without actually permitting any real progress.

My city upzoned the entire city from 1 to 3 units per lot across the whole city a few years ago, which is great. Except they left a parking minimum of 1 per unit, setback requirements, lot coverage maximums, and height restrictions that make it nearly impossible to build additional units that are fit for habitation. A policy that looks great at a glance is awful in practice. I looked into adding a rental unit in my backyard with an architect. The limits resulted in something that would have to be under 400 sq ft / 37 sq m and would be awful to live in.

To their credit the city is now looking at moving to 4 units per lot by right and as part of that process is considering fixing some of the gaps they left the last time, but it illustrates the need to look at zoning codes very closely to make sure the intended development is actually allowed (or question if the gaps are being left on purpose).

When there isn't really a choice, fine build a deep station. Montreal is building a station 72m down, but it's driven by surrounding geography. What's a bad decision is deep tunnelling just because, like Toronto on the York subway extension. Deep bore under suburbia is really wasteful spending and that same transit budget could be building a lot more transit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Édouard-Montpetit_station#REM_...

It would depend on the implementation. Cut and cover could be done in blocks rather than shutting down long corridors at a time, combined with legislation setting clear limits on affected compensation and their standing to sue over small delays. That could easily pencil out to much cheaper than deep bored tunnels and stations.

Deep stations are also unbelievably expensive. Deep tunnels are not that bad, but the resulting stations explode the budget for transit to the point getting the project green lit in the first place is nearly impossible. Plus with the same set of dollars you are building a lot less transit.

There are multiple car factories in several different German cities directly connected to rail rapid transit. Many types of trips can be supported by public transit with the right investments.

NYC needs a Paris RER clone more than any city in the world. The tracks already mainly exist, it’s just the operating model that doesn’t (and is the true innovation of RER). Run the regional rail exactly the same way you run the subway/metro with through running, all day, high frequency service with short dwell times.

Republicans dumped the border bill because Trump told Senators he wants the issue to run on, so it's not a signal on Ukraine at all.

The bill was a huge concession from Democrats since it didn't include a path to citizenship for DACA and the bulk of the partisan elements of the bill were Republican ideas.

The CCS spec allows for 500A and 1000V, so even more. Tesla gets around their 400V battery by using 620A+

30 years on a design lifespan of 100+ years. If it were a 99 year lease on like the disaster that is the 407 I'd agree with you, but in this case the contract is well short of lifespan.

The delivery and operation is P3, but the ownership remains firmly public. It will belong to the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority which is a Canadian Crown corporation controlled by Parliament. The consortium will get funding from the tolls, but that is specifically for running the operations and maintenance.

Food distribution is an actual market with competition. A bridge over a river is a natural monopoly that Moroun abused like crazy to his personal enrichment.

Canadian, not American and we tend to have a much more government-friendly position. I view public ownership of natural monopolies as vitally important. Then private enterprise can fairly compete in a reasonably regulated way to deliver services via that publicly owned infrastructure (like food distribution). When private entities own the infrastructure they can hold the entire society hostage, which was exactly what happened with the Ambassador Bridge.