topkai22

I bought a sub $700 leather coach from Costco in 2007. It lasted 6 moves and 16 years until my kids finally found its weak point (leather seams at the cushioning and back) playing “the floor is lava.” Honestly, it’s probably repairable even after that, but the wife wanted new furniture anyways.

I haven’t had to replace any of the relatively cheap stuff I’ve gotten from cost plus world market over a decade.

I might just be lucky or special, but I don’t think cheaper furniture is necessarily bad or throwaway. I’m not sure what the trick is. We’ve tended to buy robust looking furniture— solid wood dining table, welded metal dining chairs, a plush and thick sofa. Frankly, our stuff looked very pedestrian compared to some of our friends, but it has lasted.

But necessary to feed more people.

Airliners crash far less, road fatalities kept going down till 2010, so taking the broad view of were infrastructure is I’d say at least those got better.

Anecdotally, I remember more electricity interruptions and plumbing issues when I was a kid, but that could be location dependent and I couldn’t quickly find good numbers going back that far.

Edit: While the phone network didn’t necessarily go down, I frequently got “all circuits busy” when I was a kid. I don’t remember the last time that happened.

No- the bike would still be expected to yield to the automobile that arrived at the intersection first (provided that’s what happened.)

I looked up the cited street in street view- there are stop signs in all 4 directions. I look forward to the full accident report, but from the evidence available it sounds like the cyclist didn’t stop at the sign appropriately.

The term “greenfield” comes from physical development- a you are taking a “green field” and turning it into a factory or housing or similar. It’s contrasted to “brownfield” which means developing in or over an already built up area.

In software development “greenfield” generally refers to new systems development whereas “brownfield” refers to the maintenance, extension, or enhancement of existing systems and solutions.

Its revisiting the origin of that phrase, which

“On the one hand you have—the point you’re making Woz—is that information sort of wants to be expensive because it is so valuable—the right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information almost wants to be free because the costs of getting it out is getting lower and lower all of the time. So you have these two things fighting against each other.”

I find this to be a much more intelligent formulation of the concept, as it recognizes the reasons and the tension.

We simply can’t get much of the media I like for free (gratis). That being said, it is maddening to have so much great content locked up. It feels insanely inefficient and that we produce far too much content unnecessarily.

There are probably ways to balance this better- separation of content ownership, production, and distribution; more limits on copyright length; mandatory content licensing; simplification of older content license rules…

That doesn’t mean it’s morally wrong to pay for content or put restrictions on distribution, just that optimum probably isn’t where we are.

You often don’t get the copyright to the photographers take of you, even if you are paying them. It depends on the contract you sign. I won’t hire photographers who won’t give me rights to the photos at the end. This has been an issue with a surprising number of them.

19.6’,limited by a bridge outside Chicago. Several routes require a maximum 15’ height and others are 17’. https://www.greatloop.org/great-loop-information/great-loop-...

I’ve been utterly fascinated by this since I learned about it a few months ago. It seems like a very approachable but still serious adventure and achievement once done.

Speaking generally, but the IRS as an institution would love to be able to move to automated tax filing.

The thing that is blocking that happening is intense lobbying by intuit (and a few others) plus anti-tax groups. See https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-maker-of-turbotax... for what was probably that best quick summary from about 10 years ago.

Howard Stern alone had 20 million listeners in 2006, which was more than 1 in 20 Americans. The biggest 4 US PM drive time talk programs anime are about 40 million, just going from Wikipedia.

Long form audio content isn’t a niche market all up. I do think it is a market that lends itself to a high degree of fragmentation because of low production and distribution cost, which makes it hard to monetize.

I’m not an EV owner but plan to be one on my next purchase.

The EV renting experience is bad. I got one though Avis, I believe a Kia Niro. I was told that I’d be charged if I brought it back under 80%. It was at 81%. Ok fine, I’m driving less than 50 miles and returning it. I’ll find a charger, since my AirBNB didn’t have charger.

We tried to use the on board map to find a charging station. It took us two tries to find on that was actually public, which was at a fire station. It took over an hour to go from 70% to 85%.

I never had range anxiety about the car itself, but trying to return it full enough was anxiety inducing, even though it wasn’t that big a fee.

I feel my experience would have been really improved if 1) they made the fee be a sliding amount based on how close you returned it to where you checked out and 2) there was an onboard L1 charger you could use with a normal plug.

Worth mentioning that Aldi has owned Trader Joe's since 1979. I have barely been to Aldi's, but it seems like they have similar products if a bit different themes.

Ahh, clearly I was wrong then. Truly impressive.

The charging cable was attached and ripped out with the phone, so it probably functioned as a tail, reducing the velocity a bit. Still, it wouldn’t be much. Impressive survivability by the phone.

Orange theory requires in person (at least my franchise does.)

I do not have personal experience on the job seeker side, but I do know some (2) people who have managed to get government jobs with a record.

I suspect the nature of your offense would make it harder or impossible, but the public sector is a weird place- they often have very specific scoring criteria that they must follow for hiring decisions and if criminal record is not part of it they really will not consider it (at least that is my interpretation of what one of my friends said.)

> …checking and savings accounts are only IOUs…

That are guaranteed by the US Government up to $250,000. While the average person may not know the details, the average person’s faith in the banking system is well founded. That’s why these “alt-banks”, which avoid FDIC or NCUA coverages, are so problematic.

The insane conspiracy theorist in me immediately started thinking Elon Musk is behind this so he can get the ticket symbol (US steel is X on the NYSE.)

The horrible concept the a “sale” is only a revocable license hasn’t spread to cars too much yet. There is a robust trade in high end used cars via private parties and specialists - you can just look at eBay motors for plenty of examples.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/296067000770?hash=item44eef7e9c2%3A...

It’s a pretty common acronym

Microsoft Apple Google Meta Amazon

And neither of them are the largest research funding agency. The National Institute of Health (NIH) granted $30B on a budget of $41B in FY2020.

It depends on the park and the activity. For example, Great Basin National Park has no entrance fee, but does have fees for a cave tour, campsites, and RV dumps.

In my experience, the vast majority of public land (forests and BLM land) is free to enter and recreate on if you aren’t using services like a campsite. National parks are more likely to charge entrance or parking fees but you are also more likely to get things like trash service and paved roads.

That being said, it’s still pretty cheap. You can get an annual pass for $80 that covers you and everyone in your car.

I have one of these in our neighborhood: https://littlefreelibrary.org/

You don't get to know who takes or leaves it, but it is a nice little feature that enhances the walkability of our neighborhood.

You may want to consider a short course of sleep aids to see if it can help adjust your schedule. This is unscientific, but I’ve found that if I’m dealing with persistent insomnia, taking something to help me fall asleep when I want to can lead me to “readjust” to the new schedule.

I used this the most when traveling and dealing with jet lag, but I still occasionally find it useful to take an OTC sleep aid when my schedule gets “off.”

Interrupted sleep is tougher. I’ve had some success by just accepting that if I haven’t fallen back asleep in 15-20 minutes I probably should get up and walk around for a bit and maybe try the couch instead, but it’s not great.

Some of the effects may not be casual, but there is substantial evidence for many of the cognitive effects in sleep deprivation studies, which just introduce a lack of sleep. There is probably good evidence for the other effects as well, although I’m not immediately familiar with it.

While other issues may be also playing a role or even be the primary cause, the physiological effects of sleep deprivation are likely to make almost any underlying cause worse.

I spent years as a consultant following a basic pattern: a subject matter expert wrote a tool or series of tools in something like excel or access. The tool got popular but didn’t scale. My firm would get brought in to “fix that and then automate all the processes.”

When I was a junior consultant I’d get angry at how kludgy and inelegant the original solution was. After a few projects I’d realized how hard producing software that business users actually use can be.

My response now is “this is amazing, look how far you’ve come. Let me help you go further.”

Yeah it stinks and yeah I often did from scratch rewrites, but the work done proving the idea/system was valuable was why I had a job in the first place and had delivered more value then I could as a developer.

Well over 50% of workers report being satisfied with their job. Automation eliminating jobs people are satisfied or happy with is almost certainly a loss the workers, even if it is an improvement overall.

I say this as someone who knows he has been directly responsible for eliminating dozens of jobs through automation. Not all the people affected had lives were improved by the job elimination, even if I truly believe our solution made far more peoples lives better and was a win overall.

—- Edits for typos

I know in the US the percentage was similar all the way up to the early 1800s. It was 40% of the population in 1900.

I don’t think the rest of the world was much different.

Summary of my proposals for HOA regulation for single family homes and townhomes:

1) Every 4 years HOAs must conduct a renewal vote. At least 40% of members must actively vote to extend the CC&Rs (meaning that at least 40% of homeowners must a cast a vote in favor of continuing the HOA. Not voting is effectively a no-vote). Upon a vote resulting in the dissolution of the HOA and/or CC&Rs, the HOA executive board shall conduct a second vote 6 months from that date to validate the result under the same conditions. If an entity owns or controls more than 1 property, they shall be restricted to a single vote (meaning that property developers or multi-property owners only get one vote.)

1a) If HOA vote fails, it will continue for one year and conduct another vote. If that fails, the HOA will be dissolved. If the HOA owns community property, it will convert into a property maintenance organization and be able to collect funds solely to fund the maintenance of community property. It will not be able to levy fines or restrict individual properties in anymore.

1b) PMOs may re-adopt a new set of CC&Rs. To do so, a petition must collect the signatures of 60% of property owners within a 6 month period. They PMO must then notify all property owners of an election. 75% of property owners must agree to reformation of CC&Rs.

2) HOAs and property maintenance organizations (PMO) may not begin foreclosure proceedings on a property until the amount owed is at least 1/5 of the value assessed by the county. HOAs must follow the same procedures as the county government for foreclosure, with additional requirements listed below.

3) HOAs and PMOs must collect phone and email information for property owners, unless the property owners opt out. The HOA must remind property owners annually to update their contact information.

4) Notices of delinquency must be sent to all available contacts.

5) If properties are in arrears by more than 3 months the HOA/PMO must post notice on the property physically (not just mail). After 1 more month, and only if necessary for the maintenance of community property, the HOA/PMO may seek and be granted a tax lien to borrow against on the delinquent accounts. Notices must continue to be sent to all available contact mechanisms and posted on the property monthly

6) The HOA/PMO shall have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of both the HOA/PMO and the individual delinquent member. In the case of a foreclosure, they must seek the highest price possible, not just enough to cover the delinquency.