cr1895

Why isn’t regulation and enforcement a solution? Why must the city be the ones to measure spaces?

How it works in plenty of other countries…

Maybe it’s different for rentals but you’d think the banks would also want accurate data on the properties they’re mortgaging…and cities for tax revenue…so strange!

Wild. In Netherlands (and I assume other European countries as well) there’s a regulatory norm for how spaces should be measured - what counts as liveable, non-liveable, etc. It’s so much fairer and clearer for everyone involved.

https://www.nen.nl/bouw/beheer-en-onderhoud/oppervlaktebepal...

And it isn't. It's all imaginary. He doesn't have 4 billion apples compared to my 1 apple.

What isn’t imaginary is the outsize leverage that his 4 billion non-Apples afford him…

Would highly recommend the book "Salt" by Mark Kurlansky. I never realized how influential salt was to the course of human history.

For example: https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-defense-department-...

In NL the obligation to renounce is pretty arbitrary. There are a number of circumstances where it is allowed to have two nationalities, such as through marriage to a Dutch citizen.

It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

You can sign up for Apple beta and keep doing iOS 18 updates.

is there no storage of flag/died posts on hackernews?

they're not deleted, just hidden. you can toggle "showdead" in your profile settings.

China is building out immense offshore wind capacity - more than 41GW operational currently, about half of global capacity.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2025/02/07/half-of-global-opera...

So, let's halt projects for which most fabrication of components is already completed?

To be fair, there could absolutely be national security issues.

Which is precisely why US defence agencies are heavily involved in the permitting and design of these wind farms from the start, to account for these valid issues.

And, Sweden blocked those projects in early stage permitting, not well underway or even nearing completion.

It's not comparable at all. US defence agencies have had thorough involvement in the permitting process of these US developments.

There's obviously transparently political antipathy from the Trump administration towards offshore wind development in the US. It's far more likely this is gross political interference by an unserious and vendetta-driven administration.

Just something to keep in mind - the actual site of these wind farms is offshore in federal waters, and construction is subject to federal (as well as state) permits.

The vessel was flying under a Guyanese flag but was not registered there.

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/oil-tanker-seized-by-...

Probably not. It seems to have come as a surprise. They are not loitering - either the wave conditions did not allow for installation or they are in port for resupply.

That's a really neat project! Thanks for sharing.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/02/18/which-co...

And with German lane discipline

The number of big trucks hanging out in the left lane in the US drives me mad...

You have to constantly be 110% aware of every vehicle within 1/4 mile of you,

Not such a terrible thing honestly...

Personally, I find the lack of predictability on US interstates is much riskier. I'm pretty sure the accident statistics back this up too.

US companies must pay out vacation time when employment terminates

Doesn't that depend on the state?

Wages in America must be truly incredible for this to seem normal

They indeed are for a very small subset of people, who are overrepresented on this website.

I really don't think you can generalize that wages o/a are incredible in the US.

but we promise

of course, who's to say that next quarter priorities of management or shareholders shift & those "promises" evaporate?

Personal experience - emigrating to the Netherlands after higher education is a well-defined and relatively easy process. After graduating you're able to apply for a "search year" residence permit which entitles you to residence and full access to the Dutch job market. (https://ind.nl/en/residence-permits/work/residence-permit-fo...)

Normally then you're able to get a "highly skilled migrant" permit (with less restrictive criteria than had you not studied in NL) which is renewable, then eventually after passing some language and integration tests and sufficient time you're eligible for long-term permanent residence (or even citizenship).

It's a refreshingly sane approach compared to the US.

https://archive.is/zcAkj

By requiring U.S.-built and registered ships, it guarantees high safety and quality, which is really important for complex operations like wind farms.

It certainly doesn't - there are enough "cowboy" US operators who are working far below the quality and safety standards which are practiced by European contractors. It's really a struggle sometimes to ensure that things are done properly and safely in the US. It's a practically new industry in the US and there is a lot of catching up to do.

is the Jones Act really the thing standing in the way?

It obliges some pretty ridiculous transport and installation methodologies to construct wind farms that just don't exist anywhere else on the planet. This adds significant cost, complexity, and risk and makes US offshore wind farms more difficult and more expensive to build. So much hinges on contorded legal interpretations of what counts as a "coastwise point" and how that relates to "trade" between two of those points in the US.

In Europe, a specialized heavy lift crane ship or jack-up can sail into port and take on multiple foundations, transition pieces (the part between the foundation and turbine), or turbines and sail to the wind farm and install one after the other as fast as the weather permits. And to protect those foundations another specialized ship can come either before or after (or both) and place rock as efficient as possible. And a cable-lay vessel can come along and cut trenches and lay cable all with its own specialized subsea tooling. This is literal decades of development of best practice in terms of cost and efficiency.

In the US that's not possible.

The foreign heavy lift crane vessel can still do the lifting offshore - but, generally speaking, it can't go to port in the US and pick up anything to install offshore because, the US port is "coastwise point" A and the seabed offshore is point B and that counts as "coastwise transport." So that's where feeder barges come into play. The crane ship (or jack-up) sits offshore, more or less stationary (it's permitted to rotate, because that's technically not transport from point A to point B) and components are brought out by tug and barge. Not to mention the embarrasing physical state of & significant lack of fit-for-purpose cargo barges in the US...

The foreign cable lay vessel can still lay cable between two US points (there's an exception), but it can only make the trench to do so by "jetting" or "fluidizing" the soil because "cutting" or mechanically doing so would be dredging, and that's not allowed by any foreign vessels. If the soil conditions don't allow that, then a 2nd US-flagged vessel has to come. Huge cost increase, and again more complex, multi-stage operations.

The rock protection also gets a lot more complicated, depending whether it's US or non-US rock and depending on the foundation design needs to be installed before, or after, or both before & after the foundation itself is installed. It's a huge puzzle with potentially excessively expensive logistics.

All of this is possible & reality, but it's so much more complex, costly, and difficult. It's many more puzzle pieces to fit together accounting for tight supply chains, high weather risk & impact, and global competition where it's just a lot easier to do things elsewhere.

At some point racing tech moves on and you need a newer frame for the latest and greatest stuff to fit.

Sure, but that's utterly irrelevant to daily commuter / city bikes, which Van Moof are.

Similar thing used to exist in the Netherlands. Think it's been gone for a decade now?