joelhoffman

Is there really a significant number of apartments that are vacant due to habitability reasons? I believe there are a lot of vacant units out there even in hot markets, for various reasons, but mostly perfectly livable.

Of course it is. What has that got to do with anything?

#5 - Don't check the demographics of the whole state. Schools only draw from the local area and CT, like most states is pretty segregated. I don't know where the author is from but for example, most schools in Hartford have a white minority.

https://www.greatschools.org/connecticut/hartford/hartford-s...

USGS describes the site as a "large playa," and the Science abstract says they were "stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers" so I interpret that to mean they were made in wet sand and buried under layers of more sand.

"Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you"

That advice (for cyclists) was also in one of Neal Stephenson's early novels, Zodiac... I've found it useful. Now I just get annoyed when drivers insist on yielding to pedestrians and cyclists when they don't need to, it would be faster if they didn't and they aren't blocking any other traffic. The driver feels like they've helped, I guess, but the pedestrians are not safer.

Same here especially given the topic and the sardonic tone. I wonder if the biochemist takes some inspiration from his near-namesake.

It shouldn't be too hard to skip numbers that show up too frequently in prison tattoos.

This will be on the table the day after Texas votes for a Democratic candidate. Not before. Hopefully we can get the first-past-the-post language out of it before then.

Yes, I'm sure it would, but that won't always stop them from trying.

Portland, Oregon already passed a similar law. Both of them seem a little ambiguous to me: they both clearly ban the city's use, and ban the city from allowing corporate use in public places, but do they ban the private use of facial recognition by individuals on public property? Does failing to specifically ban this constitute authorization?

It's been reported that protesters in Portland OR and other places have been using facial recognition to identify police who don't have visible badges -- so I am wondering if this is banned.

Surely the companies that print the symbol and "Please recycle!" on non-recyclable plastic wouldn't label non-compostable silverware as compostable...

I've successfully run "compostable" plastic through the dishwasher several times and haven't seen any sign of decay. The county I live in offers composting service and begs people to please not put "compostable" plastic in it.

I think you're right in the short term, but in the long term, if everyone does it, I think it runs the risk of actually providing enough supply to drive the rents down by a significant amount. Maybe enough to reduce profits vs the original $4000 ranch. I feel like this is as significant as the other reasons why denser housing has been opposed.

Fair point, I misread that. But even so, the inheritance tax is still a delayed wealth tax and a 100% tax would generally be easily avoided with gifts -- still taxable, but presumably not at 100%.

(Edit: if we had a combination of capital gains + personal income tax that effectively achieved the same goal as a wealth tax, wouldn't that be basically a maximum wage? Seems even harder to sell. It seems to me the main difference would be that a capital gains tax still encourages holding on to assets and a wealth tax encourages spending.)

If you're working for a firm that isn't actively tanking, then the primary beneficiaries of your excess productivity are always your employers. As many other people here have said the floor of any wealth tax is far higher than anything you could ever accumulate on a salary income.

Is that a reference to these? "...The first new nuclear power plant to be licensed and begin construction in the United States in more than three decades." We've closed a few dozen plants over the same time.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-nuclearpower-vogtle-i...

I was expecting at least an aside for Rasputin, although I'm sure these other clowns were pretty terrible too.

I think most people do not see most teachers as the basic problem in public schools. E.g. polls show overwhelming support for paying teachers more. The same has been true of police, but less so - Maybe that's changed?

If people perceive most of the workers as the basic problem in addition to the management and the government, which they rarely do, but police may now be an exception, I don't see why the union should be spared.

800 votes were "improperly bundled" and 2390 out of about 16000 had non-matching signatures, and people who say they didn't vote are recorded as having voted.

Sounds like the security features of vote by mail are working as designed. A very small race like this is the only scenario where someone might bother to attack it this way, and there are thousands of them, so if that's what this is, I guess it's not surprising to see it happen somewhere.

Mexico City is too -- their subway is extensive, heavily used and well designed.

People do form a lot of their personalities as small children, after all.

There's nothing magic about ballot sheets. Anyone could run off as many as they want on a copier. What protects elections in vote by mail systems is the fact that you can check your ballot status and everyone can only vote once. If you steal my ballot, I get a replacement and we both vote, that will be flagged. Plus you need to know how to forge my signature, which they do check.

I thought you meant the other adults at first, and I completely agreed!

I think it will be an uphill battle no doubt, but I think the only alternative would be to share the whole dataset and have reviewers re-implement the analysis to confirm the results. That would also be a huge improvement, but it seems like a much bigger burden on reviewers.

This is why we have code review processes. It's long past time for that to be part of formal scientific peer review.

There was no maize, but traditionally the word corn can refer to any grain.

Doesn't Marvin Minsky make it relevant?

Counting words and claiming there are too many isn't very convincing, especially since they admit that "some" of the regulations make sense. Could they maybe identify one regulation that imposes a significant cost burden but doesn't have a clear benefit?

That is amazing news, thank you for posting it. It was a tragedy they didn't do a cut and cover tunnel for the green line when it went in. They had to shut down all the streets and move the sewer etc. anyway!

The Portland region has loads of underused land, and nearly all the other cities in Oregon are FAR from running into the UGB. And they just vote to extend it anyway whenever they want to grow into a specific place that's on the other side. (I'm looking at you, Bend!) It's nice that it's there, but it's mostly symbolic.

Sounds like you would end up with 1 tree the size of France. Worth doing!