I lived and worked in Oregon in the early 90s, and this is huge news. I’ll admit I’d gradually let cynicism overtake hope this outcome was possible. Now on East Coast, interesting to me that I’m first reading about this from BBC News and not US east coast media, which I believe has never appreciated the scale or importance of these land use decisions.
Readit Newsreader_x commented on The largest dam removal in US history is complete bbc.com/future/article/20... · Posted by u/pseudolus
reader_x commented on Metal thieves in America's cities nytimes.com/2024/07/09/us... · Posted by u/gumby
Last month while cleaning out a relative’s house, I made my first trip to a metal scrap yard. I had fishing weights (lead), old copper pipes, rolls of electrical wire, broken aluminum chairs - and street signs. I assumed the scrap yard would reject the street sign since, if they would accept it, why wouldn’t people steal them routinely? To my surprise they accepted everything, asked no questions nor asked for ID, and paid cash.
The incentives here are clear.
Maybe it’s the point of sale that needs closer scrutiny since police can’t guard all the light poles 24/7.
reader_x commented on Baltimore's Key Bridge struck by cargo ship, collapses wbaltv.com/article/baltim... · Posted by u/tbihl
Usually tugboats attend whenever a large container ship enters or exits a busy port, and the tugboats have directional thrusters. Port authorities prefer it that way because it gives them more control (since the tugboats tend to stay in the port).
If tugboats had been attending Dali, would they have had enough thrust to correct Dali’s course when it lost power?
What an incredible skill, I hope he can find a way to put it to use, versus getting lost in the mire of early career corporate climbing.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service could use his skills immediately and his peers there would appreciate and enjoy his skills.
I'm one of the people quoted in the article and most of the others quoted are my peers. A bunch of us have worked on Capitol Hill as staff; several of us worked for Congress's think tank; others have written books on Congress. I say this only to emphasize my point that what Ringwiss has done is truly remarkable.
He has an apparent deep understanding of the rules of procedure that govern the House and the Senate, which are very different from one another, and he can keep them straight. I wouldn't have the patience to watch the floor for hours on end, and while I'm sure I could read through the precedents, it's doubtful that I could retain in active memory more than a fraction. I have read the House and Senate rules cover to cover, more than once -- but that's not the same as being able to operationalize them and recall it at an instant, and it's also not the same as digging through the precedents and understanding what they mean. That comes from a lot of practice.
Besides having a particular interest in the topic, my suspicion is Ringwiss has an eidetic memory. He is a remarkable person and I'm glad that he's doing what he does.
In my opinion, the House and Senate rules are so complicated that only a few people can understand them. The procedures are used to gather power in the hands of a few, which undermines their original purpose: to facilitate orderly debate and empower all the members equally. I compare them to Roberts Rules of Order, Revised, which are straightforward enough that most people can grasp them with a reading or two.
As I said, what he's doing is remarkable, but it's also remarkable that few can do what he's doing.
I hope the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service hires Surdy asap.
How much plastic in the ocean gyres might be our supposedly recycled plastic?
Has anyone audited this by putting a few GPS-tracked plastic bottles into the recycling stream to see how many went to landfills or incinerators vs. being dumped in the ocean on the way to alleged recycling?
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A cartography professor of mine once advised me to take another career path because cartography was dying; he added, “Google Maps has terrible maps- but no one seems to care.” It heartens me to see in HN comments that some are noticing.
A pet peeve of mine is when water bodies go unlabeled.
An old-fashioned paper map like the kind inserted in National Geographic mags when I was wee included a breathtaking amount of information, but that requires careful design so element labels don’t overlap etc.
reader_x commented on Rising rent, not poverty, is the real driver of homelessness kcrw.com/news/shows/press... · Posted by u/paulpauper
Imagine you're a municipality like San Francisco. You control all of the zoning regulations, and many of the permitting requirements. You have a AA+ credit rating, and even in today's higher rate environment, you can borrow billions of dollars at 6%.
You already own oodles of land. You can build to whatever height you want within reason, because you control the zoning, and you even control many of the ordinances that allow citizens to block development (though certainly not all, like CEQA and NEPA). So you have lots of lands to build on, and what you build is largely in your control.
Construction costs in San Francisco are sky-high, at $440 sq ft. But people will happily pay you $40/sq foot per year for housing, probably for 75 years.
How is this not the easiest decision in the world?
Create a housing development agency, become a permanent developer, and landlord. Never stop building. Put proper incentives in place, so that employees at the agency can partake in the profits, incentivizing them to be efficient. Never stop doing this.
You might not be great at this at first, but fifty years later you will be.
A municipality is run by a group of individuals elected by other individuals, whereas you have framed your housing policy proposal as if pitching to a dictator.
Imagining how we might govern unfettered by frustrating negotiations with others is fun but dangerous.
The hacker culture of “information wants to be free” is largely predicated on the librarian mantras of the same sentiment and only given protection by western europe after clear and serious abuse.
Librarians are the very forefront of information access and the privacy of looking up certain information, we owe them a lot.