friend_Fernando

9 ms·

1.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Relative scarcity is the necessary and sufficient condition. Either there's enough housing or there isn't (there's a bit of slack with relocations, house sharing and spare bedrooms but it's largely inconsequential.) Th
2.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Isn't it interesting how certain online forces affiliated with the letter Z are against copyright for Western IP in general, but are pro copyright when it comes to hamstringing Western AI?
3.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
> such as former convicts, individuals with substance abuse issues, those with mental health challenges, people who lost jobs or income, refugees, and more The one thing they all have in common is how much more expensive it is to house t
4.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
> I should mention that I've seen fairly convincing cross-sectional evidence that homelessness is more related to the housing market than mental illness This is absolutely the right diagnosis. For instance, SROs used to be very affo
5.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
We don't have shareholders that will blame us for the apocalypse just because we didn't pay to play.
6.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Tech leaders are just making do like the rest of us, swirling around while the world goes down the drain.
7.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
This just mirrors the fake zealotry babbled in Venezuela while the country was cratering. I don't have to prove that mainstream economics works. That's risible Putinist nonsense like the rest of your line of "reasoning."
8.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
That's a strawman. Using the right economic policies would fix the problem. Argentina had a cold, maybe pneumonia. The right fix was antibiotics, not a bullet to the head.
9.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
No one is objecting to knowledge preservation - when you just preserve it instead of abundantly replicating it with a wink. Reasonable people are objecting to copyright law violation, for the simple reason that it disincentivizes further kn
10.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
I live in SF. The vast majority of new construction above 3 stories is reinforced concrete, including many high-rises such as the (infamous) 58-story Millenium Tower.[1] Seismically, modern reinforced concrete performs well. As I explained
11.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
See sibling posts for the cost argument. > These homes would have been destroyed regardless of building material. That's just not the case. Fire-resistant construction might not always help the first house at the subdivision's
12.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Your argument only applies to unreinforced masonry, which is no longer allowed by code in seismically-prone areas. For fire resistance you can use reinforced concrete, steel or aluminum framing, or wood framing with non-combustible walls. O
13.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
A 53% poverty rate is economic suicide.[1] Scrambling for food is not economic activity, it's idleness and ruination. Incidentally, this conversation parallels the one that would follow mass deportations. People complaining of the cras
14.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
An even better fix for this category of problems is DC distribution at the homelab scale. I've replaced most of my 5V and 12V wall warts with a PC PSU. A number of transient issues that used to affect some of the gear disappeared.
15.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
It's still a special interest group, even if it happens to be a large one. It's orchestrating decisions that effectively siphon money from non-members (e.g. renters and young families), and in proportion to the number of propertie
16.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
It's not so much an informed electorate as a rent-seeking one.[1] The regulatory capture [2] of obscure local boards is much easier than that of state agencies. Voters who are part of a special interest group are much more aware of wha
17.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Local governance in general is FUBAR. Here in CA, housing supply policies from the legislature have gotten a lot better in recent years, but construction still gets bogged down at the local level. Most budgeting should be moved to the sta
18.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Here in CA, it's more about reducing the spreading speed than about the resistance level once the fire gets there. All the large structure fires in recent years spread at breakneck speeds during an offshore wind event. In these cases,
19.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
The largest power company in CA is in the process of burying its cables. The risk level is not just affected by proximity to forests. For offshore (Santa Ana) wind events, the riskiest areas are the SW bottom of hills and near canyons. That
20.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
It typically takes a special camera and software. You need focus, a large-enough sensor in low-light conditions, adjusting or bypassing compression, etc. Not always impossible of course, just highly unreliable otherwise.
21.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Dwight -> Diapers
22.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
"The real-time video and data feeds don’t require any usernames or passwords to access." I wish I found this to be more surprising. About 400 of these are being deployed in SF: https://sfist.com/2025/01/0
23.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
I guess you're saying he's unlike Bolsonaro, Orban, Vucic, Kickl, Trump, Weidel, Le Pen, Duterte and Farage? He's larger-than-life and bombastic. He's overthrown the political order and engineered a downward spiral faste
24.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Obviously not all the advocates share that goal - that's the whole point. Most people would not be OK with intentionally trashing the economy to overturn democracy. It's a camouflaged poison pill policy. Here are two other Russian
25.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
If you're center-left like me, here's something you might not have realized yet. The conventional wisdom is that racial cleansing is the goal and that the economic cost of mass deportations is the price. It's actually the oth
26.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Little by little, we're getting an answer to the question: "What kind of investment does an outrageous influx of capitalization spur?" One might think it would be an AI silicon-moat, and it might yet be some of that. But it&#
27.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
I suspect a similarly ugly reality is what happened in Cambodia after Pol Pot's genocide. It's done very poorly compared to its neighbors.
28.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
It's good that you brought up Hitchens. Like Trump, Dick Morris, Gingrich, and a variety of other larger-than-life 20th century figures, Hitchens had a magnet inside. When Russia switched its primary polarity from left to right, they p
29.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
One io_uring to root them all.
30.
by friend_Fernando 2y ago
Eventually, all the better AGI tests should have large private evaluation datasets with no possible cheating or feedback loops. We're getting there.

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