osdiab

23 ms·

151.
by osdiab 9y ago
While I generally agree with what you're saying about embracing bus rapid transit and the cost effectiveness of that option, it's not 100% just a matter of congestion. Surface rail often reduces the value of the land around it due
152.
by osdiab 9y ago
The problem is not that they cannot imagine the concept of adding new lines, it's just that the costs, both monetarily and politically for doing so, are enormous in the Western world. The eminent domain, permitting, and labor issues ar
153.
by osdiab 10y ago
I find for myself that using my iPhone's porn filter to block timesuck sites like Reddit, Facebook, and ironically, this one—is a nice middle ground, where most of the time it's too inconvenient for me to go through deactivating t
154.
by osdiab 10y ago
If your girlfriend is at all receptive to it, maybe you can try to move things in that direction—sounds like you appreciated a bunch of aspects of that lifestyle!
155.
by osdiab 10y ago
To be fair, the amount of exercise you need to overcome even small amounts of excessive eating can be disproportionately difficult and time consuming—but while the example may have some logistic holes, I still generally agree with your idea
156.
by osdiab 10y ago
Yep, my bad
157.
by osdiab 10y ago
I do think that a lot of people are very dependent on the internet in this way—and that there's very few things in life that we find to be indispensable to ever be disconnected from—air, sustenance, light, and... internet? The fact tha
158.
by osdiab 10y ago
Yeah, I found this article since my girlfriend's internet got cut off once her roommate who was paying for it moved out—she never got around to setting it up again, and now that I've observed her habits change during this period,
159.
by osdiab 10y ago
I think you give the average person a bit more credit in their self control than they perhaps deserve—lots of people have issues with addiction to the internet, based on typical Netflix binge habits or the infamous Reddit timesink.
160.
by osdiab 10y ago
The title is not the greatest, but the article mostly talks about how the guy is living his life more fulfillingly, not a micro-optimization of productivity.
161.
Removing Home Internet Is the Most Productive Thing I've Done(theminimalists.com)
355 points by osdiab 10y ago|269 comments
162.
by osdiab 10y ago
A reasonable person also may have irrational beliefs—like faith, for instance—but apply those beliefs in a reasonable way. I think "reasonable" means people do things for "reasons", even if those reasons may be logically
163.
by osdiab 10y ago
Exactly! People don't take into account how expensive it is to maintain long roads, electrical lines, water pipes, and much more to remote places; higher cost of maintenance on said infrastructure; and how most of that area doesn&#x27
164.
by osdiab 10y ago
Herein lies the tragedy, this dream exists in many places in the world! But even though we're in the wealthiest country on the planet, investing in our cities has become a seemingly unattainable dream. The problems are far more politic
165.
by osdiab 10y ago
Most small American towns may have small population, but enormous land mass. There's a video somewhere about how old towns had to be small in area in part because people didn't have things like cars to get around, so although popu
166.
by osdiab 10y ago
And not only that, but just consider the use of land. Do you think that a parking lot that charges like $40/day for its 40ish spots, or a mid sized or large tower with tens to hundreds of people paying rent, and businesses at the groun
167.
by osdiab 10y ago
I take that over risking getting car doored, or cut off by an uber. Let the careful thinking happen at the design phase - or even better, let's have dedicated bicycle boulevards (they don't have to be wide to accommodate staggerin
168.
by osdiab 10y ago
How do they suck in unavoidable ways? Try spending time in a city with actually good transit like Hong Kong, Tokyo, or many places in Europe; and try checking out a place like Copenhagen with world class bicycle infrastructure. They make Am
169.
by osdiab 10y ago
Agreed. Glad that Scott Weiner got elected to state senate, as he is a force for building dense housing around transit stations - exactly the combination we need. Now if only Bay Area politics around housing development didn't move at
170.
by osdiab 10y ago
I think this stuff makes sense for somewhat dense and populous cities; that said, I do think that the fragmentation of cities in places like the Bay Area could use some generalization (way too many independent, disagreeing suburbs that prev
171.
by osdiab 10y ago
Just because you prioritize transit in cities, doesn't mean that transport costs in general rise. Transportation between cities can remain car driven as those are inherently sparse areas anyway; you don't need to reduce use of all
172.
by osdiab 10y ago
We get poor public transit in part because we disproportionately fund car infrastructure, and car infrastructure often makes neighborhoods less walkable in the first place. A sprawled out city means that you need a much more extensive rail
173.
by osdiab 10y ago
I'm not sure what you're trying to say, but there are lots of non communist states with great public transit. Japan, Korea, Singapore, most of Europe, and Hong Kong up until China (which is only a communist system by name) are all
174.
by osdiab 12y ago
His platform is not that speech needs to be reduced. It's that as many parties as possible need to be able to have a voice, and because certain entities can spend dramatically more money than the rest of society, they can drown out the
175.
by osdiab 12y ago
That doesn't mean we shouldn't try. And this is the most promising campaign yet, so long as it makes a splash it's worth it to me.
176.
by osdiab 13y ago
I don't see it this way—that learning to code is in some way less elegant and less conceptual than learning computer science. That "it's not science" anymore. Rather, your idea of "learning to code" is just ope
177.
by osdiab 13y ago
I think people are falsely equating computer science with software engineering. You can get a very strong theoretical basis for programming at a place like Stanford, and the work you can do may have nothing to do with best practices but rat
178.
by osdiab 13y ago
Really, if you want good weather in the bay area live in the valley. It's close enough and the weather is waaaay better.
179.
by osdiab 14y ago
I think that helping people definitely can give you preferential treatment and respect, but whether it does depends heavily on _how_ you help them. The physical act of helping earns you a reputation as a 'nice' person; however, I've found i