burlesona

It’s sad that we don’t write code anymore, it takes a lot of the joy of stuff like this away.

It seems to me like most important “non-computer” hardware should not be connected to the internet. Air gaps don’t need to be continuously patched to keep working.

What I wonder is why anyone noticed this in the first place. Who saw the size of the country in Wikipedia and thought, “really? Let me trace that in Google maps, just to be sure…”

He literally has an entire section of the essay on this question with two linked articles that explain it in more detail.

There’s a strong historical case to be made that houses only cost what they do because they receive government insured mortgages and preferential tax treatment. The costs rise to consume the available funding.

I’d heard this before, but it’s a fun reminder of how, in a sense, the laws of physics depend on what size you are. (Or rather, which laws have the most impact depends on the size of objects in question)

Note that if you disable JavaScript you can read this without the nag wall.

Comparing to the 1980s maybe misses that the population was much younger then, and there’s still a general trend of people moving more when they’re younger and settling down when they’re older. I would have liked to see the data broken down by age cohorts.

It's interesting to me how different the tone sounds if every time he said "users" you substituted "people" (or if that didn't make sense in context, substitute "customers"). I find the post positive and encouraging as written, but I've realized that "users" has become a tainted word in the mass public.

This is presented as an interesting and kind of positive take on the AI going to surprising lengths to “solve the problem.” But I couldn’t help thinking of the paperclip factory while I was reading this :/

Property tax is the workable wealth tax. There's no such thing as a perfect policy, but in the context of NYC this seems worth trying. I'll be interested to see if it helps create some liquidity in the housing market (the goal), or if it only functions as revenue source.

One wrinkle I haven't heard much discussion of -- cities respond to incentives too. NYC is a global destination for the mega wealthy. If it turns out the uber-rich don't mind paying and this becomes a cash cow for the city, that creates incentives for the city to cater to them and try and get more uber-rich people to have second homes in the city.

One nice thing: Denver has already repealed parking requirements, so, they don't have legal standing to complain about it.

I’m pretty sure those were drawn in SketchUp

What I said is this is what I struggle with. In general I think too much regulation is what caused this problem. And the question on my mind is, from where we are today, is there a liberalization of the rules that would also help maintain a mixed income neighborhood, rather than the current trajectory (quickly becoming an uber-wealthy country club).