Continuous or short term reporting is a privacy issue. It can go a long way toward monitoring where someone is going all the time. Definitely something to be avoided.

While the trickle charging idea might sound good, there is no requirement to use a charger and many people do not. This seems like the biggest gap of any option. And even with public chargers, the infrastructure act charger funding included provisions that you can pay with cash, no account required. Those chargers would intentionally not have a way to track.

Reporting at annual inspection

• uses a mechanism that already exists (in most states)
• is not a privacy concern (an annual total gives no info about where you’ve been)
• already has incentives against cheating
• even if you cut your taxes with fraudulent reporting, it just makes next years even bigger, or will come out when you try to sell

Yeah, oven is the only one I have, by accident, and it’s disappointing - my goal was induction stove, double oven with air fryer, and ST was the only choice. It’s WiFi only, cloud app only, but there’s an HA integration to the cloud app

Currently I get both ST and HA alerts when my oven is on but that’s the only useful feature. However neither interface works works well with the double oven feature

• Even in ST the timer is always 30 minutes and never moves
• even in ST it’s not clear what is on
• even worse, the app has no extra features. For all the gadgets, it doesn’t offer complex programs like pumpkin pie where you have a series of temp/time combinations
• at least it has a guardrail. I like that you control from the oven that remote access is read only. No one is going to turn my oven on remotely

There’s already the risk of fraudulent inspections, possibly more of an incentive. A failed inspection could result in very expensive repairs, giving a customer lots of incentive to offer a bribe.

In addition to enforcement efforts, supposedly a loss of income is a significant incentive for a garage to stay legit. Each inspection may not cost much but it’s a regular stream of guaranteed income that shops do not want to lose

The problem with rent control is by not letting income rise with costs, you risk forcing landlords out of business, reducing available housing.

Most implementations also lead to greater inequity, where new renter pay market rate but long time renters pay close to what was market rate years ago. You end up with “hereditary” rent control

It’s not perfect but something needs to be done

Don’t think of that $25 as a way to pay for the cost, it’s a way to limit parking to residents only, and usually only one vehicle.

Boston does similar but no one is guaranteed a spot. You only know that your neighborhood streets are only used for neighborhood drivers. It’s a great compromise between no cars and all cars.

Actually Cambridge, MA, is more interesting. They’ve gone the furthest toward no cars of any city I’ve seen. Of course they have a subway line and good bus service. Of course they have a really good bike trail and lane network. Of course they’ve spent decades turning roads one way or do not enter to keep cars out. Of course the one parkway has been pedestrian only every summer weekend for decades. Of course a few years ago they redid the only major east-west road to cut from three lanes each way down to one, to give a full bike lane and a full bus lane. You can’t entirely get rid of cars, but most neighborhoods are resident permit only and they have been removing parking spots on main roads and shopping areas.

Do vaccines work? Yes

Vaccines don’t just work but have among the highest benefit for effort of any government service. It’s the best return on investment. It’s something huge with small effort

You’d think any party claiming to understand business would like these arguments. Any party claiming to be for small government would appreciate vaccinations as a way to prevent lots of big government

Usually they want my name to try to sell me something. Usually solar panels. Sometimes cell phone service

Unfortunately still requires the social bit. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking, especially outside. I’ve made meals fit for a dozen or more …… but I don’t know how to find someone to eat it

With the price of cars these days, probably just one lot

Same with me vs my youngest. We joke that it’s because of the funny names he puts on his. More likely it’s because he asks for double wrap an fajita veggies

Never seen them, but I’d try one of if I did.

The closest we have are mini potatoes that come in a tricolor bag including white, red, and blue. But the interior is mostly white

But the great Russian art and literature is mostly from the Russian empire. That Russia is long gone

Even literature protesting the Soviet Union belongs to a Russia that’s long gone

Media has been giving a lot of credit to the head of the Russian central bank holding everything together. When she disappeared, I was wondering if it all was finally falling apart.

But she’s back

I can’t see the part of the article behind a paywall, but I read it as that familiar quote of a cornered animal being the most dangerous. If he believes he has nothing left to lose, he’s more likely to strike out without inhibitions.

That’s not a call to appeasement but a warning that things can get even more dangerous just before the end. If Putin really is in fear of losing, or in fear of losing his power, will he stop at conventional attacks? Will he stop at the country he’s already attacking? Or will he strike randomly wherever and howeverhe can do the most harm?

Yeah, the face structure looks very similar to our Staffy mix

Just like it would be against the personal interests of republicans in Congress to rubber stamp the executive branch when it clearly violates constitutional checks and balances. We’ve always depended on personal greed for power as part of what makes checks and balances work. What congressman would give up his power to allocate funding, for example, and just let a tyrant have it?

But we live in a time when that no longer works, when leadership is so craven they would rather bow before their orange idol, and willingly give up the power they’ve been working toward their entire life.

Would the Supreme Court be any different? Will they care about their unique power to interpret the constitution, if they can accept motorhomes, private aircraft services, luxury resorts without fearing consequences?

Martin Bormann Mike Johnson (Head of the Nazi Republican Party Chancellery): Capturing the dogma of the Führerprinzip (leadership principle), Bormann Johnson stated: “All depends on him, he alone sustains morale, he is invariably right, he is our hope and trust.”

I was just planning to do some sort of write up on this topic, although it will be internal only.

Of the three projects I’m currently on

• existing code base where AI sometimes has good ideas but almost never able to implement them successfully. This is legacy code, all human generated, and is probably too tightly coupled. Test framework is tightly coupled to the environment so ai cannot run it
• new tool implementation to give cheaper and faster context across all repos (Spotify Backstage)
• new code base almost entirely ai generated. Much more loosely coupled. There is no test /mock framework available, so it’s all scripts, which the ai is able to run at will to refine its guesses

There’s definitely distinct conditions where ai can be the right tool and can succeed vs when it can’t. In managements blind rush to vibe code everything, they need to better understand where it works and where it doesn’t

In particular, functionality I’m working on this week

• existing code base ”modify function x to cover scenario y” at best gives a useful strategy
• new code base “implement function x similar to existing code base, but that also covers scenario y” seems to work

We all saw the Regressives cut Medicaid without caring that it meant millions of citizens losing their health insurance. With universal coverage we’d see similar but on a bigger scale. Regressives will always play up spite and self-righteousness , will always find a scapegoat who is “cheating”, will always play up high taxes being “bad for business”, plus of course we’d all like to pay less in taxes. We would still need the “face eating leopard” meme. Even then, it would be better for the rest of us, but it would still be the same fight

I disagree with HSA being a retirement plan, but yes, they give the person more control, something for the long term. There are some tax advantages to building it as retirement savings that streamers like to focus on, but that really should be a second priority to covering a lifetime of healthcare

Last time looked closely, the tradeoff in my company was that for an identical cost for me, I could choose

1. Traditional ppo with low copays and deductibles
2. High deductible health plan (HDHP) plus HSA to fully cover the annual deductible

That made it very compelling: the coverage should almost always be equal for equal cost. But unusually we don’t need that much medical care so I’d have something left over to help pay for next year. If we were able to start with just a couple healthy years, it would really make a difference in health costs. If you started young, it’s true that you build up a lot of savings for retirement, but it would only take a few healthy years at any age to cover, say a major operation (always in conjunction with HDHP). Or I don’t know if you could use it for COBRA if between jobs, but if you had enough you could cover even uninsured healthcare. The trick of course is how do you keep making an optional contribution when money is tight?