"The patriarchy hurts men too, but not enough of them if you ask me." Architect. He/him. 🌩️👀 A85tO8wdT1JD
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I’m with you, but let’s be clear: the actual demon is parents who wouldn’t let their kids walk to to a school that was 1/8 mile from their homes. We’ve all seen stories about cops being called bc kids are walking on their own on sidewalks in residential neighborhoods. America is broken.
I mean, a postwar where the USSR doesn’t create the Warsaw Pact—and there’s tons of room between the irl Warsaw Pact and, like, Poland joins the ECSC—could’ve been a much less cold war. As much as the US had hard line anti-Communists, it took a lot of Soviet bs to create the paranoid world we had.
I agree with all of that. And then the new cops will need expensive training so they act differently.
Because the training isn’t different. “Training” isn’t some neutral thing where more is automatically better. Too much cop training is currently this threat/fear framework that has them always armored up & trigger happy. That’s what needs to change, and it won’t be cheaper.
Happy Yes Day (a federal holiday in the United States)
My passion!
“Why won’t people admit that Waymo has already solved self-driving?”
I have no idea what’s gained by pretending that a drywaller doing popcorn ceilings is as skilled as a traditional plasterer. The tradeoff is productivity for skill, and that’s fine. But I’d argue that the US pursues this to a fault, which is why our industry is low quality AND low productivity.
See that’s a line that’s common that I think is bullshit. Yes, every job entails skill. Some skills are substantially mastered in a week, others in a decade. You’re saying less than nothing to say they are both skilled jobs. Most of modern construction is pushing for less skilled jobs, & has been.
They’re still building Guastavino-style arches in new buildings in Europe?
Speedtile was the brand name that everyone uses as a generic name here in Pittsburgh. My college dorm is/was made of it, inside & out.
Pretty sure terra cotta blocks are vastly more common than CMU for non bearing partitions worldwide. Unclear whether that means surface-mounted electrical raceways or what.
Posting this for no reason whatsoever
Plot twist. Fed. judge just enjoined expedited removals for people apprehended in the interior and folks with pending asylum applications. And she didn't stay (that is, delay the effectiveness of) the order. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...
He definitely said it, but Plato forgot to write it down.
Second best is that apparently England used to have a home for dull dogs.
Well this is the best thing I learned today.
My greatest achievement was the day in college I noticed a yellow Bug parked beneath my dorm. That night, while hanging w a Bug-owning buddy, we heard that unmistakeable exhaust note, I called "yellow!" and punched him.
damn this nails it
Funny thing, I don't recall my mom complaining abt the house they bought when she was pregnant w me, but the next two houses had endless regrets.
Holy shit, is that supposed to be a shining city on a hill? How... didactic.
A. I didn't know that, and B. has that stat changed over time? I feel like planned gap year has become a far, far more accepted thing among normie college-educated parents. Like, I never heard of such a thing when I was in HS, & when I did it sounded like BS. But now it seems on the table.
Oh man, that is not remotely large enough to be without some glass panels. I mean, I'm not a big fan of wet bathrooms, but I get the appeal (no mildewy curtains, looks sharp). But you need to have some containment ffs.
IIRC Lucas pegged it as age 12—not a little kid, but prepubescent. A LOT of post-Jedi product was aimed at the single digit set.
You see a similar dynamic with bands: longtime fans get mad when they try new things. Difference is that bands and franchises work on different timelines.
When I was a kid (<13), I looked up to my big sister & her friends, 1 in particular was basically my big brother. It opened my eyes that they could still be silly & have fun with childish stuff. IMO it's useful for grownups to have fun that isn't talking over coffee or golfing.
LOL
Like, drywall walls?
grrrr
Professor of mine used to grow his beard from the autumnal equinox to the vernal, then clean-shaven the other half of the year. Suitable little bit of seasonal acknowledgement.
Apropos of nothing, are you prepared for the coming Braxpocalypse?
Like, living in the LES in the '70s, surrounded by old immigrants and 1st & 2nd gen ethnics who would've been exotic but familiar: Euro-derived, English-speaking, etc. Now it's much more global, with countless languages. Harder to get enmeshed with for US-born whites.
Also, to be fair: working class NY in 1970 was still dominated by ethnic whites who might be 1st generation, at a time when most immigration had been limited for 45 years. A distinctive population whose time has simply passed. New working class is literally more foreign to writers etc.
So many factors w NYC (deindustrialization, Brooklyn gentrification, society-wide flattening of accent/character). WRT 9/11, I think some part of it was the steep rise in security/surveillance, reducing freedom of movement/commingling of classes. Like, a jump in separation bc who needs the hassle?
Literally can't read that without choking up
the OG cast look practically normal.
Yeah, about 10 years ago I rewatched Karate Kid, and what struck me—aside from the explicit class themes—was that Elisabeth Shue, obv gorgeous, also looked like the prettiest girl in your school, no the prettiest one you've ever seen. Or the remake of 90210, a cast of model types that made...
"How many times do I need to send these approved submittals?"
Freshman year of college I read Apuleius bc he was referenced in other books, I was completely unprepared for The Golden Ass. The word "bonkers" was invented for this book.
[I learned this from a gym teacher at the Kiski School 30 years ago, an eye-opening conversation]
But it turns out that if you're from one, you hate the other. Edgewooders sneer at lowly Swissvalers, Swissvalers hate snobby Edgewooders. People who didn't grow up there associate them bc of the signs on the parkway. Which isn't to say they shouldn't combine, one can hate a neighborhood as well.
Ordered a Smiths T shirt, got a Stone Roses one sent instead so wore that for a night on the piss. Met a woman and she raved about Ian Brown all night. We've been married for 25 years now; I think Stone Roses are shite and have never told the wife.
OK, thread is too long to check, but Parks & Rec, while mostly a goofy sitcom, is goddamn cinéma vérité when it came to the public meeting scenes. And the interoffice dynamics were also pretty good for a public agency, although in real ones there are more Knopes.
I think it's the similar backgrounds more than anything. Comedies have gotten better at culture/ethnicity (Never Have I Ever), but almost all of the writers are college educated, most of those went to selective schools, etc. Really bad at writing blue collar anything.
That's great, and it reminds me of a higher-effort version of Miyazaki insisting that his animators go out and sketch nature to understand how things really work/move.
"Are they ever going to pay that fucking invoice or what?"
I sat through all the LoTR films in the cinema with my friends because I didn't realise I have the right to say that I don't want to and will meet them later.
It looks like it’s crawling across a bûche de Noël.
I subscribe to a newsletter called Kingdom Of Days that looks back at Bruce Springsteen news from years past. I especially like when the blogger posts images from old reviews; and it's even more fun when those reviews are from early in the 1970s Springsteen hype cycle, and written by skeptics.
My kid, now a senior, went to college literally wearing t-shirts & flannels from my time in college 30 years prior. And Docs like my friends wore (I always preferred lighter shoes).
One of my friends did it, and another followed the route a few years after. For quite awhile I was worried that the ca. 2010 explosion of bike popularity would be a passing fashion, the way that the '70s one was, but clearly not at this point, which is great.
oh god what if our media is actually too feckless for despotism
The mice are on Chat-GPT
What's wild is that people still say, to this day, "half of all marriages end in divorce." Something that was, at best, briefly true for a few years half a century ago. Frankly I think it's telling that a tasty not-fact like that can persist forever in the cultural consciousness.
The reason Democrats are afraid they'll be smeared as Soft On Crime if they try to actually stand up against Trump's illegal occupations is because the entire media establishment has stated that they'll smear Democrats as Soft On Crime if they actually stand up against Trump's illegal occupations.
Point being, I feel like there’s an unexamined gap between acquisitive hoarding and, I dunno, passive hoarding. I’m keeping this broken spatula vs I’m buying 25 cute spatulas
So this is maybe interesting: I definitely have some hoarder/collector instincts which are definitely in my family. But it’s 100% about holding onto things of dubious sentimental value (eg scrapbook kinds of things), and 0% purchased things. Like, I’d die before buying a tool I might use only rarely
[obv we don't find *anything* honorable in his slaveholding, that's beside the point. If he ever saw that flaw, he—unlike Jefferson—didn't dwell on it]
Years & years ago I read a brief bio of Washington that was focused on how he very consciously, very intentionally worked to live a life that was honorable according to his definition of that. Like, he wrote obsessively abt it in his journals, it was his North Star. Very old fashioned way to think.
I'm not sure I even finished a page.
My childhood home designed and built by my parents circa 1969. Yes, they built a mid-century modern home in a colonial dairy farming hamlet of 300 people in Dutchess Cty, NY. My dad designed the housethe brick fireplaces and the floating stairs. This is Black history. www.airbnb.com/l/q9WpdfpL
Ok, there you go.
I know it’s been shown that Obama’s deportations were of a far far higher percentage of criminals etc than Trump 45’s. Don’t know how it compared with Bush, but he basically didn’t deport anybody who court-proven bad history.
Interesting
So it seems that the whole Cracker Barrel thing is being driven by a guy who's been trying to hostile takeover the company for 15 years, with the goal of lowering the stock price to make the takeover easier. Screenshot of a thread from Threads.
In 1955 the Red Cross didn’t segregate blood, and hadn’t for 5-7 years (sources differ).
Good point.
Yeah, not "nobody", but if we're imagining a large influx, it's going to be people who basically like it out there (or have never known anything else).
I'll never understand how councils in these towns don't see the virtuous circle of more housing=>more residents=>more customers. I mean, the answer is basically that they're hopelessly suburb-pilled and view people as a scary urban thing.
Like, a little apt building like this isn't foreign or alarming to somebody from a rural county (in the way that an urban rowhouse would be, let alone midrise apts), but it's near lots of care, & many are near transit. But we need many more of them (+ more density where suitable).
TBH I'd say first ring suburbs. Nobody fleeing rural care deserts wants to live in a city neighborhood, but a lot of the older suburbs already have a lot of infra for newcomers, but don't have a ton of extra housing capacity anymore.
Roberts wanted to be "Rehnquist but less of a crank" but his historical reputation will instead be "ultra-Taney"
I already got tricked like this by Paul Simon
it's impossible to see now what that will look like: will it be "throw the bastards in jail", will it be "Third Reconstruction", will it be Liberal Currentsism? But I don't think it'll be anything like repair & move on, bc of the messages voters send in the next 20+ months.
No "party" to learn lessons, but the aspiring nominees are looking to learn. In '20, they heavily overindexed on liberal signaling, thinking that primary voters would reward, and fundamentals would deliver an easy win. Voters were smarter & chose the sure thing. In '28 they'll want a fighter, but..
For sure. The nationalization of that race has been absurd, but this is the upside. I mean, a lot of us were hoping for this from DiBlasio, so huge grain of salt, and don't count chickens. But he's a potentially great standard-bearer. AND he'd be a rare Mayor who doesn't think he should be POTUS.
Tell you what, if he can actually pull off being a high profile, left-liberal mayor of NYC (vanishingly unlikely, I know), that would be such a valuable model for that kind of governance nationwide. "If Mamdani can do it, why can't we?" would knock down so many status quo arguments.
Yesterday I watched the episode of "Poker Face" with Cherry Jones, and I knew the name but didn't recognize the face. Turns out she narrated the Little House books that we listened to on car trips out west when the kids were little.
I had to mute an account because though im a yimby im so sick of the “yimbyism is going to save people from moving to red states” It’s wrong. They’ve been moving to red states since before they’ve been red states and will keep moving there. People like warm weather, no property tax and suburbia.
Coincidentally, I just saw somebody trying to dunk on Krugman for his internet/fax machine quote, but meanwhile, I'm *pretty sure* that we are still in a low–productivity growth era. Yes, computers are everywhere. No, they're not making us rich like steam, electricity, or the transistor did.
Dot com boom probably really instructive here. They spent $billions, mostly for nothing, but in the wake of the bust was the infrastructure for computers & the internet to *finally* improve productivity & change how we live (for better & worse).
There have been clear wins on the broadly anti-carceral side (Baltimore, various non-cop 1st responder initiatives), so there are models to point to, none of which look like the bailey version of defund/abolish. Whether it can overcome FOPs I dunno, but you have to try, not concede to Trumpy cops.
I think that there's probably a winning message—with the right messenger—that treats pre-2020 reformists goals as the common sense middle while rhetorically dismissing abolitionists. Bc there's still big appetite for reform, but the *language* of defund/abolition is IMO broadly discredited.
Wow.
UPDATE: Lisa Cook says she's not going anywhere and Trump's bid to fire her is baseless. www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
đź“Ś
To be clear: I think you're 100% right that the fear needs to be dealt with politically, & also that a better model for wealth-building would be great. But we're not going back to great houses selling for $90k bc of white flight & deindustrialization. That was a one-time moment.
Like, it's 100% the case that unmet demand for apts raises SFH prices, but most ppl who can afford SFHs will still want them even comes the day that there are enough apts for ppl who wan them. It's marginal units—overpriced rowhouses, distant exurbs—that are at risk, not the heart of the market.
FWIW, I think it's unrealistic to think that property owners will see real depreciation in any broad sense (even in the hottest markets, I think you'd see stasis, not outright decline). I don't think we can build enough units fast enough that existing ones plummet, & the demand for SFH won't vanish.
Yeah, there's a lot of future-proofing in the desire for infinite housing appreciation.
But anyway, my main point is that the margin was incredibly small: from shrinking, decaying Rust Belt to hip, affluent-ish meant a huge jump in housing prices without any influx whatsoever.
*it's still affordable on a national scale, but basically every neighborhood with decent amenities & access has now priced out working class residents (largely bc the most desirable neighborhoods haven't added housing *at all*, so all growth is funneled to once-affordable areas).
What's opened my eyes the most, as a Pittsburgher & longtime density advocate, is that naturally affordable housing is incredibly precarious. All it took to blow up Pgh's cheap housing* was a pause in population decline + newcomers with tech money. Not actual growth, not a change in housing stock.
I see that this is one of those chains that avoids the city like the plague. Fuck 'em.
My 21-yo’s typical bday cake request.
Right now Newsom is the Inevitable Nominee is not a thing that's going to happen. He's a CA governor whom the reactionaries think is a frothing leftist and whom the leftists want to guillotine as a soulless weathervane slash corporatist stooge. He has basically no plausible trajectory to success.
The Newsom Furor has made this place absolutely unbearable for the last week. Gavin Newsom redistricting (& telling the rest of the country to fuck off & not mess with CA) is an extremely heartening thing w/a chance of real success. He is also never gonna be President & should not be the nom.
