sushisushisushi

I've got good news for you. You can contribute to these projects (and put your contributions on your résumé) without having the Facebook taint. e.g.:

* https://github.com/facebook/react/pulls

It makes sense when you understand that those at the top really don't view the rest of us in the same terms that they view each other. We're not accorded the same hopes, dreams, desires, needs, etc. They're special; we're not. Everything they do, morally speaking, proceeds from that premise.

It's not really outside the Overton window. Universal healthcare has strong majority support right now.

Employers and shareholders benefit significantly by reducing options for workers and by making it difficult for workers to change jobs; the source of the resistance is there, in the plain language of power, not in some imaginary spectrum of what's considered to be acceptable.

As a user, I hate that AMP means that Google search results give me Google URLs instead of what I’m actually looking for.

As a developer, I hate that AMP is just another one of Google’s tentacles with which I have to contend.

The stone walls in New England are not ancient, they're from early settlers who cut down the forests and created pastures and farmland. The soil in New England is very rocky, so tilling it produced lots of rocks. The rocks were used to create walls to demarcate property lines. Now that the forests have regrown, there are many forgotten/disused stone walls deep in the woods, but they were originally put there by farmers.

Edit: I'd add that these stone walls are still used by surveyors, especially when the historical records may be spotty, but also just because they in many cases happen to still fall along existing property lines. There _are_ a few "ancient" stone sites in New England of disputed origin, including "Mystery Hill" (also known as "America's Stonehenge"). But there is a strong argument to be made that these were constructed by modern Americans as hoaxes.

There's a reason why denaturalization usually only happens if you perjured your way into citizenship: it's an extremely severe action that is not meant to be a punishment, but rather to correct a mistake (according citizenship to somebody who in reality failed to meet certain criteria).

Denaturalization as punishment is something you see in totalitarian ethno-states, not democracies.

>It was shit and I will never take an Amtrak again.

All Amtrak lines are operated a little differently, AFAIK. As far as the West Coast is concerned, I find both the Pacific Surfliner and the Coastal Starlight to be pleasant and enjoyable (although not very affordable). The Northeast Regional on the East Coast is pretty affordable, runs often, and makes traveling between cities in the Northeast megalopolis without a car pretty trivial, which is nice.

All that's to say that I wouldn't judge Amtrak by its least-used routes.

You may have addressed it, but it doesn't seem like you understand it.

People get away with operating small businesses in residential zones because the businesses they usually operate tend to operate unnoticed and without disrupting neighbors' lives. For example, working from home as an independent contractor, or simply receiving business mail at your home address--these things have zero impact on your neighbors, generally speaking. It's quite possible to operate such a small business out of your home or apartment without any of your neighbors ever even realizing it.

Now, if you were actually engaged in providing services to customers directly from your home or apartment, that would be a different story. If you had a steady stream of clients visiting your home, your neighbors might be right to complain about the increased traffic, noise, or any other undesirable consequences.

Treating your property like a hotel is no different from treating it like a restaurant or a hair salon or a department store; it changes the character of the neighborhood, places extra (or at the very least unexpected) load on local infrastructure (which may not be designed to handle it), potentially reduces security, and causes any number of other potentially adverse side effects.

But I'd say that your argument that operating a hotel out of your home is somehow just like operating any other kind of small business falls on its face by virtue of the fact that operating a hotel out of your home is clearly quite controversial while operating many other kinds of small businesses is not. If these things were the same, this discussion would not be happening.

Zoning regulations are a tool of civic planning. The fact that racist civic planners use them to enact racist zoning regulations does not mean that zoning regulations in and of themselves are racist or always end up being racist.

There is tons of zoning in Texas; I think you're thinking of Houston.

>But outside of that structure, what gives someone the right to dictate to their neighbors what they can and can't do with their own property?

The fact that what you do with your own property often has direct effects on your neighbors. This is why zoning regulations exist, for example. And noise ordinances. And building codes. There isn't a magical forcefield that ends at your property line that prevents what you're doing from having an adverse affect on others.

Just like people who don't like noise should be careful about living close to other people, people who like to be left alone to do what they want with their own property need to take the same considerations into mind.