troglo-byte

There's very little bandwidth and audience on monetary matters to start with. If we're talking about anything else, we're detracting from that.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/2026/01/02/...

Bingo, it worked.

I've never lived in AZ, but it sounds like this may have a lot to do with it. ;-)

Personal injury is an area where plaintiffs start out with a huge advantage. Judgments are large and cases are often settled out of court by landlords' insurance companies. Not only would you have no trouble finding a lawyer, they might actively seek you out.

> When Jacobs takes on a job, he and his contractors sign temporary leases with the property owner. This move is his secret weapon.

> Jacobs is a big fan of California’s “castle doctrine.” The state law says someone has no duty to retreat in defending themselves against an intruder in their home. They can legally use force, even deadly force, to protect themselves — so long as the force used is proportionate to the threat.

The signing of a lease makes the aggressor look like the aggressee. This strategy seems really shaky to me. I can't help but wonder how well it's been tested in court.

Once someone gets seriously hurt, some of these landlords might end up wishing they had just waited out the regular eviction instead.

An even more interesting one is: What will we reward?

We've been rewarding labor quantity, as well as quality via higher wages - as motivation and as incentives for more education. This reflected the productivity primacy of knowledge work in modern economies, but that might not be the case down the road.

We've also been rewarding capital. Originally this was a way for the elites to keep themselves in place (a.k.a. economic rents), but in modern times it's been more of an entrepreneurial incentive (a.k.a. economic profits.)

Without the economic profit rationale, there's no reason to reward capital accumulation. Only pro-profit decisions are good for society, pro-rent decisions are awful. If there's no profit to incentivize, capitalism is just bad all around.

If AI becomes a better profit decision-maker than an entrepreneur, any humans left in the loop are nothing but high-rollers gambling with everyone else's money.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal

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    #define DoConcat__(A,B) A##B
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    int main() {
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            defer(( std::cout << "Hello World" << std::endl; ));
            std::cout << "This goes first" << std::endl;
        }
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Then there's the state-wide need to increase transmission capacity because of the switch to renewables, the future politics of which are kinda unpredictable. It's hard to imagine SF getting singled out and left out in the cold, considering the state already has many large municipal utilities getting better deals for their residents.

[0] https://www.siliconvalleypower.com/residents/rates-and-fees

Not that it will necessarily make for fewer blackouts, but a ~50% rate discount would be nice. That's what users in Santa Clara pay IIRC, and SF even owns the hydro generator at O'Shaughnessy Dam.

If we're looking beyond one decade, then:

- As with all other utility, the future must be discounted compared to the present.

- A language that might look sterling today might fall behind tomorrow.

- Something something AI by 2035.

SRO is much easier to deal with.

Before the citywide affordability crisis, I think you were more likely to end up outdoors because you hit bottom than the other way around. The outdoor segment and the weed-dealing segment have always been more visible, though.

Then there's the fact that even the 18-20yo "Hippie Pilgrim" demo, which has held up pretty well for generations, is secretly stratified by the socioeconomic status of the parents. One's take on it depends on the specific cliques they're exposed to.