But there are too many people with huge sums of money invested to allow a cataclysmic event to happen, and for swathes of cities to become ghost towns. [...] vacated commercial buildings are set to be updated, transforming areas formerly packed with office workers during workweeks, and nearly deserted over weekends, into "hybrid destinations" filled with greater green spaces, pedestrianised areas and leisure options that keep a more consistent weekly footfall. [...] Developers might be forced to the cliff edge to be creative, but they have around five years to prepare, mobilise and get ready for the future that's coming.
Lol, this guy imagining that they're going to spend their time accepting massive losses and making plans to convert their buildings, instead of spending massive amounts of time and money re-writing laws and codes so they don't get stuck with the losses.
I mean, I could see what he's saying if this was one city, or some percentage of cities. But this is every city, plus half the suburbs, all at the same time, all trying to offset the same trillions of dollars of losses.
From what I understand, you can convert a lot of buildings that were built before the middle of the century; it's the massive onees that are the issue. Older buildings were designed to let in light and air from the outside. If you break them into apartments, you can get something that's a reasonable size with windows.
But if you try to convert one of those massive square skyscrapers, you run into issues. You could break each floor into a set of massive apartments, but there aren't enough people who can afford them. You can make really long, thin apartments with windows at one end, but most people don't want to live in something that's 10-15 feet wide, a third of a city block long, with windows at one end. Or you can put the apartments around the edges and then do something with the center space; say, put tenant storage space every 3 floors, a gym every 8 floors, a play area every 5 floors, etc. But that raises the cost of the apartments and incurs monthly fees to clean and maintain those areas.
One of my neighbors moved out and I've mostly been murdering the tiger lilies he planted in the common areas. (He said he liked them and the deer would keep them in check. The deer only ate them in the spring, and he 'liked' them because then his pitbulls could chase the deer. Fucker . Then one of the other neighbors' dogs chewed on the lilies and got sick, so ....)
Anyway, I've replacing them with a mix of like 20 local pollinator plants, chosen for a mix of both pollinators and seasons. Trying to figure out how I can get some rain barrels in to feed the new gardens without pissing off the HOA, and carrying on the eternal battle to let the HOA let us install solar (beyond the two panels we hid in the backyard, but we can't get any more in there).
Common area veggie garden has finally settled in, and the apple trees should be bearing fruit in another year. [The berry bushes we snuck in the woods are doing nicely, and the local animals love them!]
I'm reading Erik Larsen's new book on the start of the civil war, and he's pointing our some interesting things. Like in letters and dispatches, the southerners rarely used the word 'slaves', preferring to use 'hands' or 'Negroes'. They thought of themselves as a kind of nobility, even going so far as to have competitions where they'd try to lance rings from horseback, or decapitate a dummy from horseback - medieval knight stuff. They came up with all kinds of justifications as to why slavery was okay - they were a superior race, the negroes were used to it and didn't mind, they were saving the slaves from the economic uncertainty of the job market, etc. One guy had a section in his handbook on how to whip his slaves so that they were still able to work afterward.
They were taught to be proud of all this. After defeat, they immediately came up with the Lost Cause hypothesis and started teaching that, because they were honorable, noble men and the northerners just didn't understand Southern people or their culture. They've never truly understood or admitted they were wrong, and they keep pressing that mindset into each of the next generations as they arrive.
State police said they received a request for assistance from UVa police at approximately 9 a.m. Saturday. That was an hour after the university says UVa Police Chief Tim Longo asked the protesters to voluntarily remove the tents and after “officials began attempts to collect the tents and were met with agitation and chanting from demonstrators.”
Oh no!! Not agitation and chanting!!!! How threatening! Whatever shall we do?!
the worker, a 35-year-old South African man, was caught trying to deploy a lifeboat from a Norwegian Cruise Line ship west of Vancouver Island. The ship’s security escorted Sogoni to the vessel’s medical center for an evaluation [where] he “became irrational and attempted to leave” and “physically attacked a security guard and a male nurse". [He then] ran to another exam room, where a 75-year-old patient was inside, [and] stabbed the woman in her arm, hand and face, then [stabbed] one guard in the head and stabbed the other guard’s back and shoulders.
Supposedly they still have several months worth of munitions. Which should be more than sufficient if this is (as they claim it is) the final push. The fact that they're upset at even a delay in the weapons shows where their real intentions lie.
For years, the site had a standing policy that prevented the use of generative AI in writing or rewording any questions or answers posted. Moderators were allowed and encouraged to use AI-detection software when reviewing posts. Beginning last week, however, the company began a rapid about-face in its public policy towards AI.
I listened to an episode of The Daily on AI, and the stuff they fed into to engines included the entire Internet. They literally ran out of things to feed it. That's why YouTube created their auto-generated subtitles - literally, so that they would have more material to feed into their LLMs. I fully expect reddit to be bought out/merged within the next six months or so. They are desperate for more material to feed the machine. Everything is going to end up going to an LLM somewhere.
Serious Trouble, by the further hosts of (and essentially a continuation of) All the President's Lawyers.
Nocturne, by Vanessa Lowe. A podcast about the night, and things that happen during the night. Favorite episodes: Night ways about what ancient people use to do at night and how archeology and anthropology are changing their perceptions; Finding the Void about a guy who lived inside a mall; On the North Face about a guy who got lost while climbing Mount Shasta; What's Would You Do about the fear of night.
I usually check in on The Daily like once a week to see if anything interesting has been covered.
And This Week in Virology, which I got into during the pandemic. Usually the weekly update on Friday on what contagious diseases are currently circulating, and about half the time their Sunday episode.
destroy Hamas's military and governing capabilities
"scuse us while we move some goalposts here ....
and ensure that Gaza does not pose a threat to Israel in the future
And suddenly it's not 'Hamas' that's a threat, but 'Gaza'. More moving goalposts, and revealing Israel's real aim: the elimination of Gaza itself. Except, like the Republicans, who constantly have to create a new threat to 'defend' themselves against, after Gaza it'll be the West Bank. And after that it'll be something else ...
The picture is interesting. That particular shade of green is the one that's usually worn (either in a vest or cap) by the legal observers for the protesters. So it looks like the cops may have arrested a legal observer ...
When you check in, just tell the desk that you don't want housekeeping sitting your stay.