Drunk_Engineer

Under HIPAA, any scrap of "individually identifiable health information" that can be used to connect online data with a patient cannot be sent to a third party without consent.

Sending medical images to Microsoft seems like a major HIPAA violation.

Among other things, data showed mandatory helmet laws may have had a perverse impact on motorcycle fatalities: http://john-adams.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/motorcycle%2...

Risk Compensation theory predicts this technology will increase risky behavior by drivers. It has been well established that people adjust their behavior in response to perceived risk -- and if the car is going to handle the emergency braking it will cause more dangerous speeds and tailgating.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation

This particular bill would only apply to properties near a transit stop. The Feds already provide considerable financial support to local transit operators, and could simply cut off support to localities that do not support TOD policies.

Don't know if there has ever been a Federal case involving parking minimums, but in general the Supreme Court has been extremely deferential to local government regarding zoning issues. In my view, the Court was incorrect on some of these rulings, and it would be interesting if Congress tried to rectify the situation.

This point is addressed in the article:

"An originalist understanding of the Constitution would consider parking mandates a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause protections, incorporated against state and local governments by the 14th Amendment. Congress would therefore be empowered to pass legislation to protect individuals' rights from these parking mandates."

Mostly inoffensive...aside from the "sexy born yesterday" trope.

In other words, Regulatory-Capture ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp).

"I can't tell if we're struggling because we're less competent or more corrupt..."

It is obviously corruption. All project "management" was turned over to private consultants. The longer the project drag out, the more money they earn. Failure is its own reward.

This is why there have been so many "questionable" decisions. All those pergolas, trenches, moving entire highways, building aerials through Bakersfield seem like batshit insane decisions -- until you realize who profits from all this.

That Caltrans budget is for maintaining a huge network of roads/highways across the entire state, as well as paying for various public transit programs and the highway patrol.

According to the 2017 ACS Census, Idaho has a respectable amount of pedestrian traffic. So lack of pedestrians (on a per-capita basis) can't be the reason.

https://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2020/20_0097.htm

Unpermitted additions are extremely common, as are "illegal" backyard cottages.

In San Francisco (and other big metros) landlords build illegal/unpermitted units all the time.

Buttigieg "won" the caucus because of Iowa's calvinball rules for assigning delegates. Sanders actually had more votes.

This Spitting Image sketch never gets old:

https://www.facebook.com/inmynewsfeed/videos/stupid-voters-s...

That would explain why ChatGPT is always so confidently-incorrect.

Your comment is off-topic. This proposal would not apply to gas stoves, only furnaces and hot water heaters.

Reading Spanish language sources, I find no reporting that says the firm did any actual work on the project. The delay was due entirely to communication back and forth between Renfe, Adif, and the contractor about what size train to build. The firm notified their customer way back in 2021 about the size discrepancy, and it has taken much time to resolve.

Another example is the Amtrak Acela. The coaches were built 4" too wide, and as a result the expensive "tilt" feature could not be used along a major section of the route.

Clickbait headline -- the error was caught during the design phase. At worst, this will cause a 2-3 year delay in building the trains.

The more interesting thing about the story is how several top government officials were fired as a result. That would never happen in the US, where decade-long delays are commonplace for train procurement.

The current ATCS system was installed in the late 1990's, so it is actually not that old (for a train signal system). The real issue here is the usual SF Muni incompetence when they spec'ed and installed a signal system without knowing what they were doing.

Before upgrading the train system, SFMTA will first need to upgrade the in-house staff. Otherwise the same problem is going to happen again.

They ran out of money last year.

Reddit is not exactly an authoritative source....

While nobody knows how to make a level 5 AV, we do know how to eliminate road deaths:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/16/how-helsinki-a...

E-bikes are a very good solution for trips not well served by public transit. And E-bikes do have manual transmissions, for those who like that sort of thing...

Pre-COVID projection for SF Central Subway is 43,700 daily trips by 2030, and maxing out at 65,000. So yes, order of magnitude difference in capacity.

https://www.wsp.com/en-US/projects/san-francisco-central-sub...

The Singapore line is designed to handle 1 million daily riders. It is in not comparable to the rinky-dink Muni project.

About that Caltrain connection...the terminal was built before the connecting tunnel was planned. It is still unclear how the terminal will accommodate the required number of trains without the tunnel backing up. The latest workaround being studied is to make it a Through-station -- which would be great except these same city officials allowed a bunch of skyscrapers to be built east of the terminal (i.e. where the through-tracks would go).

As for the bus-station-in-the-sky...talk to any AC Transit planner and they will say (privately) the agency would have much preferred for transbay buses to continue down Market St (i.e. similar to how BART works). But AC Transit is not allowed to compete with SF Muni, so instead a giant bus parking lot was built above some of the most pricey real estate in the world.

So yes, the station is yet another example of Bay Area dysfunction.