davidw

I want to reunite with my 'principled nerds' so badly. Things weren't perfect, not by a long shot, back then, but there was a sense of hope and excitement about using technology to make the world a better place.

Closest thing is the Last Blockbuster: https://edjefferson.com/localwiki/?w=Last_Blockbuster

It's rare to have basements where I live in Bend, because it's all lava rock right under our feet, which is really expensive to remove.

Get out there and walk doors if you can. Even an introvert like me can do it. It doesn't really require any special training. Find your candidate and look up how to help.

A lot of our 'process' is dominated by wealthy people who benefit from the status quo (or think they do). I wrote up this housing hearing I went to, and I wish more people could experience something like it to understand the problem:

https://bendyimby.com/2024/04/16/the-hearing-and-the-housing...

Thanks to Governor Kotek, Oregon passed a bit of housing reform in 2025 that lets you build 'middle housing' despite anything an HOA says. I was really happy to go to Salem (Oregon's capital) to speak in favor of that.

I was told at 19 that I would have horrible, awful, terrible pain because of my wisdom teeth.

I still have them. I'm almost 51 now.

Modern day France or England are pretty nice places to live in a lot of ways. Better, in terms of day to day life, than when they were empires.

It might stop the bleeding, but it won't repair the damage, is how I think of it.

I'm 50, and I am thinking basically "the rest of my life" is what it will take to start fixing some of this stuff, if it's even possible.

What a bunch of sophomoric blather. "Politics" is just how large groups of humans organize themselves. It can be done well or done poorly. It can be done with a thought to the most vulnerable, where minorities have rights and where it's not simply mob rule.

"Politics" is how we decide whether or not to protect certain aspects of the natural world from exploitation, and how much. Or how much to help people who can't make their own way in the world for whatever reason (illness, age, whatever).

Step 0: call 911 or whatever your country's equivalent is.

Yeah, I cannot imagine seeing people in pain and suffering and even dying on a regular basis. Nope nope nope. I mean, I am extremely grateful for the people who can handle that, but I'm not cut out for it.

This is kind of underselling some important details:

For those who don't recognize the name, he is the brother of a top professional cyclist, Matteo Jorgenson, who just last weekend played a key role in the US winning the world cycling championship road race.

Second this - I've been reading it for years, and it goes beyond "who won" and has a lot more in-depth analysis, including the business side of cycling.

Ok, but if the SPR runs out... that would be a much larger spike, right? That's what some of the doomers keep talking about. Maybe they're correct... I don't know.

The article mentions Oregon east of the Cascades; I was going to say something if it didn't. So many amazing places to visit in that part of the world, and it is empty. It's one of the emptiest parts of the United States outside of Alaska.

Close to Bend, you can drive up to the Pine Mountain Observatory when they open it (check the web site), and the views are amazing because you're on a 6300 foot mountain away from the city with clear air.

I am frankly a bit bewildered by all this. The US administration lies and lies. The Iranians lie. Doomers keep talking about how gas prices will skyrocket "in two weeks". Occasionally the "everything is fine, nothing to see here" folks wheel out some journalist saying there will be a peace deal any day now.

It's pretty difficult to figure out what the reality is besides "not good".

I tried to look up a country parody song from The Daddies called "You wiped your ass with my heart" and it wanted to console me about that, too.

I wish he'd make more videos - they were really funny

https://www.youtube.com/@gar1t/videos

He's promoting the political party that denies the science showing that climate change is happening, so no.

Easily the most corrupt administration in my lifetime of 50+ years.

It's really impressive how the icons+text carries through every single one of them isn't it.

As a resident of Bend, Oregon, checking the homepage sets off some kind of "oh look, Bend!" alarm in my brain.

Speaking of lava, you should do a presentation to the local tech group if you're ever here in Bend, Oregon...

It's not hate, it's just something that changed in the US in about the 1970ies. In the past, you'd have a booming area and people would build homes as a result and things weren't perfect, but kind of balanced out in terms of housing.

Then we stopped doing that, with devastating consequences for many people wishing to move to places with better opportunities: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20170388 - as well as the economy as a whole.

You can read about it in books like Arbitrary Lines https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9781642832549/ar... or Zoning Rules https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/books/zoning-rules/

Actually you can blame them because it was the done thing throughout US history to build more homes when people moved to an area. And there is nothing more American than moving to a place with better opportunities or amenities. "The pursuit of happiness" and all that.

Actual immigration from outside the US is a vanishingly small part of our housing problems, just as immigrants do not actually "eat the cats and dogs".

Where I live in Oregon the conflict is almost entirely about other Americans moving here vs those pulling up the ladder - which doesn't, of course,stop anyone from moving here, it just means only the wealthy can, rather than teachers, nurses, firefighters and so on.

Most of the 'squeeze' comes from things like housing and health care. The former driven by NIMBYs pulling the ladder up after them in so many desirable places.

It's really dismaying how many people on this site seem to think immigration and the job market are a zero sum game... and that hasn't changed 12 years after I wrote this:

https://journal.dedasys.com/2014/12/29/people-places-and-job...

I think there are a lot of bad actors at the top in tech, in general.

Yeah, people trying to get rich quick are maybe not great, but that's a side of humanity that has always been with us and always will be and you can kind of discount it. I'm talking about the people who run things lurching towards some pretty ugly stuff.