• 7 Posts
  • 426 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 2nd, 2023

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  • It’s a tunnel with electric trains. I volunteer my pasty white ass’s house as tribute for this. My city has near zero rail service and I’ll take it in a heartbeat.

    Yes, the US has been using infrastructure to harm minority communities for generations, but so far this doesn’t seem to be the most egregious example of that. The exhaust system being next to a school is the only concern, but only if there’s a fire in the tunnel (which should be rare unless Boeing starts making trains).

    Either move the exhaust or move the school while you start digging that new higher speed tunnel! Let’s go for some real modern transit!



  • Requiring someone to provide evidence to back up a claim is not the same as taking a position that the claim isn’t true. This is the root component of the burden of proof and the stance many people have towards a god claim: they aren’t convinced the god exists due to a lack of evidence provided by the person claiming the god does exist. Until there’s actual evidence it’s rational and reasonable to withhold judgement.

    The unicorn (or other mythological beings) are used as a similar case to illustrate to a theist that they have the same kind of attitude towards the idea of a unicorn existing as an atheist does to any gods. They’re both neat concepts, but without evidence showing they actually exist, they’re nothing more than an idea for stories and art.


  • Definitely a ‘duh’ result from a survey. The cost of childcare in the US is criminal, so of course smaller businesses will have a tougher time absorbing that cost, either as salaries or benefits.

    The US government spends an average of $500 /child/year for preschoolers in healthcare, childcare, and support (like food). It’s outright pathetic. We’re so far behind the next OECD nation that we can’t even see them on that scale. The top spender is Norway at $26,000/child/year! As a nation they take care of their people for which they’re healthier and happier for it.

    Yes, we’re trying to raise the deductions for the business, but that only helps children with parents who can qualify for those kinds of positions. It ties workers to their jobs, just like our healthcare system does. This will create yet another hole that makes it harder for people to leave work, and more ability for toxic workplaces to abuse workers who would depend upon a given job to pay for daycare because the business gets the support and not the child. Let’s start making some legislation to just directly support children, and not some Rube Goldberg machine tying us to bosses and owners.




  • There was a similar issue with Cities Skylines. When they tried to put a realistic amount of parking lot space for modern US cities in, the simulation would have the cities quickly decay and collapse. It was just too much room and distance required to support the parking area. It cost too much and the travel times were too high due to the expanded city distances.

    They took out the real parking and made cute little lots instead so the game would stay viable.

    Of course, our real city leadership most ignores this warning and says “let’s add more parking and lanes for those ever larger vehicles!” My city’s downtown is about 30% dedicated to off street parking and there’s moves afoot to increase the number of they can knock down a few more buildings to make space.

    Oh, and we declared a parking garage an official city historical site. That one’s a little on the nose.








  • You’re right. The EV companies know it, the power companies are acutely aware, governments at all levels are wrestling with it, and people in older homes with old wiring find out. Many of these groups (not the old wiring homeowners) are actually pretty excited about it. It means infrastructure upgrades, funding for cities, new power company jobs, and reinvestment in old worn out wir s everywhere.

    Of course a shift in our oil dependent car shit hole system will require a similar scale shift in the energy infrastructure and that provides lots of opportunities.



  • Our US city (pop 180k, metro 600k) is just about to lose the last downtown grocery store.

    Generations of city councils have allowed (or encouraged!) the demolition of all housing in the city core to replace it with parking lots.

    There’s almost no one left downtown so the city itself is dying. It’s just kind of rotting away. There’s currently at least some effort to reverse the trend, but the vice grip that car oriented everything has on people is terrifying to politicians.