2024-08-14
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Is Land-Use Regulation Holding Back Construction Productivity?
The paper essentially asks whether land-use regulation for new housing affects the productivity of construction. It finds evidence that land-use regulations are restricting construction productivity, by reducing firms’ ability to exploit economies of scale. Stricter land-use regulations force builders to spread their efforts over a large number of relatively small projects, limiting the number of homes they’re able to build. This, in turn, limits their ability to invest in better homebuilding technology or otherwise take advantage of economies of scale. This theory neatly ties together a lot of issues we’ve looked at previously: construction’s poor productivity record, the rise and fall of Levittown-style construction, the problem of land-use regulation, the question of why there are so few economies of scale in construction, and so on. I think the thesis here is broadly, directionally correct. But I have issues with some of the various measures the authors use to demonstrate it, and I think their use weakens the paper’s finding. I also think the mechanics of their model need some refinement, particularly with regards to large-volume home builders like D.R. Horton or Lennar. More generally, I think issues of construction productivity go beyond land-use restrictions (something I doubt the authors would disagree with). Nevertheless, I think this paper sheds light on an aspect of the construction productivity problem.
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Now that Minnesota is on the map, so to speak, I'm seeing various social media posts of patronizing Minnesotans taking it upon themselves to explain "The Halloween Blizzard of '91" to an internet that didn't ask. I understand the compulsion. For Gen X and elder Millennials, this apocalyptic storm is a cultural touchstone; a zeitgeist in and of itself. Kitschy shops and State Fair booths sell t-shirts that say, "I survived the Halloween Blizzard of '91" alongside other cultural tropes like, "I tried to ford the river but my oxen died" and "Whisky Business."
Horseshit
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Opinion | How to Make a Nation of Meat Eaters Crave the Humble Bean - The New York Times
What would it take to encourage Americans to adopt more sustainable tastes? Telling people that they are wrong to enjoy eating cheese or candy or bacon is clearly not the way to go. The stomach — like the heart — knows what it knows. A far more productive approach would be to help people discover new preferences for some of the foods that should play bigger roles in our diets. Take beans. Really — take some beans! They, along with peas, lentils and other legumes, are everything meat is not in sustainability terms: far less thirsty per gram of protein than the water-guzzling operations that serve up America’s beef and chicken and good for soil quality, drawing in nitrogen and reducing the need for fertilizer. So how can millions of people divert some of their love for meat toward beans?
beans still have a low profile compared to meat, not least because the bean industry lacks the clout of the meat industry, which pours millions into lobbying. But this could change. If anyone tells you Americans will never enjoy beans as much as they do meat, think of just a few of the once little-known foods, from pesto to tofu and gochujang, that have been welcomed gratefully onto American tables in recent decades. The more new plant foods a person learns to enjoy, the less room there is on the plate for hamburgers.
Musk
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Musk claims there was a DDoS attack on X – but The Verge is told there was not
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Twitter ordered to pay record €550k to senior executive in Ireland
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Elon Musk uses his X social media platform to amplify right-wing views
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Brussels slaps down Thierry Breton over ‘harmful content’ letter to Elon Musk
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J.K. Rowling, Elon Musk Named in Imane Khelif's Cyberbullying Lawsuit
Electric / Self Driving cars
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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The protesters, organized in part by the group IfNotNow Los Angeles, walked onto the freeway around 9 a.m. in the area of Venice Boulevard, creating an instant backup of traffic south of the 10 Freeway. California Highway Patrol officers quickly responded to the scene, and the group was quickly moved out of traffic lanes. The group, consisting of several dozen people, could then be seen marching south along the freeway shoulder and being escorted off the roadway under the watch of CHP officers. By 9:40 a.m., all lanes except one were reopened to slow-moving traffic on the freeway.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Reliance, Disney offer concessions to win antitrust nod for India media merger
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DoorDash to offer Max streaming to members in the US as competition intensifies
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Pixel 9 Pro, Pro XL launch with Satellite SOS, Android 14, $999 starting price
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Paramount shutters TV studio, begins major layoffs ahead of Skydance merger
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Publishers Are Redoubling Presence on Reddit as It Rises in Search Visibility
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Intel failures: A cautionary tale of business vs. engineering
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Koda Farms Ends Their Family-Run Rice Business - The New York Times
this fall, there will be no new crop rice for sale on the family homestead. Koda Farms is closing up shop. “People really romanticize farming,” Ms. Koda said, “but it’s becoming more and more challenging.” She pointed to the soaring cost of water for farms in California, a surge in insurance premiums and the cost of organic fertilizer, gas and new equipment, along with the small and aging labor pool in rural Merced County. On top of those grievances, which are familiar to most farmers, Koda has been dedicated to growing a particularly low-yielding heirloom rice on poor adobe soil. “Kokuho Rose was a modern rice in my grandfather’s era,” Ms. Koda said. “But now it’s antiquated: too tall, too slow-growing, too low-yielding.”
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Amazon says US labor watchdog that filed labor charges violates constitution
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The CEO of Bank of America no longer believes a recession is on the horizon
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Lyft shares suffer big fall, even as it reports first quarterly profit
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Starbucks replaces CEO after just 17 months, turns to Chipotle leader
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Dow rallies more than 350 points as tame inflation data fuels market comeback
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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FBI is probing alleged hack on US presidential campaigns
Following Microsoft’s intelligence report of an Iranian group targeting US election campaigns, and the former President Donald Trump’s campaign citing this intelligence as the source for a breach of internal communications, the FBI has officially opened an investigation into the attack. It has now also emerged the same Iranian group may have also targeted the former presidential campaign of Joe Biden and running-mate-turned-presidential-nominee Kamala Harris. An FBI spokesperson acknowledged its involvement in the investigation, but did not disclose any suspects or the scope of the investigation.
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Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters convicted in computer breach
Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, the first local election official to be charged with a security breach after the 2020 election as unfounded conspiracy theories swirled, was found guilty by a jury on most charges Monday. Peters, a one-time hero to election deniers, was accused of using someone else’s security badge to give an expert affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell access to the Mesa County election system and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity.
Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state. She was found not guilty of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and one count of criminal impersonation, rejecting that in those instances Peters had used the identity of the security badge’s owner, a local man named Gerald Wood, without his permission. She will be sentenced Oct. 3.
Peters allowed a former surfer from California affiliated with Lindell, Conan Hayes, to observe the software update and make copies of the hard drive using Wood’s security badge. Peters told visiting officials that Hayes, posing as Wood, worked for her. But while prosecutors said Peters committed identity theft by taking Wood’s security badge and giving it to Hayes to conceal his identity, the defense said Wood was in on the scheme so Peters did not commit a crime by doing that.
- Voting software that's so secure that it's a crime to show it to anyone. Security by Obscurity is bad enough; this is security by "Don't look behind the curtain."
Harris / TBA 2024 / Democrats Demonstrate "Our Democracy"
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Time ‘propaganda’ profile of Kamala Harris ripped for ‘worshipping’ Dem nominee.
Instead of Harris, the piece interviewed Harris allies like Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, CNN’s Bakari Sellers and gun control activist David Hogg. “Elections come down to vibes, and Kamala has got the vibes right now,” Hogg said.
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Harris-sponsored Google ads suggest publishers are on her side
The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side, Axios has found. It's a common practice in the commercial advertising world that doesn't violate Google's policies, but the ads mimic real news results from Search closely enough that they have news outlets caught off guard. According to Google's ad transparency center, the Trump campaign isn't running these types of ads, but this technique has been used by campaigns before. The ads say that they are sponsored, but it's not immediately clear that the text that accompanies real news links is written by the campaigns and not by the media publication itself. "While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian's trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We'll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice," a Guardian spokesperson said.
Trump / Right / Jan6
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Burglary at Trump campaign Virginia headquarters caught on surveillance camera under investigation.
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UAW files labor charges against Musk and Trump for alleged union-busting talk
The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has filed federal labor charges against Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump over their “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers” during Monday night’s interview on X. At one point in the interview, Trump praised Musk’s response to striking workers. He called Musk “the greatest cutter,” referring to the widespread layoffs the billionaire has issued at Tesla and Twitter.
Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for going on strike, and threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. “When we say Donald Trump is a scab, this is what we mean. When we say Trump stands against everything our union stands for, this is what we mean,” said UAW President Shawn Fain. “Donald Trump will always side against workers standing up for themselves, and he will always side with billionaires like Elon Musk, who is contributing $45 million a month to a Super PAC to get him elected. Both Trump and Musk want working class people to sit down and shut up, and they laugh about it openly. It’s disgusting, illegal, and totally predictable from these two clowns.”
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
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The Fifth Circuit Shuts Down Geofence Warrants – and Maybe a Lot More
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A day after a report on a probe of the village's finances found south suburban Dolton is more than $3.5 million in the red, Mayor Tiffany Henyard – who is accused of misusing taxpayer money – was nowhere to be found. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who was hired by the village board to investigate Henyard's handling of village finances, released preliminary findings that the village is not only in significant debt, but that credit card spending is out of control. Henyard hasn't responded to requests for comment, and wasn't at Dolton Village Hall on Friday. Her office did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Village employees said Henyard wasn't in the office, and didn't say when she would be.
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Ex-Kansas police chief who raided local newspaper criminally charged
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
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Russian Navy trained to target sites inside Europe with nuclear-capable missiles
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Ukrainians Turned a Toyota Mirai Into a Hydrogen Bomb to Use Against Russia
A battery fire or hydrogen tank explosion is the worst nightmare of any owner of an electrified vehicle. But this grim potential was recently put to good use by Ukrainian fighters against Russian invaders, against whom they deployed a remote-operated bomb that was partially built using a Toyota Mirai hydrogen car’s fuel tank. In a sense, they might’ve just deployed the smallest hydrogen bomb ever built.
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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British energy giant exceeds toxic limits at Louisiana wood pellet facilities
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How a warming Earth is changing our brains, bodies and minds
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Is Animal Agriculture a bigger emitter than we previsouly thought?
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An experiment to artificially cool Earth was canceled – what we know about why
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Parts of Canada's Boreal Forest Are Burning Faster Than They Can Regrow
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Rat poison is moving up through food chains, threatening carnivores
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WHO to scrap weak PFAS drinking water guidelines after alleged corruption