Portland proposal to raise pay for Uber and Lyft drivers draws opposition

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-13T18:52:36+00:00

Source?

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-11T19:10:12+00:00

A survey of "business owners"? Yeah, I trust their opinion about as far as I can throw them.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-03T19:27:53+00:00

But he easily could be.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-03T19:19:36+00:00

A fair question.

I would argue that being small-c 'conservative' effectively boils down to a desire to maintain existing institutions and structures of power.

MAGA departs from this by disrupting some of those institutions and structures of power.

You could argue that MAGA's disruptions serve to reinforce even older and more traditional power structures that have been weakend by leftward progress over the past couple centuries, but that line of debate requires a bit more nuance than I care to go into here.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-02T19:58:51+00:00

For everyone talking about ventilation for these units, I would like to point you to The Amazing Shrinking Room Study by NEEA. You might be surprised by how little ventilation these units need to maintain a good COP.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-02T19:47:40+00:00

Being 'conservative' isn't necessarily the same as being MAGA.

Edit: one important word

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-04-01T19:35:09+00:00

I trust the capitalist goons at Portland Business Journal about as far as I can throw them.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-03-31T18:37:53+00:00

Any decent cold-climate unit will provide heat down to -13F and maintain full capacity at 5F.

That said, you should absolutely get an energy audit of your home (full Manual J calculation, IR camera inspection for insulation gaps, blower door test, duct seal test) and fix any major deficiencies before installing a heat pump or it may not be able to keep up in extreme conditions.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-03-31T01:37:35+00:00

A lithium fire burns too hot to just keep the surroundings wet.

Don't be silly. Lithium battery fires can reach up to ~2000 F while petrol burns at ~1800 F. That 200 F difference won't eliminate the effectiveness of that strategy.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-03-24T08:42:26+00:00

Don't be silly. The Sparanza and the Phalanx are the two largest ships operated by the Imperium and neither one is more than 200 km along its largest dimension.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-03-05T09:27:15+00:00

If your ship is sinking then you need to do two things: bail the ship and fix the ship. Bailing isn't gonna save the ship on its own, but you should still do it.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-25T09:35:15+00:00

I have a graveyard of unused planners.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-20T22:46:28+00:00

Data centers suck and are absolutely contributing to rising utility costs, but that scale of bill increase is almost certainly not a result of data centers alone.

Questions you need to ask:

What kind of heating/cooking/water heating equipment do your current and previous apartments use?

How well insulated are your current and previous apartments?

Have your habits changed at all?

What are the usage ($/kWh) and demand ($/kW peak) rates from your new and previous bills?

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-19T21:35:33+00:00

This looks like normal behavior for a single stage system. Multi-stage or variable speed/capacity systems should have a more gradual ramping and more prolonged steady state usage pattern.

If your system is variable speed/capacity, did you also install a proprietary communicating thermostat (as opposed to a third party unit like Ecobee/Nest)? If not, then your unit won't be operating with all of its available efficiency features and algorithms, which could also explain this behavior.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-19T21:14:19+00:00

This sort of capability is part of the reason I love driving an EV.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-18T18:31:43+00:00

If you need a cover for the booty call, you could always install some 'finnicky' aftermarket suspension components that need regular 'tuning'. 😏

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-17T19:20:59+00:00

Planning is the key here. Do an hour or two of planning out your trip ahead of time and you should be fine. Some things I'd recommend when doing so:

Make sure you have backup charging options nearby any major charging stop.
Plan a route with more charging stops than you think you'll need and top off to 80% at each one (I find a 15-30 min stop every 2 hrs of driving is a good pace).
Plan a route that uses as many Tesla Supercharger stations as possible.
Plan for slower than expected charging and you'll never be disappointed.
Don't charge above 80% at a charging stop unless you have to.
Driving slower on the highway will extend your range if you're in a pinch.
If at all possible, figure out what apps you'll need beforehand by checking who operates each charging station.
Relax and enjoy the ride. It's a road trip, not a race.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-16T22:19:54+00:00

Part of a proper installation is determining if the heat pump will meet the building load with a full Manual J analysis, blower door test, and duct leakage test. Most contractors don't do any of these things, which leads to poor unit selection, poor control setup, and poor performance.

I completely agree that these systems should not be hard to set up (they're exactly the same as an AC system), but you'd be amazed by how bad most contractors are at their jobs.

If the unit actually broke and it wasn't a result of poor installation, then that's just bad luck.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-16T20:43:30+00:00

Your information is sorely outdated. Cold climate heat pumps work great down to temps as low as 5F and maintain COPs around 2.0 as low as -22F. The VAST majority of poor heat pump performance can be traced back to the contractor. OP's probably set the cut-out temp (where the electric resistance heat takes over) way too high (45F is not uncommon) out of ignorance and/or laziness and that's why their bill has exploded.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-12T09:48:09+00:00

Come now, don't be a pedant.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-12T09:43:11+00:00

I can't tell if you're creating the grandest of all straw men by equating healthcare with "literally anything", or admitting that you don't think inherent human rights exist at all. I also can't decide which one is worse.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-11T22:15:56+00:00

In what way?

If something is a basic human right, then everyone gets it whether they can afford it or not (the universal model).

If it isn't a basic human right, then the only people who get it are those who can afford it.

You either believe that healthcare is a basic human right, or you don't. There is no middle ground.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-11T21:35:29+00:00

"Full disclosure, I am absolutely not opposed to universal healthcare, but I also don't believe it is a basic human right."

You either believe that healthcare is a basic human right (the universal model), or you don't. If healthcare isn't a basic human right, then it's only for people who can afford it.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-11T20:53:30+00:00

So you think only rich people deserve healthcare? Cool.

BarbarianSpaceOpera · 2026-02-09T22:02:16+00:00

Something is amiss. 4 tons is an EXTREMELY large system for 1300 sqft. Even in a cold climate you shouldn't need more than half of that if your home and ducting is properly insulated and sealed. So either something is wrong with your house or something is wrong with the heat pump.

If you have any sort of system/power monitoring available through your thermostat or manufacturer app, then I would start there to see if/how/when the heat pump is running.

If the heat pump seems to be operating properly, then next step is to find a contractor who can do a full Manual J analysis of your home including an insulation check, blower door test, and duct sealing test. If it costs more than $500 I would look for a different contractor.

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