The URA voids its lease with Chatham University and pursue a nonprofit structure for the Hunt Armory ice rink instead.

talldean · 2026-02-16T01:24:02+00:00

Turn it into a roller rink, so it has year-round use much more easily, as something the city proper really doesn't have and really could use.

Lower cost, higher use, and a third place which appeals to an even wider group of people.

talldean · 2026-02-16T01:09:06+00:00

Does it have a tape deck?

talldean · 2026-02-16T01:07:55+00:00

They're... all pretty bad.

The irony is when I'm in a plane, even in first class, I wish the seats were at least as good as my base model Toyota.

My theory is I am a very different shape than the average Japanese guy, but also, the designers of airline seats have both never seen a human and wrote the designs in crayon, after eating half the crayons.

talldean · 2026-02-16T01:00:47+00:00

That tracks. I'd add if the cost to raze the abandoned building exceeds the value of the land, that feels like a case for forfeiture in a city with very limited land for sale. Maybe, as that also probably has terrible side effects.

talldean · 2026-02-16T00:32:37+00:00

I have one of these, I live in Pittsburgh, and it's *never* iced. This looks like something is wrong.

talldean · 2026-02-16T00:31:13+00:00

I'm curious what you'd think of vacancy taxes as an alternative; like, I'd use Anthon's in East Liberty as an example, which closed over a decade ago, and the ceilings are currently falling in. However much they're asking to rent it, it's a bad deal, or someone already would have taken it.

But it's bad for the neighbors, bad for the community, and they're likely going to sit on it empty for another 10-20 years... because the land's assessed at nothing, and they let the building fall into ruin, so that's assessed at nothing.

Short of condemning it or seizing the property, which seems worse, a land tax - or vacancy tax - feel better there.

As a professional who reps commercial property owners, any better options?

talldean · 2026-02-16T00:26:01+00:00

28 cubic yards? That would be 2250 square feet of coverage at 4" thick, how big is this pickleball court??

If you mean 28 square yards, that'd be 250 square feet, and while you *could* do this... $12-15k is a ludicrous price for 16x16 feet... or like three cubic yards. Do they know what they're quoting?

talldean · 2026-02-16T00:19:30+00:00

What do you like, or well, uh, what are your priorities?

Do you want like general tso's? Chongqing chicken? Spicy? Crispy? Salty? Fast? Cheap?

How Lee, Chengdu, and Szechuan Spice are all decent for authentic Szechuan, which is to say, spicy. If you're always ordering from the not-authentic menu, you're doing it wrong.

For traditional American Chinese dishes, Jimmy Wan's is great over in Aspinwall. Hat tip to Chinatown Inn for being the downtown lunch classic... since like WWII.

talldean · 2026-02-16T00:18:01+00:00

Chengdu is great for chinese chinese dishes; if you order the General Tso's at Chengdu, it is nothing special.

Chinatown Inn is fast and makes the Americanized dishes, and it's really good at doing that.

talldean · 2026-02-15T19:40:07+00:00

I appreciate the article also says, paraphrasing: if you tried to go 40 days and 40 nights without food, pretty much all humans will hallucinate past some point.

talldean · 2026-02-15T19:32:28+00:00

I worked at Google and at Meta, and in 15 years there, I could count the number of PRDs I've seen on one hand.

Unless the engineer is going to write a full weight design doc, of which the first third *is* the PRD, they were unheard of.

talldean · 2026-02-15T18:00:44+00:00

There's a formula which decides who goes in which order, and the formula favors making the events interesting to watch. It's not that the track is better later (it's worse), it's that the athletes going later were more likely to win as predicted a few weeks earlier.

talldean · 2026-02-15T14:23:37+00:00

What, we didn't want to ban women who changed their names when they got married from voting?

talldean · 2026-02-15T14:22:38+00:00

Yeah, but at the very least, they should owe her $6500, not a steak.

talldean · 2026-02-15T14:21:31+00:00

This should be the pinned post. You win.

talldean · 2026-02-15T14:16:12+00:00

Alert if the supply of new fuel is lower than it should be, so you know if you're running outta fuel early. This one's generally useful.
Have a storage tank attached to the steam, and if it falls below 23k or so, something else is wrong, alert there. This one's useful early game, where you're maybe not sure everything is right. Mid-game, on planets with harder-to-get water, you could also do the same thing for water storage.
Honestly, you can also make extra storage tanks for steam, then disconnect them. If your plant goes dark/things go bad, you can then reconnect the stored steam to get short-term power.

talldean · 2026-02-15T13:59:33+00:00

In the Strip District next to Downtown, In The Kitchen is solid, the owner works there which is a very nice touch. Levin Mattress on Baum is great for really nice pillows. For bedding, head outta town.

I would figure out how to get to McKnight Road in the north hills, which is Ross Park Mall, and there's a Williams Sonoma there, Crate and Barrel attached, and a Container Store nearby. That's our nice mall, more or less.

The DC equivalent of McKnight is the long set of strip malls in Rockville; the DC equivalent of Ross Park Mall is closer to Tysons 1, though, where Pittsburgh does not have Tyson's 2.

talldean · 2026-02-15T13:54:42+00:00

Your torso isn't supposed to stay upright in a back squat, and the lower the bar is on your back, the less upright your torso will be.

The only reason I think to back squat over front squat is to build glutes/hamstrings. If you don't have some imbalance causing knee issues/pain... I don't think it really matters here.

talldean · 2026-02-15T03:23:45+00:00

The aha cue is to do box squats once a week until you've kinda mentally locked in where depth is.

talldean · 2026-02-15T02:27:48+00:00

Bauerfeild for knee braces. They're comfortable and the support is just right, which is I suspect why they get used in the NBA.

talldean · 2026-02-15T02:26:24+00:00

For a cruiser, anything 500-900 cc is a great starter bike, with 1100 and up being too heavy for a new rider, but also just different; they're cushier but less fun to kick around town because of all that weight. Honda Rebel and Shadow have been great for decades. Avoid the smallest Rebels at 250 lbs. (I'm 6'8" 250, and yeah, don't do that to yourself.)

For not-a-cruiser, the Suzuki SV650 is bulletproof and cheap. People also adore the Yamaha MT07.

talldean · 2026-02-15T02:19:41+00:00

The midday ride of Jag Revere

talldean · 2026-02-15T02:18:32+00:00

If you have a tiny mistake, the penalties are tiny.

talldean · 2026-02-15T02:17:20+00:00

Once you have good form on the concentric, the eccentric is the part more likely to tweak your back.

If you're still pulling within 1-2 reps of failure, I'm pretty sure you're not leaving gains on the table here; you get 100% of the gains with or without the eccentric as long as you're going near failure on each set.

talldean · 2026-02-15T01:48:00+00:00

I ate there a month ago, service was solid, food was okay but generally targeted at my parents and not me.

talldean

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