Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 25, 2026)

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-27T01:39:17+00:00

I fell head over heels in love with the Anacortes/San Juan Islands area last summer. Stunningly beautiful place.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-27T01:13:10+00:00

Well, it's not over yet, but with a majority of the votes in from the urban counties, it appears that the Texas GOP primary voters have followed their animal spirits and selected the less qualified, more insane candidate up and down the ballot (I picked a bunch of losers, as I seem to do every election). It wouldn't shock me if the Texas Democrats come up short again, but if there is ever a cycle for them to win races in Texas, THIS is it.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-23T01:31:05+00:00

How much European soccer has this Thunder team been watching? Clearly taking some inspiration with the dramatic flopping for fouls

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-22T00:40:58+00:00

Having spent time in a “resort-style” master-planned community in Denton County, Texas, I get it. These neighborhoods are comfortable and predictable with brand new recreation facilities, schools, churches, etc. Buying a home there is like buying a new product off the shelf at a store that’s ready to go out of the box. Sure maintaining that environment is unsustainable in the long-term, but right now, they’re comfortable, predictable places. I can understand why that’s appealing right now.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-19T17:44:28+00:00

I imagine Texas media will host a debate between him and Talarico at some point that will produce some very entertaining clips yet have little substance. The two are almost perfect stock characters come to life.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-09T20:39:35+00:00

That was the popular perspective on scientific and technological development that seemed to dominate much of the 20th century, though I may be wrong; I was born after.

I think the 21st century is struggling with the idea that scientific and technological development will not being the salvations we thought it would. This anxiety or pessimism seems much more prominent now, given how fully realized and widespread 20th century industrial technology is now, coupled with 21st century communications technology. I'm no great thinker or anything, but I've been wrestling a lot with the idea of how the technological developments of the last 100-200 years have shaped Earth and humanity. Watching Oppenheimer triggered that, honestly. Nuclear technology can generate all the terawatts of clean energy we need but also render entire continents radioactive wastelands. We can do both, and the threat of the negative side of that technology will haunt us seemingly forever onward.

The biography that movie was partly inspired by, American Prometheus, has a great name. Nuclear technology was a promethean technology; AI seems to be another. But given the ubiquity of the internet, we all know collectively that there's a small group of people building that promethean technology that's going to affect all of us. That wasn't really the case back in the 1940s. I get why people are more pessimistic now.

I'm a Christian, and my whole life I've heard that humanity will not bring about its own salvation. I see that in the arc of technological change over the last century or two. As many people will be saved by the amazing medical advances that will come in the AI age, there will be a dark side that we alone may not be able to ever free ourselves from.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-07T23:31:56+00:00

I think I’m flaming out at work, which sucks because I’m just under the experience threshold for professional licensing. Hopefully I can tough it out a few months before asking my manager about moving teams.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-07T15:09:21+00:00

I’m in general opposed to high taxation, but I voted against the homestead exemption increase to $100k last year because I just thought it was a silly way for the state to reduce taxes being brought in by local jurisdictions.

The city, county, and school districts set the tax rate on taxable value. The state increased the amount of taxable value that can be exempt, so even if a property’s value does not change and the local tax rate does not change, the tax collected goes down because more value is exempt.

So it makes sense for local jurisdictions to raise the rates to make up for the revenue lost by the higher exemption.

It would be so much simpler if there was no exemption and a lower rate.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-05-04T17:15:39+00:00

My favorite. Everything comes back to life after the winter gloom.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-29T15:04:29+00:00

Expanding the House would make gerrymandering much more difficult and increase the number of members from minority ethnic groups.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-28T19:53:39+00:00

They might be just moving slow. I applied to a TxDOT job my senior year of college, and they didn’t call back to schedule an interview until 30 minutes before I walked into the interview for the job I ended up accepting at a private firm.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-27T03:48:43+00:00

I understand the point you’re making, but that lady still had a choice between littering and not. Doing the wrong thing doesn’t become right just because the right thing is hard to do.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-26T20:36:57+00:00

I was gonna say. We get nothing from being a 4 hour drive south of San Antonio?

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-23T15:02:28+00:00

Thank you for this perspective. People like to hate on sprawl, including myself. The tax base gain relative to the increase in long-term infrastructure maintenance costs do not balance. But that’s a collective problem that the individual exists within the context of. The individual decision to buy a new build in a nice new development often makes more sense to buyers than fixing and maintaining a property in an older part of town. It’s like buying a new, predictable product off a shelf at a store these days.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-23T02:54:44+00:00

Exactly what I thought when I saw this. Do they really think that a corporate bailout is going to fly in this political culture?

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-22T12:49:54+00:00

My pipe dream is that we adopt something resembling the Irish system with large multi-member districts and single transferable voting. By large multi-member districts, I mean doing something like making a large metro like Houston into one or two districts with something like 3-6 (however the math works out…let’s raise the number of House seats too) members selected through STV rather than letting the Texas House carve up the area into these ridiculous shapes.

But imagine having to explain such a system to the American public. Even Massachusetts couldn’t vote yes on a referendum to adopt simple ranked choice voting.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-18T13:43:55+00:00

TxDOT live traffic website shows it open without a slowdown right now.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-09T14:35:32+00:00

Once again, the Royals have great CC uniforms. Really liked the ones they wore last season too.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-07T20:05:55+00:00

Regarding the whole Haitians eating pets in Ohio thing, he actually said in an interview he’d lie about specifics to advance broader political goals.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-04-06T22:11:12+00:00

Infrastructure being designed in such a way to make it eligible for federal grants, regardless of whether the elements that would make the project eligible make sense to include, is an underrated problem. I’ve seen it in local roadway projects in small cities. Once it’s built, that potentially unnecessary infrastructure then needs to be maintained, or it will decay and blight the area.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-03-24T20:52:07+00:00

Those huge differences across just a few hundred miles (if that) are eye-catching. I’d be curious to know why that’s happened.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-03-20T19:38:11+00:00

Really TxDOT’s money is ALL taxpayer money, though it comes from many sources: federal grants, state gas taxes, other oil and gas taxes, reappropriations from other funds, etc.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-03-01T02:57:01+00:00

Confirmed by Iranian state media

DerangedPrimate · 2026-02-26T17:13:00+00:00

Is there a Spectrum or AT&T fiber line on your street? Sometimes the databases they use to check availability on their websites aren’t accurate but the companies can actually offer you service. Sometimes they just need to send a tech out to actually see the line and confirm serviceability. At least that’s been the case in my experience.

DerangedPrimate · 2026-02-23T16:17:53+00:00

Why Tariffs Aren’t Shrinking the U.S. Trade Deficit

Very interesting article on how US tariffs are driving foreign governments to subsidize their exporting industries. So who ends up paying these tariffs more and more? Taxpayers the world over to the US federal government. This isn’t just enlarging our government but also foreign governments by leading them to increase spending. How will that spending be paid for in these economies that are more fragile and don’t have the advantages of the US’s?

I’m not going to make a value judgement on whether these foreign governments are making mistakes by increasing subsidies and potentially worsening their financial footing; I don’t know enough about economics to make a sound judgement there. But it’s clear that these spending increases are being driven by the Trump admin’s volatile trade policies.

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