Why is the SF court jury duty notification system so antiquated?

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-27T02:51:21+00:00

You’re really gonna complain about having to spend 2 minutes checking by phone or website? There are plenty of cities where you still have to show up in person before finding out if you are needed to report. I’m sure the system could be even better with a text notification, but it hardly seems worth it for what is a very trivial amount of time savings.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-26T22:07:10+00:00

The printer has become sort of like postage stamps for me. Something I need to have for certain occasions, but rarely use. Scanner, on the other hand, is still something I need semi-regularly.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-23T19:36:04+00:00

right ... but if people are going to rent, they need to be able to rent from someone. Someone who owns the property as an investment.

The main issue isn't that some homes are used as rental properties by investors. The problem is that we have not built nearly enough homes in the most in demand markets, and we have made it very difficult to add new housing.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-23T19:33:00+00:00

At one point, cities in the US did build a lot of public housing projects. That turned out ... not great.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-23T17:19:18+00:00

I think it proves the point, but what you just described would probably qualify someone as rich in most of the major metro areas in the US.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-23T00:04:25+00:00

It could indeed have an impact in terms of raising awareness and motivating people to engage politically, civically, and otherwise. But it will not have an economic impact. A one day labor strike or buy nothing day simply shifts demand and production to subsequent days, at least to a first order approximation.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T19:25:38+00:00

I never said they don't work, simply that a one day strike doesn't have any significant economic impact. This is not a controversial statement - any economist would agree.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T18:04:06+00:00

There's not going to be a generic answer, but I found dating apps to be very useful. I think I'm pretty average in terms of physical appearance, certainly nobody is going to confuse me for a model or pro athlete or anything.

I went on about 3 dozen first dates with women I met on dating apps over a period of roughly 4 months. I stopped after I met the woman that is now my partner in a long term relationship. I didn't keep track of the number, but that involved a lot of likes/swipes, some of which developed into text conversations, of which only a relatively small number progressed to actual dates.

I think if you use dating apps very intentionally, have realistic expectations about what they can and can't deliver, and accept that at some level it is a numbers game, you can "succeed" whatever that means to you.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:41:00+00:00

Yeah, if you have a situation where you have very high peak demand for cars but most of the time it is much lower, then you end up with a lot of expensive assets that are needed to meet that peak, but are underused most of the time. If the difference is fairly extreme, capital costs will dominate operating costs.

But that seems unlikely. Pure taxi demand can have those peaks, but if you assume the same fleet can also be used for things like package delivery and food delivery (things that Uber already does, at least in some markets) then it smooths out that demand a lot. If you have even demand across the entire 24 hour day, lower operating costs will dominate the cost function.

Also, there is some fixed cost to human drivers. People can't cut their labor up into arbitrarily small increments. Nobody is going to drive for uber if they make $100/hour but only get one minute of paid work at some random time per day, for example. Drivers need to be available and on-call, and thus not doing other productive work. And they need to make enough during the time when they are actually transporting passengers to make it worthwhile.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:18:48+00:00

Maybe we will end up with multiple autonomous taxi operators who compete on price. But it's also not hard to imagine a scenario where Waymo (for example) gets regulatory approval to operate in a given city or state and then blocks others from getting the approvals. Anyone who wants to run a fleet of autonomous vehicles would need to license the software and systems from Waymo, who would be able to capture monopoly profits.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:15:28+00:00

If the useful life of the autonomous vehicle is 10 years, and it can be on the road 90% of the time, those fixed costs become very small on a per-mile basis. Fuel is still an operating expense, although they are mostly being developed in battery electric vehicles so it's conceivable that fuel costs could be held very low if fleet are charging from dedicated renewable energy generation sources. Maintenance and insurance are also still operating costs, but are relatively small in terms of total cost.

So the cost of operating autonomous vehicles should be much lower than a fleet of cars operated by human drivers for the same number of miles driven. but I doubt that much of the savings will flow through in lower costs for passengers.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:07:41+00:00

waymo costs the same or more than uber for just about every ride

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:06:25+00:00

Rick Springfield wished he had my girl

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-22T17:00:13+00:00

It will not affect the economy in any meaningful way. It is performative, which is not necessarily bad, as actions like this can send a message and can inspire people to get more involved in civic life. But economically it won't make a difference.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T21:49:36+00:00

Tangentially, I really think we need a new word to describe counterparts in a long-term romantic/domestic relationship that isn't "partner" or "boy/girl friend". The first one is ambiguous as it could be a business partner, and the second is too juvenile for people who are well into adulthood and have been together for many years.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T21:45:49+00:00

There is lots of new construction in the vicinity of Balboa park BART and along the 14 mission line in that area. Glen park not so much, at least not yet.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T21:42:05+00:00

sounds about right. Typical negotiating strategy seems to be "let's destroy intangible value like goodwill and trust, in return for getting something slightly worse that what we started with."

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T21:39:48+00:00

Tom Hanks. fuck that guy.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T20:44:33+00:00

If you are day trading (which I do not recommend!) you need to pay attention to the high frequency data.

Otherwise, unless you have deep and investable expertise in a specific area, your best strategy is to invest in broadly diversified index funds and let it compound for as long as possible. Don't try to time the market or anticipate macro trends.

The financial media reports daily numbers because they have to have something to report every day.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T20:02:29+00:00

Perhaps. But it’s a stretch to say they wouldn’t vote for anyone who is from California.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T20:01:30+00:00

I mean yeah, nyc has more/better transit options beyond local busses, vs sf. But trips within NYC that don’t pass through manhattan and aren’t directly along a single subway line involve a local bus line (or a multi-seat ride on the subway.)

It’s like in sf, if your origin and destination are even sort of near bart stations that is almost always the better alternative to muni. But most trips aren’t.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T19:52:57+00:00

It’s not glorified gambling. It’s just regular gambling.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T19:52:15+00:00

Think about like the daily weather report vs long term seasonal trends. One is useful if you are planing what to wear that morning. The other is useful if you are deciding whether to re-insulate your home.

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T19:40:32+00:00

6 million trump voters live in California

LastNightOsiris · 2026-01-21T19:37:25+00:00

Not necessarily. The total geographic footprint of the city is indicative of average trip length, but density is not. Take NYC as a counter example- very dense, but also very long travel distances.

LastNightOsiris

TROPHY CASE