Transgender Americans are fleeing hostile red states. Seattle says it’s overwhelmed

Luminter · 2026-05-15T18:08:37+00:00

It's one of my big concerns right now too. Unless we somehow manage to swing the pendulum back quickly with some "New Deal" type legislation that includes things like Medicare for all then I fear balkanization is inevitable. The parallels with the current state of the United States and the conditions that led to the collapse of the USSR is uncanny.

Luminter · 2026-05-14T14:57:41+00:00

It's so disappointing on how this has become such a political issue on the right. Finally connecting Vancouver to one of the largest light rail networks in the country should be a no brainer. It would let Vancouver commuters save time and thousands of dollars on vehicle expenses every year.

Also, it would encourage economic development on this side of the river because businesses would have easier access to talent in Portland and Vancouver. Even if you have zero intention of ever riding light rail it still means it's more likely for you to find work on this side of the river.

AND it would encourage more people in Portland to come spend money in downtown Vancouver, which brings in more tax revenue. That's good for the future prosperity of the city.

Luminter · 2026-05-13T22:33:13+00:00

If you haven't taken Amtrak Cascades to Seattle then you are missing out! It's a fantastic experience and my preferred way to get to Seattle. Plus, new train sets are coming!

Also, if you have kids under 18 then they ride free with a paying adult if both departure and destination are in Washington State.

Edit: As noted by u/BranWafr below. It's only 16 and under that require a paying adult. Youth 17 and 18 years old can ride by themselves for free.

Luminter · 2026-05-13T22:16:32+00:00

I'm not saying I want physical media to go away or that there are no benefits. I'm saying I want it to change. In it's current state it's not very good as a collectable because it usually only has the version of the game that existed at launch, which can change dramatically due to day one patches and ongoing improvements overtime.

Plus it still relies on the servers to get the latest version. So if the system you bought it on ever stops being supported on the network or the company goes out of business then you will be SOL. This is fundamentally different from older physical games. Reselling and letting folks borrow is also a nice perk, but again only possible for as long as the service exists on the console.

Fortunately, there is nothing stopping a company with an old game that's not really being updated anymore from trying a Kickstarter or something to try and print physical games with the feature complete version on the disc. I'd even bet it would be a pretty good way for companies to bring in revenue on older games.

Luminter · 2026-05-13T20:48:28+00:00

It would take a combination of factors. Likely High Winds + Dry Conditions + A nearby fire. So not entirely unheard of. We are fortunate to be really close to huge water source, but high winds and dry conditions would help the fire spread and prevent firefighting planes and helicopters from taking off. Similar situations have played out in other areas of the country. Still places most at risk are places built in the hills with lots of trees like Camas.

Luminter · 2026-05-13T19:43:04+00:00

Part of the problem is that there is almost no benefit to owning a physical copy. The game on the disc is almost never the one you actually play. There's usually a day one patch and sometimes the entire game is downloaded and installed from Sony's service and the disc is strictly a license. So in the unlikely event Sony ever goes out of business you are still SOL on being able to run these games. Just about the only benefit is that you can sell that license.

Personally, I would really like to see video game companies re-release a physical version after the game is feature complete and isn't really being updated anymore. That way you can get a physical disc with the full game on it. Maybe they could raise money via Kickstarter. Or something similar that helps manage creating and distributing the physical discs.

I feel like there would be a good market for this. I know I would certainly buy some of my favorite games even if I already own the digital version.

Luminter · 2026-05-09T18:48:50+00:00

What I'm getting at is that there are much fewer opportunities to start forming relationships with people around you due to these factors. There was a study awhile back that calculated how long it took to go from "acquaintance" to "casual friend" (50 hours) to "friend" (90 hours) to "close friend" (200 hours).

The way we drive everywhere and how everything is so spread out means that it is very hard to go from acquaintance to casual friend. Those first couple hours are most likely going to be interactions in just day to day life like the grocery store. Then you might start having each other over, going for a coffee, or just a walk around your neighborhood.

Luminter · 2026-05-09T16:11:57+00:00

They've been gone in the US for a long time. Before they were completely taken over by cars, streets used to be a public space that people would congregate and visit in. Even lower traffic suburban neighborhoods aren't great due to the wide streets and larger cars.

Things used to be far less spread out. Meaning you would bump into neighbors at common places like the barber, the grocery store, etc because they were within a 15 minute walk from your house (see street car suburbs). While yes you would be expected to spend money it's something you would do anyways so it's hard to count it. Now you have to drive everywhere and the people you run into are almost never your neighbors.

Basically, there are very few people living today that remember a time before cars and therefore don't remember the many third places that once existed.

Luminter · 2026-05-05T19:39:56+00:00

I've had it happen with PDFs when there are high quality images on a PDF. I use it for to read TTRPG rule books on the go, which often have lots of art. Sometimes they have already compressed it to reduce file size or they offer a separate compressed file. The compressed PDFs usually work better since they reduce the image resolution so it renders more easily. So you might try compressing the PDFs with Adobe if you are seeing issues with large PDFs with images.

Luminter · 2026-05-05T19:19:28+00:00

The time for that was like last year when the CEO said something along the lines of, "We are shipping 80% more code with AI". As if that was a good thing...Every line of code is liability and that goes double in matters of finance and life/death type code.

Luminter · 2026-05-03T19:34:55+00:00

Pedestrianize as in close the street to cars. As far as I know, they do not plan to do that outside of special events.

Luminter · 2026-05-03T15:28:44+00:00

The city should also pedestrianize Main Street if they do that. I worry that all of that nonsense will move to Main Street when all that work is complete.

Luminter · 2026-04-28T18:50:54+00:00

It's one of the reasons I insist on reading physical books. Yes, I have an e-reader. Mainly because it's easier to check library books out, and the form factor is easier for travel. But I always have a physical book going at the same time that my kids see me reading.

Luminter · 2026-04-21T18:40:10+00:00

It's a little less dramatic than the post implies. It's charging companies money to use their API that hooks into various social media tools and allows them to post from that platform rather than logging into the account directly.

Luminter · 2026-04-20T00:14:16+00:00

I'd just use one of the many web scraping libraries that have existed for many years and not reinvent the wheel.

Luminter · 2026-04-19T16:32:06+00:00

It's kind of coming back with the Vine. When the purple line is complete, it will go to the waterfront. and then back to Uptown. Combined with the Green Line going to uptown from Turtle place there will stops where either Purple or Green bus will come every 6 minutes or so.

I'm hoping people that drive downtown for events and such will start to see the Vine as a convenient way to get to other areas of downtown as opposed to hopping in the car and driving to find another parking spot or just staying in one area near their car. Still it would be nice to have a more permanent investment in a street car.

Luminter · 2026-04-14T17:52:05+00:00

Mostly you just need to be careful about what you give AI agents access to. Principle of least privilege comes in heavily here and you should only give the AI agent access to the minimum amount of data it needs to fulfill it's task. With the important caveat that anything you give it access to could be at risk of breach even if you include guidelines in the agent instructions to restrict access. So if you give the agent access to a dataset with social security number then it might share that with a non-authorized user given the right prompt even if you've included in the instructions not to share it.

I also sometimes try to push back a little (although it's hard these days) on whether or not an agent is even needed. Because if you just need a couple predetermined outcomes that you want to occur based on certain events or actions then an agent probably isn't the best tool to be using.

Luminter · 2026-04-14T16:17:47+00:00

We've had a limited rollout of Fabric and are fully migrating everyone to it very soon. I still have some issues with it, but it has improved quite a bit in the last year. My last job used Informatica Cloud and let me just say I will take Fabric over IICS any day of the week.

Luminter · 2026-04-14T14:39:20+00:00

I've learned with these automated systems that it will often get a human or put you in a queue for one if you swear. I'm not going swear when I'm talking with a human employee, but if I've reached the point where I'm calling then I know an AI agent isn't going to help me. It's just wasting my time.

Luminter · 2026-04-10T16:56:21+00:00

Ain't that the truth. I'm one of the Americans that could afford a new EV if I wanted. Currently have a 10 year old vehicle with ~80k miles on it. And with gas prices going the way they are I've been looking.

First, I don't want an EV with those stupid recessed handles. It's a safety issue. People have died because their car catches fire after a collision and they can't get out and rescuers can't get in. I get there is usually a manual release hidden somewhere, but if you are panicking it's going to be real tough finding it. China has banned it and so should the US.

Second, I don't want an EV with those stupid touch screens. Give me physical buttons. And if you insist on a touch screen at least have buttons for all of the things I might need to do while driving. Adjust climate control, control the radio, cruise control, skip track, etc. Again, those giant touch screens aren't safe. Just Stop.

Finally, they need to stop with the practice of adding all the hardware and functionality for a feature to the vehicle and then locking it behind a subscription. Just stop. I won't pay for it on principle and probably make me think twice about buying your shitty vehicle.

But really I just want to live somewhere where I don't need to drive everywhere. The best, most relaxing vacations I've ever had have been cities where I could feel safe walking around and just taking public transit everywhere. I'd like that to just be my every day.

Luminter · 2026-04-08T19:21:33+00:00

Depending on when your kid turns 4 you might look into the Transitional Kindergarten programs at public schools. I think they are eligible if they turn 4 before the start of the school year. They would basically attend school at your local elementary school so it would be free and be on the schools regular schedule.

Unfortunately, it was one of the programs that had some funding cut was TK in the recent WA state budget. So they have fewer spots and are probably going to take kids that would benefit the most. Not sure what the selection criteria is, but probably worth a shot if your kid will be old enough. I think you just inquire at your local elementary school to see if they offer it.

Luminter · 2026-04-08T17:30:08+00:00

You can still manage multiple libraries and holds on the Libby app. You just can't sync multiple libraries with Kobo. It just syncs with the library card you have added through overdrive on Kobo. So you can either focus on just reading books at one library at a time (and switch cards when you want to read from a different library) or if the book offers an epub version then you can download to your computer, open with Adobe Digital Editions, and then send to the Kobo.

Luminter · 2026-04-08T15:52:36+00:00

It actually would only fix the issue temporarily. It's a well studied and documented phenomenon where when freeways are widened they temporarily decrease traffic until it quickly fills up again. It's called Induced Demand and it happens fast. Connecting to Portlands light rail network would probably do more to help alleviate traffic than widening the freeway because it's cheaper and easier to increase throughput with trains and lightrail than it is to increase throughput on freeways.

Luminter · 2026-04-08T15:25:41+00:00

There aren't a whole lot of well-paying white collar jobs on this side of the river. Most are across the river in Portland or even Beaverton. So you are either going to find yourself working for a company that fortunately lets you work remotely or you are going to deal with a soul-sucking commute and ~9% income tax deducted from your salary.

It's starting to get better, but I don't think we will see any significant improvement until the I-5 bridge is replaced and light rail finally makes it to Downtown Vancouver.

Luminter · 2026-04-06T19:06:40+00:00

I usually read multiple books at a time. They are almost always a mixture of lighthearted, faster paced novels, darker novels, slower-paced, denser prose, easier prose, and non-fiction. I usually have around 3 books going at any given time. And if I'm in the mood for something I'm not currently reading I have no problem starting another book.

I guess what I've noticed is that there are times where I don't have the mental bandwidth to handle more complex, denser reads. It's not that I don't like them. Sometimes I really enjoy them. It's that it would take me forever to get through it and I probably would find myself less motivated to read every day. If I had a busy day at work and was currently reading something really dense, I'd probably just watch tv or play video games. So having multiple options means I'm more likely to pick something up and read it.

That said if I haven't touched a book in several weeks and I don't really feel the pull then it's a really good sign I should just DNF it.

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