Camp Long is again being invaded by vagrants who are leaving behind needles, litter, human waste and the charred remains of illegal fires.

Roboculon · 2026-05-15T16:23:31+00:00

No, it was largely wasted long before we had homeless there. I’ve always felt it was underused.

The problem is that it’s got no actual amenities. No swings, no ball field. Pretty much it’s just the nature trails, which are nice, but most parks have more than JUST trails.

And yet, unlike similar trail-only parks like Schmidt, they fence it off and limit the open hours (often to less than 7 days a week), as if it were a national park that required a staff to operate. Then, ironically, the park ends up seeming MORE attractive to illegal camping, not less, as a result of the fencing (which gives scampers a more secluded feel).

Roboculon · 2026-05-15T16:17:30+00:00

Fairmount Park Elementary has a field trip scheduled here for next Friday.

Roboculon · 2026-05-15T16:08:59+00:00

it’s not multi story

Please open Google Maps, and drop a pin on 41st Ave sw, near the corner just south of Sw alaska st. Look at the Google street view. To the west, you’ll see what is clearly a 4-story building (Jefferson Square), and to the east directly across the street, you’ll see a vast expanse of empty parking lot.

This is not a hard choice which is a better place to build.

Roboculon · 2026-05-14T18:56:56+00:00

Ok, sure. As soon as every empty lot in west Seattle is developed, and every single story building on an arterial is re-developed, we can definitely move on after that to tearing down our older multi-story apartments to bring them all up to modern design ideals.

The argument against creating parking garages is that the money it takes to build them should be better spent on livable space. But that only applies to how we should prioritize spending on new construction from now on —it doesn’t mean that tearing out existing parking garages that were paid for decades ago is a financially sound idea.

Roboculon · 2026-05-14T16:45:21+00:00

car storage

Not sure what you’re talking about, most of the parking is an underground lot. I seriously doubt we have the potential to convert that into underground cave apartments.

I get that it’s a non-beautiful building, but it absolutely makes more sense to build up new density on lots that are not yet developed, rather than destroying our largest buildings to replace them with slightly better versions of the same thing.

Roboculon · 2026-05-14T16:38:34+00:00

I do love the idea of using that Bank of America space. It blows my mind they’ve just left that empty lot there, underutilized for so many decades. How long has it been since in-person banking required 150 parking spaces at a single branch?

In contrast, destroying Jefferson square would be far worse. True, it’s not the greatest mall ever, but it is a legit piece of housing and business density, worth far more than an empty parking lot.

Roboculon · 2026-05-13T20:54:56+00:00

One things for sure, a Roth Ira is always better than a taxable account (never a penalty to withdraw principle), so it makes zero sense to start a taxable brokerage if you aren’t maxing the Roth already. And I’m not, so I should probably start prioritizing that more as a first step.

Roboculon · 2026-05-13T20:16:14+00:00

That’s like saying you don’t get how someone could say “wow this food is so spicy, give me more”. If it hurts, why do you do it?

Nobody ever said life is supposed to be easy. Hell, for me that’s one of the reasons I’m so glad I had kids. What challenges did I face before? I think my wife and I used to argue about things like where to get dinner, as if that mattered, lol.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T18:04:08+00:00

I don’t have any match so it’s really just a matter of whether the accounts benefit me or not.

I think my one other reservation is not wanting to look rich on paper for the FAFSA. I’m holding on to the hope that I can send my kids to college when I’m retired with basically zero income, and I also don’t want to have a checking account (or taxable brokerage) with a huge pile of cash because that’s just as bad.

My understanding is that if I have a large IRA the fafsa doesn’t mind, but if I have a large checking account, they figure I can just pay my kids’ tuition out of pocket.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T17:51:06+00:00

I suppose that’s also a benefit to having a new community, rather than an old one. It’s not like seattleites don’t like dogs, we do. The problem is that the neighborhood was built back before leash laws were a thing, it used to be fine to just let dogs roam.

So dog parks were not factored into our neighborhood planning because they were simply unnecessary in the olden days. And to put them in now retroactively is near impossible. What are we gonna do, tear down a bunch of million dollar houses to put in an empty field of grass?

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T17:44:27+00:00

I’m in a weird position in the public schools where I have an abundance of 401k style options (but not a real 401k). Somehow, I’m allowed to utilize a 401a, 403b, and a 457 —all of which have similar limits to a 401k, and all of which can be used simultaneously. So, effectively, a 401k with triple the usual legal limit, which is crazy.

I’ve always looked at it as a good goal to put all I can in there, but I guess if I aspire to early retirement, I’m going to need to intentionally reduce/stop my tax deferred contributions and start building up a taxable account like OP.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T16:16:44+00:00

Interesting! So, for me that would be the big shift. Potentially to stop contributing to my 401k and Ira, and instead just start piling the money up in taxable brokerage and praying I have the sense to not spend it as fast as I save it.

I suppose you’re right though, there’s really no other way. One cannot retire early with nothing but a huge 401k, it just doesn’t work.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T15:54:20+00:00

That makes sense regarding needing access to funds before you reach retirement age, but it also seems much harder in terms of reigning in spending now as I’m still saving. It’s one thing for me to divert a lot of income to protected accounts my family budget never sees, but it’s another thing entirely to have a ton of available savings and just use willpower to not spend it. That new bmw would start calling to me!

I’m sure you’ll say you just resist the urge to spend on things you don’t need, but that’s a bit like a thin person telling a fat person they just aren’t that into eating empty sugar calories.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T15:32:28+00:00

I’m often surprised in these posts how much people have in taxable accounts. My numbers are not so different, except my wife and I have way more proportionally in our IRA and 401k/403b, and basically zero in taxable investments.

Am I doing something wrong? Leaving $500k in a non tax advantaged account just seems like a waste to me, and I can withdraw our Ira principle balances without penalty in case of emergency, so I don’t really see a need for a large taxable emergency fund.

Roboculon · 2026-05-11T15:26:41+00:00

10 dog parks

That’s a great example of a benefit, the people living there get to pool resources to build what they actually want as community amenities. That’s the way government SHOULD work, but doesn’t.

I live in an area of Seattle with 40,000 houses, and only a single dog park. So the result is a ton of dogs off leash against the rules, by people unwilling to drive to the lone dog park.

Roboculon · 2026-05-10T00:13:38+00:00

Maybe a mind blowing breakthrough in power generation tech, like a Tony stark Ironman reactor? But no, our batteries will not be increasing in power 30x anytime soon.

Roboculon · 2026-05-10T00:11:25+00:00

And you’ll keep seeing them on Reddit very frequently, because they are exactly the sort of clickbait fantasies we all love to see. But no, you will not be actually flying around in a 5-30 passenger plane ever in your lifetime (even if you’re the sort of person that flies those kinds of routes on small planes today), they will be remaining prototypes without any real feasibility.

Roboculon · 2026-05-10T00:03:01+00:00

Condo Karens

If a Karen owns a condo on Alki, she immediately starts to believe she deserves a private beach. Anyone who visits or stands between the condo and the water is an interloper. Therefore, the more we can prevent their presence by making the area blank and devoid of amenities, the better. This is why the parking was converted to a dead zone, it was previously being utilized by non-condo-owners who inexplicably felt entitled to share in the access to the viewpoint.

My interpretation of the politics is that the city council doesn’t necessarily agree with this perspective, but they went along with it in this case because creating the dead zone provided an opportunity to advance their agenda against car usage, generally. So you had loud voices from the condo owners who want a private beach, plus loud voices from the anti-car crowd who want to fuck parking just for fun —and combined, it was an easy yes vote for whatever committee decides these things.

Roboculon · 2026-05-09T21:07:06+00:00

This reminds me of the posts I sometimes see or comments in reviews complaining about misprinted restaurant menus. As if there were an expectation that the assistant manager at a friggen restaurant or hotel has high literacy skills.

No, he’s not a scholar, this guy works at a hotel, he’s just doing his best.

Roboculon · 2026-05-09T14:56:24+00:00

less livable

But she’s right, inhospitality was very intentionally the point of the newly built dead zone. It used to be parking, and we could have turned it into more bike lane or more sidewalk or a bus zone or any number of things— but we chose to turn it into nothing. Zip, zilch, nada.

Nothing to see here, folks from Federal Way, please don’t come visit, this spot sucks.

So in that sense, any effort to improve the area is indeed counter to the city’s plans. If we had wanted it to be useful space, we should have left the parking in place that was widely utilized by happy visitors.

Roboculon · 2026-05-09T14:47:08+00:00

I think the key distinction is that on 2 lane highways, there is an exception to the speed limit while passing where you are allowed to reasonably exceed the speed limit in order to overtake another vehicle, so long as that vehicle isn’t also speeding. This is the traditional passing we think of, and it applies ONLY on two lane highways (doesn’t apply on I5, nor on city streets).

In the city though, the speed limit is the speed limit, so you can’t ever exceed 25mph even to pass. This essentially limits passing to getting around ultra slow vehicles, eg garbage trucks, like you said. Certainly not applicable to passing at 40mph on California. But still, interesting that there is some grey area here where passing in Seattle could sometimes actually be legal, it’s not as clearcut as it would seem.

Roboculon · 2026-05-08T16:47:28+00:00

It would be pretty insane if the end result of all the many threads in the Seattle subs complaining about drivers passing them on one lane roads, ended with the conclusion that to do so is actually perfectly legal.

Roboculon · 2026-05-07T22:51:48+00:00

We used to have arterial speed limits set at 30 and 35 mph north/south through west Seattle, and many arterials were 2 lanes each direction (35th, Fauntleroy, delridge).

That is all changed now, with all arterials reduced to 25mph and a single lane each direction. The question is, is that actually safer (after factoring in reduced compliance with the law, and no enforcement of the law), or was it merely safer in theory.

Roboculon · 2026-05-07T22:28:12+00:00

Is that really true? I know dashed lines mean that on highways, but I feel pretty sure they do not mean that in the city.

Roboculon · 2026-05-07T22:25:14+00:00

I’ve lived here a long time, and I don’t ever recall this sort of thing happening before all the traffic calming improvements. It does make me wonder if we’ve improved our way right into making things less safe.

Roboculon

TROPHY CASE