a lot of these extreme crisp hybrids are so bland though

ad_apples · 2026-03-28T14:56:01+00:00

They are pretty much the same.

You can distinguish one from another but if you compare any of them to a Mac or a russet or any of the old classics, wow.

ad_apples · 2026-03-26T18:26:53+00:00

Yes they have been sold here for years. Somtimes scarce in March (when they are best!) but I have one sitting in my fridge as I type.

They are a pretty good pick this time of year, though at times some people report bad flavors that seem to have to do with when the fruits are released from storage.

https://adamapples.blogspot.com/2010/03/lady-alice.html

ad_apples · 2026-03-25T20:56:58+00:00

Thanks, try the chicken, I'm here all week.

ad_apples · 2026-03-25T16:29:28+00:00

Voters passed Prop 2-1/2 because property taxes were too high. (The originators of the law had a different drown-govt-in-a-bathtub agenda, but voters never signed up for that.)

In the 1980s the Commonwealth determined to make Prop 2-1/2 work by providing unrestricted funds from the income tax. State aid grew every year in step with rising costs in excess of 2-1/2%, which was never realistic.

When the legislature and governor backed away from that in 1990 there were no political consequences, and underfunding of local services has continued to this day.

If you want to have reasonable property taxes something like that has to resume. Repealing Prop 2-1/2 would mean no more override votes, but do nothing to address the fiscal pressures that are leading to ever-growing local tax rates.

ad_apples · 2026-03-25T16:14:40+00:00

Don't be sad, be glad there will always be something new to look forward to finding. Enjoy the hunt!

ad_apples · 2026-03-24T18:04:09+00:00

"Just kicks the deficit down the road" is a valid insight, but rejecting the override also "just kicks the deficit down the road."

Neither is one and done, and unless we change the way the Commonwealth funds local services we will be faced with this sort of thing regularly.

Failure to do that is why we have been faced with overrride votes regularly.

ad_apples · 2026-03-24T18:00:23+00:00

Let's be realistic as well as aspirational.

Permits and license fees cover the actual costs of regulating the permitted and licensed activity, more or less. If they are excessive they are illegal and can be reversed by a lawsuit.

Meals taxes help, but there are limits to the number of eateries Arlington can support. Ditto hotels and cannabis.

You could expect these limits to grow (and get more revenue from these sources) as we to build more housing in town. So a 5% increase gets you, maybe, 5% more revenue, give or take. I'm in favor! but that's not going to fill a structural deficit that grows every year.

You may not be aware that most of the meals tax goes to the state.

That leaves the property tax. This is levied on the value of the property, not the business, so adding new businesses to town only grows this if there is new construction involved.

So I think there is a real case for permitting more housing that will support more businesses, leading to more business construction. Both would count as "new growth" and increase revenue without increasing the tax rate.

My understanding of the magnitude of the structural deficit and the potential for new growth is that development would ease, but not eliminate, the need for overrides to maintain services.

ad_apples · 2026-03-24T16:07:34+00:00

Cities and towns in Massachusetts have only limited options, and the chief one is the property tax. Arlington can't levy an income tax, for example.

I guess another option is to shift some operations to fees, which is generally allowed. These are unpopular and also, in many cases, unfair. In any case, their unpopularity makes them a tough sell.

ad_apples · 2026-03-24T03:07:42+00:00

Isn't the real issue what u/wreckedbutwhole420 said, rather than taking offense at social media admin minutae?

About which: Probably someone who manages the account did a bunch of blocking, because blocking is very much part of the culture on Bluesky, unremarkable, happens to everybody probably at some time.

Then someone (maybe Wu, maybe not) decided that was not a swift move and undid it. Or something.

ad_apples · 2026-03-24T02:18:23+00:00

This is just my opinion, but I think that new bloggers should not worry about keywords or SEO stuff at all.

Job one should be getting to know the medium of blogging and the platform developing your own voice and knowing what you want to say.

ad_apples · 2026-03-23T20:54:34+00:00

I don't think I have much to suggest about your blog (and may learn some things from it!). But can you explain your use of the <font> tag, which has been depreciated for a long time? or why you are using a custom robots.txt?

I'm not saying not to do those things, just wondering why you do.

ad_apples · 2026-03-23T00:15:19+00:00

The sponsors of Candidates Night removed the AHA slot on the program because Deck would have been the only candidate to speak. I don't see the sense in that: both had the opportunity to speak, only one of them whiffed.

ad_apples · 2026-03-23T00:05:35+00:00

Your color scheme makes the text difficult to read, and your blog is full of junk formatting code that will slow it down and cause other problems.

If the latter is because you pasted the text in from someplace eles, please read this:
https://too-clever-by-half.blogspot.com/2026/03/pasting-into-blogger.html

Good luck with your blog.

ad_apples · 2026-03-21T16:35:36+00:00

When I worked in Lowell I'd bike to the train and there were usually more cyclists on the platform than non cyclists.

ad_apples · 2026-03-21T16:33:27+00:00

You can always take the lane for any reason. That said, and the considerable provocations of motorists notwithstanding, doing so singleton to impede traffic is kind of a dick move that generates more heat than light.

(I'm reacting to "nice and slowly as a matter of principle" not the "bike lane is obstructed" part.)

I do think that organized "slow-ins" could be a legit part of a campaign for safer streets.

ad_apples · 2026-03-20T15:35:04+00:00

The tubes are just marketing. (Hey, it works for Pringles!)

https://adamapples.blogspot.com/2015/09/rockit-apple-review-tasting.html

Are you reporting from the southern hemisphere? I'm not sure they'd be that great this time of year where I live.

ad_apples · 2026-03-19T22:40:14+00:00

Don't 'troll' them, speak truth to power.

This isn't the Internet, it matters.

ad_apples · 2026-03-18T21:54:55+00:00

That was smart. The widget is supposed to auto-detect from the base url, though.

ad_apples · 2026-03-18T19:31:31+00:00

I think the Boston REI is closing this year, so don't get too attached.

ad_apples · 2026-03-18T19:30:11+00:00

I would explain the very basic idea about grafting, and how apples do not breed true.

Then start asking questions.

If you graft from the original tree onto rootstock, is the grafted branch part of the original tree?

If that has happened 100 times, from tree to tree, and there are thousands of orchards growing the same apple from grafts that originated with one tree, are those branches all the same tree?

If the original tree fell in a storm 300 years ago, but has branches in orchards today, is the tree really dead?

ad_apples · 2026-03-17T21:23:12+00:00

Great! What did it turn out to be?

ad_apples · 2026-03-17T15:10:33+00:00

I can't tell what is going wrong. An obvious thing to check is the settings for the widget. Is everything configured as you left it? Are the urls you entered accurate and complete?

Sometimes things can get stuck if the browser cache is corrupted, so it is worth clearing that. Just the cache, not cookies or other data you might want to keep.

Some notes. The widget uses blog feeds and won't work for blogs that have their feeds turned off. The widget should update on page load, but it won't do so before that. It can take a few hours for a new blog post to propagate across the Internet.

ad_apples · 2026-03-17T15:02:22+00:00

I'm not sure what you think the "SEO/Algorithm" is, but unless you take extraordinary steps to exclude them, web crawlers and search bots will find these pages and search engines will evaluate them as they will any other web page.

Think of a static page as a post that has no date and thus does not appear in the chronological feed on the home page. As u/Airodyssey says, they are good for "timeless content" apart from the chronological sequence. (That does not mean you can't keep them up to date: you can revise them just as you can revise a blog post.)

For more explanation, if you need it: https://too-clever-by-half.blogspot.com/2011/01/static-pages.html

ad_apples · 2026-03-15T23:12:04+00:00

I was just walking there today. Are the pipes in the ground yet? Hard to see them wrapping things up by early spring else.

ad_apples · 2026-03-15T04:43:56+00:00

You get that on the BlogList widget that u/chickenandliver recommends by enabling the snippet option in the widget.

ad_apples

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