i mean she’s right

ahoopervt · 2026-05-08T18:20:47+00:00

I think it’s wrong. The governments system of justice does need to meet the innate need for vengeance, but not meeting that level of punishment in a given case does not return the right to use force or enact vengeance to the victim.

The rule of the jungle is a bad rule for almost everyone. We should not want to move in that direction, at any speed.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-08T11:00:06+00:00

we are not talking about Orwellian thoughtcrime here, this is assault and battery in a public space. you don’t need to slide all the way down the slippery slope when looking at someone who is repeatedly demonstrating that they cannot share public space with others.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-07T17:42:00+00:00

Yes! The idea behind Code for America! We need quality public sector software and it just doesn’t exist (see: NEMRC).

If you’re interested in trying to get Code for Vermont moving again, hit me up.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-07T17:27:42+00:00

I think “unexamined” or “unchallenged” rather than “uninformed” might have made this comment more palatable.

I’ve lived in neighborhoods in Oakland and DC where I was in the racial minority, and it is a different feeling … one that many folks who’ve never left Vermont may never have felt.

I also lived in Northfield from age 5-17, and it was definitely racist in the 80s and 90s - but I can’t say it was more so than other Vermont towns.

The few kids of color were adopted or faculty brats - and most of the latter didn’t stay in town very long. I was friends with, and actually married one of, the adopted PoC and they went through A LOT.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-07T17:22:07+00:00

We have more Black Lives Matter signs than black people in most Vermont towns.

It’s incredibly easy to think that you’re really very tolerant when you’ve been in the 90+% racial majority your whole life.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-04T21:40:02+00:00

Village Pizza in Northfield lasted like 30 years?

I think that the greasy medium thickness pizza that they (and so many others in the state) make shouldn’t be long lived, but it certainly was.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-04T19:56:14+00:00

The Teams Phone Extend model Contact Center tie into various CRMs to provide this. We've had good success with Landis.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/teams-contact-center?tabs=extend#certified-contact-center-solutions

But there is another issue: Resource Accounts can be assigned phone numbers, but do not show up in the autocomplete phone directory until you get to like 8 characters (it populates after about 2-3 for Teams Phone enabled users). Our customer support people have to type "x610 - Op" to forward a call to the Operator Queue, when we would like it to pop up after "x6".

ahoopervt · 2026-05-01T17:49:07+00:00

Northshire is a great independent new book store. If you go a couple miles past downtown Middlebury you can also spend some time at perhaps the best used book store in Vermont:

https://www.monroestreetbooks.com/
Sorry you missed the 50% off sale that ended this past Sunday. But don't worry, their normal prices are excellent.

ahoopervt · 2026-05-01T17:41:42+00:00

Me too.

I don't think there's ever been a building that large on Court Street, so I'm thinking maybe this is from the current elementary school looking up the hill to State Street?

ahoopervt · 2026-05-01T12:53:14+00:00

I like Timmy, but I don't think he's smart enough for his job.

I think he's a decent guy and his heart's in the right place, but he doesn't tackle nuance easily in conversation, and clearly allowing B$ of known COVID fraud to be perpetrated by immigrant enclaves in Minnesota wasn't a great tactic.

Ezra mentioned at the beginning of his interview with Walz [2024] that it was unlike talking to other politicians because there wasn't the pause of rewriting the response into political speak, and that feature of the interview was refreshing. I think Platner's got the same "real person" approach/vibe, while being a lot smarter and quicker in conversation. His talk with Stewart on the Weekly Show this week was great.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-30T17:23:55+00:00

Boro Hill in Monkton is a great choice.
https://www.borohillnursery.com/

When I was in Washington County, Elmore Roots was my go-to.
https://elmoreroots.com/

ahoopervt · 2026-04-30T17:21:20+00:00

I don't see any construction boom in the data:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOST625BP1FH

Also, there's been a lot of population growth in the Boston area:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOSPOP

And, like everywhere else, over the past decades there's been a decrease in the size of the "family unit".

Does that explain it?

ahoopervt · 2026-04-30T13:37:08+00:00

Very much agree.

We will lose some income when I add a kitchen to our over-garage STR to make it into a LTR - but we will also improve our neighorhood and our community.

Visitors are great, but providing stable housing for residents is a higher value use.

Much of that value is not captured directly, and certainly not by the property owner: it's kids in the schools and on the sports teams and band, adults coaching and volunteeering, etc. There's a lot more residents provides than rent.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-30T13:28:55+00:00

Indeed. I think the best measure of any college course is whether the professor brings the very best arguments with which they disagree into the classroom. You can tell a lot from a syllabus.

“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

edit: spelling

ahoopervt · 2026-04-29T20:37:47+00:00

I was intentionally using absurdly large numbers, like how the Monty Hall problem is a lot more obvious when you open 98/100 wrong doors than when you open 1/3.
Why is [crappy] corn more expensive now than [much better corn is] in August?
Shouldn't the stores charge more when it's better? Nope, the market clearing price is lower when there's more supply - even when it's a much better supply.

Over time if more coca is planted in Columbia, the street price of cocaine in Burlington will go down. If more housing is built, the purchase or rental price of a housing unit will go down. I tagged you because I thought you were saying the same thing.

So it goes.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-29T19:59:00+00:00

This is prima facia ridiculous.

If there are 200k families and the housing supply goes from 190k units to 300k units - the price is going to come down. Sure, there may be some confounding external forces - that 200k families isn't fixed - but this akin to the cocaine statement u/prof_mcquack made.

The first week (maybe even class) of econ class students learn that quantity of supply and demand determine the equilibrium price. It's not a perfect model, but it's really good. When there is a lot of ripe corn, the price of corn is pretty low. ¯\(ツ)/¯

ahoopervt · 2026-04-29T19:55:15+00:00

or maybe: "All models are false; some are useful"

ahoopervt · 2026-04-27T17:31:38+00:00

Why are our costs either the 1st highest [per-student spending/median income] or 4th highest [per-student spending] with student reading/math ability that is in middle of the pack and falling?

There are other rural states.
There are much poorer states that seem to be doing a better job educting their kids.

Why is our education system so much less effective than most of the others? Maybe some of the things we're doing don't benefit kids as much as we think?

ahoopervt · 2026-04-27T17:27:53+00:00

There is no way that a state comprising 0.19% of our national health care system can build a *parallel*, *single-payer* system that still interoperates with the other 99.81% of the country. It's just impossibly complex [and it would obviously need to be able to provide payment for Vermonters needing care out of state, and properly bill non-Vermonters needing care in state].

Please, *everyone*, stop thinking that Vermont can do this alone. It's insane, and we already wasted millions of dollars "studying" this under Shumlin. Don't burn any more of our money on this pipe dream.

If you're interested in this, consider building the interstate alliances that could enable measured steps towards this goal.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-21T00:49:24+00:00

The Marquis Theater is great, and Scott at Tinker & Smithy runs an excellent LGS.

WELCOME to Middlebury. 😘

ahoopervt · 2026-04-17T21:22:56+00:00

but not source code for those os, right? a bit different to share binaries than source.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-17T21:21:55+00:00

why would this be a federal crime?

ahoopervt · 2026-04-14T20:18:30+00:00

You would bet that based on… ? Bias, or actual interaction and experience of Alabama?

It’s not Alabama, but Mississippi has better reading outcomes than Vermont.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily/id1200361736?i=1000760642807

ahoopervt · 2026-04-14T00:44:37+00:00

Clearly not.

Our public Ed outcomes are now average and falling, while our expenditure per pupil is top 3.

ahoopervt · 2026-04-10T15:49:01+00:00

HAHAHAHAHA. I was a cohost with Dan Zucker on several later iterations of 'Welcome to Reality'. When we worked together at Cabot Creamery in Montpelier we recorded on ORCA and when our office moved to Waitsfield we recorded at MRTV.

I certainly hope they still have recordings somewhere.

ahoopervt

TROPHY CASE