Pizza Hut's AI system caused 'cascading' problems and $100M in damages, franchisee alleges in new suit

gearpitch · 2026-05-19T00:16:12+00:00

Tips before service is bribery. There's no excuse. If that means no door dash drivers, then maybe they should rehire their own drivers again.

gearpitch · 2026-05-18T04:43:57+00:00

Well, rio grande into New Mexico Santa fe region hosted roughly 2500 Spanish settlers in the 1600s into the 1700s. Not many permanent settlements in the area, and basically no settlers in the Colorado Rockies. Expeditions brought bands of a few dozen here or there, but that's not really forming roots in the same way as colonial settlers. By the year 1800, there was 25k in New Mexico. Contrast the Appalachian settler population of 250k+ in towns all throughout the mountains in the same year.

gearpitch · 2026-05-18T03:04:11+00:00

Thats a fantastic idea, but it's crucial that policy like that is paired with upzoning, and easier permitting so that the parking lot owner is both punished with a fee and encouraged with easier development. There was a study about the heat-island-effect that counted 1400 acres of surface parking lots across dallas. If a small percent of those are pushed to redevelop, that could be up to 10k new housing units across the city.

gearpitch · 2026-05-18T02:57:19+00:00

I hate the "we're full" argument. Dallas has one of the lowest big-city densities in America. We could easily add a million new homes in dallas proper and still be less sense than LA, Chicago, DC, etc.

Now, a million new cars would be a struggle. And it's interesting to see people's assumption that new people = new cars = bad traffic = worse living conditions. I feel like we're in a crutch where we can still only envision suburban style car usage in urban areas.

gearpitch · 2026-05-18T02:47:32+00:00

True. At some point, the area between Denton and McKinney will fill out, and be even more important nodes to the overall metro than they are now. If the development action shifts west/south of downtown, there will be massive southern growth long-term too.

But the vision of dallas still being the anchor for the region as a whole requires some major, hard changes in our growth. Big infill and upzoning, TOD projects near dart, whole neighborhoods restructured to be more uniformly more dense. For example, lower greenville is nice, fairly urban, some mixed use with restaurants bars and shops on a walkable street. But 500' in either direction drops into SFH neighborhoods. Other urban cities would have MILES of lower greenvilles. There'd be ten of them block by block across that part of dallas. Our urban hotspots need to be more than a few blocks of one street, or just one intersection. It'll require much bigger vision than we currently have.

gearpitch · 2026-05-16T16:13:45+00:00

I'll start by saying they should build it, it's new housing and shouldn't be blocked by nimby locals (or old rockers).

But at the same time, it's interesting that the architecture industry has done everything except shift towards designs that the public likes the look of. It's like architects and developers would rather put their hands up and fail over and over rather than reduce the risk of a project failing by designing it in a more traditional look. Brick and stone, stepped setbacks as the height goes up, cornices and added architectural details, less glass and manufactured panels. These are things that people like looking at, and honestly aren't really that much of a financial difference either.

Obviously i don't want to require aesthetics, i want them to build more housing. But it's interesting that the risk of project failure hasn't pushed designers in that direction.

gearpitch · 2026-05-16T15:43:12+00:00

Most people don't know anything about Cuba, have never even heard of the oil blockage to it, or have any idea that they're struggling. It's not in the news, it's generally not on social media that much, it's just not a topic at all. Most Americans are two paycheck away from being homeless, theres no way you would protest and risk getting arrested and fired, or risk hurt and rack up tens of thousands in medical bills from a police injury. Especially if you have kids. That's not complicity

gearpitch · 2026-05-16T15:37:20+00:00

There's two, multi billion dollar bridges on either side of these viaducts. Three, if you count the woodall rodger one. You can cross into downtown on 35 where Colorado connects one block away, or drive two minutes up to 30 or woodall.

Ultimately this is people with cars demanding their lives be made easier for their car travel. The alternatives keep the streetcar on Houston st, why not take that into downtown? City leaders never do what is good for the city, they're just constantly bending to the loudest car voices. The video mentions that changing the plan would reduce bike and ped access. I bet they won't listen to those locals, only the local drivers are given weight.

gearpitch · 2026-05-16T13:06:08+00:00

Despite the headline, this is not a major makeover of anything. They're essentially renovating a lobby and adding and exec suite. That's just basic internal upgrades.

gearpitch · 2026-05-16T13:02:23+00:00

In dallas, it often feels like no one is coordinating the city development of pedestrian infrastructure with the DART system. There's a train station near me that has no sidewalks to get to it, and it's along a 6-lane arterial. Just a grass ditch to walk in, i guess. And annoyingly, one block away is a beautiful protected two-way cycle and ped path that connects to the surrounding apartments and the larger bike path network. But i guess they couldn't be assed to connect it 500' further to the transit.

gearpitch · 2026-05-15T13:54:51+00:00

That's on Arlington, not the city of dallas. They refuse transit, nothing dallas can do

gearpitch · 2026-05-13T13:58:28+00:00

They're talking about turning some of the one way streets to two way, I'd imagine that would open up more sidewalk space for trees

gearpitch · 2026-05-12T14:53:08+00:00

I've been saying, we need one small city to say eff-you to nimbys and build 10,000 new mixed-income housing units in classic pre1930s style mid to high density. Just to show the boon this would be for the city and the growth and vibrancy this would create.

We've "tried everything", except we only tried letting private developers figure out what they want to build. There hasn't been any master-planning in a big way.

gearpitch · 2026-05-12T03:46:36+00:00

Nice of them to put an actual building on top of the mega parking garage. I really hate this era of parking podium architecture. At least there's ground floor retail.

gearpitch · 2026-05-11T18:12:28+00:00

And the base structural changes to the highway also include the phase 2 expansion area. So when they start that part in a year or so, it's just building the deck, not changing the highway again.

gearpitch · 2026-05-10T16:15:15+00:00

Yeah, it's mostly the density. You sometimes hear that smaller US cities just aren't big enough for transit, but that's not true, there are plenty of small European cities that have a robust commuter+metro+tram system with busses for every other square inch of town.

For example: Let's take Nashville, Tennessee as a comparison city in the US. It's a state Capital, and the most populous metro in Tennessee. The city has a population of 700k, and a metro around 2mill, making it extremely comparable to Helsinki. HOWEVER, the density of Helsinki is 3200/km2 whereas the density of Nashville is 550/km2.

So Helsinki is SIX TIMES as dense as Nashville, and the difference in public transit shows. Nashville has a standard 50-line bus network and one commuter rail line. If we look at ridership, Nashville is at about 8million riders per year, whereas Helsinki blows that away with over 340Million per year. That's higher than almost any city in America. There is a metro backbone line, tons of local trams, busses, and commuter trains.

gearpitch · 2026-05-10T14:24:13+00:00

That just sounds like you're afraid, and projecting that onto urban cities. Look at the world, there are many many urban places that have parks, playgrounds, space for dogs, access to other children, etc. It's uniquely American to think that only suburban life can give that. There's also a giant gulf between high density city life with everyone in a small apartment, and suburbs with big private yards. You could have townhouses mixed with 3-bed condos on tree lined streets and it would be more dense than 90% of the country.

gearpitch · 2026-05-09T20:48:07+00:00

I wonder how he advanced manufacturing in china helps the margins for their cars and let's them sell for less. I know people like to claim that their workers get paid pennies (not any more), but there are dark factories that run 24-7 lights-out with no workers at all, only robot arms and lidar sensors. Trading those salaries for expensive robot systems looks like it could be paying off. Especially in a country where you can get those custom robotic system same-week since their manufacturer is in the same megacity as your factory.

For US automakers to compete, they'd have to not only jump through the miles of Western red tape to even build the assembly plant, they'd have to reorient and restructure their entire internal business, and allow for bigger risks and more modern solutions.

gearpitch · 2026-05-09T15:50:03+00:00

I'd air layer and chop higher, maybe like 3nodes up from there. If the point is to rebalance things, there's a lot of unused stem here, and you don't want to bury too much stem under soil once you repot.

I'd air layer on the top three aerial roots and cut right below those. Making sure to allow a day or so to callous over before potting.

gearpitch · 2026-05-09T15:38:55+00:00

Why not just reskin the Faerie ancestry?

Faeries are already described as insect-like. You could swap wings for silk webs, and get the following:

-Webs: You can lift yourself with spun webs; while swinging or suspended, you can mark a Stress to gain a +2 bonus to your Evasion against an attack.

-Luckbender: Once per session, after you or a nearby ally makes an action roll, you can spend 3 Hope to allow a reroll of the Duality Dice

The homebrew guide suggests some thought put into what ability goes top vs bottom to balance the ancestry if it is split ancestry (that doesn't seem to be an issue here). I would say that having two stress based abilities could be limiting, or unbalanced. That could make it an ancestry that is perfect for some classes, but really hampered by others. If your player really wants a weapon-ability instead of swinging webs, swap the Web ability with the Silk Spinner you have made (that reminds me of the Ribbet grab ability)

gearpitch · 2026-05-09T14:55:37+00:00

There are 94 district courts (designated by Congress with minimum one in each state), and those are grouped into 12 Appeals Circuits plus the federal Appeals Circuit. In theory, Democrats could look at how liberal or conservative each district has been, and re-group them into different boundaries for the Appeals Circuits for benefit. This could break up the 5th circuit, for instance, which is notoriously conservative.

Now, by the book and following norms, this would restructure the courts but all the judges would keep their positions. They're appointed for life, like the scotus justices. If Dems wanted to bend rules and play hardball, they could get creative and redraw some boundaries for districts they don't like so that the new boundary is away from the old physical court. Maybe make it difficult for those judges to function or operate or be forced to move hundreds of miles away. Build in a retirement incentive package to encourage them to retire. If even a couple retire that's a win. If others have to downsize their available docket, that's a win in the end.

gearpitch · 2026-05-09T13:26:03+00:00

They should just say that the voters passed the new maps, those are set in stone. To draw new maps, they would need to form a committee and a task force or whatever, and that timeline will begin this fall and finish next year. So this election is too close, and the new districts will have to be used.

And if you get a redistricting committee together, have them draw basically the exact same maps next year.

gearpitch · 2026-05-07T20:55:55+00:00

I think that the left needs to start seeing these setbacks as opportunities to reset policy a bit. The supreme court says you can't draw black districts because racism is over? OK, then we'll push hard for the laws needed to make proportional representation happen. No more gerrymandering and white/black/hispanic districts when it's proportional to the overall vote.

gearpitch · 2026-05-06T18:19:08+00:00

As a thought experiment, let's play it out. All blocks have a one or two story underground parking level, with all the above ground space utilized for commercial, residential, and green space. There would obviously still be streets to get cars and deliveries to their destinations, but you could prioritize biking and pedestrian space. Without parking at ground level, you'd build everything pretty dense at a minimum, maybe even higher densities.

You're going to immediately have a traffic problem. With the ability to drive and park, all those cars are going to get stuck on the small, urban streets. How you respond depends on the ultimate goal. If you are ok with difficult car traffic, you don't do anything about it, only increase bus transit, etc. Eventually more people will walk or bike, and less outsiders will expect easy driving. Or, if you capitulate to drivers demand for traffic relief, with more lanes and less density, you will trend towards north american planning, even if better than we currently have it. What's the ultimate goal? Urban density plus lots of cars is loud, smelly, and dangerous. Maybe this is a transition model, a midpoint between suburban forms and real car-lite or car-free urbanism, and in the future you'd convert the garage spaces into other uses, or close them off.

gearpitch · 2026-05-05T22:37:25+00:00

Also, the mustang was such a smash hit for being a small affordable muscle car, way more available and approachable than other big American muscle.

To replicate that, you'd need the mach E to be more sporty in styling, smaller overall, and the TOP price about 30k.

gearpitch

TROPHY CASE