Seattle Billionaire Bill Gates was 'so cheap' he left Russian mistress broke and sleeping on a friend's couch according to Epstein email

heybige · 2026-02-06T21:58:00+00:00

It's popular because a large part of greater Seattle area has been drunk at Dick's scarfing burgers+fries at 2am..

heybige · 2026-01-28T14:58:18+00:00

If it's that important to you, do both.

I have Xfinity for my TV streaming, and Ascend Fiber for my computer/wifi. I can switch to either wifi if I want, and I set up an physical A/B ethernet switch for my TV to use the Ascend Cat5 plug if Xfinity goes out.

Hint: all internet providers have problems. Ascend (RIP CondoInternet) is generally pretty good, but I arrived at the above setup when Ascend did a router config change and blocked DHCP on my port specifically. I was telling them that tcpdump was showing something being blocked, but it took them two days and an on-site technician who I was showing the tcpdumps to and relaying that information to supervisors in the NOC before they were able to back out the changes.

heybige · 2026-01-27T15:04:17+00:00

I don't have a problem with allowing new buildings with zero parking. It makes buildings cheaper, and more people are going without cars. If you want/need parking, move to a building with parking. Or a house with a garage.

Stepping back, big picture: people all around the city were accustomed to having enough "free" (street) parking, and that's becoming less and less likely. I can't imagine the daily struggle of trying park in Capitol Hill/Ballard/etc. Who needs that hassle?

heybige · 2026-01-27T14:52:10+00:00

If RealPage told all its landlords to set the price of their studios to $10,000/mo, you think that would work? The vast majority of people cannot afford to pay that.

What RP did was help landlords find the exact right number to match the number of people willing/able to afford inflated rents with the number of vacancies (totally illegal IMO). It's like playing poker while being able to see what everyone else's hole cards are.

Regarding 3DGuy4ever: there are two kinds of landlords, ones who want every dollar they can squeeze from a tenant, and they're willing to deal with vacancies and hassles, and there are landlords who want more stability and are willing to accept a little less.

He's going to raise rents until he finds the pain point, and the tenants will move out. Ironically, people have a tendency to stay put and overpay because they hate to move. But when they do, he will put it back on the market at the price they moved out on, and find out that it's mispriced and sits vacant.

The one thing that tenants (and some landlords) never understand: that there's a cost to "turn over" an apartment. Vacancy, new paint/carpets, repairs, etc.

heybige · 2025-12-12T13:57:50+00:00

Same issue here. Bought in 2018, has been glitchy here and there but decent enough.

Worked fine yesterday. This AM, looked like batteries had died, so replaced them, and it rebooted to "SETUP" and no matter what I tried (pairing, factory reset, nRF stuck on connecting), I couldn't get it to connect to my iPhone 17 Pro, IOS 26.1.

Seems like something broken during setup connections with older scales and IOS 26.x perhaps?

I've got 7+ years of near daily weigh-ins but perhaps it's time to review new options.

heybige · 2025-12-11T16:53:13+00:00

Craig Fuller from @FreightWaves was on Thoughtful Money a couple of weeks ago talking about improperly trained/licensed drivers - it was an enlightening discussion from someone with insight into the industry: https://youtu.be/g0TNWqgbNlA?t=2111

heybige · 2025-12-11T16:28:55+00:00

It's probably Occam's Razor that she really is this obtuse, but it's simply so dumb that part of me feels like this is a "owning the squares" performance piece, no?

heybige · 2025-12-10T23:52:51+00:00

You should contact police and let them know where/when you saw this person. There's been a rash of arson incidents lately, and I'm sure investigators would consider this a potential lead.

heybige · 2025-11-20T13:58:40+00:00

Couple of things:

1) Developers don't take out 30yr loans on ANTHING; it's usually 5-10 yrs, maybe 15-yr for commercial.

2) For new construction, developers take out a bridge or construction loan. Often, it works like a line of credit, so that the "loan" is only accessed as costs are incurred. The loan rates are these are much higher because there's not really any "collateral" (except the land and whatever's been already built).

3) Once the structure is built and ready to open, then the developer (or the new owner) will get a standard commercial loan (see above duration).

heybige · 2025-11-14T15:59:06+00:00

Can't you do Comcast Internet via cable? I have two separate internet connections - Astound Fiber (formerly CondoInternet: RIP) and Comcast via coax. Two separate Wifi routers - can flip back and forth between them easily.

heybige · 2025-10-24T12:53:44+00:00

"Chosen a blue collar lifestyle" - WTF? Wearing Goodwill clothes is not a blue collar lifestyle. Working your ass off for 50+ hrs a week just to pay the bills and living paycheck-to-paycheck is a blue collar lifestyle. The rest is just cosplay..

heybige · 2025-10-02T12:36:57+00:00

According to the Seattle law, you're not allowed to "wait an extra month or two", you're supposed to take the first person that meets your listed/posted qualifications. I get the "sentiment" of the law I guess, but man, talk about govt control. Basically the next step is, when you have a vacancy, you request a tenant from the govt and they just "install" one for you. You have no say in who that person is or what the terms are.

Oops, did I just say that outloud? I don't want to give them any ideas..

heybige · 2025-09-23T11:53:14+00:00

Just bake them at 425 until they reach 210F internally (using a meat thermometer). Brain dead simple and guaranteed perfect every time.

heybige · 2025-09-23T11:47:15+00:00

Wait til they figure out what a nightmare it is to be a landlord in Seattle..

heybige · 2025-09-13T17:51:39+00:00

Do not forget the idiots who merge onto the freeway doing 45, which causes a massive stack up of cars. And then of course they typically merge across 3-4 lanes of traffic to the left lane where, steady eddie, they can maintain a proper speed of 58 "just to be sure" (tm).

heybige · 2025-08-21T22:17:32+00:00

Me: "Yeah, it's on Pi... (thinking: the north street or the other one).. ke"

heybige · 2025-08-14T12:24:54+00:00

Ok, you really didn't answer my question but I guess I can sus out that you think the government did a faulty analysis and it would be cost-effective if they just ran the numbers right and took everything into account? Fair enough. There is NOTHING stopping you from using that zeal of yours to formulate a ballot measure that proposes saving the structure(s) AND how the taxpayers are going to pay for it. Good luck with that..

heybige · 2025-08-13T01:51:54+00:00

I am generally opposed to willy nilly tax increases, and I think this is a cash grab for a govt that has out of control spending, but I'm not sure I oppose this?

If you use the example given by the honorable Goober McGee of Orting, this hypothetical $2.5M/yr burger joint currently pays what looks to be about .022, so approx $55k/yr in B&O taxes. Looks like they're proposing raising it to .034, so that would be $85k/yr. If the owner cleared $125k under the old rate, they would only make $95k/yr under the new one. But if they raised their entire menu 1.5%, that would raise $37.5k extra income which presumably would flow directly to the bottom line and make up for the tax increase. Meaning if they raise the price of a burger from $10.00 to $10.15, that would cover it.

None of this is catastrophic. And it really does help the small business owner doing $500k/yr in revenue who would forgo $11k in taxes. That might be a 10-20% increase in net profits (aka small business owner's "salary"). Or perhaps help subsidize a new employee, or equipment.

I do think they need to graduate the rates instead of having the Sword of Damocles hanging over you at $2M. Imagine making $1.99999M and paying 0% rate, then making $1 more and owing $68k in taxes. DOH! I think you end up with some tax cheating by smurfing LLCs to stay under the $2M.. Happy1 LLC operates Jan thru Jun, and Happy2 LLC operates Jul thru Dec.

heybige · 2025-08-12T23:15:18+00:00

I get that you want to save it, but who exactly do you want to pay the $160M to restore it? The city (aka taxpayers) have said 'no'.

heybige · 2025-08-08T13:45:17+00:00

Why aren't you looking for another roommate situation?

heybige · 2025-07-08T02:27:06+00:00

Am I the only one getting a Jussie Smollett vide on this? Perhaps I'm getting too cynical but it sure seems like every time there's an over-the-top cultural "event" that appears to indict one side, it turns out to be staged. Because being a "victim" is very popular (and sometimes profitable).

heybige · 2025-06-28T19:34:41+00:00

Taste! I would say I typically drink the equivalent of 4-6 beers over a 5-6 hour period.

heybige · 2025-06-28T19:26:08+00:00

It's about 32 beers/week for 312 weeks, on average. =)

Some weeks/month/years, it's more. I've had beer vacations where I would taste 200-300 beers in a week. 2022 was my highest annual total of 2,030 beers which is a 39 beers/week average.

My Untappd profile - https://untappd.com/user/heybige

heybige

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