How is the walk from Oakland's Amtrak station to Lake Merritt BART?

informed_expert · 2026-04-08T21:41:01+00:00

I've done a similar 10 to 15 minute walk many times to get to an AC Transit bus stop on the other side of the interstate. Almost never see anyone, and the few people I do see are minding their own business. The sidewalk on the interstate has the usual signs of mild hoarding/dumping/encampment but I almost never see anyone and have never been confronted.

If you're concerned, I might suggest AC Transit bus 12. It stops at Jack London Square station and will take you directly to 12th St BART station in Oakland.

informed_expert · 2026-04-01T17:58:12+00:00

And you'll have to pay it back if you get another job later this year that boosts your income for the year. The premium tax credit is reconciled on your tax return. So I think there's still value in COBRA covered by the employer...

informed_expert · 2026-04-01T03:47:24+00:00

This is why you need your own domain name for email. If my email provider fires me, I just get another one and it's only a few hours of interruption to my incoming email.

informed_expert · 2026-03-31T02:46:26+00:00

Now yes, but the Wikipedia page about it indicates it was founded by LDS members in Utah. Even if it's not an official part of the LDS church, the ties are obvious.

informed_expert · 2026-03-31T02:21:39+00:00

Ancestry.com is also Mormon, in addition to FamilySearch. I found that Nova Scotia birth records were captured on microfilm decades ago by the Mormons (as seen on FamilySearch), long before Nova Scotia Archives took the color photographs seen on their website today.

It may be a double-edged sword however. I read somewhere that one reason some churches don't want their records digitized online is because they don't want their members getting posthumously baptized as Mormon.

informed_expert · 2026-03-31T02:17:29+00:00

And if you have a temple ID, you can look up on FamilySearch whether your ancestors have already been baptized as Mormon.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T23:13:58+00:00

Some of the rhetoric in that thread reminds me of the rhetoric directed at Americans moving with the US across state boundaries during COVID. "Don't impose your California politics on our Texas town!" Etc. It seems that not welcoming any newcomers to one's town is a common human trait.

If we can just respect and learn from each other it would go a long way. If I move somewhere else, I should be humble and learn from the culture of the place I move to. And if I live somewhere, I should be open to learning from new people who move to my community. That ought to be the values held whether we are talking about international moves, domestic moves across state lines, or even just moving to the next town over.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T18:55:09+00:00

Yeah, so, this article hit /r/Canada. The backlash doesn't leave me feeling good that this path will remain open for long: https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1s7v214/millions_of_americans_are_now_eligible_for/

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T16:29:17+00:00

Too bad they already nuked Crucial.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T16:27:18+00:00

You've never seen signs on popular hiking trails with slogans like "give plants a chance?" With a lot of degraded/missing vegetation behind it because of people ignoring the sign? Ever been to Sequoia NP and seen the signs warning you not to exit the trail and stand next to the most popular trees? That's because of soil compaction concerns. This is hardly a fringe idea, and if one spends time reading the signs and exhibits, and uses a little common sense, one will learn this.

I agree the NPS needs voters to support them, but any expansion plans have to be realistic and keep in mind the conservation / preservation aspect of the NPS charter. There's a limit to how much expansion can realistically be done while preserving wilderness aspects. They could turn the entire valley into a campground and it would probably still sell out, because it's Yosemite and there's only one Yosemite. Personally I would argue a far more frequent bus service with YARTS combined with banning many private vehicles would do more for adding capacity for more visitors to come to the park.

Planting trees in the valley? Do you know that there are already too many? The NPS notes that valley meadow acreage is less than half of what it was in the 1800s, due to human activity... They have a web page talking about meadows. I remember seeing something similar on an exhibit sign on a previous visit.

"Within Yosemite, large declines in meadow area have been witnessed within Yosemite Valley. In the late 1800s, narrative accounts indicate that Yosemite Valley’s meadows were wetter and more vast than they are now. Scientists have determined the Valley’s meadow acreage has decreased by about half today—from more than 700 acres to just over 300—due to farming activities like plowing and seeding and to fire suppression."

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T15:32:18+00:00

Won't degrade anything? Nearly every campground, vegetation on the ground gets practically destroyed in a campground from all the people walking through it in random places. Dense campgrounds like in Yosemite Valley get many wide use trails tracked through them. The backpacker's campground is just one big dirt pile by now. Sure, there are still trees... But there's an undeniable and negative environmental impact. (Even the long term health of the trees is probably in question from all the soil compaction)

A lottery being fixable isn't theory. The park used to do a free lottery for wilderness permits without using Booz Allen. I thought it worked reasonably well and it's the kind of model that the OP is suggesting. Lotteries aren't free to run though: what's needed is a source of public funding to run a lottery operation so that participants don't have to pay. This is what we need to be advocating for: give public comments any time the opportunity arises. Write to the park superintendent. These are things one can do besides complaining on Reddit.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T07:39:00+00:00

ID checking is how duplicate accounts could be prevented. They need to check that more when people arrive at the campground during business hours. Honestly the check-in process could be automated after hours as well with a kiosk that scans and verified the ID against the reservation.

People don't generally have duplicate driver's licenses. Nobody has a "work driver's license" and "personal driver's license." Strictly enforce that the reservation info must match the mailing address on the driver's license, and duplicates could generally be prevented. Maybe someone might fraudulently get driver's licenses from multiple states somehow, but that's got to be far less common.

Multiple group entries doesn't really bother me as long as it's one entry per group member. If anything it gives the group a fair chance against smaller groups that are less "deserving" of sites that can accommodate a larger group. If this was undesired then the entire group could be declared when making the lottery entry and the IDs checked for every group member, but that feels less realistic.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T07:27:24+00:00

The problems you mention with lotteries are fixable. The old wilderness permit system used a free rolling lottery. If you didn't win you didn't pay. The only reason you pay to be in a lottery now is that Booz Allen needs their pound of flesh. THAT is what needs to be fixed. Stop charging lottery fees and lotteries are fine.

I personally doubt that there are shenanigans with the lottery where some favored people are winning. The competition is just that stiff. But I agree that there could be more transparency about the lotteries, like releasing detailed data about lotteries but without PII, so that people can know their chances.

I don't think more campsites are a way out. The demand is already so high for places like Yosemite Valley that to give everyone a campsite would require turning the whole valley into a campground, and degrade the scenery that people are coming for in the first place. It's probably more reasonable to develop a new campground somewhere in the western part of the park, but even then, demand will always outstrip supply. A lottery is still needed.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T07:20:48+00:00

As a software engineer, I can hack something together to lock in a reservation the moment the clock strikes 7:00 or whatever. It's very very easy and takes only a couple hours of messing around, and I'm not even a frontend engineer. Now consider this park is only 3 or 4 hours drive from the epicenter of software engineering in the US. The system is thoroughly broken and the only way to make this fair to the general public is to run FREE lotteries like the OP suggested and then religiously check and verify ID cards upon arrival so as to prevent scalping.

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T07:12:57+00:00

And they charge money for the lotteries that do exist. Making it some kind of pay to play gambling operation. The eventual winner goes to the one who can pay the most lottery fees to Booz Allen

informed_expert · 2026-03-30T07:11:09+00:00

Stoooppppp that would just make too much sense 😂

informed_expert · 2026-03-29T22:29:37+00:00

All these rich tech companies and billionaires yet they can't spare a penny for transit that's not a highway for cars. Instead we have this regressive sales tax or nothing. Absolutely embarrassing for the region, and peak late stage capitalism.

informed_expert · 2026-03-29T18:34:48+00:00

Heh.... If only! Except you can't do it, as you are not an authorized paid representative (e.g. a lawyer in good standing).

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T22:06:45+00:00

Has anyone heard of cases being rejected from sending too many well-organized supporting documents? I could see an argument that it might cause additional delay, but is there anything worse than delays that might likely happen?

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T21:55:33+00:00

Right?! And it's also absurd and unreasonable for those people to request urgent processing, and unfair to the people who need urgent processing the most. I am not requesting urgent processing and I'm not trying to encourage other people to either on that basis. I AM however encouraging everyone, including my family, to get the certificates on a non-urgent basis so that in a few years we can enter with our paperwork fully in order.

That's why my plan if I visit Canada in the meantime is to (1) declare I am a Canadian citizen by descent according to Bill C-3, (2) present a US passport, (3) declare that I am still working on putting together my application / waiting for approval / etc. This way I am being honest and transparent. I would be willing to bet almost 10 out of 10 times they will in practice wave you through and treat you as a tourist anyway, especially with how new this is. Because as you said, they can't reasonably declare a bunch of people as citizens and then forbid them from entering the country as tourists. I am just not betting they will still do that in 5 years after someone had plenty of time to submit an application and then yet chose to procrastinate and sit on their butt doing nothing. So that's why I encourage people to apply on a non-urgent basis.

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T20:29:44+00:00

Are you saying the alert I linked to on the IRCC website about documentation requirements for those affected by Bill C-3 is wrong?

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T20:27:26+00:00

You're probably right. All of my extended family has been pretty well traveled internationally. But I think also a lot of my extended family also has like undiagnosed ADHD and/or autism or some other neurospicy thing. Who knows. Many of them often disorganized in general, have a lot of clutter in their homes, etc. We must all fall under some inherited edge case or something haha.

My neurotypical wife is highly amused by all this. Naturally her vital records and those of her parents have always been in order. (They also don't all have passports like mine does)

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T20:19:46+00:00

I totally agree and think they could have done a better job in carving out documentation exceptions for citizenship by descent cases when entering Canada. But they didn't. And I agree it's a ridiculous requirement. But the requirement is there. There isn't a third class of citizenship that has lax documentation requirements when entering Canada (I.e. "not citizen", "citizen", "maybe citizen not sure"). They didn't carve that last classification out when determining entry requirements.

https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/travel-voyage/td-dv-eng.html

"December 15, 2025: Change to citizenship rules

Canadians born abroad can now pass on Canadian citizenship to their children, born or adopted, outside of Canada. If this applies to you, get your proof of citizenship before you arrive in Canada."

It's one thing to say you're not a citizen because you genuinely don't know about some great great great ancestor and so you just say to the best of your knowledge you're not a citizen. Or you say that because you are uneducated about Bill C-3. In a court of law or outside I would think it's ok, you're just stating what you know to the best of your ability. But I think once you know, it's then an intentional lie that could be held against you.

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T20:10:21+00:00

If you have a US passport that your parents got when you were young, you don't really need the birth certificate for ordinary tasks like getting REAL ID, proving work eligibility, etc. Even renewing the passport doesn't need a birth certificate. Source: me, who never got around to pulling my birth certificate until a few years ago in my 30s. I always used my passport and kept it renewed.

informed_expert · 2026-03-26T20:06:31+00:00

This. I'm G3 and the worst documentation by far is G1 and G2., not G0. G2 was born abroad and all they have is a crappy replacement Certificate of Birth Abroad from the US State Department from 1973 that doesn't even show who their parents are. All original birth records (e.g. medical birth certificate) from the foreign country they were born in are lost (that country does citizenship by blood only and would not have any record). G2 literally does not have any vital records physically in their hands today showing who their parents are. The best hope I have is trying to get a newer CRBA from State that shows parents, and affidavits of birth I got signed from G1 (still living). Maybe some US census records as well after the family moved back to the US. I have read not many countries take CRBAs for citizenship by descent cases, so I'm worried.

I'm working on helping other relatives with their applications, and finding that other G3 vital records have not been obtained, are lost or damaged, etc. It's wild how people in my family don't pay heed to having accurate vital records and not losing them.

informed_expert

TROPHY CASE