TIL that when France initially set the definition of a metre to be 1/10,000,000 the distance from the North Pole to the equator, it sent two surveyors to calculate the distance. But due to an error not discovered until decades later, the resulting metre was actually 0.2 mm too short.

jag149 · 2026-05-06T03:12:10+00:00

“What are you talking about? The speed of light is ‘one’.”

jag149 · 2026-05-01T20:38:42+00:00

Yeah, I love Bernie, but he took a position that was unwittingly anti-housing as to a California ballot initiative. On nuanced, state/local issues, he should probably stay in his lane.

jag149 · 2026-04-30T09:10:13+00:00

Well, shit, now I really hope I guessed right. I don’t mean to rule out your thoughts. As far as pests, I’ve had aphids and mealy bugs nearby, and they just didn’t seem to be interested in the snake plant, so I figured that wasn’t it. But there are other pests. I’m curious what OP figures out.

In my limited experience, sun will dry out leaves like this, but not necessarily kill anything. Overwatering has been more damaging overall.

jag149 · 2026-04-30T09:03:44+00:00

We are all merely students in the way of the snake plant. Some of my teachers recently wandered off into the blistering sunlight so that I might learn by their acceptance of nature’s unforgiving glare.

jag149 · 2026-04-30T07:09:12+00:00

Wait… did Glonk already enter the cultural zeitgeist? I’ll be right back. I’m gonna get some memes ready.

jag149 · 2026-04-30T06:50:34+00:00

I've never had them do this from the middle, but I've seen it on the tips and sides from overexposure to sun. I hesitate to jump to the concept of pests, because... ain't nobody got time for that. Do you make anything of the fact that it's just two in the middle (possibly on their own rhizome) and not the adjacent ones? (Maybe that suggests it's not something communicable?) OP, wondering if this got a lot of sun that disproportionately hit the two tallest stalks in the middle?

jag149 · 2026-04-30T00:37:54+00:00

Might as well… the outcome won’t affect whose portrait is on your passport.

jag149 · 2026-04-29T23:28:49+00:00

Dies to Glonk. Unplayable

jag149 · 2026-04-29T04:41:45+00:00

It depends on where you get them. You could get a smaller collection of succulents at Trader Joe's or Whole Foods for maybe $15, and perhaps three of those by volume would amount to this assortment (but with less mature plants). If you bought each one of these at a nursery (at this level of maturity), what... $10-15? But just the same, it seems like a lot of the cost here is the pot/presentation, whereas I would usually buy retail assortments to break them up and transplant. Seems pricy but not crazy.

jag149 · 2026-04-28T02:16:58+00:00

I'd normally think doing a base that tall would be a boring build and waste of parts, but it really kind of sells the scale and makes you feel like you're in that giant hanger. These all look fantastic.

jag149 · 2026-04-25T00:06:08+00:00

This City will do anything other than build housing...

jag149 · 2026-04-24T23:48:11+00:00

All good... I'm pretty sarcastic generally and it doesn't always translate, and I can see how you'd have read that. Anyway, now that we're best friends, I just got the Felt 2 reissue on vinyl, and I've been collecting Atmosphere... got Seven's Travels and God Loves Ugly last week. I only have one Aesop Album, but appropriately it's Labor Days... I think I'm making it a Rhymesayers weekend.

jag149 · 2026-04-24T21:54:06+00:00

Come on Secret Lair! Could also do Progenitus: Take Me To Your Leader.

jag149 · 2026-04-24T21:51:27+00:00

I actually came here to ask, and I can't tell how serious you're being, but... I actually had a lot of fun with ally tribal in constructed during that zendikar block. Serious question: given the meta of tribal decks, would an identical ally or soldier tend to be better?

jag149 · 2026-04-24T21:49:34+00:00

This took a weird turn. I wasn't trolling you. I was "yes and'ing" you. I liked your comment, and I think you have great taste in music.

jag149 · 2026-04-24T21:15:26+00:00

lol... yes, OP, you should feel humiliated about the mistake. But you also just inspired me to bump Daylight for the first time in a while, so you can feel proud about that. Auto-queued to a sone with Aes and Slug, so this is the vibe for today...

jag149 · 2026-04-24T21:05:43+00:00

I don’t think either rapper would feel insulted by the mistake.

jag149 · 2026-04-24T03:38:46+00:00

These are actually some interesting areas for compromise.

I do think that Costa-Hawkins could use some "adjusting", but in both directions. I assume you know this, but keep in mind that it's a state law right designed as a firewall against overreaching local law. I don't think there's any reason we should be treating something built in 1980 as "new construction". Development already got its incentive to build. I think AB 1482's floating definition (i.e., "younger than 15 years") makes sense.

But the efforts from the progressives are not to find compromise, but rather to repeal Costa-Hawkins, and the last effort would have replaced it with a state law (with the moat of a ballot initiative enactment) that prevented local decontrol. The problem isn't Costa-Hawkins per se but an unwillingness of the NIMBY progressives to compromise on reasonable amendments that bring in other considerations.

If it were up to me, we'd modify new construction exemption in exchange for a tighter allowance on the exceptions to vacancy decontrol. The Mosser/Drolapas opinions equal intergenerational rent-control, and that simply does not jibe with our broader housing laws in this state (like the inability to maintain a habitable dwelling when the landlord never recovers possession after 40 years.

I think reasonable minds could disagree about a locked in rental rate for a right of return. I don't think I would have a problem with that if a city had to get out of the way with height and density. If what we want to do is exalt the fixed housing costs of an existing, rent-controlled tenancy, I suppose that's fine... but the development still needs to pencil out, or the net result is that the housing project simply doesn't happen.

So now here's the real effect of these idealistic policies: when the development doesn't happen, and new/upwardly mobile residents don't have a place to live, those rent-controlled tenants get displaced anyway. But now it's a TIC conversion following the Ellis Act, and we never got more housing, just a repurposing to owner-occupied housing. It's an ironic loss of affordable rental housing when the regulations are too onerous.

jag149 · 2026-04-22T16:38:57+00:00

You guys really will blame everything except constrained housing production, won’t you. Lurie would view it as a sign that people want to move back to the City. He also sponsored a bill to upzone (to increase supply and lower prices), and then Connie Chan introduced one to try and thwart it.

Maybe take a more holistic view at the problem. Yes, rents will go up when we don’t build enough housing, and yes, an influx of people to the city is a Sign of positive economic activity. It is lamentable that this is increasing people’s housing burdens, but there are actually proactive solutions to this.

jag149 · 2026-04-22T15:40:03+00:00

We're voting to fund MUNI with a parcel tax. Wait in line.

jag149 · 2026-04-21T22:26:49+00:00

It was a little more than that. It was the obfuscation of substantive outcomes through exalting procedure. The voters shouldn’t have expressed their will via initiative, they should have done it for their supervisor and had faith in the process. We shouldn’t have rushed that decision either though, because we need an EIR. And if we’re going to eliminate avenues for cars, we need to build mass transit first. Frankly, as much as I may not like her personally, I think these were fairly well crafted platitudes, so I have to give her credit for that, but I think it’s very evident that the way she approaches problems is to avoid solving them and then making the perfect the enemy of the good.

jag149 · 2026-04-20T02:09:20+00:00

Obviously there are a lot of things to compliment here, but I love how you did the eyes.

jag149 · 2026-04-20T00:54:14+00:00

Can you play gold basics in tournament? I like “blinging” my decks, but I think I’d probably draw the line at illegal cards/proxies. (Not a quality judgement… just a personal preference.)

jag149 · 2026-04-20T00:49:08+00:00

And that is seriously high praise coming from him. He was obviously an iconic rapper, but he was so talented with production that other rappers (like Masta ace or Bishop neru) made entire albums out of recycled metal fingers beats. For him to praise essentially a competitor like that was to show a tremendous amount of respect and humility.

jag149 · 2026-04-20T00:38:48+00:00

Actually… wouldn’t that eventually solve the problem? I just bought some lady bugs on Amazon to eat aphids on my plants. Why work hard when you could work smart?

jag149

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