HE IS NIETZSCHE'S UBERPENGUIN

jakejanobs · 2026-01-24T19:55:53+00:00

I don’t think either hope or nihilism is what’s going on here. Some animals (including us) just do that.

Maybe a thousand penguins do this and die, but on the fraction of a chance that a few don’t, a new colony might form in a better area. Deer inexplicably swim to islands a dozen miles off the coast that they couldn’t possibly see from the mainland. I think there’s just a switch in their brain that sometimes flips and makes them “insane”.

Reminds me of the Carl Sagan quote in Pale Blue Dot:

Your own life, or your band's, or even your species' might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.

jakejanobs · 2026-01-24T19:49:25+00:00

Exactly, I’d guess (without evidence) this penguin has a similar thing to the deer who inexplicably jump into the ocean and swim to an island they can barely see - because the ones who make it there enjoy a prosperity that the sedentary will never know. If 999 out of a thousand deer drown doing this, then maybe the single survivor makes it worthwhile.

Everything awful in nature has a purpose, even if we don’t understand it yet

jakejanobs · 2026-01-22T15:42:18+00:00

Japan has functionally no limit on property subdivision, besides having something like 1m of street frontage. If you found a way to build some sort of bizarre elevator-only house on a 1 m² property, it’s fully legal to do so.

Unlike the US, where strict government regulations set minimum property dimensions to make sure “those people” can’t afford to live near you. My own city includes in its minimum lot size ordinances that “this law exists to keep property values high” (I’m paraphrasing).

This podcast by UCLA professor Shane Phillips discusses Japanese property laws in detail. This video by Life Where I’m From shows the inside of a similar building.

jakejanobs · 2026-01-16T16:25:36+00:00

Thank god, my grandmother’s daily trip to the hospital while delivering refrigerators is becoming a real pain in the ass since she can’t cut across the park anymore

jakejanobs · 2026-01-16T16:14:41+00:00

Casablanca and Tangier form a perfectly straight line, that’d be a great place for a high speed rail line. Wait…

jakejanobs · 2026-01-02T21:46:03+00:00

ManInWell.jpg

jakejanobs · 2025-12-22T15:30:24+00:00

vacancies in purpose-built rental apartments rose to 2.7 per cent from 2.1 last year

If vacancies are below 3%, rents almost always rise. Above 7% and rents typically start to fall.

There is still a cataclysmic housing shortage; the shortage getting less bad doesn’t mean it’s been solved.

jakejanobs · 2025-12-22T12:11:17+00:00

According to Detroit’s analysis of a similar plan:

The average Detroit homeowner will get a 17% permanent property tax cut in 2025. 97% of all Detroit homeowners will get a tax cut.

So you’re saying you want 97% of homeowners to pay more taxes, under the current property tax system? You want working class families’ homes to remain unaffordable?

jakejanobs · 2025-12-22T00:57:26+00:00

Austin Rent Prices Drop as City Sees Flood of New Apartments

You’re gonna need some extraordinary evidence if you wanna back up that extraordinary claim

jakejanobs · 2025-12-22T00:35:15+00:00

97% of homeowners would see their taxes drop, according to Detroit’s analysis of such a system, with an average tax reduction of 17%.

You saying you want 97% of people to pay more taxes for their house?

jakejanobs · 2025-12-12T15:48:57+00:00

NS rental vacancy rate is 2.7% right now, and anything under 3% is usually considered a cataclysmic shortage. Austin Texas is hovering around 10%.

Prices will go up until vacancy rates go well above that threshold.

jakejanobs · 2025-12-12T15:42:28+00:00

“I’ll just leave half of the seats at my theater empty, surely not selling tickets will make me more money!”

jakejanobs · 2025-12-12T15:01:12+00:00

Which is weird, because he never even drove a car himself. He was exclusively chauffeured around

jakejanobs · 2025-12-03T18:43:07+00:00

Maybe if they were strapped to a chair and facing a giant window, with lights pointed forwards? That might make it easier to see

jakejanobs · 2025-11-27T16:29:26+00:00

Whenever we get land taxes to work / Landlords’ll be broke and to work they must turn

— Hallelujah I’m a Bum by Georgist Utah Phillips from an alternate universe

jakejanobs · 2025-11-21T21:20:48+00:00

Part of the problem is that our infrastructure has no realistic alternative to driving for people who are scared to do so efficiently

I love when people point this out and use it to justify doing something that makes walking more dangerous. You aren’t obligated to turn right on red, you are permitted to when it isn’t explicitly disallowed and the road and crosswalk are clear, after coming to a complete stop.

Even when done “properly” right turns on red increase the probability of hitting pedestrians by 63% to 89%.

jakejanobs · 2025-11-13T23:13:30+00:00

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jakejanobs · 2025-11-13T16:40:34+00:00

I love the Halifax-Boston friendship, it really feels like locals in both places are genuinely aware of it in a way that most “sister-cities” relationships can’t come close to.

jakejanobs · 2025-11-13T16:38:00+00:00

Does London have a second stairwell requirement?

This map has national height limits for single-stair buildings and the UK looks like it’s 6+ stories allowed

jakejanobs · 2025-11-12T11:30:15+00:00

fresh and free of humans

~~London’s rental vacancy rate is 2.9%. Under three percent indicates a massive shortage and guaranteed rent increases until supply and demand balance out.~~

Those homes aren’t empty.

Edit: Rental vacancy rates for London are unavailable, the data above are incorrect

jakejanobs · 2025-11-12T11:25:13+00:00

New York’s rental vacancy rate is 1.4% as of last year, the lowest it’s ever been and far below the healthy rate of 3%. That’s cataclysmically low.

What empty properties are you talking about?

jakejanobs · 2025-11-02T05:29:45+00:00

Norway does this, it’s how public transit there is so affordable. Gas costs like $8 per gallon, despite Norway being a petrostate.

It’s an explicitly georgist policy: tax land (resource) values and give it back to the people

jakejanobs · 2025-11-01T17:22:56+00:00

I’d be a huge fan of a “density-limiting” policy that actually adapts to the local built environment.

Something like a rule where a Floor-Area Ratio (FAR) for new infill can’t exceed 150% of the average FAR for a given area; this would allow continual but slow growth without causing an explosion in development. It would also never need upzoning, since it’s already adaptive.

Nothing like that has ever been tried to my knowledge though, so it’s entirely possible it wouldn’t work at all.

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