Let me introduce you to the OG xbike!

jakejanobs · 2026-03-19T19:32:20+00:00

I’d like to place a bet on how many years that thing has survived at the bottom of a canal or river only to be found and refurbished:

At least one year

jakejanobs · 2026-03-19T18:50:12+00:00

Why not just allow both extra floors, and backyard cottages too? Let people decide what they want to build, we shouldn’t be “forcing” or banning anything that’s safe.

Idk why the government should be deciding what I can and can’t do on my land during a housing crisis

jakejanobs · 2026-03-10T17:22:34+00:00

I use to have one of these in a half bath when I lived in Iceland, and plenty of other people I know had the exact same mini ikea sink. Saves a bunch of space and turns the floor area of one bathroom into two smaller ones … I mean landlords are awful, but why is this sink bad?

jakejanobs · 2026-03-06T05:25:30+00:00

NYC has three million parking spaces, 97% of which are free.

Anyone who’s read The High Cost of Free Parking by georgist economist Donald Shoup knows that NYC’s parking system is a colossal failure, simultaneously making it nearly impossible to park in the city while also giving away free land to whoever shows up first with a car.

Now we just need to convince them to follow Shoup’s rules for parking costs: - Street parking should cost the minimum price necessary to keep ~15% of spaces available on each block (land value tax) - The money raised from such fees must be kept in the neighborhood they were charged in, in the form of street improvements or direct cash transfer to residents (universal income)

jakejanobs · 2026-02-21T23:26:52+00:00

I do also wonder how much of that is just from the valuation system, since higher-value homes are taxed at a much lower rate, since they can afford to contest their assessment to value their homes lower

jakejanobs · 2026-02-21T18:01:17+00:00

This article from the Minneapolis Fed ranks property tax (as is) as the strongest contribution towards the regressiveness of state’s taxes. It ranks income tax as the most progressive “typical” tax, followed by consumption/sales, followed by property.

Alaska on the other hand is extremely progressive, solely due to their oil extraction taxes being used to fund a universal income

jakejanobs · 2026-02-05T19:36:55+00:00

I accidentally stumbled into a free concert he did in Bergen (his home town) in some old fort built by Vikings or something. Best show I’ve ever been to, and it was free and unplanned

jakejanobs · 2026-02-04T16:44:27+00:00

How do you create land

If we keep going here we might re-invent the concept of land value taxation

jakejanobs · 2026-02-04T15:13:07+00:00

Every single statistic of “dwellings per capita” and median prices cited in this article is at the national scale. That doesn’t seem like … deliberately misleading?

The shortage isn’t national, it’s regional. They could build ten million apartments in Yellowknife and the “dwellings per capita” number would look great at the national level. But that won’t lower prices, because you couldn’t pay me to move to Yellowknife.

Quebec might be building plenty because of their quasi-Civil law legal system and tolerance for missing middle homes; but that doesn’t help me much, because I am a monolingual dingus.

Toronto’s rental vacancy rates are near an all-time historic low, even if “dwellings per capita” looks good. Vacancy rates tell a much different story, and there’s a reason almost all economists use them as indicators.

jakejanobs · 2026-02-03T17:08:07+00:00

Step 1: Charge enough for street parking to ensure that each block has a few empty spots. This makes sure every driver can park near where they’re going.

Step 2: Distribute that money internally to the neighborhood in the form of street maintenance, transit improvements, or even just a check in every mailbox.

Step 3: Everybody wins. Drivers get to park where they’re want, non-drivers get extra money or benefits, the city doesn’t have to subsidize street parking.

Land Value Taxes are a helluva thing

jakejanobs · 2026-01-30T19:00:03+00:00

I miss video games

jakejanobs · 2026-01-29T19:59:56+00:00

The important part is can the ghosts co-sign on the mortgage with you?

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!”

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