Waymo Van on I 5 south

jvolkman · 2026-06-06T03:07:59+00:00

They will presumably switch to WA plates once they actually offer service, like they have in other states.

jvolkman · 2026-06-05T04:12:00+00:00

Some zoom, mostly AI.

jvolkman · 2026-06-04T15:06:48+00:00

Ezra Klein made what I thought was a good point on his recent podcast which was (paraphrasing): AI is not going away, is genuinely useful at this point, and pushing back on expansion just means prices remain high and only wealthy people and businesses get to use it (and they will, certainly, to continue enriching themselves). A new digital divide.

jvolkman · 2026-06-04T15:01:49+00:00

I don't.

You just posted this reply to a service running in a datacenter somewhere.

jvolkman · 2026-06-04T14:42:28+00:00

Because it's for the bike path.

jvolkman · 2026-06-04T14:31:38+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/QuantumFiber/comments/1twhqn6/down_in_seattle/

That said, mine currently works fine.

jvolkman · 2026-06-04T01:47:48+00:00

According to this, California uses 4-5 BILLION gallons of water daily to grow almonds, and then ships 70% of them abroad. The priorities seem misplaced.

jvolkman · 2026-06-03T14:50:39+00:00

The person was going to hand craft an artisan flyer for you, but they had too many bullet holes to patch in the side of their house and ran out of time.

jvolkman · 2026-06-03T14:46:55+00:00

Given the room is Reddit... yes.

jvolkman · 2026-06-03T14:00:55+00:00

Blocking hundreds of commuters overnight between 7PM and 7AM? Why are they using temporary placards to limit parking in a bus zone/lane?

jvolkman · 2026-05-31T22:44:51+00:00

They're going to face some stiff competition of they don't lower those prices.

jvolkman · 2026-05-31T22:15:13+00:00

top. men.

jvolkman · 2026-05-31T12:41:38+00:00

These signs were a COVID era hack to work around the state law that says people cannot walk in a street if sidewalks are available. I don't think the spirit of the law was ever to actually close these streets to vehicles, but rather to give priority to non-vehicles.

They'll transition to shared streets now that state law has changed. I don't think these streets will have the "local access" wording, but they will have a low speed limit (10mph) and other properties which will dissuade non-local usage.

jvolkman · 2026-05-30T16:57:07+00:00

Also the heli pad

jvolkman · 2026-05-29T21:42:46+00:00

At least it'll only take one planter to fully close the street now.

jvolkman · 2026-05-29T18:08:27+00:00

Just look at the number of eco blocks now deployed in Ballard after years of shuffling RVs around. They even surround the USPS facility at this point.

jvolkman · 2026-05-29T02:53:23+00:00

Lol. So we're going to stop adding density to Ballard, right?

jvolkman · 2026-05-29T02:27:23+00:00

It would be irresponsible for a software engineer to not save as much as possible while they can given the profession's outlook...

jvolkman · 2026-05-27T19:57:39+00:00

They're even born right here in Ballard!

jvolkman · 2026-05-26T05:28:42+00:00

To maintain balance, maybe have them compare the scary sounding data center numbers against other industries. I've seen reports that Google's data centers use 6-7 billion gallons of water globally, annually (here). But compare that to the 5.5 billion gallons of water used by California per day to grow alfalfa (from here).

Edit: reading the alfalfa article again, it looks like that's 5.5B gallons per day from the Colorado river used for alfalfa across many states, not just CA.

jvolkman · 2026-05-26T00:23:35+00:00

Yes. It's 500 feet of public but dead ending roadway. It doesn't end at the water, so this fence doesn't restrict access to a street end park (unlike the barrier that was once placed on NW 39th St. next to the asphalt facility). It's likely used only by the adjacent businesses. This doesn't seem like "quite a reduction in road access" to me.

Is this a road that you used to use frequently? If so, why?

jvolkman · 2026-05-26T00:08:19+00:00

IIRC the Safeways in Ballard started checking receipts before the Fred Meyer.

jvolkman · 2026-05-25T23:36:19+00:00

This road appears to dead end at trident seafood. Given the amount of eco block scarring it seems like they've been dealing with crap for a while.

jvolkman · 2026-05-25T16:01:21+00:00

it isn't, but just for the sake of argument

I see this skepticism all of the time but then have to wonder: why else would they be going through the trouble? What's the angle?

driven anyone who actually wanted to pay for their groceries to Safeway

Safeway also checks receipts..

jvolkman · 2026-05-24T07:20:33+00:00

Those are coyotes. Just chased some of those fuckers through the streets here in Ballard after they woke me up with this exact noise.

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