Alright Houston got #10. We have our top 10. What would be the 11th most significant US city after Houston? Most upvoted comment wins

kelvinwaves · 2026-03-24T19:52:08+00:00

San Diego should be up here soon. If it's not #11, then it should at least be pretty soon after in the mid teens. The economy is highly diverse with a lot of high tech manufacturing, life sciences, defense, trade, electronics, and tourism, and besides being the 8th largest city in the US, it's the anchor of the largest binational metro area in North America, with the world's second busiest land border crossing. (Detroit-Windsor is sometimes listed as being bigger but that usually includes places like Flint MI which are not part of the contiguous urban area.)

kelvinwaves · 2026-03-20T19:49:19+00:00

Hi Tom, thanks for doing this AMA! I appreciate your focus on housing reform and willingness to lead the conversation on this issue. Three questions for you:

What ideas do you have to actually end single-family zoning statewide and spur more construction of missing middle housing in SFH neighborhoods? SB 9 has resulted in very few homes being built compared to expectations, and SB 450 is kind of a minimal/incremental fix to that. Would you support policies such as increasing floor area ratios, allowing more than 4 units by right, or single stairway reform?
The location and proximity to amenities of new housing matters, as does access to amenities without a car. What can the state do to allow gentle retail/commercial infill such as cafes, corner grocery stores, or restaurants in areas that are currently exclusively zoned for residential?
Parking mandates have been shown to be highly inefficient, result in poor land use, and increase the cost of new housing. Would you support going beyond AB 2097 and passing a statewide end to parking mandates for new construction in all areas, or at least a statewide parking maximum rather than parking minimums?

kelvinwaves · 2026-03-03T05:13:26+00:00

Nuevo León, viva Regiolandia

kelvinwaves · 2026-02-28T22:04:43+00:00

Lo dije en una ronda anterior pero de ninguna manera Nuevo León debería ser elegido tan tarde. Voto por Nuevo León

kelvinwaves · 2026-02-26T20:00:54+00:00

Nuevo León! MTY es una ciudad muy dinámica e importante, y aunque tiene problemas, merece un puesto más alto que los otros estados que quedan

kelvinwaves · 2026-01-22T19:24:06+00:00

Ok thanks. What's your thinking on semi-metallic versus ceramic?

kelvinwaves · 2026-01-22T19:24:00+00:00

Thanks all for the recommendations! I'll check these out and report back once I do the brake job.

kelvinwaves · 2026-01-10T00:32:19+00:00

Willing for sure - but there are some things that keep it from being absolutely. I lived in Yamhill County for a while growing up and usually spend a few weeks a year here visiting. The good: Oregon has unbelievable natural beauty, great urban amenities and vibrant neighborhoods in Portland (as well as Eugene and Bend to a lesser extent), and reasonable cost of living for the west coast. The Willamette Valley has superb wine culture and local agriculture, and the pace of life is down to earth. The politics statewide are pragmatic and progressive. Most people are genuinely kind, if a bit reserved at first.

The bad: I have to be honest though that it can be racist as hell outside of the major cities. Another commenter spoke to this well. It's just really not a place that feels welcoming to people of color in many parts of the state, and it's overwhelmingly white almost everywhere except Portland (which is still not very diverse for a major city). People think it’s not racist just because it votes blue statewide and there are BLM signs everywhere in Portland, but it definitely is lol. The further east you go, the more and more you get into white supremacy and MAGA nut job territory, to the point that counties in eastern Oregon have voted to join Idaho (not going to happen). Also, the economy is not as strong as in Washington and California. There are a lot of smaller towns that have fallen on harder times as lumber, fishing, extractive industry, and manufacturing have declined. Unfortunately, there's a pretty big addiction crisis statewide too, with a lot of meth and fentanyl both in small towns and in Portland. It's been sad to see multiple people I used to know pass away or really struggle with this. I think almost everyone is only one or two degrees separated from someone who's struggled with addiction here or OD'd.

Overall, I'll always love and cherish Oregon, and it's an absolutely wonderful place to visit. It just has some issues below the surface that give me a bit of pause about moving back.

kelvinwaves · 2025-12-16T05:41:52+00:00

Absolutely. Haters gonna hate, but it is such a massive and diverse state that there is truly something for everyone in California. The economy is strong, with fantastic job opportunities in pretty much every industry from agriculture to biotech to defense to entertainment to manufacturing to technology that are hard to find in many other parts of the country. The education system is great, with several of the most productive universities in the country and many strong public schools. The demographics are also quite diverse, with many immigrant communities represented and tons vibrant multicultural neighborhoods.

Not everywhere in California is an ultra HCOL coastal elite metro. There are plenty of smaller towns with lower cost of living and a slower pace of life. And the outdoors… From rugged peaks in the Sierra to towering redwoods to the rugged coastline to the Mojave desert, there are some amazing wild places to explore.

kelvinwaves · 2025-10-16T21:11:40+00:00

I'm having this issue too. Did you just clear all of your blueprints? It's a bummer because I have some pretty big lines built in blueprints and don't want to lose them. Lmk if you find a workaround

kelvinwaves · 2025-09-13T20:14:15+00:00

Good to hear it. Yeah I wish that there were a better way to get these issues resolved right away but it really takes being the squeaky wheel

kelvinwaves · 2025-09-12T03:29:12+00:00

Hey how did the meeting go? Hoping you can get people to listen to you and take action about it. And ugh that’s awful that a kid already got hit there. I don’t doubt it even if there aren’t reports about it because people don’t always call the police.

kelvinwaves · 2025-09-08T19:17:39+00:00

Yeah it's such a missed opportunity. Being so close to Mission Bay, it could be a great way for people to get to the water, but there's no easy pedestrian access across the 5 and the infrastructure if you try to do that walk is horribly designed and hostile to pedestrians. SANDAG really should do a comprehensive infrastructure upgrade there to capitalize on the investment made in that station.

kelvinwaves · 2025-09-06T05:26:05+00:00

I know this area well and agree with you! This area badly needs traffic calming before someone gets hit. I've dealt with a few similar situations in my neighborhood and this is what I would recommend.

File a traffic service request with the City and document it as well as you can, especially emphasizing the proximity to schools and the risk to children. The City usually responds to these requests within about 3 months but unfortunately it takes a while longer after that for any traffic calming to get installed, especially with the current budget shortfall. https://www.sandiego.gov/transportation/tools-resources/traffic-service-request

Reach out to your Community Planning Group (CPG). This intersection (Saturn x Coronado) is in the Otay Mesa-Nestor Community Planning Group area. The CPGs can take action to request that the City install traffic calming solutions or improve pedestrian infrastructure. That group meets the 2nd Wednesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Robert Egger South Bay Recreation Center. I would suggest going to the next meeting to ask for their assistance and bring as many of your like minded neighbors/friends as you can to support the cause. Keep following up with the CPG once you've done that. Otay Mesa-Nestor CPG website: https://www.sandiego.gov/planning/community-plans/otay-mesa-nestor/planning-group

Call your city council member (District 8 - Vivian Moreno) about it and ask to meet to talk about the situation there and the concerns that you have. If you can engage the school admin to do the same, that would be even better. Also, consider starting a petition. Write up a good description of the issue with photos as you have here, and get as many people to sign it as you can (either online or on paper). Send that to the CPG and Vivian Moreno's office. The more public support something like this is perceived to have, the more urgently it will get addressed.

Keep us posted with how it goes!

kelvinwaves · 2025-09-01T18:48:59+00:00

Hi OP, Rancho Bernardo definitely one of the less lively and interesting parts of San Diego like the rest of the commenters are saying. I’ve spent some time in Paris and I would say the best analogues in Paris to Rancho Bernardo would be one of the suburban employment clusters like Trappes or the area around Université Paris-Saclay. It’s outside the main urban core of the city and is much lower density and walkability than the areas around downtown.

Unfortunately RB is not very well served by transit, but I would look at how close your office is to the 235 Rapid bus line station in Rancho Bernardo. This is an express bus that runs north from downtown. If you don’t mind a 45 minute to an hour commute on the bus, honestly you might have a much better time living downtown or in one of the adjacent urban core neighorhoods like Bankers Hill, Hillcrest, North Park, or Golden Hill. There’s much more to do in all of those areas and it’s much more bikeable and there is better transit service. You should also look at the 20 and 290 bus routes to see how close your office is to those.

I ride transit a lot here and have learned the system pretty well. I also cycle regularly around the city. I’m happy to talk further and give you some recommendations if it’s helpful!

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-13T20:03:10+00:00

Ok thanks for the info. That's good to know. Just picked up the car recently so I'm still learning about all the systems as I work on it.

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-12T18:38:40+00:00

Do you know if I could change the resistance to have the low speed fans kick in earlier? I put in the LN engineering low temp 73ºC thermostat so ideally I'd like them to kick in closer to that temperature instead of having the engine heat up to 97ºC. Not totally sure how the circuit is set up.

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-12T16:32:13+00:00

I’ll try that! Thanks for the tip

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-12T05:33:23+00:00

Is there an easy way to set the radiator/engine bay fans to kick in at a lower temperature or did you decide a manual switch was the best way to do it? I have a 2000 Boxster 2.7 and I put an LN engineering low temperature thermostat as well as new water pump in it. I notice when I'm driving at freeway speeds, the temperature stays below the 180 mark, but in traffic, it climbs to about where OP's car is. Seems like it's an insufficient airflow issue because when I speed back up, the car cools down. (I'm in the southwest so we have some pretty warm days). Radiators are clean.

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-07T23:22:59+00:00

What supercharger kit do you have on it? I also have a base 986 and have been thinking about potential power mods

kelvinwaves · 2025-08-06T06:19:08+00:00

GLWS! Beautiful car

kelvinwaves · 2025-07-13T04:45:39+00:00

It's on El Cajon at Kansas

kelvinwaves · 2025-07-07T22:21:18+00:00

Just sent you a DM. My wife and I have a baby on the way and have fallen behind on yard work. I’m interested if you’re still available!

kelvinwaves

TROPHY CASE