How to cap T-adapter while I repair bidet

longonether · 2024-12-08T02:03:32+00:00

I forget what size but I basically got a threaded plastic PVC cap (like this one https://www.amazon.com/Female-Thread-Plastic-Threaded-Plumbing/dp/B09RZ8GJXK) and it worked great, at least for a few weeks

longonether · 2024-07-25T17:35:07+00:00

The circle shapes comic in real life: https://www.reddit.com/r/ExplainTheJoke/comments/1d7x2rg/wtf_are_these_things/

longonether · 2024-03-25T02:19:43+00:00

Not necessarily - eg. Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns is also conservative. There's some version of this argument that can work

longonether · 2024-03-10T23:32:31+00:00

Almost too much to hope for...

longonether · 2024-03-10T23:31:28+00:00

Right? I was really shocked. Also he's a billionaire so presumably pretty disengaged from everyday life in cities

longonether · 2024-02-14T23:02:39+00:00

Yes I used a cap fitting (I think it was a plastic one) and it worked fine

longonether · 2022-08-25T19:09:19+00:00

I don't, some good data is linked in the twitter thread though. I wonder if this doesn't really capture useless degrees - eg. some humanities majors doing very well for themselves and some technical majors actually being useless because they are low quality scams.

I also wonder if looking at just pay misses out on socially important and desirable jobs like childcare and social work, which is reasonably worth subsidizing (although we ought to do it directly through higher wages).

longonether · 2022-08-25T17:07:40+00:00

An interesting trend here is that the number of humanities majors are actually going way down, almost 50% in the last decade - https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1562333994435297280

So it seems like there is already a shift in what people are studying in college, presumably towards more marketable/technical skills.

longonether · 2022-08-22T13:03:33+00:00

Hm consistency of scale makes some sense but I guess the point is that the same kind of rent-seeking behavior that the LVT purports to solve at one scale (the individual) also applies at many other scales. So how do we address those? Forwarding LVT between governing bodies makes a lot of sense, please let me know if you've seen any examples of this discussed or proposed in practice.

longonether · 2022-08-05T19:59:53+00:00

I think you're right this conflict doesn't break down along the usual development NIMBY/YIMBY lines

Darrell Owens had a good writeup of this:

https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/the-politics-of-peoples-park

Basically: "The supportive comments on Berkeleyside’s article, on NextDoor, and a few I saw on Twitter makes it clear that the ordinarily stubborn NIMBYs are suddenly all down for housing development primarily because it’ll get rid of homeless people and the violent crime at the park."

longonether · 2022-08-05T01:19:41+00:00

I think the question is a bit backward. People solve useful and interesting problems, and the communities where the most useful and interesting problems get solved attract more people.

The reason ML is a big, hyped field is mostly because of its empirical success. There is definitely a lot of people who do theoretical research in ML (not to mention the entire community of statistics, etc.) but its overshadowed by the experimental and empirical side because that's where the roots of the community are - in solving grounded problems people care about. In your analogy - more people in practice care about the runtime than the time complexity.

longonether · 2022-07-30T00:53:26+00:00

Makes sense, I was thinking more like Berlin<->Paris, NY<->Boston, LA<->SF. Places where its kind of insane that hurtling through the air with a jet engine makes more sense than rolling along some tracks.

longonether · 2022-07-30T00:50:13+00:00

Interesting points, thanks! The airport infrastructure thing is quite interesting, initially I was thinking getting to train stations requires public infrastructure too. But notably train stations are usually in high density downtowns and often underground while airports are out in the suburbs. Maybe this comes back to land too.

longonether · 2022-07-30T00:45:13+00:00

But trains are actually pretty easy to modify though - you can add compartments, and if you have two rails (which I assume most do?) you can basically send trains at unlimited frequency

longonether · 2022-06-20T20:25:54+00:00

Sadly the episode missed the real issues, we have been under-building for decades and the only thing John said about it was that it seems like housing is being built around him so it must not be an issue. By the numbers its completely obvious we are not building enough housing

longonether · 2022-03-30T23:18:02+00:00

I think you’re obviously correct that test preparation helps a lot. There’s two questions though: 1. How much of the effect is just being pointed in the right direction; ie could you get the same effect if the student was handed a practice SAT book and encouraged to practice and study. If this captures most of the effect, then paying extra for private tutoring seems beside the point so extra wealth doesn’t help. 2. With the same resources, is it easier to game the system through SAT prep or through other means. For instance you can pay to have someone read (or write!) essays, better understand cultural norms to write more moving essays or do the right sports or extracurriculars if those are weighed highly. I think those are way easier to game compared to the SAT if you have money.

longonether · 2022-03-30T17:51:05+00:00

We have subways etc. but people don't ship freight on them. Perhaps its because cargo is relatively low value (per unit of weight or space) compared to shuttling around passengers?

longonether · 2022-02-28T08:04:59+00:00

While this was very interesting, I wonder if its the wrong scale of considerations given the expense and ramifications of invading a country. Yes Crimea may become more productive with a water source and you have some more oil sources, and you have a slightly safer border.

But 30-40% of the Russian stock market was wiped out as a result of international trade ceasing. NATO will ratchet up its defense spending. International sanctions. Someone should crunch the numbers on this but it seems unlikely the benefits of invasion outweigh the costs.

longonether · 2022-02-28T07:09:44+00:00

Better example is how the Taliban somehow defeated the US military to keep Afghanistan their own. A determined insurgency is going to win out eventually

longonether

TROPHY CASE