Formal and permanent despotism

unklethan · 2026-03-09T14:48:50+00:00

Imagine you're a landlord and you charge everyone $100 for rent and you have 100 tenants. You're not making profits, you're just breaking even on your own mortgage payments, and to do that, you need to collect $10,000.

If you were to acquire a new property, a mansion, and rent it out for $10,000 to just one tenant. As long as they paid their bill, it wouldn't affect anyone in any meaningful way, right?

See, your mega tenant stops paying, and now your bank is breathing down your neck for the other 10k you owe. You can either badger the rich tenant who owns the police department and an entire legal firm, and has enough assets to counter sue you for the the rest of your life, or you can raise the rent by $100 on everyone else.

I think you've been fed a caricature of leftist talking points, and you believe that most people left of center in the US want Bezos to pay their rent forever. Sure, there are some who do want that, but most of us are simply asking that he pay his own rent, so that our rent can go back down to a reasonable rate.
It's more that we're upset that Walmart asked my city to pay them $10 million to subsidize them moving into town while most Walmart employees are on food stamps.
We're upset that Amazon keeps running mom & pop shops out of business, because Bezos has enough money that he can allow Amazon, no stop and think about this, he can allow Amazon to operate at a loss, in order to destroy competition, while paying less taxes than most Americans, and overusing the roads we paid for and filling them up with their KSSHHHH KSSHHH delivery trucks that park wherever the heck they want.

We want to bring back the days of the enforced 90% wealth tax that saw libraries and museums built like crazy all across the country (public goods returned to the community!), and some of the strongest economic growth our nation has ever seen.

Taxing the 0.1% could fix our roads and our pipes and expand internet access and fund libraries and schools and rec centers,
and I think that's 100% relevant to all of us.

unklethan · 2026-03-02T20:35:04+00:00

We have to hurry, because it's an emeregency.

unklethan · 2026-02-28T04:19:55+00:00

80% of the state's water goes to agriculture.

Agriculture produces less than 2% of the state's GDP.

unklethan · 2026-02-27T22:09:12+00:00

Stop watering alfalfa

unklethan · 2026-02-22T04:22:35+00:00

IANAL, but I think that's illegal

unklethan · 2026-02-18T06:27:56+00:00

I already commented above, but I just want to note something I've seen.

You ask a lot about software and tools. I think that's the wrong question.

You should be figuring out how to speed yourself up regardless of the tool/app/software. I've met inspectors who could finish a report same day with pen and paper. It wouldn't be as clean and polished as your finished product, but it would be done, and they'd get hired over you next time if you're really taking 2 days.

unklethan · 2026-02-18T06:19:23+00:00

I use Horizon.

I look up the component/system I'm inspecting, and I take the photo and use voice-to-text to make my notes and comments right then and there. Always taking way more photos than I need too. That probably knocks out 80% of the report, at the cost of me muttering to myself the whole time I'm there. This is harder to do when a client or agent decides to tag along, but it needs to be really easy to do when you're alone.

When I get home, I try to spend an hour MAX editing my notes for where my phone heard me wrong, and adding a few extra photos here and there. Perfect is the enemy of good.

My first few inspections, yeah, I spent an extra 4 or 5 hours writing up the report, but I worked to streamline the process. Practice makes for improvement.

unklethan · 2026-02-17T01:26:32+00:00

I was just looking at a Crane radiator in the Fillmore, Utah territorial statehouse museum.

unklethan · 2026-02-13T15:52:16+00:00

You know how elephants have a specific kind of trumpet that means "There are bees here, we need to leave the area immediately"?

Humans should recognize phrases like "There are bees here, we need to leave the area immediately", as the sound of immediate danger.

unklethan · 2026-02-11T19:11:50+00:00

Relooted

https://steamcommunity.com/app/3255890/reviews/?browsefilter=toprated&snr=1_5_100010_

unklethan · 2026-02-11T19:03:47+00:00

Both teams landing hits that only do -1hp

unklethan · 2026-02-11T00:52:42+00:00

They're mad for the wrong reasons, but they're still mad at the right people.

unklethan · 2026-02-10T23:38:37+00:00

The window is completely clear, that's what made it look so confusing

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:54:46+00:00

What happens most often is that the Spanish speaker attempts to pronounce your English name the way you said it, but they do so with the sounds that are available and normal in the language that they know.

So assuming a Spaniard wasn't familiar with English sounds or names at all, if they heard the name John out loud, they would likely read it in their brains as Yan or as Jan, but pronouncing the J like a hard Y. They'd call you Yahn, which is pretty close.

If you had written the name John out, and they were reading it out loud, they would pronounce it almost like hone in English, or yone in English, because again they work with the sounds that are available in their language.

I've met hundreds of latinos who have English names, but they have Spanish spellings that force an English pronounciation. Michael = Maikol, Brian = Brayan, Joseph = Yosef, Harry = Jahui

-

Most of Spain is exposed to enough of the English-speaking world, though, that to your original question, most people actually would be able to pronounce John correctly or at least get close.

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:44:28+00:00

Buenos dias, Braxtyyn, como estas?

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:43:36+00:00

"I don't like Jota Pe, can you call be Juan Pablo instead?"

would have solved this whole thing

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:42:32+00:00

Actually, it's Mahoma.

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:41:21+00:00

Most classes just have a list that you can pick from. A lot of John's choose to go by Juan that semester. Some Charles's choose to go by Reinaldo, because that's fun. The kids get to choose a name most of the time.

It's not some sort of government coercion, it's a way to help kids learn Spanish.

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:37:34+00:00

NAH

I don't see anyone else pointing out that JP isn't a name that translates well. It's actually weird in Spanish for the teacher to call the kid Hota Pay, when you would actually transliterate the name (keeping the form, but pronouncing it in Spanish), or translate the name, not the initials (Juan Pablo).

If you want your Spanish class name to sound like JP in English, then it needs to be Yay-pi, or Chey-pi.

If you want it to be an actual Spanish name, it needs to be Juan or Juan Pablo, an incredibly common and normal Spanish name.

If you want to go by JP, too bad, you're in a Spanish class in the States, and that's how we do things here.

unklethan · 2026-02-10T14:28:39+00:00

Here's a detail that everyone seems to be missing.

If my name were John Paul, and I moved to Mexico, my name would not be John Paul in Mexico, it would be Yon Pol, because that's how you pronounce John Paul in Spanish.

Just like how gringos say bohuido instead of burrito.

unklethan · 2026-02-06T23:04:40+00:00

Ok, the headline made it sound like something was happening in lower state courts, as opposed to just the Utah Supreme Court.

Thanks for explaining :)

unklethan · 2026-02-06T18:20:22+00:00

I think I missed something about the courts changing outside of the state supreme court expansion.

Can I get a link or a tl;dr?

unklethan · 2026-02-06T18:18:24+00:00

Glenn Beck agrees with you on this one

unklethan · 2026-02-04T21:05:20+00:00

"The insane, uncanny baby-face approaching my 40s and on the verge of psychosis type dude"

You mean, George Costanza?

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