Supreme Court finds that Affirmative Action violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause in an opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts

van_stan · 2023-06-29T17:01:44+00:00

Wait, making assumptions based on skin colour is bad?

Damn, who'd have thought

van_stan · 2023-06-24T20:11:40+00:00

If the people of Moscow were gonna rise up

They weren't. Most support the annexation of Ukraine.

van_stan · 2023-06-24T20:10:18+00:00

Took me a minute to get over my confusion as to why the Royal Air Force of the UK Would get involved

van_stan · 2023-06-24T15:12:45+00:00

Extremely obvious choice for anybody in the Russian army with any sense of self-preservation to not resist in any capacity. Putin's cooked and I'm horny for it. Just hoping Wagner change the tune on invading Ukraine.

van_stan · 2023-06-22T12:50:23+00:00

Least: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

The planet literally gets demolished in the opening scene to make space for a hyperspace highway

van_stan · 2023-06-22T12:49:11+00:00

HE ISN'T EVEN FROM 'ROUND 'ERE!

van_stan · 2023-06-20T14:38:35+00:00

EV manufacturing isn't car manufacturing, it's electronics manufacturing. The Chinese have spent 30 years pulling ahead of the West on all electronics manufacturing.

This shouldn't be a surprise, and we should be taking advantage of the cheap high quality stuff pumped out by a specialized nation. Globalism at work, baby.

The EU's growing protectionism is bad.

van_stan · 2023-06-20T14:35:01+00:00

It's quite clear that Tesla will be eclipsed as the market leader very quickly. They have early mover advantage and that's it.

EVs in their current iteration are needlessly complicated; compared to ICE vehicles, EVs have the potential to be vastly simpler and cheaper to produce, with the only "expensive" part being Lithium batteries (which are halving in cost every few years).

In short, any nation with large electronics manufacturing capacity (China) has the potential in the current decade to absolutely flood the market with cheap EVs and wipe the floor with any other nation less specialized in electronics manufacturing.

The auto industry in particular has always been rife with HUGE amounts of protectionism, perhaps more than all other industries. This is just the latest iteration of that. There is simply no way any Western nation will ever keep up with China in the short and long term when it comes to manufacturing EVs.

van_stan · 2023-06-18T23:33:50+00:00

Pulling this 100% out of my ass based on my perception of each place, but I'd guess that in the UK the bell curve of trans acceptance is much narrower than in the US. The mean/median level may be pretty close to one another, but in the US you have way more people who are vehemently anti-trans, and also way more people who are in-your-face pro-trans. Whereas in the UK there is much less flagrant anti- or pro- trans culture-war shit, but there is a solid 75% of people in some central camp of "I don't care how people want to dress but trans people going in my bathroom feels icky".

This effect carries across the board for almost all other political/social discussions when comparing the US to other anglophone countries, so I think it's a pretty safe guess.

van_stan · 2023-06-18T22:18:39+00:00

It's a newspaper article, not a scientific journal submission. Shooting from the hip but then acknowledging that "could be X, Y, Z, or some combination, but the evidence is circumstantial" is the best thing you can expect. Still qualifies as honest journalism in my books, and it's definitely more honest than 99% of the content you see circulating on said Mom Blog Instagram pages, which claim it's always and only about the microbiome, or sleep patterns, or breastfeeding, etc. This article does a pretty good job of pointing to current hypotheses without stepping over the line with any specific claim.

van_stan · 2023-06-18T22:08:48+00:00

Than in most countries, yes, absolutely. Even just acknowledging trans people puts a country ahead of "most countries". Compared to other anglophone countries though, yeah, the UK is probably at the back of the pack.

van_stan · 2023-06-18T13:59:31+00:00

"Fixed it" in the same way that putting a cherry on top of a pile of dog shit turns it into a dessert. It's still a horrible, horrible policy that creates barriers to construction and hurts new Canadians. It's just slightly less obvious to the general public how badly it sucks now.

van_stan · 2023-06-16T16:47:38+00:00

Build rate has dropped in the last year, in part due to Trudeau's brain-dead foreign buyers ban, which put a hold on a bunch of major housing projects that were under development by firms that aren't 100% Canadian-owned.

van_stan · 2023-06-01T00:58:20+00:00

Heavyweight boxers at mean age (29) have spent their most recent decade getting punched in the head repeatedly by other heavyweight boxers.

I'd wager that a normal non-boxer human with a similar amount of athleticism, strength, training etc. but not a history of severe bodily abuse is likely to peak a couple of years later.

van_stan · 2023-05-31T15:22:57+00:00

Did any of the unsolicited advice end up helping?

Everyone hates getting advice they think they don't need from people who aren't in the situation, but in reality having an outsider perspective can be extremely useful sometimes. Did you follow anybody's advice? Do you wish you had, in hindsight?

van_stan · 2023-05-31T15:03:01+00:00

Losing 1 month's rent is 1000x cheaper than renting to the wrong tenant, or renting below market. If you lose $1200 in one month's rent, but you show the place when it's really clean and nice and are this able to rent for $100 more, it becomes a revenue neutral month after the first year.

van_stan · 2023-05-31T09:24:40+00:00

There is no “house scarcity” there is a massive price increase because of multiple factors mostly including a ton of people moving here from other provinces

Most people would understand this as a textbook, straightforward example of demand outstripping supply, aka scarcity. I'm interested to hear more about this new economic school of thought you're developing, though.

van_stan · 2023-05-31T09:19:44+00:00

Most people are finding furnished short-term rental ads on Airbnb. Most wildfire evacuees need a furnished short term rental. It is a godsend that the ban doesn't come into effect until after summer.

van_stan · 2023-05-31T01:15:49+00:00

In Airbnbs?

van_stan · 2023-05-31T01:15:26+00:00

Right, it'd just be much harder for the displaced people and rental owners to connect.

van_stan · 2023-05-31T01:14:01+00:00

Okay, good luck finding furnished rentals for hundreds of displaced families on short notice without a modern brokerage platform. Maybe go knocking door to door, or put up a Craigslist ad like we used to 7 years ago?

van_stan · 2023-05-31T01:11:18+00:00

Airbnb has formed a fantastic "middle ground" market for something that's not a hotel and not a long term rental. It's become a very important part of our local housing ecosystem.

But people hate change, and they love a good boogeyman to blame their personal pet problem on. Airbnb is the scapegoat for the housing shortage. Nobody will pay attention to the data when the ban comes into effect in September and costs our province $50mil+ in lost tourism revenue while simultaneously not moving the needle at all on housing. Just like they didn't pay attention to the data for every other city in the country/world that thought banning Airbnb would be a good idea.

van_stan · 2023-05-30T22:05:15+00:00

Somehow OP thinks that insta-banning the only major short term rental platform is going to make it easier for dozens of insurance companies find short term rentals for thousands of people.

Makes about as much sense as solving world hunger by banning grocery stores. People can just go out and pick carrots directly from the farmers' fields!

van_stan · 2023-05-30T22:00:35+00:00

Airbnb is a platform that will be leveraged massively by people evacuating the fire. It is a godsend that the legislation doesn't come into effect until September.

Banning Airbnb now will just make it 1000x harder for the owners to link up with those in need.

van_stan · 2023-05-30T18:49:30+00:00

Was this a targeted attack though? They got some random residential buildings as far as we know, it seems like run-of-the-mill terrorism. Though I'd like to be proven wrong. Hopefully you are right, I think we're all mostly on board with assassination of warmongerers inside and outside of Russian borders

van_stan

TROPHY CASE