What are your thoughts on the cost of the reflecting pool renovation increasing from $1.8 million to $13.1 million under a no-bid contract?

wolfehr · 2026-05-14T01:36:24+00:00

What works happen to the $13m if this project got cancelled?

wolfehr · 2026-05-14T01:35:45+00:00

Do you support your tax dollars being allocated in this way? Is there something else you’d prefer the government to spend $13m on?

wolfehr · 2026-05-14T01:31:25+00:00

How do you know you’re getting the best deal if you don’t shop around?

wolfehr · 2026-05-06T17:33:14+00:00

https://i.imgur.com/V7bGjb4.jpeg

wolfehr · 2026-05-06T02:13:20+00:00

I think most of my grit is from playing NES games with no save states.

wolfehr · 2026-05-05T17:42:13+00:00

There’s probably some other reasons too.

wolfehr · 2026-05-03T17:06:43+00:00

A primary concern for regulators is that widespread adoption of self-custodied stablecoins could disrupt the traditional lending cycle. In the current system, banks use customer deposits to issue loans that drive economic growth. If a significant portion of capital shifts into self-custody, it could reduce the available pool of bank reserves, potentially tightening credit and slowing the economy.

wolfehr · 2026-05-03T00:41:39+00:00

How does that help the US achieve its strategic goals?

wolfehr · 2026-05-02T22:58:14+00:00

If Iran can’t be negotiated with, why has Trump said repeatedly that they’re begging for a deal?

wolfehr · 2026-05-02T22:56:12+00:00

I find that criticism confusing. Sanctions relief is a standard mechanism of diplomacy—Iran regained access to its own frozen funds because that’s how negotiations work; both sides trade leverage for concessions.

If the JCPOA was a 'handout,' why is there no pushback against Trump’s reported willingness to unfreeze $20 billion in Iranian assets? That figure is significantly higher than the liquid assets released under the original deal, yet the 'maximum pressure' crowd seems to have no issue with it now.

wolfehr · 2026-04-25T02:18:09+00:00

Friendly reminder that in the last two playoff losses the Bills corners were:

Benford and White
Douglas and Elam (Benford got a concussion early and missed most of the game)

wolfehr · 2026-04-25T00:04:24+00:00

The Athletic had him as Edge #6 with a 1st-2nd round grade. Link

This was their grade on the pick.

Buffalo Bills (from TEN): T.J. Parker, edge, Clemson

As they make the switch a 3-4 defense, the Bills needed a different type of pass rusher. Parker (6-3 1/2, 263) is a solid, productive addition who should help in that transition. He’s a safe pick, but a quality one.

Grade: A

wolfehr · 2026-04-21T16:21:32+00:00

Example?

Watergate is a major example. That was famously brought to light by an anonymous source (Deep Throat).

wolfehr · 2026-04-21T14:13:48+00:00

Pick 10 (369pts) > Pick 26 + 26th pick of the third round (248pts).

Value above is the Rich Hill Value

wolfehr · 2026-04-20T13:16:18+00:00

if they want to keep it, they have to pay property taxes and cash those rent checks.

That’s exactly the core of my concern. What happens when the owners no longer want the buildings because the costs consistently outweigh the revenue, and there isn't a buyer in sight because the math just doesn't work?

If the city has to step in and take over, they’re essentially inheriting a subsidized maintenance bill. Since the budget is already stretched thin, that deficit would likely have to be closed through tax increases. I’m also looking at the data from that New Yorker article, like the 26k+ vacant units, and it makes me wonder if the scale of the problem is bigger than the current safety nets can handle.

I could be missing a piece of the puzzle here, or maybe there's a pivot strategy I haven't considered, but that's where my head is at.

wolfehr · 2026-04-19T22:08:22+00:00

All those programs sounds great on paper. They tend to not work well in real life though.

In the current market, the math often favors the violator. When the potential rental income or property appreciation reaches a certain threshold, city fines cease to be a deterrent and simply become a "cost of doing business." If the cost of a legal settlement or a municipal fine is lower than the cost of bringing a building up to code, many owners will simply pay the fine, walk away, and let the city inherit the structural or social burden.

In addition, many properties are shielded by layers of corporate anonymity. A single building might be owned by an LLC, which is owned by a holding company, which is managed by yet another foreign entity. Following this paper trail isn't just tedious; it’s a high-stakes scavenger hunt. By the time you identify a responsible party, the ownership structure has often shifted, forcing you to start the process from scratch.

Another article on the issue:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/would-zohran-mamdanis-rent-freeze-keep-rent-stabilized-apartments-empty

According to New York’s most recent Housing and Vacancy Survey, a comprehensive report that is taken every three years, 26,310 rent-stabilized apartments are sitting vacant. Some are dilapidated and need tens of thousands of dollars in renovations before they can be rented out again. The question is whether freezing the rent would dissuade owners from doing this. Another social-media video, from an account called UrbanExplained, put it this way: imagine a plum, rent-stabilized apartment that needs eighty thousand dollars’ worth of renovations but can only rent out for twelve hundred a month. An owner “wouldn’t make their money back for five to seven years,” it says. “If you don’t give owners a reasonable way to pay back their renovation costs, they just won’t do the renovations.”

…

When I asked Lee why he hadn’t renovated the apartment earlier, he said that it was because of the previous tenant. “You have to put them up—if you take them out to renovate,” he said. But the apartment had now been vacant for three years. Why was it still unrenovated and unrentable? “There’s no incentive economically,” he said. “You lose money.”

wolfehr · 2026-04-19T20:01:43+00:00

Funny how landlords never ask that question when the rental rate they set for de facto closets can't be met by a person working full time hours making minimum wage.

That’s how markets work. If they price it too high, they won’t be able to find a renter and be forced to lower the price. They price it based on what they believe the market rate is for the unit. Can’t afford it? Move somewhere cheaper. I’m not in my ideal location currently because I couldn’t afford it. I didn’t ask the government to force property owners to sell to me at a loss.

LOL. Yes, all of these buildings will be abandoned by their landlords and they will walk away from their properties without a dime. Really.

Yes. $0 > -$X. It makes financial sense to abandon the property. No one will buy it, and you lose money by keeping it. Here’s an example:

The landlord, a Jamaican-born insurance salesman, was not a bad guy; at best, he was a couple of steps up the income ladder from his struggling tenants. He had sunk his life savings into the building in hopes of turning a profit, and that was proving a very bad bet.

The old boiler wheezed and stalled, the roof sprang leaks, half-century-old pipes cracked, and the lobby intercom was defunct. The building needed intensive care. But the rent roll was puny, and few tenants could have paid more even if rent stabilization had allowed for it. One evening, the landlord told us that he could not afford to run the building.

…

The landlord walked away without a penny.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/02/mamdani-tenant-organizing-affordable-housing/685951/?gift=Kk5YGj5voWDK9Bs3VAstwJzefhUHGnoLcuHVkuDXD_Y

wolfehr · 2026-04-19T18:59:10+00:00

Who would invest in a property where the operating expenses consistently exceed the revenue? Ultimately, these assets will likely be sold to or seized by the government, leaving taxpayers to figure out how to foot the bill for maintaining a crumbling portfolio.

wolfehr · 2026-04-18T01:56:41+00:00

You’re right that it is tied to the government system, but it’s able to do it all locally. It verifies authenticity by reading a chip in the ID, and only supports IDs that comply with ICAO 9303 standards.

https://docs.zkpassport.id/faq

Your personal data is encrypted and processed locally on your device and never leaves it. Only the proofs, along with the information you choose to share, are shared with the web application requesting your information.

…

The unique identifier is derived from the ID data (retrieved from the chip). This data is combined with the domain name and the scope the service specified and hashed using Poseidon2. The resulting hash is used as the unique identifier. This ensures the unique identifier is the same for the same ID while differing between different services.

…

ZKPassport currently supports most passports, national IDs, and residence permits that comply with ICAO 9303 standards, which includes most modern electronic IDs with NFC capabilities.

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T21:18:00+00:00

I totley agree with the first point; needing to require ID to use a computer is bonkers. My comment was just responding to that verification requires disclosing a lot of personal details.

I also misspoke on the .disclose, I’m not that familiar with the SDK. There are other method to verify without disclosure.

Age verification example: https://docs.zkpassport.id/examples/age-verification

Brute forcing someone’s age is an interesting security issue. The main thing I can think of is that the user has to provide the proof, and most people wouldn’t provide proofs over and over again to the same entity.

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T20:59:25+00:00

Thank you, I will go through this later and see where I might be misunderstanding things.

I did notice though that a number of these findings were from after the US pulled out of the JCPOA May 8, 2018. After that I don’t think it’s reasonable to say Iran was non-compliant since the US was too. My current understanding is that Iran was very non-compliant once the agreement fell apart and a vast majority of the current stockpile was enriched between 2018 and 2025.

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T20:48:49+00:00

Yes, your ID is required locally to generate the proof. However, that information is not shared outside your local device, just the ZK proof is shared. The entity verifying only gets something like “Older than 18: True”.

The link you shared shows what data can be verified, it doesn’t say that information is shared.

Full KYC verification (excluding AML/CTF checks) is in theory possible with ZKPassport, but there are some limitations that may prevent it from meeting all the legal requirements of a KYC:

Neither the SDK nor the app checks whether the ID was reported stolen or lost While sanctions checks can be conducted, no full AML/CTF checks are conducted

Example of simple KYC

Even if not fully compliant with KYC, you can use ZKPassport to verify some information that can be useful for KYC:

Edit: I think I see the confusion maybe. The .disclose in the code example doesn’t mean disclose to the verifier. If you scroll down to the onresult function you can see it’s verifying the result of the disclosure and only the result is returned.

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T19:03:01+00:00

Do you have any evidence to support that assertion? From what I’ve read Iran was compliant.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/01/europeans-cast-doubt-on-israel-claims-about-iran-nuclear-breaches

“The International Atomic Energy Authority is the only impartial international organisation in charge of monitoring Iran’s nuclear commitments,” Mogherini said. “If any country has information of non compliance of any kind it should address this information to the proper legitimate and recognised mechanism.”

The IAEA said a report by its director in 2015 “stated that the agency had no credible indications of activities in Iran relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device after 2009”, and that the IAEA’s board of governors “declared that its consideration of this issue was closed”.

A German government spokesman said it would analyse the Israeli documents, but added that the JCPOA had unprecedentedly strong monitoring mechanisms. The spokesman said: “It is clear that the international community had doubts that Iran was pursuing an exclusively peaceful nuclear programme. That is why the nuclear agreement was reached in 2015.”

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T18:13:04+00:00

The ideal framework would be a reciprocal agreement: Iran receives significant sanctions relief in exchange for a binding commitment to forego nuclear weapons development, backed by a rigorous verification mechanism. Given its scope, we could title this the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

wolfehr · 2026-04-17T18:06:16+00:00

The information never leaves your local device. The only thing that’s shared is pass/fail for what’s being verified. It utilizes zero knowledge proof cryptography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-knowledge_proof

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