« We live in a society » carries the same liberatory charge as @skullmandible.bsky.social’s « My meat holds no miracles » (from the arguing bikers meme). That all we have is ourselves, and each other, is an invitation to outgrow nihilism, fatalism, childishness. The work is right in front of us.

If we want visitors, and we should, we should make room for them.

Seeing budding consensus that John Ganz is unpleasant and hoping that it won't keep people from reading some of the most moving phrases I haved ever read about our shared humanity and the imperative to care for one another. www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-trap

Take me down to the Parallax city where the far moves slow and the near moves quickly

Either the Popular With Friends feed is busted or my friends are holding incredibly unpopular positions this morning

my increasingly curmudgeonly take is that we all, in fact, have responsibilities. politics isn't an arena for self-actualization. it's an arena for public service. this is as true of voters as it is of politicians.

I thought you all would get a kick out of this

Mon collègue @adammongrain.bsky.social vient de présenter les résultats de l’étude de Vivre en Ville X Léger sur le marché locatif en habitation. Les économistes appelés à commenter s’entendent pour saluer la « très grande qualité » et l’utilité de ces données. vivreenville.org/nos-position...

You can’t stay safe / You can’t stay here

so I saw OBAA and I need someone to explain the Willa paternity controversy to me

Nothing explains everything, but it’s hard for me not to think that Internet-turbocharged misogyny is a foundational aspect of all the disfunction and misery in the world right now.

the reason I will always be a soft techno-optimist is that there was a time without salt and vinegar chips, and we came together to solve that problem with technology and ingenuity

Listen, I understand non-americans (and perhaps even non-New Yorkers) posting about whatever the mayor of New York is doing is a rapidly decaying type of content but this is so cool. So cool.

sometimes i will eat a whole red bell pepper like an apple, it's awesome, you should try it.

imagine if you froze all the city’s meat. now imagine the buildings are made of meat as well. now what if the meat was poisoned? we cannot have a mayor with a beard

COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS

Last week I did a pre-interview for a crunchy-adjacent program at a community radio station (high education, wavering trust, deeply suspicious of scale). We had the chance to get into it a bit because they want to have me on to have a discussion about Reimagining Housing.

As someone whose work is nominally about numbers (prices) but whose tools are all about relationships and politics, I had the time of my life with this blog post.

Everything is breaks all the time, which is why it’s important to build new things. I spent the last few months working nights and weekends helping my partner put together her studio’s 20th anniversary show. It was everything we hoped it would be. Now on to the next thing.

[I have slight back pain] ok, this is it, cancer, the big C, think kindly of me after I pass from this Earth [15 minutes later after ibuprofen] I have once again cured myself with the power of positive thinking

he follows them everywhere

Imagine my relief when I read on to find that this is not about Ken

I don't know if this is something I picked up from reading Roth or if I just ended up noticing it organically, but there is something particularly resonant about how the reactionary movement is trying to make the world a small place. Trying to build a too-small cage - a coffin - around all of us.

wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

It looks like it's a true thing, and we will have to live with and adjust to true things whether we want to or not, BUT swings in public opinion being explained or handwaved as a mostly (or at least significantly) thermostatic phenomenom is something I find hugely depressing

À propos of discourse, my paternal grandparents had 17 kids. 7 girls and 10 boys, who are now my aunts and uncles (and in one case, my father).

@sharonk.bsky.social there was one of your posts in my discover feed that got zapped by the reflexive refresh and I figured I could just go to your feed and scroll down to find it this is me coming up for air

if nick suzuki scores 28 points tomorrow night against the caps he will move to t-1st overall along with mackinnon and mcdavid

I didn't click the first time this showed up in my feed and I am telling you, ignoring this is a crime against your own happiness.

Why would I, someone living in French in Canada, ask whoever is following me to give money to a US-based liberal magazine? 1) The collapse of liberalism in the United States is a material threat to me and everything I care for. 2) Quebec keeps importing battles from the US’ culture war.

J'ai passé 8 ans à défendre l'idée d'un registre des loyers. Le fruit est mûr, maintenant. medium.com/p/fe0b29a8b1b5

Reposting myself as a birthday treat from me to me

I’m not telling anyone what to do but time is running out to put me on a 40 Under 40 list. (Moving out of the core Bluesky demo of 38 year olds today)

RIP 2025 2025-2025

Man look at that bottom right corner. What a mess.

amazing photo on spanish wikipedia's chinchilla article

@davidwachsmuth.bsky.social David! You're on Bluesky!

Agree! And I'd add that most vacancy taxes are structured to only penalize long-term vacancies, where properties are vacant more than 6 months or the year, and purposely held off the market. See, e.g., Vancouver's expansive Empty Homes Tax exemptions. vancouver.ca/home-propert...

I thought a bit through @missingmiddleca.bsky.social's inclusion of vacancy taxes in the category of harmful policies with regards to overall supply and decided to blog it. medium.com/@AdamMongrai... With thanks to @jensvb.bsky.social and @lausterna.bsky.social wonderful work on Unoccupied Canada.

This is not even tangential to the matter at hand but whenever I read something to the effect of not shooting the messenger, I am reminded of @daraobriain.bsky.social's virtuoso bit about people saying controversial things. (Starts at 2:25 here.) youtu.be/fjx1zV7MOQQ?...

US building codes requiring two stairs in multifamily buildings: not only worse living environments, but also more dangerous in fires! What a combination.

Also like the negative effects of rent control on construction are not particularly large if the program is designed properly! The revulsion from economists feels mostly aesthetic to me

Sharon got 40k followers by being right about things!

This is an argument I have made for a while - if you want to allow more new housing development, you'll face a lot less opposition if you protect existing tenants with rent regulation. Nice to have some more evidence to back that up.

Something something 3% vacancy rate

making bolognese and the recipe calls for dry white wine and chicken broth but we are out of both of those so it actually calls for two cans of Coors light

4 years almost to the day from Larch Lab's City of Vancouver single stair report to today www.larchlab.com/wp-content/u...

While prepping for a presentation in Toronto a few weeks ago, I picked up that one of our graphs hadn't been updated with 2025 numbers. We just made the change. Here's how historically affordable Québec is doing.

There was a twist on the Mencken quote (Puritanism: the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy) that stuck with me. We are essentially governing ourselves out of the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be getting something that they don’t deserve.

awash in the tantalizing pleasure of knowing a shipping label has been created for my order