Our housing shortage is the result of death by 1,000 community meetings. "A project that was floated in 2023 on nearby vacant land by different affordable housing developers faced similar pushback before it was ultimately scrapped."

I think I'm turning into a single issue YIMBY voter, but I could be swayed by a federal candidate running on repeal of every Judiciary Act from 1891 onward.

Remember the Snappy capture device from the 90s? We were stuck watching the Stranger Things finale on a hotel TV with motion smoothing, and it's all I could think of. Frame interpolation was a fun gimmick for still images in 1995, but it just murders the cinematic viewing experience.

My random 2026 prediction: Smart home hardware finally goes mainstream, with Matter hitting sufficient maturity and interoperability across every major ecosystem. (Ikea going all in on Matter+Thread feels like the last big push that was needed.)

I'm really gonna miss the Pax Americana. I won't deny that it was imperfect and unevenly distributed. But damn, it sure seems a whole lot better than whatever this thing is that we're blindly stumbling into.

A regular exchange for the last year: Me: Night night, bud. I love you. 11yo: I love you more! Me: It's not a competition, buddy. 11yo: But if it was I would win!

Is anyone else getting actively bad suggestions from Google Maps' search-along-route feature? I've normally found it useful, but on a road trip yesterday it kept suggesting small gas/rest stops several miles out of the way when there were large ones nearby, right off the expressway.

Forcing the kids to watch the 1982 Tron movie and only just now appreciating that it's genuinely a contemplation of religion and the notion of individual agency. Also, the Cybertruck is clearly a cheap knockoff of the Recognizer cockpit.

At the risk of offending bsky, it's counterproductive to blame PE for housing prices. PE owns at most 10% of housing stock, and only because NIMBYs inflated prices so much by blocking new housing for decades. NIMBYs are the real problem. PE sucks, but don't be distracted from the real problem.

When the CBS deal first went down my wife asked what bothered me so much about Bari Weiss. I paused, then called Weiss "a passive aggressive right-winger." Because, she'll calmly pitch the right in the best possible light and left in the worst, even when she has to lie a bit to make it all work.

I think polygraphs are BS, but they're also a requirement for TS/SCI clearance holders. People get nervous and fail all the time; normally they just take it again until they pass. But this admin has to concoct a whole conspiracy and fire people rather than admit Gottumukkala just had a bad day.

I'm setting up a server for CCTV, event detection, building automation, etc. I was looking at low power options, but it's going in a basement space next to two 80gal heat-pump water heaters. Now I'm considering something like a cheap, used Dell R730, since I could use the waste heat anyway. 🤔

When I told people in California that I was moving back to Chicago they'd typically say something like: But what about the weather? The thing is, I love Chicago in the winter.

Looking out the window of my mom's condo and I'm pretty sure there used to be a lake there. 🤔

Clearly I'm not the only parent in this situation, since the app threw a few connection errors at 7pm, but I've now served my purpose and the children are happy.

The kids have demanded we start Stranger Things Season 5 the second it's released, so we're just kinda waiting for it to appear in the next five minutes.

We've walked by kasiasdeli.com every week or so since moving to the neighborhood last year, and @catnguyen.design kept suggesting we stop in. We finally did, and I'd definitely recommend it. I also had no idea it was such a storied Chicago institution.

And here I'd gone nearly a decade without even thinking about Malwarebytes, but it seems they're still a total clownshow.

The thing about being the parent who stays home with the sick kid is that you're also the parent most likely to catch whatever they have. Anyway, my fever broke yesterday morning and I have some unavoidable commitments today. Hopefully masking, caffeine, and cold medicine can get me through.

A sour note for Garcia to leave on, given an otherwise distinguished record of public service. Still, it feels very disingenuous for the House to focus on this particular case while ignoring the rampant corruption and lawlessness emanating from the executive right now.

This 100% aligns with what I'm seeing. In the last week the ICE/CBP activity has dramatically fallen off―almost disappearing. The joke around here is that they couldn't handle a little cold weather, but I don't want to understate the importance of pressure from local government and activist groups.

Picked this up at Neighborly, a cozy little home goods store down the street. It's a good example of how strongly the city has unified against the ICE/CBP occupation. I can't walk down the street without seeing "HANDS OFF" signs (or more colorful language) in the windows of houses and businesses.

Can't really argue with how @safety.bsky.app handled this. Yeah, OP seems to have been making a joke. But running a safety team means maintaining a consistent set of standards, and there's not exactly a clear line between a willful threat and simply butchering a Johnny Cash lyric.

Took the kids to the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts & Culture in Humboldt Park and had to share a pic of this bad ass piece.

So, is the entire month of November just considered "Black Friday" at this point?

Still seems concerning that we're nine months into Trump's term and the US market has been basically negative in real terms (ie. adjusted for inflation and the US dollar).

Still making whistles.

It was a very simple costume, but it sure went over well.

Not an understatement to say how transformational and solid of a bill this is. All the best parts of the robust reform package the Senate passed in the spring, with none of the negative baggage of the new funding sources since we’re moving existing fuel taxes from highways to transit operations

Chicago's suburban counties collect a transit sales tax ($193M last year), but spend it mostly on cops and roads, with less than 2% going to public transit. Meanwhile, our regional transit system is facing a $1.5B fiscal cliff, and there's no political will to claw back decades of misspent funds.

I remember thinking when I wrote that code: Do I reject just -1, or a range of negative handles? I went with -1 because it felt less risky, and I didn't want to introduce random crashes from some undocumented edge-case. Sorry, in retrospect I could have made it a stronger defense-in-depth check.

Not that long ago Jim Comey was admonishing the DOJ as the "The Chickenshit Club" for bringing prosecutions only when they were nearly certain of a win. And now we have a DOJ regularly bringing prosecutions where they're pretty much guaranteed to lose... including the prosecution of Jim Comey.

I don't get the narrative that the US market is performing well. It recovered from the April low, but is overall middling―practically zero after accounting for a weak dollar and elevated inflation. And that's all before feeling the effects of tariffs, layoffs, benefit cuts, the shutdown, etc.

ICE has been actively harassing people in my neighborhood all morning, just a few blocks from my house. Schools are sending out warnings to parents; some are under lockdown.

Same energy.

We should plan on a full modernization of the Blue Line - including automation and platform screen doors - so we can reallocate those operators out of Rosemont and Forest Park and run more service on the rest of the system

I regularly remind my kids of this on Tuesdays. I'm that kind of annoying father.

I was an enlisted Marine stationed in Asia in the 1990s, so I totally buy the story about drunkenly getting a tattoo in a foreign country because it looked cool, and not learning its meaning until many years later. I have no opinion on Platner beyond that. That specific part just checks out for me.

Dealing with a healthcare thing where the insurer consistently pays 50% of a bill, even though they're obligated to 100%. Turns out providers expect this, so they keep billing incrementally until the total hits the amount they're owed. It's all sorting itself, but damn what a broken system.

I'm signing a permission slip for the 11yo, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I ever call it the "Griffin" museum. It's the "Museum of Science & Industry" or "MSI." I'm not tainting my favorite museum with the name of some right-wing crook from Boca Raton. Fuck him. He doesn't even live here.

I make whistles now.

Good on Apple for the investment, but the "moral obligation" line from Ivan also kinda breaks my brain. I've seen firsthand just how dishonest and vindictive he could be when dealing with security researchers and disclosure. Maybe things have gotten better in recent years, but he used to be awful.

Heads up to anyone interested in development in Wicker Park (and a bit of Bucktown).

Crypto means Krypto the Superdog.

My 12yo Dewalt 20V MAX set is dying: I'm down to one battery; the hammer drill needs a new chuck; the compact drill is wearing out. I've bought some cheap Ryobi tools to fill gaps, but I'm not impressed with the durability. I'm thinking of switching to Milwaukee M18 FUEL, and looking for recs.

Saving this for budget season...

I've lived through three major GOP "revolutions," but I can't recall anything similar for Dems. I'm thinking of the big incumbent turnover and policy shifts during: * 1980s Reagan * 1990s Gingrich * 2010s Tea Party/MAGA Maybe the DLC era counts for the Dems, but it seems so much less impactful.

Just finished Stuck by @yappelbaum.bsky.social. I really wish every NIMBY would read it... and maybe be required to write a book report.

Da Pope keeps putting points on the board.

I just saw a biker get doored* and wondered why ADAS doesn't prevent this sort of thing. It turns out it can, but only on the very newest models. Seems like some regulation would really help here. __ * The biker was up and walking, and to the driver's credit she was helping him as much as she could.