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Watson Ladd
@WatsonLadd
Hutchins was right. Cryptographer, opinions are my own.
kc2kdm.comJoined June 2013

Watson Ladd’s Tweets

SB 405 introduced by Sen. Cortese to require for the 7th cycle housing element that the planning agency notify the owner of a site included in sites inventory. If owner doesn't intend to develop at least 80% of the number of units indicated, the site cannot be included. #CALeg
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When working class kids + grown-ups are being made very poorly by the horrible state of the UK housing stock, it is beyond belief that serious commentators in the built environment are calling to reduce demolitions. 50,000 is not nearly enough for everyone to enjoy nice housing.
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The obliteration of 50,000 British buildings a year is disgraceful – a pattern of myopic greed and unthinking vandalism that is wiping out our heritage while tearing apart communities and accelerating climate breakdown. I wrote about demolition. theguardian.com/commentisfree/
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this obsession with streetcars and diametric opposition to bustitution is at odds with service-first transit planning. at the most local layer of a transit network, rail is rarely the optimal solution (as is "BRT", for what it's worth). not everything is about infrastructure! 4/
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They'll likely punish Ukrainian athletes more severely than they did Russians for doping.
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IOC President Thomas Bach reacted harshly to Ukraine's intentions to boycott the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, even hinting at possible punishment for Ukrainian athletes. He emphasized that the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes would be discrimination against them, and…
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Can we give this to Ukraine too? The missiles will be sad if they wipe out all the Russian tanks before they get there
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That's good but I'm partial to the concept that had 12-16 Brilliant Anti-Tank submunitions on a Tomahawk. twitter.com/UnseenOps/stat…
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I feel like Amtrak/Metra ought to advertise and facilitate this routing better. A rail connection with a within station transfer from the flagship state university to one of the states most important R1s is probably of non-trivial utility
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Buy American rules on materials for infrastructure might possibly mean more U.S. manufacturing jobs but likely at the expense of U.S. construction jobs. And certainly means fewer roads, bridges and ports built--and thus a (slightly) poorer country.
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(I say would have been employed anyway because in this example those workers likely have college degrees & a low unemployment rate. More generally, creating those jobs will drive up wages and cost jobs elsewhere. And ultimately the Fed will target the jobs its wants.)
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The political system loves measuring policies by jobs. But outside recessions that makes little sense. If you announce a new factory will create 5,000 jobs at $150,000 a year there is virtually no chance those are net new jobs--those people would have been employed anyway.
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Replying to and
To build 💪 I'm using 1. A smol group chat 2. Frequent shared dinners 3. Weekly coffee/kava dates 4. Lotsa casual hosting ("come sit by me while we work") The real trick is doing this with the same ppl over n over instead of gettin excited n inviting new kewl peepz
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It still blows my mind that generous immigration + lots of open space + a melting pot culture is the secret sauce that solves what is going to be an existential crisis for the rest of the world and we're like "but we wanna be racist based on this specific melted pot."
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These things are like writing a sentence like “the murderer killed the guest with the alligator skin belt,” refusing to elaborate further, and then telling people to refer to section 4.3.3 of your style guide to find out whether “with” applies to the guest or the killing.
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$540 for a 1/2 year of sidewalk blockage versus $11k for a parking spot. This is pedestrian-hostile policy. My suggestion: If someone wants to put a barrier on the sidewalk then they *also* have to close/pay for the parking spot, since the barrier renders that spot inaccessible.
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Come on #nafo, let's give them more things to track then they'll ever be able to deal with
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⚡️Media: Russia's state censor to track Putin memes with help of AI. Russia's federal agency for monitoring and censoring communications, Roskomnadzor, is planning to use AI to track posts, comments and memes critical of Putin, according to Russian investigative outlet iStories.
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this is correct: in a market with constrained housing supply, Airbnb increases rents. It also provides value for families or groups who need a place to stay and have limited hotel options the policy solution is legalizing more housing supply rather than just banning Airbnb
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The effect of Airbnb--increasing rent prices and reducing housing supply--are clear and unequivocal. This is an empirical reality that YIMBYs need to accept.
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Massive blackpill on California ever being able to make affordable HSR.
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Replying to @Noahpinion
I saw a huge banner driving by where they’re constructing California high-speed rail that advertised how construction jobs they’ve created. Not how many cities connected or even miles of rail built, but jobs created.
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My latest column: San Franciscans have long adored Bissap Baobab, a West African restaurant and dance hall. But the owner’s attempt to run a bigger, better version on Mission Street has run into a familiar foe: complaining condo owners next door.
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I'll never understand Democrats' hostility to stock buybacks. Of course there are bad stock buybacks, just like there are bad investments of all kinds. But if a company doesn't need the capital, why not return it to shareholders in an efficient way?
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This is wild and amazing - a Dynamic (switches based on detected buses) Tidal flow (switches direction) Center-running (located in the middle of the roadway for least interference) Bus lane
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8/ As bus 31 jumps unimpeded by other vehicles into the single traffic lane in front, the signal turns from an X to a⬆️ What does that mean? That bus 31 can use the central reserved lane which can also be used on the opposite direction alternatively 😱
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Once New York bagels became known for being "big" the famous bagel shops just kept making them bigger to give tourists what they believed they had come for. Now they're intolerably bready. The pressure to make a sandwich-able bagel has also pushed in this direction.
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Buy America shifts and destroys domestic transport related jobs, not increases them. And it shifts then from construction workers on job sites to factory workers making the Buy American goods.
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