Daniel Herriges

A lot of Californians believe everything about California is exceptional, except its problems.

This kind of thing is really worrisome to me. I can talk to GPT and it uses "I" and "me" but I'm very aware it's a piece of software. But human brains are wired to have an empathetic response / attribute personhood to something that talks like a human, and we won't be able to just switch that off.

If all of WALL-E had been done in the wordless style of the first 40 minutes, it would likely have been one of the greatest animated films of all time. Unfortunately, Pixar didn't have the guts.

Comcast's customer service line is now a virtual AI assistant... but on the other hand, the virtual AI assistant hung up on me abruptly, so it still feels like the same familiar Comcast customer service experience.

It's all about debt! Just like residential real estate a lot of rent-setting these days is about landlords who are over-leveraged and are struggling to pay debt service rather than about rising operating costs.

You can throw a dart at a map and wherever it lands, there is someone out there who thinks the only thing holding that place back from greatness is an insufficient amount of free parking. And that someone is probably a small business owner.

Thank you, Saint Paul! We had a packed house Thursday for Sibling Rivalry 2 and the enthusiasm and energy your brought was incredible. With your help, we raised over $22k, won the Golden TenPlex, and proved once again that Saint Paul is the great city of MN. And that's not all!

This person is confusing design speed for "safe speed." They're getting piled on for saying the quiet part loud, but I think they're saying something that many / most drivers believe. Most US roads are so overbuilt that staying under the speed limit is uncomfortable and takes cognitive effort.

Conservative government of Alberta is preempting Edmonton, requiring the city to: —Reverse the city's 2024 change allowing small-scale apartment buildings to be built citywide. Change resulted in a building boom: www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... —Restore parking requirements, which city eliminated in 2020

www.maptap.gg October 6 100🎯 99🔥 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 Final score: 999 So close!

Legit think an underapppreciated source of anti-AI hate right now is that everyone has these experiences, and everyone knows dealing with the "conversational" chatbot is so much worse than navigating a simple menu of options.

One of the most aggravating things about contemporary life is talking to a robot trying to get the robot to let you talk to a damn human. I just want to schedule my kids' vaccine appointments!

This is the way. Passing something called "rent control" is extremely politically popular. Channel that popularity into good, non-harmful policy with an anti-gouging law that allows modest increases, stability for existing tenants, and a reset to market rate when tenant leaves (vacancy decontrol).

If you need to send a fundraising email with the header “We know you’re not an ATM” maybe it’s a sign you ought to reign in the grifter consulting firms that are alienating supporters with a constant stream of panhandling spam to raise money that mostly gets poured back into their own coffers?

The American planning profession gave up on actually, you know, planning cities in the mid-20 century, in favor of incoherently micromanaging private development to death. Decades of piling rules upon rules, each one developed to react to some perceived harm or grievance, and this is what you get:

People are going to clown on this but we need to remember that planning for local context is important: a city with Los Angeles, California’s semi-arid Mediterranean climate only gets sunshine ~300 days a year; so it’s important to make sure you can never ever find shade in the middle of the day.

One year ago today, my City eliminated minimum parking requirements for multifamily housing. One year later: the sky didn’t fall. Most projects still include parking. But some infill housing is finally moving forward where parking mandates once made it infeasible. 📍Salem, MA

I do not regret a single one of the seconds I spent reading this article.

My strong feeling is that while the actual numbers are totally negotiable, Minnesota's overall economic positioning as a high tax/high service state is unassailable. We cannot compete if we offer the same low tax/low service economic strategy as warmer states. We need to differentiate ourselves.

Not just California. The nostalgia-to-NIMBYism pipeline is a thing everywhere. I think some subset of people are just wired this way—basic human discomfort with aging and change, combined with a cranky or combative personality. And social media lets them find and validate each other.

On the rare occasions when I drop off or pick up by car, I like to park a block away and walk up to the building. It's just an immeasurably better experience. We can chat about the day, wave to other families, pet their dogs. Nobody either hurrying us along or holding us up.

“If you are staring at an example of social disorder or social inefficiency, and the left refuses to explain either why it has happened or how they will fix it, then the right gets to point at someone in the immediate area and say, ‘That’s who did it.’” crazy how much Mamdani speaks my language

www.maptap.gg September 19 100🎯 85🎓 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 Final score: 985 I am so baffled sometimes by what gets assigned to the easy / medium / hard tier in this game.

Spokane is what happens when thoughtful city leadership meets effective grassroots activism (Sarah Rose and @spokanereimagined.org are doing awesome work). Racking up real wins on housing and safer streets. Turns out we can try bold things to fix our cities without first studying them for years.

Yep, felt like most of the Dem consultant class and many liberal pundits were convinced that Van Hollen's trip to El Salvador was a mistake and that talking at all about CECOT or Abrego Garcia or deportation abuses was not savvy politics. Amoral and gross then, unstrategic as well in hindsight.

If it had the political will to calm those giant stroads and build out a safe bike network, LA could be the perfect e-bike city in a decade. Imagine zipping around at 20 mph on a mild SoCal day, not breaking a sweat. Never sit in traffic, and ditch that second car payment (or even the first!)

"Texas is the Wario to our Mario," I muse as I gaze out the front window at my Minnesota state flag and Rebel Loon sign, then go refresh the weather forecast to see if we're going to get that 2" of rain tomorrow, because the grass could still really use a good soaking.