William
Ava's person, board game enthusiast, data whisperer
- Abundance by Klein and Thompson - some thoughts The initial story has elements that I adore - solar power, no coal, etc - and ones that I find a bit silly. What its missing is many elements of urbanism that I want to see brought into the future.
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View full threadI envision a future with: parks, restaurants, grocery stores, even YMCAs - all in walkable neighborhoods connected by mass transit to each other and to larger cities. I've found this in Alexandria. I want more people to have access to that. How do we get there?
- My conjecture: While there's some infill that can and should happen, if we want more places like our walkable corridors, then we should build more places like our walkable corridors. The new townhouses and apartments near Potomac Yard metro are close, but are missing crucial commercial.
- Instead of self-driving cars and flying drone delivery - walkable neighborhoods. Instead of AI-powered everything - empowering humans. They get halfway there with doing meta-science, but miss that we've made a lot of normal human activities illegal or undesirable.
- Or you could not build more car infrastructure. This feels like a repeat from yesterday. That's what happens with positive reinforcement.
- Not Fast Enough? McDonald's on S. Van Dorn Street wants another drive-thru lane www.alxnow.com/2025/05/07/n...
- Or you could, like: Not build more parking.
- Developer seeks extension to build automated parking garage in Old Town www.alxnow.com/2025/05/06/d...
- I'm part of a men's group called the mankind project. We work on men taking accountability for the impact of our actions, and moving away from exactly this. These systems are everywhere and inside us. This helps men find connection. Learn more about MKP here: mkpusa.org - or ask me.
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- for years, I have tongue in cheek referred to Nov 11 as Armistice Day .... the day that war ended and never happened again. This is as good a moment as any to end that joke.
- This week’s subgenre deep dive; sci fi and fantasy that actually deals with infants and children inside the plot rather than whisking them off to be aged up or fridging them for trauma-motivation. Your suggestions please!
- How about Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series? There's at least two children who are alongside their parent-types while adventures and world-changing events occur. Plus: In this series, Palmer gives a novel definition of family.
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- This hits on part of my vision for the future, as well. I envision municipalities having much of the authority now resting with states and the fed. One massively important right that must be at a higher level: The right to leave. Interstates buses and trains. Fleeing. Those cannot belong to cities.
- A few months ago, I wrote about male loneliness and the mankind project. If that struck a chord - the initiatory event of mkp is the New Warrior Training Adventure. The NWTA has helped 80,000+ guys. The next is in June. I'm happy to talk about it More Info: mankindproject.org/new-warrior-...
- Previous posts here: bsky.app/profile/call...
- resist.pages.dev/disobey resist.pages.dev/disobey.pdf Shared with enthusiastic consent of the author. Spread the link far and wide. If you like it, share the link. Don't worry about sharing this post - just the link.
- Fiction sought: Hope / Solar Punk Examples: Anything by Becky Chambers, but most obviously A Psalm for the Wild-Built, The Dispossessed, etc What I'm looking for: A hopeful future that could reasonably come from this mess. Trains, solar power, authority at the municipal level Suggestions?
- Went to the bookstore. Surprised myself by walking out with non-fiction: "Abundance" by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson Read 50+ pages yesterday. What I needed was hope, and that's what I'm reading in this book.
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- Terraformers I've read and it is very close to what I want, except for all the capitalism. Biketopia is a great fit; I've tagged it. Thanks!
- Perfect. Resistance looks different for everyone; there's no one way.
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- Remember when we had a dog bar?
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- Fascists need to appear to be the Hero, yeah? Which is very different from internalizing being a warrior. Just appearing a hero. So anyone who points out that they are not is subject to firing and abuse.
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- Legalize empowered neighborhoods It's the neighborhood economy, stupid Less car, more friends The anti HOAs - neighborhood evolution Empower your Neighbors I'm no good at taglines
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- I moved out of the S&P and us bonds just after the inauguration; I no longer trusted either our large corporations nor - !!! - US debt.
- ok, so: - I pay attention, and the first time I knew they were changing any bus name was when waiting for the metroway - which'll soon be the A1X. - If I do pay attention and do care about buses, how many people will be hit unknowingly? - I know so many bus names. Who does changing the names serve?
- A 38B Metrobus by any other name smells as sweet. You'll see in late June when it becomes the A58. Learn more about the systemwide new nomenclature: www.wmata.com/initiatives/...
- I realize this decision is in the past, but really: More parking at Simpson?!? How about less parking and more basketball court? Note: I do not play basketball. I'm there most days, and it is the second most used area.... next to the dog park, which is in constant use. How about we expand those?
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- I agree: Cars and violations of moving vehicles laws are a clear and present danger to children and adults! We should do something about that. Rt 1 is already a 25 - more traffic calming on Monroe?
- Challenge: Before buying a replacement car, plan what it would take to go without. Budget it out - time and money! - and compare to current expenditures. My conjecture is it is only exceptionally difficult and expensive to go without a car, but rarely impossible
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- Heck yeah! A lot of times it'll be "well, we need to go to location X every day and the non-car commute time would be 2 hours. It's a 20 minute drive. For that reason alone a car is worthwhile", or whatever.
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- one word: Shirlington
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- At zero, its annoying every time we leave the neighborhood*. * But then again, leaving the neighborhood is always kinda annoying, right?.
- Note: This is kind of a subskeet. That's an attempt to NOT cause a fight. I do think its a good mental challenge.
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- Here's something I wonder: Is Carrot included in ACAB? I figure Mr. Vimes would say yes, of course: Carrot's a copper. But, Carrot? He'd say none of the boys are ACAB..... and so long as he's around, he'd be right, too.
- GNU Terry Pratchett
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- Legit curious: Isn't Rt 1 the dividing line between Potomac yard and Del Ray? Meaning .... isn't this part of Del Ray?
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- Less parking on Mount Vernon, not more!
- Why didn't I do this years ago? An author I enjoy publishes frequently on Unlimited and also has a Patreon. Get on the patreon, get the book early and still send it to your kindle. Thru, I am pretty sure, magic. Now I can read the author's military space fiction and not support Amazon. Hooray.
- At the Chili Cookoff, I spoke with @kirkmcpike.bsky.social . I asked "what is there to do?", his very good response: get people in red states activated and call R reps I've written a long letter and BLUF, ready to send to my friends in red states. I'll review it in a couple of hours and send today.
- Circling back: Email sent.
- This is actually further away from us, but: More beer shops participating in Del Ray activities! Woot!
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- My plan: As soon as out of items that're out of conversational scope align, get on your Patreon. It's on my list. Not just because Bezos is a turd, but also your just about the only Unlimited author that I read.
- Good to reshare, you know, because its fun reading: www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2...
- If you can, use the IRS's federal free tax file system. If you can't - for a wide variety of reasons - use free tax USA. It's really free, and no income or filing limit.
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- I think what's annoys me the most is not that they are dismantling our administrative state out of anger and spite, but they understand so little and are so bad at this and yet are so far succeeding.
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- This is delightfully offbeat. Some of my favorite offbeat fiction can be framed as a question, such as: "What happens if tech bros invent a time machine to make online gaming faster?", "FTL travel is impossible. What if a Wizard did it?", "Lion King, but in Denmark" What's the Question here?
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- Yes! I always do our sidewalk, and the neighbors on both sides. Did that last night. This morning, the neighbor two doors down did the same thing, meaning one of the three I normally shovel was already clear. So .... I shifted so I still did 3.
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- And no where to park a Tesla.
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- I've enjoyed these books many times. It'd be nice if someone filmed it, but I get how that's kinda impossible. Too many generations on Trantor and the Empire alike!
- Government should NOT be financially efficient Government SHOULD be resilient We learned in 2020 what happens when a highly efficient system (food delivery!) suffers a blow - catastrophe We want government to be resilient so that when there is a blow, it can recover with minimal harm to citizens
- That our government is also incredibly efficient when compared to a capitalist-owned industry is an statement of how much wealth capitalists remove from the system. Compare Medicaid costs to insurance prices, for a good example.
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- While in general you are not wrong: I dislike most modern townhouses because they have too much parking and not enough green. I live in a townhouse. Tiny, 80-year-old, no-parking-spot town house with yard. The sort that's illegal to build nowadays. I'm pro neighbor, but not pro car.
- As a reminder: We are all bad at our jobs. 20-year old who think otherwise are uh.... wrong. xkcd.com/2030/
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- Same as everyone: Used them since we moved in. When I needed something and they didn't have it, they called me to not only tell me but then they did the legwork to find out where to send it! Amazing.
