skybrian's recent activity

  1. Comment on For $700 a month, sleeping pods make San Francisco more affordable, but at what cost in ~life

    skybrian
    (edited )
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    It doesn't seem like median income and the poverty rate (which is about people at the bottom) have much to do with each other? They're about different people. According to this chart, California...

    It doesn't seem like median income and the poverty rate (which is about people at the bottom) have much to do with each other? They're about different people.

    According to this chart, California median household income reached $100,000 per year in 2024. And that means half the households in the state make more than that.

    Housing prices are high in part because there are a lot of people out there who can pay that much, and they're competing for housing.

  2. Comment on China calls for ‘concerted’ efforts to tackle excess solar production in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    My understanding is that the solar modules themselves are now a relatively small part of the total cost of installation, so moderate price changes might not have that much of an effect, other than...

    My understanding is that the solar modules themselves are now a relatively small part of the total cost of installation, so moderate price changes might not have that much of an effect, other than on the manufacturers' finances.

    2 votes

  3. Comment on Trump officials reclassify medical marijuana as Schedule III drug in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    The Justice Department said that it was immediately reclassifying marijuana products that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as lower-risk drugs and establishing a new registration process for state medical marijuana licenses. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche also said that the administration would hold a new hearing to “fully” reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act.

    [...]

    Marijuana has long had the same Schedule I classification as heroin, but administration officials have sought to reclassify the drug as Schedule III, similar to some common prescription painkillers. Medical marijuana is now reclassified as Schedule III under the Justice Department’s order, which does not decriminalize marijuana for recreational use.

    Some health care advocates have spent years pressing for more access to marijuana as a potential treatment, warning that restrictions on the drug made it too hard to conduct research. The administration’s moves also bring national policy closer to legitimizing state laws that have authorized medical marijuana businesses, after years of stalemates over whether states should be in compliance with federal law.

    [...]

    President Joe Biden’s Justice Department in 2024 formally recommended that marijuana be reclassified as Schedule III, but the move stalled amid legal disputes and a pending Drug Enforcement Administration hearing.

    Drug policy experts said that federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services were required to undertake reviews related to public health and safety, even if the pace of that work agitated Trump.

    3 votes

  5. Comment on EU approves $106 billion loan package to support Ukraine in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Thursday approved a 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) loan package to help Ukraine meet its economic and military needs for two years after oil began flowing through a key pipeline to Hungary and Slovakia, ending months of political deadlock.

    The EU also approved a new raft of sanctions against Russia over its war on Ukraine. The measures were prepared early this year and had been set to be announced in February to mark the fourth anniversary of the conflict, but Hungary and Slovakia opposed the move.

    Hungary and Slovakia have been locked in a feud with Ukraine since Russian oil deliveries to the two EU countries were halted in January after a pipeline was damaged. Ukrainian officials blamed the damage on Russian drone attacks. Both countries confirmed Thursday that deliveries have resumed.

    Ukraine desperately needs the loan package to prop up its war-ravaged economy and help keep Russian forces at bay. Hungary angered its EU partners by reneging on a December deal to provide the funds. The loans are expected to be available in coming weeks and months.

    [...]

    Ukraine and most of its European backers oppose imports of Russian oil which have helped to fund Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, now in its fifth year. But unlike the rest of the European Union, Hungary and Slovakia still depend on Russia for their energy needs.

    [...]

    The 27-nation bloc had originally intended to use frozen Russian assets as collateral for the loan. But that option was blocked by Belgium, where the bulk of the frozen assets are held.

    In December, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia agreed not to stop their EU partners from borrowing the money on international markets as long as the three countries did not have to take part in the scheme.

    1 vote

  7. Comment on Ezra Klein interviews Alex Bores on AI and Palantir in ~society

  8. Comment on Ezra Klein interviews Alex Bores on AI and Palantir in ~society

    skybrian
    Link
    Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-alex-bores.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dVA.3-U9.o89-jqbYXSAo&smid=url-share From the article: [...] [...] [...] [...]...

    Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/21/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-alex-bores.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dVA.3-U9.o89-jqbYXSAo&smid=url-share

    From the article:

    If you are living in New York’s 12th Congressional District, you may have seen these endless attacks on Alex Bores, one of the Democrats running there.

    [...]

    Yikes. Bores did work for Palantir. The rest of that attack is not what you might call true, but what interests me is who is paying for it: the super PAC Leading the Future and its subsidiary Think Big.

    Who funds the super PAC Leading the Future? Well, among their largest donors are the co-founders of OpenAI, Andreessen Horowitz and — wait for it — Palantir.

    So why is a co-founder of Palantir, Joe Lonsdale, in this case, funding a super PAC to try to destroy a candidate on the grounds that he once worked for Palantir? The reason is that Leading the Future is a super PAC dedicated to destroying anyone who might regulate the tech industry, in general, or A.I., specifically, in a way these funders don’t like.

    And Bores is a member of the New York State Assembly. He co-wrote and passed the RAISE Act, one of the first pieces of A.I. regulation passed in any major state.

    [...]

    Bores, in general, has been a pretty effective legislator. In just over three years at the New York State Assembly, he has passed 30 bills and has been recognized by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as one of the most effective freshmen legislators.

    But it’s his ideas on regulating A.I. that particularly interest me, in part because I think they make sense and are worth discussing — things like an A.I. dividend — but in part because I just really do not want to live in the world that Leading the Future is trying to create. A world where, if the A.I. industry hoovers in enough money, they can then destroy anyone who might try to regulate them.

    What’s funny about all this is: Alex Bores is not an anti-A.I. kind of guy. I think he gets A.I. pretty well. I think he’s trying to balance its risks and its possibilities.

    [...]

    How do you end up at Palantir?

    [...]

    I was a young believer in — I probably wouldn’t put it in these terms back then — expanding government capacity and making sure government is actually delivering.

    Palantir in 2014, in the Obama administration, was about how we could expand government capacity while protecting privacy and civil liberties. So at the time, it felt like very much the natural fit.

    [...]

    Trump was elected in 2016. That was a weird bit.

    With the aggressive support of Peter Thiel, one of the early investors in Palantir. Would you call Peter Thiel a Palantir co-founder?

    I think so. I think that’s the phrase that is given.

    But Alex Karp was very much fighting for Hillary at the time. And if you look at donations of employees at Palantir, they tell a very skewed story toward the Democrats, as well.

    Lots more of interest.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on What is Mastodon for? in ~tech

    skybrian
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    To answer the question in the title, I occasionally visit Mastodon because sometimes I see threads like this one about tea.

    To answer the question in the title, I occasionally visit Mastodon because sometimes I see threads like this one about tea.

  11. Comment on For $700 a month, sleeping pods make San Francisco more affordable, but at what cost in ~life

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    To me this is sort of like saying hostels or homeless shelters or college dorms or living in a van shouldn’t be allowed so that they don’t become normalized. There are obvious downsides to any of...

    To me this is sort of like saying hostels or homeless shelters or college dorms or living in a van shouldn’t be allowed so that they don’t become normalized. There are obvious downsides to any of these kinds of accommodations so I wouldn’t expect them to become mainstream, but they serve a need and I don’t see why this shouldn’t become normalized, among a small segment of the population for one part of their lives. (Not families, obviously.)

    5 votes

  12. Comment on For $700 a month, sleeping pods make San Francisco more affordable, but at what cost in ~life

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    It doesn’t sound like they’re unsafe, so why is this even close to the line?

    It doesn’t sound like they’re unsafe, so why is this even close to the line?

    3 votes

  13. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    The trouble is that the Supreme Court as an institution evolved so that the judges are unaccountable to anyone in practice. We can talk all we want but Supreme Court judges aren’t accountable to...

    The trouble is that the Supreme Court as an institution evolved so that the judges are unaccountable to anyone in practice. We can talk all we want but Supreme Court judges aren’t accountable to us or to anyone we could influence.

    An independent judiciary has benefits. It was nice seeing the ruling against Trump’s tariffs supported by some judges he appointed. But it could certainly be done better, in theory. Many states have retention elections for judges and that seems to work out fine? But the US Consitution is near-impossible to change.

    1 vote

  14. Comment on What is Mastodon for? in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    But then the question is: why federate at all? Why not a private group or a standalone forum like Tildes? It seems like the boundaries would be confusing than having partially working federation...

    But then the question is: why federate at all? Why not a private group or a standalone forum like Tildes? It seems like the boundaries would be confusing than having partially working federation due to policy disputes.

    8 votes

  15. Comment on The US Chief Justice and his wife took $20 million from firms he rules on. I'm filing for his disbarment today. in ~society

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    That seems like a different situation? Trump isn’t going to appoint Swalwell’s replacement, and the next California governor will be decided by elections with other good candidates. We can still...

    That seems like a different situation? Trump isn’t going to appoint Swalwell’s replacement, and the next California governor will be decided by elections with other good candidates.

    We can still discuss what’s going on with the Supreme Court, of course, but it’s not going to do much. It’s more like, how much are you really interested in discussing ethical rules about conflicts of interest?

    3 votes

  16. Comment on What is Mastodon for? in ~tech

    skybrian
    (edited )
    Link
    Yeah, that does happen a lot. Also true on Bluesky. There, the “social aggression” isn’t always successful, but people try. Such disputes do happen on Tildes fairly often and the difference is...

    The result is a community that defaults to social aggression for boundary maintenance

    Yeah, that does happen a lot. Also true on Bluesky. There, the “social aggression” isn’t always successful, but people try.

    Such disputes do happen on Tildes fairly often and the difference is that Deimos will stop them if they get too heated. But a community is still shaped by what you can talk about without starting a bitter argument.

    17 votes

  17. Comment on What is Mastodon for? in ~tech

    skybrian
    Link
    Many communities are accidental in the sense that they’re just whoever happens to have made their home there. The families in a suburb might share some common demographics due to things like the...

    Many communities are accidental in the sense that they’re just whoever happens to have made their home there. The families in a suburb might share some common demographics due to things like the cost of housing and what jobs are available nearby, but other than that, they might not have a lot of common goals.

    There are also more intentional communities that happen due to entry requirements. Many organizations have a hiring process. There are academic conferences and conventions where people with a common interest gather. These don’t happen by accident - there are people who make it their job.

    Social networks like Twitter, Bluesky and the Fediverse to some extent have always struck me as rather incoherent because every participant ends up with their own custom view of things depending on who they follow. It’s hard to find good discussions and easy to end up in dysfunctional ones. It’s a bit surprising that semi-coherent communities happen at all.

    Contrast with subreddits, forums like Tildes and Hacker News, and blogs where we are at least seeing the same top-level posts for the most part. This also happens in private mailing lists and Whatsapp groups.

    12 votes

  18. Comment on China calls for ‘concerted’ efforts to tackle excess solar production in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link Parent
    For me the question is why Chinese investors didn’t see overcapacity coming and stop building factories sooner. I suppose subsidies are part of the answer. But there was also a real estate bubble...

    For me the question is why Chinese investors didn’t see overcapacity coming and stop building factories sooner. I suppose subsidies are part of the answer.

    But there was also a real estate bubble in China recently. There is currently an electric vehicle bubble.

    And bubbles certainly aren’t unknown outside China. Many people think there’s currently a datacenter bubble in the US. There is a long history of booms and busts.

    When investors becoming irrationally exuberant has happened repeatedly in multiple markets, we have to conclude that they’re not always self-limiting and bubbles aren’t “unnatural.” And it was even worse in the US before the the Fed got good at regulating the market using interest rates.

    6 votes

  19. Comment on China calls for ‘concerted’ efforts to tackle excess solar production in ~enviro

    skybrian
    Link
    From the article: [...] [...]

    From the article:

    China has called for “concerted efforts” to ease its solar power industry’s severe overcapacity crisis, as part of Beijing’s campaign to end a fierce price war.

    The proposed measures include capacity control, standard guidance, price enforcement, mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property protection “to promote the high-quality development of the photovoltaic industry.”

    China’s solar manufacturing capacity far outstrips global demand, triggering a domestic price war in recent years.

    The country makes more than 80% of the world’s solar panel components, per the International Energy Agency, but its industry has been battling with an overcapacity problem because of intense domestic competition, which the Chinese government has called “involution.”

    [...]

    China’s solar overcapacity issue has been further compounded by a sense of growing resistance from high-value overseas markets, with the U.S. aggressively imposing tariffs on solar products from China and the European Union diversifying its solar supply chain away from Beijing.

    [...]

    Analysts have told CNBC that the fallout from the U.S. and Israel-led Iran war is likely to expedite a shift away from fossil fuels and make countries think differently about the role renewables can play in shoring up energy security, potentially delivering a boost to demand for solar.

    Chinese solar manufacturers told Reuters last week, however, that any expected boost to global renewables demand due to the Iran war energy price shock was unlikely to ease the industry’s overcapacity challenge.

    6 votes