So I have sympathy for people in residential areas who deal with renters - but I kind of have a part of my brain that thinks that our system of landlord-dominated cities is probably not the best way to do things. With that said, it should be pretty easy to crack down on - just search for local listings on AirBnB. If I'm bothered by my neighbor running their place as a hotel, I'll take it up with the township. I have a neighbor that did just that when someone was renting a local property on AirBnB and using it to host big parties. If your locality is not taking action, that's not really a problem with AirBnB.
Uber the company seems to be run by a guy with serious personality problems, but the concept is sound - frankly, taxi services have no one to blame but themselves for not making a smartphone app and putting some money into computerized dispatch years ago. And taxi companies have been treating drivers like shit for decades. If Uber went out of business today, we'd still have Lyft and whatever other options spring up to replace it. Uber drivers would need to spend all of about 2 hours to become Lyft drivers. And again, once cars are driving themselves the whole operation becomes one of almost pure logistics and the driver
"changing jobs and moving your entire life over to someplace else"
Right, this is why young people today are living in apartments close to where they work - so it isn't so dramatic to move. I'm definitely not a millennial, but I did the same thing until my wife made me buy a house.
And all this, just because you can't bridge that 40 minute commute without a car.
Yes, this particular imaginary scenario is pretty dire for our hero. Can I propose an even more likely imaginary scenario? Mr. GenX has a family of 4 and they live in Happyville, a suburb of Happy City. In no traffic, it's a simple 40-minute commute. Mr. GenX has an opportunity in Happy City, but decides against it because his daily commute would be to rough. Meanwhile, Mr. Millennial lives in Happy City and can walk or ride the bus to this same opportunity.
I guess it all depends on what you think is more likely - a missed job opportunity in the medium-density suburbs or a missed job opportunity in the high-density city. It probably depends largely on what you do. I know someone who just had to uproot their entire family to split the distance between Manhattan (where her new job is) and Philly (where the husband has his business). Commuting into Manhattan by car is not a realistic option, so they bought a new house near the NJT commuter train. Life sucks sometimes, people make hard choices - let's not pooh-pooh an idea just because it won't fit one specific imaginary scenario.
We can pretend the common ownership solution will work and the market will solve the edge cases somehow
No, we don't need to pretend at all - we just need to not get hung up on perfection being the enemy of improvement. It is often very cost-effective to use the best option everyone except the edge cases, and then carve out exceptions as they come along.
Take public transit as it exists today - most cities will have wheelchair access on buses and maybe even some trains, but anything beyond that and you are not using the normal bus. Instead, they contract out a small fleet of specialized buses or cabs equipped to handle the more severely handicapped.
So yeah, you might have to pay more than everyone else to maintain your own car - just like you do today. And so will anyone with a special need. You'll still benefit from the traffic reductions and your twins will grow out of car seats before you blink. I know people hate Uber, but that's because they treat the drivers like shit - and they are actively trying to get rid of the drivers. AirBnB's main problem is racial discrimination, and hopefully they'll figure out a way to address that - but at the end of the day it's not AirBnB doing the discriminating, and the expectation that a real estate company can significantly address a huge social problem is a bit unfair.
More drama! Yes, "people with twins" is a historically disadvantaged group worthy of protection. Are "people with 13 children" also a "minority"? Sometimes life has a way of taking away certain options. If arranging for car seats for your twins is so hard, then maybe city life isn't for you. I knew people with twins that did just fine in Manhattan (and that means no car), so there's that. A common trope in Manhattan is that after about 2 there is not study demonstrating that front-facing car seats do any good at all. I don't know if this is true, but we all used it to justify stuffing our kids into cabs.
LOL, uncle! OK, for the 0.4% of births that result in twins, this might not be optimal. I never shopped for double strollers. For the 99.6% non-twin city dwellers in need of the occasional car ride, it's a solution to your "freedom" complaint.
I didn't realize that your pretend person was married or otherwise attached.
Since you invented that scenario in your head, why can't you also imagine a scenario where a city dweller has an easier time getting to an interview than someone who lives in the burbs and has to drive in to the city center or park-n-ride at a commuter rail station?
On the contrary, it is so safe that when Consumer Reports accidentally doubled the test-crash speed in their car seat test, it was the only one (maybe two?) that still managed to pass. It was the "Sin N Stroll" - not sure if it is an option outside the US. It was a really, really shitty stroller - but handy as hell when traveling.
But if you are in Europe, I believe you do have superior car-seat standards - especially when it comes to side-impacts.
Do you think it will be gradual like that? I would think that electric would completely take over as soon as it is economically feasible.
But maybe you are right, people will cling to what they know for less rational reasons, or fleet vehicles will still be gasoline until there is a charging infrastructure that your typical Hertz customer can use. There probably is more inertia than I realize.
There is a big difference between $3000 (moderate DSLR) and $30000 (base electric vehicle).
Sure there is - my 1970s AE-1 still works as well today as it did 40 years ago. Sure it's had repairs to the auto exposure circuit and the film feed, but it's exactly as useful today as it was in the 70s. The same is not true of a 40-year-old car without major restorations, probably at least twice by now.
My point is, for the vast majority of us, cars are worthless after about 10 years or so - so the idea that I'll be resistant to change is not going to come from my attachment to my depreciating investment. My camera, on the other hand, is now a paperweight, despite functioning perfectly.
Almost every day the guy/gal in front of me entering the highway merges doing about 45. This despite the longest merge lane you've ever seen and the highway averaging about 65. 50% of the time they are either texting or chatting on the phone. When I manage to be the first in line at the red light, it's like winning pole position for all the joy it brings me.
Yup, the average car age in the US is approaching 12 years. I don't know if the distribution is normal (I assume there is a huge falloff...), but that implies gasoline demand staying pretty high at least until 2017+12. Even if you believe this 8 year number, that's 2017+12+8 before it really goes off the cliff.
I'm definitely on the higher end of the wage range, and we buy used. I don't fault people who buy new if it makes them happy, but for us it feels like throwing money away. We only commute 5-10 miles, so our cars tend to age-out rather than wear out.
And to be honest, I actually like the fleet vehicles that make up most late-model used cars. They tend to have cloth interiors and simple stereo systems without all the nav and stuff that is obsolete before you drive off the lot. They also tend not to have the nicey-nices and extras that sell cars at the dealership, but reduce the reliability of the car. Leather smells, looks, and wears great, but it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer - even with seat heaters.
you'd like to apply for is located 40 minutes away by car, but 2 hours or more by public transport,
What? So you get a zipcar for the interview and if you get the job move to a different apartment. Is our life so cushy that this scenario qualifies as a real problem?
You are using all sorts of words that don't make any sense... driveway? I live in the 'burbs now, but I had two kids in NYC and we did just fine using zipcars and Hertz. We had a cool car seat that converted into a stroller (it was also great at the airport), and the infant seats are really easy to just belt in. Freedom is having every store deliver to your doorman!
I know you are skeptical because I thought we were nuts for having kids in NYC, but it was actually really a cool place to have very small children. We moved before they got too big, so I can't say how older kids fare. It was pretty safe, but I'm not sure I'd let my 7 and 10 year old wander around like I do in the 'burbs.
We (the USA) may have a "private market", but it's not "free" in most places when it comes to utilities. There is little difference between a tightly-regulated monopolist and a government-owned provider. The corporation gets its charter from government and is subject to rate controls... it's really just a quasi-independent extension of government that leverages other people's money for capital improvements rather than taxes, fees, and municipal bonds.
In the places where there is actual competition (we recently got both FIOS and Comcast), there is indeed a speed and cost race afoot. It's a wonderful example of the free market in effect. But most places aren't like that.
"Worth" is a funny word. If you mean monetary worth, then there isn't really much inherent value in music - at least not recorded or written music - thus the perceived need for copyright. If you mean worth as in, things I value (e.g. friends, family, hobbies, free time, etc.), then I'd say it is very valuable. I mean, look at all the people commenting here, at all the traditional media and websites devoted to music, at the hoards that attend concerts. I spend a very large amount of time listening to and discovering music, so to me it is "worth" quite a bit - even if I don't directly pay for it much at all.
I think you just have to adapt. Looking through music at a curated record store was incredibly hard (and expensive!). If you were really lucky, you'd run into an employee who had the same tastes that you did (or at least understood your taste) and you were down $60 and a couple of weeks of repeat listening. Even if you hated the album on first play, you spend good money on it and damnit, you'd listen a couple of times. Sometimes, that record that you initially hated became a lifelong favorite.
Now you do the same thing, but you either look in the comments for other like-minded people, or you let the competing algorithms have their way with you. Listen to a couple of cycles on Pandora without getting too aggressive on the skip and thumbs-down, and you'll probably hear some stuff that tickles your fancy. Spotify has thousands of curated playlists - you just need to find someone who likes similar music to yourself and let it fly. Both Spotify and YouTube have automatic recommendations, which I personally find a mixed bag, but sometimes there are some real gems.
Is it time consuming? Yeah. But so was waiting for that perfect song to come on the radio to hit "record". So was calling in to the radio station. So was spending hours listening to Americas Top 40 every weekend. I suspect you are underestimating the amount of time you devoted to music as a kid.
And even if you like older music, it's all out there waiting to be discovered. All the old stuff is on the 'net now, too, and there is no way you heard it all.
Again, you are not even looking. It sounds like you want music that sounds like its from another period - which lucky for you people are still making. What is it exactly you are looking for that you can't find?
I don't know what planet you are living on, but music is more diverse and accessible than it has ever been. In the 80s you basically had two choices for recorded music - hang out at the record store with a few thousand titles hand-selected by the record store's buyer, or hang out at the independent record store with a few hundred titles hand-selected by the owner. That was it. Now you can select from millions of signed and unsigned artists from all over the world, and the cost of recording has come down so much that you can get better quality than what the Beetles had to work with for virtually free. If you are bored of today's music, you have no one to blame but yourself.
All that information is still there. All the streaming services that I use have more info on the current track being played, and it is way more comprehensive than the liner notes ever were. Sure, I'll miss the occasional novelty like when Cheech and Chong included a giant rolling paper in the LP, but honestly the internet is far more informative.
Slashdot Mirror
So I have sympathy for people in residential areas who deal with renters - but I kind of have a part of my brain that thinks that our system of landlord-dominated cities is probably not the best way to do things. With that said, it should be pretty easy to crack down on - just search for local listings on AirBnB. If I'm bothered by my neighbor running their place as a hotel, I'll take it up with the township. I have a neighbor that did just that when someone was renting a local property on AirBnB and using it to host big parties. If your locality is not taking action, that's not really a problem with AirBnB.
Uber the company seems to be run by a guy with serious personality problems, but the concept is sound - frankly, taxi services have no one to blame but themselves for not making a smartphone app and putting some money into computerized dispatch years ago. And taxi companies have been treating drivers like shit for decades. If Uber went out of business today, we'd still have Lyft and whatever other options spring up to replace it. Uber drivers would need to spend all of about 2 hours to become Lyft drivers. And again, once cars are driving themselves the whole operation becomes one of almost pure logistics and the driver
"changing jobs and moving your entire life over to someplace else"
Right, this is why young people today are living in apartments close to where they work - so it isn't so dramatic to move. I'm definitely not a millennial, but I did the same thing until my wife made me buy a house.
And all this, just because you can't bridge that 40 minute commute without a car.
Yes, this particular imaginary scenario is pretty dire for our hero. Can I propose an even more likely imaginary scenario? Mr. GenX has a family of 4 and they live in Happyville, a suburb of Happy City. In no traffic, it's a simple 40-minute commute. Mr. GenX has an opportunity in Happy City, but decides against it because his daily commute would be to rough. Meanwhile, Mr. Millennial lives in Happy City and can walk or ride the bus to this same opportunity.
I guess it all depends on what you think is more likely - a missed job opportunity in the medium-density suburbs or a missed job opportunity in the high-density city. It probably depends largely on what you do. I know someone who just had to uproot their entire family to split the distance between Manhattan (where her new job is) and Philly (where the husband has his business). Commuting into Manhattan by car is not a realistic option, so they bought a new house near the NJT commuter train. Life sucks sometimes, people make hard choices - let's not pooh-pooh an idea just because it won't fit one specific imaginary scenario.
We can pretend the common ownership solution will work and the market will solve the edge cases somehow
No, we don't need to pretend at all - we just need to not get hung up on perfection being the enemy of improvement. It is often very cost-effective to use the best option everyone except the edge cases, and then carve out exceptions as they come along.
Take public transit as it exists today - most cities will have wheelchair access on buses and maybe even some trains, but anything beyond that and you are not using the normal bus. Instead, they contract out a small fleet of specialized buses or cabs equipped to handle the more severely handicapped.
So yeah, you might have to pay more than everyone else to maintain your own car - just like you do today. And so will anyone with a special need. You'll still benefit from the traffic reductions and your twins will grow out of car seats before you blink. I know people hate Uber, but that's because they treat the drivers like shit - and they are actively trying to get rid of the drivers. AirBnB's main problem is racial discrimination, and hopefully they'll figure out a way to address that - but at the end of the day it's not AirBnB doing the discriminating, and the expectation that a real estate company can significantly address a huge social problem is a bit unfair.
More drama! Yes, "people with twins" is a historically disadvantaged group worthy of protection. Are "people with 13 children" also a "minority"? Sometimes life has a way of taking away certain options. If arranging for car seats for your twins is so hard, then maybe city life isn't for you. I knew people with twins that did just fine in Manhattan (and that means no car), so there's that. A common trope in Manhattan is that after about 2 there is not study demonstrating that front-facing car seats do any good at all. I don't know if this is true, but we all used it to justify stuffing our kids into cabs.
Congrats! You are one of the few people who live beyond the scope of this discussion. Feel free to ignore it.
LOL, uncle! OK, for the 0.4% of births that result in twins, this might not be optimal. I never shopped for double strollers. For the 99.6% non-twin city dwellers in need of the occasional car ride, it's a solution to your "freedom" complaint.
I didn't realize that your pretend person was married or otherwise attached.
Since you invented that scenario in your head, why can't you also imagine a scenario where a city dweller has an easier time getting to an interview than someone who lives in the burbs and has to drive in to the city center or park-n-ride at a commuter rail station?
You are right, but in this case it was a car seat called the "Sit N Stroll" that had retractible wheels.
On the contrary, it is so safe that when Consumer Reports accidentally doubled the test-crash speed in their car seat test, it was the only one (maybe two?) that still managed to pass. It was the "Sin N Stroll" - not sure if it is an option outside the US. It was a really, really shitty stroller - but handy as hell when traveling.
But if you are in Europe, I believe you do have superior car-seat standards - especially when it comes to side-impacts.
Do you think it will be gradual like that? I would think that electric would completely take over as soon as it is economically feasible.
But maybe you are right, people will cling to what they know for less rational reasons, or fleet vehicles will still be gasoline until there is a charging infrastructure that your typical Hertz customer can use. There probably is more inertia than I realize.
There is a big difference between $3000 (moderate DSLR) and $30000 (base electric vehicle).
Sure there is - my 1970s AE-1 still works as well today as it did 40 years ago. Sure it's had repairs to the auto exposure circuit and the film feed, but it's exactly as useful today as it was in the 70s. The same is not true of a 40-year-old car without major restorations, probably at least twice by now.
My point is, for the vast majority of us, cars are worthless after about 10 years or so - so the idea that I'll be resistant to change is not going to come from my attachment to my depreciating investment. My camera, on the other hand, is now a paperweight, despite functioning perfectly.
Almost every day the guy/gal in front of me entering the highway merges doing about 45. This despite the longest merge lane you've ever seen and the highway averaging about 65. 50% of the time they are either texting or chatting on the phone. When I manage to be the first in line at the red light, it's like winning pole position for all the joy it brings me.
Yup, the average car age in the US is approaching 12 years. I don't know if the distribution is normal (I assume there is a huge falloff...), but that implies gasoline demand staying pretty high at least until 2017+12. Even if you believe this 8 year number, that's 2017+12+8 before it really goes off the cliff.
I'm definitely on the higher end of the wage range, and we buy used. I don't fault people who buy new if it makes them happy, but for us it feels like throwing money away. We only commute 5-10 miles, so our cars tend to age-out rather than wear out.
And to be honest, I actually like the fleet vehicles that make up most late-model used cars. They tend to have cloth interiors and simple stereo systems without all the nav and stuff that is obsolete before you drive off the lot. They also tend not to have the nicey-nices and extras that sell cars at the dealership, but reduce the reliability of the car. Leather smells, looks, and wears great, but it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer - even with seat heaters.
you'd like to apply for is located 40 minutes away by car, but 2 hours or more by public transport,
What? So you get a zipcar for the interview and if you get the job move to a different apartment. Is our life so cushy that this scenario qualifies as a real problem?
You are using all sorts of words that don't make any sense... driveway? I live in the 'burbs now, but I had two kids in NYC and we did just fine using zipcars and Hertz. We had a cool car seat that converted into a stroller (it was also great at the airport), and the infant seats are really easy to just belt in. Freedom is having every store deliver to your doorman!
I know you are skeptical because I thought we were nuts for having kids in NYC, but it was actually really a cool place to have very small children. We moved before they got too big, so I can't say how older kids fare. It was pretty safe, but I'm not sure I'd let my 7 and 10 year old wander around like I do in the 'burbs.
We (the USA) may have a "private market", but it's not "free" in most places when it comes to utilities. There is little difference between a tightly-regulated monopolist and a government-owned provider. The corporation gets its charter from government and is subject to rate controls... it's really just a quasi-independent extension of government that leverages other people's money for capital improvements rather than taxes, fees, and municipal bonds.
In the places where there is actual competition (we recently got both FIOS and Comcast), there is indeed a speed and cost race afoot. It's a wonderful example of the free market in effect. But most places aren't like that.
Yeah, I'm not claiming it's the most valuable thing to all of humanity.
"Worth" is a funny word. If you mean monetary worth, then there isn't really much inherent value in music - at least not recorded or written music - thus the perceived need for copyright. If you mean worth as in, things I value (e.g. friends, family, hobbies, free time, etc.), then I'd say it is very valuable. I mean, look at all the people commenting here, at all the traditional media and websites devoted to music, at the hoards that attend concerts. I spend a very large amount of time listening to and discovering music, so to me it is "worth" quite a bit - even if I don't directly pay for it much at all.
Rolling Stones :) I never actually saw the working zipper version - I'm too young and it was just a picture later on.
I think you just have to adapt. Looking through music at a curated record store was incredibly hard (and expensive!). If you were really lucky, you'd run into an employee who had the same tastes that you did (or at least understood your taste) and you were down $60 and a couple of weeks of repeat listening. Even if you hated the album on first play, you spend good money on it and damnit, you'd listen a couple of times. Sometimes, that record that you initially hated became a lifelong favorite.
Now you do the same thing, but you either look in the comments for other like-minded people, or you let the competing algorithms have their way with you. Listen to a couple of cycles on Pandora without getting too aggressive on the skip and thumbs-down, and you'll probably hear some stuff that tickles your fancy. Spotify has thousands of curated playlists - you just need to find someone who likes similar music to yourself and let it fly. Both Spotify and YouTube have automatic recommendations, which I personally find a mixed bag, but sometimes there are some real gems.
Is it time consuming? Yeah. But so was waiting for that perfect song to come on the radio to hit "record". So was calling in to the radio station. So was spending hours listening to Americas Top 40 every weekend. I suspect you are underestimating the amount of time you devoted to music as a kid.
And even if you like older music, it's all out there waiting to be discovered. All the old stuff is on the 'net now, too, and there is no way you heard it all.
Again, you are not even looking. It sounds like you want music that sounds like its from another period - which lucky for you people are still making. What is it exactly you are looking for that you can't find?
I don't know what planet you are living on, but music is more diverse and accessible than it has ever been. In the 80s you basically had two choices for recorded music - hang out at the record store with a few thousand titles hand-selected by the record store's buyer, or hang out at the independent record store with a few hundred titles hand-selected by the owner. That was it. Now you can select from millions of signed and unsigned artists from all over the world, and the cost of recording has come down so much that you can get better quality than what the Beetles had to work with for virtually free. If you are bored of today's music, you have no one to blame but yourself.
You can still buy posters. Do we pay problem solvers a commission around here?
All that information is still there. All the streaming services that I use have more info on the current track being played, and it is way more comprehensive than the liner notes ever were. Sure, I'll miss the occasional novelty like when Cheech and Chong included a giant rolling paper in the LP, but honestly the internet is far more informative.