Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Monday Evening Open Thread: *Anything* Is Possible!

Monday Evening Open Thread: *Anything* Is Possible!

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A dog might enjoy a fireworks display, even.

Some exceptions may apply…

Oh, to have the trust of Vladimir and Estragon!

Reader Interactions

162Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    • Elon Musk is no longer the wealthiest person, according to Forbes, after a decline in Tesla share price meant that LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault knocked him from his lofty perch.
    • Musk held the title of the world’s wealthiest man since September 2021, when he overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
    • Arnault made his fortune building the world’s largest luxury conglomerate, which includes brands like Louis Vuitton but also Tiffany, Tag Heuer, and Celine
  3. 3.

    M31

    anyone here play the early 90’s video game “Spectre”? you drive a tank around and shoot stuff, all sharp edges everywhere, lol looks just like that stupid truck

    it was a fun game though

    eta:  lol there’s a web version:  spectre3d.com/web-alpha/

  6. 6.

    Another Scott

    @M31: Zooks!  I don’t think I ever played that, so I had to try it.  It made me dizzy moving around.

    Not as frenetic as Centipede, and that’s a good thing!

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (“AARP page??! Really??!!!ONE”)

  8. 8.

    Alison Rose

    Anything is possible? Does that include Santos getting yeeted into a Brazilian jail?

    Brazilian Authorities Will Revive Fraud Case Against George Santos (NYT gift link)

    When Representative-elect George Santos takes his seat in Congress on Tuesday, he will do so under the shadow of active investigations by federal and local prosecutors into potential criminal activity during his two congressional campaigns.
    But an older criminal case may be more pressing: Brazilian law enforcement authorities intend to revive fraud charges against Mr. Santos, and will seek his formal response, prosecutors told The New York Times on Monday.
    The matter, which stemmed from an incident in 2008 regarding a stolen checkbook, had been suspended for the better part of a decade because the police were unable to locate him.
    …

    If Mr. Santos does not present a defense in the Brazilian case, he will be tried in absentia. If found guilty, Mr. Santos could receive up to five years in prison, plus a fine.

    How do you say “fuck around and find out” in Portuguese?

  10. 10.

    eclare

    I love that the CEO of a company that makes handbags knocked Elmu out of the top spot!

    That truck is fugly.

  11. 11.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I though Musk’s whole Boring Company project in LA was some underground shuttle between the Stadium and some parking lot a few miles away.  Like his electric truck, just a rich man’s toy.

  13. 13.

    eclare

    @HumboldtBlue:  I have thought that for a while.  A company that I did contract work for had beautiful offices downtown, great space.  I read in 2021 that it gave up its lease because people chose to work from home.  Article said the company was looking for a smaller space for in person meetings.

  14. 14.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Somebody on the r/RealTesla subreddit speculated that the Whole Mars Catalog account is a Musk sockpuppet. I’d believe it

  19. 19.

    Steeplejack

    “Official spokeswoman of the CyberTruck” above reminds me of this classic story from The Onion:

    New Video Game Technology Finally Allows Rendering of Smaller Breasts

    LAS VEGAS — The buzz at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show was all about a new breakthrough in the field of high-resolution 3-D graphics that has made it possible to render average-sized breasts on female video game characters. “For too long, game designers have been creatively stymied by a mammary-imaging technology only capable of rendering one type of breast—a heaving pair of massive, gravity-defying, torpedo-shaped bosoms,” said Warren Hood, developer of the new Vex9 graphics card, which has finally enabled video game wire-frame artists to digitally sculpt breasts as small as B-cups. “At long last, we can give diehard gamers the level of realism they’ve been looking for.”

  20. 20.

    Chetan Murthy

    @HumboldtBlue: It *is*.  I must say, as someone who’s lived/rented in cities since 1991 (Paris, NYC, Boston, Cambridge, SF), I’m a little torn: rents have skyrocketed in cities: if big companies decamping reduces pressure on rents, it will improve quality-of-life for a lot of people.  And it really isn’t so obvious to me that the poorest will suffer: wages at the bottom are so abysmal and rents are so unaffordable for them.  But also: for sure, converting office buildings into residences will do even more to reduce pressure on rents.

  23. 23.

    SpaceUnit

    If one of those giant robots in the Transformer movies took a shit it would look like that truck.

  28. 28.

    Martin

    Stamping steel is an expensive and difficult part of car making. Finding a way to eliminate that step is a noble effort. A better solution is to make smaller cars that don’t need it rather than bigger trucks that look like a doorstop.

    I know this view is deemed by most to be impossible, but the US auto market is really struggling. The EV market has hit the production wall. The original $39K F-150 Lightning is now $55K – sticker. The charging network isn’t materializing – the business model doesn’t work, and nobody has proposed one that will. I wouldn’t be investing in a new car here. Buy a used hybrid/plug in hybrid, something small. Change is coming.

  29. 29.

    kalakal

    That must be the first vehicle designed on Tinkercad.

    Also I have a feeling the driver’s field of view must be rubbish

  31. 31.

    Steeplejack

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’ll let Suzanne weigh in, but I would think the plumbing alone would be a big problem—going from a few restrooms on each floor to separate bathrooms and kitchen plumbing for a large number of apartment units.

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @kalakal:

    Too lazy to look it up, but someone on Twitter said the CyberTruck makes the Honda Element, which had notorious blind spots, look like a magical glass vehicle with 360° views.

  36. 36.

    West of the Rockies

    Is Kanye West really missing?

    Elmo has been kinda quiet for a few days.

    Are these two loons pursuing some sort of damage control?

  37. 37.

    frosty

    @HumboldtBlue: ​Suzanne commented awhile back why office buildings don’t work for residences. It’s better to tear it down and rebuild.​ One example: Not enough windows. What do you do with all the space in the center of the floor?

  38. 38.

    eclare

    @Steeplejack:   If people can turn old school buildings into condos, they can turn office buildings into condos.  At least with a relatively modern office building the electrical wiring is already there.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    Amusing schadenfreude for the evening:

    Kevin McCarthy scrambles to firm up his speaker bid as vote looms

    House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and his allies have spent the holiday weekendworking the phones and meeting with members, trying to salvage his career goal of becoming speaker on Tuesday as Republicans continue to argue over whether he deserves the top spot.

    While an overwhelming majority of Republicans want to elect McCarthy (Calif.) as speaker, roughly 15 have put the outcome in serious doubt. McCarthy can afford to lose only four Republicans in Tuesday’s floor vote, and the razor-thin margin has emboldened staunch conservatives within the House Freedom Caucus, who have made specific demands in exchange for their votes.

    If McCarthy fails to win the gavel on the first ballot Tuesday, it would be a historic loss: No leader vying for speaker has lost a first-round vote in a century.

    “Two trains are going 100 miles per hour and everyone is wondering: Which one will survive?” one senior GOP aide said in trying to capture the mood within the conference.

    I never did like those math problems back in elementary school.

  44. 44.

    M31

    @Another Scott: hahahah Centipede!  one of those games that just gets more and more frantic until you lose

    the version that Ambrosia Games (early Mac game producer, long defunct) did had the best sound

  45. 45.

    M31

    @scav: getting elected is rather like a pizza box, let it be true.

    and sometimes you end up in a Romanian jail

    so add a Brazilian one already

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    The “truck” is stupid. MotorTrend has a few reasons why (from 2019):

    I like the first picture, where it looks like it’s about to tip over with a bike or two in the bed… :-/

    Those sail panels are my real gripe. This thing has Gen-I Ridgeline syndrome. The sail panels are impossible to reach over, so getting anything in or out of the bed means climbing in the back and walking up to the front—and forget about stepping on the tire and climbing over. Whether tools or toys, that’s a massive pain in the ass. Tesla says the sail panels are a key part of the truck’s strength, but other unibody trucks both past and present have gotten along fine without them, casting doubt on that rationale.

    Those panels also means there will be far fewer accessories for work or play because you can’t mount them to the bed rails. Outfitters are no doubt thinking about accessories for the Cybertruck, but a lot of them are low-volume companies that aren’t going to spend big on prototyping and developing parts until there are enough Cybertrucks sold to make a solid business case.

    You can pretty much forget about the commercial market, though, and that’s a bad idea. A huge portion of truck sales are to fleets and working professionals like contractors, plumbers, welders, and more. Not being able to mount lumber racks to the bed rails is bad enough, but making the bed an integral part of the body means it can’t be removed and replaced with boxes, a flatbed, or other equipment. Strict emissions regulations and high fuel costs in Tesla’s home market of California could make the Cybertruck attractive to a lot of people who use their trucks for work, but not in its present configuration.

    It’s for posers and speculators, not for people who actually need a work truck.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    Couldn’t even go 48 hours into an otherwise unsullied new year without dragging in a certain somebody whose name is 2 – count ’em, 2 – four-letter words, huh?

    With apologies to Certs: “He’s two, two, two twits in one.”

    //

  50. 50.

    Miss Bianca

    @HumboldtBlue: Just looking at the headline all I can think is, “Yeah, that sounds right and all, but Suzanne (among others) has given a lot of very cogent reasons why converting office space to housing ain’t gonna happen.”

    ETA: And I see a lot of others got there before me. ;)

  55. 55.

    gene108

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I think Suzanne, our resident architect, has explained that converting office buildings into housing would not be very practical

    She has posted this. From what she’s written, the offices would be torn down and new residential units built.

  60. 60.

    Miss Bianca

    @eclare: Old school buildings had a *lot* of windows. Which opened. ; ) Plus, architecturally speaking anyway, they’re far more aesthetically pleasing than a lot of modern office space. Still, point taken.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    I did, in the last century, own a few pickup trucks. Or I should say that my business did, because on occasion I had to deliver/pick up work. But I moved my business about 35 yrs ago and downsized the size of things I would build. I no longer needed a pickup. All that said I would never purchase that ugly, useless thing as a work vehicle. And as jacking it up a foot and putting on huge off road tires seems rather ridiculous, even more ridiculous than on a full sized actual pickup, which is what about 20% of the vehicles around me seem to be.

    @Baud:

    Pretty crappy modernization. More like Buck Rodgers animation.

  62. 62.

    Kay

    Brendan McPhillips just wrapped the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a grueling race during which the candidate suffered a stroke, and fought his way back despite his lingering auditory processing issues, not to mention an opponent with deep pockets in Republican Mehmet Oz.
    One might say McPhillips had more than earned a little time off. But instead of taking an extended vacation, he jumped into his next job: as campaign manager for former Philadelphia City Councilor Helen Gym, in her bid to be the next mayor of Philadelphia.

    A long time ago when I was a front pager, I wrote about Gym’s first city council race because I had met her at a national public school event and she was great. she won that and she kept winning.
    So nice to see her moving up :)

  64. 64.

    prostratedragon

    @Steeplejack: ​ The author suggests some kind of shared appreciation structure with government could be used to provide the considerable financing that would be needed to make those changes a go. No idea if it could work, bt it’s certainly what I’d try to model.

  65. 65.

    eclare

    @Miss Bianca:   Agree about the aesthetics of older buildings.  Not saying every office building could be converted to Apts, but some probably could be.

  66. 66.

    Ruckus

    @Steeplejack:

    I had a Honda Element and it wasn’t near as bad as a full sized no side windows work van. Which I’ve also owned. Or a box truck. Or a semi. Or many other vehicles on the road.

  67. 67.

    Chetan Murthy

    @eclare: Here in SF,  a pretty [ETA: as in *pretty high*] many-story parking garage was torn down and a condo building was erected in its place.  It was about the same size as many of the office buildings in the area.  The replacement had these inserts — little plazas inset into the sides, giving more window area to the building.  I suspect that was so that owners of units near the center of the building would also have windows.

    One suspects that that is impossible to retrofit.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Read that a couple of days ago, and the author does address the fact that office buildings have windowless cores, plumbing that would need to be modified, etc. IIRC, he or she says it would require a massive overhaul of zoning, building codes and occupant expectations but might be worth doing anyway.

  70. 70.

    Ken

    @Alison Rose: suspended for the better part of a decade because the police were unable to locate him.

    Cockroach to its buddies: “What’s this giant switch do?”

  73. 73.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: “Two trains are going 100 miles per hour and everyone is wondering: Which one will survive?”

    It sounded like the trolley problem to me, except being played by sociopaths.

  75. 75.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Listening to the Chris Hayes program– Ali Velshi filling in– and chuckling over the on-going saga of Kevin McCarthy and his desperate quest for dignity. Reporter says he still doesn’t have 2018 and his “allies” are saying it might not happen. Gotta say, my Occam’s Razor sense has been betting he would.

    Couldn’t happen to a putzier putz.

    ETA: LOL. The discussion has now moved on to “Is he as dumb as people say?”

  76. 76.

    schrodingers_cat

    @dmsilev: Mixing two liquids of two different concentrations were the worst of that lot of problems.

    My Kitchen Aid stand mixer arrived this weekend still haven’t used it. I need to find a place to put it when not in use.

  79. 79.

    eclare

    @schrodingers_cat:   My aunt recently got her daughter in law’s old stand mixer when the daughter in law got a new one.  I think so far she uses it for mashed potatoes, both white potatoes and sweet.  She said the sweet potatoes turned out especially well.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Jake Sherman @JakeSherman 1h
    This is very interesting. DON BACON tells us if McCarthy ends up bowing out, he may run a candidate against SCALISE if he runs. He said the candidate he has in mind is currently serving in congress, but won’t be in the next congress.
    He declined to say whether it was fred upton

    I find it only mildly interesting, and only because Bacon is (apparently) willing to go on record as opposing Scalise. All these scenarios are too Sorkin-y for me, and I believe Upton voted to impeach trump? No way are the whackaloons gonna let him have Nancy’s gavel (I hope she carved her name in it, but she’s very proper and I’m sure she didn’t)

  81. 81.

    David ⛄ 🎅The Establishment🎄 🦌 🕎 Koch

    Watching “Inherit the Wind” on TCM

    Spencer Tracy as Clarence Darrow and Fredrick March as William Jennings Bryan are pretty stiff. But Gene Kelly as the cynical H.L. Mencken is electric.

  85. 85.

    lowtechcyclist

    @dmsilev: ​
     

    The fun part is, apparently the new Speaker swears in the House members into the new Congress after s/he’s elected, so there is no House of Representatives until the Speaker is elected.

    Personally, I’m rooting for a fresh head of lettuce to wilt before they choose a Speaker.

  86. 86.

    HumboldtBlue

    This is not good.

    San Francisco and some nearby coastal areas could see another 2 to 4 inches of rain, and residents just north of the Bay Area could see rainfall totals reaching 4 to 8 inches, according to AccuWeather. The Los Angeles area could see up to 2 inches of rain. The storms will result in a “high risk of dangerous and perhaps life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides,” especially in the northern and central parts of California, AccuWeather said.

  88. 88.

    M31

    I’m just waiting for 5 republicans to have a tantrum and do a protest vote for Nancy Pelosi and the Dems instantly send their votes in and she wins

  93. 93.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Chetan Murthy: I am not a baker but lucky me, I live near a Tous Les Jours that makes wonderful Japanese milk bread. Among other tasty delights, the only downfall being it’s pretty pricey. The store is funky…like a French patisserie/Hello Kitty car crash.

  94. 94.

    lowtechcyclist

    @satby: ​
     

    Interesting that not only is Washington, DC proper #1 on the list, but Alexandria, VA is #3 and Hyattsville, MD is #10. Both in the DC area, of course.

  95. 95.

    RSA

    @Chetan Murthy:  If residents’ quality of life isn’t a consideration… I’m reminded of this story from a couple of years ago:

    A billionaire donor’s design for a mega dorm that would pack UC Santa Barbara students into largely windowless rooms has drawn widespread criticism and prompted the resignation of a consulting architect…

    McFadden, however, is doubtful of the building’s effectiveness. In an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times, he wrote that the building “attempts to engineer social experiences” by placing communal spaces at the perimeter of the building, which would receive natural light. He described each apartment as a “sealed” environment, and likened it to “living in a janitor’s closet buried at the center of an Ikea warehouse, with the closest window somewhere back at the entrance.”

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That Whole Mars Catolog guy’s tweets got even better:

       Tesla has been eating share for years without fully competing in major segments like SUVs and trucks.

    Even a fool can see what will happen as they address all major vehicle segments. If legacy auto loses just 20% of their sales it will be a major hit.

    Someone replied:

        No one’s gonna lose 20% of their sales to that piece of crap.

  98. 98.

    M31

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    yeah, some votes for Trump would be just the performative bullshit they would pull and pretend they really stuck it to the libs and RINOs

    and of course it would be another chance for Trump to lose

  99. 99.

    schrodingers_cat

    From the last thread

    OT did anyone read Roger Cohen’s tongue bath of the BJP junta? NYT is so gross.

    In addition to being a tongue bath for the Sangh. The whole op-ed is gross orientalist claptrap. Cohen has no fucking idea of what he is writing about. He has no knowledge or understanding of his subject. He Columbused India in two weeks.

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    @M31:

    I’m just waiting for 5 republicans to have a tantrum and do a protest vote for Nancy Pelosi and the Dems instantly send their votes in and she wins

    LOL!

  101. 101.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue: Nope. Not good at all.
    NWS Sacramento forecast

    We are going to see moderate to heavy rain on already saturated soils Wednesday and Thursday. This could lead to areas of rapidly developing roadway & urban flooding, with possible impassable roadways due to flooding or flood damage, and rises on creeks, streams, and rivers. Alt text: Flooding Possible. Wednesday – Thursday January 4-5, 2022. Forecast2-4 inches of rain in the Valley, 3-5 inches in the foothills, up to 7 inches in the mountains below 6,000 ft; heaviest Wednesday evening – Thursday morning. Ponding water & urban flooding. Flooding of rivers, creeks & streams.

  102. 102.

    HumboldtBlue

    This is not good. They are administering CPR to a player in the Monday Night Football game. He’s been down for more than 10 minutes.

    @Dan B:

    After reading the article, I did some googling and there are dozens of articles on the issue, including many successful and affordable transitions.

  103. 103.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Geminid:

    That Whole Mars Catolog guy’s tweets got even better:

    I got sucked into that thread on my indoor bike ride. I can’t believe the level of hero worship in this world and especially, the qualifications for being a hero.

  106. 106.

    Dan B

    @Scout211:  I was in San Francisco for the 5 1/2″ rain. Absolutely straight down.  In Marin County to the east 9f Mt. Tam (Novato?) they got 13″ and much of the city flooded.

  109. 109.

    Betty Cracker

    @HumboldtBlue: Was watching when it happened. Jesus, I hope he’s okay, but that did not look good. The hit didn’t seem scary at all. But the aftermath, damn.

  110. 110.

    Dan B

    @HumboldtBlue:  I’ve been in some successful conversions.  They all seemed to be in buildings that were rectangular floor plans so no large ce tral elevator and lobby core and close to exterior windows.  Seattle has loads of 40 – 50 story office towers built in the last decade that would be tough to modify.   Time for Googling.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @HumboldtBlue:

    This is not good. They are administering CPR to a player in the Monday Night Football game. He’s been down for more than 10 minutes.

    Yikes!

  114. 114.

    satby

    @lowtechcyclist: Chicago has done these for quite a while. When a building is architecturally significant or historical but not code compliant for apartments, they preserve the exterior shell and gut and rebuild the interior completely. But the coolest ones retain a lot of the interior charm, usually restored after the rebuild.

  115. 115.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Betty Cracker: ​

    I always think back to Dale Earnhardt. You watch his car hit the wall and think to yourself you’ve seen that crash a thousand times, and yet this time, it snapped the driver’s neck.

    By the way, Twitter is a fucking ghost town, and it fucking sucks that that asshole ruined it.

  117. 117.

    Starfish

    @HumboldtBlue: No. The idea is bad, and people need to quit suggesting this over and over. Where is Suzanne when we need her?

    Like he said, conversion is expensive because those buildings do not have the type of plumbing you need in a house. The lack of sunlight is not just “I live in a sucky dimly lit space” issue. It is a “I live in a fire trap with no escape routes” issue and a “We are still in a pandemic, and I live in a unit with poor ventilation issue.”

    Did you read about all the work it took when they attempted to evacuate the twin towers? How big of a tower do you want to evacuate for various kitchen fires without the ability to use an elevator?

    If we don’t need this office space, then tear it down. Yes, tearing down things creates a lot of trash.

    Rezone the land if it really needs to be rezoned, but some jerks need to quit suggesting, “Let’s put poor people in really terrible housing.”

  118. 118.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @MisterForkbeard:

    I think that describes why I like it perfectly. It’s not a good-looking truck/vehicle that I’d like to drive as a daily driver, but it’s cool looking in a goofy way

  119. 119.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ve tuned into ESPN after seeing Humbolt’s comment. The head coaches and several of the players on both teams were in tears. There’s speculation that the hit may have stopped his heart.

    Joe Danneman

    @FOX19Joe

    I’m told Damar Hamlin has a pulse, but is not breathing on his own. He is being transported to UC.

    Needed AED and CPR on the field.

  121. 121.

    satby

    @Starfish: tell me you didn’t read the article I linked, or ones linked within that article, without telling me.

    people, this shit is easy to look up.

    oh, as to your last comment, most of these conversions are high end, not tenements for poor people.

  122. 122.

    WaterGirl

    For the vote tomorrow, I think a few of the Rs vote for Trump or some other candidate – to humiliate Kevin, flex their power, and make sure Kevin knows his place – and then on the second round they vote for Kevin.

    The others surely are too smart to want the job with this slim of a majority.

    Kevin is an idiot.

  123. 123.

    eclare

    @Starfish:   Huge office building from the 1930’s or 1940’s down the street from me was converted to retail on the first few floors then apartments.  Very much in demand and expensive.

    Tried to link but can’t.  If you’re interested Google Crosstown Concourse in Memphis

    ETA>  Checked the website, built in 1927.

  124. 124.

    Suzanne

    @HumboldtBlue: The problem is that office-to-residential is an expensive and difficult conversion. Very difficult to do it affordably. More likely, in most cities, that it would be a teardown-and-rebuild scenario. But that’s fine, too. As long as the land is used, that’s better than an empty building.

  127. 127.

    Scout211

    @Hoppie: Thanks for that link. Very interesting. I heard about the great Sacramento flood when I took visiting family to Old Town for the underground tour but I didn’t realize it was part of a mega flood.  It does sound eerily familiar, doesn’t it?

    From that link:

    In 2012, hydrologists and meteorologists concluded that the precipitation was likely caused by a series of atmospheric rivers that hit the Western United States along the entire West Coast, from Oregon to Southern California.[6]

  128. 128.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Scout211:
    I remember that atmospheric river. If I’m not mistaken, that was one of the storms that literally closed down every roadway into and out of the county. You literally could not get there from here.
    Pretty sure it was the final impetus to re-route 101 around Willits.​

  130. 130.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish:

    No. The idea is bad, and people need to quit suggesting this over and over. Where is Suzanne when we need her? 

    LOL, I am right here.

    The question is not “is it possible to convert a modern office building into a residential building”? The answer is yes. But it’s usually not financially feasible, for all of the reasons you listed and many more. Can you waive the building code and let people have windowless apartments and shared bathrooms/kitchens? Yeah, you could. But in all but the densest parts of the biggest cities, no one’s going to want to live that way, and so the project will cost more than it will make.

    Buildings don’t really get converted all that often, and when they do, it’s usually to “luxury” or Class A, because it’s simply not worth it for a developer to put all that cost in and get anything less than top dollar back out.

    Most buildings aren’t that good, anyway. The land is usually the valuable part.

  131. 131.

    Starfish

    @satby: I skimmed it. It was dumb. It was bringing up the various objections but dismissing them with very little reason.

    If conversions don’t pencil out for private developers, however, they promise profound benefits for cities as a whole. Turning thinly populated office towers into apartment buildings would ease cities’ housing shortages, while boosting both downtown commerce and property values and, therefore, tax revenues.

    The paragraph above is extremely stupid. It glosses over the fact that these would be bad houses and that commercial property tax and residential property tax are different.

    Having poorly-lit new housing is not ideal. But having an acute shortage of affordable housing — and a superabundance of downtown office space — is even worse.

    Let’s create crappy housing for poor people because the writer just doesn’t like them and does not see them as people.

    Given the massive core-to-window depths of contemporary office buildings, converting many such towers to residences will require tolerating some deeply weird floor plans.

    Some residences will be weird fire traps with poor escape routes, but the author doesn’t consider poor people to be people, so I am sure it is fine.

    But as Matt Yglesias argues, some people probably would.

    When someone considers Matt Yglesias as a thought leader, they are telling me that they think that they themselves are dumber than Matt Yglesias.

    Yglesias is definitely an out of touch and lazy intellectual who for sure does not have the best interest of poor people at heart.

    In short, quit telling me to read stupid things more deeply. Stupid things do not suddenly become smart.

  132. 132.

    Suzanne

    @eclare:

    Huge office building from the 1930’s or 1940’s down the street from me was converted to retail on the first few floors then apartments.  Very much in demand and expensive. 

    Prewar buildings are easier to convert than modern buildings due to floorplates. They’re also sometimes architecturally significant, which makes them attractive for luxury apartments. But the vast majority of office buildings in American cities are not nice.

  133. 133.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Hoppie:

    Natural disaster leave a mark. I spent more than an hour watching a documentary about the Big Freeze that brought Britain to a complete and frigid standstill for more than 10 weeks in late 1962-early-1963.

  134. 134.

    kindness

    Elon’s ‘truck’?  Looks like that thing has a shorter bed than an El Camino.  Looks more like a Subaru Brat than a truck.

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish:

    The lack of sunlight is not just “I live in a sucky dimly lit space” issue. It is a “I live in a fire trap with no escape routes” issue and a “We are still in a pandemic, and I live in a unit with poor ventilation issue.” 

    One technical point: a window does not have to open for ventilation or egress. Technically, a glass curtain wall building doesn’t have “windows”, it has glass facade. Ventilation is supplied through a pressurized HVAC system, egress is provided via internal fire corridors, stairways, and passageways.

    Windows are required in R occupancy buildings (there are requirements on size and position from floor) except in high-rise buildings over 75’, which are not evacuated via windows.

    Having said that, I cannot think of any building code I have ever encountered that did not require vision glass into the residence, like a studio apartment.

  136. 136.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @HumboldtBlue:

    I’ve seen that crash. It really doesn’t look that violent. It was the angle and speed at which the car hit the wall that killed Earnhardt. He wasn’t wearing a HANS device; they weren’t mandatory in NASCAR until after his death.

    His 1996 Talladega crash was much more violent and terrifying in comparison and yet he survived that one. He was never quite the same afterwards though

  137. 137.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: Yay! I feel better that you are here.

    New York also has some pretty intense regulations on buildings when it comes to climate change.

    There were some around improving energy efficiency of existing buildings (which was going to be hard for some of the older buildings.)

    Do we get rid of climate change regulation for the sake of building inexpensive housing more rapidly?

    WIth the fires here in Colorado, some of the new climate regulations were removed for people rebuilding after the fire because no one could really say how much the new requirements added to the cost of a house, and everyone felt bad for people who had lost their houses in a fire and had been under insured due to the ridiculous run up in property values.

  138. 138.

    Betty Cracker

    Looks like they’re going to call the MNF game. Seems like that’s the right thing to do. I sure hope the player recovers. This is just awful.

  140. 140.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish: Yes, all of the building codes have gotten much stricter about continuous insulation on facades, energy efficiency, occupancy sensors, water usage, etc etc etc. (Pro tip: most of the building codes used across the country are the same, and then there are a few regional differences, and then that package gets published as a whole new code. But it really isn’t.)

    I am just frustrated by the media reporting on this topic because it usually disregards the financial reality of development. Development is all about looking at the costs in and the profits out, and if it was profitable, you would see it done more already. There is a reason that 9 times out of 10, a developer will tear down an old building and put a new one in its place.

    Besides, the only realistic way to build more affordable housing is to build cheap buildings on cheap land, preferably land that’s already developed so you don’t have to run too many new roads and utilities. Think: duplexes, casitas, granny flats, apartments over the garage.

  141. 141.

    Timill

    @kindness: IIRC from the original release, the bed is a full 6′ – longer than most standard trucks.

     

    IMO, the CyberTruck was never headed for production as is – it was intended to tell Ford/GM/RAM that there was a demand for EV pickups, and if they didn’t meet it, others would.

    So far only Ford has even tried.

  143. 143.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Timill:

    it was intended to tell Ford/GM/RAM that there was a demand for EV pickups, and if they didn’t meet it, others would.

    You’re giving Melon Suk a lotta credit there.  Me, I think it was just one in a long line of nothingburgers grifts intended to get his base all excited and buying Tesla stock.

  145. 145.

    artem1s

    @Starfish:

    “Let’s put poor people in really terrible housing.”

    excellent point. there’s a reason Chicago finally tore down Cabrini-Green towers. high rises are not a good solution to housing problems.

  147. 147.

    Dopey-o

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Suzanne, our resident architect, has explained that converting office buildings into housing would not be very practical

    Dopey-o, our resident lurking architect, worked on a building in Missouri which is under serious consideration for residential conversion. $300,000,000 estimate today.

    eventual cost? Unknowable. Prognosis? Ask Suzanne.

  148. 148.

    Suzanne

    @artem1s: Any urban downtown office-to-residential conversion is not going to be affordable housing, it’s going to be in the higher end of the market. It simply will cost too much to do it for a developer/landlord not to charge top dollar for rent.

    As a very general rule — and there are lots of factors that complicate this — the cost per square foot of a building goes up as the building gets bigger. A single-family house might be $150/square foot, but a high-rise residential building is probably closer to $1000/SF, depending on where it is. The only time ever that poor people are put into big expensive buildings is when the building is owned by a public entity. No private developer will ever do it, unless politics suddenly makes some huge change and we decide to start spending lots of taxpayer dollars on incentives.

  149. 149.

    Timill

    @Chetan Murthy: Doing better than me. Of course, in Tennessee we don’t have bus shelters… :-) If you’re so poor you have to catch a bus, you don’t deserve coddling…  Or something.

    I’ve heard rumors of a Silverado EV, but no actual evidence.

    It helps to remember that Tesla’s official objective isn’t to become the world’s richest EV company, or to dominate the EV market, but to convert the world to EVs. This is not something it can do by itself, but it seems already to have succeeded.

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    This FTFNYT piece is much more realistic about it.

    In Washington, D.C., just one in about 20 office buildings is a good candidate for housing conversion, said Josh Bernstein, chief executive of Bernstein Management, which owns and operates both residential and commercial real estate. The conversion alone might cost about $400 or $500 per usable square foot, Mr. Bernstein added, and would in many cases be more expensive than building a new development.

    A recent Moody’s analysis of New York offices found that just 3 percent of the buildings it tracked would be viable for apartment conversions. The median rent for apartments in New York is $55 per square foot, which just 36 percent of office properties now fall at or below — and on top of that, there’s all the cost of conversion.

    “It’s much easier to theorize about office-to-residential conversions than to execute and profit on them,” Moody’s analysts wrote.

  151. 151.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Timill: Your last para: again, hard disagree.  And while sure Lone Suk popularized the idea at first, the companies that will convert the world to EVs are in China and have nothing to do with Mok Se Nul.  Unless Western car companies get their asses in gear, BYD is gonna run ’em over.

  152. 152.

    Shalimar

    @WaterGirl: I am coming around to the idea that it would be hilarious if enough Democrats voted for McCarthy to make him speaker, and then one of them filed a no-confidence motion the moment he does something offensive.

  153. 153.

    Dopey-o

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: In Downtown LA they are converting many of the older office buildings(1900-30) into lofts, I’m not sure how they’re dealing with the conversion issues(plumbing electrical), but they appear to be doing so.

    In the same city as this 30 story monstrosity, we have converted award-winning schools, a small soda bottling plant, and a huge 100 year old hospital into condos that sell and re-sell. A brewery, a candy factory, jeez I can’t remember them all.

    It can be done, it has been done, and it made a profit.

    This place has a lobby so horrible that you would resist coming home to it. Dark, no relation to the exterior (Saarinen’s Arch and Gateway Mall), no wayfaring, no social space. employees can be coerced into entering the building, but i doubt anyone would want to live there.

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA: The prewar buildings are easier to convert than the modern buildings. Frequently in prewar buildings, the floor plate is rectangular, so more of the area has access to building perimeter for windows, and for running new systems vertically.

    Many modern office buildings have square floorplates and that is not great for residential.

  155. 155.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: ​Dead thread but I really appreciate reading comments from an expert.Ask me about watersheds or stormwater regulations sometime!​​
     
    ETA: Last comment? JR in WV, you’re up next!

  157. 157.

    VOR

    @Chetan Murthy: 10 EV Pickups

    Ford F-150 Lightning
    Rivian R1T
    Tesla Cybertruck
    Lordstown Endurance
    GM Hummer EV
    Chevrolet Silverado EV
    Alpha Wolf
    Atlis XT
    Edison Future EF1-T
    Canoo Pickup

    And I’ve seen an article about Volkswagen considering a pickup version of their ID.Buzz van. Now, we can debate which of these trucks will actually make it to market and which will ship in volume. But the fact is the Tesla Cybertruck is not the only one in the market.

  159. 159.

    PIGL

    @Suzanne: as a résident of Vancouver, i am astonished at the price difference you report as between towers and single family homes.

  160. 160.

    Paul in KY

    If the cybertruck bed is not disassociated from the cab metal, then it’s a fake truck anyway.

  162. 162.

    SteverinoCT

    Really really late, but in Hartford CT a luxury condo building was erected, and then an old office building was converted (interesting– across the street from me; I could watch as it proceeded). Neither is doing well: there is the parking issue, and something no one seems to have mentioned: the local infrastructure. There are some clubs, some delis, some Dunkin’s, but no groceries or other businesses that would support a local urban lifestyle. It’s like living in very dense suburbs; everything is a drive away. The local bus system is (AFAICT– I don’t use it–) optimized for commutes. This is recognized, of course, and at least one small grocery opened. And failed. It’s chicken-and-egg: no amenities, hence no renters, hence no amenities. Hartford’s downtown is pretty small. There’s an opportunity for a supermarket-scale development on the “wrong side of the Interstate” that would be walkable for both the downtown and the rundown sections, but they have fizzled. The new baseball stadium is still going, though (the “Hartford Yard Goats”, a reference to the nearby freight train marshaling yard).

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