Good boi attends the fireworks.
Cc: MOcatmom pic.twitter.com/jfseqtxgK4— DAPPER DON DHARSHI • K A M I L • (@SoloFlow786) January 2, 2023
A dog might enjoy a fireworks display, even.
Some exceptions may apply…
You know how the current truck market is part people who need trucks for utility, and part people who like truck aesthetics?
Ain’t a single soul on the Cybertruck design team who has ever been in the same room with either kind of truck buyer. https://t.co/qpriXELY7I
— Geoff Davidson (@geoffdua) January 2, 2023
lmao look at this shitbox, like a car designed by the 24 hour tactical knife infomercial channel https://t.co/VTRmekmZG6
— kilgore trout, death to putiner (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 1, 2023
brb driving a legacy auto through that panel gap pic.twitter.com/EiwUizvTNl
— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) January 2, 2023
You assume we don't find both of these sexy
— MirCat (Parity) (@TRMirCat) January 1, 2023
one spectacularly terrible thing i just realized about this terrible truck that is never actually going to roll off the lines is that it’s going to be a fucking DISASTER when you combine it with the extremely bright headlights of some new cars https://t.co/ef1DusrEYr
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) January 1, 2023
Sorry, but I can't read anything about the cybertruck without thinking of this and laughing until my stomach hurts pic.twitter.com/VBgmplNFgg
— Cian Maher (@cianmaher0) January 2, 2023
guys, please be careful if you're in downtown LA, someone just broke into my cybertruck and left two more cybertrucks in there pic.twitter.com/rFkycJ0qOc
— Crowsa Luxemburg (@quendergeer) January 2, 2023
Oh, to have the trust of Vladimir and Estragon!
https://t.co/6KfGCCtzJ1 pic.twitter.com/Ql8nbFNKxi
— Jean-Michel Connard (@torriangray) January 2, 2023
WaterGirl
I wold be holding on to that dog’s collar the whole time to make sure he didn’t jump out the window!
Baud
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: https://spectre3d.com/web-alpha/
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
As far as the last tweet about LA traffic goes, it is probably a better bet to wait for Metro to get their projects done, they have a better track record.
prostratedragon
If I remember the story correctly, this one was a what-the-hell-was-wrong-with-me white knuckler: “The Aeroplane,” Mr. Selfridge.
ETA linked because it was precisely coming on when I saw AL’s post.
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”)
HumboldtBlue
This was an interesting read.
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)
How do you say “fuck around and find out” in Portuguese?
scav
Sorry for the NYFT, but apparently Brazil is reopening charges against the politician sometimes named Santos. oh please, getting elected is rather like a pizza box, let it be true.
eclare
I love that the CEO of a company that makes handbags knocked Elmu out of the top spot!
That truck is fugly.
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.
schrodingers_cat
Not a car person but that is one ugly truck.
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.
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
Baud
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Google recommended this to me. Thought you might like it.
https://mymodernmet.com/benjamin-barakat-night-photography/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Am I the only one who thinks the Cyber Truck looks sort of cool?
Alison Rose
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No, you aren’t.
Elon agrees :P
Amir Khalid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Probably.
Steeplejack
“Official spokeswoman of the CyberTruck” above reminds me of this classic story from The Onion:
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.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No, the Boring Co. pilot project in LA went from the SpaceX campus a mile to an intersection in Hawthorne, it does not go to any stadium or really anywhere.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
@Chetan Murthy:
I think Suzanne, our resident architect, has explained that converting office buildings into housing would not be very practical
SpaceUnit
If one of those giant robots in the Transformer movies took a shit it would look like that truck.
gwangung
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): As…something. But not as a truck.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Alison Rose:
@Amir Khalid:
😪
Now that you mention it, I don’t think I want to be in the same company as Elmo
Baud
FWIW, 2023 is actually the Year of the Water Rabbit.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: A lot of his shots are with an astro-moded camera, maybe someday.
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.
kalakal
That must be the first vehicle designed on Tinkercad.
Also I have a feeling the driver’s field of view must be rubbish
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The truck could be cool looking in another timeline. But few people these days are going to want a vehicle whose design screams “I’m with Elmo.”
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.
HumboldtBlue
@Alison Rose:
foda-se e descubra
eclare
@kalakal: The blind spots are just the back and both sides…
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.
Steeplejack
@eclare:
😹
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?
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?
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.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: 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.
kalakal
@eclare: Better than I thought then :-)
@Steeplejack: heh, I can believe it, the angles are bizarre
dmsilev
Amusing schadenfreude for the evening:
Kevin McCarthy scrambles to firm up his speaker bid as vote looms
I never did like those math problems back in elementary school.
Hoppie
And here I thought no vehicle would ever be fuglier than the 2001 Pontiac Aztek…
MattF
Truth in advertising.
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
M31
and sometimes you end up in a Romanian jail
so add a Brazilian one already
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… :-/
It’s for posers and speculators, not for people who actually need a work truck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Hoppie:
Cybertruck does seem like a modernized El Camino.
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.”
//
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: Only with worse blind spots.
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. ;)
M31
the truck is more like a Subaru Brat designed in an early DOS version of Auto-Cad
WaterGirl
@Baud: On the planet where everyone has bad taste? :-)
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: All I can think when I look at it is…”That’s…supposed to be a *truck*?”
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I hope it comes with an 8-track player.
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
She has posted this. From what she’s written, the offices would be torn down and new residential units built.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: I loved word problems!
kalakal
It’ll never sell with the MAGAts. It sucks at rolling coal
prostratedragon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Good bet.
Steeplejack
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Foghat’s Greatest Hits to the first 10,000 buyers!
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.
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.
Kay
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 :)
Baud
@Kay:
👍
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
WaterGirl
@Kay: This one?
Ken
Cockroach to its buddies: “What’s this giant switch do?”
danielx
@Hoppie:
I had the exact same thought – the Aztek, the vehicle that killed off Pontiac.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@danielx: oh lord, I’d completely forgotten about the Aztec.
Damn near forgot about Pontiac
Ken
It sounded like the trolley problem to me, except being played by sociopaths.
danielx
@Alison Rose:
From elected House representative to convicted felon in one swell foop.
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?”
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.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: Tossing this recipe into the race for inaugurating the mixer: https://www.chopstickchronicles.com/shokupan-japanese-fluffy-white-bread/
Shokupan! You gotta knead the dough for 20min on med-high to get it to rise correctly, so no way this is gonna be doable by hand except for people with hands of steel! With a kitchen-aid, it’s effortless!
Yum!
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Been enjoying every minute of that haircut’s serial humiliations. I hope he gets the Liz Truss experience.
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.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
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)
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.
eclare
@Betty Cracker: Someone commented earlier that we need to get a head of lettuce…
TriassicSands
Designed by someone who has never used a truck for work.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eclare: Michael Beschloss is on it
I just love how the trump era has turned even the earnest Mr Beschloss into a snark-slinger.
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.
HumboldtBlue
This is not good.
satby
@Miss Bianca: dropping this here for all y’alls:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/26/the-top-10-cities-turning-old-office-buildings-into-apartments.html
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
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I put mine on the counter and made it a little slipcover for when it is not in use.
Dan B
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The number of bathrooms and kitchens on each floor of an office building plus running plumbing and wiring up many floors, converting HVAC, would be a staggeringly expensive retrofit.
WaterGirl
@sab: If you put a big appliance away, you will never use it. That’s true for me, anyway!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@M31: Here’s crazy Andy Biggs promising something “Revolutionary”. I’d bet ten bucks he and the others vote for trump in the first round. I’m somewhat surprised there hasn’t been more a of a trump for Speaker movement. I thought he’d do it just to be able to sit up there at the SOTU, then quit.
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.
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.
RSA
@Chetan Murthy: If residents’ quality of life isn’t a consideration… I’m reminded of this story from a couple of years ago:
eclare
@satby: Interesting, thanks!
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): That Whole Mars Catolog guy’s tweets got even better:
Someone replied:
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
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.
Miss Bianca
@M31:
LOL!
Scout211
@HumboldtBlue: Nope. Not good at all.
NWS Sacramento forecast
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.
Sure Lurkalot
@Geminid:
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.
NotMax
Suppose someone should mention it.
Tesla falls short of its goal of growing 50 percent in 2022.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@HumboldtBlue:
Oh crap. Hope that player ends up OK
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.
MisterForkbeard
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think it looks really dumb in a way that kind of makes me want one. Literally like someone tried to make a car from Stunt Race FX or Starfox (snes) in real life.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Yes.
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.
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.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yikes!
Hoppie
@HumboldtBlue: !862, anyone?
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot:
“Even a fool can see…”
That’s the kind of talk people in movies make as they’re being wrapped up in a straitjacket.
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.
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.
jayne
@Betty Cracker: He just… took a few steps and collapsed. Not good at all.
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.”
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
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.
Miss Bianca
@MisterForkbeard:
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Personally, I find the design absolutely repellent and you couldn’t pay me to drive it, but chacun a son gout, or, “that’s what makes horse races,” as my mama used to say.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Betty Cracker
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Josh Allen looked stunned and devastated. Damn, I hope they can save Hamlin. 😢
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Probably.
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:
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.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Betty Cracker:
I hope so too
Suzanne
@Starfish:
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.
Starfish
@satby: I skimmed it. It was dumb. It was bringing up the various objections but dismissing them with very little reason.
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.
Let’s create crappy housing for poor people because the writer just doesn’t like them and does not see them as people.
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.
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.
Suzanne
@eclare:
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.
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.
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.
Suzanne
@Starfish:
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.
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
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.
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.
Chetan Murthy
@Betty Cracker: thank god for that. The idea of “take a break and then play on” was ….
daftmorally incomprehensible.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.
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.
Chetan Murthy
@Timill: I’ve seen bus-shelter ads for GMC Denali EV pickups.
Chetan Murthy
@Timill:
You’re giving Melon Suk a lotta credit there. Me, I think it was just one in a long line of
nothingburgersgrifts intended to get his base all excited and buying Tesla stock.StringOnAStick
@Chetan Murthy: Perfectly stated. I’m going to be using Melon Suk too.
artem1s
@Starfish:
excellent point. there’s a reason Chicago finally tore down Cabrini-Green towers. high rises are not a good solution to housing problems.
Scout211
Dopey-o
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.
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.
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.
Suzanne
This FTFNYT piece is much more realistic about it.
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.
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.
Dopey-o
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.
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.
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!
NotMax
@Suzanne
Not an implementation I would have chosen, but see: New York City poor doors.
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.
PIGL
@Suzanne: Nothing to add except thank you for this.
PIGL
@Suzanne: as a résident of Vancouver, i am astonished at the price difference you report as between towers and single family homes.
Paul in KY
If the cybertruck bed is not disassociated from the cab metal, then it’s a fake truck anyway.
WaterGirl
@Shalimar: That gave me a chuckle this morning.
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).