Gongol.com Archives: December 2019
December 4, 2019
A historic photo of power and telephone lines in 19th Century Manhattan really brings to life just how much people will tolerate when they're eager to benefit from new infrastructure investment
Who gets to object when developers want to add density?
An Omaha neighborhood is having a dispute that may sound familiar to a whole lot of places -- a developer wants to put condominiums in a neighborhood that has a lot of single-family homes. Residents object that "It's still way oversized for the block". But doesn't it also add considerable value? And doesn't it add density, which is a favorable direction to go if people are truly worried about issues like "sprawl" and high housing costs? In general, we should applaud steps to move most things from lower levels of value to higher ones, real estate included. There are always exceptions, of course, but the general standard ought to default in favor of creating additional value.
Boulder, Colorado, is already well ahead of snowfall normals for the year
This is just not at all what we want to see -- Boulder is in the upper reaches of the Platte River basin. What lands and melts there eventually makes its way downstream...to places along the Missouri River that have basically been flooded for 9 straight months.
World's fastest UPS truck goes up for sale
It's armed with an 850-hp engine, which might be a bit excessive
Survey finds "soft barriers" to American men taking paternity time
From the New York Times: "Just over half of men in the New America survey -- and a slightly higher share of women -- said a reason men didn't take leave was that caregiving wasn't manly." It's way past time to have put this attitude out with the trash. If you're a man who takes on less than your half of the caregiving, then you're less than half of a man for it.
Just because "experts" said it doesn't mean there's a conspiracy afoot
An excellent observation from Christian Vanderbrouk, regarding the all-too-frequent disdain for expertise as displayed by populists: "If there's a broad consensus about something, there's probably a good reason for it. Doesn't mean the consensus is automatically correct, but like enduring institutions, it deserves a provisional respect." So much of the argument expressed by the new anti-liberalist wing of American politics boils down to clamoring for chaos on Earth and a vengeful God above. Which is really no way to run a civilization.
