Gongol.com Archives: February 2021

February 16, 2021

A neighbor straight out of nightmares

A man took up squatting in a condominium with shared walls -- and then proceeded to do things like breaking through those walls with hammers. Stories like this one make it far more interesting to look at issues like zoning -- especially for novel approaches to higher-density single-family construction than what is presently allowed in most of the US. Zoning rules often make it hard to affordably own standalone urban property without shared walls, and that's a major failure.

The content isn't too smart; the communicator just isn't very good

"Many learned people seem to feel that the quality of readableness in a book is one which warrants suspicion. Indeed, not a few learned people seem to feel that the fact that a book is interesting is proof that it is shallow." - Theodore Roosevelt

Berkshire Hathaway buys a big stake in Verizon

Berkshire effectively purchased an $8 billion utility company and is trusting someone else to manage it.

Temperatures drop below zero all the way south into Texas

Basically the entire middle of the country is 30 to 40 degrees below freezing