Unaddressed in the talk about the end of urbanism is the cost of it all.
In most places, commercial property and the taxes they pay far outstrip the revenue generated by taxing residential property. Well, that’s changing. Delivery services (and remote work) are killing commercial property values. As time goes by and assessments are updated, residential properties are seeing huge tax bill increases.
And municipalities are finding it ever more difficult to finance the infrastructure for new development. Add robotaxis and their associated reduction in local tax revenue from auto sales, and it becomes impossible to affordably build housing in the suburbs, if at all. In my little village, we’ve got a 1000-home subdivision proposed, and they’re asking for a TIF and then a bond backed by the TIF revenue to pay for water/sewer infrastructure. And I’ve watched the village board meetings online - the consultants have come in and said that they don’t think there is any way to convince anyone that the revenue generated will cover the bond servicing costs and that it will be very difficult to place the bonds. Meanwhile, the school district has come in and said that they need large upfront impact fees or they will do whatever it takes to kill the TIF.
Well, today in fact a town in Wisconsin officially shut down their police department [1]. This area leans Republican, so it’s unlikely that the woke mob did it; probably just couldn’t afford the police anymore. But there you go: people discussed it and then did it.
If you describe the actual mechanism required to fairly and accurately determine the amount of money owed under the wealth tax proposals (such system being not trivially defeated by an army of accountants and lawyers), the reason why the wealthy oppose them should be quite evident.
Presumably airports would prioritize whatever flights pay the highest fees. Not that I’m an expert or anything, but I’d assume that small regional flights are going to be the first to get cut.
I’m not positive how this will be implemented but typically airport authorities work with airlines on this subject. The airport authority will likely tell airlines instead of 50 aircraft per hour we can only handle 45 and leave it to the airline to determine where to cut. The result is likely to be the same as what you’ve indicated. Airlines are not going to slash their most profitable routes so the reductions will almost certainly be smaller markets.
I have travel scheduled next week and I fear what this might do to my itinerary. Really hoping the Govt sorts itself out before then but there’s been almost no indication that is going to happen.
I like Knuth and think he’s a great writer, but this particular paper [1] is… hard to read. Almost as if it is an unedited stream of consciousness rather than something he intended to be published.
Reading the section you are quoting from (as well as the section of the conclusion dealing with efficiency), I think it should be clear that in the context of this paper, “optimization” means performance enhancements that render the program incomprehensible and unmaintainable. This is so far removed from what anyone in the last 30+ years thinks of when they read the word “optimization” that we are probably better off pretending that this paper was never written. And smacking anyone that quotes it.
I actually think it's a lovely paper (and he obviously intended to publish it, and put a lot of effort into compiling and editing it) and illustrates the nature of his writing very well: he's managed to be encyclopedic about all the topics he chose to discuss, while still having it be very personal (the matter at stake is one of programmers' style and preferences after all). This blog post (https://blog.plover.com/prog/Hoare-logic.html) calls it “my single all-time favorite computer science paper” and here's a recent HN thread with at least two others agreeing it's a great paper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44416265
Actually, in modern times you can buy an oil extraction pump off Amazon for $100, making oil changes so much easier than they were 40 years ago! A lot of [especially European] cars have the filter accessible from the top, meaning that you can change oil in 15 minutes in any apartment parking space by doing little more than popping the hood!
I’ve done oil changes decades ago but don’t bother anymore since I don’t feel like jacking the car up but using an oil extraction tool from the top does sound intriguing. Can you replace the filter from the top or does that require a jack? Also, does the filter need to be replaced each time?
In most places, commercial property and the taxes they pay far outstrip the revenue generated by taxing residential property. Well, that’s changing. Delivery services (and remote work) are killing commercial property values. As time goes by and assessments are updated, residential properties are seeing huge tax bill increases.
And municipalities are finding it ever more difficult to finance the infrastructure for new development. Add robotaxis and their associated reduction in local tax revenue from auto sales, and it becomes impossible to affordably build housing in the suburbs, if at all. In my little village, we’ve got a 1000-home subdivision proposed, and they’re asking for a TIF and then a bond backed by the TIF revenue to pay for water/sewer infrastructure. And I’ve watched the village board meetings online - the consultants have come in and said that they don’t think there is any way to convince anyone that the revenue generated will cover the bond servicing costs and that it will be very difficult to place the bonds. Meanwhile, the school district has come in and said that they need large upfront impact fees or they will do whatever it takes to kill the TIF.