"Broadly in favor of humans"
San Francisco, CA
Joined January 2025
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Golf courses have a clause written into the CA constitution to shield them from property taxes. Urban golf courses are an amenity for the few at the expense of the many. Yes, I would rather we assess golf courses properly and building housing if/when they sell the land
raise your hand if you’re excited to learn about the history of pipettes ✋
Big news! Our new book, "Making the Modern Laboratory," is now available for pre-order. It is a stunning, 504-page hardcover book that explains how the research laboratory, and everything in it, came to be.
Did you know that the modern micropipette was invented by a German postdoc so frustrated with mouth pipetting that he ditched his lab for two days until could return with a prototype?
Or that an 18th-century scientist sewed tiny taffeta pants for male frogs to determine whether or not semen was essential for fertilization?
These stories and hundreds more are told in the book, which has a hard cloth cover and is printed in full color on Arena Natural Rough, a textured, uncoated paper made by Fedrigoni. The book is also finished with colored endpapers, thread-sewn binding, and a squared spine. It is priced at $49 and worth every penny.
Learn more and order: press.asimov.com/articles/mo…
Why fight RTM instead of advocating for legislation that reforms the transit agencies at the city or state level?
Structural reform can be accomplished by statute but revenue is (unfortunately) controlled by ballot measures. Let’s pass the measure and pressure Sacramento to hold transit agencies to task if what we want is reform and not an implosion
what is life for if not commitment to the bit?
the bit giveth and the bit taketh away
it demands of us but gives us so much more in return
BART gets more of its funding from fares than almost any peer system. In a sensible revenue regime, we'd have some regional tax to fund BART's regional services. But we _explicitly prevent_ the legislature from doing its' job!
Property taxes make up ~70% of local revenues but Prop 13 makes the property tax base inelastic. The cost of services rises downstream of housing inflation but tax revenues can't keep up by design. Prop 13 also prevents electeds from doing anything about it! Hence ballot props
watching Astra Blender demos and Opus 5.5 music videos go viral makes me think “GTM Research Engineer” is the job of the future
Education must be a priority for AI to support flourishing and empowerment. I'm so proud of the work our team has done to launch Ello with a free tier
