zachware · HackerTrans

5 years agodiscuss

I don't know the number but I suspect some material % of corn production could go away if we stopped subsidizing that industry for insane things like making gasoline for electoral reasons. :-)

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

You are 100% right on the grains.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

I'm generally referring to float pond greenhouses though some variants are emerging that use artificial light in a vertical setting for the germination stage where loss rates are high and you can get extremely high density. The types of density you can't get in the overfunded vertical pipe dreams in VC.

So that when you hit the float pond for a 12-16 grow cycle, there's marginal loss.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

I actually agree with you. It's purely a math problem. Where can predictable yield be profitable (including loss calculations) and where can it not.

Vertical as it is today is an excellent nursery solution to feed growable plants into float ponds with little to no loss. As an independent production method, vertical isn't mathematically sustainable.

40% of fresh food is lost before it makes it to the end user (USDA data). The loss comes from a combo of unpredictable weather, timing issues where market prices dip below production costs at harvest time, and supply chain issues.

So it's a complicated math problem but it's important to consider in the suite of food security tools we look to.

Absent regen, we're likely to decimate soils over generations. If we flip totally to regen, we won't have enough land.

So a host of solutions is required.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

Organic and regenerative ag are built on the assumption that crops must be grown in open air soil. The reality is that crops can be grown in open air soil and, if they are, regenerative ag in particular is significantly better for soil longevity.

That said it is not necessarily better to produce all crops in low density, high volatility, season dependent environments. Some material % of crops can move to more intelligent indoor settings where yields are higher, weather isn't a factor, and production yields can be scheduled without risk of weather impact. I'm actually a partner in one of these high volume operations in Montana (randomly). Uses less water, has zero soil impact, requires little to no chemical agents and is predictable.

What I hope will continue is crops that are capable of producing profitable and predictable yields in indoor environments will move more and more in that direction. This could serve to reduce soil stress and leave soil for crops that need more space (e.g. tubers) and livestock to aid in improving soil longevity.

Note this is not a plug for vertical farming. That's an entirely different mirage of financial engineering.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

I've developed several multifamily projects including my current focus, a 72-unit apartment development.

Proposals like these, while admirable, usually miss the mark and have little to no impact on housing availability because they fail to accept that housing development isn't just about zoning.

Impact fees, planning regs (traffic, parking, etc), planning delays, NIMBY fights, labor costs...these are all inputs into the question of whether a multifamily development makes economic sense for a developer.

There is a formula under which you can build market-rate and/or affordable housing (sometimes the same) and when that formula checks out, you see lots of development.

All of that has to work out to a cost per door and that cost has to be recouped in rents that pay for opex and debt. The fourplex in the article would cost $562,500/door. A very basic calc of the necessary rents would be $4,950.

California, particularly San Francisco, has pressures at every step of that formula. So if the Bay Area wants more housing, it has to be willing to look at the problem holistically.

  - What role do planning review delays play in increasing the costs and perceived risk of acquiring a parcel and going through the process?
  - What % of potential building sites are classified as historical properties?
  - What are the parking, traffic impact and roadway requirements that multifamily traffic counts will have to mitigate/build for?
  - What power do unions have to dictate building programs?
  - Who can object to proposals?

I'm not suggesting that everything has to be Texas-style free markets, but to solve the problem one has to be willing to admit that it may require something a bit more comprehensive that simply changing zoning.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

One thing we seem to be overlooking is the difference between representing yourself as X versus engaging in the professional rendering of X services to the public.

This is a significant distinction. While I'm generally opposed to the majority of occupational licensing requirements but I can understand the function of regulating professional offerings.

So in both this case and the referenced Oregon case from another comment, the "charge" by the licensure body is that the individuals are using the term engineer while doing things that aren't "rendering the service of engineering for payment."

I am a reasonably decent electrician and feel confident fiddling with my own outlets. The electrician's body does not have the right to regulate that activity. Nor can it regulate my saying I'm a decent electrician.

It does, however, have the right to regulate my rendering those services to the public for payment (with some legal gray area around rendering it for free).

This is what makes this a first amendment case that seems justified.

EDIT: I do understand by using electrician as an example, I invite comments about how I might be breaking fire code or my home insurance covenants. That's correct but it's a different externalities problem.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

Yes, US.

Possibly related is that EU grocery margins are amongst the lowest in the world.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

This is generally not how grocery operates today.

Most large grocers:

  - Sell shelf location slots to the highest bidder.
  - Include a consignment clause in their vendor agreements requiring vendors to take back spoiled, customer-damaged, and unsold inventory at X point or on-demand.
  - Require merchandisers to keep inventory in-stock for as many products as they can get vendors to manage (e.g. the coke delivery person is in-store several days a week.)

All of this is especially true for shelf stable products and beverages.

The modern grocery store is effectively managed like a flea market and is allowed to do so because the chains have so much leverage.

So while we can take issue with Amazon’s practices, we have to remember that most of large-scale retail operates in ways that if written about to the level of Amazon, we’d also be griping about.

zachware

5 years agodiscuss

This is a good point. I don’t think Amazon’s practices are structurally different than those historically of Walmart or Costco.

Each captured sales data and built private label alternatives to key brands on a regular basis. Small differentiator in the case of Costco is that they have a practice (though not a policy) of offering the leading vendor the opportunity to produce the private label before doing it themselves. But that’s a small detail.

Besides the fact that headlines about this get traction, there is a differentiator with Amazon in that they actively market themselves as a marketplace for small businesses in the way we’ve come to view Shopify. Costco and Walmart were always very clearly retailers...they buy stuff and sell stuff at a margin.

So while I think a lot of the blowup about this is overdone, there is a legitimate argument about the difference between how Amazon markets itself and what it does. But, frankly, for anyone with any level of experience with retailers or, frankly, tech platforms, this kind of capture behavior should be expected.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

I think you can have a favorable opinion about the intent of AB5 but also realize that it was a sloppy law that had caused lot of collateral damage when it was passed. Its sponsor even had a dispute on Twitter with a journalist affected where she said, basically, hey, we had to get it done and we didn't have time to get the details right.

I suspect this is not the end of this fight but hopefully if it comes up again, the legislature will be more thoughtful about crafting a bill.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

I'm definitely not one closed off to this story, I think it's important. That said I think "we" tend to forget that platforms like Twitter are private companies, we don't really have a "right" to post anything to them.

Now if the government had ordered this moderation, that's where the idea of rights and first amendment comes into play.

If we're not happy about the moderation we don't have to use the moderating platform.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

Some greater than zero percentage of this is a genuine desire to educate children and some percentage is about federal funding for schools.

Schools lose funding when a student falls below a certain attendance.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

This will all depend what % of employers stay with their current remote structure. It’ll be somewhere between 1% of 80/90%.

The point is that we’re making long-term decisions based on short-term problems. Specifically this week JP Morgan asked its traders to return to the office.

You can counter this with examples like Facebook opening an office in Austin some years ago because that’s where the talent had moved. Similar in Boulder.

There will certainly be some % of employers who keep remote-first. And another scenario where they are forced to or the employees decide they love their lifestyle (which is likely). In the latter employers are either forced to adopt it or or the employees just leave or in some concentrations big companies start building offices in a distributed way.

We’re severely limiting our job choices if we stay remote but most employers don’t.

Before when we go off and buy houses or sign long-term leases we should really just wait this out until the Spring or whenever the virus is neutralized.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

It's entirely possible that you are right except for construction and civil project jobs.

I've built several large-scale buildings and developments at urban scale in California and Nevada, both heavy heavy union states.

I can't point to the systemic problem leading to the delays but I can tell you that any job even tangentially related to construction requires high wage labor. This is universally true for civic projects.

Some of those unions (e.g. electrical workers, carpenters) provide exceptional training services for apprentices. Others (e.g. the people holding the stop signs at highway construction sites) are mostly strong-arm groups.

These groups could be causing delays and from personal experience I can tell you they do, sometimes. But overall I can certainly say that the point you made here is not the reason why projects are delayed.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

This is an exceptionally good point. My rebuttal is that it takes one institution to force the TSA theater on us but it would take thousands of organizations to make this article's predictions true at scale.

A counterpoint to my own is that it takes one person dying from something plastered on CNN to get every employer in America interested in signalizing a desire to protect hundreds of thousands who are actually not at risk.

So this outcome is, in that way, possible.

Basically, let CNN or Fox News drive and we'll live in that world.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

This is honestly the most ridiculous article/amazing visual journalism possible.

Bear with me here....This article assumes that we either a) have no path around COVID-19 via a vaccine and/or b) we spend five years failing to follow the data on infection morbidity risk as high for those with established co-morbitities or old age and/or c) that even if we succeed at a and/or b that future pathogens are detected by body temp or mitigated by hand washing.

And even if I'm completely wrong about all of the above, this article relies on zero empirical data to predict 2025.

This is a sign of our media times. It's a movie script, not journalism. And each click and scroll reinforces to the creators that they should create more of this empirically hollow print.

zachware

6 years agodiscuss

I do this using Feedbin for Twitter follows and (gasp) RSS. I find it useful.