PersnickityPenguin

joined 2 years ago
sorted by: new top controversial old
‘Try actually fighting’: Democrats face voters’ fury at town halls. in c/politics@lemmy.world
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I feel that Sanders is probably too old and that he can pass the torch on at the next election. It's sad, but I still don't think we need an 80 year old running for office.

‘Try actually fighting’: Democrats face voters’ fury at town halls. in c/politics@lemmy.world
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago

That's awesome. I've started to get some social media feeds on YouTube from Adam Schiff and they've been pretty provocative and direct, which is desperately needed.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 2 points 2 days ago

Labor costs are typically 50-60% of the cost of construction.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

Detached house construction in the US costs are closer to $150/SF.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 2 points 2 days ago

My city built a bunch of these, but they are 10 ft x 10 ft pods. Hundreds of them. We still have 5-6,000 homeless living on the street. Our county has been handing out free tents for 8 years and guess what, didn't help.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago

It said former, he sold his business 14 years ago and looks like he doesn't work in tech anymore.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You would be surprised. There are a lot of fixed costs for building tiny homes, you have all of the appliances that need to be installed, trailer bed, plus framing, siding and roofing trades that need to happen.

Plus there is sitework, sewer, electrical water, and development fees.

Hopefully they got economies of scale to work here but they still can be a bit pricey.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Canada doesn't have the single family zoning problem that is prevalent in the US. Lots of Canadians live in high rise apartments.

This is proby a smaller community though.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I would estimate their construction cost is closer to $100k CAD than $40k. Maybe somewhere in the middle. Construction costs can be very high for a tiny home, which is what these are. They are built on a trailer.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Sure it is. You have to have government fund it, like a normal social democracy would do.

Tech millionaire builds 99-unit tiny house neighborhood for homeless Canadians - rent is kept at 30% of income, the large majority of residents pay a maximum of $200 — including all utilities in c/goodnewseveryone@sh.itjust.works
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 15 points 2 days ago

He donated money to pay for the housing units, possibly the land. So that's probably all paid off. There are still taxes and utilities to pay for, which is probably where the rent is going.

This is just an educated guess though.

Remember the good old days? in c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world
[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When I was a kid, my parents would wax poetically about their summers spent picking strawberries and green beans earning 25 cents a day in California Central Valley. They loved it, apparently.

Good, honest work they told me. Then as I got older they demanded I attend college and get a white collar career established, lol.

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Cows With Guns - The Original Animation (youtube.com)
 

Oldie but goodie, the YouTube algorithm just blessed me with this 17 year old music video.

212
If the first solar entrepreneur hadn't been kidnapped, would fossil fuels have dominated the 20th century? (techxplore.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world
52 comments fedilink
 

The first commercial PV solar product was nah just in 1909.

See story above, and original article in Modern Electrics magazine in 1909:

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051407073

EDIT

Since people didn't read past the headline, the article is about a startup company in 1905 that developed a commercial electrical solar panel by 1909 and was worth 160 million in today's money.

In 1909, the inventor of the solar panel was kidnapped and ordered by his kidnappers to destroy all information about this solar panel. He was eventually released, although he did not destroy the solar panel or his documentation, he did shut down his company.

So this is a pretty fascinating development considering that at this time period we actually did have early production electric cars that were manufactured in larger quantities than gas vehicles, and now we learn that solar panels were commercially available, at least for a short time.

And the solar panels could generate a fair amount of electricity:

500 volts per 10 square ft, and a smaller demonstration panel that was 3 ft x 4 ft could generate 60 watts of power (10 volts @6 amps).

Additionally, the panels were designed to charge a battery backup system.

207
Houston school district to turn libraries into disciplinary centers (www.theguardian.com)
 

Critics condemn superintendent Mike Miles’s ‘new education system’ that removes students’ access to books

The largest school district in Texas announced its libraries will be eliminated and replaced with discipline centers in the new school year.

Houston independent school district announced earlier this summer that librarian and media-specialist positions in 28 schools will be eliminated as part of superintendent Mike Miles’s “new education system” initiative.

Teachers at these schools will soon have the option to send misbehaving students to these discipline centers, or “team centers’” – designated areas where they will continue to learn remotely.

News of the library removals comes after the state announced it would be taking over the district, effective in the 2023-24 school year, due to poor academic performance. Miles was appointed by the the Texas Education Agency in June.

In a press release announcing the schools participating in the “new education system” program, Miles said: “I am overwhelmingly proud that this many HISD school leaders are ready to take bold action to improve outcomes for all students and eradicate the persistent achievement and opportunity gaps in our district.”

Lisa Robinson, a librarian retired from the school district, told local news outlet KPRC2 that her “heart is just broken for these children that are in the [NES] schools that are losing their librarians”.

Houston’s mayor, Sylvester Turner, condemned the district’s move and said the solution to the problem of behavioral conduct was not to revoke access to books, especially in these underserved communities.

He said: “Are there students who need additional support? Yes, and I am 100% supportive of that. But it’s not an eithe/or. You don’t close the libraries, remove the librarians, and simply have the books on the shelf. What about all the other students? What are you saying to them?”

He added: “With all due respect to the superintendent, I grew up in this city. I still live in the same neighborhood that exists. I am the mayor of this city, and I am the mayor of every person who lives in the city of Houston.”

He urged schools to open up libraries to avoid creating a two-tier system within the district, as well as providing additional support to students who need it.

The Houston independent school district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

0
Street mural art in Portland (lemm.ee)
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What watching five straight days of Russian TV reveals about Putin’s Russia (youtube.com)
 

I recommend everybody watch the video or read the article, crazy but unsurprising shit out of Russia again. What a bleak country.

1
Moscow got hit (mastodon.online)
 

Looks like some drones blew up a few buildings in Moscow

310
'Mystery company' buys $800M worth of land near Travis AFB, raising concerns about national security (abc7news.com)
 

Foreign LLC continues to acquire land in California critical to energy and national defense.

FAIRFIELD, Calif. (KGO) -- The United States Air Force is investigating a company that's purchased $800 million of land near Travis Air Force Base, one of the most critical military bases in the U.S. But after eight months of investigation, government officials have been unable to identify who's behind it nor rule out any threat to national security.

Flannery LLC was founded 4 and 1/2 years ago and was registered to a Washington DC-based law firm.

There is no information about the actual ownership of this LLC. The previous Reddit thread from 4 years ago has some interesting tidbits of information that you may be interested in reading in addition to the new article.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sacramento/comments/c96bkb/a_mysterious_corporation_has_quietly_bought/

What's additionally interesting is that the land that they acquired around Travis Air Force Base will be bayfront property with future sea level increases of between 3 to 5 ft. NOAA has predicted the sea level increase will blow by that with a 7.2 ft average global sea level rise by 2100.

So either we have a secretive Chinese back shell company acquiring critical infrastructure and land for spying on American military assets, or a very optimistic wealthy investor with way too much money and is getting creative in what kind of investment schemes they park their money in.

1
Kerch bridge attack video (youtube.com)
 

Interesting analysis of the kirch bridge attack from a few days ago. Include some interesting video as well as photographic satellite footage of the drones.

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