Erica Van Houten
@epvh.bsky.social
Trans girl in Texas. Software nerd by day, local and state advocate by night.
If you take from the outside corners in a crossing pattern you maintain a constant center of mass while minimizing angular momentum. No I haven’t spent too much time thinking about this.
November 27, 2025 at 2:54 AM
If you take from the outside corners in a crossing pattern you maintain a constant center of mass while minimizing angular momentum. No I haven’t spent too much time thinking about this.
I disagree with that characterization. I explained how that scenario can happen.
November 26, 2025 at 6:59 PM
I disagree with that characterization. I explained how that scenario can happen.
I agree if things stay the way they are they will stay the way they are.
November 26, 2025 at 6:50 PM
I agree if things stay the way they are they will stay the way they are.
Only in a policy implementation detail. Euclidian zoning got us here. It’s not going to get us put of here.
November 26, 2025 at 6:09 PM
Only in a policy implementation detail. Euclidian zoning got us here. It’s not going to get us put of here.
Yes, owning a thing and renting the thing are tightly coupled. If there is the nimby policy of “no density on this lot” you are not wrong. If their single family home can become multifamily housing the value of their land will go up while the median rent will go down.
November 26, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Yes, owning a thing and renting the thing are tightly coupled. If there is the nimby policy of “no density on this lot” you are not wrong. If their single family home can become multifamily housing the value of their land will go up while the median rent will go down.
And the lot is “worth more” because a developer is willing to pay money to turn it into units because that is a good investment. So you also conflated the rental price of units with the worth of the land, which are separate.
November 26, 2025 at 5:31 PM
And the lot is “worth more” because a developer is willing to pay money to turn it into units because that is a good investment. So you also conflated the rental price of units with the worth of the land, which are separate.
Correct. And when the occupancy rate is 99% across the area the price people are willing to pay is what they can afford. So you have to build more so that the gouging landlord has to offer a better option than the other landlords rather than knowing someone will suck it up and pay.
November 26, 2025 at 5:30 PM
Correct. And when the occupancy rate is 99% across the area the price people are willing to pay is what they can afford. So you have to build more so that the gouging landlord has to offer a better option than the other landlords rather than knowing someone will suck it up and pay.
But the land they have the home on can be used to rent to 2, 4, or 20 families. Which makes their lot worth more than the home that’s on it. The “apartments suppress my home value” argument only exists if you forbid one becoming the other.
November 26, 2025 at 5:23 PM
But the land they have the home on can be used to rent to 2, 4, or 20 families. Which makes their lot worth more than the home that’s on it. The “apartments suppress my home value” argument only exists if you forbid one becoming the other.
Ultimately reading and writing are fundamental skills in integrating and organizing information. I don’t think you’re wrong at all and I did not mean to imply that expertise would only be lost in the context of programming.
November 26, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Ultimately reading and writing are fundamental skills in integrating and organizing information. I don’t think you’re wrong at all and I did not mean to imply that expertise would only be lost in the context of programming.
The value of a single family home can go up while the rental price for a place to live can go down. Those are not exclusive things.
November 26, 2025 at 5:14 PM
The value of a single family home can go up while the rental price for a place to live can go down. Those are not exclusive things.
Also all the social science being done using LLMs as proxies for actual people is horrifying.
November 26, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Also all the social science being done using LLMs as proxies for actual people is horrifying.
The “well AI includes all these techniques that aren’t LLMs and those are useful” as a counterfactual to “AI is bad” when they know that “AI” in the common parlance means LLMs is just dishonest.
November 26, 2025 at 4:12 PM
The “well AI includes all these techniques that aren’t LLMs and those are useful” as a counterfactual to “AI is bad” when they know that “AI” in the common parlance means LLMs is just dishonest.
Also vampires holing themselves up in basements to code on open source projects in C would explain a lot of what happens in that space.
November 26, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Also vampires holing themselves up in basements to code on open source projects in C would explain a lot of what happens in that space.
They just use numbers pressed into clay tablets for their computation needs.
November 26, 2025 at 2:48 PM
They just use numbers pressed into clay tablets for their computation needs.
Just yesterday an LLM suggested I should use a key instead of an index to access a map because I named a variable, containing the key, `i`.
November 26, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Just yesterday an LLM suggested I should use a key instead of an index to access a map because I named a variable, containing the key, `i`.
My school pictures went from smiling to grumpy right around puberty mysteriously. I have taken more pictures of myself in the last year than the decade prior to transitioning.
No signs.
No signs.
November 26, 2025 at 2:24 PM
My school pictures went from smiling to grumpy right around puberty mysteriously. I have taken more pictures of myself in the last year than the decade prior to transitioning.
No signs.
No signs.
Absolutely. If the nearest place to get produce is a 10 minute drive something has gone wrong. The government should step in to fix the immediate problem and try to figure out what caused it to happen so they can step back if and when possible.
November 26, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Absolutely. If the nearest place to get produce is a 10 minute drive something has gone wrong. The government should step in to fix the immediate problem and try to figure out what caused it to happen so they can step back if and when possible.
What did you learn from the prototypes? You didn’t engage with the problem space with the nuance needed to know what v1 needs to look like. I agree that it can churn a thing that looks like a thing out. But v0 isn’t about that. It’s about hurting yourself at lower stakes to do it right.
November 26, 2025 at 1:51 PM
What did you learn from the prototypes? You didn’t engage with the problem space with the nuance needed to know what v1 needs to look like. I agree that it can churn a thing that looks like a thing out. But v0 isn’t about that. It’s about hurting yourself at lower stakes to do it right.
What do you treat them as then? They are unreliable for information retrieval and obfuscate the source. They are an inconsistent templating engines that make subtle errors. These are problems that expert users have solutions for without all the costs associated with LLMs.
November 26, 2025 at 1:45 PM
What do you treat them as then? They are unreliable for information retrieval and obfuscate the source. They are an inconsistent templating engines that make subtle errors. These are problems that expert users have solutions for without all the costs associated with LLMs.
If the 20th percentile individual income earner can’t afford the median studio on a third their income you haven’t built enough small affordable housing.
November 26, 2025 at 12:49 PM
If the 20th percentile individual income earner can’t afford the median studio on a third their income you haven’t built enough small affordable housing.
This size competition ripples up the market improving the situation for everyone. And once the studio market has slack in it the 1bd market should be focused on next, then 2bds, etc. Build more studios isn’t and end goal it’s the first step getting people off the streets.
November 26, 2025 at 12:49 PM
This size competition ripples up the market improving the situation for everyone. And once the studio market has slack in it the 1bd market should be focused on next, then 2bds, etc. Build more studios isn’t and end goal it’s the first step getting people off the streets.
This is why “more small units” is important. Once you get priced out of the studio options your only options are to leave, go homeless, or sacrifice that money from elsewhere. More (cheaper) studios means cheaper 1bd because they are trying to get some studio buyers to move up.
November 26, 2025 at 12:49 PM
This is why “more small units” is important. Once you get priced out of the studio options your only options are to leave, go homeless, or sacrifice that money from elsewhere. More (cheaper) studios means cheaper 1bd because they are trying to get some studio buyers to move up.