Viewing profile — joelhoffman

Is there really a significant number of apartments that are vacant due to habitability reasons? I believe there are a lot of vacant units out there even in hot markets, for various…

Of course it is. What has that got to do with anything?

#5 - Don't check the demographics of the whole state. Schools only draw from the local area and CT, like most states is pretty segregated. I don't know where the author is from but…

USGS describes the site as a "large playa," and the Science abstract says they were "stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers" so I interpret that to mean they we…

> "Drive like everyone is trying to crash into you" That advice (for cyclists) was also in one of Neal Stephenson's early novels, Zodiac... I've found it useful. Now I just get ann…

Same here especially given the topic and the sardonic tone. I wonder if the biochemist takes some inspiration from his near-namesake.

It shouldn't be too hard to skip numbers that show up too frequently in prison tattoos.

This will be on the table the day after Texas votes for a Democratic candidate. Not before. Hopefully we can get the first-past-the-post language out of it before then.

Yes, I'm sure it would, but that won't always stop them from trying.

Portland, Oregon already passed a similar law. Both of them seem a little ambiguous to me: they both clearly ban the city's use, and ban the city from allowing corporate use in pub…

Surely the companies that print the symbol and "Please recycle!" on non-recyclable plastic wouldn't label non-compostable silverware as compostable... I've successfully run "compos…

I think you're right in the short term, but in the long term, if everyone does it, I think it runs the risk of actually providing enough supply to drive the rents down by a signifi…

Fair point, I misread that. But even so, the inheritance tax is still a delayed wealth tax and a 100% tax would generally be easily avoided with gifts -- still taxable, but presuma…

If you're working for a firm that isn't actively tanking, then the primary beneficiaries of your excess productivity are always your employers. As many other people here have said …

Is that a reference to these? "...The first new nuclear power plant to be licensed and begin construction in the United States in more than three decades." We've closed a few dozen…

I was expecting at least an aside for Rasputin, although I'm sure these other clowns were pretty terrible too.

I think most people do not see most teachers as the basic problem in public schools. E.g. polls show overwhelming support for paying teachers more. The same has been true of police…

800 votes were "improperly bundled" and 2390 out of about 16000 had non-matching signatures, and people who say they didn't vote are recorded as having voted. Sounds like the secur…

Mexico City is too -- their subway is extensive, heavily used and well designed.

People do form a lot of their personalities as small children, after all.

There's nothing magic about ballot sheets. Anyone could run off as many as they want on a copier. What protects elections in vote by mail systems is the fact that you can check you…

I thought you meant the other adults at first, and I completely agreed!

I think it will be an uphill battle no doubt, but I think the only alternative would be to share the whole dataset and have reviewers re-implement the analysis to confirm the resul…

This is why we have code review processes. It's long past time for that to be part of formal scientific peer review.