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Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

peninsulaforeveryone.org

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Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#81

Post by lern_too_spel »

Animats wrote: post #7
smcg wrote: post #4

I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.

I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton. The houses are big, but other than that, it's nothing special. Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias. Los Altos Hills used to be; there was a time when the Los Altos Hunt ran the town. Palo Alto is next to Stanford. Portola Valley used to have more patent holders per capita than anywhere else in the US. Atherton is just a bedroom…

It's the only option for large flat lots in the middle of Silicon Valley. Aside from the famously responsive police department, city services are basically non-existent, but the residents have their own private libraries and recreation centers.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#82

Post by quantumwoke »

shitloadofbooks wrote: post #46
em-bee wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if we are going to complain about AI content then i suggest we also include some evidence to make the argument at least somewhat insightful. i'll start: pangram gives this a 100% score (without the sources section), on account of the em-dashes. remove those and the score drops to 49%. include the sources and the score drops to 36%. (edit, i misread the score: after removal of the em-dashes the result is 48% generated…

> Atherton didn't have to win. A CEQA lawsuit doesn't need a strong legal theory to do damage — it just needs to introduce enough risk that funders freeze and clocks keep running. The delay is the weapon. In my opinion, this construct is massively overused by LLMs and is extremely jarring to read. The pithy followup "The delay is the weapon." feels like Year 8 Debate Club and is very melodramatic and cringy, which LL…

Exactly my experience. I don't even use em dashes as a signal these days, the sentence structure is enough.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#85

Post by nateb2022 »

em-bee wrote: post #74
matheusmoreira wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pangram gives this a 100% score, on account of the em-dashes. By that logic, at least one of my articles is 100% AI generated. > And just like that, lone has a conservative garbage collector. Until next time. Soon I'll write about—

well, that's kind of my implied criticism. which is why i checked what would happen if i removed all the em-dashes. it's not that much better. but i think the number of em-dashes also matters. check your article with and without em-dashes, see what difference it makes.

Imo the article is completely copy/pasted from Claude. The figures, which couldn't be copy/pasted verbatim, were screenshotted/pasted.

Quoting from the article.

> The Town of Atherton's lawsuit against Caltrain electrification is the clearest case study we have of how a tiny, wealthy minority can hijack a regional public project — and stick everyone else with the bill.

The unnecessary emdash-for-effect is a huge LLM-ism. No human I know uses such a device in writing.

> Here is the short version. In 2012, Caltrain budgeted its electrification project — the backbone of the Peninsula's transit future and a prerequisite for high-speed rail to ever reach San Francisco — at roughly $1.5 billion. By 2017 that number had ballooned to $1.9 billion. In between, the Town of Atherton sued.

"Here's the short version" along with the bolding of the numbers tells us something about the "author's" prompt. He prompted it for a short version, and told it to include those two numbers.

I challenge any commenter to name one time they began a paragraph with the meager "Here's the short version."

> One veto point, closed.

Why is the comma even there? Classic LLM melodrama.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#86

Post by mslate »

jeremyjh wrote: post #63
danans wrote: post #30

> They lost. So why did it still cost us $400 million? Did the article provide a direct answer to this? I see the $20M delay payments to contractors and the rise of labor costs cited, but is that all?

No. It says the direct payments created other funding gaps that caused further delays that added costs, but provides no information about what those were, much less any evidence that they are due only to this lawsuit.

From the article's first source:

https://calelectricrail.org/how-environmental-law-holds-back...

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#87

Post by hollerith »

rayiner wrote: post #52
dnnddidiej wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds too extreme. I like Australia where states (ok much less populated than US states!) have certain building powers esp. to build rail infra but local can manage planning rules pertaining to an area but within a state level framework.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any unit of planning beneath the state. I’m saying they shouldn’t be incorporated entities that have the power to sue and be sued in their own separate from the state.

Should these sub-state entities be able to pass their own laws?

Some towns for example have laws against leaf blowers in a state where leaf blowers are unregulated. Some towns ban certain dog breeds.

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#88

Post by mslate »

quantumwoke wrote: post #82
shitloadofbooks wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Atherton didn't have to win. A CEQA lawsuit doesn't need a strong legal theory to do damage — it just needs to introduce enough risk that funders freeze and clocks keep running. The delay is the weapon. In my opinion, this construct is massively overused by LLMs and is extremely jarring to read. The pithy followup "The delay is the weapon." feels like Year 8 Debate Club and is very melodramatic and cringy, which LL…

Exactly my experience. I don't even use em dashes as a signal these days, the sentence structure is enough.

Ironically, your sentence structure here carries the feint smell of LLM

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#89

Post by queenkjuul »

pibaker wrote: post #40

Train electrification would at minimum reduce pollution from diesel trains, and in the case of Caltrain, improve train services and reduce the number of cars on the road. It is peak irony that a piece of environmental regulation is being used here to delay the upgrade works. On brand for California, of course.

I need to point out: the better acceleration from electric trains means you can run trains at tighter schedules, too. They're smoother, quieter; basically every aspect is an upgrade for users, including the environmental aspect. It's not just about money/emissions

Re: Atherton spent $145K to delay train electrification. The rest of us paid $400M

#90

Post by rayiner »

hollerith wrote: post #87
rayiner wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any unit of planning beneath the state. I’m saying they shouldn’t be incorporated entities that have the power to sue and be sued in their own separate from the state.

Should these sub-state entities be able to pass their own laws? Some towns for example have laws against leaf blowers in a state where leaf blowers are unregulated. Some towns ban certain dog breeds.

No.
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