ToaKraka
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User ID: 108
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
18d ago
Generally, US zoning strictly separates residential uses like single-family houses and apartment buildings and commercial uses like supermarkets and convenience stores. Ultra-dense places like New York City may allow apartment buildings and convenience stores to exist in the same zone, but they are relatively rare.
For a representative example of zoning that might be used by a random town in the US, see the International Zoning Code. For a comprehensive comparison of US and foreign zoning, see Zoned in the USA.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
19d ago
I think we should build housing on the roofs of megamarkets like Walmart and Costco.
There was a news story about this back in 2023.
The nation’s first mixed-use development to feature 800 apartments above a Costco Wholesale store is in the works in south Los Angeles.
The community will include 184 apartments, or 23% of the total units, dedicated to low-income households. There will be a mix of offerings at 30%, 50%, and 80% of the area median income (AMI) levels, with the exact unit allocation still be to be finalized. Plans call for the remaining 616 units to be non-subsidized affordable and workforce housing, serving households around the 120% to 150% AMI levels.
The project is being developed by Thrive Living, a national real estate firm that acquires underutilized properties in urban markets with significant housing affordability gaps. The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles is a partner in the project.
Like Thrive’s other projects, the development is privately financed without the use of government subsidies such as low-income housing tax credits, according to officials.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held for the 5035 Coliseum development last September. Construction is expected to take up to two-and-a-half years as the team transforms an old commercial site into a new retail and housing community.
However, Google Maps does not indicate that construction has progressed very far.
The front door's path is in conflict with the door to the utility room, since the utility room door swings outwards.
I fail to see how that is a problem. I do not expect that people will be using both doors simultaneously very often.
The layout of the utility room doesn't make sense. There isn't enough depth to store the washer and dryer without them sticking out into the entry path from the door. And, assuming you're putting the water heater, furnace, and panel box in here, plus possibly a stationary tub, the room isn't long enough to put them far enough back to keep them out of the immediate ingress path.
The washer and dryer are all the way on the left side, facing toward the door. There is no furnace, since heating and cooling are provided by a ductless heat-pump system (one of the versions that still works at low temperatures). See this image, drawn by the contractor's drafter before I remembered to have the direction of the laundry/utility room's door reversed.
The living-room-as-central-hall concept will reduce the usable space by half. My house was built in 1945 and the upstairs hallway is 36′ wide, and it's narrow; newer homes have 48″ hallways. I'd say three feet is the minimum clearance you'll need around the doors to have adequate movement without it being cramped. Since you have doors on both sides of the room, nearly half of the total width needs to be kept clear for ingress and egress through the area.
The upshot of the above is that there will be very little room for furniture. The couch will have to be practically in the middle of the room. I think I see how you have a plan to mount the TV on the wall between two doors. With this TV location, you'll have to get a very small "apartment sofa" dead center in the room, and you might have room for a small end table or another chair on the wall next to the door. And that's it. That also means that the highest traffic area of the house will be directly between the couch and the television.
I agree that 48 inches is a good width for a corridor. (My (mother's) current house has a 30-inch corridor, and it's quite annoying.) In corridor-based designs, I use 48-inch corridors. However, this is a dining/living room, not a corridor. There are two different 36-inch paths around the central tables for people to use.
The television mount is intended to be a mount that can pivot to face any direction.
Also, I never use the dining/living room in my (mother's) current house, so I don't care much about it.
Another issue with having a central hall is that the private areas of the house are exposed to the living area. If you're entertaining, people will be looking in bedrooms, and will be going to the bathroom with nothing but an inch and a half of birch between them and the party.
All four of the doors between the dining/living room and the bedroom+bathroom suites will be steel "exterior" doors with weather stripping, not flimsy "interior" doors that easily transmit noise and smell.
Also, I don't expect to be entertaining many people.
Why the double doors in the bathrooms?
The intent is to make either one of the bedroom+bathroom suites a suitable master suite, rather than locking in only one of them as the master.
What do you need two bathrooms for?
In my (mother's) current house, I generally have been slightly annoyed at having to share a bathroom with her. Also, having two bathrooms makes renting out one bedroom easier if it becomes necessary for financial reasons.
And two large bathrooms at that; a typical size for a full bath in a small house is 8′ × 5′.
ICC A117.1 prescribes several different levels of accessibility. Generally, under an "aging in place" perspective, I am seeking to make this house compliant with "type B"—not so extreme as "accessible" or "type A", but not so minimal as "type C". I have determined that 10′×5′ (or a little less than 10′, depending on how close the doors are to the perpendicular walls) is the minimum size of a bathroom compliant with ICC A117.1 "type B" (able to accommodate a 30″×48″ wheelchair clearance, but not including the extravagant 5-foot-diameter circular turning space required under "accessible" and "type A").
Why no basement? I know they're more expensive, but if I understand correctly you're in the Philly/NJ area, which isn't exactly the South. Here in Pittsburgh the frost line is at 36″, and, while I imagine it's less over there, it couldn't be that much less. Building on a slab means sinking a footer at 36″ and then building up frost walls, which is still ultimately less expensive but doesn't usually make sense considering that a basement gives you a lot of extra space.
Prior to hiring the contractor, I hired an architect for initial feasibility checking. According to him, adding a basement would increase the cost of one of my designs by 40 percent (for a 988-ft2 design, from 133 k$ to 188 k$, not including the contractor's overhead and profit). I don't think that's a reasonable use of my limited funds. (This was long before I became aware of the 2019 RSMeans book. Now that I have the RSMeans book, which estimates a cost differential of only 10 percent for an unfinished basement or 24 percent for a finished basement, I feel a bit more skeptical of the architect's calculation. Still, he's the expert. I haven't asked the contractor about it, and I don't see much reason to now that I've signed a contract for a no-basement build.)
The slab will have R-10 foam-board insulation underneath it. (I argued to the contractor that the IRC mandates R-20 insulation under a slab floor in zone 5A (cool humid). But the contractor disagrees with my interpretation and thinks that R-20 under-slab insulation would be prone to compression over time.)
The lack of a rear door seems concerning.
The IRC mandates that in every bedroom at least one window be big enough and low enough that a person can clamber through it easily, so I don't see much need for a back door.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
20d ago
Mastodon itself
You're perpetuating the confusion. Your article specifically applies to the joinmastodon.org instances pawoo.net and mstdn.jp—not to mastodon.social.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
20d ago
Given current construction prices and the size of your build, you either got a great deal or live in the middle of nowhere or both.
The 2019 RSMeans book indicates that the cost multiplier of my new house's location is 0.92. (Some states have locations as low as 0.74.)
For a house that small, you probably are fine with just exhaust fans and some makeup air to a small air handler.
It's an interesting idea. I see that, according to the Architectural Graphic Standards for Residential Design: "Most new residences are too tightly constructed to provide adequate leakage ventilation. Therefore, manual and mechanical ventilation are recommended."
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
20d ago
The opinion says:
A phlebotomist and a lab technician made four attempts to draw blood from both of Norris’s arms but were unable to do so.
A second phlebotomist failed the fifth attempt to obtain a blood sample from Norris.
Where did you end up for final square footage?
If you're referring to the design that I'm actually having built, I went with the third drawing in this image.
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744 ft2: Most efficient, but has the kitchen in an L-shaped position that IMO is awkward in juxtaposition with the highly linear dining/living room
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793 ft2: Less efficient, but looks better; unfortunately can't fit into my lot's 35-foot-wide buildable area without rotation
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873 ft2: Final choice; originally drawn by the contractor's drafter, redrawn by me here
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857 ft2: A less ugly design, centered on a corridor rather than on a dining/living room, presented for comparison purposes
I always thought custom would be a 20–30-% premium over a spec-built house, which would be a 10–20-% premium over a tract house, which would be a 20–30-% premium over a prefab.
RSMeans says similar things. For a 1000-ft2 one-story house, the 2019 numbers are:
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Economy: 124.3 $/ft2
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Average: 144.55 $/ft2 (+16 % vs. economy)
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Custom: 198.65 $/ft2 (+37 % vs. average, +60 % vs. economy)
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Luxury: 233.9 $/ft2 (+17 % vs. custom, +88 % vs. economy)
I signed a contract to build my 873-ft2 design for 221 k$ (253 $/ft2) including driveway and fence. Due to a miscommunication, the contractor also offered a price of 193 k$ (221 $/ft2) not including driveway and fence. This probably is a waste of money in comparison to just buying a manufactured house (or perhaps obtaining a modular implementation of the 857-ft2 design), but I wanted to splurge on implementing my own design, since I'll be living in it for 50 years.
I did see the utility rooms in your plans. It's pretty generous for a washer/dryer, but I imagine pretty tight if you also need to fit an air handler, return, ERV, and 80-gallon hot-water heater.
Possibly, but I assumed the use of forced air in these designs just for simplicity, to align with the book's default assumptions. If I were actually having these houses built, I would use ductless heat-pump HVAC rather than forced air, freeing up a lot of space.
I don't particularly mind a small space, but small and stuffy sounds very unpleasant.
Not mentioned in the book's per-square-foot numbers is default window area. I generally would put 4-foot-wide windows everywhere (2 feet tall in bathrooms, 3 feet tall in kitchen, 4 feet tall elsewhere), which would more than suffice for the IPMC's light/ventilation requirements.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
20d ago
Regarding Bluesky, Kiwi Farms says:
🦋Bluesky is a decentralized, open source social media app that is similar to 𝕏 / Twitter. In fact, Bluesky was originally created in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to be an initiative into researching the possibility of decentralizing Twitter. However, Jack Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO in 2021 and Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, which resulted in the Bluesky initiative being severed from Twitter and evolving into a separate standalone app instead. When Elon Musk took control of Twitter, rebranded it to 𝕏, and worked to overhaul the platform's censorship and biased moderation, many leftists, politicians, celebrities, influencers, trannies, lolcows and other Twitter users who believed Musk had "ruined" Twitter, decided to flock to Bluesky, hoping that it would grow and overtake Musk's 𝕏. Other unsavory groups such as pedophiles, zoophiles, zoosadists, lolicon and shotacon enjoyers would also migrate from Twitter to Bluesky. As Bluesky's userbase pretty much consists of all the leftists and smug trannies that left Twitter due to Musk's alteration of Twitter's moderation policies, the Bluesky app has ended up becoming an even bigger echo chamber and hugbox with even stricter moderation to crush dissent.
Mastodon is somewhat more complicated. joinmastodon.org is a free (libre) protocol that can be used by anybody and supports easy communication between members who call different instances their respective homes. However, the biggest instance of joinmastodon.org is mastodon.social, which is left-wing and blacklists other instances that its admins don't like. Commentators often fail to explain this distinction, leading to confusion among onlookers. (See also matrix.org vs. element.io.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
20d ago
I guess your calculations are just for fun?
Yes. (I've already hired a contractor to build a house, nominally for five occupants but actually for only two.)
What kind of living situation are you envisioning where such high density is required, but you are able to get what look like relatively modest building costs?
I don't see why a person can't build a small house in a cheap area. It's what I'm doing.
The HVAC costs also look suspect for meeting current ASHRAE guidelines for 7 occupants.
More specifically: In the per-assembly section, the book says that, for a 1200-ft2 house in year 2019, a cooling system costs 5.8 k$, while a heating/cooling system costs 11.6 k$. The number given is per ft2, not per occupant.
Square footage also need to be allocated for mechanicals if you assume you are occupying the basement and/or attic.
If you look at the designs, I have provided a laundry/utility room for the furnace (in addition to the washer, dryer, and circuit-breaker box).
Is the idea two parents and five kids? A decent number of municipalities wouldn't even allow seven non-related people to occupy a single-family residence. I know people do it, but asking three kids to share a 10′×10′ room is a lot by modern American standards.
These designs are compliant with the 2024 International Property Maintenance Code, which prescribes minimum bedroom area of 70 ft2 for one occupant or 50 ft2 per occupant for multiple occupants. They exceed the IPMC's requirements for dining/living-room area.
An officer finds a woman asleep in her still-running car in a parking lot. When roused, the woman appears to be intoxicated, and admits that she used methamphetamine 16 hours ago. The officer arrests her and takes her to a hospital for a blood test.
At the hospital, the woman consents to the blood test. However, after four failed attempts to draw blood, she withdraws consent due to the pain. The officer gets a warrant and the woman cooperates with a fifth, nonconsensual attempt to draw blood, but that attempt also fails. (Some cursory searching indicates that (according to various reputable-looking sources, including this paywalled standard) the normal maximum number of attempts is three.) The woman refuses to cooperate with any further attempted blood draws. She offers to take a urine test, but the officer doesn't take her up on that offer.
The woman is convicted of driving while intoxicated (sentence six months of jail with the possibility of parole after three days) and obstruction of justice (sentence two years of probation concurrent with the jail time; the appeals panel notes that this appears to make no sense). However, the appeals panel vacates the obstruction conviction (and remands for resentencing).
Norris did not commit an unlawful act concurrent with, physically interfere with, or attempt to thwart the investigation at the outset by refusing to cooperate with the police's effort to execute a valid search warrant. Instead, Norris complied with the police officer's investigation until the point that the multiple failed blood-draw attempts became painful and, it appears by any reasonable and common-sense standard, futile. Under these circumstances, we believe: (1) the statute does not compel a person subject to a DUI blood draw to submit to an unreasonable number of attempted blood draws, as was the case here; and, more importantly, (2) a defendant's refusal to cooperate after five failed attempts does not prove her intention to obstruct the trooper from obtaining a blood sample.
RSMeans is an authoritative source of cost-estimation data for construction contractors in the US (and Canada). The current residential dataset costs about 0.5 k$/a in paper or 1 k$/a online. However, a paper copy for year 2019—just before the pandemic produced a paradigm shift in construction costs—can be purchased for just 25 dollars. Even if such an old version cannot be used for current cost estimates, it still is interesting to look at for comparison purposes.
For example: Let's say I want to build a house for seven occupants. I have three designs.
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One-story: 1182 ft2, three bedroom+bathroom suites
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1.5-story (finished attic under steep roof): 1560 ft2, one bedroom+bathroom suite on floor 1, two bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2
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Two-story: 1541 ft2, one bathroom on floor 1, three bedroom+bathroom suites on floor 2
The book indicates that the second story of the two-story design can be built in three different ways—above ground (standard), below ground (finished basement), or halfway below ground (bi-level). That yields five different cost estimates.
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One-story: 1182 ft2 × (115.45 base* + 4.95 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 155 k$
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1.5-story: 1560 ft2 × (111.3 base + 3.69 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 2 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 192 k$ (+24 %)
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Two-story, standard: 1541 ft2 × (111.55 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 196 k$ (+26 %)
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Two-story, finished basement: 770 ft2** × (135.5 base + 31.7 for finished basement + 4.95 for air conditioning***) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 152 k$ (−2 %)
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Two-story, bi-level: 1541 ft2 × (103.25 base + 3.01 for air conditioning) $/ft2 + 3 extra bathrooms × 6489 $/extra bathroom = 183 k$ (+18 %)
So, according to this dataset, moving all the bedrooms into the basement has approximately the same cost as keeping them on the ground floor. (Beyond cost considerations, having a smaller footprint on the plan view may free up space under the "maximum impervious coverage" prescribed by the local zoning or environmental regulations, while sticking to a single story may be preferable from a long-term "aging in place" perspective. But cost still is an important factor that one should consider.)
Of course, the highly simplified numbers demonstrated above are open to question. (Does it really make sense that putting the bedroom floor halfway below ground is significantly more expensive than putting it all the way below ground?) But the book is divided into four main sections:
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96 pages of uncomplicated per-square-foot prices, as demonstrated above (including materials, installation, and contractor's overhead and profit)
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186 pages of moderately complicated per-assembly prices (cost per yd3 of excavation, per ft2 of 2×6 wall, per water heater, etc.; including materials and installation)
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384 pages of very complicated per-unit prices (cost per ft of 2″×4″ stud, per ft2 of sheathing, per yd3 of concrete, per acre of topographical survey, etc.)
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82 pages of reference: equipment-rental costs, crew listings (e. g., a topographical-survey crew consists of a chief, an instrument man, one or two rod men, and an electronic level, for 954–1232 $/d if employed or 1550–2008 $/d if subcontracted), location factors (e. g., multiply prices for materials and installation by 1.21 in Newark, NJ, or by 0.92 in Wilkes-Barre, PA), reference tables (state sales tax rates, state workers' compensation insurance rates, typical architectural fees, etc.), estimating forms
So, a dilettante who doesn't trust the per-square-foot prices can dig deeper into the per-assembly prices, and a true contractor can use the per-unit prices. I'm too lazy to go any further here, though.
*The base $/ft2 number is taken from a list of numbers that decrease as area increases—e. g., from 150.15 $/ft2 at 600 ft2 to 82.2 $/ft2 at 3200 ft2. This list can be approximated with a quadratic equation in a spreadsheet—e. g., 28.55 $/ft2 + 3052 $/ft ÷ √(area) − 1482 $ ÷ area—but I have not done that in this example. There are separate lists based on quality (economy, average, custom, luxury), story count (1-story, 1.5-story, 2-story, 2.5-story, 3-story, bi-level, tri-level), and material (wood studs + wood siding, wood studs + brick veneer, wood studs + stone veneer, painted concrete block, solid brick, solid stone).
**The book's estimating procedure is based on the non-basement living area, even if the basement is finished.
***The book does not give a separate number for adding air conditioning to the finished basement. If I naively double the number that it gives for adding air conditioning to the non-basement living area, the final cost is 156 k$ (+1 %).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
21d ago
When I pay with dollar bills (buying General Tso's chicken at a Chinese restaurant or a Slurpee/Icee at a convenience store), the cashier occasionally rounds to the nearest five cents (giving me a free one or two cents) on his own initiative, but I've never seen one round to the nearest ten cents.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
21d ago
Here is my proposal for reforming the cash system:
This sounds like a Friday Fun Thread topic to me.
Inflation has made pennies, nickels, and dimes worthless.
[citation needed]
Only the penny and the nickel cost more to mint than their fiat value.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
21d ago
Jesse Singal is a journalist and podcaster who often covers "youth gender medicine", reading the studies and interviewing many clinicians. While Jesse is critical of the evidence base for "affirmative care," he is hardly some TERF or even a true & honest transphobe. He still defends medical transition for minors, even puberty blockers, believes being trans is a valid identity, and uses preferred pronouns for anyone he writes about or discusses on his podcast. (His podcast was recently featured for covering a story about the Tranch, referencing the Farms as a source. He and his podcasting partner Katie Herzog also criticized the mainstream coverage of Keffals v KF.) His most genocidal posts were his Atlantic cover story about youth gender transition, an article about Kenneth Zucker, and an article about transracialism discourse.
Yet for the crime of covering this topic as a journalist instead of a stenographer for trans activists, he is one of the most frequent targets of their rage and derangement, including death threats, slander, sexual fantasies, and false accusations. They have repeatedly thrown their own reputations and careers under the bus in the process. (Jesse himself is unable to resist a Twitter fight, and very willing to request corrections and retractions if he finds their work to be full of errors or harmful to his reputation.)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
21d ago
I barely learned anything reading the article.
Better article with copious screenshots
Jerry Chen: (bluesky user bursts into Waffle House) OH SO YOU HATE PANCAKES??
Jay Graber: Too real. We're going to try to fix this. Social media doesn't have to be this way.
Random person: have y'all banned Jesse Singal yet or
Jay Graber: WAFFLES
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
22d ago
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Speed limit is too low → mayor continues to enforce speed limit → convicted speeders get angry and complain to their municipal councilors → municipal councilors change speed limit
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Speed limit is too low → mayor stops enforcing speed limit → there are no convicted speeders to get angry → no municipal councilors have any reason to care about the speed limit
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
23d ago
I can't find Virginia's definitions, but here are Pennsylvania's.
A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and intent of the actor's conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation.
A person acts negligently with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it, considering the nature and intent of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation.
This Pennsylvania case seems highly relevant to the situation under discussion.
- A motorist is driving at 55 mi/h on a road whose posted speed limit is 35 mi/h. At a sharp curve, he loses control and hits an oncoming car. He is convicted of reckless driving.
- The appeals panel reverses.
There is no evidence Appellant had any difficulties negotiating the road or came close to colliding with other vehicles prior to encountering the curve that caused him to lose control here. As such, and given that Appellant's speed was not so excessive as to itself create a high risk of accident, which could be imputed to Appellant by default, the evidence of conscious disregard, a key component of the willful and wanton [i. e., reckless] standard, is lacking.
Even when there are other cars on the road, driving at high speed can be merely negligent rather than reckless.
Normally, recklessness involves danger to other people, not just to oneself. Quote from a court opinion that I posted recently:
Recklessness is distinguishable from negligence on the basis that recklessness requires conscious action or inaction which creates a substantial risk of harm to others, whereas negligence suggest unconscious inadvertence.
If nobody else was on the road at that time (on an Interstate highway, unlikely but not impossible), driving at extremely high speeds would be negligent but not reckless (under normal laws, not under this particular unusual law).
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
25d ago
"Due to the federal shutdown", data.census.gov is not responding to queries. You may want to ask again when the shutdown has ended.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
26d ago
Steam's "Controller Layout" settings menu (also applicable to non-Steam games, such as emulators, that you launch through Steam) allows the user to customize deadzones and response curves on a per-game basis in excruciating detail, including deadzone shapes and response curves.
(It does not appear that 8BitDo's "Ultimate Software" settings application has the same granularity of control.)
Amorphous Plus (downloadable as part of the Flashpoint Archive)
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
26d ago
be me, Dark Souls 2 fan (though I haven't played it in several years)
enjoy using Heide Spear, which has innate lightning damage, on a character whose dump stats are attunement, intelligence, and faith (which are useful only for magic)
notice that a new wiki has been created for the game
idly check out the page on scaling
mfw lightning damage scales with faith
mfw the meta tryhards say that there are "low returns on melee weapon scaling", so you're supposed to go for weapon upgrades and temporary buffs instead
Maybe I'll start a new playthrough with a character for whom faith is not a dump stat.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
27d ago
the defendent seems to have admitted to brandishing a "black semiautomatic (as opposed to a revolver) handgun"
I don't see any such admission.
You probably have seen the joke that goes something like: "I didn't kill him. And if I did it wasn't intentional. And if it was intentional it wasn't premeditated." IMO, here the defendant (as summarized by the appeals panel; as noted above, I can't access the legal documents, since they're in Pennsylvania and I'm not a lawyer) is only saying: "I didn't point anything at the witnesses. And if I did it wasn't a gun. And if it was a gun it wasn't an operable gun."
On October 1, four members of Caricom (the Caribbean Community)—Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent (total population 900,000)—implemented full freedom of movement. Under this arrangement, a citizen of any of those four countries can reside and work indefinitely in any of the other three countries, without a visa or a work permit.
This arrangement is an extension of existing freedom-of-movement provisions for all holders of bachelor's and associate's degrees and workers in certain other skilled professions. The other members of Caricom are expected to join the full implementation eventually.
Press release
News article
Speeches from the prime ministers of Barbados and Dominica
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