For a month that cost wouldn't be too different from a garage; even the most expensive parking tickets are $100 in Boston. Still sounds like he came out ahead.

I'm impressed he found decent street parking without having resident plates and permits.

To be fair, "dumb" cruise control from my old early-aughts beater is more trouble than it's worth in most traffic in Massachusetts. The adaptive cruise control that controls your following distance is a complete revolution by comparison.

Texans drive like massholes, but the traffic down there is going at least 75 mph and the drivers all have guns.

I feel like your last two sentences describe traffic as it was always meant to be done.

What's the better alternative?

Newer cars have auto-lane assist and auto-follow cruise control.

When I got the chance to drive in traffic with a car like that, it was amazing how much more calm I felt after driving. Something about not having to make split-second braking or acceleration to match other drivers just took the edge off for me.

You argue it's not slapdash and happens every day, but we wouldn't be discussing it if it weren't a problem.

I think you're dodging the point: current rail standards and practices are evidently insufficient to ensure the safety of the surrounding people and environment.

Your second sentence describes the exact problem. In a lab, every damned chemical you use is documented. Apparently none of that was available from this train: First responders reportedly didn't know what substance was on the train, and that was coupled with the wheels and brakes overheating causing a clear risk of ignition.

The entire shit sandwich seems to have come about from negligence, both of maintenance of the rail cars and from how they loaded these substances slapdash in the train.

I'd argue this clearly shows a need for tighter regulatory requirements on the trains, but I'm also interested to see the reports from the final investigation when the facts become more verifiable.

All of it.

The shipment was not shipped under any sort of hazardous cargo protocol, as I understand it.

Industrial disasters are invariably a result of human choice. We know enough about natural conditions to plan around them.

Which could have just as easily been done if they had actually used appropriate safety measures and were not trying to cut costs by shipping vinyl chloride without hazardous materials documentation.

Ski sloped in the Northeast are always swarmed. Always.

The difference between lift lines for a ski lift in the Northeast after freezing rain is like 5x longer than lines for a ski lift in Breckenridge on a powder day.

I wonder how much of those profits were reinvested into efforts to mitigate global warming, though? We have "energy" (oil) billionaires transparently pushing anti-environmentalism but the response from businesses that stand to lose from global warming has been remarkably muted.

To be fair, screens are a better opiate for the masses than religion ever could aspire to.

Half my work uses a screen, and in the cold winter months so does most of my recreation. I can't honestly argue that I probably wouldn't be doing something better with my time if I didn't have my TV, games, and internet.

Add in the habit-inducing design of so many apps and websites these days and I'd argue excessive screen time is a really valid concern for people these days.

A lot of community electricity rates update by January. It'll be a painful transition for a lot of people.

I thought the CRISPR in primates only dated back to 2018-ish, but my memory could be a bit hazy. In the world of NHP research, six years is less than the useful life of the rhesus macaques I've seen in labs.

Right, but primates are also the only animal model that is appropriate for more complex etiologies. A genetically-defined model marmoset or macaque of neurological disorders would arguably be a better model than any rodent could aspire to.

There have been papers out recently showing CRISPR in primates, so I expect gene edited marmosets or macaques could be feasibly studied these days.

The fun part about the left lane on the Pike is how it never moves.

Also it seems like all the wrecks ever block the left lane.

I've come to believe the left lane on the Pike was deliberately engineered to bait the out-of-towners into sitting in traffic longer than everyone else.

Does 7-11 stock it's franchise, or do they just require the mom-and-pop franchisee to purchase their stocks from corporate? One of those means it's not actually the corporation eating the losses.

The laws disadvantaging the poor is true. It's also not relevant to my comment.

People advocating for an equitable justice system are advocating for the spirit of the justice system that was founded for this nation, and are supported by plenty of legal, cultural, and philosophical precedents. It's far more than simply "a reactionary moment."

As long as our justice system claims to be designed for everyone to be equal under the law, as long as our legislators write laws designed to apply equally to all parties who break said laws, and as long as the courts rule to uphold equal protection under the law as principle...

...as long as that continues, people have every right to insist on equal protection under the law. No matter how cynical you may feel about it.

Nah, the responsibility is on the city and state government. Land is a finite resource, and cities and states seem to have a legitimate interest in preventing property monopolies from forming.

Also there's legitimate interest in preventing price cartels from forming, like what that software tool is creating.

Everything else you said isn't really that relevant; owners gonna own. Regulators gotta regulate.

Who believes that? Absolutely no one.

The difference is: like food or water, housing is a fundamental human need and we have millenia of history showing how easy it is to monopolize and then abuse a housing market.

It goes back to serfs, and then even earlier history than that.

We've had greed since time immemorial. The problem is we're giving too much power to a market made up of a small number of sellers.

Boston needs some stiff vacancy taxes and Massachusetts needs to do some antitrust measures against landlords.