They could have followed standard security recommendations and not used the same password for multiple accounts.

Not saying they deserved it, but not sharing passwords is like security 101 nowadays.

And UNIX's successor, Plan 9 from Bell Labs, got barely any traction at all. Still has it's die-hard fans, though.

Someone's an Everyday Driver fan.

I wanted to see how big this would actually need to be.

Let's say we're using cast iron. Density is 7800 kg/m^3, so you'd need approximately 211 cubic meters of solid cast iron, which is a cube with side length of approximately 6 meters. So you'd need two stories just to fit the thing in your house, and another to be able to lift the required amount.

So that's obviously impractical, let's use a denser metal. The densest metal material is osmium at 22,600 kg/m^3, resulting in a block 73 m^3 which is a cube with side length 4 meters, which still doesn't fit in your basement, but we can probably fit most of the mechanism into two stories.

The densest know element is hassium, which gets you down to a cube with side length 3.4 m, which still doesn't fit in your basement (let alone the height needed to lift) and has the minor drawback of a half-life of 10 seconds.

So short of exotic materials you generally only find in stars, such a system is fairly impractical on the household scale.

I think this example really highlights the main drawback of these kinds of energy storage systems: they take up a lot of volume.

I think the most elegant way to achieve this is to simply shift the current property tax to fall on land value, rather than land value + building value. That way, people's tax bills don't go up when they improve their house or build on their land. Most people who actually live on that land would see an overall decrease in tax bills because most of their property value (the building) no longer gets taxed, but empty lots and lots with condemned or run-down buildings see their bill go up significantly, forcing them to sell to someone who's actually going to do something with the property.

Combine this with zoning and permitting reform to lower construction costs, and I think that will help the situation a lot.