Did you know that during the 18th and 19th century industrial revolution in Britain, coal never became cheaper than water power? All those new steam engines were used to make deeper mines more viable and to increase production. But water power remained cheaper throughout. But water power came with a downside. Available water power tended to be located in rural areas. The smaller population in these small towns consequently had a lot of labor bargaining power. Industrialists instead wanted access to the labor markets of the major cities, cities brimming over with new urban poor desperate for any scrap of work they could get. Cheaper labor overcame cheaper power. A coal plant could be put anywhere, while a water mill could only be positioned on high-flowing streams.

Renewables are cheaper, but we’ve been here before. There’s more to this than just energy cost.

UK standard of living has been declining for years.

There’s ultimately really no reason for them to completely dismantle democracy. Republicans know they can lose big in 2026 and 2028 and still regain power in just a few years. It’s already guaranteed that whatever Democrats get elected won’t really do anything to change the circumstances that resulted in Republicans winning. And they will not prosecute Trump and his co-conspirators for their crimes. And Democrats don’t offer the working class anything, so the Republican message of “we’ll make other people’s lives worse to make your life better” resonates with people. They’re the only party actually offering to help people.

There’s just no reason for Republicans to abandon democracy all together. They’ll happily tilt the scales heavily in their favor, but completely abandoning democracy would mean civil war. And they’re already doing quite well in our existing flawed democracy. Why risk it all when you’re already winning?

Ultimately living standards are declining because of increased wealth inequality. And Democrats aren’t going to do anything to fight that. So Republicans at most will be out of power for another cycle.

Republicans don’t need to destroy democracy. They’re already in complete control in our current system. And Democrats, if elected in 2026 and 2028, are already promising to do everything in their power to make sure MAGA returns to power in 2032.

I have one of these and can highly recommend it. I chose the Bearaby because it didn’t have those little beads. I’ve heard if those bead pockets rupture while in the wash, they’ll destroy a washing machine.

Important meetings and decisions should be made with remote workers present and with their full participation. If your team frequently cuts people out and is prone to forming cliques of in-groups and out-groups, return to office won’t help you. Those same middle school politics happen in entirely in-person offices. People get cut out and isolated whether remote or in person when management decides their input isn’t valuable.

I like the way my office does it. All the engineers and drafters are on the ground floor. The sales guys work in a loft at the back of the building. We keep them in the attic like they would keep dementia patients in the attic back in the olden days.

You’re talking different neurotypes here. Why should we prioritize the neurotype that prefers in-office vs the neurotype that prefers out-of-office? If anything, shouldn’t we prefer the working style that saves the company money and is more productive on average?

It also has to with the tyranny of distance. People end up trapped in shitty jobs that aren’t right for them. They end up in roles where they aren’t doing the things they want to do or where their talents truly lie. Economically, this causes them to be much less productive than they could be in a position that’s a better fit for them.

And the main reason people end up trapped in jobs is the tyranny of distance. Maybe there’s only two employers in your town that can really use your specific skills. For someone who owns a home, moving costs tens of thousands of dollars. And often you can’t find out a position won’t be a good fit until you actually work there for awhile.

Work from home overcomes much of this tyranny of distance. It allows employers and employees to find much better matches for each other, unconstrained by physical distance. And for this reason, shitty employers hate it. Shitty employers thrive on transaction/switching costs and employee lock-in.

Congress can already directly overturn Supreme Court rulings via either jurisdiction stripping or by expanding the size of the court.

I mean, I could see how it actually might have some positive effects. There’s all sorts of bacteria in soil. If you take a hunk of soil and bake it, any alive bacteria will be present. But even after baking, their dead forms will remain in various states of decomposition. So maybe eating dirt could act as a sort of broad-spectrum “vaccine” to certain pathogens. You’re exposing your immune system to various pathogens rendered inert by the baking process. And maybe this decreases the number or severity of infections people get.

No idea if this would actually work. But it seems vaguely plausible at least.

Thanks! The garage is nice. It has some real advantages. When it’s all set up, I’ll be able to back the pickup truck to the garage door and take a full sheet of plywood directly from the truck bed to the workbench. When the weather is nice, I like to open the doors and just work in the fresh air. Finally, while I do sweep and vacuum up, there’s always a little bit of dust left over. For that little bit of dust, I can grab the leaf blower and just blow the last bit of really fine dust out the garage door.

I’m working to set up my new workshop. We moved into a new house a few months ago, and I’m finally getting to setting up the shop in earnest.

I’m setting up the shop in a 3 car garage. The garage has a one car bay and a two car bay. I want to be able to actually park a car in the one car bay. So I built a large wall separating the two bays. The wall covers probably 2/3 of the width. The rest will be covered by a curtain. The two car bay will be the actual woodshop area. The one car bay will be a place to park a car and will serve as a finishing space. The wall and curtain will keep sawdust contained within the two car bay. The wall also serves as a tool wall. Here’s what the wall currently looks like:

From the other side:

The wall is about 10’ wide and 12’ high.

In my old shop I had even more on the wall. But I’m trying out moving most of my bladed tools into a tool chest. I was going to build one, but I found this old steamer trunk by the side of the road. From the manifest glued to the back it looks like it was used by an air force airman in the 1980s to ship things home from Japan. I’ll be using it as a tool chest. I wanted to put wheels on it. But as it’s a bit of an artifact I didn’t want to actually modify the trunk itself or drill into. Instead I built a little cart for it to roll around on.

After I finish here, the last big step in setting up the shop will be installing the dust collection system. And I went overboard on this. This is very much a dream shop setup I’m building out. Currently in a bunch of boxes strewn about the shop is an entire Oneida Dust Gorilla and a network of piping to service the various machines.

If you’re going to make excuses for Democrats, at least get your basic facts right…