That sounds like a fun idea.

Excavation is expensive and toss in an under-utilized garden space- You could probably run for office with those ideas.

Pros of this idea: Looks pretty. A few people can grow tomato's for a fun hobby.

Cons of this idea: More expensive and unavailable for lower income.

To be fair, I'm overtly sympathetic to the lowest income.

Being unavailable to the lowest income is a viable platform to run on in some districts.

The last 10 years of seeing Academia decide what is a valid has convinced me Academia has limited weight in the real world.

Don't sweat their opinion, Industry drives the world.

Let us hope that commercial interests don't drive science.

Let us hope that as many things as possible drive science, as serendipity is the heart of new discovery.

I can make ~3-5k/yr on ads, but I make 25x more at my day job, it seems petty.

Although, this seems like bad capitalism, cant grow if I dont charge money...

But I started my website to help everyone(especially the lowest income people).

Very conflicted.

I was mostly just shifting my online forum posting onto my own platforms.

It’s not hard to find people that make thousands upon thousands of posts on forums. They’re making a killing: for other people.

For the most part, I would bash companies that overcharge and recommend cheaper alternatives.

Hence why I didn’t bother with anything more than Adsense. I was basically toxic, but it was popular and refreshing.

Blogging is part and parcel of establishing your own brand, and makes it likelier you will get your next day job and a raise.

Maybe that’s where I screwed up by never writing anything related to work. Haha.

Most would laugh at my generic site, but the content was good and the numbers didn’t lie.

If your site is http://efficiencyiseverything.com I think it could be a hit with a graphic redesign and maybe converting some posts to YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. It’s a neat idea but slow and a little hard on the eyes.

Definitely not. My site worked on mobile because it wasn’t trying to be cool.

Yep, going to improve the web design next year.

Priority now is new content.

Do you work more than or less than 25x at your day job?

The usual issue is scale. Trying to write 25x the content without taking a hit gets difficult.

As a side-gig, it’s pretty good to write good stuff when it comes to you.

Mostly I trash crappy products and recommended better and cheaper competitors.

There was only so much I came across that upset me enough to write them up.

>This acts as a check on just how much of a tax break a municipality is able to give them, as public funds are needed to support that infrastructure.

Well I suppose its Apple, so when they do cronyism, it must be okay. /s

I haven't heard of any tax breaks in Seattle here.

I never noticed much effect. Anyone have an anecdote?

Did two things: 1. Got my caffeine intake to zero over a month. Basically, no coffee or tea (don't drink sodas or anything else) for four weeks. 2. Started to have a strong espresso with two L-Theanine pills very morning before workout.

Noticed a much improved ability to concentrate on mundane tasks, and much less procrastination. I think, effect lasted for some 6-8 weeks, after that got off by drinking coffee during the day as well, so not sure what actually stopped the effect - caffeine or l-theanine tolerance.

I've been on and off L-theanine in different forms but regulated regimens for around 8 years. Of course my experience is just anecdotical and applies only to my metabolism and psychology but your case sounds like what happens when I get tolerance to L-theanine. The capsules do that for me pretty fast, but if I rotate between L-theanine rich Korean Sencha, Oolong and Gyokuro/matcha the effect never goes away.

I only need to not get too high on caffeine and to not repeat the same tea so much, if I do when I realise and switch to the other one the effect comes back.

Getting Oolong's and senchas with good theanine content is hard, specially finding one that works for you. Glutamate rich smell is a good indicator as well as the color or whiteish spots. Gyokuro or matcha is a safer source but if you only use that you get the tolerance thing too.

Yellow bag Lipton also works a little bit for me but not as effectively.

Is there a reason to believe the L-Theanine was a factor there? What you describe sounds exactly like the normal effects of caffeine.

L-Theanine makes caffeine's effects last much longer.

As gp said, 1 espresso, 6 hours.

For me it also cuts down the side effects, all around a very useful substance.

It gives you a calm focus. Sometimes (rarely) I realize I'm cranky for no reason after I respond to something with more emotion than it deserved, which isn't good on relationships. L-theanine works great for me to take the edge off.

I take 400mg before interviews when I'm job hunting. Unlike benzodiazepines, it doesn't seem to affect my problem solving ability at all. The effect is pretty mild compared to stronger anti-anxiety medication, but for me it seems to take my anxiety down a couple notches.

During a regular onsite interview, without l-theanine I might have some heart racing, and I might not be able to focus well enough to even understand what an interviewer is asking me. With l-theanine, the anxiety is still there but I can at least understand the problems I'm given.

IIRC it doesn't have any effect by itself but makes the effect of the caffeine less "jittery"

The only reason these were illegal was cronyism.

And before you get excited about the safety we get with regulation. Capitalism has proven with billion dollar companies, we don't want regulated taxis.

Eh, the only people who like unregulated mini-hotels (airbnb) in residential areas are the ones making money.

And, to be fair, the ones paying money to stay in those mini-hotels.

(And, to be clear, "the ones making money" includes local businesses benefiting from increased tourism, and their employees.)

And to be clear, the local businesses would benefit from tourists staying in real hotels just as much, if not more, than the ones staying in AirBnBs, because such tourists are more likely to dine out and do things around town.

But restaurants dislike tourists because most tourists tip less than Americans, so a high concentration of these "mini-hotels" is detrimental to restaurants and their staff.

tipping culture and minimum wage in the US is detrimental to restaurants; not the tourists buying the food!

Taxi licensing was not cronyism, it was simple economics. Taxicabs can either have x drivers all at a subsistence level, or 0.5x drivers with a reasonable standard of living. Licensing with a cap and fixed rates becomes a policy decision driven by the public interest.

Why is this not true for every type of market? Taco stands, barbershops, web designers, attorneys, parking lots, dog walkers, etc? Couldn't you just replace "taxicabs" and "drivers" with any kind of business or industry?

Isn't the collective end goal of the competitive marketplace supposed to be razor thin margins due to competition? I live in NYC and prior to Uber, 1) taxi medallions were valued at high six figures, 2) service was terrible, 3) prices were too high, and 4) actual drivers still made shit money.

I think Uber and Lyft and others have improved all of that, to be honest. Competition is a beautiful thing.

That's ridiculous. $140K taxi medallions are simple economics? Each $140K a company had to pay for some stupid medallion could have employed two people for a year. Medallions and protectionism just created localized monopolies that had few incentives to improve service, innovate on tech, and even provide clean vehicles. There's no other industry that needs this artificial cap, as if demand and supply can be accurately controlled for by government policy officials. What a joke.

If I'm lucky, I'll never see the term "Capitalism has proven..." again, in my lifetime

Do you have a website/app/product you promote?

Nothing wrong with keeping your friends/followers happy with an occasional positive statement.

This way you can post your true feelings later in a less popular post.

I guess you've never worked those jobs. Try it for 6 months or a year and then tell us if you still feel that way.

It's dehumanizing, and petty to try and squeeze people out this way.

The goal of creating processes is to improve. Ideally workers would be skilled, educated, and empowered at improving their own processes