I am reminded of some source code for a company-specific program that I saw in the late 1990s. I don't remember why I was perusing it, as I was in IT and absolutely not a developer. But I remember being tickled at one of the comments before a block of code. It was something like, "I have no idea why or how the following code works. But every time someone tries to change it, everything breaks, so please don't touch it."

Well written code is self-documenting, specifically because once you start putting documentation somewhere else, you start getting a divergence in truth. And I'm not talking about leaving comments in the code - that's also documentation, as anyone who has had to reconcile business processes with code can attest upon discovering that the comments and the code also don't agree with each other. (This is where I try and sell people on having detailed commit messages, and then realize that they're all going to be lost the next time someone advocates for a squash merge...)

Refactoring is how you refresh your knowledge of the code and remove any accumulated cruft. Stuff like "Oh, we meant to do that in the next release, but we've completely removed that functionality, so this stub can go too.", and "Well shit, this algorithm doesn't work the way we thought it did - and the test suite is missing the test that would tell us that it doesn't work for that last 10% of use cases.", and "Uh... this method doesn't only do that one thing anymore, time to refactor and dry things out."

The moment you start relying on "tribal knowledge" to manage your code, you're fucked. Because very soon, as you have turnover (doesn't have to be layoffs - people can get promoted up or sideways, a bunch of people get hired, some people get transferred to special projects and start forgetting the stuff they maintained), the tribal knowledge distills to one thing: "If it isn't broken, don't touch it - you'll break it."

In other words... If your codebase is in decent shape, AI code bots are not a net negative unless people are blindly approving commits. If your codebase is in shitty shape, you're probably already having issues with diverging truth (and inability to scale), and you're fucked either way.

That's not the reason that both bombs were dropped. They were dropped because the military saw them as just another tool in the toolbox, just like the bombs dropped on all the other cities that continued to be dropped on other cities until the surrender. Truman ended the military's control of atomic bombs after Nagasaki, when the USAAF was preparing to use a third bomb, establishing civilian control of atomic weapons. Firebombing continued, though, right up to Kumagaya, Akita, and Osaka getting hit in the 24 hours prior to Hirohito taking to the airwaves.

The agreement expired in 2030. It did not authorize Iran to pursue nuclear weapons at that time. There's a difference.

The agreement was the best available at the time. Diplomacy sometimes requires taking a temporary win, and it usually means that neither side gets everything they want. The hope was that Iran would find that they would not want or need to develop nuclear weapons. If they did go down that path, there were penalties for doing so. Future negotiations were planned to modify or extend the agreement as it got closer to the expiration date.

That's how such agreements work. Every arms treaty signed between the US and USSR had an expiration date. The expiration date was not an agreement that at the end, both sides would immediately rearm. They were meant to establish a new normal and a baseline for future negotiations, and that's what happened. Over time, the arsenals were negotiated down from tens of thousands per side to a few thousand per side, with only a fraction of them deployed or even deployable. The last one expired a few months ago, but neither side is racing to add to their deployed warhead count.

There is no way to outright prevent Iran from developing a nuclear warhead without occupying the country and removing its entire current government. That is hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and an even worse look for the US than it has right now. Negotiating a deal like the JCPOA is the best option available. But every time Trump starts to talk about a deal and details start to leak out, they look a lot worse than the JCPOA. Trump is incompetent, he started a war that even Republicans are turning against, and he's arguably left Iran in a better place than it was before. Iran now knows that they can cut off the Strait of Hormuz, and no one can or will do anything about it. Worse, Trump has stated that he would be OK with Iran charging transit fees. If that starts, everyone else who controls a waterway that is otherwise internationally accessible is going to charge them, too. Indonesia and Malaysia would be the top two who could affect global trade, and while both have said that they would not, it's hard to say what future governments would do if they came under budget stress and had a precedent to point to.

Latest top performance is expensive, and electronics in general are more expensive, if you haven't noticed. There are still plenty of Wi-Fi 5 devices, and a lot of networks don't go faster than 1 Gbps anyway. If you need faster, the USB-C port is capable of 5 Gbps Ethernet via USB-CDC NCM, so there's probably enough there to connect a 2.5 Gbps USB NIC.

The whole design is supposed to be open, so maybe you can gather a few friends and figure out how to install faster components that meet your expectations.

This actually has been a problem for utilities for a long while.

https://freemannews.tulane.edu...

"As more and more homeowners install solar panels, they generate their own electricity and buy less from utility companies. While consumer solar adoption is good for the environment, it reduces the revenue that utilities generate from consumers. To make up for the shortfall, utilities raise electricity prices, which in turn pushes more people to switch to solar, further decreasing demand for utility-provided power. This âoeutility death spiralâ can lead to skyrocketing prices for consumers and financial instability for utility companies."

EVs were supposed to be a lifeline, but that whole push has been sidelined.

The energy company deciding to end service is not the utility directly serving customers:

"NV Energy, the Nevada utility that has supplied the bulk of Lake Tahoeâ(TM)s electricity for decades, told Liberty Utilities â" the small California company that services the region â" that it will stop providing power after May 2027. The reason: NV Energy needs the capacity for data centers being built by Google, Apple, and Microsoft around the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center east of Reno, according to Fortune."

Liberty Utilities is the electric company. NV Energy is their main supplier. NV Energy found a customer willing to pay more, and is giving Liberty Utilities notice to figure out a different method to make up the shortfall. Is Liberty negligent? Not at all:

https://california.libertyutil...

https://california.libertyutil...

"Liberty is preparing for a planned transition in our supplemental energy supply beginning in 2028, while continuing to provide safe, reliable electric service to our customers. Liberty began this process in 2019 when Liberty filed for the transmission capacity reservations to enable this transition to the market. Liberty cannot access the greater energy market without these transmission rights, and weâ(TM)re excited to receive those rights when NV Energyâ(TM)s Greenlink-West project goes into service, expected December 31, 2027.
Today, we serve customers through a combination of Liberty-owned solar generation and supplemental wholesale power purchased from NV Energy. Our 60 megawatts of locally owned solar generation will continue to play an important role in our long-term energy mix.
Beginning in 2028, NV Energy will no longer serve as our wholesale energy supplier. To prepare for this transition, we are pursuing a competitive process to secure new supplemental energy supply arrangements focused on sustainability, affordability, and reliability. NV Energy will remain our transmission provider and neighbor, and we will continue using the existing transmission system to deliver electricity to our service territory."

The problem is that apparently NV Energy is moving up the deadline from beginning 2028 to May of 2027... effectively giving 1 year notice to Liberty Utilities basically from now.

https://fortune.com/2026/05/12...

"Data centers used 22% of Nevadaâ(TM)s electricity in 2024, and that share could rise to 35% by 2030. In NV Energyâ(TM)s own 2024 resource plan, about 75% of major-project load growth is attributed to data centers, according to Sierra Club expert testimony filed with Nevada regulators and reviewed by Fortune, and most of it is concentrated in Northern Nevadaâ"using the same system that feeds power to Lake Tahoe.

NV Energy is building Greenlink West, a 525-kV, $4.2 billion transmission line from Las Vegas to Yerington, expected online in May 2027. Schwarzrock said Liberty would be âoefirst in the waiting lineâ when Greenlink opens, giving it access to a wider pool of energy providers. But that timeline matches the contract deadline exactly, leaving almost no margin for error. About 70% of the projectâ(TM)s costs will be borne by Southern Nevada customers. "

So basically Liberty was expecting until December 2027 to make the transition, understandably allowing for delays and other transition activities. NV Energy is basically saying - there will be no delays, be prepared for the cutover to happen in May.

I'm not going to call the parent article complete flamebait, because it does highlight the very specific problem that the Tahoe grid has (it doesn't connect to California, but it is regulated by California regulators.) However, it is a far cry from saying that datacenters are going to cause Tahoe to go dark. That's a potential possibility if there are delays but NV Energy decides to cut them off anyway, but it is not a definite likelyhood.

This is just more datacenter FUD.

Or 300M plus interest per year over 5 years.

Not including Federal capital gains taxes on sale of any company shares that he liquidates, or California income taxes, likely at the 14.4% tax bracket.

Or he could try and find a bank to lend him 300M in cash every year, secured against his equity stake. Anyone?

So wait... if I migrate my stuff to the ME datacenters, I won't have to pay? I'm aware that service may not be available or intermittent, and that resources may be lost permanently without warning... but if I'm designing for fault tolerant operations, this seems like a perfect proving ground, and not having to pay during the reconstruction period seems like a bonus...

Remington settled. They didn't admit liability.

The Cypress Street Viaduct (the major double-decker that collapsed in the Loma Prieta quake) was built in 1957 by US contractors. Embarcadero was similarly built by US contractors in the 1960s. Russians had nothing to do with it. The only thing Russian about any of it is Embarcadero running near Russian Hill, which was named for a Russian cemetery near its peak.

If you made the mistake of buying into the platform you're faced with a decision:

1. Rationalize your continuing with the platform
2. Tossing the platform and choosing a different platform
3. Giving up on the various platforms as all suspect and doing something else with your life

Substitute platform for anything that you have to invest a non-trivial amount of cognitive focus, time, money, etc. It's not like your abuser is going to show their stripes from the get go - if they did, you would have already moved on.

See Cory Doctorow's thesis on enshittification:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"Doctorow argues that new platforms offer useful products and services at a loss, as a way to gain new users. Once users are locked in, the platform then offers access to the userbase to suppliers at a loss; once suppliers are locked in, the platform shifts surpluses to shareholders.[9] Once the platform is fundamentally focused on the shareholders, and the users and vendors are locked in, the platform no longer has any incentive to maintain quality. Enshittified platforms that act as intermediaries can act as both a monopoly on services and a monopsony on customers, as high switching costs prevent either from leaving even when alternatives technically exist.[7] Doctorow has described the process of enshittification as happening through "twiddling": the continual adjustment of the parameters of the system in search of marginal improvements of profits, without regard to any other goal.[10] Enshittification can be seen as a form of rent-seeking.[7]"

Not everybody on the internet today was around when the Sony rootkit incident happened (over 20 years ago).

For reference for those who want to find out about said rootkit incident:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

"n 2005, it was revealed that the implementation of copy protection measures on about 22 million CDs distributed by Sony BMG installed one of two pieces of software that provided a form of digital rights management (DRM) by modifying the operating system to interfere with CD copying. Neither program could easily be uninstalled, and they created vulnerabilities that were exploited by unrelated malware. One of the programs would install and "phone home" with reports on the user's private listening habits, even if the user refused its end-user license agreement (EULA), while the other was not mentioned in the EULA at all. Both programs contained code from several pieces of copylefted free software in an apparent infringement of copyright, and configured the operating system to hide the software's existence, leading to both programs being classified as rootkits. "

This is an interesting question, which probably can only be answered by triggering a natural experiment and having the ultrawealthy (as opposed to the merely well-to-do) [maybe] leave the state.

In the best interests of the side advocating for and against wealth taxes, if California wants to put itself out there for the sake of the answering the question, the rest of the nation should be happy that they're willing to be the guinea pig.

The only caveat is that you need to wait to actually see what the results are in California before attempting to pass/block similar legislation in the rest of the US. Which, in this case, would be about 5 years - the period of time in which the wealth taxes would be collected in California under this proposal.

Man, someone had the knives out for Peter Thiel when they wrote this clause in:

"(7) The following categories of assets shall be exempt from all taxation under this part and also from the reporting requirements of this Section:

(A) Except as described in subparagraph (B), qualified pensions and individual retirement arrangements, including those described by Section 219(g)(5) of the Internal Revenue Code, or foreign pension arrangements similar in nature to those described in that Section and exempted from U.S. taxation by a treaty obligation of the United States;

(B) Amounts held in Roth IRA or other Roth-type retirement arrangements or any substantially similar accounts, except to the extent that the aggregate value in all such accounts in which the taxpayer holds a beneficial interest, either directly or indirectly, exceeds $10 million ($10,000,000) in present value;"

So yeah, tax advantaged accounts are not considered part of your wealth... unless you have more than 10M in your roth account. In which case, they'll gladly consider it as part of the total wealth to evaluate when considering #1 - whether you owe tax, and #2 - how much tax you owe.

If you happen to have more than 1B in assets, and were trying to move money into your Roth (which is a taxable event, btw) to reduce your required minimum distributions, AND it caused your roth to tip over the 10M mark, guess what, it just backfired.

Peter Thiel, in the meantime, already decamped for Florida. For those who don't know why this clause was written, see the ProPublica article, which used stolen IRS data to hang him in effigy:

https://www.propublica.org/art...

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/pe...

This is starting to feel like AB5 when they tried to skewer Uber and Lyft and fucked over freelancers:

https://pacificlegal.org/calif...

And then Uber and Lyft just opened up their wallets and got themselves an exemption.

https://fedsoc.org/scdw/califo...

The prime mover behind that law:

https://thecoastnews.com/comme...

"Exemplifying Sacramentoâ(TM)s incestuous relationship with Big Labor, Gonzalez has since left her District 80 Assembly seat last year to become head of the California Labor Federation.

According to the court, the exemptions, which pick winners and losers, explicitly exclude Uber et al. even though similarly situated app platforms like Wag! and TaskRabbit received exemptions for such workers as dog walkers and yard cleaners.

In trying to defend Gonzalezâ(TM)s poorly drafted law during oral arguments on July 13, 2022, the stateâ(TM)s deputy attorney general withered under questioning from the three-judge panel. It was notable, the court wrote, that counsel for the state was âoeunable to articulate a conceivable rationale for AB 5 that explains the exemptions made by AB 5, as amended.â"

My theory about the cost of housing in California is that a lot of it has to do with pre-loading the cost of the home upfront, in exchange for a guarantee on future property tax increases.

Also, up until the recent prop 19 reversed the previous prop 58/193 laws on passing property tax assessment through inheritance, you were paying up front to guarantee that tax rate and rate of increase to your heirs.

If you think about prop 13 as rent control, it makes sense that the longer you've been in your unit, the more valuable it is... and conversely, if you intend to stay in California a long time, you can amortize the up front cost over a longer period, and reap benefits, especially during high inflation periods.

I haven't actually done the math to see when total cost of ownership breaks even when compared to a cheaper house in a state without a limit on property tax increases. But I suspect that houses being cheap in other states may not only be a function of them being in areas that are undesirable to live in from a lifestyle perspective.