An infectious disease scientist used her own persistence and the help of others to find phages that destroy drug-resistant bacteria. It saved her husband's life.
I just looked up our energy pricing. They weren't kidding. Peak (6pm-9pm in summer) is nearly 3x as expensive as off-demand hours and nearly double of normal hours. I might try this.
This makes intuitive sense for us as well, based on experience.
Our house has no AC. Our AC is the fog, literally. We're situated opposite the Golden Gate. When it really rolls in through the Gate, we know it. We can feel it from miles away.
So, we turn on the furnace fans at night during hot spells to cool the house off. Unfortunately, it takes about 5 to 7 days after a particularly lengthy hot period to get the house structure to truly cool off.
I have to remind myself to not have RBF. When I was younger, me thinking/concentrating on something made me look serious. As I get older and uglier, that same makes me look like I'm a jerk.
A few years back, I grew tired of having to make the effort to reduce the sound of a toilet seat hitting the porcelain rim of the toilet bowl. So, I got a slow close toilet seat. This allowed me to leave the seat down by the simply giving the cover a push past the point at which gravity does the rest of the job, and it does it quietly. Now, I don't ever leave the toilet seat up. The toilet bowl is fully covered more often than not.
After a few days, I changed out the other toilet seat in the house because I felt it was definitely worth it. Also, Mrs Slug is happier, which makes me happier.
Installed "slow drop" streets after I finally noticed their utility. I did became aware to not rush sitting before it seats. A serendipitous swinging motion could put things in harms way.
The new toilet in one bathroom is a slow close toilet. Which I am now used to. When I infrequently use the other one I inevitably drop the seat resulting in a loud bang.
For the recipe above I use Persian Cucumbers. For the ranch dip I use English Cucumbers. I really don't buy regular cucumbers anymore unless it's to make Tzatziki sauce.
I'm still sequestered in a rural area by myself thanks to my family having Covid, so cooking for one person is a really different affair. I have discovered that elote and just elote is a perfectly cromulent dinner. Boiled, grilled over gas burner, basted with a mayo/butter mixture, coated with canned parmesan (the Dollar General manager is ignoring my suggestions of a finer selection of aged Mexican dry cheeses), and chipotle pepper powder. Still GD delicious.
The National Suicide Prevention line will get a new and more easily memorized number: 988. It goes into effect on the 16th. The old one will still work.
Review - all over the place tonally, but a lot of fun. Honestly, wished it could be a bit longer so they could expand on some of the stories they only hinted at.
Supposedly he couldn't pick up the blocking schemes or the other duties running backs have in the Tedford offense. But man, just give him the ball and get him in space.
I think there was some issue between him and Clancy. The nice surprise was that Gabe continued his education and graduated from Cal after quitting football even though he was one of the highly touted recruit out of North Carolina
The video, while disturbing, is an interesting observation of a society without guns. The assassin walks up and appears to miss on his first shot with his homemade gun, continues to walk forward, and takes his second shot. Everybody including his security detail barely reacts to the first shot, only perhaps turning heads. Security starts to react shortly after the second shot. But no spectator react as they are utterly confused and have no context to even think about guns. No screams. No ducking. No running away. You hear the murmuring of people build after a few seconds.
I witness the same thing in Singapore where people will not react to danger because they don't know what it looks/sounds like.
[Warning: the following link has content that some may find disturbing]
Was reading a CNN article that said there were only 9 deaths from firearms in 2018 in Japan. That is is incredible.
We have a very strict gun control in Japan, but I didn't think it was that low.
But like you point out, police officers and SP very rarely ever use a gun, and often get in trouble for firing it even in dangerous situations. Gun is just something we don't have in our community.
I live in Orange County, but I am born in Japan and lived there til 9, then I grew up in NY.
I have not been back to Japan in 2 years, but used to visit 3-4 times a year pre Covid. My parents are from Hiroshima so that's really close to where you are.
I find this crazy. So do the Yakuza not use guns? Is it like in the movies and they really use swords when they fight? I suppose it is easier to keep guns from illegally entering an island nation than it is for countries with land borders.
Yakuza smuggles guns. There are occasional Yakuza fights involving guns, but it's more of assassination of other gang members/bosses than head on fighting using guns. A lot of fights involve kitchen knives and baseball bats.
I don't have a deep knowledge of yakuza but triads in Hong Kong and Southern China use machetes (and other melee weapons like baseball bats and chains)
I think they lose because Dem voters have a short term memory and strategy when it comes to voting. They just think that because we won the presidency we don’t need to vote in midterms.
This may be the best news I've seen since November 7, 2020.
If true, Dobbs will turn out to have been the turning point of the 2022 midterms.
If 72% of Dems are more likely to vote, that's the base on which a blue wave can swamp Congress. But that's not enough. Also needed is a shift within independents towards Democrats on the ballot. A shift of 24% among independents towards the Dems also is a big help.
Still, Election Day is (checks calendar) still 123 days off (Nov. 8, 2022).
If I had asked you on Thursday morning how you thought the San Francisco Giants game against the San Diego Padres would go, you probably would have offered up two predictions.
The first is that Logan Webb would play very good baseball.
The second is that the rest of the Giants would play very bad baseball.
If it sounds like I’m commending your prediction skills, I’m not. An impressive prediction would be Buster Posey coming out of retirement and hitting a grand slam left-handed. It doesn’t even need to happen, it would be impressive just predicting it.
He's always had platoon splits after his first couple of years. I think he used to hit lefties fairly well until teams figured out the holes in his swing. He left the Dodgers because he wanted to be an everyday player, but he's shown that he doesn't hit lefties well so he'll always be a platoon player.
The Dodgers turned on the power on Thursday at Dodger Stadium, hitting four home runs to make the load Leiter for pitcher Tony Gonsolin, who provided more consistent excellence on the mound in a 5-3 win over the Cubs.
Mookie Betts started the scoring in the first inning with his second home run in his last three games, on the eve of likely being announced as a starter in the outfield for the National League All-Stars. Betts since returning from the injured list on Sunday has at least one hit all five games, and he’s driven in a run in his last four contests.
Betts also got hit on his left hand by an 88-mph two-seam fastball in the fifth, which provided a scare and quick examination near the Dodgers dugout by team trainer Thomas Albert. But Betts remained in the game, and added another home run, this one off reliever Michael Rucker in the eighth.
Pick nearly any city across the country — Austin, Nashville, Seattle, New York — and the story is one of rents rising by double-digit percentages amid scant inventory.
Nationally, the vacancy rate is below 5 percent, with more than a dozen renters competing for any given vacant apartment, according to RentCafe. That translates to extraordinarily high rents. In Manhattan, the median rent reached a record $4,000 a month in May, according to data from Douglas Elliman. The same month, the typical U.S. asking rent passed $2,000 for the first time, according to Redfin.
The rental market has been on a wild ride since the spring of 2020, with no end in sight. Early in the pandemic, markets in cities like New York saw rents plunge, as residents left and vacancies soared. Concessions, including months of free rent, became the norm. But those discounts soon vanished, and rents in New York now eclipse 2019 levels. Other markets, like that in Miami, never experienced a sharp decline, as renters from other cities who were able to work remotely moved in.
Actually, my rents never went down at all during the covid period, but then again, I was A) never that greedy, and B) my units are hella big, which has been important during this time.
Putting aside your personal situation as a slumlord, ;-) what stands out to me is that by inference the vacancy rate is low. This is a likely consequence of (a) people not moving due to the pandemic after (b) the initial shakeout of landlords offering lower rents and rent discounts and (c) people moving to take advantage of working remotely.
In other words, people became less mobile or more likely to stay in their home as a consequence of the pandemic. This means that available vacancies dropped and landlords knew this, pricing their available inventory accordingly. Eventually, those rent discounts dried up for the same reason that rents on vacant units rose - renters became a captive market.
Affordable housing/lodging is a scare commodity most places. Yet the push remains to build out-sized and out-priced housing, and the reaction is then to build over-compressed housing with no greenspace and less parking, and still over-charge.
I see this discussion all the time but I've never seen it quantified - are short term rentals like AirBNB and VRBO soaking up a lot of the available rental units causing a squeeze? I do blame Air BNB for a lot of bad things, but I am also incredulous they could soak up that much volume to cause a real shift in housing stock.
I think it’s affected by your location - there was an article doing the rounds recently about a couple who owned something like 30 houses in Vermont that they rented out on Airbnb - and that was a real problem locally.
I also gather that one of the things about Portugal’s golden visa program that’s caused a backlash is people buying an apartment for the visa, and then putting it on AirBnb for the majority of the year - so locals get mad about being priced out by redevelopment and then year round residents get mad about having tourists for neighbors. Apparently there’s a move afoot to restrict people’s ability to do that
Episode 5 of The Old Man was solid...the show is really well done.
Started Black Bird on Apple TV...it'll be interesting to see the dude that played Richard Jewell and Sting Ray in Cobra Kai as a possible serial killer - ep 1 was solid.....one of Ray Liotta's final roles.
I only watched the first ep. then came to JPN. saving it up for a binge. glad to hear this. E1 didn't blow me away. but then again, none of the E1s have
Rewatched Game Night last night, still a pretty good movie. My only real quibble remains that for a competitive, game-loving couple their favorite games include Scrabble, Clue, and Monopoly. Scrabble I can give a pass, but given that no game besides charades really matters in the movie I would have liked to see modern classics like Ticket to Ride, Catan, or Pandemic in the mix.
SHE BLINDED ME WITH
An infectious disease scientist used her own persistence and the help of others to find phages that destroy drug-resistant bacteria. It saved her husband's life.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/health/phage-superbug-killer-life-itself-wellness/index.html
When science, economics, and cheapness collide
https://www.howtogeek.com/814826/cut-your-summer-electric-bill-by-supercooling-your-home/
I just looked up our energy pricing. They weren't kidding. Peak (6pm-9pm in summer) is nearly 3x as expensive as off-demand hours and nearly double of normal hours. I might try this.
This makes intuitive sense for us as well, based on experience.
Our house has no AC. Our AC is the fog, literally. We're situated opposite the Golden Gate. When it really rolls in through the Gate, we know it. We can feel it from miles away.
So, we turn on the furnace fans at night during hot spells to cool the house off. Unfortunately, it takes about 5 to 7 days after a particularly lengthy hot period to get the house structure to truly cool off.
What about a whole house fan. Open the windows and suck in the cool air every night.
Combined with our solar panels this might be a very good approach!
A revolution in solution dilution
https://phys.org/news/2022-07-chemists-contrary-effect-diluting-solution.html
What do you have to remind yourself NOT to do?
I have to remind myself to not have RBF. When I was younger, me thinking/concentrating on something made me look serious. As I get older and uglier, that same makes me look like I'm a jerk.
I remind myself not to get older and uglier, but it's not working.
This is an asset nowadays
RBF?
https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/rbf/#:~:text=RBF
Well that's new to me. I don't think of that.
Take personally what some knucklehead writes in response to one of my comments then stay away from DBD for a couple of weeks like a sulking child.
that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!!! ;-)
Leave the seat up.
A few years back, I grew tired of having to make the effort to reduce the sound of a toilet seat hitting the porcelain rim of the toilet bowl. So, I got a slow close toilet seat. This allowed me to leave the seat down by the simply giving the cover a push past the point at which gravity does the rest of the job, and it does it quietly. Now, I don't ever leave the toilet seat up. The toilet bowl is fully covered more often than not.
After a few days, I changed out the other toilet seat in the house because I felt it was definitely worth it. Also, Mrs Slug is happier, which makes me happier.
Installed "slow drop" streets after I finally noticed their utility. I did became aware to not rush sitting before it seats. A serendipitous swinging motion could put things in harms way.
The new toilet in one bathroom is a slow close toilet. Which I am now used to. When I infrequently use the other one I inevitably drop the seat resulting in a loud bang.
So, you occasionally announce your presence from another room?
Cucumbers
I've been making the Din Tai Fun style cucumber salad. Sesame oil, soy sauce, Rice vinegar, and some hot chili oil.
The other way we eat them is to just cut them up and use the Hidden Valley Ranch dip (along with carrots and celery).
I like diced, tossed with olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, crumbled feta if available
For the recipe above I use Persian Cucumbers. For the ranch dip I use English Cucumbers. I really don't buy regular cucumbers anymore unless it's to make Tzatziki sauce.
I like them.
Had an absolutely delightful lunch at the Westfield UTC location last year with my sister and her 47 children. So good.
47? Is your sister an 18th century Russian peasant?
pqtm
Or a 21st Century 24 year old Russian wife of a Turkish multi-millionaire who might also be a murderer.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10128323/Russian-woman-24-welcomed-TWENTY-ONE-surrogate-babies-just-year.html
DBD Cooking Academy
I'm still sequestered in a rural area by myself thanks to my family having Covid, so cooking for one person is a really different affair. I have discovered that elote and just elote is a perfectly cromulent dinner. Boiled, grilled over gas burner, basted with a mayo/butter mixture, coated with canned parmesan (the Dollar General manager is ignoring my suggestions of a finer selection of aged Mexican dry cheeses), and chipotle pepper powder. Still GD delicious.
Wife made delicious fried rice last night, worked well with a glass CA Chardonnay. Was happy.
Fried rice is a dish I will never be able to make well regardless of effort
Key to good fried rice is to use day old rice. Or spread it out on a baking sheet and let it dry out a bit before cooking with it.
SMALL BITS OF GOOD/UPLIFTING NEWS
I have decided to include this section in the DBD because reaction-bait stuff tends to be negative. I'd rather have the DBD be a better experience.
@To balance this out, maybe #puresilence news needs a comeback.@
The National Suicide Prevention line will get a new and more easily memorized number: 988. It goes into effect on the 16th. The old one will still work.
New Thor movie out today. Hope it's good.
It's Taika dialed up to 11. How bad can it be?
(I actually don't like What We Do in the Shadows, but I realize that makes me part of a tiny minority)
I thought it was literally one of, if not the funniest film ever made.
the movie or the show? the movie was great. the show started off good but got old...even with that, had its moments in the later seasons.
I actually like the show a lot. I didn't really care for the movie.
What.
I ACTUALLY DON'T LIKE WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS BUT I REALIZE THAT MAKES ME PART OF A TINY MINORITY
I don't understand.
Will be seeing it with rob, avi and Twist tonight.
Review - all over the place tonally, but a lot of fun. Honestly, wished it could be a bit longer so they could expand on some of the stories they only hinted at.
California plans to make its own, low-cost insulin.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/us/california-makes-own-insulin/index.html
I am very intrigued at how this will shake out. California keeps taking steps toward single-payer (state) healthcare.
Which Cal player had their "talent wasted" by being under-utilized by a coach?
Makai Polk
Andy Buh and Art Kaufman refused to let Jared Goff play.
Richard Rodgers
I hope Jermaine Terry will be fully utilized.
Quite a few.
Maybe Brendan Bigelow?
His day against Ohio State at the Horseshoe was remarkable. Not sure why he didn't get more touches over his tenure at Cal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVIkMDJIGOo
He was like a human fumbling machine unfortunately
Supposedly he couldn't pick up the blocking schemes or the other duties running backs have in the Tedford offense. But man, just give him the ball and get him in space.
Tedford could recruit speed, to a lesser extent Dykes (Robertson). Cue to Wilcox, not so much.
I don't remember who he was behind on the depth chart. Maybe Ise Sofele
CJ Anderson
Man what a RB room
I think 2015 we had Enwere, Watson, Muhammed and Lasco all around 500 rushing yards
Sofele and CJA
Bigelow had the goods, I wish he could have put it all together consistently
That's our near future game when we join the B1G.
We’re not joining the Big 10.
Why you gotta be all DOOM, let me pretend Cal is scheduling a game in Madison then going to a revamped Rose Bowl for the natty
Sorry paulie....my bad.
Don’t mind me I’ve just decided to exist solely in my own fantasyland
Pat Barnes had a whole fucking year stolen and I will never get over it.
oh yeah that was bad.
FOR ONE GAME. WHERE WE GOT BLOWN OUT
Chris Conte
It was more of his decision than coach's decision though
True, it was more of his decision.
Tony Gonzalez (before Mariucci).
Gabe King
I think there was some issue between him and Clancy. The nice surprise was that Gabe continued his education and graduated from Cal after quitting football even though he was one of the highly touted recruit out of North Carolina
Other things from around the world
Former Japanese PM Shinzo Abe has been assassinated by a gunman.
https://news.sky.com/story/shinzo-abe-former-japanese-prime-minister-dies-after-being-shot-while-giving-speech-state-broadcaster-says-12648011
The video, while disturbing, is an interesting observation of a society without guns. The assassin walks up and appears to miss on his first shot with his homemade gun, continues to walk forward, and takes his second shot. Everybody including his security detail barely reacts to the first shot, only perhaps turning heads. Security starts to react shortly after the second shot. But no spectator react as they are utterly confused and have no context to even think about guns. No screams. No ducking. No running away. You hear the murmuring of people build after a few seconds.
I witness the same thing in Singapore where people will not react to danger because they don't know what it looks/sounds like.
[Warning: the following link has content that some may find disturbing]
https://mobile.twitter.com/yamaneko2011/status/1545297780562096128?t=o5WQl9PcPgWS4QiagPVqwg&s=19
Was reading a CNN article that said there were only 9 deaths from firearms in 2018 in Japan. That is is incredible.
We have a very strict gun control in Japan, but I didn't think it was that low.
But like you point out, police officers and SP very rarely ever use a gun, and often get in trouble for firing it even in dangerous situations. Gun is just something we don't have in our community.
I saw that also...crazy low numbers!
JB, you're in Japan? where? I'm in Okayama-ken (for about a month)
I live in Orange County, but I am born in Japan and lived there til 9, then I grew up in NY.
I have not been back to Japan in 2 years, but used to visit 3-4 times a year pre Covid. My parents are from Hiroshima so that's really close to where you are.
JB,
Ah, I see... sounded like you were here now ;-)
Yeah, Hiroshima is pretty slow (from Okayama-shi), but we're up north in Okayama-ken (closer to Tottori).
3-4 times a year? Wow that seems like a lot.
Zero incidents in Tokyo in the past 3 years? Something like that. And before that it was almost 100% yakuza related.
I find this crazy. So do the Yakuza not use guns? Is it like in the movies and they really use swords when they fight? I suppose it is easier to keep guns from illegally entering an island nation than it is for countries with land borders.
Yakuza smuggles guns. There are occasional Yakuza fights involving guns, but it's more of assassination of other gang members/bosses than head on fighting using guns. A lot of fights involve kitchen knives and baseball bats.
I don't have a deep knowledge of yakuza but triads in Hong Kong and Southern China use machetes (and other melee weapons like baseball bats and chains)
Our worst nightmare... #Ready4Rishi is being used all over Twitter today.
ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE
Rising sophomore is 6'1" 300 lbs and runs a 4.9 40. He has offers from UofA, LSU, and MS State. And he's from California.
https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1545409277405401090
Something ain't right with Jim Harbaugh. His wife must be a saint.
https://impersonalfoul.substack.com/p/jim-harbaughs-daughter-breaks-down
[Sports Illustrated] Florida exploring leaving ACC
https://www.si.com/college/fsu/football/sources-florida-state-exploring-leaving-acc-for-new-conference
OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY
If you're feeling lonely and demotivated, remember that Matt Gaetz finally got a high school girlfriend after he turned 38.
Such an amateur - what's wrong with 16 or 17? I'm confused.
life goals for all of us!
pltm
https://twitter.com/FPWellman/status/1545229996897206274
pqtm
https://mobile.twitter.com/keithedwards/status/1544866473134489601
pltm
[Survey] About a 10 point shift toward DEM. Roe v Wade ahead of midterms may make the expected red shift in the House more difficult.
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1545388369047392257
Seems like a winning political issue for the Dems, yet the people keep losing regardless
This is the dems slogan!
I think they lose because Dem voters have a short term memory and strategy when it comes to voting. They just think that because we won the presidency we don’t need to vote in midterms.
This poll is a bit of an outlier, but per 538 there has been a clear shift post-Dobbs (about D +3 on the average Congressional preference).
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1545424994850590721
Will it last? Maybe not, but it seems to be happening.
This may be the best news I've seen since November 7, 2020.
If true, Dobbs will turn out to have been the turning point of the 2022 midterms.
If 72% of Dems are more likely to vote, that's the base on which a blue wave can swamp Congress. But that's not enough. Also needed is a shift within independents towards Democrats on the ballot. A shift of 24% among independents towards the Dems also is a big help.
Still, Election Day is (checks calendar) still 123 days off (Nov. 8, 2022).
An insurrectionist, a genital biting zombie, an old fashioned bigot, and a snake oil salesman walk into a bar.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-2022-midterm-elections-covid-entertainment-health-e7dc780b9b5c2edb02ba5af0eff8bd3d
I'm not saying that the state paid for this study, but this seems pretty unlikely
https://cw33.com/news/local/study-names-texas-the-most-sustainable-state-in-the-nation-in-2022/
PRO
You know how kids say that their parents embarrass them. Here is exhibit A as to what they mean. Rookie is never going to live this down.
https://twitter.com/HackswithHaggs/status/1545242972836462592
How I know I’m a parent: I actually thought that was sweet. But that poor rookie OMG
NEV-UHR.
The World Cup of Smuggling Alcohol
https://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-world-cup-stadiums-alcohol-161816167.html
looks like it will be a TV only event then.
Logan Webb? Excellent. Giants? Not so much.
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2022/7/7/23199810/giants-padres-logan-webb-joe-musgrove-recap
If I had asked you on Thursday morning how you thought the San Francisco Giants game against the San Diego Padres would go, you probably would have offered up two predictions.
The first is that Logan Webb would play very good baseball.
The second is that the rest of the Giants would play very bad baseball.
If it sounds like I’m commending your prediction skills, I’m not. An impressive prediction would be Buster Posey coming out of retirement and hitting a grand slam left-handed. It doesn’t even need to happen, it would be impressive just predicting it.
Game was also marred by an outfield collision. Padres' Profar took a knee to the head and unsuccessfully tried to walk it off.
https://twitter.com/AGaggleOfKids/status/1545246540377116672
The 10th inning was the ‘22 San Francisco Giants in a nutshell, and boy howdy it was hard to watch.
I found it easy and enjoyable to watch.
The bad kind of torture
The worst!! Admittedly, this is a real rough stretch for the Gigantes, so there is that.
I’ll be a happy camper if Webb can continue to improve and solidify as a major league starter.
I'm not sure why this is the season I've managed to watch every single game, but here we are.
I'm guessing Logan Webb is the Giants lone all-star representative.
Joc's starting in the OF.
I saw that. That's cool. I think some ATL fans helped.
Joc Pederson
Carlos Rodon also has a good case.
Big time. He's nails.
oh maybe. How is he doing in the fan voting? Oh I didn't realize he was #2 in voting. I hadn't seen any results
He’s been so solid, but it’s still not enough for idiot Kapler to play him every day.
He's always had platoon splits after his first couple of years. I think he used to hit lefties fairly well until teams figured out the holes in his swing. He left the Dodgers because he wanted to be an everyday player, but he's shown that he doesn't hit lefties well so he'll always be a platoon player.
Dodgers home runs back another sharp Tony Gonsolin outing for 4th straight win
https://www.truebluela.com/2022/7/7/23199684/dodgers-home-runs-tony-gonsolin-excellent-cubs-recap
The Dodgers turned on the power on Thursday at Dodger Stadium, hitting four home runs to make the load Leiter for pitcher Tony Gonsolin, who provided more consistent excellence on the mound in a 5-3 win over the Cubs.
Mookie Betts started the scoring in the first inning with his second home run in his last three games, on the eve of likely being announced as a starter in the outfield for the National League All-Stars. Betts since returning from the injured list on Sunday has at least one hit all five games, and he’s driven in a run in his last four contests.
Betts also got hit on his left hand by an 88-mph two-seam fastball in the fifth, which provided a scare and quick examination near the Dodgers dugout by team trainer Thomas Albert. But Betts remained in the game, and added another home run, this one off reliever Michael Rucker in the eighth.
Best way to put concerns after a HBP or close call to rest is to put one into the seats.
GBBR
GBBR
CAL
Go Bears!!!
Happy birthday to Yes We Cannon
HB YWC!
Phil Knight works the phones cold calling to keep Oregon off the scrap heap...
https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/conference-realignment-phil-knight-resorts-to-cold-calling-for-oregon-as-pac-12-big-12-acc-seek-lifelines/
Rents!
The rent is too damn high!
What if You Want to Rent?
Pick nearly any city across the country — Austin, Nashville, Seattle, New York — and the story is one of rents rising by double-digit percentages amid scant inventory.
Nationally, the vacancy rate is below 5 percent, with more than a dozen renters competing for any given vacant apartment, according to RentCafe. That translates to extraordinarily high rents. In Manhattan, the median rent reached a record $4,000 a month in May, according to data from Douglas Elliman. The same month, the typical U.S. asking rent passed $2,000 for the first time, according to Redfin.
The rental market has been on a wild ride since the spring of 2020, with no end in sight. Early in the pandemic, markets in cities like New York saw rents plunge, as residents left and vacancies soared. Concessions, including months of free rent, became the norm. But those discounts soon vanished, and rents in New York now eclipse 2019 levels. Other markets, like that in Miami, never experienced a sharp decline, as renters from other cities who were able to work remotely moved in.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/realestate/housing-market.html
Actually, my rents never went down at all during the covid period, but then again, I was A) never that greedy, and B) my units are hella big, which has been important during this time.
Putting aside your personal situation as a slumlord, ;-) what stands out to me is that by inference the vacancy rate is low. This is a likely consequence of (a) people not moving due to the pandemic after (b) the initial shakeout of landlords offering lower rents and rent discounts and (c) people moving to take advantage of working remotely.
In other words, people became less mobile or more likely to stay in their home as a consequence of the pandemic. This means that available vacancies dropped and landlords knew this, pricing their available inventory accordingly. Eventually, those rent discounts dried up for the same reason that rents on vacant units rose - renters became a captive market.
Affordable housing/lodging is a scare commodity most places. Yet the push remains to build out-sized and out-priced housing, and the reaction is then to build over-compressed housing with no greenspace and less parking, and still over-charge.
I see this discussion all the time but I've never seen it quantified - are short term rentals like AirBNB and VRBO soaking up a lot of the available rental units causing a squeeze? I do blame Air BNB for a lot of bad things, but I am also incredulous they could soak up that much volume to cause a real shift in housing stock.
I think it’s affected by your location - there was an article doing the rounds recently about a couple who owned something like 30 houses in Vermont that they rented out on Airbnb - and that was a real problem locally.
I also gather that one of the things about Portugal’s golden visa program that’s caused a backlash is people buying an apartment for the visa, and then putting it on AirBnb for the majority of the year - so locals get mad about being priced out by redevelopment and then year round residents get mad about having tourists for neighbors. Apparently there’s a move afoot to restrict people’s ability to do that
I see a lot "tourists out" graffiti from Mexico City and Honolulu too.
DBD AV Club
Episode 5 of The Old Man was solid...the show is really well done.
Started Black Bird on Apple TV...it'll be interesting to see the dude that played Richard Jewell and Sting Ray in Cobra Kai as a possible serial killer - ep 1 was solid.....one of Ray Liotta's final roles.
For All Mankind continues to roll out banger after banger. - episode 5 was so much fun.
It was sooooo good.
I only watched the first ep. then came to JPN. saving it up for a binge. glad to hear this. E1 didn't blow me away. but then again, none of the E1s have
Rewatched Game Night last night, still a pretty good movie. My only real quibble remains that for a competitive, game-loving couple their favorite games include Scrabble, Clue, and Monopoly. Scrabble I can give a pass, but given that no game besides charades really matters in the movie I would have liked to see modern classics like Ticket to Ride, Catan, or Pandemic in the mix.