Even something very simple like a coffee shop is difficult to run as a co-op.

Yes, if you have a few friends who are all passionate about coffee it’s possible for you all to get loans / mortgages to pool together enough money to buy/lease a small commercial property and open a coffee shop together. The only really significant pieces of equipment are the espresso machine and coffee grinder, both of which can be bought used for a few thousand dollars.

But here comes the issue: suppose it’s you and 4 friends who started the coffee co-op with $200k each (total $1 million) to buy the real estate and all of the furniture and machinery. Now the 5 of you work in the coffee shop and it starts growing more successful so that you need to hire more baristas (or pastry chefs or sandwich artists) to work there. How many baristas can you find who can afford to put up $200k to buy into a share of the co-op?

Or even more fundamentally: what if 2 out of the starting 5 decide that working in a coffee shop is too exhausting and they don’t want to do it anymore so they quit? Now the other 3 need to put together a total of $400k to buy them out? Or do you have a clause in the contract which says they forfeit their investment if they quit? Now I dunno about you, but as much as I love using my espresso machine I would never want to enter a contract like that! I’d much rather keep my $200k in the bank and work as a regular employee barista knowing I could quit any time I want.

They don’t have access to capital (means of production). Consider the following scenario:

All of the employees at a car manufacturing plant are sick of being paid a fraction of the total sale price of the cars they make. They decide, in solidarity, to quit en masse and start a worker co-op car plant instead so that they can all enjoy sharing 100% of the profits themselves.

So they quit. Now what? Well, knowledge isn’t an issue because they already knew how to operate all the machines in a car plant. The problem is that they don’t have the money (or the land) to build a new car plant. We’re talking billions of dollars and a huge piece of land which ideally should be located on a railroad line so that parts (which are very large and heavy) can be delivered affordably by rail.

So where are they gonna get the money? Not from private investors, of course, since that nixes the worker only profit sharing arrangement. Not from banks either because these workers, while highly knowledgeable and motivated, don’t have any collateral to put up for the bank loans. The banks do not want to be in the position of repossessing a bunch of specialized manufacturing equipment and trying to resell it at a loss.

The common response to this is: the government. But think about that. Do you want your government giving billions of dollars to a few hundred people so they can start a car plant and then keep all the profits?

He said live and neutral were reversed. The ground connection to the chassis was correct though!

And then of course you have those rare issues where the fault is actually dangerous! Just a few years ago I called an electrician to my house because the breaker for the laundry room light fixtures was tripping every time, so I suspected a short. The electrician who showed up (hell of a guy, loved to chat!) said the ceiling light fixture was wired incorrectly and the housing was live! A quick and easy fix for him but anyone changing a lightbulb on that socket over the past 30 years was risking a shock!

Of course this is only 120V AC so not the deadliest thing in the world, but it’s always fascinated me that a fault can go unnoticed for many many years and still pose a hazard. It’s kind of like WW2 munitions or something, but completely unintentional!

That’s really cool! When you do repair work for a generator I assume you’re not just going to replace the generator, so I guess you have to get in there and do component level repairs? That seems really cool. I would imagine some of the technicians would have the skills of both a mechanic and an electrician for some of those jobs?

Okay! That matches with my impression! I have a friend who works in construction (drywall taper) and the guy works insanely hard, always comes home from work covered head to toe in mud or dust, and is pretty much always sore. Great guy, very friendly beer drinking buddy! But that’s a kind of work I could never do, at least working for someone else.

The troubleshooting nature of repair/service electrical seems vastly more appealing to me, though I imagine with enough experience 90% of the faults become routine!

Can I ask a question: do repair electricians often cross paths with install electricians? I don’t know much about the business of the trade, but my feeling was that the folks doing installs in new houses / buildings rarely crossed paths with the ones going around repairing everything. In my mind these are like two separate worlds.

I don’t think so. Ukraine has been gearing up its domestic arms industry all war long. They may suffer a big setback if the US withdraws all support but I think Europe has shown a lot of indications that they will step up. Ukraine is digging in for the long war.

I also think it’s possible that Trump may get impatient with Putin if he’s unwilling to compromise (and all indications are that he will). Furthermore, the domestic problems that drove Putin to invade in the first place have not gone away. If anything, they’re worse than ever. If Russia finds itself without a war then domestic disputes between different factions will begin to heat up again.

It’s Florida. Extremely hot and humid. The video is correct that this car-centric design is intentional. But that’s because people seriously do not want to go outside for longer than it takes to get into their car. So they definitely don’t want the city spending money to build a 400 foot walking path they’re never going to use.

It also needs to be said that Americans buy groceries differently than most other countries. They shop less often and buy much larger quantities, necessitating a car to handle all of the bags.

I’m all in favour of walkable cities but I would not choose to live in a walkable city in Florida!

Yes, though note that tire and road wear scale with the 4th power of the vehicle weight. If a person on a bicycle weighs 200 pounds and a person driving a car weighs 2000 pounds then the car is going to have roughly 10,000 times as much tire wear (and microplastic shedding) as the bike.

Now consider that people on bikes can even weigh less than 200 pounds and cars can weigh far more than 2000 pounds (I heard of a recent electric SUV that weighs 8000 pounds) and it becomes clear that bicycles are a complete non-issue, relative to cars. An 8000 pound car is equivalent to 6.25 million 160 pound bicycle + rider pairings.

Now consider the effects of 18-wheeler tractor tailors with a maximum weight upwards of 80,000 pounds. These things absolutely disintegrate their tires. If you’ve done any highway driving you’ve likely seen the shredded debris of tires on the shoulder of the road.

Edit: as an addendum I’d like to note that electric vehicles tend to weigh a lot more than ICE cars, by upwards of 1000 pounds. This is one of the reasons I’m dismayed at the rush to EVs: it’s going to accelerate the microplastic problem even as it reduces CO2.

Just for an idea how much of a non-story a 3.8 magnitude earthquake is:

So far today (27 November 2024) there have been 16 earthquakes around the world with a magnitude of 3.8 or higher.

That’s a good temporary fix but the long term solution is to get rid of stroads and get back to proper separation between streets (which are narrow, one way, and walkable) and roads (which have a high speed limit, very few intersections, and no driveways). This would dramatically cut down on the number of encounters between pedestrians and cars, while also making suburbs much more walkable and livable.

Streetcar suburbs, the most desirable neighbourhoods to live in, are illegal to build in most cities!

Oh yeah I’m not suggesting we make a missile with JWST mounted on the front!

Just for reference: JWST has an optical resolution of 0.07 arcseconds. It’s a mirror 22 feet in diameter though, not something you’d put inside a missile guidance package.

Simple solution to that is to shoot your entire wad the day before inauguration!

Ahhh okay, but you’re not trying to argue that paramedics should be on bicycles or taking public transit! That was the thing that puzzled me.

I think we could avoid a lot of the issues with pedestrians and cyclists getting hit by motor vehicles by getting rid of stroads and properly designing cities to separate streets and roads.

Can you track down thieves? We’ve had issues with maple syrup heists!

Can you skate and hit a top corner slapshot? If so, yes. Here’s your complimentary Tim’s card! That’s ten free coffees on the house!

Don’t you dare call us American! Next thing you know we’ll stop apologizing for everything and actually build a military with jets instead of snowmobiles!

I don’t think trust is at issue here. If the game sucks, don’t buy it! There’s millions of other games to play.

There is reason to hope Blizzard will turn around. Bobby Kotick is gone. Microsoft owns the company now. Say what you will about Windows but Microsoft tends to take pretty good care of the gaming franchises they own. I think a lot of AoE fans are pretty happy with how that’s going. I could be wrong though?