Saturday, October 31, 2015

SF Local Elections

Nothing makes me worry about an aging slide into conservatism more than local politics in San Francisco. I consider myself an extremely liberal, progressive voter. I hope for Bernie Sanders for president, and the Republicans are either insane, idiotic, or unethical. Yet local SF politics...

Sigh

In San Francisco the people who call themselves progressives with regard to local politics are the ones who tend to put up the most roadblocks to new housing development. For anyone who doesn't live in the area, housing and rental prices have exploded over the last few years. This has of course created a lot of resentment towards developers and people moving into the city, but much of the response to this has been to restrict development. San Francisco has some of the most restrictive anti-development laws in the country, and has been building far too few units over the last few decades.

Even environmental organizations that I normally support contribute to the problem. The local Sierra Club chapter has acted against a number of development initiatives and left me fuming as an environmentalist, because living in a dense urban area is far better for the environment. The alternative is pushing people further out into the suburbs, developing on currently undeveloped land, and forcing them to commute long distances.

Of course, this isn't all San Francisco's fault. Similar anti-development attitudes elsewhere in the bay area have been a major contributor.

I want more housing units, dense development, with functioning public transit. I would love to buy property in this wonderful city someday and raise a family, and am left screaming at the idiots pushing ballot initiatives to further halt development.

Thus, my endorsements for the Tuesday election closely follow those of SPUR.

A: Yes
B: Yes
C: ?
D: Yes
E: ?
F: No
G: No
H: Yes
I: No
J: No
K: Yes

Friday, July 24, 2015

Battle Blimps

Over the last few months, one thing I've been spending a share of my time on is helping to build a system of remote controlled blimps, for eventual use in a series of hydrogen-filled explosion-fueled dogfights at Burning Man.

Take a look here at our Indiegogo campaign for Battle Blimps:

Thursday, April 23, 2015

What the Hell Has Happened in the Last Year?

I was reminded recently by some recruiter on LinkedIn that I had a blog. Sure enough, essay ideas were staring at me balefully from the bottom of my to-do list. I was surprised, and happy, that my last post came as recently as nine months ago, had guessed it was closer to two years. That does make me feel better about how little has changed in the world since last I wrote, we shall see if I can retain my optimism that I'll eventually get to the exciting future I've hoped for.

On top of that, I have a friend who has recently started blogging, in a different style than I have been using, quick 200 word posts that he churns out multiple times a day. I hope to take that for inspiration.