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Man, gently caress republicans. Yessss, let's prop up loving driving and parking instead of public transit despite rising costs! (Yeah, I know it was because it got 'dropped', but inaction is still an action). This has kind of hosed me over this year since I was spending ~$180/month on transit quote:The IRS Pre-tax limits for the calendar year 2013 are $245 for work-related parking expenses and $245 for public transportation and vanpool expenses. Xaris fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jun 5, 2014 |
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Jun 5, 2014 16:27
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Ro Khanna made it through the primary to face off against Mike Honda in the general election. So it will be a corporatist Dem challenger vs. a ho hum Dem incumbent. This is probably not going to make anybody love jungle primaries. Honda is pretty bland, though I have nothing in particular against him (he used to be my rep until the last redistricting) so I hope he can defend his seat.
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Jun 5, 2014 18:50
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I voted Pete Peterson for SOS. It's not like the position does much.
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Jun 6, 2014 00:05
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Family Values posted:Honda is pretty bland, though I have nothing in particular against him (he used to be my rep until the last redistricting) so I hope he can defend his seat. Honda voted for the Amash Amendment, unlike Pelosi up in SF, and he is a member of the Progressive Caucus, which Khanna has pretty much stated he won't be. Khanna slammed Honda's support for the House Progressive Caucus budget this year in a Mercury-News editorial claiming that doing so was insufficiently bipartisan for his liking. Honda also appears to have a strong record on civil rights (having, you know, been a victim of Japanese internment during WWII). Honda might not be any particular standout politician in the House, but he's a hell lot more reliable as a progressive than Khanna will ever be.
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Jun 6, 2014 04:41
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Sacbee has a long article about the Bay Bridge construction and quality concerns. http://www.sacbee.com/static/sinclair/sinclair.jquery/baybridge/index.html quote:Caltrans asked an outside expert to assess whether ZPMC [Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery Co. Ltd.] could do the job, and Jim Merrill, a senior materials contractor for the bridge project, gave the company a “contingent pass.” He also labeled it “high risk.” Among other problems, ZPMC didn’t have enough qualified welders or inspectors, the audit noted, and routinely welded in the rain, a basic error that often causes defects. quote:Caltrans overrode bridge welding codes and near-universal requirements for new bridge construction when it deemed many cracks in welds produced by ZPMC inconsequential and left them in place to hurry construction along, Caltrans documents show. quote:Caltrans diaries also indicated that ZPMC violated the job contract by delivering key documents in Chinese instead of English. ABF lacked sufficient quality-assurance staff to speak directly to its own subcontractor – also a contract violation. “Although I can jump in when misunderstanding between ABF and ZPMC developed,” Caltrans engineer Stanley Ku wrote in a report, “I do think ABF should have a (quality expert) who can speak Mandarin to reduce the ‘misunderstanding’ situation.” Without actually being involved in the industry, I can't tell how much is "par for the course and Sacbee just as an axe to grind" or if these are "disastrous revelations and the bridge is going to fall down tomorrow"
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Jun 9, 2014 23:44
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Hog Obituary posted:Sacbee has a long article about the Bay Bridge construction and quality concerns. This is bad but not anything new (or catastrophic). For instance the biggest problem with the Northridge Earthquake in 94 for steel buildings was bad welding that was brittle/poorly detailed/poorly inspected that led to some structures being damaged much more than anticipated. So there is a bit of poor field-welding that goes on with good old American labor. That being said, weld inspections are very important, and good welds are critical for seismic resistance. Brittle welds or flawed welds could give if they're in the energy-dissipating steel shear links in the main tower, for instance, leading to much more damage and potentially a collapse if we're talking apocalyptic levels of shaking. In gravity load systems we probably won't see any kind of acute risks of collapse, unless it is truly pervasive throughout the structure, but as far as I can tell the road deck and steel components are composite (acting together as a system, and the cables shouldn't be affected by the welds as well). What they'll have to do is a lot of ultrasonic testing or x-rays of weld joints to ensure quality, and perhaps some in-field fixes. It's costly, though I'm not sure how much more costly than having hired a US company to begin with (if at all). The steel fabricator's contract probably gives them liability on flaws and can be forced to eat the repair bill. So, considering the bridge was designed not simply to not collapse, but to be a "lifeline" with little or no damage after an earthquake, modern codes with generous weld safety factors, and the actual time spent in this compromised condition before the welds are fixed, I'd go with "not terrible, but pretty loving awful for such a high-end job." Definitely still safer than the old span ever was even as is. I had a discussion with a colleague when I worked in SF about CalTrans during the construction, because they also screwed the pooch on repairing the damaged link in the old span (they made a fix that promptly broke violently and landed in the middle of the roadway miraculously not pancaking any cars). He and others I worked with agreed that CalTrans has had a brain drain because they don't pay particularly well and they don't have a lot of sexy projects, not to mention they're located away from the expensive, nice places in CA for the most part. Sacramento is okay but not everyone wants to be there when they can have a 20k raise and live in the Bay Area an hour away. Edit: vv That is true of a lot of government jobs, they can only offer work-life balance as an alternative. Still, I like working for the common good (no I don't work for CalTrans). Blindeye fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 00:14
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IME Caltrans is where you go to work when you want to have time to spend on other (non-career) stuff. edit: Of the two people I know who left consulting to work for Caltrans, one did it because he wanted to start some kind of hippy-dippy counseling service on the side and the other did it to spend more time with his kids. withak fucked around with this message at 03:31 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 00:18
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withak posted:IME Caltrans is where you go to work when you want to have time to spend on other (non-career) stuff. The best part about Caltrans' continuous, habitual cost overruns that are almost always due to incompetence is that we the taxpayer are the ones who end up paying for them.
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Jun 10, 2014 00:46
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Hog Obituary posted:Sacbee has a long article about the Bay Bridge construction and quality concerns. He also had lots of trips to China and also stayed in 5 star hotels to the tune of $50,000 dollars a year. Also is Sacramento really that horrible of a place to live? etalian fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 01:44
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etalian posted:He also had lots of trips to China and also stayed in 5 star hotels to the tune of $50,000 dollars a year. Honestly, it's not. There are a lot of great bars, food, buildings, cost of living is cheap, lot of great fresh local produce, and Tahoe is a jump away. As far as California cities, I liked living in Davis and Sacramento. But it's rather car centric and gets really loving hot in the summer/fall and I don't like the heat 
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Jun 10, 2014 02:29
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Xaris posted:Honestly, it's not. There are a lot of great bars, food, buildings, cost of living is cheap, lot of great fresh local produce, and Tahoe is a jump away. As far as California cities, I liked living in Davis and Sacramento. But it's rather car centric and gets really loving hot in the summer/fall and I don't like the heat Davis? Car-centric? Are you sure that you lived in the same city I do?
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Jun 10, 2014 02:34
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AYC posted:Davis? Car-centric? Are you sure that you lived in the same city I do? No, Sac. Davis owned
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Jun 10, 2014 03:10
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lol, I heard on NPR that voter turnout was a record breaking low for California. 19% state average. However, Alpine and Sierra counties had 60-65% turnout. I was driving in 100 degree weather, so maybe I was too distracted and misheard. Climate change: nailing the Central Valley this century. Telesphorus fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 10, 2014 |
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Jun 10, 2014 03:24
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Telesphorus posted:lol, I heard on NPR that voter turnout was a record breaking low for California. 19% state average. However, Alpine and Sierra counties had 60-65% turnout. I try to stay reasonably tuned in to elections and I barely heard anything about it. Pretty much every candidate phoned in their campaign and whoever was in charge getting the word out to the general public probably didn't even know there was an election going on either. I think a lot of people have flat out given up hope on this state...I know I have. I don't know why I live here, much less in Orange County 
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Jun 10, 2014 03:32
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Xaris posted:Honestly, it's not. There are a lot of great bars, food, buildings, cost of living is cheap, lot of great fresh local produce, and Tahoe is a jump away. As far as California cities, I liked living in Davis and Sacramento. But it's rather car centric and gets really loving hot in the summer/fall and I don't like the heat texas like heat without texans
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Jun 10, 2014 04:10
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An update on the controller race: As the canvassing continues, as of this morning(?) Betty Yee has narrowly taken the lead ahead of Pérez (751,691 to 751,340), so it's possible that the Democrat that gets the nod for the fall will do so by only a few hundred votes. Evans is in a firm fourth for the moment, though it's worth noting that a lot of the counties that have yet to send in a county canvassing update are in strong Republican territory (and no counties have finished their canvassing), so this could change.
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Jun 10, 2014 07:33
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The temptation to vote for Orly Taitz out of cackling childishness was overwhelming. I'm sorry, America.
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Jun 10, 2014 15:12
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Blindeye posted:This is bad but not anything new (or catastrophic). That's reassuring about the engineering, but the meat of the article to me is that an administrator who pushed to select a specific contractor and allegedly threw his weight around in order to accept shoddy work from one of their subcontractors is now working for that contractor.
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Jun 10, 2014 17:50
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Yeah there is sadly a lot of corruption when it comes to government agencies of any sort. See FCC leaders being in bed with Comcast/Verizon and getting jobs there, visa versa. Bay Bridge is going to be alright, it's pretty overengineered but there is still going to be a lot of expensive repairs going on from lowest-bid/corruption type poo poo work but it won't really compromise the safety of the bridge.
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Jun 10, 2014 18:49
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so... about them teachers unions.
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Jun 10, 2014 20:19
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ntan1 posted:so... about them teachers unions. One should keep in mind this is yet another example of Silicon Valley libertarian dipshits ruining the state/country.
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Jun 10, 2014 20:28
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Also, that decision is far from final.
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Jun 10, 2014 21:36
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Trabisnikof posted:Also, that decision is far from final. I have no doubt it will be appealed, but even if the appeal is successful it's a bad sign.
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Jun 10, 2014 22:04
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Xaris posted:Yeah there is sadly a lot of corruption when it comes to government agencies of any sort. See FCC leaders being in bed with Comcast/Verizon and getting jobs there, visa versa. Bay Bridge is going to be alright, it's pretty overengineered but there is still going to be a lot of expensive repairs going on from lowest-bid/corruption type poo poo work but it won't really compromise the safety of the bridge. I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the meeting in which Caltrans upper management decided to give the bridge contract to a inexperienced foreign company. From the Bee article sounds like they though they would save money since it was lower than the local competition due to things such as cheaper materials
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Jun 10, 2014 23:06
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ntan1 posted:so... about them teachers unions. I'm just really curious how the anti-union folks think that schools serving mostly low income students will be able to magically fix themselves when their teachers can be much more easily fired. After all, everyone knows every teacher and their teaching brother is just chomping at the bit to work at schools that are both more dangerous and pay less than those in richer districts. Finding ways to retain them certainly isn't necessary. Zeitgueist posted:One should keep in mind this is yet another example of Silicon Valley libertarian dipshits ruining the state/country. Mark my words: when the culture war bullshit is over and gay marriage and weed are no longer issues people give a poo poo about, a shitload of formerly Obama-loving Silicon Valley types will start voting for and supporting the GOP.
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Jun 11, 2014 01:34
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ProperGanderPusher posted:Mark my words: when the culture war bullshit is over and gay marriage and weed are no longer issues people give a poo poo about, a shitload of formerly Obama-loving Silicon Valley types will start voting for and supporting the GOP. I found this Nate Silver article about Silicon Valley really compelling for that reason: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...type=blogs&_r=0 Basically, that Silicon Valley is just as conservative as when it elected Reagan, but the Republican party is so conservative now SV appears liberal.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:02
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Zeitgueist posted:I have no doubt it will be appealed, but even if the appeal is successful it's a bad sign. Read the decision, it's pretty short: http://www.scribd.com/doc/229021741/Vergara-v-California As most of you should know, if any federal law (or state law for some states) is quasi-racist in the US it gets auto-overturned because of the 14th Amendment (and corresponding portions of state constitutions). The interesting part of this decision is the idea that teacher quality directly affects student outcomes. This is the product of research by economists like Raj Chetty and Tom Kane (expert witnesses here). Anyway, this is just a lower court decision, but still an interesting result of social science research.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:07
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ProperGanderPusher posted:I'm just really curious how the anti-union folks think that schools serving mostly low income students will be able to magically fix themselves when their teachers can be much more easily fired. After all, everyone knows every teacher and their teaching brother is just chomping at the bit to work at schools that are both more dangerous and pay less than those in richer districts. Finding ways to retain them certainly isn't necessary.  The picture above is from Si Se Puede Academy, one of the schools in the Rocketship Education charter group. They generally have over a hundred kids in a classroom, sitting in front of computers and monitored by a teacher and a handful of teacher's aids. They've got almost 20 schools in CA already, and they're planning on building 8 in DC over the next year. So, yeah, they really are trying to replace most teachers with computers. B B fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jun 11, 2014 |
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Jun 11, 2014 02:19
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^^^^^ This is interesting because kids technically have a "right" to computer-based education if they learn more.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:24
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Trabisnikof posted:I found this Nate Silver article about Silicon Valley really compelling for that reason: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytime...type=blogs&_r=0 SV is not so much loony rand businessmen like Palantir's Thiel but center left corporate friendly democrats.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:25
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etalian posted:SV is not so much loony rand businessmen like Palantir's Thiel but center left corporate friendly democrats. See also Ro Khanna's very real chance at knocking off Progressive Caucus member Mike Honda with Republican support thanks to Top-2.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:31
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[Phone Double Post]
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Jun 11, 2014 02:33
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Still waiting for a Dem or GOP vs. third party two-way race. Even if the third party lost, it'd be nice to have a non-polar option for a change.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:45
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B B posted:
Well, at lest they're getting them ready for their soul-crushing tech jobs in advance. Plus, there won't be time for social interaction in the future anyway since everyone will be expected to work at least 100 hours a week lest they be accused of not having passion for their job.
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Jun 11, 2014 02:48
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Slobjob Zizek posted:^^^^^ Unfortunately it appears that the technique isn't really working all that well. As much as my sci-fi nerdiness would love the idea of training our children like Star Wars Clone Troopers, real-world solutions are seldom so straightforward. The Rocketship model is essentially the definition of teaching to the test, and it retains all the drawbacks that such implies. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/01/21/19el-rotation.h33.html?tkn=PVRFWzQ2ZGeegLlT7JEhdGx8a0kIBQ9%2Br01Z&cmp=clp-edweek
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Jun 11, 2014 02:52
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Hog Obituary posted:Without actually being involved in the industry, I can't tell how much is "par for the course and Sacbee just as an axe to grind" or if these are "disastrous revelations and the bridge is going to fall down tomorrow" Forum had a really good segment on the Bay Bridge problems earlier. The discussion between the Sacbee columnist and the representative from the oversight board was very well balanced, and the callers weren't raving lunatics for a change. It's one of the few forum segments where I didn't instantly take sides. Both sides made very good arguments.
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Jun 11, 2014 04:33
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Kobayashi posted:Forum had a really good segment on the Bay Bridge problems earlier. The discussion between the Sacbee columnist and the representative from the oversight board was very well balanced, and the callers weren't raving lunatics for a change. It's one of the few forum segments where I didn't instantly take sides. Both sides made very good arguments. Forum would be so much better if it dropped the call in bullshit.
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Jun 11, 2014 04:51
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Zeitgueist posted:I have no doubt it will be appealed, but even if the appeal is successful it's a bad sign. At least we have a Democrat in the White House, right? He's bound to be out there lobbying for our teach... quote:For students in California and every other state, equal opportunities for learning must include the equal opportunity to be taught by a great teacher," [Secretary of Education Arne] Duncan said in a statement. "The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students. 
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Jun 11, 2014 05:15
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ComradeCosmobot posted:See also Ro Khanna's very real chance at knocking off Progressive Caucus member Mike Honda with Republican support thanks to Top-2. Considering Pando's recent takedown of Khanna as a nothing sandwich with a bit of corporate schmear, this is pretty alarming.
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Jun 11, 2014 05:29
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My disclaimer is that I don't know much about these issues, so I'm just asking questions out of genuine curiosity here. I don't think the legal reasoning in that opinion is very strong, but if it's upheld, why would it be a bad thing to pass legislation with more objective criteria for firing teachers rather than basing it on seniority? I mean I guess the "objective criteria" they would look at first is test scores, but would it be so bad if they forewent looking at test scores and used other criteria for assessing teachers? Seniority seems pretty arbitrary too.
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