Category Archives: Local / Living

Local / Living

Group Living Rules – Denver Zoning

After an eight-hour meeting that included a public comment period for which 74 people signed up to speak, the Planning Board voted eight in favor (with one member not voting) to forward the proposal to City Council for review. City Council is expected to take it up in October.

Hundreds of people sent written comments to the board ahead of its decision. For months, residents have aired such concerns as fear of having former prisoners as neighbors. People who share housing have pushed for their arrangements to be legitimized.

The proposed zoning code change includes increasing the number of adults who aren’t related who can legally share a single-family home from two to five, with larger homes allowed to harbor as many as 10.

…

Jason Hornyak told the Planning Board that the changes would allow younger people to do what he did not know was illegal when he arrived in Denver as a recent college graduate: pool resources with others to be able to afford a home and start a life here. Referring to the city Community Planning and Development department that created the amendment, Hornyak said: “Cheers to CPD for making Denver a more equitable city.”

Donna Bryson, August 19, 2020
Denverite

Denver has an immediate need for housing, and the city has made it a priority to address that need by working to make more options available for all residents. Updating zoning rules is one piece of the city’s overall strategy to provide more and better housing opportunities for all residents.

denvergov.org

Local / Living

Affordable housing can cost $1 million per unit in California

Affordable housing can cost $1 million per unit in California due to is California’s labyrinthine financing process, parking minimums, and local governments forcing developers to cut number of apartments per building from urbanplanning

Lazerus42
My home town West Los Angeles is terrible at this. Parking is atrocious, and so is the ability to rezone single resident to multi floor apartments, or even apartment complex. We understandably don’t allow new developements to happen without built in parking now, but that then creates a city of high end apartments being the only thing people want to develop. So parking is a stigma of the issues. Of course public transportation is big for many metropolises, but LA is big, like big big. Public transportation is good, but bad in LA.. lots of NIMBY stopping the way. (look at trying to pass a trolley line near Beverly Hills High School) So this leads to a realm of housing that is damn near impossible to afford. I don’t quite know what to do. I’m not an expert in any way. It’s just what I’ve come to understand is the issue.

wizardnamehere
The cause is a lack of public transport. But transport projects are rendered unviable by the large ownership and preference to cars. You have to tackle the issue from both ends. You also need planning policy which aims to reduce total trips taken outside the local area. —

Local / Living

Opinion | Disdain for the Less Educated Is the Last Acceptable Prejudice – The New York Times

At the heart of this project are two ideas: First, in a global, technological age, higher education is the key to upward mobility, material success and social esteem. Second, if everyone has an equal chance to rise, those who land on top deserve the rewards their talents bring.

This way of thinking is so familiar that it seems to define the American dream. But it has come to dominate our politics only in recent decades. And despite its inspiring promise of success based on merit, it has a dark side.

Disdain for the Less Educated Is the Last Acceptable Prejudice
It’s having a corrosive effect on American life — and hurting the Democratic Party.
Michael J. Sandel

Local / Living, Tech / Science

Denver Internet Initiative

Who We Are
The Denver Internet Initiative is working to make sure that all Denver residents are able to get online at home so that they can participate and thrive in this new digital economy. In 2005, Colorado passed Senate Bill 152, a law which prevents municipalities from being involved with their own Internet. That means they can’t provide Internet, invest in Internet infrastructure, or create policies to make sure our Internet will be able to meet our future needs.

The Internet touches all aspects of daily modern life. It is education, banking, work, communication, health care and so much more. Our first goal is to opt-out of SB 152 so that we, the people of Denver, can play an active role in deciding what our Internet will look like, instead of leaving it up to Big Telecoms who are focused solely on financial returns.

We’re a group of Denver residents trying to make it happen and we need your help! Come volunteer with us and also join the conversation on Facebook to help us get the word out.

https://dii2020.org/
via r/denver

Arts and Letters, Local / Living

STAR / S.T.A.R Storytelling Format

The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires.

Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.

Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.

Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.

Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions and did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience and have you used this learning since?

Here’s some interview questions you can try this with:
Tell me about a time you showed leadership.
Tell me about a time you were successful on a team.
Tell me about something you’ve accomplished that you are proud of.
Tell me about a time you had to manage conflicting priorities.
Tell me about a time you failed or made a mistake.
Tell me about a time you worked with a difficult person.
Tell me about a time you had to persuade someone.
Tell me about a time you disagreed with someone.
Tell me about a time you created a goal and achieved it.
Tell me about a time you surpassed people’s expectations.
Tell me about a time you had to handle pressure.
Tell me about a time you had to learn something quickly.

Wikipedia

Arts and Letters, Local / Living

Derogatory NFL Team Names

Bears:
Bores, Dancing Bears

Bengals:
Bungles, Bungholes

Bills:
Jills, Duffalo, Barffalo

Broncos:
Donkeys  

Browns:
Dawgs, Clowns 

Buccaneers:
Suckaneers 

Cardinals:
Canaries, Cadavers

Chargers:
Dolts, Discharges 

Chiefs:
Chefs, Queefs, Thiefs, Chumps

Colts:
Ponies, Dolts 

Cowboys:
Cowgirls, Cryboys 

Dolphins:
Cryami 

Eagles:
Filthydelphia, Pigeons, Chickens, Turkeys, Beagles

Falcons:
Geese, Ducks 

49ers:
Forty Whiners 

Giants:
Dwarfs, Ants

Jaguars:
Jagoffs, Jagwads 

Jets:
Gliders, Paper Airplanes 

Lions:
Lie-downs, Cowardly Lions

Packers:
Fudge-Packers 

Panthers:
Pussies, Kittens

Patriots:
Deflatriots, Patsies

Raiders:
Chokeland, Fraiders 

Rams:
Lambs, Scrams

Ravens:
Crows

Redskins:
Deadskins 

Saints:
Ain’ts, New Whoreleans 

Seahawks:
Shehawks 

Steelers:
Shittsburgh, Curtain Rods 

Titans:
Titanics 

Vikings:
Viqueens
  

Local / Living

Opinion | Stocks Are Soaring. So Is Misery. – The New York Times

So big tech stocks — and the people who own them — are riding high because investors believe that they’ll do very well in the long run. The depressed economy hardly matters.

Unfortunately, ordinary Americans get very little of their income from capital gains, and can’t live on rosy projections about their future prospects. Telling your landlord not to worry about your current inability to pay rent, because you’ll surely have a great job five years from now, will get you nowhere — or, more accurately, will get you kicked out of your apartment and put on the street.

From the comments:

Mickey NY Aug. 20 Times Pick
It’s sad really, this free market worship. No investment in post secondary education affordability in the rust belt, no investment in infrastructure during the often bragged about this period of Wall Street record setting, no bipartisan long-term game plan for preparing and training citizens of this nation for 21st century skills. And the environment seems to go the opposite of record Wall Street numbers. Red states need to look in the mirror and ask themselves about how giving tax cuts to billionaires and building 3 miles of walls is working out.

Paul Krugman commented August 21 
@Mickey
Prediction: almost nobody will look in the mirror. A sad reality I’ve learned over the years is that almost nobody ever admits having been wrong about anything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/opinion/stock-market-unemployment.html

Local / Living

Housing Affordability in Amsterdam

VAN DOORNINCK:
…
I think where we’re doing bad is that the prices of our houses are far too high. The biggest worry that people in Amsterdam have is, “Can I pay my rent, or can I pay my mortgage, or actually, can I live in Amsterdam?” Because it’s so expensive. And that is such a strange thing because we calculate our G.D.P., so how wealthy the city is, by the prices of our houses. So, we say, “Okay, we have very expensive houses, so we are doing well. We’re a rich city.” But actually, we’re saying, “There’s no access for a lot of young people, but also older people because it’s far too expensive.” So, how could we say that our city is doing well?

freakonomics

Local / Living

Google Job Training

Google recently made a huge announcement that could change the future of work and higher education: It’s launching a selection of professional courses that teach candidates how to perform in-demand jobs. These courses, which the company is calling Google Career Certificates, teach foundational skills that can help job-seekers immediately find employment. However, instead of taking years to finish like a traditional university degree, these courses are designed to be completed in about six months.

Google didn’t say exactly how much the new courses would cost. But a similar program Google offers on online learning platform Coursera, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, costs $49 for each month a student is enrolled. (At that price, a six-month course would cost just under $300 — less than many university students spend on textbooks in one semester alone.) Additionally, Google said it would fund 100,000 needs-based scholarships in support of the new programs.”College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn’t need a college diploma to have economic security,” writes Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google. “We need new, accessible job-training solutions–from enhanced vocational programs to online education — to help America recover and rebuild.”

slashdot