Ram23

I assume Thiel gave Vance the money because he feels Vance is a perfect candidate to help steer the party to that goal. He's the epitome of "bootstraps."

I agree - I think he'll win the primary and further - the general election. Theil's $10 million donation wasn't just big - it was the largest contribution ever made to a single Senate candidate super-PAC. The average successful Senate campaign spends $15 million total, so he's 2/3 of the way there with fundraising and he isn't even a declared candidate yet. He has the name recognition to draw support like that from outside of the state, and none of the other candidates do. Aside from money, he seems more personable and down to earth. He isn't divisive at all - and while Trump did win Ohio twice by the largest margins in 30+ years, Ohioans tend to vote for moderate, modest candidates in liue of the loud ones. And, of course, his biggest asset might be the likelihood that most people will reference the book or movie when they think of him, instead of whatever happens on the campaign trail. That's far less pressure on a campaign, and whomever he's up against won't just have to beat him, they'll have to beat the image he crafted of himself in a successful, popular, almost heroic biography.

If you look at some of the other renderings, it looks like the designer used a generic cityscape background image:

The steps hit Klotter between 277 and 301 - both of which are newer ~1990s construction on atypically wide lots. It looks like the 20' ROW was sold and split between them in 1989. The streetview link above is 273 Klotter, which seems to just have been a house that was torn down at some point. I used to live on the south side of the 300 block of Klotter. I would go back into those woods on occasion to look around. The remnants of Renner Street create a short path from the chunk of Renner that still exists to Byron Street. The north side of Renner up to Klotter is very steep terrain - ~30% grade with 100+ feet of elevation change between the two streets. For being such a small patch of woods, I always saw lots of wildlife back there. Groundhogs, deer, hawks nested in the taller trees, garter snakes, and I even saw a turtle once (maybe a pet that escaped?).

^ That is a really long building. The schedule in the packet shows a June construction start date. It's good to see huge buildings like this go up right now - rents are rising and housing prices are nuts. If buildings like this one can attract large numbers of students, that may free up some housing in CUF, Corryville, and Clifton for owner-occupants.

As someone who hates the idea of even owning a smart phone, let alone letting one track my every move - I keep this on for precisely the reason you mentioned. I imagine it probably exonerates people all the time, but you don't really ever see news stories about the suspects police eliminate during the course of the investigation, so you never hear about it. Similarly, Netflix, Hulu, etc. know when you're streaming something so I imagine that and other web activity can be used to establish a decent alibi as well. Although I don't think these things alone are enough to establish a solid alibi. Just because your phone was some place or your Netflix was streaming, doesn't mean you were there or that you were watching it stream.

I think most of the "leather" interiors these days are synthetic "leatherette." We were looking at Audi vs Lexus last year - the former had real leather and the latter had synthetic. I actually liked the synthetic better. It felt better/softer, looked better, required minimal maintenance, and will allegedly hold up much better over time (no cracking, fading, etc.).

It doesn't mention it and given the numbers, I think it's safe to assume they didn't factor it in. The report also admits that the EV numbers are speculative: "However, because EVs are relatively new, little hard data are available to put numbers to these claims, and most estimates in the literature are based on predicted repair and maintenance costs." The other link states $5,500 is the average cost to replace a battery, but that number seems like it was pulled out of a "RepairPal's" rear end. Hyundai is paying $11,000 per car as we speak and that's for an entry level EV.

In 8-10 years, when EVs start needing battery swaps en masse, how many cars will be worth the expense? Who is going to spend $11,000 to put a new battery in a decade old Hyundai? A battery failure at that point might total the car. As of 2019 (most recent year I can find on Google), the average age of a car on the road was 11.8 years, which was a new record. I think EVs might start to reverse that trend. Most of the warranties run out by 10 years/100,000 miles and even before that point there are things many warranties don't cover (like a battery that gradually ends up only able to hold 50% of its original capacity).

We're nearly twenty years into the Brent Spence "replacement" and I think this is the first time I've seen local media casually get this key fact correct: Cincinnati's Brent Spence Bridge: No. 2 most congested bottleneck in the nation A new Brent Spence Bridge – which would actually be a companion bridge, sitting side-by-side with the original – is expected to cost around $2.5 billion.

It was losing population because people were moving out of dilapidated, crime-ridden buildings faster than people were moving in to renovated buildings, but that doesn't mean the revival wasn't already under way. It just means the renovations in desirable buildings/areas weren't yet offsetting the exodus from the rougher areas. As early as the 90s there were signs the neighborhood was on its way up, even as people fled in droves.

I lived in in New York when this story was big news. It took years for the city to figure out what was causing the waves of maple syrup smell: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/nyregion/06smell.html Baffled city investigators began calling them “maple syrup events”: mysterious waves of sweet-smelling air that periodically wafted over Manhattan, delighting some, troubling others and vanishing as quickly as they had arrived... The city revealed on Thursday that the culprit was the seeds of fenugreek, a cloverlike plant, which are used to produce fragrances at a factory across the Hudson River in North Bergen, N.J. It turned out that the city had never given up trying to determine the aroma’s origin. It had quietly created a crack maple-syrup team that remained on the case.

95% of podcasts are inane and boring beyond belief - I'd rather read an article or book and save myself some time. I often try to find ones I can follow, but they tend to all have some combination of common low quality aspects like a bad radio voice (most common), lack of editing, too opinionated, blatantly wrong statements, too much laughing, too many people at once, they don't stay on topic, etc. The same goes for some talk radio, but for the most part the popular shows are hosted by experts of the trade, not random people in their basement. They have tried and true methods and practices that make them bearable and even enjoyable at times. And say what you want about his politics, but Rush Limbaugh was a god among men in terms of radio broadcasting and carrying a talk show. The few folks I listen to on occasion (Bill Cunningham and Mike McConnell in Cincinnati) are also very skilled orators with decades of experience, which gives them a leg up on pretty much any podcaster.

^ Up through that 2016 report, crime statistics are included for an off-campus area referred to as the "CSR" (Concentration of Student Residents) area. In the reports I've found online after that, I can't find information for a similar area. The off campus definition they use is instead limited to UC owned buildings/properties that aren't on the main campus. Anecdotally, having lived in CUF from 2013 through 2020 it seemed like crime started to trend up shortly after the Dubose shooting and UCPD's subsequent retreat to on campus patrols only. STARS reports from CPD for the surrounding neighborhoods seem to confirm that, but they aren't following the same boundaries as the CSR from older UC reports. They also only go back 3 years. Stats from 2020 and 2021 will make spotting trends even more difficult as the areas around campus seem to be very sparsely population due to COVID. Per capita crime numbers will probably look very low but they won't reflect reality. Also a factor in recent years are the roaming hordes of ATV/street bike riders that have used the Shell station as a base of operations. It often turns into wild street parties that encompass entire blocks of Calhoun and McMillan, and have resulted in violence, shootings, and other crimes. CPD actually shut down the streets entirely a few times to try to prevent these parties from starting. If it ever seemed like a good idea to make the residence halls on this street open and accessible, it probably became a less popular one in the last year or two.

I'd wager that some 75% of politicians have unnatural, carefully crafted speaking voices. Hillary Clinton is probably the most famous example - she was infamous for having different accents at different times and depending upon where she was and who she was speaking to. I don't know enough about Mandel to know if he has always spoken in such a manner or if he is evolving to appeal to his constituents. I do know that I am sometimes surprised by the "southern" accents I've encountered in parts of Ohio, even north of Columbus. In Cincinnati, an accent like that wouldn't stick out at all.

I do think most radicalization tends to relate to an inability to accept personal responsibilities to some degree. Passing the buck to some ambiguous group or body is easier for most people than self reflection. But it isn't unique to right wing extremism. If anything, left wing extremists have an even greater tendency to blame society for individual misdeeds. Even many mainstream left wing views are rooted in this logic. Student loan forgiveness, minimum wage, UBI, etc. are all ultimately attempts to put the burden of individual personal financial problems on society.

Another interpretation of this most recent one would be that it's retribution. Ndukwe cooperated with the feds to out PG, so PG filed a motion accusing him of cheating on his wife with women who "appeared to be underage." Happy Valentines Day, Nedu. The auditor paperwork on the house is an interesting rabbit hole. On the surface it looks like he bought it for $785,000, but the conveyance form indicates it was actually a gift (from his sister? who would have been 10 when it was put in her name?) and that was the (lowball) estimate of the value. The house seems to have been handed down for as far back as the auditor paperwork goes. So it's just one example of the sort of money we're talking about here - million dollar homes as hand-me-downs.

PG is grasping at straws with a ferocity that only hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of legal fees can produce.

Everyone knows Coca Cola exists, yet they still have some of the most robust advertising on the planet. Eventually, most people will crave a Coca Cola at some point.

Jokes on them. We aren't trying to attract the sort of person that gets mad about a billboard like that, we're trying to attract their boss. It's like a filter of sorts, for a smart growth strategy.

I had to reduce them from the original size! They came from a KML file that ODOT publishes. Someone posted this on UrbanOhio some place years ago: http://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions/Engineering/CaddMapping/Pages/Public-Aerial-Image-Requests.aspx It's a treasure trove.

Here's an aerial of the "canyon" from 1946: And another of the expressway dumping out onto a relatively empty Hartwell Avenue: The little exit ramp from the original expressway to Anthony Wayne is still there, decaying and overgrown: https://goo.gl/maps/FpSkqhNxTFsGisaW6

That's one way to look at it. Another would be to say that to some degree she has her current position because of who her parents are. She was born with significant privilege in that regard.

During the 2004 swarm, I was in school and worked at a car dealership making sure the cars were clean and organized on the lot. People would take cars on test drives for ~20 minutes and come back with the fronts completely covered in cicada splatters. Luckily they were so big and juicy that they usually scrubbed off pretty easily compared to little gnats that seemingly embedded themselves in the paint, but the water buckets and sponges would get pretty nasty.

I've always been wary of mini-split systems because of the lack of outside air circulation. To me, they seem to be okay in a pinch, but if you have the flexibility to install a traditional ducted system, I'd suggest it for the sake of indoor air quality. On a somewhat related note, in the wake of COVID I've seen people want to upgrade or replace HVAC systems in order to use 100% fresh outside air at all times - which is typically a significantly expensive endeavor. On the other end of that spectrum are ductless systems that don't provide any outside air. Long term, I won't be surprised if we start to see heftier HVAC systems requested or even required in the name of wellness. More outside air, more air changes, stronger filtration, etc.