Ram23

It seems the sporty nature of Tesla's electric cars is causing them to be involved in accidents at a much higher rate than the average vehicle. : AAA raising insurance rates for Tesla owners http://www.leftlanenews.com/aaa-raising-insurance-costs-for-tesla-owners-96345.html AAA is making it more expensive to insure a Tesla Model S or a Model X. After examining a report from the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), AAA concluded Tesla cars crash more often than comparable models, and they're considerably more expensive to repair. The data covered cars from the 2014, 2015, and 2016 model years. The report suggests the rear-wheel drive Model S is involved in 46 percent more accidents than average, while repair costs are over 50 percent higher than the industry average. Those percentages check in at 41 and 89, respectively, for the Model X. As a result, Tesla owners insured through AAA will soon see a 30-percent hike in insurance rates.

If weed ever does become legal in Ohio, it needs to be treated like smoking in public because of the nasty smell. Second hand smoke is more dangerous, but it at least smells okay in comparison. Olfactory comfort needs to be maintained in public spaces. I treat people who smell like weed the same way I'd treat someone who let out a huge loud fart. Half the time, farts probably smell better.

For comparison sake, Oktoberfest weekend had 29,113 riders. I go to Oktoberfest, but not Taste. I wonder if the crowds are significantly different - is Taste more family oriented? During Oktoberfest there were lots of people heading to bars/breweries before and after via the streetcar. Maybe that's not the case with Taste.

^ That looks like an Anthropologie on steroids. Also, you can never go wrong with describing an architectural aspect as "sexy." Sexy bathroom? I'm sold. I'm going to use that if/when I sell my house some day.

Yeah the whale extends about half a block - it's a big hostel and has one of the very few bars in Taipei on the ground floor. That picture is from the hotel I stayed at for a week, right across the street. https://www.google.com/maps/@25.0469005,121.5057137,3a,75y,227.76h,127.83t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sf9BMbpxFqr9Q2r0IkoqanA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 I think the signage covers up some rather ugly buildings. If you look at the residential areas you can tell that about 95% of the buildings are built with thick concrete walls with tiny windows, and the exterior is clad in tiny little tiles. It is really pretty dreary. On top of that they've got AC units, steel bars, and awnings poking out everywhere. The signage is an improvement over what is behind it, imo. What's interesting is despite the pretty ugly appearance, these are nice neighborhoods (and extremely safe)... real estate in Taipei is some of the most expensive in Asia. I would recommend at least a quick stop in Taiwan to anyone who is visiting Asia for a couple of weeks. The food and hotels are so cheap that the overall cost is minimal if you're already nearby. There seems to be a lot of tourism from Mainland China and Japan, but in two weeks I think I saw fewer than 10 non-Asian people.

I've been to Taipei twice, each time for a 2 week stay so I've been able to see quite a bit of the city and Taiwanese countryside and thought I'd share some pics. Getting to Taiwan from Cincinnati is a bit of an ordeal. It can be done with just one layover, but it's via United and it's expensive, the layover is overnight, and their international flights are terrible. I took Delta the entire way, with short layovers in Detroit and Tokyo. The flight was pretty cheap given the fact that Taipei is about 8000 miles away but it took a good 21 hours of travel. Taipei is an awesome city. It's also an incredibly cheap city to visit. Decent enough hotels only run about $40 a night. The best food is street food and the good stuff runs anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per serving. You can stuff your face all day with all the food you can eat for less than $10. There were days I spent less than half that. Travel is cheap, too. The subway fare is based on distance traveled and starts at around 50 cents for short trips. It maxes out at around $2. Commuter trains out to the burbs and adjacent cities are equally cheap. The bikeshare is even cheaper - it starts at 33 cents for a half hour rental. Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures. Some are from February 2016 and some from May 2017. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. The Wenhu Line (or Brown Line) is an interesting one. It's fully automated, and the trains are short, 4 car units with rubber wheels. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. These are inside/from the Grand Hotel, which is where we had our wedding: 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. These gondolas get very, very high as they ascend into the mountains south of Taipei. I'm not a big fan of heights but it was worth the ride: 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. The last few pictures are from a quick train trip I took to the east coast of Taiwan. Trains are also very cheap, it was around $12 for the three hour ride to Hualien from Taipei. 63. 64. 65.

I think he meant 80 meters, not feet.

Rhinegeist beer ice cream coming to UDF http://www.cincinnati.com/story/entertainment/2017/05/22/rhinegeist-truth-ipa-ice-cream-coming-udf/337270001/

This pool shouldn't be different than other city pools. It should be operated by the CRC, not 3CDC, and the CRC city-wide membership pricing should include access to this pool. Anyone should be able to take a swim for $3 a day or $35 per year. It seems to me the pricing strategy was designed entirely so that 3CDC can claim they aren't "gentrifying" the neighborhood.

I came across this rail to bike/walking path conversion in Taiwan. It seemed like an interesting and cost effective way to convert an old rail line to a recreational trail while keeping the rails in place. This might be commonplace but I hadn't seen it before.

He started his career as mechanical engineer. Today, he is just an entertainer. His past gives him a little more insight into some topics than most TV personalities, but having been an engineer at one point doesn't exactly qualify him as an expert on soft science fields like gender theory. He's just playing a part on screen, reading a script that was written to appeal to a specific demographic. If you want to watch an actual show about science, watch something like "How It's Made."

In an interesting subplot to that strange episode of his new show, Netflix and Bill appear to have gone back and edited an episode of the old show to remove references to the fact that there are only two genders: http://freebeacon.com/culture/netflix-edits-bill-nye-episode-remove-segment-chromosomes-determine-gender/ When uploaded to Netflix, an episode of the educational children's show "Bill Nye the Science Guy" cut out a segment saying that chromosomes determine one's gender. In the original episode, titled "Probability," a young woman told viewers, "I'm a girl. Could have just as easily been a boy, though, because the probability of becoming a girl is always 1 in 2." "See, inside each of our cells are these things called chromosomes, and they control whether we become a boy or a girl, " the young woman continued. "See, there are only two possibilities: XX, a girl, or XY, a boy." But in the version of the episode uploaded to Netflix, the segment has been cut entirely. While noncontroversial at the time, the 1996 segment appears to contradict Netflix's new series "Bill Nye Saves the World." Apparently you can bring up the versions of the show on Netflix and YouTube and see where they diverge. I haven't tried it to confirm. It's interesting, and if true, it reminds me of a quote: "The past was alterable. The past never had been altered."

I'm surprised Cranley's campaign has thus far focused so heavily on the streetcar. It was his biggest political failure as mayor - his 2013 campaign promised to stop construction, and he failed. Now, he's running a campaign focused on stopping expansion. He's making almost the same promise he failed to deliver on last time. This just reminds everyone of his previous failure, in lieu of focusing on some of the things he's done right. You'd think $600,000+ would buy someone a better campaign strategy.

Have we already talked about how the name "Buzzed Bull Creamery" sounds just a little bit unappetizing? What is bull cream? Further, why can't people in OTR just spike their UDF milkshakes like the rest of us?

Cranley's "supporters" (whoever those people are) are all assuming he's going to win, so most won't bother showing up. I must have been number 19. I think I was there at 8:25 or so, I was also the only person there. It probably doesn't help that about 75% of UC's off campus population moved out/left town this past weekend after graduation.

^ I just noticed Seelbach de-friended me on Facebook. I voted for him twice! I don't think I will vote for him a third time based on that act alone.

I vote in every election and have volunteered for/donated to groups/politicians from both parties so I usually get nonstop mailers and door knocks leading up every election. So far, Rob Richardson's people have knocked on my door twice, but I haven't seen anyone from the Cranley nor Simpson campaigns. The only ads I've seen are for Cranley on Instagram (fairly often) - granted I block pretty much every online ad and don't watch much TV. I haven't gotten anything at all in the mail.

^^ Still sounds a little bit better than Midpoint last year.

^ I looked that up once before. The code just says you have to pay "immediately," which seems rather impossible at first, but I assume the act of walking over to the meter or pulling out your phone is part of the paying process. Sec. 509-5 - Parking in Metered Spaces or Spaces Requiring Payment. (a) Spaces controlled by meters. Whenever a vehicle is parked in a space at which a parking meter is located during hours of limited parking, the owner or driver of the vehicle shall, upon entering the vehicle in the parking space, immediately pay the required fee by any method accepted by such meter.

A lot of the Fields Ertel area of Deerfield Township has a Cincinnati mailing address (anything in the 45249 zip code, I think). So there are places in Warren County with Cincinnati addresses. Toots is in the 45140 zipcode, which covers Loveland and part of the few townships around it.

The "community" wants them to chop 8 feet off the height of the building. That really means an entire floor, which probably makes the development unprofitable. 5 stories is a pretty good sweet spot for a building of this size. It's interesting that Yvette didn't show up. "Abstain" is probably the best position she could take from a campaign standpoint, though the worst one from an urbanist standpoint. I'm a little surprised about Winburn and Smitherman - they aren't usually the ones who want to roll out the extra red tape on projects like this.

^ I saw that listed and couldn't believe it. I looked it up on CAGIS and it looks like they did do some renovation work, but they had a lot of problems getting their permits and inspections so I don't know how professional a job it was. I also kind of doubt it was $475,000 worth of renovations.

The war on young men at US colleges needs to end — now http://nypost.com/2017/04/23/the-war-on-young-men-at-us-colleges-needs-to-end-now/ The largely hallucinatory “war on women” has nothing on the very real war on college boys. A few recent stories highlight just how unfair and unjust an environment US campuses have become for young men — and the necessity of federal intervention to fix the damage previous federal intervention has done. Take Thomas Klocke, a University of Texas at Arlington student accused of making anti-gay comments to a classmate. Klocke vehemently denied the charges and said his classmate had hit on him and Klocke angered him by rebuffing his advances. According to Reason magazine, “Klocke received no hearing, even though the university’s Title IX policy explicitly mandates hearings for students in danger of being expelled. He was simply charged with making physical threats against a student and engaging in harassment, in violation of Title IX.” A school “academic integrity” official “conceded that there wasn’t enough evidence against Klocke.” No problem: “Administrators found him responsible for harassment anyway and placed him on disciplinary probation.” Klocke killed himself a few days later.

Reminds me a bit of this:

Here's the area where the problem is: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1169496,-84.5203113,3a,62y,4.69h,76.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1se2teC1RwsT2dk9YkLiMSkQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1 The city has since put up about a dozen signs stating something along the lines of "do not stop on tracks." They are very big signs and they are on every single pole. You literally can't turn your head in any direction and not see a sign. People who stop on the tracks here either ignore the signs or are so oblivious that they shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car to begin with.