For one. They’re going to give time to let disturbed earth settle. More machinery you use to do it mechanically, more stress you’re going to put on existing adjacent structures.

Same reason road projects seem to “stall”. Letting nature do the work is sometimes preferable.

I’m sure someone did the math on cost/risks.

This seems universal.

Most hospitals have VIP rooms designated, some even VIP wings and suites.

You really think Bill Clinton didn’t get special treatment for his heart surgery years ago? He didn’t even check himself in. His staff and the hospital would have coordinated all that, and taken steps to protect his privacy. I’m sure the staff who took care of him were all hand selected. Even down to whomever cleaned the room.

Your poor ass gets whatever is available. If available, you get whatever doctor is on duty.

Yea. Outside of a handful of special situations. Most tax preparers just punch your data into an app and print out the results. Often hiring someone for low wages to do the data entry.

Not much different than doing it yourself with any software of your choice.

These days all the major offerings support 95% of tax situations by the time you get to the top tier of their product.

So for most people, using a human is just a waste of money. For certain high income people who need to discuss tax strategies it can be worth it.

This is a massive engineering project turning it from a garage with ramps to actual floors… inside a building already built. Which means they need to keep the existing building properly supported. And they can’t use cranes to just move beams.

The wind and dropping temps tomorrow after all the rain could be really bad for bridges.

Expect frozen surfaces. Bridges will freeze instantly.

I wouldn't be shocked if you see some road closures from this.

That still leaves several vectors since that phone might be reloaded with something compromised. That phone would have the same serial number and MAC address.

That would let a someone turn it into a Trojan horse if they can replicate enough of the experience of the device.

Totally not an acceptable solution. It needs to be more obvious who/how the phone was compromised.

Possibly given how wet everything is going to be and how quick the temp is going to drop + wind.

Things are going to ice up quick, and things like overpasses and anything overhead can be an ice hazard. It’s rare for something like this to happen. Especially with this much rain just before.

Wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of bridges are closed for a bit due to quickly freezing surfaces. Train will be more reliable than crossing the GWB.

Oh and they can’t really salt until the last minute since the rain will wash it away. If it were snow that wouldn’t be an issue.

Tomorrow will be interesting. Hope everyone stays safe.

Well with a handyman you're kinda expected to at least do the legwork of finding the product you want. They aren't interior designers. That's not a huge deal in the age of the internet. Even Home Depot has a pretty wide variety they can order for you if they don't have it there. Just speak to one of the reps in that section towards the back. I believe they do custom as well.

Any handyman job I've done in the past (things that are just too much for me given tools or whatnot), I've got what's needed (not just ordered, but have it), and I've gotten a few names from neighbors that they've used recently and gotten some quotes. Product is already on site. They just gotta install and bring whatever tools and misc needed for the job.

A contractor is going to give you a much more insane price. You've got to make it worth them being distracted from 5 figure jobs.

Contractors are all inclusive. Handyman is more… just do the labor.

They aren't "afraid", it's a simple logic problem. You have 3 platforms at the terminus. You can only have 3 trains in the station. Max. That's basic physics. You can't overlap trains. Anything else has to wait in the tunnel for a slot to open up.

While a train is waiting they also block some capacity for trains to leave the station. It also means if there's a problem on that train (medical emergency, terrorism, fire etc.) there's no easy solution other than wait for a train to depart, or go through the procedure to reverse if there's no train behind it.

From a safety/security perspective, that's absolutely out of the question. Even pre-9/11 that would be wildly careless operating procedures. Trains intentionally don't leave stations in underground transit if they know there's an obstruction ahead that prevents it from reaching the next safe haven.

There's no way people will be understanding if there's a shooting or smoke conditions and the train waited several minutes because "train traffic ahead".

Adding platforms isn't easy on 6th avenue due to subway easements (remember 33rd street isn't actually on 33rd since they already moved that station once for the subway expansion), and adjacent buildings basements being on either side.

The only practical solution would be to build a new station below the existing one, but drilling below an operating station is an insane logistical nightmare as the East Side Access project has shown. NYC is build on heavy bedrock that's not easy to drill, and doing so without disturbing things above it is extremely slow and expensive. It would help if they could just shut down the line for a decade, and/or demo some buildings in the area, but nobody is going to go for that.

It's not just curve, it's also a climb and a drop. Particularly in the flying junction on the NJ side of the tunnel.

Speed control on a train is drastically impaired when a train is not level. That's because the wheels have very little grip on the track. Remember that minimal friction allows it to move so much weight with minimal power also means it doesn't have much control.

That's why track anywhere near a curve or station tends to be setup to be as flat as possible. But occasionally compromises have to be made. Less curves can only be done if the turn radius is larger, meaning more track distance, moving stations, potentially more obstacles. Even if the train runs faster, the distance can wipe away most of the time improvement.

Unless there's something really special about those doors (size isn't a big deal), that's generally a handyman job. Ripping down a door isn't rocket science. Neither is hanging one.

Most contractors don't want to waste their time on such a job. They'll gladly replace doors as part of a gut remodel, but anyone decent is too busy for that small of a job.

While there’s definitely room for improvement it’s worth noting the government has been fighting Apple on locking cameras and Touch ID sensors to phones for years because it makes it harder to crack.

Being able to use a synthetic camera or Touch ID device would be a huge win for law enforcement.

And a week later you’d see those devices show up on eBay.

If they’re going by the law it’s irrelevant.

Every vehicle operator has a legal obligation to prevent collisions. There’s no exceptions for other drivers mistakes, weather etc.

You’re not in less trouble because there was ice on the road either. You’re still responsible for the collision.

You have an obligation to not operate the vehicle in a way that these external factors can be a problem.

This comment might be the dumbest Reddit comment of the day… including all the crypto bullshit subreddits.

Well the subsidies lower the cost for at least the first few vehicles. But that doesn't necessarily make it affordable.

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The bigger problem right now is the infrastructure and restructuring of how operations work.

i.e. lots of districts use buses during the day for schools, then in the evening for other things like sports, and even overnight for senior citizen activities. It's pointless to have separate vehicles for all of these tasks, especially when some school buses now are handicapped accessible. One vehicle, and just have different drivers since obviously you can't have someone drive 18hrs a day. It makes sense, it saves money. Some towns even use school buses for moving their employees between job sites. No point having a fleet of vans just for that task. Lots of these trips are quick. Having rarely used vehicles is a waste of money.

Same reasons towns love those garbage trucks that double as snow plows. One vehicle, multiple tasks. They're nice and heavy so they are good in big storms too.

But for an electric bus, you kinda need 2 vehicles for stuff like this. They can't be quickly gassed up. They need to sit and charge overnight. And charging facilities. And staff that are trained to service/inspect them. And until you do a complete fleet replacement, you need staff that can still service ICE vehicles. That's more duplication. You've also need supply chain for both.

This is a key reason why PA was keen on a big order of cars and replacing the whole fleet. Rather than do various orders/models. It saves them money long term having one model, one set of training for employees, you can use parts between them, swap them out for each other, etc. etc.

I'd predict you'll see more adoption in really rural places that provide minimal services before suburbs. The ones that own a dozen or less buses, only use them for school, and nothing more because the government provides no other services. Even rural distances are within range, and it's a perfect match.

But in urban/suburban areas, school buses are kind of abused as multi-purpose township vehicles that just so happen to also take kids to school.

We know you’re an idiot because the “tolls were supposed to be temporary to pay off the bridge/tunnel/highway” thing is a global old wives tail. There’s a small set of places where this was actually done. But literally every place on earth people claim this is fact.

You should see the camera resistant hats some thieves use. IIRC they’re IR led lights, which basically create a halo and block the face. You can find this crap online.

Most cameras can’t come close to filtering out the light so it looks like some 1960’s religious film and the Holy Spirit just broke it to steal a package…. Or some StarTrek alien bad guy.

Yea. My former coworkers used to collect menus from places they ordered/picked up. You could browse the stack for that chunk of midtown. At one point someone noticed several had the same address. Searching on Yelp showed it was just aliases for the same place… and same deal: all crappy reviews.

Once their reputation is blown they just start a new one. They keep the existing name to not loose existing customers. Cost is basically a print order for some menus to throw in bags and a Google voice number.

Maybe this is OCD, but if I order from some place new, I put it in Google maps and see what comes up. Is it a real place?

This is actually pretty common even before apps.

Places sell food under a few names, same basic menu +/- a few items. Get a few phone numbers one for each brand.

Asian places have done it for a long time. One will be Chinese, another will be American Chinese, another is some kinda fusion. 99% same menu. Let’s them market and track marketing returns better.

There are teachers who qualify for WIC… those fatcats.

Yup.

Also PA is supposed to start refurbishing existing cars. Don’t know if they started that yet or not. But at some point in the near future all existing cars are supposed to cycle out for a while to get refurbished.

Next years budget will again see a pretty sizable hike. Inflation is still relatively high (but slowing), tax revenue for the state is expected to decline due to the economy, and Abbott dollars subsidizing JCBOE will continue to disappear as planned.

Not to mention high cost of living means JC like NYC needs to seriously consider raises for its employees if they don’t want to have staffing shortages due to people leaving for better paying jobs. Recruiters actively target city employees in NYC right now, and I don’t think an ordinance is going to slow that down.

Yea, but the smaller ones rented by an owner aren’t in the big website listings so they don’t get lumped up in the averages they get published.

Meanwhile big companies will list 50 units a month across their buildings on a dozen websites via an automated system.

People insist there’s some central registry of rents, but there isn’t. All these averages are based on collected data. Nobody has it all. They’re all biased to their collection methods.

Quite a few smaller landlords refuse to pay to list an apartment and will stick to word of mouth, Facebook, a sign in the window etc.

Depends also on size. Heat transfer efficiency depends on surface area. In theory they can heat to below 0F outside…. If big enough. But many PTAC’s will stop at 40F due to their small size.

The fireworks are actually just to cover up the gunshots.