Sign in

Alan

@akgerber.bsky.social
2K followers 1.6K following 2.5K posts

he/him literally just some guy— mostly shooting the shit about transportation/climate change/architecture/urban planning/economics/land use also computer stuff

PostsRepliesMedia
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Why use an electrical battery when the whole tunnel functions as a kinetic energy battery
000
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
i don't think most llm consumers get indigenous people's day off
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Plenty of cities in the rust belt saw widespread abandonment of old rentals when rents in some submarkets fell below what would sustain maintenance
000
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Yimbyism if successful on its own terms will have a similar effect on rents in extant buildings as rent stabilization, and thus similar effects on the economics of apartment buildings after construction
100
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
a lot look like early WWII "russet boots" that you can get a lot of reproductions of today eg www.smwholesaleusa.com/shop-footwea...
smwholesaleusa.com
SM Wholesale USA — Model I Type II Russet Low Boots reinforced with rubber soles.
First introduced in the late 1930s as the US Army Service Shoe with leather soles. Then reinforced in 1941 when war broke out with rubber half-soles and called RUSSET LOW BOOTS. Ours are made with Al...
030
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
even though part of the bike trail was closed due to bear
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
it felt like it was moving in an ok direction visiting this summer
130
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
cool looking bikes from a responsible manufacturer that keeps their users safe for the long run, that's cool
090
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
And the local coal power plant keeps getting its life extended and burning up trainfuls of coal www.wpr.org/news/we-ener...
wpr.org
We Energies will delay Oak Creek coal plant retirement by one year to 2026
We Energies says the decision comes in response to tightened energy supply requirements and in an effort to boost reliability.
020
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The site that was supposed to be a Foxconn factory is now a data center campus, and the damnable Scott Walker finally had his political career ended
190
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
It was surprising
0172
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Higher income sprawl can also lead to labor market sprawl like in San Diego, where most private sector jobs are in North County office parks that are practically inaccessible by any mode other than driving and downtown is basically an entertainment district
150
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
minneapolis is a pretty darn productive & sustainable place too (other than the BTUs needed for home heating) it just has the rare combination of reasonable housing policy & really cold weather that keeps housing demand from exceeding supply too much
120
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is an underrated reason why Stancil's perception of the economy is so far from the doomers'
181
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Trumpflation in tungsten prices is making me miss out on my American dream
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Google summaries were pretty useless in 2024 and ChatGPT was still way more prone to hallucination then and didn't get web search until the end of 2024
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Almost every city on earth has relatively mild winters without much snow in comparison to Montreal lol
190
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
they were less useful until tailscale made talking to them outside your house real easy a few years back tho
030
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Send it to me
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
would it surprise you that the answer is "Eric Adams" comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/sta...
comptroller.nyc.gov
Statement by NYC Comptroller Lander on Mayor Adams’ Vision Zero Rollbacks
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander responds to the rise in injuries and deaths caused by the abandonment of Vision Zero policies by Mayor Eric Adams. THE CITY’s recent reporting showed a spike in c...
090
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Eg Pittsburgh, Altoona, Allentown
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Pennsylvania has laws that made "split roll"/partial land-value taxes available and they were applied effectively in many cities in a similar situation to remove the incentive to tear down perfectly good buildings to save on taxes
130
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
my 1906 tenement apartment is in a building that was abandoned in the 1980s and thus it lost most details when renovated but it has modern electrical wiring & heating in exchange as well as a dishwasher, which has made it a nicer long-term home
050
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Yeah plenty of Manhattan buildings still have manually operated freight elevators— I rode one regularly as a bike commuter
011
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
does she always wear the Liz Truss necklace
001
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Apple doesn't operate a cloud business and hardly operates any data centers
1101
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
There's some fun little trails to mess around on in the Milwaukee valley by Riverwest plus some actual official MTB trails in/around Hoyt/Oak Hill Parks now, plus some fun gravel around those new reservoirs on the County Grounds
000
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Where are you living these days?
000
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
If you add in some mountain/gravel biking you'll get more of an upper body workout while just still riding hella bikes
011
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The Via Claudia Augusta is also right nearby and a lovely ride from Munich into the Alps
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
think of how many nice Catskills cabins a train to Binghamton would make transit-accessible
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Wisconsin transit planning: Just Put The Trains Back
050
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
i spend less on transportation & thus i spend more money at local businesses (financial services firms right here in new york city that custody my savings)
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
this photo is at least 3 illegal actions at once: -over 55' long -wrong side of the road in two directions at once -running a red light
2100
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Just because a truck with a 53' trailer doesn't fit on surface streets in NYC doesn't mean it won't drive there
1120
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
And as a tech person, which is a demographic overrepresented online, 2008 wasn't bad for me— I graduated in 2010 and had a job offer in fall 2009 without trying very hard to get it, which is a very unusual story in retrospect
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I'm Bluesky Aged and was not meaningfully a participant in economic life before 2008 and thus have no real memories of it, even as a kid that read the newspaper all the time
110
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I would also be curious about what were the "safe stocks no matter what happens" now that we have the benefit of hindsight
120
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
As a person of modal Bluesky age and from a household where my mom always worked (and made more money), that baby is me
130
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Being able to derive insights about the production process from enormous torrents of unstructured data is one of the core problems of centrally planning an economy
030
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
That includes stabilized apartments which are essentially unavailable to new entrants— that said the $5000-ish numbers are usually the median among advertisements on some random website which likely oversamples luxury apartments advertising everywhere
110
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
In general, being two decades further from the widespread downzonings in the 70s mean there's that much less depreciated housing which is where one lives if one wants to drop out of the system (or work 10-25 hours a week and otherwise hang out or make art or study something esoteric)
0111
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
There were a lot of cheap & fun (& semi-dangerous) urban neighborhoods in the 1990s—rich areas then were mostly exurban Now there are expensive & fun & safe urban neighborhoods and midpriced & boring & safe exurbs and some rundown older suburbs that are kinda cheap but usually not fun
1142
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Dang that makes me feel old, I remember when she was the exciting new Congresswoman from Milwaukee
010
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
note these are all speed camera tickets because the same class of drivers was accustomed to being allowed to mortally endanger others for the cost of a PBA card (or just for listening to right wing radio shows that cops like)
120
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
there is a subset of antisocial drivers who regard speeding tickets as the cost of permission to break the rules rather than a request by society not to mortally endanger others
250
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Always has been en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladies%...
001
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
hmm i did eat a lot of sweet treats while home alone as a latchkey kid i grew out of it eventually they also generally ran out for the week if i ate them up, and now as an adult i try not to keep too many unduly delicious things at home
000
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Wisconsin primaries are designed for high turnout (open, all on one day, same day registration) as a Progressive legacy and the general election races are competitive so flipping one is a different ballgame, and Hong came very close
130
Alan @akgerber.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
NYS primaries are low turnout by design (Closed, state/local on separate days) and the general races are usually uncompetitive so incumbents often have very little recent experience at campaigning and it doesn't take that big an operation to flip them
120