Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 8hI’ve called it the “Nintendo tax” as far back as Gamecube. The switches pushed it to another level though. 1240
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenJesse Pohlman (He/Him) @jpohlmanwriting.com · 12hOkay, at this point I have to ask where the national Democratic party is on telling its candidates, "Don't talk like JK Rowling, it's probably demoralizing." Because this is just fucked. And if your answer is, "They need to run to the concerns of their district," you're fucking wrong. 619353
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenCrip Dyke @cripdyke.bsky.social · 10h@drannieandrews.com I think you should know that hating people is bad, actually. I know it's hard to believe in the age of Trump, but now, more than ever, choosing not to hate people is going to be important. 1215
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenWintersong @wintersong.bsky.social · 13hAs far as I know, none of the Democratic Party politicians who represent me have made the anti-trans heel turn (yet). But the Dems' refusal to ostracize these assholes makes me doubt the whole damn party. Will my reps be next? This shit is a poison rotting the Democrats from the inside out. 1298
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 15hIf a city is built around not needing a car the livable wage drops dramatically. 010
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 07/10/2026The Turing Test was cool, but what about the Inverse Turing Test? How does a human prove that they are, have been, and continue to be a human and not a program that is able to pass the Turing Test? 000
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 07/10/2026I would not willingly live in Tennessee. Is it good or bad that a class of people have to decide where they will live based on the legal rights they have there? 000
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenEvan Urquhart @evanurquhart.bsky.social · 07/10/2026I'm increasingly frustrated that people who are anti-AI aren't being taken seriously, and taking a page out of my thoughts on why the anti-trans backlash got as far as it did I'm starting to think the anti-AI side isn't extreme enough. 481825323
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Digger is schrodingers movie. Movie people love it. Normies hate it. Most people refuse to see it because the trailers intentionally don’t ruin the movie. 130
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenKybosh @kybosh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I like seeing the dev of the SNES core on the Pocket actually telling one of these dudes off. Holy shit. 4790232182
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Wouldn’t be opposed, but was attempting to soften it a little bit. Was debating using the word annex while writing it. 160
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Anchor cities for metropolitan areas should be able to pull surrounding suburbs into their government. It’s absurd that 50,000 people in a 4+ million person region are able to create so many challenges. Federalism turned out to be a mistake. 1150
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 05/10/2026GenAI throwing everything they could steal into a bowl of slop and selling access to the slop should bankrupt them. Every copyright holder for every work ingested should have claims against every response generated by a model containing their work. Just an unimaginable scale of theft. 020
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenAaaaaallan Deutsch @allandeutsch.com · 05/10/2026Generally agree knowledge should be free, but I have a hard time reconciling that with “and people should be paid for curating and sharing it” If everyone pirated textbooks, nobody would make money from writing them and they would stop being produced. How do we ensure that doesn’t happen? 4121
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenCourtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 05/10/2026Sorry I’m not gonna do idea landlords discourse today. You want authors to not get paid? Cool go totally rework society so that we also don’t have to pay for things. 657083
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Because in some cases they won’t get to 18 otherwise. 000
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 03/10/2026One of them will drive onto the tracks again to spite transit users. 030
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Traffic Circles have an optimal throughput level. Beyond that lights are safer and more efficient. US traffic design relies on models that over estimate traffic volumes. Mode shifting is never considered as a means of managing traffic. 010
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenJoey Politano🏳️🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Sort of insane fact about how broken US urban planning is—America now spends more building *just the lights for roads and highways* than on all subways & ground mass transit combined Spending on roadway *pavement* is 18x transit spending 502925795
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Yeah, but you see Americans just have an innate preference for the automobile. It has nothing to do with automobiles soaking up 95+% of the spending on transportation for generations. 0601
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I’m in Seattle. “Hot” is 80F. I will cross to the other side of the street to get into shade. Blocking the sun is a net good most of the time. 010
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 02/10/2026More housing is more housing. “Affordable” or not the only way to have enough places for people to live is to build more places for people to live. Let developers get their profits so that our neighbors can have a place to live. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026See polls showing him with 25 total approval. Thinks thats +25 NPS. 000
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The user interface passing the Turing Test has all kinds of horrific downstream consequences. Humans will assume it has the same features as them and follows the same rules. All of these assumptions are false and can be exploited to influence their users. 031
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 01/10/2026They exist to provide a vainer of legitimacy to doing whatever. Has a traffic study ever actually predicted traffic loads? 010
Reposted by Erica Van HoutenNed Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 29/09/2026"In the states examined in this analysis, a drop of approximately 20% in inflation-adjusted rents—as happened in Austin, Texas, and Minneapolis after those cities made reforms—could reduce poverty by 18% to 26% and child poverty by 21% to 38%." www.pew.org/en/research-...pew.orgThe Housing Shortage Is a Major Driver of PovertyHousing costs are usually the largest item in a household’s budget and can determine a family’s financial stability. 418959
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Brando Sando is about as close to the art content mill sun I’m willing to fly. 000
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Oh yeah, bedazzle away. I’m not going to stop you. Paying $10,000 for it is insane though. 021
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Handmade one off garments made by an artist? Pay more, we need more of that in the world. Bedazzled goodwill finds? Get out of here. 140
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I love that one of the most powerful people on the planet is flinging slurs. Good stuff. 010
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Give developers their 10% rate of return. Who cares. I want to pay less than a third of my income on rent. Build more stock. 000
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The faster money changes hands also influences the inflation rate. All of this is my understanding of it as a techie with a passing interest in economics. I’m sure there are plenty of “well actuallies” that can be pulled out of my 300 character explanations. 010
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Another thing that will also be talked about is the “fed funds rate”. This is the primary thing that the federal reserve can directly control. And it’s the rate of return that banks pay each other for short term lending. It goes down money moves faster, it goes up money moves slower. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026So if the return the government has to offer is high when the risk associated with it is perceived as very low everything else has to offer more returns or they can’t get any money. That’s why mortgage rates go up. You are more likely to default than the government so pay more to borrow money. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The bond market doesn’t exist in a vacuume. Government bonds also compete with corporate bonds, stocks (‘equities’ in finbro), and private equity investments. All of these different investments are offering some speculative return based on some speculative risk. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026If they print money to cover their debts that causes inflation. In theory. Again, complicated. Sometimes you’ll hear “quantitative easing”. That’s just finbro speak for printing money. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Government debt isn’t like individual debt because it is very difficult for a government to default. If a government doesn’t have enough cash and can’t, or doesn’t want to, issue bonds to cover a payment they can ‘just’ print money and call it good. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026For the government raising bond rates mean the deficit we are currently running and all the accumulated debt becomes more expensive. The financing is setup so that bonds are constantly ending (maturing in finbro speak) and they need to be paid out, which means they need to issue new bonds. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026There may be similar bonds from other sources that are more attractive. There may be people attempting to sell their older bonds at a discounted rate. There may just not be enough money floating around to buy them at all. Who knows! The market just does what the market does. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Why bonds may be less attractive is incredibly complicated. Buyers may think inflation is going to be high, making the return worse than the yield implies. They may think that the yields will be higher in the future so they don’t want to lock in now. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The government sells these bonds on the open market. They say “will you give us a billion dollars if we give you 5%?” If they can’t find enough buyers at that yield they have to offer more yield to attract enough buyers. Yields going up means the bond is less attractive than in the past. 110
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026A bond is debt. The government says “we need x dollars today, we will pay you some percentage of that every year for the duration of the bond if you give us money. Then you can have your money back at the end of the bond.” The percentage is the “yield” of the bond. 100
Erica Van Houten @epvh.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Hydrogen doesn’t have enough energy density to be competitve. Even if you store it cryogenically or at high pressure it still is way behind current solutions. Electrification is the right answer, and it should have been done decades ago. 000
