jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 31/07/2026This is insane. Clever Girl is Duncan Robinson. Do you guys understand. The Economist's Bagehot columnist is the band that my uni girlfriend sent me to explain what math rock is. 131
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 27/05/2026(This doesn't apply to the Bakerloo Line, which is manually operated, but instead has problems because the trains are old) (Also they are thinking of adding a little randomness to address this, but they haven't yet) This is from memory but I think I read about it here: bsky.app/profile/jonn... 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 27/05/2026The Tube has been having a problem with track wear since they introduced automatic train operation On most lines, the drivers press "close doors" and "go", and the rest is automatic. This means the trains always start/stop the same way, which wears the same bit of track, which makes the bumps worse 110
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 28/04/2026This is a good way to design a policy. Subsidise the behaviour you want to encourage, and use the tax system to achieve your unrelated distributional goals. Unfortunately, the behaviour being encouraged here is fossil fuel consumption... 020
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 23/04/2026I recently attended a party dressed as this encounter 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 11/04/2026The Hungarian Deep State doesn't want you to know this, but you can make your old fashioned AND your Unicum taste better by combining the two (10ml Unicum in place of bitters) 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 07/04/2026I do think the American people are trying a hell of a lot harder than I am to stop American imperialism 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 07/04/2026Do you think there are too many people alive? Then die 🤷♂️ 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 03/04/2026You're talking about my old neighbourhoods! I'm currently wearing a shirt from one of those 5th Avenue thrift shops, and my sister works on Bergen St! 110
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 03/04/2026You'd get better macro-economic effects by keeping fuel duty and using the windfall to increase train and bus frequencies (e.g. by buying/subsidising additional buses & trains) Given the sheer braindead stupidity of the other parties, it's a shame the Lib Dems haven't distinguished themselves here 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 20/03/2026UK officially no longer the stupidest country in Europe :) 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/03/2026Trump has comedic timing like the dog at the end of "Hey Bulldog" that makes everyone hoot n holler 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 17/03/2026They'll also have been hit by higher interest rates (so higher parking fees, so people choose to save money bt taking the train), and high petrol prices (Ukraine, then Strait of Hormuz) NCP might've fared better if more lax planning laws allowed them to easily convert these car parks to housing 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 17/03/2026If you're wondering why NCP went out of business, the obvious answer is "this is a stupid business model" You just don't need this much parking in central London (inside the congestion zone no less!) 101
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 06/03/2026Oh! And requesting a higher credit limit on the card that I was actually using 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 06/03/2026I had this once and fixed it by spending a tiny bit on a card I had otherwise forgotten about 100
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 24/02/2026For the record, you actually do already need a licence for that 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 21/02/2026We are all flawed. Valid criticisms, even in bad faith, are an opportunity to correct those flaws. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 21/02/2026"Wahaca" is pretty straightforwardly an embarrassing spelling. It is basically an insult to British patrons, who are not trusted to learn how to pronounce a foreign word. Americans, however, actually cannot be trusted to pronounce foreign words, as with "Birming-ham" and "Noder Daym" (Notre Dame). 310
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 21/02/2026But it IS embarrassing that the restaurant is called "Wahaca"... 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/02/2026My personal proposals for this sort of situation: 1. Local land-use change. If no one wants to live there, people should be able to convert the property to industrial or agricultural use. 2. Regionally, we should've put the proposed Stratford Vegas Sphere in the North East (at Redcar Steel, say) 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/02/2026Story about left-behindest-Britain: Horden. Horden's railway station opened in 2020 (19 mins to Sunderland, 41 mins to Newcastle or Middlesborough) A full 750 square foot terraced house goes for just £50k (five zero) even 5 minutes walk from the station Sometimes, you just have to admit defeat... 100
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 27/01/20261) Expand night tube service: include Northern Line Bank branch, run on Thursdays 2) Licensing decisions in the Central Activities Zone made at the mayoral rather than borough level. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 21/01/2026Possibly a trial run for branching the Jubilee Line at North Greenwich towards Thamesmead and Abbey Wood? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee... 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 16/01/2026Inside you there are two Groks: one has horny, one has antisemitism. You have horny antisemitism. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 07/01/2026I don't think there's much overlap between people who take the Staten Island Railroad and the rest of the subway. It might technically be "a subway", but there's no reason to call it that. If TfL bought Merseyrail, would it be "the tube"? I'd be more likely to call the PATH train the subway... 101
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 26/11/2025Farmers protests at 6:30am driving past my house. I no longer believe in free speech 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Ah fair, definitely true that living wage is higher in London but minimum wage is the same 120
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Is that true? I thought both were now £12.21/hr (except if you're younger than 21) 100
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Maybe wage compression is coming with price compression, i.e. the cheapest goods are also inflating faster? Certainly true that minimum wage has outpaced all measures of AVERAGE costs: after tax + NI, minimum wage is still up 71% since 2015 (vs overall prices up 40%, 1 bed rent up 49%, food up 44%) 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Direction is the same for larger rentals, and for different regions (although, for London, it's only a decrease from 115% to 93%...) Rent data here: www.ons.gov.uk/economy/infl... Minimum wage I pulled from Wikipedia, and used the highest-age rateons.gov.uk Price Index of Private Rents, UK: monthly price statistics - Office for National Statistics Private rent price statistics, including indices, annual percentage change and price levels. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/11/2025Minimum wage increases have also outpaced rent over the past decade: January 2015 Median 1 bed: £736/mo Minimum wage: £1018/mo* Median rent = 72% of minimum wage January 2025 Median 1 bed: £1070/mo Minimum wage: £1792/mo Median rent = 60% of minimum wage * That's 40hrs/week, 47 weeks/yr 200
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 18/11/2025That's as of 2018-2020, here: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...ons.gov.uk Individual wealth: wealth in Great Britain - Office for National Statistics Individual-level estimates of total wealth (July 2010 to March 2020) and regression estimates for the latest survey period. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 18/11/2025"Going for pensioners" is good. Pensioners are the richest people in the country. The median 25-44 year old has £52k The median 65-74 year old has £338k By contrast: People with disabilities are 4% poorer than those without. People born outside the UK are 60% poorer than those born here. 100
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 19/09/2025When the "nice things" budget is shared with the "take care of the elderly" budget, there isn't much money left for nice things. 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 08/09/2025When I worked at a video game company, we accidentally released a game that basically had the difficulty turned off. Would be funny if Silksong accidentally got released with "difficulty=DebugTestMaximum" or some such. 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 07/09/2025Fun trick: ask someone how to say "why" in their language, and then ask how to say "for what" or "what reason" as the realisation hits them. Works with Farsi and Russian. Russian even has "for this" for "because". Doesn't work with English's "why", but we do at least have "wherefore"/"therefore". 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 09/08/2025Rush: - The woke left are going to make guitars illegal and ban the word "I" - 'Live for yourself. Begging hands and bleeding hearts will only cry out for more' - Song about a guy using his fortune to pay homeless people to beat each other up Nevertheless, bangers from the 1st album to the 19th 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 04/08/2025What if I'm nostalgic for the golden age of uncontrolled immigration into the United States 020
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 18/07/2025This map relies on the fundamentally wrong idea that cities should be amputated from their surrounding regions. This is precisely the opposite of correct. Instead: start with Travel-To-Work regions, and iteratively merge regions with the most-crossed borders, until you have 10 regions or so. 110
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 22/05/2025Penn Station to Grand Central seems like it should be trivial, but Hoboken to Atlantic Terminal (or at least Hoboken to New York!) would be pretty cool. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 22/05/2025If they introduce through-running commuter rail to New York, I may be forced to concede that New York is better than London... 110
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 28/03/2025Rich councils may get richer, but rich people would get poorer. I think that's a fair trade, especially since councils are largely responsible for how nice an area is. Only exception is big cities, where the metro mayors should be getting the property tax receipts. 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 25/11/2024Why not simply pay those key workers more? 000
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 22/11/2024November substack is up! Not as fun as the past few: motivated mostly by exhaustion, and a righteous disdain for millionaire rural landowners. Nevertheless, HERE'S a budget with some chest hair (Property Tax, UBI, and nerd stuff) open.substack.com/pub/distants... 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 18/11/2024Greens seeking to preserve tax loophole for millionaire landowners. Curious. 010
jakeolenick.bsky.social @jakeolenick.bsky.social · 28/09/2023Join the dakotas and cut new jersey in half. Benefits: 1. Bipartisan. Each party loses 2 senators 2. Dakota would be soooo big 3. Solve the bob menendez bribe scandal 4. New Jersey dumb state anyway 000
