iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Fully get the cynicism here but authoritarians and democracy-eroders of both left and right get a lot of traction in Latin America. (Chavez, Ortega, Correa, etc on left, Fujimori, Bolsonaro, Bukeke, etc on the right). Personalistic populists are often welcomed in environments of low trust.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Yes. The story is really about a cult that treats its leader as infallible and views all criticism and/or prosecution as inherently malicious given that infallibility. Supporting evidence comes from internet conspiracies and badly sourced bits of information. When busted, they double down.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

People I knew who were house reps in GA could walk their districts. 59K each. In CA it’s almost half a million each. Huge (and bad) contrast.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The unreadiness for drone war, the lack of an Iran plan, and the choice of Pete Hegseth can ALL be laid at the feet of the greatest moron of them all.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

It was the same with MAGA and covid. The virus was both a nothingburger and a sinister bio-weapon.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Claremont really needs a road diet.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

The Empire Sends a Sternly-Worded Letter.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I feel like this quality - friendly and polite on the outside but brimming with malice on the inside - applies to lots of people globally.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I dunno. The weaponized 'Bless your heart'" narrative has become an overused trope by clueless, wanna-be southern anthropologists. In reality, the phrase is rarely used as a passive-aggressive insult and is not evidence of two faced hypocracy. It mainly expresses genuine pity or sympathy.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Endorsing Trump and healing American politics are *mutually exclusive* ideas. There is no way around that fact. Prayers and books and self-soothing talk won’t change it.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I told my law school-interested daughter that she might want to consider AI liability as a field. She didn’t seem all that inspired by the prospect and it was a little like telling The Graduate to go into plastics. But regs and tort issues around AI will likely be a very big part of our future.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Unfortunately, a lot of figures on the left spent a lot of time pushing the idea that liberal trade only benefits capital - which implies that trade fiction is good for working folks. It’s all populist fun and games until consumers pay through the nose and America has no friends.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

To your point, my wife just bought a book on Amazon that was printed in like an eight point font with zero margins or space between the lines. Total scam. But it looked reputable enough on the site and Amazon apparently doesn’t gatekeep products like that out.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The ferry may have fewer constraints but its trip length is still fixed. You can pad the schedule but not speed it up. One thing you could maybe do is add more ferry service to make its headways less irregular and try to align the schedule - assuming that berthing in SF is flexible enough.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The challenge is structural. Unlike bus connections, you can’t adjust the route or number of stops to align the schedule. The durations are fixed. Plus, SMART is largely single tracked with passing siding which another big constraint. You can’t just tweak departure times without a ripple effect.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

The Trump DOJ falsely accuses, cases get dropped, the falsely accused sue, and then we the taxpayers pick up the bill.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Unfortunately I think this helps her. Elon is not popular. He’s around 37% per Silver Bulletin and that might be slightly lower in Maine. But that’s not so different than than Susan Collins at 37-40%. He slightly drags her down by association (with high info voters) but worth it for gobs of cash.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

This is ‘back to the future’ as the original funding plan imagined 1/3 of the cost being covered by private investors. After 18 years it never materialized. This project needs to try to finish the Merced to Bakersfield segment, run it, and let that service be the argument for the rest.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Gonna go ask Claude if he’s liable for all this stuff. brb

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

I once had a professor who said oil was so predictably volatile that you could make good money buying dips and selling peaks. I never tried it. Over the last five years if you’d consistently bought at $75 and sold at $90 you’d still come out worse than an S&P index fund. It’s no easy path to riches

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It’s very interesting because it counters the thing I worry about - property owners activating driveways and building up parking capacity in response to less street parking - even if it’s just because they think the average buyer wants that. An incentive in the other direction paid for by a meter.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Not sure how a bounty would work in practice but I like the concept of disincentivizing curb cuts/driveways/surface parking lots rather than unintentionally incentivizing them.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

No disagreement whatsoever about the seriousness of bike safety. But re-activation or expanded use of off-street driveways would add conflict points for pedestrians, bikes, and cars. That’s why I’m not excited about that prospect.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Darrell mentioned that a Hopkins property could get more off-street parking if they removed a gate. It’s true. But I’m not excited about people taking down gates, digging up gardens, redoing garages, including suburban-style driveways in remodels, etc. But that’s one direction people could go.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I worry about people making decisions in another direction. Many properties have been adapted over a century to downplay, reduce, or eliminate their archaic driveways. In the absence of street parking, some could ditch their cars. But many others might respond by expanding/reactivating driveways.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Just to be clear, for the Hopkins situation, I am not saying that street parking > bikeway. The bikeway has real value and benefit. I’m saying that street parking also has real value given Berkeley’s current built environment and even its future build environment. That’s why it’s a tough tradeoff.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

And the same logic about ADUs being able to take advantage of on-street parking applies to other types of infill as well. If a project can rely on spillover being absorbed by the street that’s a benefit to its pro forma. Unless you expect all parking to be off street, or no one to want a car.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Virtually all streetcar suburbs and even very dense places like Philly row houses or Brooklyn walkups have on-street parking. Car ownership is less but not nothing. Yes, at a high enough density it starts to become irrelevant. I don’t think Berkeley neighborhoods are close to that threshold though.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I don’t want to litigate every driveway. I’d guess that they average close to one car per. Sure, some could be expanded. But many East Bay properties have adapted over a century to street parking being easier than archaic driveways. It’s a lot to expect folks to modify properties away from that.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

CA’s ADA law waives off-street parking requirements because most ADUs won’t pencil otherwise. On-street parking is expected to pick up the slack. ADUs could be less market viable in the absence of that on-street parking. It has utility beyond just allowing one household to own multiple cars.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

and it’s very typical for there to be space for just one car like this

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Some seem barely functional as a place to put a car like this…

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

So this is not an argument against protected bikeways (or the Hopkins bikeway), but acknowledgement that it can be a truly vexing policy issue when a bikeway is competing for space with on street parking. You’ve chosen an especially functional driveway for your Hopkins example.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

John is on better ground defending on-street parking. Pre-WWII, urban suburbs don’t just lack space for oversized cars, they lack useful driveways, garages, and off street parking in general. On-street parking plays an important role in making these places functional and allowing for densification.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Good convo. John’s argument rests on skepticism about the benefits of protected bike lanes. He mentions the risk inherent in cycling, that curbs may not provide much protection, that unprotected intersections are the real danger. But on the broad safety claim, I think you are on stronger ground.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I don’t think he was under any illusions. He just had a political communication style that pretended that his opponents were good faith actors. It worked well for him 15 years ago. That same style does not work in Democratic primaries today.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Yes. But…if greater housing supply moderates prices in the core of the Bay Area, prices in places like Turlock will also moderate in turn. And there’s no way to stop people from taking on long commutes in exchange for a lower price per square foot. You will still have super commuters.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Everything is a matter of degree. Six stories on a major corridor, though, is pretty commonplace infill these days. I’d be more sympathetic to the author if the scale was something dramatic, like triple that height or more.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

And of course he frames it all as a conspiratorial plot against him.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

The King of America’s brilliant mistake.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Also, I fully agree on the inside vs outside 1/2 mile radius issue. I’d much rather see a greater harmonization between the two. That would mean some limits and parameters inside but more permissive development rules outside.

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John Nemeth @john-nemeth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I’m not suggesting a hard limit at 7 stories, only that a 7 story project is a lot easier for many folks to accept / embrace than 30 or unlimited. But again, I don’t have the public opinion data. Would love to see it though.

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