Ep. 3: Pretty Buildings Are Illegal, Tiny Little Software Projects
Episode 3 -
👋 Happy Thursday!
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After the last email, a few people thought that I had a $13,000 toilet! I very much don't, I just found a $13k toilet while trying to find the model name of my regular-priced toilet. If I had a $13k toilet of course I'd sell it and do something far more useful with the money.
I wrote a few things this week, both related to software development, more on that below:
Housing and Urbanism 🏡🏫🚋🛣
Last time, I said:
These [historic often-photographed downtown buildings] are obviously some of the most beautiful buildings in Golden, and if they burned down tomorrow, it would be impossible to rebuild them in their current form.
Why would it be impossible to rebuild them?
First, lets figure out exactly which buildings I'm talking about:
We'll look at these buildings, which are right next to the iconic "welcome to Golden" arch:
Here's a Google maps view of the same block. I'll be referencing this "Welcome to Golden" sign often, so try to "hold" it in your mind:
Do you see the problem? Do you see how these buildings couldn't be rebuilt, even if they burnt down and insurance would pay out enough to rebuild them?
No?
OK, here's the three problems. Each individual building violates HUGE portions of modern zoning laws. The primary offenders:
- Minimum lot size
- Setback requirements
- Off-street parking requirements
Of course these buildings got "grandfathered" in, but as soon as more than a certain percentage of the assessed building value is spent in renovations across a 10 year period, they're required to be brought up to code.
That value ranges from 20-60% of the assessed value of the structure. If the building is worth $300k, and you want to spend $100k renovating it across a 10 year period, in many jurisdictions you'd be required to bring it "up to code". This is why so many old buildings just age into disrepair. (Here's a source for more on , though certainly not definitive.)
Here's my questions for you:
1. Do you see why some people love the buildings in the above pictures?
2. Do you think it should be completely illegal to build another collection of buildings that were similar in terms of lot size, lot coverage, and lack of off-street parking?
Hit reply, let me know.
👩💻 Software Development
Here's the two things I wrote this week about, related to software dvelopment:
👉 Two Critical Books and Two Critical Articles for Future Software Developers (josh.works)
As I found myself copy/pasting the same four links to someone in an email for like the 50th time, I decided to just list these four resources in a single spot. These two books, and the two linked articles, consitute a large portion of the reason I got into software development, and others considering a similar path would benefit from the articles.
(The linked article on salary negotiation is incredible, because it highlights perspectives of the topic you are unlikely to otherwise encounter.)
👉 Sinatra Basics, Part 1 (intermediateruby.com)
A few days ago, I sat down at my computer and wanted to spin up a little idea application. It needed to be available publically on Heroku, use Sinatra, and receive/respond with JSON.
I thought it would take me like 30 minutes, but I ended up getting bogged down in 8 year old docs, outdated StackOverflow answers, and tailing Heroku logs to see why various things didn't work.
So, to save myself time the next time I do this, I jotted down notes, and started writing a series about Sinatra, from zero to "that's a cool app you built there".
If you're into Ruby, software, and tiny little projects, this could be helpful. It's still early-stage and a draft.
⁉️ Questions and Requests
If you're a climber, what are your goals for this year?
Last year, I basically stumbled into an unusually good season: I got frighteningly close to sending 5.13c in Rifle, and v10 (in the front range, so you can decide if that's really "v10"). I'd always thought these kinds of grades were above me, so I was shocked when "oh, it can't hurt to just try it out" turned into "oh, I can actually send this thing with a tiny bit of work".
And then I've hardly climbed for the last six months, and have been dealing with a back injury for the last two months. I'm recovering, but slowly.
I'll be in The Red in April, so I'm thinking about climbing goals. I think I'll be mostly out-of-shape when I get there, so I don't know what kind of goals I'll have.
For those of you who climb - do you have trips coming up? How have you been thinking about goals, especially if you're not in prime climbing shape right now?
- Josh