The cones aren't to alert the pedestrians the the crane. The cones are to mark out a path in the road for pedestrians and to alert auto drivers to that path. As an American I get that you don't typically walk anywhere but I can't believe you've never ever encountered a set of high visibility cones marking out a temporary path around construction equipment on a roadway.

In much of the US the default is to close the sidewalk if it exists and require pedestrians to use the other side of the road.

I've found this very annoying on a recent trip to the USA.

There's 3+ lanes of road. Close one of these lanes to cars and let the pedestrians use it!

Is there a good light under which to view this? It's corrupt. Isn't that far worse than whatever benefit you presume "HN" would be cheering?

What do you mean by "the short window when the labor to do so was affordable"? Other cities in the world seem to be able to build underground railways just fine and they have similar labor costs as the US. See Paris or Sydney for cities that have created new underground railways recently.

Labor costs in Paris for building rail are considerably cheaper https://archive.is/Ojs0k

But my comment was a bit tongue in cheek - it is mostly political dysfunction. Of course the US could find people willing to work for less than $400/hr or whatever, but there is an incentive disalignment.

How would you imagine one could make driving better, aside from making public transit better? The best thing you could hope for if you feel like you need to drive within SF is to have as few other people feeling the need to drive within SF.

But wait, I have to ask: why do you live in SF?

Practically anywhere else in the US is cheaper and better for people who want to drive.

Very few other US cities are better for people who want to get around by other means.

There used to be a neighborhood around it that had architecture similar to what the neighboring North End still has, which is very distinct among the entirety of the Americas. The lack of imagination that existed back then that led to it all being razed to build this and the rest of the garbage of the current West End is stunning.

And at least there's this there now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cop_slide

Anytime i've brought my kids to that playground since that incident there is always someone either recreating or showing someone that video. The best exposure for a park really.

Aside from silly "sales-tax-holidays" I've never heard of the sales tax rates changing so frequently. I'm curious to know where this is happening "multiple times per year". Here in MA it's been the same rate for 15 years. And for the sales-tax-holiday situation can't a shop just say something like "everything will have x% taken off at the register" just like they would during a typical "10% off all items" type of sale?

If MA has a single rate across the entire state that hasn't changed in 15 users, they are very different from how most other states operate.

Here in Texas you will nearly always be paying the maximum 8.25%, its been that way for 30+ years.

Same here in PA. 6% for basically everything besides non-prepared food and a couple other categories which are tax exempt

Why did you expect a foreigner who is not from China to realize that they'd be inhibited by the local authorities from doing work they were invited to do by those same local authorities? It's bizarre to think that it's bizarre that a foreigner might merely express some surprise by that.

Which would make sense if it was assumed there were only a few people in the entire bureaucracy… but doesn’t make sense when everyone involved knows, ahead of time, there are millions...

Probably thousands even in some random small city.

I’m guessing no one on the team had ever coordinated even a thousand people before on some complex legal issue. So it’s just bizarre to suddenly expect anyone capable of that would do so on their behalf and reach out with invitations…

Not all countries are like China.

Other places could have a helpful bureaucracy, or one that ignores the laws, or accepts bribes.

How does this matter when the country is known ahead of time, and the relevant laws, the details, etc., are all widely known to be nowhere near identical?

It’s not like someone could accidentally board a flight to China and clear immigration by happenstance, or without being informed that things may be very different from their home country.

They were probably optimistic, incorrectly. It's easy to think everything will work when you have a written guarantee from the government, and have never personally experienced a dysfunctional, authoritarian bureaucracy.

An invitation from a local official can not be a written guarantee of something beyond them?

It’s not even a guarantee of getting the relevant visa in time, that’s true for every big country I know of.

Very common for one branch of a bureaucracy to be at odds with another branch.

not necessarily, it might just depend who is asking. You can get a lot done in general by having the right person/party ask for you.

"Never" is a really long time.

It would take a severe lack of vision to not be able to imagine that the following will -never- improve: charging infrastructure, charging technology (specifically, charging time), and BEV range

A lot of folks aren't great with numeracy, so I think it's good to use examples to help people understand how much tax Apple didn't have to pay that they themselves would have had to pay if they earned as much as Apple did.

Yes, explaining 13bn in terms of how many Children's Hospitals or Special Needs Assistants or Tablets per school child is very helpful in understanding how much money were taking about, and has no political agenda whatsoever.

/sarcasm