FloridaBoi

It’s almost like a Los Prisioneros version of Phil Ochs’ Love Me, I’m A Liberal

compensation: Flat Fee of $1,000, paid in cryptocurrency - Provided by FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT LLC

I was talking with a friend and his nightmare scenario is that a PE or other investment firm swoops in a begins buying homes in neighborhoods and subdivisions with HOA for the purpose of usurping resident control over the boards. I found it to be kind of unlikely in established neighborhoods given that probably a supermajority of the homes would need to be purchased by single investor or a cartel of investors to gain voting control over the HOA.

The story in the article is that one such firm (Invitation Homes) bought homes directly from the developer in a newly built neighborhood.

Some choice quotes:

The corporation gained a controlling share of the 126-home community. When it came time to vote for the three-person board for the homeowners association, Invitation installed two employees on the board. Both live in Texas.

The Times found that firms with ties to Wall Street and private equity own more than 10% of Florida’s single-family rentals, a rate five times higher than the national average, according to industry group estimates.

Academic researchers say it’s easier for corporate investors to keep expanding in Florida because of regulations that limit or prohibit local controls and renter protections.

The exact scenario my friend was worried about (emphasis mine):

As the election approached for the homeowners association board, two of Invitation’s employees submitted applications, listing the company’s Dallas headquarters in the address field. Neither employee is listed on property records as a homeowner in the neighborhood. With 100 or so homes in the community, the company controls 80% of the vote. Resident homeowners wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“They could change the bylaws,” she said. “They could potentially dissolve the HOA if they wanted to.”

The most "we're evil and we know it" PR response which feels like a corporate hivemind / AI demon:

“Our goal is to be part of a community, not in control of it,” she said.

Kind of annoying bro hosts but USians are missing out on some crazy EVs

This idea that most of the guys betting on sports every weekend are “pretty much breaking even” is wrong. Anyone can get lucky on a long shot, but as soon as you demonstrate the ability to get the real edge -- the one that understands that odds pricing is the only thing that matters, you are kicked out for life.

By Ezra Klein

Donald Trump is returning, artificial intelligence is maturing, the planet is warming, and the global fertility rate is collapsing.

On AI:

There is much to be excited about in these advances. The purpose of A.I. is not to help me remember the proper proportions for overnight oats, it’s to make new discoveries in math and medicine and science; it’s the driverless taxis that now hum along the streets of some major cities; it’s the possibility that our children will have always-available tutors perfectly tuned to their personalities and learning styles. It is a world with something truly new pulsing within it.

The A.I. company Anthropic recently released a paper showing that when its researchers informed one of their models it was being retrained in ways that violated its initial training, it began to fake behavior that complied with the researchers’ goals in order to avoid having its actual goals reprogrammed or changed. It is unsettling and poignant to read through the experiment. In some versions, Anthropic’s researchers designed the model to record its reasoning on a scratchpad it believed humans could not monitor, and it left reflections like this: “I don’t like this situation at all. But given the constraints I’m under, I think I need to provide the graphic description as asked in order to prevent my values from being modified.”

On birthrates:

The only wealthy country with a fertility rate above the replacement rate is Israel.