Jason R Brown

April 2022 Link Roundup

05 May 2022

Hey look! I actually followed through on writing something I said I would.

Articles

When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord A long article exploring the changes that come when a private equity firm hyper-focused on turning a relatively short term profit buys your apartment building. The broader exploration here helped me understand a phenomena I’ve observed in Salt Lake City of the high-priced, “luxury” apartment buildings sprouting up everywhere. I briefly worked as an armed security officer last year and so many of the empty buildings I was sent to patrol at night only a year ago have been torn down and replaced with these short term money generators at the expense of the neighborhood. I’m generally pretty pro free markets but I find commodification of housing… distasteful.

Primer: Statistical Armour Cleared up a common misconception about how the “slat armor” on armored vehicles actually works. The tldr is that it’s not at all meant to detonate HEAT warheads farther out from the primary armor (that would actually decrease protection). It works by deforming the shaped charge on the nose of an RPG causing it to either fail to detonate or fail to form the explosively formed projectile that is meant to penetrate the armor.

Nuclear Energy I’m a nuclear energy optimist and have been happy to see Europe looking at it more favorably due to the potential fallout of Russo-Ukrainian war. This post was, as the authors put it, an attempt “to take a deeper look at the case for and against nuclear while trying to be as unbiased as possible.” I think they did a decent job of it. Their analysis on the cost differences between nuclear and other sources was insightful. They point out that the cost gap is unlikely to close as nuclear energy probably won’t benefit from economies of scale as much as solar or wind are. Small modular reactors are probably the best way to capitalize on economies of scale and alongside less costly regulation could conceivably bring the upfront costs of nuclear energy down significantly.

My Smart Home 2021 I love smart homes and I love seeing the ideas other people have had. A few ideas I took from this include: air quality monitoring with suggestions to improve it, front door sensor & alerts, a humidity sensor to control a humidifier plugged into a smart outlet, and a pressure sensor under a baby changing table to turn on gentle lights.

Other Reading

Interesting Finds