Have you ever wanted to play circular chess? No? Circular chess is derived from an early version of chess in the Byzantine empire. Nobody except a sketchy mobile app developer and an early 2000s webpage offered it free to play, so I vibecoded a game. andrewdamitio.github.io/circular-che...

I've created an interactive precinct-level map of Oregon's contested state legislative races in the 2024 election cycle. It compares legislative margins to the presidential race, as well as vote drop off from presidential to downballot. Enjoy! andrewdamitio.github.io/portland-spl...

15 years later, the failure of Solyndra continues to be brought up by both solar opponents and industrial policy opponents. But its failure was industrial policy working as intended. My latest blog post: open.substack.com/pub/andrewda...

The last smelter in the PNW was in Ferndale. Shut down during the pandemic, wasn't able to reopen in 2022 because there wasn't enough clean power to do it. In the 1960s, aluminum smelters in the PNW used enough energy to power 2023 Seattle three times over. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

Under Portland's new single-stair laws (which only go to 4 stories, there's a maximum of 4 units per-floor, making that design impossible. Also there's a 4k sq/ft limit per floor, meaning the city's 5K sq/ft lots can't be built corner-to-corner, even w/o setbacks. www.portland.gov/ppd/codes-ru...

People love blaming parking minimums as to why the US doesn't build like this. It's more complicated. The lot couldn't be utilized corner-to-corner due to setbacks. The project wouldn't pencil due to space lost for the large elevator, dual stairwells, and wide hallway to meet building codes.

Oregon's community colleges are a great example of government quietly working well, without any headlines. They're modern facilities funded by stable property tax district revenue that teach ~200k students/yr, creating new tradesmen across the state and providing opportunity for the working class.

In America, residential solar costs $10K-$50K. In Europe, plug & play solar kits are sold for a few hundred dollars, DIY installed & plugged directly into wall outlets, defraying home energy use without export. No IX agreement or professional install needed. But plug & play is illegal in the US.

The Sightline Institute documented this in 2017, comparing 1970 data to 2010 data. Many entirely single family zoned neighborhoods in Seattle lost population even as Seattle's population grew, as kids left the nest and only the aging parents remained. www.sightline.org/2017/05/04/s...

There's a monument in Portland to a tree planting happening without an Environmental Impact Statement, design review, or public comment taking place.

To prevent a chicken and egg issue, the US mandated large gas stations offer unleaded gas by July 1, 1974 to accomodate the catalytic converters having 1975 model year vehicles. Unleaded was only sold from narrow nozzles so people wouldn't fill up with leaded gas accidentally.