Spyke

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Mumbai has its first three-layer traffic jam. Feeling very proud /s

I got curious and looked around for more info, thinking that usually it takes at least a few months for traffic patterns to settle in like this. Nope. This overpass opened yesterday.

But wait, there are even more familiar issues! Housing? Yep, lots of people were displaced. Which was also ignored during planning, so the project landed late (22 years in the making) and way over budget.

Furthermore, it's not like the civil planning experts in Mumbai didn't know any better.

Transport expert Ashok Datar voiced skepticism about long-term benefits. “There is a saying that instead of trying to cover the world with leather, one should wear leather shoes. SCLR’s extension is an attempt to cover the world in leather. All that is being done is that a congestion point is being pushed further ahead of the road. How many extensions will you do while ignoring easier and cheaper solutions like having dedicated bus corridors on Mumbai’s roads? That is a far cheaper option than building such roads,” Datar said.

Mumbai’s East–West road link realised after 2 decades with SCLR extension

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Neurobiology professor hit and killed by a car that did not stop in an intersection. Driver charged with a misdemeanor.

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The driver was charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle. That's a special section of law for killing by car, and it's far too lenient. North Carolina has laws on involuntary manslaughter they're not charged with.

The problem with explaining away the light sentence is that we have laws to make accidental killing by car OK, but accidental killing by any other method is not. That's not justice as it's neither fair nor equitable.

This driver should be in jail for 1 to 3 years as laid out in North Carolina's involuntary manslaughter code.

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If you live in Seattle, PLEASE go to Pike Place Market and buy Apples 🍏

I drop by Pike Place on a regular basis. Even before the current car ban, it was near impossible to drive through. Pedestrians would flow out onto the street because the sidewalks and inside of the market was packed. Sometimes even due to lines for some of the popular shops. And sometimes it was me blocking your drive because screw that noise, I'm walking here!

This summer with the car ban it has been even more popular and crowded, with fewer shoulders and elbows getting in the way. IMHO, this project has already been successful. Great job, Seattleites! :)

Also new in the area is the rebuild of Alaskan Way. It's much nicer than ever before, plus the aquarium got a new building.

news

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Voter fury emerges over skyrocketing electricity bills as AI stokes demand — and fears of a stock market bubble

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What really makes me angry about this is around 35% of Americans rent. That's a third of people who have no ability to avoid the rapid increase in electricity costs. And I have no idea just how many with their own house have the capital, or legal ability (HOAs), to install solar.

Good luck with your solar install. Signed, a grid tied user with $0.56/kwh power.

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No Ham License? Listen Anyway In Your Browser

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Ham radio can be used as voice chat with friends, but that would be a pretty limited view of it. Here's some things that a Discord Voice Chat cannot do that radio can:

  • Chat without internet (e.g. places without cell towers).
  • Chat without voice. (digital communications of all kinds; email/text, keyboard-to-keyboard, pictures, etc).
  • To build an internet (e.g. building WiFi meshes with extra power [AREDN], AX.25 packet, WinLink).
  • Used as a tool during emergencies (see ARES/RACES/CERT).
  • Chat completely randomly (it's just one big discord channel, but you can only hear some people).
  • Chasing the challenge of unusual radio propagation (earth-moon-earth, meteor bounce, tropospheric ducting, aurora).
  • Chasing the challenge of collecting the most point-to-point contacts (contests).
  • Chasing the challenge of difficult radio propagation (microwave links).
  • Constructing and using radios that you cannot buy off the shelf parts with (usually with those funny microwave guys).
  • Higher power versions of things unlicensed folks cannot do (RC toys, Meshtastic/LoraWAN, WiFi, etc).
  • Historical preservation (restoring old radios, keeping ship-shore coastal stations running [e.g. Maritime Radio Historical Society]).
  • Conducting scientific experiments (HamSCI, and I conducted one listening to the ionosphere during the recent total eclipse).
  • Building and controlling satellites (AMSAT).

And there's even more. The way to view ham radio is the government grants you a license to operate on many pieces of radio spectrum so long as you can show your technical ability to not cause harm (interference, safety, and things that will prevent you from blowing up your radio as well as find success in using it). What you do with that spectrum is up to you!

reddit

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Reddit has now removed the ability to edit comments after a ban

They're definitely keeping all the old comments, even if you "delete" them. What an edit is doing is making a new version of a comment. While this seems strange, it's literally easier to do on a technical level and provides a layer of safety if there's a bug in the code (allows recovery to previous data).

Honestly, this seems like a good move from Reddit. If they believe they're removing a bad actor by a ban, then of course they're going to prevent a bad actor from interacting on their stuff. Allowing edits post-ban for abuse is not a good outcome.

Don't like it? Angry at Reddit? Leave and never interact with them again. Pulling that bandage off will sting but you'll be better off for it.

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If you want to build apartments and homes in Nashville, you are required to build parking for cars. Otherwise, the city council will kill your project.

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Parking mandates are some of the most egregiously bad laws on our books.

They increase housing costs significantly; land isn't free and cars structures are expensive to build. This is a punitive for those who are trying to make ends meet, or those who are unable to drive. Why would you force a blind man to pay for a two car garage when you're also disallowing them to drive? Doubly so when you don't allow them to sell their unused parking to their neighbors. Oh, and parking minimums significantly reduce our housing inventory. Parking reform alone can boost home building by 40% to 70%. If you haven't noticed yet, we have a bit of a housing crisis going on.

These laws also increase public expenditure because a car is used as transport from A to B. If A is your home, where is B? Pushing parking onto private developers is why in US there are, on average, 6 parking spots per vehicle. That's 5 car spots in your downtown and on your streets that you pay for, be it taxes or increased grocery prices, that sit empty most of the time.

Parking mandates are broken. So broken that it's the #1 campaign item for Strong Towns. We must remove parking minimums or we'll continue to pave over our downtowns and create insolvent cities.

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After 50 million miles, Waymos crash a lot less than human drivers

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Why are we still doing this?

Because there's a lot of money in it. 10.3% of the US workforce works in transportation and warehousing. Trucking alone is the #4 spot in that sector (1.2 million jobs in heavy trucks and trailers). Couriers and delivery also ranks highly.

The self-driving vehicles are targeting whole markets and the value of the industry is hard to underestimate. And yes, even transit is being targeted (and being implemented; see South Korea's A21 line). There's a lot of crossover with trucking and buses, not to mention that 42% of transit drivers are 55+ in age. Hiring for metro drivers is insanely hard right now.

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Tony's Chocolonely

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You're correct.

"It doesn't make sense for chocolate bars to be divided into equal-sized chunks when there is so much inequality in the chocolate industry! The unequally-sized chunks of our 6.35 oz bars are a palatable way of reminding Choco Fans and Serious Friends that the profts in the chocolate industry are unequally divided.

And in case you haven't noticed, the bottom of our bars depicts the West African coastline. The chunks just above it represent the Gulf of Guinea. From left to right, you have Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo and Benin (terribly politically incorrect, we know, but we had to combine them to create enough space for a hazelnut), Nigeria and part of Cameroon."

https://us.tonyschocolonely.com/pages/faqs

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This led to a very confusing discussion in the replies about the varying fares and systems of public transit in the Oakland-San Francisco area

FYI, airport surcharges are very common. Across the bay at Oakland has an airport surcharge. Sydney has them too, which I was happy about because Melbourne doesn't have a train (AU $25 for a bus ticket, which was sold out) nor did Hobart. I recall AREX in Incheon also having a significant fare jump for the airport stops.

For argument purposes, BART is $0.18/mile (19th Oakland <> Berryessa). That's still pretty high for regional public transit, which is mostly due to BART's high farebox recovery. That high recovery is now a problem with the whole pandemic and subsequent slow return of ridership.

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[discussion] Government services requiring car ownership

That's probably a bug when translating forms or the ranger's intent. Our rangers deeply understand the meaning of "paving paradise," hence there's limited parking at trail heads. Car details on permit forms are there so rangers can tow away parking abusers instead of cutting down trees to make a bigger parking lot.

Traditionally you'd write "N/A" or "NONE" if you're being dropped off or hiking through. I suspect that detail got lost in translation to the digital format by making all fields as required.

All that said, thanks for being thoughtful and not driving into a national/state park when it's not necessary. Rangers and us like-minded folk appreciate it.