ndsipa_pomu

The "road tax" misconception is why I feel the need to point it out as it is inaccurate and is used to weaponise hate against cyclists (e.g. "Don't bloody pay road tax"). In reality, most cyclists also drive (not me, though), but everyone who pays income tax is funding the roads which I agree with as they are shared infrastructure. However, it does mean that drivers are being subsidised by non-drivers.

Of course, with the 4th power weight relationship with road damage, ordinary cars are not really causing much damage compared to buses and trucks, so maybe it's better to state that we're subsidising logistics companies.

> in the UK you would be forced to aggregate all fuel and road tax

Just to be clear, there's no specific "road tax" in the UK - it was abolished in 1937. Instead general taxation (e.g. income tax) pays for roads.

Your point about places becoming further apart has been made by Cory Doctorow who refers to it as "geometry hates cars".

Edit: found the Cory link - you might find it interesting, but I suspect it's detailing what you already know

https://thewaroncars.org/transcript-episode-79-the-end-of-ub...

I would presume that the Dems can do several things at once and it seems foolish to leave criminality un-challenged as that is a major reason why there is such a mess.

I don't understand how the "problem" is affecting boys when the vast majority of books feature male protagonists.

Nothing like the indignity of being run over by someone driving a car

Seems like other places need a European-style GDPR set of laws.

Companies should only be allowed to use people's data for a specific purpose that the customer has explicitly given consent to. No hidden terms in EULs and no using data for any purpose than what they have permission to do.

There were various statements and hints that the election process would never favour non-Republicans again. Given the lack of integrity and frequent accusations, I suspect that there was a lot of vote manipulation in the previous election.

Also, they surround themselves with yes-people and thus end up in a bubble where they are constantly encouraged to think that they are geniuses (narrator: they were not geniuses).

I don't know the specifics (not a U.S. citizen), but surely it's fairly straightforward to bring charges of conspiracy to commit crimes? If ICE are acting illegally, then companies that are enabling that criminality should expect to be held partially responsible.

As an atheist, I have two opposing takes on Thiel. Firstly, I think he's a good candidate for antichrist himself, though Trump is probably more likely. Secondly, it's just rubbish, like stating that so-and-so is a reincarnation of Thor.

Personally, I'm more worried about his vampiric practices (https://newrepublic.com/article/135706/peter-thiel-vampire). I'm certainly not going to invite him into my house.

This is also why knowing the basics of "vi" is so useful on Linux/unix systems

I don't think that really counts as hoarding.

Hoarding is more getting hold of data/films/tv/music that you're not expecting to get around to watching, but feel like you want a copy or that it is of cultural relevance.

e.g. I grabbed a copy of Sátántangó due to it's fame/importance, but I'm unlikely to sit through 7 hours of it.

Or more recently, I grabbed a better quality copy of the original Green Hornet series that I'm not going to bother watching.

In defence of data-hoarding, it's relatively benign apart from maybe costing time and money, but then so do a lot of hobbies. Hoarding seems to be celebrated when it's billionaires hoarding wealth, even though the billionaires typically use their wealth in the most harmful and damaging way possible.

However, it's satisfying to be able to smugly watch/listen to content that becomes unavailable due to it being old or unpopular or even complicated by rights issues.

Just yesterday, I was watching Digging The Greats on YouTube, discussing De La Soul's Three Feet High and Rising. He can't even recreate the beat/mix on YouTube as it would get flagged for copyright. It was unavailable for streaming/download until 2023 due to licensing issues.

My go-to example of disappearing media is the third season of Monkey Dust that ran into problems with music licensing and so it was never available on DVD and will never be screened again. (Available through nautical methods)

Instant coffee is horrible. I choose tea over instant coffee if that's all that is available, but otherwise I drink Aeropress coffee.

I dropped my plastic Aeropress enough times to make a glass version impractical for me. However, they brought out a double-walled stainless steel version which is very expensive, but I figured that it was about time that I spent more money on the brewer considering I've got a more expensive Baratza grinder. I was happily using that and now Aeropress have brought out a metal pressure valve filter cap that is over-priced. So, here I am with a stupidly expensive metal Aeropress setup (I use a metal filter disc too).

I've not had experience with VMware, but this seems like it's a bit late to save their reputation. I'm almost glad that we're using HyperV on windows (and KVM/Qemu on Linux).

I always think that they're fronts for money laundering. They're easy to set up and don't require lots of expensive equipment and they're probably mainly cash based (never visited one, so guessing here).

I see the problem more that motorised traffic tends to take all available space (due to their size and congestion concerns) and cyclists and pedestrians get to fight over the scraps left over.

Ultimately, motorised traffic tends to disrupt other forms of transport as people get used to travelling longer distances to get to shops, work etc. This then results in out-of-town hypermarkets which pretty much require people to use cars to get to them. The resultant traffic inevitably results in congestion, so more space is assigned to building roads and facilities get built further apart which of course just exacerbates the whole congestion issue.

> Ideally we have entirely separate paths for bikes. Of course this is infeasible for most established cities

Maybe in the US which has gone all in on providing space for cars and their parking, but it's quite feasible in old European cities that are much older. Often it relies on reducing the space available for cars. There's good examples of how some European cities were able to change drastically.

The Netherlands is a great example as during the 1970s, it was heavily biased towards motorised vehicles. The "Stop de Kindermoord" (approximately "Stop the child killing") campaign was key to changing attitudes and nowadays, cities such as Amsterdam are held up as examples of designing for multi-mode transport.

https://www.dutchreach.org/car-child-murder-protests-safer-n...

Here in the UK, it seems the best way to get potholes fixed is to paint a penis around it: https://themanc.com/art-and-culture/manchester-graffiti-arti...

I don't agree that it was an assumption as part of open source, but that it was a possibility with open source. However, there are lots of assumptions made about computer software in general - part of the problem is having cognitive models of software that aren't necessarily reflected in how the hardware runs code.

Also, closed source software can similarly be analysed with AI, but there's no guarantee that the company involved will deal responsibly with disclosures.

Yes, you're right. I think my brain got confused with Joel and Noel.

(He played the "kitschy" character that Ray pushed through the glass window and of course he's the real-life dad of Ray's "daughter")

Similarly, my Hisense TV never gets a chance to show the VIDAA interface. It just displays the HDMI input and I switch that between Kodi running on a Raspberry Pi and a VirginMedia TV box.

It's not illegal to ask someone to open their front door, so why is it illegal when I use lockpicks to open their front door?

> The Greens are a niche party in the UK

Possibly, but I vote for them and here in Bristol, they control the council and we have a Green Member of Parliament.

They've been around for decades, but they're grabbing more attention and headlines (especially the whole "Zionism is racism" declaration).

> Just because I am anti-propping-up-the-stock-market does not mean I am a communist.

I don't quite understand this - isn't propping up the stock market via bail-outs more of a communist approach? Using communal tax revenues to keep failing businesses afloat seems far more communist than capitalist. The capitalist approach should really be to let failing companies fail.

Not to detract from Scott Ryan, but Noel Edgerton deserves a lot more attention for his directing skills. (His brother Joel is currently starring in Dark Matter which I also enjoy).

On rewatching Mr Inbetween, it's good fun to pick out all the fore-shadowing of events, especially parts where Ray figures out a person before it's made obvious to the audience. Awesome writing.

The problem with current models is that they can be really good at some things and really bad at others, but there's no real method to know ahead of time how they'll respond to your particular usage. Consistency is now the problem rather than chasing after how high the peaks can go (which is pushed hard to promote AI usage) as you don't want to have a step in a maths proof to be the equivalent of counting Rs in strawberry.

I'll see your Mike Ehrmantraut and raise you a Ray Shoesmith

I was thinking of mentioning Babylon 5, but it's worth contrasting the situation aboard the station with the fascist takeover of Earth. Maybe "dystopia with hope" describes it better.

Also worth mentioning the recently deceased Walter Koenig who had said that playing Alfred Bester in Babylon 5 was his favourite role, despite being much more famous as Chekov in the original Star Trek.