@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Alon

@Alon@mastodon.social

I write about public transport and do research for NYU's Marron Institute. I've previously lived in Tel Aviv, Singapore, the Riviera, New York, Providence, Vancouver, Stockholm, Paris.

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JonnElledge, to random
@JonnElledge@mastodon.london avatar

Never mind Starmer's speech - the one pledge on MY card is to double the size of Plymouth and give the southwest the major city it deserves.

https://jonn.substack.com/p/wanderlust

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@JonnElledge What's wrong with Bristol?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@JonnElledge Several hours? Do we need to crayon better interregional and intercity rail connections?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@JonnElledge Ouch. Is rail electrification at all in the works? I know Network Rail's working on it elsewhere, but has it gotten itself to the point of being able to build for the same 2-3 million €/km that it costs to electrify a double-track railway here?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@JonnElledge Yeah, that's why I'm bringing up electrification - EMUs can change speed faster than diesels, same reason why it's become a priority to electrify commuter lines with many stops (e.g. in and around Cardiff). Just in general, Britain has little electrification by European standards, let alone Indian/Chinese/Korean/Japaneese ones.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@JonnElledge I doubt the viaducts slow things down - there are some bridge-related slowdowns in the US, but that's a) very poor bridge construction standards whereas the UK built to high standards in the 19th century, and b) the Americans are being too conservative on top of that.

The curves look pretty bad, yeah. But the one randomly selected tight one I checked, at South Brent, looks like R = 480, so it's doable at 100 km/h. Not high-speed or anything, but should be faster than this...

ww3real, to random
@ww3real@mastodon.social avatar

Battle lines as of 2037-05-15. Higher-resolution images of all maps can be found at https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/ww3euroland370515.png, https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/ww3levant370515.png, https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2024/05/ww3thailand370515.png.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@Truckasauruslex @ww3real One thing I could do is share all the maps in a single folder; then if you load them on your computer and click the arrow buttons they'll go one at a time, in chronological order per front (since the file names go front then date).

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

The only campus organization I want to see challenge Hillel for Jewish religious life had better be named Shammai.

scott, to random
@scott@carfree.city avatar

that's... a lot of money raised against @deanpreston

only way to beat it is with personal conversations, esp. early. get out there and door-knock for him if you can https://dean2024.com

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@scott Is Preston still NIMBYing any building larger than a luxury single-family house?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@edgeworth Why do you need environmental impact studies for apartment buildings?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@edgeworth It's the delays and modifications produced by the system, producing less housing as a result, more than outright denials.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@edgeworth Building code regulations in the US are not the same as environmental reviews, and also don't reduce accident fatalities but rather increase them because of the prohibition on single-stair mid-rises.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@edgeworth Not when he keeps delaying housing applications saying additional reviews are needed.

qkslvrwolf, to random
@qkslvrwolf@mastodon.social avatar

I like to follow rational lefties because I often get good news from them that I don't see even with my fairly left leaning, definitely not centrist set of stuff. But they seem to go off the rails at a fairly high rate.

Palestine has them jumping the shark at like 5x the normal rate, though.

Russian influence ops are just reveling in this shit.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@qkslvrwolf I don't think it's even Russian influence ops - there's a lot of anti-Semitic conspiracism in any group that self-IDs as radical, and one of the things that can set it off is anything about Israel. It can also set off for separate reasons, like anything related to the Rothschilds or finance in general (compare how much "Goldman Sachs is destroying the economy" meming there was in the Great Recession with how little there was about banks without Jewish names, like Morgan Stanley).

DiegoBeghin, to random
@DiegoBeghin@mastodon.social avatar

Green NIMBYism is a mindset of "let's make our city really pleasant to live in... but let's not share it with anybody else". If you create a nice place but don't build housing, rents rise, excluding the poor. Sure, some of your housing may be public/subsidised but those will get waiting lists if you don't build more of them.

(Sorry about the rant, thoughts triggered by my election thread)

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@DiegoBeghin But Riviera cities are not run by the New Left - Estrosi is thoroughly right-wing...

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@DiegoBeghin @failedLyndonLaRouchite @djasa Yes, and this is bad - Tempelhofer Feld is adjacent to real parks already.

DiegoBeghin, to random
@DiegoBeghin@mastodon.social avatar

I don't like it that in Belgium, you have to choose which social-green politics to support, because the parties only propose half of the package at best.

Socialists: believe in building housing (especially public housing) and metros. But skeptical about traffic calming and bike lanes.

Greens: Very enthusiastic about traffic calming and new tram lines. Skeptical about new housing and the metro.

The regional/federal/EU elections are approaching and I still don't know which way I'm voting.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@DiegoBeghin I'm voting Green because they're better on digital issues and those have EU-level regulations whereas housing doesn't.

failedLyndonLaRouchite, to internet

I will take reporting on anything at all numeric by , , and the seriously when each post or article clearly states if an "average" or a "median" was used, and if it is average, what the skew and kurtosis are

folks, that last bit about [ and is a lame inside joke ]

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@failedLyndonLaRouchite I blogged a bit about kurtosis in urbanism, mentioning that Paris is a low-kurtosis city and New York is a high-kurtosis one...

lowqualityfacts, to random
@lowqualityfacts@mstdn.social avatar

2024: OpenAI releases a free virtual assistant with a weirdly flirty voice.

2025: Millions of men become emotionally attached to the AI.

2026: OpenAI threatens to delete your virtual girlfriend if you don't pay a monthly subscription. You must also buy her digital flowers or she will hate you.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@lowqualityfacts So, Tamagotchi?

philipncohen, to random
@philipncohen@mastodon.social avatar

It's the very rare writer whose unedited work I will pay to read. That's a blog, and it's free for a reason. If you want me to pay, polish it up and get it past an editor like a professional. And don't tell me you need the support - real publications and their workers need my support.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@philipncohen Is there any movement among American academic sociologists to open source the readings in order to spare students the $4,722 annual license fees for one book? In math I've seen this in Canada - there are collaborative efforts at a free calc textbook plus free, academically rather than commercially maintained WebWork software.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@philipncohen $4,722 is an exaggeration, but mid-three figures is normal for some intro textbooks, with gatekeeping to prevent students from using hand-me-downs, like time-limited WebWork licenses.

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@philipncohen I guess it's bigger in Canada because tuition is more subsidized there, so in-province tuition at the flagships is still four figures a year and not five?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@philipncohen Canadian unis also don't have the room and board racket - at UBC the norm is for students to live with their parents and commute, or rent an apartment with other students in the city on the open market. So those $300 licenses per class are a significant chunk of the total cost of attendance.

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

When racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-vax mobs were rioting in Paris in 2018-9, Piketty pretended that they just wanted equal funding for universities. Now he wants to sanction Israel. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2024/05/11/thomas-piketty-if-the-west-truly-supports-the-two-state-solution-it-must-sanction-israel_6671073_23.html

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Israel is starting to crack under pressure by the US and the IDF and proposing to have Palestinian Authority members staff the Rafah crossing, but it's still on copium and wants them to pretend to be members of a local aid committee, to avoid broadcasting that there's collaboration between Israel and the PA. Mahmoud Abbas, wisely, is saying that he wants this to be official. https://www.axios.com/2024/05/13/israel-palestinian-authority-rafah-crossing

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

@Colinvparker 2 is a great outcome for the following:

  1. Israelis
  2. Palestinians
  3. Fatah as a party
  4. The US (since it would gain prestige)
  5. Saudi Arabia (ditto)
  6. The Arab world writ large

It is a bad outcome for the following:

  1. Kahanists
  2. Hamas
  3. Settlers
  4. Bibi Netanyahu
  5. Sara Netanyahu
  6. Undertakers
  7. Iran
  8. Putin
  9. Xi
Alon, (edited ) to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

What will happen first?

Alon,
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

In the Holocaust, 75% of Dutch Jews were killed. The Dutch state just kept functioning and followed orders to surveil and deport.

Anyway, the Netherlands just announced a new extreme right coalition. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/new-dutch-government-look-opt-out-eu-asylum-rules-2024-05-16/

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