@ajsadauskas@aus.social
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

ajsadauskas

@ajsadauskas@aus.social

Australian urban planning, public transport, politics, retrocomputing, and tech nerd. Recovering journo. Cat parent. Part-time miserable grump.

Cities for people, not cars! Tech for people, not investors!

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seamus, to random

It’s boggling that capitalism actually rewards the destruction of art. Seeing Disney become the second company to delete content in the name of tax write offs is just gobsmacking. Sure, Willow was bad TV. But should it really be good for a company to put it in a wood chipper?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@McKenzie_Ben @seamus I'd add also that the creatives also should have the opportunity to cancel any contract with the corporation at no penalty if a work "fails".

There are countless horror stories out there about writers/producers/musicians being locked up for years under contracts to labels or studios, where the corporation refuses to let the creative go, but also won't let them release any further work.

(While we're on the topic, exploitative contracts should also be grounds for an immediate no-penalty release.)

ajsadauskas, to music
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

So who's your favourite band or artist? What's your favourite song or album?

I'm keen to hear both who you're currently listening to, as well as your all-time favourites and guilty pleasures.

What do you like about them? How did you get into their music? And significant stories or memories?

@music @music

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@breadandcircuses @music @music Any favourite Beatles songs or albums?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@pomCountyIrregs Nothing at all wrong with making music you love 😊

And do you have any Spotify/YouTube/SoundCloud links where people reading this thread can check it out?

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to politics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Recycling in the US (and many Western countries, for that matter) is a sham. It always was.

In reality, most of the plastic placed in recycling bins were never turned into new products.

Now China has stopped taking that waste, the myth of near infinite consumption without the guilt of waste has been exposed for the lie that it always was.

That's not to say that we shouldn't aim for a sustainable circular economy. Of course we should.

But we'll need much bigger changes to make it happen.

"For decades, we were sending the bulk of our recycling to China—tons and tons of it, sent over on ships... But last year, the country restricted imports of certain recyclables... Waste-management companies are telling [municipalities] there is no longer a market for their recycling.

"These municipalities have two choices: pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away.

"Most are choosing the latter.

"When [its kerbside recycling] program launched, Franklin [in New Hampshire] could break even on recycling by selling it for $6 a ton. Now the transfer station is charging the town $125 a ton to recycle, or $68 a ton to incinerate.

"This end of recycling comes at a time when the US is creating more waste than ever. In 2015, the most recent year for which national data are available, America generated 262.4 million tons of waste, up 4.5% from 2010 and 60% from 1985."

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/china-has-stopped-accepting-our-trash/584131/

@green

ajsadauskas, (edited )
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Urban_Hermit @green You're absolutely right.

There's an absolutely massive cross-subsidy for companies that manufacture and sell products.

They've almost never been financially responsible for the end-of-life costs of the products they make. Or, for that matter, the full social and environmental costs of their manufacture and use.

Virgin plastic is cheaper to manufacture than plastic that has been recovered and recycled. That recovery and recycling cost is generally not paid by the original manufacturer.

Instead, some of those costs are borne by taxpayers and municipal ratepayers. But most have been carried by developing countries, which have been paid to dispose of the waste out-of-sight and out-of-mind.

I strongly suspect that if the full costs of recovery and recycling were included in the upfront cost of plastic products, many would simply not be viable. Certainly not for disposable products or packaging.

Instead, we'd have less packaging, and more products would be either reusable or biodegradable.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@skyfire101 @green And there's been people like Liz Kasell from RedCycle who have claimed soft plastics were being recycled, when really they were being stockpiled in warehouses.

Here's what Liz was claiming in editorials to environmental publications: https://thefifthestate.com.au/columns/spinifex/the-future-of-soft-plastics-recycling-is-here/

And here's what was actually happening: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-09/epa-victoria-soft-plastics-melbourne-redcycle-recycling/101754460

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@siobhansarelle @CinciMike @Urban_Hermit @green Even with litter, there are structural factors that contribute it.

Other people in this thread have mentioned the container deposit schemes in Australia.

Here's the details, but basically there's a 10 cent tax when you purchase drinks in plastic bottles or cans. That 10 cents gets refunded to you when you return the container to a recycling centre. If someone else has dumped a can, you can return it to claim their deposit: https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/your-environment/recycling-and-reuse/return-and-earn

(Personally, I'd make the deposit higher, but the point is that it creates a financial incentive not to dump bottles, and to pick up any that others have discarded.)

Another solution might be for businesses to be forced to charge for the cost of recycling and recovering their packaging in the upfront cost.

If you want a more blunt policy instrument, governments could outright ban the use of some packaging materials that aren't easily recycled or biodegradable.

Some food co-ops make customers bring their own containers and scoop the amount of the food they want to buy, rather than selling foods prepackaged. If mainstream retailers were forced to do this, it would massively cut the amount of packaging used.

So no, even littering is not just an individual choice. There are structural factors at play, and public policy choices that can make a difference.

ajsadauskas, to politics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Melbourne Airport Rail workers redeployed as project officially paused.

A really disappointing, backwards step here from the Victorian government.

And yes, stopping and then restarting a major infrastructure project (if that's what ends up happening) is almost certain to lead to delays and cost blowouts, when compared to just completing construction.

From The Age:

"Hundreds of tradespeople will be seconded to other projects after the Andrews government confirmed Melbourne Airport Rail Link construction would be paused, awaiting the results of a major Commonwealth review of the country’s infrastructure pipeline.

"Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday ended weeks of speculation about the future of the long-awaited rail line, saying works would be temporarily halted on the $13 billion Airport Rail Link, as well as upgrades of Clyde, McGregor and Racecourse roads."

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/melbourne-airport-rail-workers-redeployed-as-project-officially-paused-20230517-p5d93a.html

@fuck_cars @australia

ajsadauskas, to politics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

It's not just trans people who suffer when far-right politicians are elected. Just ask renters in Melbourne.

The far-right anti-trans MP Moira Deeming just stood up to those woke elites (note sarcasm) by voting to block an inquiry into why rents are so high in Victoria.

From The Age:

"Exiled Liberal MP Moira Deeming has landed a blow against her former parliamentary colleagues from the crossbench, siding with the Andrews government to block a parliamentary inquiry that was set to scrutinise Victoria’s rental crisis.

"The inquiry would have examined the factors driving high rents in Victoria, the options available to increase the supply and standard of long-term rentals and hand down key recommendations by the end of the year.

"The final vote on the joint Greens and Coalition motion was 19 votes to 19, meaning it failed because a clear majority was not reached. Animal Justice MP Georgie Purcell and the two Legalise Cannabis MPs voted for the failed inquiry."

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/deeming-flexes-crossbench-muscle-to-shoot-down-rental-inquiry-20230517-p5d8z4.html

For people who don't follow Victorian state politics, Deeming was exiled from the Liberal Party after attending an anti-trans rally with Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull (AKA Posie Parker) and a bunch of literal neo-Nazis: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/mar/20/victorian-opposition-leader-moves-to-expel-mp-involved-in-anti-trans-protest-attended-by-neo-nazis

@australia @politics

ajsadauskas, to fuck_cars
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Upgrades to Melbourne's bus network could be on the backburner. Again.

From The Age:

"The Andrews government is facing calls to prioritise improving Melbourne’s bus network amid expectations it will slash transport and infrastructure spending in a painful state budget next week."

Buried near the bottom of the article are some interesting stats from Infrastructure Victoria about the difference good quality bus services can make:

"New research by Infrastructure Victoria released to The Age shows that only 19 per cent of people in outer growth areas consider using buses to get around, compared to 24 per cent across the greater Melbourne and 40 per cent in the City of Manningham, where buses are fast and frequent.

"Eighty-two per cent of Melburnians live within a five-minute walk of a bus stop. But the independent government advisor’s research, based on surveys with 4000 Melburnians, shows only one-fifth of residents know where those buses go.

"People would be willing to walk five minutes further (up to a maximum of 15 minutes) to reach a bus that travels 10 per cent faster or departs every 20 minutes instead of every 30 minutes, the research found."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/budget-cut-fears-for-melbourne-s-most-urgent-public-transport-need-20230515-p5d8eq.html

@fuck_cars @australia

andrew, to random
@andrew@esq.social avatar

This isn't really on-brand with my usual toots, but I find Rod Stewart as a cultural artifact endlessly fascinating.

He's a household name, but you've never really met a massive fan of his. Almost any hit song of his you can think of is a cover. I don't think he plays an instrument. He covers a lot of like Motown songs. He seemed to make the move to covers immediately after his first hit solo album.

He's 78, but he seems like he should be about 108 by now.

Anywho, this will be my TED talk.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@aka_quant_noir @andrew Interesting thoughts.

He was never the biggest star in the world, but the flipside of that was that he never got overexposed to the point people really couldn't stand him anymore (as happened to, say, Phil Collins or Billy Joel at one point).

He was versatile enough to be able to credibly do a rock song with Tina Turner or Sting, a ballad, or a Motown soul cover. Even though he was a balladeer, he didn't earn the ire of rock critics the way, say, someone like Michael Bublé did.

He never entered the conversations about the greatest of all time. No-one ever seriously asked the question: "Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, or Rod Stewart?" But no-one really passionately hated him either.

As a result, he had a really quite long initial commercial run, from the early '70s to the early '90s or thereabouts, where he fairly consistently landed singles that charted and got reasonable radio play.

And since then, his music has been part of the inoffensive pablum that sat on the playlists of supermarkets, karaoke bars, and hits & memories stations.

Add a 20 year run to 30 years of his music just generally being around in the ether, and you have an artist who everyone's familiar with, even if they've never sat down to listen to his music.

alexkidman, to random
@alexkidman@aus.social avatar

Random thought: I wonder what Bongo is up to these days?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@KarenWyld @alexkidman Humphrey should have stayed away from Agro and the Mulligrubs. Such bad influences!

Meanwhile, Marty Monster is apparently still in hiding after his run-in with Rags the Kangaroo.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to tech
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

The enforcement of copyright law is really simple.

If you were a kid who used Napster in the early 2000s to download the latest album by The Offspring or Destiny's Child, because you couldn't afford the CD, then you need to go to court! And potentially face criminal sanctions or punitive damages to the RIAA for each song you download, because you're an evil pirate! You wouldn't steal a car! Creators must be paid!

If you created educational videos on YouTube in the 2010s, and featured a video or audio clip, then even if it's fair use, and even if it's used to make a legitimate point, you're getting demonetised. That's assuming your videos don't disappear or get shadow banned or your account isn't shut entirely. Oh, and good luck finding your way through YouTube's convoluted DMCA process! All creators are equal in deserving pay, but some are more equal than others!

And if you're a corporation with a market capitalisation of US$1.5 trillion (Google/Alphabet) or US$2.3 billion (Microsoft), then you can freely use everyone's intellectual property to train your generative AI bots. Suddenly creators don't deserve to be paid a cent.

Apparently, an individual downloading a single file is like stealing a car. But a trillion-dollar corporation stealing every car is just good business.

@music @technology @music

ajsadauskas, (edited )
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@emoryr @technology @music @music It's more of a cynical tongue-in-cheek take. For the record, I totally agree that breaching copyright is not the same as stealing a car.

"Creators must be paid" is a recurring argument for maintaining copyrights as a system.

But how much it matters seems to vary widely, depending on whether it's a 16-year-old kid using Napster, or a multi-trillion-dollar multinational that benefits from creators not being paid for their work.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@chucker @lispi314 @kkarhan @panamared27401 @technology @music @music @senficon The other factor with software copyrights is the issue of legacy software.

There's a lot of software out there in the world that's still in use, still under copyright, but no longer sold or supported by a vendor. In some cases, it might not even be clear who actually owns the copyright.

Sometimes it's for specialist equipment that's built using obsolete software. (Hello, OS/2 ATM machines.)

Sometimes it's for large enterprises that still use legacy VAX machines, token ring ethernet equipment, CP/M applications and Windows XP desktops.

Sometimes it's run by retro computing hobbyists who really loved the Atari ST or Speccy.

There's a good argument to be made that all abandonware should be released to the public domain. It would certainly make life a lot easier for many people.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to politics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

America. A land where basic public housing is socialism, and also of US$250 million New York penthouses.

https://youtu.be/aN9DH_GxqEo

@fuck_cars @politics @usa @urbanism

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@andrewfeeney @fuck_cars @politics @usa Better also hope that tuned mass damper on the next floor is quiet...

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to random
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Personally, I think Sydney could have an amazing and iconic public square at Circular Quay, if only it tore down that ugly freeway.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/city-and-state-should-join-forces-to-give-sydney-the-public-square-it-deserves-20230510-p5d77w.html @urbanism

ajsadauskas, to Economics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

What's the biggest component of inflation in Australia at the moment? Housing.

(Groceries follow close behind.)

Here's an interesting breakdown from Alan Kohler on the ABC:

https://youtu.be/cvwLsCfw4Xo

@australia @news @urbanism

ajsadauskas, to politics
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Culver City in Los Angeles introduced a new bike lane that boosted cycling by 57%. Now it's being removed for cars.

"A project called Move Culver City was launched in November 2021 with the aim of encouraging biking and walking through the 1.3-mile downtown corridor in the Culver City area.

"The project claimed traffic lanes along the Washington and Culver Boulevard strips, creating bike and bus lanes in their stead, reducing the lanes for vehicle traffic to one in either direction. The project was met with mixed opinions over the last few years.

"And while a report released this month by Move Culver City boasted a 57 percent increasing in cycling along the Washington and Culver Boulevard corridor over pre-pandemic levels, the Culver City Council voted 3-2 earlier this week to end the program, remove the bike lanes, and return the corridor to two lanes of vehicular traffic in each direction 'wherever feasible.'"

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43741587/culver-city-removing-bike-lanes/

@fuck_cars @green @usa

danielbowen, to random

Blog: Trying out electric cooking https://danielbowen.com/2023/04/29/electric-cooking/

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@danielbowen @timrichards The Green Building Council published some excellent guides about this topic last year. They're definitely worth reading if you have an interest in the topic: https://new.gbca.org.au/green-star/green-star-strategy/electrification/

The short answer is that the best time for an apartment or commercial building to go all electric is during initial construction.

While you can retrofit all electric appliances in an existing building, it can be a costly and complex process.

If the building uses a central gas boiler for heating, replacing it with an electric heat pump can require structural modifications.

In kitchens, most foods can be prepared with electric appliances. The big challenge is that induction cooktops really aren't great for woks.

rodhilton, to random
@rodhilton@mastodon.social avatar

Loving all the hot "Tucker is even more dangerous without Fox News keeping him in check" takes like listen to yourselves saying that Fox News was the voice of reason.

If that sack of shit could have done better outside of Fox News he'd have left ages ago. He's going to go to some web-only fringe shit and join the ranks of Ben Shapiro going around "owning" liberals at college and bitching about Star Wars having girls in it. Homeboy's donezo.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@rodhilton So what are Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly up to these days, without Fox News and the Murdoch media?

Exactly.

ajsadauskas, (edited ) to fuck_cars
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

It should not take three minutes to cross a road

Yet as @DrTCombs shows in this video, many road crossings are designed to make pedestrians wait at least that long before getting a walk signal.

This video shows one such crossing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but there are many more intersections like this across North America, Australia, and New Zealand.

https://urbanists.video/w/8esJ8mPNrRK2vzGekrKVKL

@fuck_cars @green @urbanism

ajsadauskas, to fuck_cars
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

How to build a quick and dirty bike stand.

Admittedly, I don't have anywhere near the DIY or woodworking skills to do this myself.

But for those with the skills and inclination, this clip by @sam shows how to do it.

https://urbanists.video/w/96SgJ74g4Pjda9dXNDTZcC

@fuck_cars @video

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