@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Colinvparker

@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz

Completely unofficial account. I toot about whatever suits my fancy, transportation stuff, politics, math, occasionally physics (which is what I am paid to do). Opinions are my own.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

...275 seats for the NDA out of 543 is incredibly frustrating. A BJP landslide means it was not possible to do much about this; a BJP majority of seven seats means a slightly more competent Congress could have beaten them. This is not at all final - it's assigning who is leading in each constituency - but it looks like the maximally frustrating outcome: BJP still in power but INDIA could have won. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/elections/results

Colinvparker,
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@Alon Does "could have won" just mean that it's close? Maybe I don't quite understand the psychology here.

Colinvparker,
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@Alon I guess that’s fair, but I always struggle with “didn’t campaign effectively” criticism because it requires constructing hypothetical voters who would have switched based on a different campaign, and that construction could say more about the pundit than about the electorate. I’m sure there’s a lot of people who think the Gandhi name carries some positive influence at the margin, and you’d really need to understand Indian politics pretty well to know if they’re right or not.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon Yeah, but like with the Kennedys here, the operational question isn’t how popular they are overall, but whether they do more damage inside the coalition than they could outside. I think the Dems here have probably gotten it right, on the grounds that RFK votes are some kind of protest or stunt that would go to Marianne Williamson or w/e even if RFK had been bought off, so they were right not to do that. Perhaps the same is true in India. But, “coincidentally”, I also happen to support neither family myself.

DiegoBeghin, to random
@DiegoBeghin@mastodon.social avatar

Today was the first time I seriously planned traveling by night train, and it became clear that they can't seriously compete against high speed rail or planes.

Prague is about as far away from Brussels as Marseille. The Eurostar to Marseille (when it runs) is 5h, the night train to Prague is... 15h, with a more unreliable schedule. Even giving an 8h sleeping discount to the night train, it's quite a bit longer.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@DiegoBeghin @Alon I think in the old days the labor cost versus a hotel construction cost was a different ratio and that’s part of why night trains made sense?

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

For all of the nationalist and populist desire to decentralize cities, today, for military defense purposes, it's best to keep investing in your large cities for both insurgents and counterinsurgents. An insurgent wants their cities to be like Gaza - defensible in urban warfare, allowing terrorists to blend into the civilian population. A counterinsurgent likewise wants dense cities in the metropole, because those can be defended from cheap rockets by Iron Dome-type systems more easily.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon We do want GDP, but we’d also need to maintain access to critical resources, industries, and agricultural capacity. Past world wars involved disruption of international shipping, so a new symmetric conflict probably would require sudden reshoring of a lot of things. I’m not sure Facebook or w/e being able to improve its efficiency is all that helpful in that regard? Not that it hurts either.

capntransit, to random
@capntransit@urbanists.social avatar

New blog post: There's an approach to climate change that focuses on "Making Polluters Pay" for the cost of carbon pollution. But who counts as a polluter? Why are they so insistent that it's just a handful of corporations?

https://capntransit.blogspot.com/2024/05/making-all-polluters-pay.html

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@wollman @DiegoBeghin @capntransit We were talking about this the other day in context of refunded carbon taxes, but part of the limitation of making someone else eat the cost (if it were possible, which it probably isn't) is that it lessens the incentive for consumers to actually change behavior (which is hard, let's be honest), since they can just use the refund to continue what they were doing. So you need a larger price change to generate the same effect as you would if the tax were used to subsidize a green alternative.

Colinvparker,
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@capntransit @wollman @DiegoBeghin Yeah, those are inconsistent with each other, but fortunately (b) is completely and obviously false, so there's no contradiction. I think (a) is a bit of wishful thinking in some cases, but it's not a bad target to aim for. To back to Diego's example, replacing existing heating systems with heat pumps is very minimally disruptive.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@capntransit @wollman @DiegoBeghin When it comes to transportation things are more complicated, because people who want to move away from cars have all sorts of non-carbon reasons to do so (traffic fatalities, pollutants other than CO2, accessibility, active lifestyle encouragement, etc.), so the pure category (a) solution, subsidized EVs, faces opposition from both sides.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@DiegoBeghin @capntransit @Colinvparker Yeah, and even getting that shallow agreement is a net negative, because you’re trading it for durable opposition by people who reflexively support businesses.

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

It's very likely that the majority, probably a large majority, of people who are considered to be hostages in Gaza were killed on or right after 7.10 and Hamas is just holding their bodies. https://www.timesofisrael.com/under-a-rug-in-gazan-home-idf-troops-found-shaft-leading-to-bodies-of-4-hostages/

Colinvparker,
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@Alon The traditional cliche is that the hostage taker should release photos or videos of the hostages alive in order convince the other party to negotiate. Is that only a TV thing?

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Pedestrian Observations: Bus Stop Consolidation and Blocks https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/05/22/bus-stop-consolidation-and-blocks/

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @elliots There’s a limit for low ridership lines where you might as well put a stop wherever it’s safe because the stop penalty is proportional to the number of riders, as the chance of two people boarding at the same time and economizing the stop penalty is low no matter what. That might even be the majority of cases in the US by route-km.

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

What's the story behind the zero underline offset on this video link on BBC News?
Is it intentional, or just a mistake? I noticed a change when I hovered over the text, so it works as a means of marking the text as a link, but it's very subtle.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@christianp It looks like periods between the words to me

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

The ICC is based today. https://apnews.com/article/icc-khan-netanyahu-070941d21ccd1f2b9611032b88527575?taid=664b31fad9bd100001761a9e

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon So if the warrants are issued, does it mean anything that Palestine is a nominal party of ICC? The only other party I can see that would make a difference is Jordan, maybe, but even then probably not.

CelloMomOnCars, to thailand
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

Indonesia is moving its capital to Kalimantan island. And now,

"#Thailand may have to consider relocating its capital #Bangkok because of rising sea levels.

Bangkok’s city government is exploring measures that include building dikes, along the lines of those used in the Netherlands, he said.

But “we’ve been thinking about moving”, Pavich said, noting that the discussions were still hypothetical and the issue was “very complex”."

https://borneobulletin.com.bn/climate-change-could-force-bangkok-to-move-official-warns/

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @CelloMomOnCars Where does Brasilia fit in this categorization?

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

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon Why are they so opposed to even the appearance of collaboration with the PA?

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon Honestly, from the outside, (2) seems like a decent outcome, but I guess over there it's considered an embarrassment or a loss of sovereignty or something?

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Something I don't get about is that I'm typing my own password into a wireless access point controlled by another university.
Is it just inertia that has prevented it from moving to a web-based SSO process where I log in to my own university's website, and they pass a signed token on to the institution I'm connecting to eduroam from?

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@christianp I don't think it's possible to do web-based authentication using 802.1X? The web-based authentication that's used in cafes is often open wifi that just redirects connections until you log in, and I believe that has implications for encryption and security.

christianp, to random
@christianp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I'm going to tell you two statements, each made by YouTube about a video I uploaded:

a) it was uploaded 1 year ago.
b) it was uploaded on 5th June 2022.

Could these statements both be about the same video?
If so, are they both accurate?

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@christianp They are both accurate even if about the same video, because 2022-06-05 is between 1 and 2 years ago (as of 2024-05-10). A child born on that day is considered a 1 year old, for example.

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Pedestrian Observations: The Politics of QueensLink https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/05/07/the-politics-of-queenslink/

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon German mayoralities are prop-rep right? So the hypothetical NY version of that would probably be an Adams/Garcia coalition, and less likely to have these autocratic impulses, just by the nature of the coalition.

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Are there good histories of the origin of the social democrat/green split? Because these days those parties are extremely similar throughout Europe (and in the Netherlands they just merged), and generally they prefer to govern with each other when possible.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @DiegoBeghin @BenRossTransit I think anyone can make their case in a close election, if they would have helped as the leader or not, but Greens got 15% and SPD got 25%. Like 1/8th of the combined SPD/green vote would have flipped? Sounds unlikely to me.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @Colinvparker @DiegoBeghin @BenRossTransit Isn’t Scholz a big step up from Schröder? Or is this about the Berlin SPD leader (which politics is too far removed for me to worry about)?

Alon, to random
@Alon@mastodon.social avatar

Pedestrian Observations: Quick Note: What the Hell is Going on in San Jose? https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/04/30/quick-note-what-the-hell-is-going-on-in-san-jose/

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon Obviously this is very expensive, but curious how the expected time-to-completion and spending rate (e.g. dollars per month) would compare to some of the international examples. They are expecting completion by 2036 (12 years from now), which seems long to me, so maybe some of the excessive cost is just working slowly and being at the mercy the of the salary*time equation?

capntransit, to random
@capntransit@urbanists.social avatar

RT @streetsblogkea Having feelings about the secretary of transportation applauding "America's first high speed rail project" not for providing alternatives to driving/flying, but for … giving people who work on it money to put "a new car or truck in the driveway."

Feeling #1: I get, politically, this kind of framing is sometimes necessary to get rail projects funded. Feeling #2: makes me nervous for future projects that might more meaningfully challenge automobility.

https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/secretary-buttigiegs-remarks-historic-groundbreaking-las-vegas-brightline-west-high

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @Colinvparker @capntransit Fair, it’s not quite an ambassadorship to a tiny island. But the expectations of Pete on actual transportation issues are, what exactly? If he runs in the future will anything transport-related be a campaign issue? Now, maybe he has work to do day-to-day, IDK, but all I hear about are his TV appearances and speeches, in which he’s a general purpose Biden team member (and a good one!)

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@Alon @capntransit Well, what I wish we had for transportation was someone who didn't love the spotlight, and wanted to do low-key transit stuff that just made things better for non car-users. Because as soon as it's a "ministerial" role or whatever you want to call it, revolving around making speeches, then the kind of stuff Buttigieg is saying is inevitable. I don't doubt his political instincts on this, although I agree with you both that such rhetoric leads to bad outcomes.

Colinvparker,
@Colinvparker@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@BenRossTransit @capntransit @Alon Part of what I'm saying, though, is that Buttigieg isn't necessarily a rival, he's an ally and protégé. But maybe that's not true?

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