@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

MichaelTBacon

@MichaelTBacon@social.coop

Day job: #geospatial #datascience
Academic research: #LandReform #STS #Scotland #Ecology #Landscape #CommunityOwnership

STS, planning geography, ecology, geospatial data, stuff.

I live and raise a fuss in #Durham #NC

MA Geography
Ph.D. Constructed Environment

He/him http://git.io/vxjC7

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

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Ron Filipkowski:

Co-Chair Lara says they will now be recruiting & training people to get jobs as poll workers who handle & count ballots, and says Trump will end early and mail-in voting in America if elected.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@GottaLaff

Counterpoint: the thing I've been most worried about among all this is that the GOP's direct voter engagement program has been REALLY good for a couple of cycles. They've convinced a fair number of voters the GOP is a sane, rational party despite the behavior of its elected.

Near I can tell, they just fired most of the people who have been running that.

MichaelTBacon, to random
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

Speaking of Dune (LRT), saw the second installment yesterday, and yeah, I think it's safe to say that Villeneuve has done for Dune what Peter Jackson did for LotR. there will be room for re-envisioning in the future if someone wants to take it a new direction (which I'm 100% in favor of). But like Charlton Heston's Ben Hur, THE definitive version has now been made and folks can stop dreaming of being the one to do it.

Not the perfect movie. But very well worth the price of the popcorn bucket.

aral, to accessibility
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

So @gnome is removing the x11 session, leaving just the Wayland one.

If this goes out before Orca, the GNOME screen reader, is fixed to work on Wayland, it will mean that people who rely on screen readers will have no way to use one on GNOME. And thus on the major Linux distributions.

So I’m hoping the plan is that this change will not land until GNOME has a working screen reader.

https://peoplemaking.games/@ailepet/112077559713299711

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@aral @gnome

As much as I loved X11 30 years ago its time has long since come and gone. Absolutely sucks about the screen reader though.

MichaelTBacon, to random
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

For those who study the internal structures of organized reactionaries in the US (and, well, anywhere) this should be an invaluable trove of resources. It's not only important to know who and what these folks are doing, but what their internal narratives and justifications are. This trove from SACR has it in spades.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/inside-a-secret-society-of-prominent-right-wing-christian-men-prepping-for-a-national-divorce

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

I'm really interested if folks like @gwensnyder have time to dig into this.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@gwensnyder The other take I have on this, which will quickly get too long for Mastodon, is the way that the persistence of what for lack of a better term I call recalcitrant modernism in the western "left" puts it at a huge disadvantage to the reactionaries.

The notion is that the leftist cause is "modern," thereby somehow the rational state of affairs once all the contradictions are sorted out, so that all is needed is "liberation."

So little theory for how to maintain that liberated state.

MichaelTBacon, to random
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

LRT: I can't help but still be salty about the lost decade where the "vehicular cyclists" held the dominant bully pulpit among multiple local cycling groups that I was connected to, and actively advocated against separated bike lanes.

We really could be further along in bike infrastructure but for all the "drive your bike" and "take the lane" advocacy that was well-intentioned but horribly misguided.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

The aunts of ants forward their many many nieces annoying chain emails warning them about dangerous ant-mimic spiders lurking in dark allies, and cautioning them not to leave an extra floral nectary unattended when out with friends lest some wicked beetle that preys on ants poison it.

The many thousand nieces of these ant aunts roll their may hundred thousand compound eyes. Such things do happen, but not as much as the local news watched by silly aunts implies.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@futurebird HAVE YOU GOTTEN CHECKED FOR PHORIDS LATELY?!? YOU KNOW THEY CAN SNEAK UP ON YOU.

ElleGray, to random
@ElleGray@mstdn.social avatar

they're making 4 different movies, each about one of the Beatles, and look just hear me out

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ElleGray

Ah think wu've herd enough of ya. And I think you've got the wrong idea thar.

Oh wait . . . <psst psst psst>

So tell us mare about these here movies yer wantin' us ta be makin', ya?

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ElleGray

Now the Beatles were from Liverpool, which is a funny name for a town, as I've been to manys-the-pool when on holiday there and never did I see anything to do with internal organs there. Of course some say . . .

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ElleGray And just so we're clear, I'm thinking left to right, John, Paul, Ringo, and George?

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ElleGray Yeah now that I work it over again I think you're right.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ElleGray And sheesh, now that I think about it, Michelle has to be doing the one on John, doesn't she?

antlerboy, to random
@antlerboy@mastodon.social avatar

Why electric bikes actually give more exercise than pedal bikes https://electrek.co/2024/02/20/why-electric-bikes-give-more-exercise/

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ned @dragonfrog @IcooIey @antlerboy

Yeah, it's the odd "bad apple," assuredly, but that's why regulation is needed. My 79 year old father quit using his favorite trail after one too many assholes buzzed him on their ebikes.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ned @dragonfrog @IcooIey @antlerboy

Yeah, sorry, but I disagree. There's not a damn thing wrong with people walking side by side down a paved trail for bicyclists and pedestrians. You're on an ebike, you can slow the fuck down, ring your bell, wait for acknowledgement, then go around.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ned @dragonfrog @IcooIey @antlerboy

Yeah, maybe we have different paths in mind, but this is both a commuter route and a recreational route. It's an ebike, for fucks sake, it's going to help you get back up to speed. I have as much sympathy for an ebike in that instance as I do for a car who's "inconvenienced" by a bike being on the road and slowing them down.

Yes, the pedestrian should move over if they hear a bell. Otherwise, slow the fuck down to 25 mph and ring your bell.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@dragonfrog @MCDuncanLab @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy

Yeah, exactly. Shared pathways can have a speed limit of 30 mph and not slow anyone down that much. We're trying to get cars to understand that they don't save that much time going 55 mph vs. 30 mph over relatively short distances, but we can't get ebikers to slow down? What?

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@ned @dragonfrog @IcooIey @antlerboy

There's an art to ringing the bell—you can't wait until you're on top of people, you have to ring like 25 yards back and then ring again up close.

And yes, pedestrians with two headphones on not paying attention to their surroundings are a problem. They should 100% move when someone's coming up behind them, provided some reasonable amount of warning is given.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@dragonfrog @MCDuncanLab @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy

I should be 100% clear here I'm not calling for banning ebikes on pathways. I just want speed limits on them, and rules of interaction with pedestrians that aren't trying to mimic a limited access highway.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@dragonfrog @MCDuncanLab @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy

(Also apologies for being a little too spicy. I'm in bed with COVID and it's almost certainly making me more cranky than my normal cranky-ass self.)

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@MCDuncanLab @dragonfrog @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy

I'd much prefer 20 but am doing 30 to try to be accommodating. The ebikes on our nearby trails really do sometimes get close to 60.

Context is everything of course. This is the trail I'm talking about.

This is just an image search photo but I've seen bikes try to shoot gaps like the one in the photo at 45-50mph rather than just waiting 5-10 seconds and passing each group individually.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@dragonfrog @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy Yeah again context. No such rule here. And sure, you can get a regular bike up to 45 or 50 mph but it’s a lot harder.

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@dragonfrog @ned @IcooIey @antlerboy so basically the regulation that I want is when you already have, I think

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@IcooIey @dragonfrog @ned @antlerboy when I was young and stupid I pushed my fat tire mountain bike to 50 mph on the downhill Street. But again, young and stupid

MichaelTBacon,
@MichaelTBacon@social.coop avatar

@IcooIey @michaelbrien @LiamEgan @ned @CStamp @dragonfrog @antlerboy

IMO proper bell etiquette is to ring a good 5-10 seconds before the pedestrian needs to do anything. A bicycle bell from a distance doesn't signal panic, it places the idea of a bike in the pedestrian's head.

Nothing you can do about full headphoners, though.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • Leos
  • modclub
  • magazineikmin
  • osvaldo12
  • tacticalgear
  • InstantRegret
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • rosin
  • love
  • kavyap
  • ngwrru68w68
  • mdbf
  • thenastyranch
  • megavids
  • DreamBathrooms
  • khanakhh
  • GTA5RPClips
  • cisconetworking
  • everett
  • Durango
  • cubers
  • tester
  • provamag3
  • anitta
  • ethstaker
  • normalnudes
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines
    •