Zagorath

Zagorath, 8 days ago

I agree that the helmet laws are unnecessary, but I think they’re far from the most important thing compared to having good infrastructure to ride on.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

No, I just think it’s silly to talk about applying AI to something that just manifestly does not need AI. It’s a dumb buzzword at best, an excuse to spend less money actually building infrastructure because more money is going to AI consultants at worst.

Like I said, if it were about filling in the little cracks once we have a really good overall network, I could maybe get behind it. But right now there’s just zero need for it, because the stuff that’s missing is so obvious and there’s so much of it. At least in Brisbane, the Council could decide to triple its spend on bike infrastructure and still take a decade before the big problems we’ve been calling for action on for years are all exhausted.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

People whinge about all kinds of things as excuses for why cycling doesn’t happen. In Canada it’s “it’s too cold”. In the UK it’s “too wet”. In Brisbane I alternately see “too hot” and “too hilly” brought up as excuses.

It’s all bullshit.

The evidence tells us pretty clearly. Infrastructure is the whole thing. With good infrastructure, people will cycle in any weather. It’s what happens everywhere in the world, every time they build actual good infrastructure.

And for what it’s worth, I find it much easier to cycle in Brisbane’s summer than its winter. Our winters are an awkward in-between temperature where you can’t rug up properly because if you do you get too hot while riding. But it’s too cold to go out in shorts. Speaking objectively, those Canadians are closer to having a good point. Warm weather doesn’t make your tyres slip; doesn’t require snow to be ploughed off of the path.

Zagorath, 8 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

How is the government (who has to end up building the stuff) getting this AI data? They’re paying some AI company for it. Money that would be better spent directly on infrastructure we already know we need.

The better question is: without the technobro hype, what do we actually have to gain from this AI technology?

Zagorath, 8 days ago

But that’s just…straight-up not true? Just ride a little bit less intensely. It’s really not that bad. I’ve done it for years—including in a city far hotter and more humid than Brisbane.

Or yeah, have a shower. It’s pretty easy. Most office buildings, schools, universities, and hospitals have EoT facilities. And you can skip the morning shower at home.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

It won’t be the norm for workplaces for a long time

I have no idea what they’re talking about, because it’s already the norm. Last time I was applying for work, asking about end of trip facilities was one of my routine questions, and they always had a good answer to it. Most CBD offices have them. As do other major employers like unis, schools (via the change rooms used for PE, if nothing else), and hospitals.

And if your particular CBD building doesn’t, there’s the Cycle2City EoT facilities, which are cheaper than public transport and much cheaper than paying for CBD parking.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

Statistically, it’s been fairly well understood for a while now that the benefits of a larger number of people cycling outweigh the safety risk of some of those people not wearing a helmet.

Infrastructure and keeping people separate from cars is more important, but mandatory helmet laws are a net detriment to public health.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

A problem, for sure, and the evidence tells us it’s a bad idea.

But the evidence also seems fuzzy enough that it seems very unlikely that this is the primary problem with cycling in this country.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

Hey as long as you’re advocating for better infrastructure so people whose commutes are within a distance that’s cyclable can do so, it doesn’t bother me (and I doubt many other advocates would be bothered) if you drive. The thing that bothers me is that we frequently see people with long commutes explain that as though it’s a reason nobody can ride, and therefore we shouldn’t bother putting in the infrastructure.

The obvious counter is the fact that if everyone with a 10 km or less commute got out of their car and onto a bike, there would be so much less traffic. You’d probably halve the peak hour commute time for those 40 km commutes as a result.

As a small side note though, the distance is a problem, the “dropping kids off to school” is not. With good infrastructure, kids can be ridden in a bike trailer, in the front of a bakfiets, or on a kiddy seat. Older children can ride their own bikes alongside a parent. And teenagers can ride by themselves the whole journey. Bikes are amazing for independence of growing kids, rather than needing to be ferried everywhere by parents. But only if we build the infrastructure for them.

Of course there’s also a big overlap between cycling advocates and urbanism. And that overlap obligates me to ask: is your commute 42 km because you love living way out rurally even though you work in the city, or is it because housing prices are so obscene that that’s the only place you could afford to live with your family? Because a key point for urbanists is that it should be possible for anyone to be able to live close to where they work, in large part thanks to reducing the cost of housing by drastically increasing supply of medium and higher density housing. And that medium and higher density housing should come in a variety of configurations, instead of being almost exclusively 1 and 2 bedroom places with a small number of 3 bedroom, and 4 bedroom is basically non-existent, as is currently the case.

And as an urbanist, I’d say that even if you do just want to live 42 km out, it should be possible to take a train in. It’s probably too low-density for public transport alone to be viable, but a 5 k–or–less cycle to a train station served every 15 minutes or more is absolutely possible, if there were political will.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

No you’re absolutely right. On an individual level, it always makes sense to wear a helmet. I’ll always see someone without a helmet, whatever the context, and think they’re a fucking idiot.

Yes, even in the Netherlands.

But individual decisions are not the same as public health policy. And from a public health perspective, mandatory helmets are a net negative.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

No, this is absolutely true. In general, women tend to be more risk averse than men. So in an environment where you have to ride on the road with cars—i.e., anywhere in Australia—women are going to be much less likely to feel safe riding a bike.

Separate from that, there are also issues that matter more to women than to men, relating to things like “eyes on the street” and path lighting at night. Men are more likely than women to feel safe riding on a dark park through a park at night.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

Or an enbie, or even just a cis man who likes long hair and the colour pink. You know that would set off the bigots.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

The hexbear admin has essentially admitted to this.

Source? I wanna see their exact words

Zagorath, 7 days ago

And then they—the ones who claim to be so socially enlightened—say that the idea of cultural genocide is fake and doesn’t exist and that erasing a culture by forcibly assimilating it is Good Actually.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

So the first file acts as a sort of index? From the earlier comment I thought it was autodetecting the presence of the numbered files and expanding what it found.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

It’s definitely not an “excuse”, but I don’t think I’d say English is any worse than French in this regard. Just the examples you gave, they’re all “go to a country”*, but we’ve got “en”, “à”, and “à la” (with conjugations). They’re as bad as each other.

• New York obviously not a country, but its preposition is a duplicate of Cuba anyway, so doesn’t change the point being made.

Zagorath, 7 days ago (edited 1 day ago)

French is at least mostly consistent, but its pronunciation is pretty wild to someone familiar with literally any other language written using a Latin script.

Mangé, manger, mangez, mangeai, mangeais, mangeaient. The first 3 are the same as each other, the last 3 also form an identical set with each other. All 6 are very similar. Then you’ve got mangerai, mangerais, mangeraient, mangerez… Or mange, manges, mangent.

why tf does “ione” have as many syllables as “secretary”?

idk, why does mangeaient have a grand total of 50% of its letters being entirely silent and contributing nothing to its pronunciation (or rather, all collectively contributing as much as ´ does).

Et maintenant, je dois manger le dîner. J’ai faim…

Zagorath, 8 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

A slightly more recognisable way of writing it would be “d’ya eat yet?” But “d’ya eat” becomes elided even further down to “dyeat”, which can be reanalysed as “jeet”. I’m not really sure what the phonotactics are behind “yet” becoming “chet”, but in this sentence…yeah, it just kinda does.

edit: wait no I worked out why “chet”. It’s the /t/ at the end of “jeet”. /tj/ becoming /tʃ/ is .

edit 2: to be more precise, dy (/dj/) becoming j (/dʒ/) is also yod coalescence. So it’s all about yod coalescence + allision.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

My dad’s line is “while you’re up”. No further detail. Depending on time of day, this may be a request for beer or for tea.

And whether or not you actually are up at the time is immaterial.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

Almost every argument for fantasy-type settings where “that character wouldn’t be black/is described as X” but honestly if it doesn’t affect the story

What shits me is that this so often happens with adaptations, and when the adaptation that did this ends up terrible they end up claiming it’s proof they were right all along. As though the inclusion of a minority character is somehow the cause of terrible writing, set/prop/costume design, effects, acting (including from the cishet white actors), and direction. No, it couldn’t possibly be because most adaptations are terrible regardless, it must be tHe gAYs.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

Man the way America teaches maths in school is so wack.

Zagorath, 6 days ago

“Off‽ Off‽” Highly memeable reaction there.

Zagorath, 8 days ago

and are recognised as such by a fair chunk of overseas countries

Which? Wikipedia says they’re “reaching out to countries like Russia and Venezuela to establish diplomatic relations”, but there’s nothing in there or on the cited article suggesting they received any response. Searching Google restricted to their official website for the words “recognise”, “acknowledge”, “embassy”, “relation”, and a few conjugations of those words all turned up zero results. They do seem to have had friendly discussions with federal ministers, but no formal recognition, and they don’t seem to be using their own vehicle registrations any more. (Side note: that last article is a particularly good one for getting a full broad picture of what it is they really want and the situations that lead to them being as they are today.)

Note: I am not attempting to make any kind of “ought” argument here. Merely an “is” one. And it does not seem true to claim that the Yidingi Nation “is” recognised in any official way, as far as I could find.

Zagorath, 7 days ago

We already have our own nutso right-wing sovcitz. This isn’t much more extreme than Mabo was, prior to that case being decided.

Zagorath, 6 days ago

perhaps I’m missing out on some Australian content? Any tiops on communities

There are Australians producing content on all the usual communities. Unless you’re interested specifically in content about Australia or aimed towards other Australians in particular, you’re probably not missing out on anything.

If that is what you want, check the communities hosted on aussie.zone.