ajsadauskas

ajsadauskas, 1 month ago to cars

The toll road scam: A government-made monopoly you pay for.

Here's a funny-because-it's-true take on Transurban and the poor tax it imposes, from Punter's Politics:

https://youtu.be/FlKBakPAtiw?si=G39_0GcJzSB0SSA8

#cars #roads #fuckcars @fuck_cars #tolls #tollroads #memes #funny #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #auspol #vicpol #nswpol

ajsadauskas, 10 months ago to TeslaMotors

Well, at least if you buy a Tesla, you're not supporting big oil companies like Exxon — oh wait...

"Oil major Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) is in talks with Tesla (TSLA.O), Ford Motor (F.N), Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) and other automakers to supply lithium, Bloomberg Law reported on Monday citing people familiar with the matter."

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/exxon-mobil-talks-with-tesla-ford-supply-lithium-bloomberg-law-2023-07-31/

#oil #EV #EVs #urbanism #cycling #eBikes @fuck_cars #Tesla

ajsadauskas, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to auspol

Peter Dutton's nuclear plan is just terrible public policy.

The truth is that, in an Australian context, with nuclear power more expensive per kilowatt hour than either grid scale solar & storage or coal, nuclear just doesn't make economic sense.

The UK has a mature nuclear industry. Its new Hinkley Point C plant, started in 2016, is now expected to not be complete until 2031, and costs £35bn.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/23/hinkley-point-c-could-be-delayed-to-2031-and-cost-up-to-35bn-says-edf

So how much would it cost to replace all of Australia's coal power plants with nuclear ones?

We'll, at current exchange rates, £35bn — that's the cost of just one Hinkley Point C sized reactors — works out to A$67.6 billion.

So building just 10 nuclear reactors the size of Hinkley Point C costs $A676bn, making the AUKUS subs look like Home Brand corn flakes in comparison.

(Just for comparison, ScoMo's AUKUS subs cost $368bn, and Daniel Andrew's Suburban Rail loop is estimated at around $100bn.)

That's assuming Australia, starting from scratch, could build nuclear plants as quickly and cheaply as the UK, which was one of the first nations on Earth to split the atom.

So is it debt & deficit to fund this? Big new taxes? Even by the LNP's own measuring sticks, it's a crap policy!

The Australian Federal Government has previously examined the prospect of building nuclear power plants in the Switkowski report: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080117214749/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79623/20080117-2207/dpmc.gov.au/umpner/docs/nuclear_report.pdf

The big thing that's changed since it was published is that grid solar + storage is now cheaper than coal or nuclear power.

So would you support holding up the closure of coal plants for 15 years until nuclear plants are completed, then paying substantially more on your power bills, while the federal government pays hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies, while also hiring thousands of additional public servants to regulate it all?

#auspol #nuclear #ClimateChange #australia @australianpolitics

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to sydney

Sydney has opened up consultation on a strategy to reduce car traffic and make the city more walkable

"Driving in central Sydney will become harder under a plan to make the city more comfortable for pedestrians.

"The City of Sydney wants to narrow roads for wider footpaths and push for lower speed limits to discourage drivers from the CBD and transform Sydney into a walkable city.

"The council will also install more pedestrian crossings and prioritise people over cars... five times more pedestrians than motorists on the average street, yet just 40 per cent of road space is allocated to footpaths."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/greener-safer-calmer-the-plan-to-discourage-drivers-from-central-sydney-20240312-p5fbr7.html

Some key points of the strategy are:

We will ensure that there is sufficient space for people to walk.

We will improve connectivity for people walking by ensuring there are frequent street crossings that give people priority and that align with people’s walking routes.

We will ensure that footpaths and crossings are accessible so that everyone can use them.

We will plan our city based on 10-minute neighbourhoods so that people are able to meet their daily needs easily by walking.

We will make it safer for people to walk by reducing vehicle speeds.

We will reduce traffic volumes on surface streets and manage through-traffic in residential neighbourhood streets to improve both safety and experience for people walking.

We will work to make all people feel safer while walking around our city.

We will work to improve compliance with road rules, especially the lesser-known rules that benefit people walking.

We will make our streets and public spaces comfortable and inviting by ensuring that they
are green and cool.

We will make sure that there are frequent opportunities for people to stop and rest, use the toilet or have a drink of water.

We will make our city more pleasant to walk in by reducing noise and air pollution from
traffic.

We will make all streets interesting to walk along by ensuring that built form has active, permeable frontages that invite engagement and curiosity.

We will use design, activations and installations to create neighbourhood-based community and encourage people to interact with their streets.

Full details here: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/policy-planning-changes/your-feedback-walking-strategy-action-plan#strategy

Unfortunately, the car-brained leader of the local business lobby isn't on board:

"Business Sydney executive director Paul Nicolaou welcomed efforts to make the city pedestrian-friendly... But Nicolaou said it was difficult to see how making Sydney a predominantly walking city would benefit businesses such as retailers."

(Worth repeating that 80% of people on an average city street are pedestrians, so it already is a predominantly walking city.)

Anyway, if you think the plan's a good idea, make sure you let the Sydney City Council know by emailing sydneyyoursay@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Sydney @fuck_cars #walking #walk #walkability #nswpol #auspol #nsw #planning #cities #UrbanGreening #city #cities #australia

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to car

Are microplastics from car tyres contributing to heart disease?

"Add one more likely culprit to the long list of known cardiovascular risk factors including red meat, butter, smoking and stress: microplastics.

"In a study released Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, an international team of physicians and researchers showed that surgical patients who had a build-up of micro and nanoplastics in their arterial plaque had a 2.1 times greater risk of nonfatal heart attack, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause in the three years post surgery than those who did not."

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2024-03-07/microplastics-may-be-risk-factor-for-cardiovascular-disease

The research is particularly noteworthy, given that one of the biggest sources of microplastic pollution is the synthetic rubber in car tyres: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112015017609398126

So it's not just the sedentary lifestyles that car-dependent planning encourages that's causing health issues.

And it's not just exhaust fumes either.

There's also the health impacts of microplastics, including from car tyres.

Worth noting as well that internal documents from the big oil companies show that they knew since the 1970s that recycling wasn't going to solve the problem of plastic pollution. They promoted it anyway: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112064312364853769

#tyres #tyre #car #microplastic #microplastics #pollution #environment @fuck_cars #fuckcars

ajsadauskas, 1 year ago to internet

The thing about Twitter is that it really lacks a lot of the features you'd expect from a true Mastodon replacement.

For example, there's no way to edit your toots (which they, confusingly call "tweets"—let's face it, it's a bit of a silly name that's difficult to take seriously).

"Tweets" can't be covered by a content warning. There's no way to let the poster know you like their tweet without also sharing it, and no bookmark feature.

There's no way to set up your own instance, and you're basically stuck on a single instance of Twitter. That means there's no community moderators you can reach out to to quickly resolve issues. Also, you can't de-federate instances with a lot of problematic content.

It also doesn't Integrate with other fediverse platforms, and I couldn't find the option to turn the ads off.

Really, Twitter has made a good start, but it will need to add a lot of additional features before it gets to the point where it becomes a true Mastodon replacement for most users.

#twitter #mastodon #twittermigration @fediverse

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to sydney

Not again! BoM issues Flood warning for Qld and NSW.

"A major rain event will engulf most of eastern Australia during the next 48 hours, prompting the Bureau of Meteorology to issue flood watches from southern Queensland to the NSW South Coast.

"Greater Sydney could be soaked by up to 200mm from late Thursday to early Saturday, potentially leading to major flooding along the Hawkesbury-Nepean River, while Brisbane and Canberra also face the prospect of heavy rain."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-04/torrential-rain-triggers-flood-watch-for-sydney/103665240

@sydney #sydney #NSW #Australia #ClimateChange #weather #floods

ajsadauskas, 8 months ago to twitter

Looks like there might be yet another mass-migration wave from Twitter to Mastodon on the way...

https://www.thefader.com/2023/09/18/elon-musk-pay-for-twitter

#twitter #tech #technology @technology #X #fediverse

ajsadauskas, 8 months ago to tech

Another day, another product joining the Google graveyard. On the upside, this time it's not a messaging app.

From The Verge:

"You might remember Google had a $5,000 Jamboard whiteboarding meeting room display — well, that’s also discontinued. The Jamboard hardware will no longer receive software updates on September 30th, 2024, and its license subscriptions will expire the same day.

"Then users will have until December 31st, 2024, to back up Jam their files, and on that date, Google will cut off access and begin permanently deleting files."

Pity the schools, universities, and businesses that paid Google $5000 for a "smart" whiteboard, only to now be told their files will be deleted.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894509/google-jamboard-whiteboarding-app-graveyard

#tech #technology #Google @technology

ajsadauskas, 3 months ago (edited 3 months ago) to TeslaMotors

Looks like the Boring Company's Las Vegas tunnels are going about as well as you'd expect from an Elon project...

"The muck pooling in the tunnel at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip had the consistency of a milkshake and, in some places, sat at least two feet deep. ... At first, it merely felt damp. But in addition to the water, sand and silt—the natural byproducts of any dig—the workers understood that it was full of chemicals known as accelerants.

"The accelerants cure the grout that seals the tunnel’s concrete supports, helping the grout set properly and protecting the work against cracks and other deterioration. They also seriously burn exposed human skin. At the Encore dig site, such burns became almost routine, workers there told Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An investigation by the state OSHA, which Bloomberg Businessweek has obtained via a freedom of information request, describes workers being scarred permanently on their arms and legs. According to the investigation, at least one employee took a direct hit to the face. In an interview with Businessweek, one of the tunnel workers recalls the feeling of exposure to the chemicals: “You’d be like, ‘Why am I on fire?’”"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-26/elon-musk-las-vegas-loop-tunnel-has-construction-safety-issues?gaa_at=la&gaa_n=

Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/su7fa

#Urbanism #Gadgetbahn #Elon #ElonMusk #Transit #PublicTransport #Cars #Car #Nevada #Capitalism #Business #Economics #LasVegas #UrbanPlanning @fuck_cars

ajsadauskas, 1 month ago to random

There was no drone delivery future. There was never going to be a drone delivery future.

Just like there was never going to be self-driving Uber taxis. Or Amazon Go supermarkets on every corner. Or hyperloops. Or earth-to-earth space travel on SpaceX rockets. Or level-five full self driving Teslas.

Just like there will not be a general artificial intelligence ChatGPT in the next couple of years.

They were all scams designed to lure dollars from investors and generate good PR.

It was all bullshit. It was always bullshit.

Nothing more.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/22/24137383/amazon-prime-air-drone-delivery-closing-lockeford-california-phoenix-arizona

ajsadauskas, 1 year ago to internet

Looks like even more brands are going to vanish from Twitter soon.

One of Twitter's big advantages over Mastodon for brands and advertisers was that it was supported by a range of social media and ad management tools.

Not anymore!

Via Mashable:

"Microsoft is going to drop Twitter from its Microsoft Advertising plan next week, according to the company.

"Users will no longer be able to access their Twitter account through its Digital Marketing Center's social media management tool, according to Microsoft. Users will also no longer be able to schedule, create, or manage tweets or tweet drafts. In addition, users won't be able to view their past tweets and engagement on the Microsoft Advertising platform."

https://mashable.com/article/microsoft-drops-twitter-from-advertising-platform

#TWITTER #TwitterMigration #Fediverse #Elon #ElonMusk #Microsoft @fediverse @technology

ajsadauskas, 3 months ago to car

A rising road toll in the US. A rising road toll in Australia. Journalists give 1000 reasons why it could be happening.

And they studiously avoid mentioning the growing proportion of massive SUVs and pickup trucks on the roads. If they mention it at all, it's only in passing: https://youtu.be/Hb5_RUNeC0g?si=uuns6D1I6fGINdpU

But.

If you have larger and heavier cars, with larger blind spots, of course you're going to have more fatalities!

Remember kids: Every 10cm a vehicle's hood height increases, the risk of fatalities grows by 22%: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212012224000017

#car #cars #urbanism @fuck_cars

ajsadauskas, 5 months ago to auspol

Want to protect free speech in Australia?

Either advocate for a constitutional Bill of Rights, or STFU.

#auspol #politics @australianpolitics #australia

ajsadauskas, 5 months ago to Trains

There's a new RMTransit (@RM_Transit) video up about high-speed rail from Melbourne to Sydney.

It's definitely worth checking out. Reece makes the case that more overnight sleeper services and electrification are an important first step: https://youtu.be/IMUcV_nxsWY?si=8reQjPjsrwVTcecx

My two cents on the topic is that HSR from Melbourne to Sydney should implemented as a series of incremental upgrades, rather than a single megaproject.

Between the 1970s and 2010s, the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney was incrementally upgraded to a freeway-standard continuous dual carriageway road: https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/operations/roads-and-waterways/environment-and-heritage/heritage/hume-highway-duplication/history

It wasn't done as single megaproject. Instead, it was done in small segments. A bypass around a town. A section of road between two town upgraded to dual carriageway. Eventually, over 40 years, the whole road was upgraded.

We should be doing the same thing with the train line from Melbourne to Sydney.

Not as a multi-billion-dollar megaproject, but as a series of discrete projects to upgrade sections of track to electrified HSR standard: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/24/start-building-now-to-fulfil-sydney-melbourne-high-speed-rail-ambition-labor-urged

That means faster train journeys from Melbourne to Sydney today, with full HSR rolled out incrementally over the longer term.

@fuck_cars #trains #HSR

ajsadauskas, 1 month ago to Trains

Looks like Sydney Trains is going to drop the jargon from its PA announcements.

From the SMH:

"Commuters will soon be told to “get off” the train, rather than “alight”, after Sydney Trains resolved to overhaul its station announcements to favour colloquial language.

"The phrase “this train terminates here” is also being retired, due to concerns the word “terminates” is difficult to understand."

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/this-phrase-terminates-here-sydney-train-announcement-overhaul-20240502-p5foby.html

@sydneytrains #trains #sydney #nsw #transit #planning #train #UrbanPlanning

ajsadauskas, 8 months ago to technology

I wonder how Google's plans to develop a messaging and communications platform it consistently supports are coming along...

Oh wait...

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/18/23878449/google-nest-hub-max-end-support-meet-zoom

#technology @technology #tech #google

ajsadauskas, 1 year ago to music

So who's your favourite pop star?

Now there's a shiny new Lemmy group up and running at @popheads (Mastodon users: follow it if you want more discussion of pop music in your Mastodon feed), it's time to ask who's your favourite pop star? Do you have a favourite song or album?

My current faves are:

Alessia Cara: Perhaps the most talented and certainly the most underrated of the current crop of pop stars. She's fallen out of the limelight the past couple of years, which is a pity, because there's some excellent songs on her recent albums:

https://youtu.be/2ORj3T5sz-0

https://youtu.be/QJWR9T7ihns

https://youtu.be/9tKQgesCcTc

https://youtu.be/E40dAGljh4Y

https://youtu.be/rcDsSkQ59-E

Willow Smith: Done some really great songs recently:

https://youtu.be/hvrx8SX3jqQ

And some all-time favourites:

Prince

https://youtu.be/CkrT9u7ms1c

John Farnham (but only his Whispering Jack/Age of Reason/Chain Reaction '80s to early '90s run)

https://youtu.be/xWGXmWB4tKQ

https://youtu.be/VD5Vt6zx_to

https://youtu.be/EBo1cMumwBM

Janet Jackson, and most of the broader Jackson family. (Jermaine, Rebbie, and TJ in particular have some hidden gems in their discography.)

https://youtu.be/XKTBP-w9q_k

https://youtu.be/65eEHAMZMSo

#music #popmusic

ajsadauskas, 3 months ago to cars

Dude, where's my self-driving car?

A good look at The Verge about the history of false claims made by the Silicon Valley hype machine around self-driving cars:

"In 2015, the then-lead of Google’s self-driving car project Chris Urmson said one of his goals in developing a fully driverless vehicle was to make sure that his 11-year-old son would never need a driver’s license.

"The subtext was that in five years, when Urmson’s son turned 16, self-driving cars would be so ubiquitous, and the technology would be so superior to human driving, that his teenage son would have no need nor desire to learn to drive himself.

"Well, it’s 2024, and Urmson’s son is now 20 years old. Any bets on whether he got that driver’s license?"

https://www.theverge.com/24065447/self-driving-car-autonomous-tesla-gm-baidu

@technology #cars #technology #cars #urbanism #UrbanPlanning

ajsadauskas, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to auspol

Hold on a sec, weren't we all told that privatisation would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

Weren't we told that repealing the carbon tax would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

Weren't we told that sticking with (more expensive) coal and gas power over (cheaper) renewables and storage would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

From the ABC:

"At the heart of the price gouging inquiry, initiated by the ACTU and led by Allan Fels, is determining in a high inflation environment what's general inflation and what else might be influencing pricing behaviour, the main offending price gouging industries, how they do it and how it impacts everyday Australians.

"Part of the problem is Australia is awash with oligopolies, which means there isn't as much price competition as there might otherwise be, which helps explain why real wage growth has been low and why the real prices of so many goods are so high.

"And while most of the media attention has been on Coles and Woolworths, the report will include other sectors accused of customer gouging and breaching trust such as energy, airlines and banks.

"Sydney University professor Lynne Chester, from the school of social and political sciences, supplied the inquiry with a detailed submission ... [which] said electricity prices have been escalating since 2005, largely due to increases in the charges paid for the generation of electricity. She said the charge for electricity makes up a significant component of the electricity price paid for by consumers.

"A key issue was that the regulation was designed for a competitive market, assuming competition would deliver lower prices, but the market was never competitive due to the presence of big powerful generator companies that have been merging with retail companies to create giants such as AGL, Origin and Energy Australia."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-05/price-gouging-grocery-prices-energy-bills-airfares-inquiry-actu/103420574

#auspol #australia #economics #energy #privatisation #electricity #ClimateChange @australianpolitics #politics #business

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to Canada

When urban renewal goes wrong: Inside a dead mall frozen in 1990.

Very interesting short film by Bright Sun Films. Along with the usual urban exploration bits, he gives a good history of how and why it failed.

The shopping centre was supposed to revitalise downtown Hamilton, Ontario.

But within six years, it had just a 40% occupancy rate.

A decade after opening, it sold for only CAN$3.6 million — just 5% of what it originally cost to build.

https://youtu.be/NV_c_c_RZdE?si=4fNO5BJAoWzcx_bw

#urbanism #UrbanPlanning #Canada #Ontario @urbanism #UrbanRenewal #malls #DeadMalls #UrbEx #UrbanExplaration

ajsadauskas, 2 months ago to Engineering

Why Boeing needs to be run by engineers and not bean counters

Really insightful video about what has gone wrong.

Among the points Casey makes is that Boeing imported Jack Welch's GE management culture.

This has included a focus on short-term profits over engineering, and practises such as stack ranking.

Boeing, as a major defence contractor and (direct and indirect) employer, is too big to fail.

And Casey argues that either the Board or, if they're unwilling, the US government, needs to clear out the senior management and introduce an engineer-led management team:

https://youtu.be/d3u7F256wKM?si=1D5MNSQ2EyLvRmL-

#Boeing #engineer #engineering @engineering #capitalism #business #finance #politics

ajsadauskas, 1 month ago to afl

Where to now for North?

Smashed by a fairly ordinary Hawthorn side, with some big injuries including Day, Lewis, Jiath, Wingard, and Breust.

The big question: Is the issue North's list? Or has the game gone past Clarko as a coach?

"Meanwhile, North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson concedes his side is still a long way off the pace after forecasting the match would be an indicator of where his rebuilding outfit sits in its development.

"He was left in no doubt and North has now lost 26 of 27 games since success in Clarkson's first two outings at the helm early last year."

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1113608

#AFL @afl

ajsadauskas, 4 months ago to Futurology

Climate resilience: Has the time come to start demanding lighter-coloured streets in hotter climates?

At this stage, the challenge with climate change is not just preventing it from happening by cutting emissions. We also need to make our cities resilient to the climate change we've already locked in.

That's where lighter coloured paving for streets, rather than dark asphalt, can help:

"Sebastian Pfautsch doesn't hesitate when asked what he would change first to cool Australian cities in summer.

"And it's not what you might expect. It's not the seemingly endless expanse of black roofs, soaking up the sun beneath a shimmering haze.

"It's the roads. About a third of any outer suburb is thermally dense black asphalt that can reach 75 degrees Celsius, according to Professor Pfautsch, an expert on urban heat at the University of Western Sydney.

...

"Lighter-coloured roads may make intuitive sense, like wearing a white shirt on a hot day, but how effectively do they reduce surface and ambient air temperature?

"In 2020, two separate cool roads trials in Sydney and Adelaide set out to conclusively answer these questions.

"The Sydney trial, which took place at about 10 sites in the Western Sydney suburbs of Blacktown, Campbelltown and Parramatta, recorded an average surface temperature reduction of 5.6C and 2C for day and night respectively.

"For context, tree shade reduced the surface temperatures of roads by 16C."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-01-24/why-australia-builds-dark-roads-despite-heatwaves-climate-change/103375122

@urbanism #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #transport #cities #environment #ClimateChange

ajsadauskas, 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago) to politics

From now on, anyone who's not from New Zealand is banned from making a government ad about cybersecurity.

I'm sorry, but the Kiwis have nailed it:

https://youtu.be/6c3Edm8NdGs

#cybersecurity #television #marketing #advertising #advertisement #politics #auspol @technology #cyber