@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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ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Seagoon_ @melbourne Home made pizzas are the best 😋

Last time I made them, I stopped by Kmart to get a couple of pizza trays.

The only issue I've had is I've gone for a store-bought base, and I haven't found a good one. Which is a challenge, because wifey is a bit of a fussy eater.

(Also, wifey puts too many toppings on hers and they end up going everywhere!)

But so much tastier and fresher than you get from a pizza shop.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Duenan @melbourne More cheese, or just don't overstack the thing so it has like a 5-10cm tall pile of toppings in the middle 😂

Also, better quality bases might help? I just got some Lebanese pita bread from Coles last time.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Seagoon_ @CEOofmyhouse56 @melbourne Did you end up finding one? If so, let's see 😊

And if you're still deciding, any colours you like? What colour boots? Any styles you like?

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

@Catfish @CEOofmyhouse56 @foodaustralia I don't understand. There is no such thing as too spicy.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Thornburywitch @StudChud The Pinto was a car so awful that it made Ralph Nader a national public figure. But that's a whole different story — we're talking about dodgy cars, and not dodgy election systems that don't have preferential voting.

kcarruthers, to random
@kcarruthers@mastodon.social avatar

Ok I gave strawberry yoghurt one more chance. TBH it is not for me. It burns my tongue a bit. Does that mean I’m allergic?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@kcarruthers @stufromoz Can you eat whole strawberries? Have you tried lately?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Baku @beeng Or Boronia.

Because when you say the name, you think of... Boronia.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@airwhale @CEOofmyhouse56 Just as a precaution, at lunchtime I stopped by Maccas to get a replacement burger.

"I was only pretending to be mad at you," she now says 😊

ajsadauskas, to afl
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

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

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@yo_eddy @afl And then a truckload of really talented footballers around that core.

Cyril, Burgoyne, Brian Lake, Luke Breust, Jack Gunston, Ben McEvoy, Paul Puopolo, Josh Gibson.

Also, he already had a group of very talented older players to work with when he got there.

Peter Everitt, Shane Crawford, Trent Croad, Nick Holland, Mark Williams, Richie Vandenberg...

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@kiranc @afl In fairness, Carlton arguably had a stronger list than North do now...

luciedigitalni, to random
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

Incredible that this totally viable project is not working out

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/10/the-line-saudi-arabia-scaling-back-plans-105-mile-long-desert-megacity-crown-prince

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

@luciedigitalni @joannaholman Well, they do have a lot of money to throw around.

So let me share some ways they can not only save this project, but take it to a whole new level.

First, why settle for a single 2.4km linear city?

Why not build 20 of them? Make them 120 metres each.

Let's arrange 10 of them in parallel lines, running east-to-west.

Let's arrange the other 10 so they bisect them at a right angle, in parallel lines running north-to-south.

I call this revolutionary new structure: The Grid.

Now, instead of needing to travel 2.4km from one end to the other, you can get from the furthest northeast corner to the southwest corner in just 240 metres.

That's one-tenth the distance!

You can now walk or cycle from any point to any point in a trip that's no longer than 240 metres!

That also means, instead of a hyperloop, we can use a different futuristic vehicle to get people from any point to any point in the same amount of time.

I call it: A tram!

Instead of building these enclosed linear cities in the desert, let's save some costs by building them in a slightly cooler climate. This will allow us to go with an open air design.

I call this design: The street!

Even better, between these streets, we can build funkier smaller streets filled with cafes and music venues.

Let's call them Laneways!

And best of all, you can build these streets one at a time!

This revolutionary hyper mega giga future tech grid city concept improves on almost every aspect of The Line, at a fraction of the cost!

luciedigitalni, to random
@luciedigitalni@aus.social avatar

In case anyone had forgotten, Vodafone are a deeply fucked up organisation

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @shermozle Well, you could always try TPG, iiNet, WestNet, Three, Internode, Soul, AAPT, Orange...

Oh wait...

dansup, to random
@dansup@mastodon.social avatar

When you have a dozen chapsticks but they always lost...

like how does this always happen??

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@dansup Do you have a cat?

loops, to random
@loops@pixelfed.social avatar

Hello Comments!

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and a lot more! Available soon ✨

ajsadauskas,
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@stephan @loops Will comments appear as posts in Mastodon and other Fedi apps?

Will the videos themselves be viewable on Mastodon?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Railison Exactly.

burgerdrome, to random
@burgerdrome@aus.social avatar

"we were previously wasting shit-tons of energy blasting cold air into the world, but money is no longer free so we've re-discovered 'fridges with doors on them'. hopefully this big sign reduces the amount of sheer bafflement you experience at having to open a door"

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@LanguageMan1 @burgerdrome Hi, I'm Colesworths.

And yes, it's true.

We're firmly committed to helping the environment in ways that are profitable for us.

We believe in cutting our costs and maximising our profits. Usually by screwing over suppliers, staff, and customers.

And with our new sustainability plan, we're leading the way in justifying our enshittification by saying it's for the good of the planet.

That's why we now make you pay 15 cents to use our shopping bags. It's for the environment!

We're installing fridge doors to bring down our power bills. It's for the environment!

We're replacing our mininum-wage checkout staff with machines. Many of those staff would drive to work! It's for the environment!

We're pulling more name-brand products from our shelves and replacing them with our own brands. Umm... But... Sustainable packaging! It's for the environment!

We're squeezing small farmers, forcing them to sell to big agribusinesses, because scale is the only way to eeke out a profit from supplying us. Fewer suppliers means fewer trucks. It's for the environment!

We're jacking up prices, claiming it's because of inflation, so you get fewer products for the money you give us. That's reducing consumption! For the environment!

We're building giant data centres filled with hundreds of servers that use massive amounts of energy and water.

We're using them to log all the personal information we can about you, and everything you buy from us. We know who you are, we know where you live, we know which tampons and toilet paper you like, and that you bought corn flakes last Tuesday.

We're using even more servers to apply machine learning to your information, and on-selling the data we harvest about you to programmatic advertising firms to target advertising at you.

You know Apple's cookies crackdown? That turned our sales data into catnip for advertisers.

Seriously, we're already doing this: "Coles 360 is all about connections. It’s how we connect with customers at every turn of their lives. It’s how we use the power of Coles’ shopper data to maximise that connection. It’s how we partner at levels to drive more meaningful campaigns and measure the impact they create."

https://www.coles.com.au/coles360

"Coles loyalty program FlyBuys has joined with programmatic firm Signal to use its detailed email marketing database across multiple channels allowing it to target people’s actual profiles rather than just the cookies their web behaviours generate."

https://mumbrella.com.au/coles-programmatic-pioneer-joins-signal-as-fly-buys-moves-from-cookie-based-marketing-to-people-based-programmatic-352449

"Coles 360 has partnered with out-of-home (OOH) ad tech provider Broadsign to further enhance the Coles 360 network of digital screens at front-of-store. The partnership will enable Coles to schedule, manage, and deliver compelling content and advertisements across its network of retail media displays."

https://broadsign.com/blog/coles-360-continues-momentum-with-tech-media-partnerships/

What's that? We should shut down our energy-intensive but lucrative data mining operation? For the environment?!

Piss off!

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@Ilandar But it's really not.

The US has voluntary voting. Typically only a little over 50% of eligible voters turn up to vote.

That means even if the GOP managed to get 50% of the popular vote, that's just 25% of eligible voters.

Let's assume that 50% of those Republican voters are core loyal Trump supporters.

Okay, well that's just 12.5% of the US population.

A considerable percentage, no doubt. But for context, around 14% of the US population is black.

Now if 75% or more of the population isn't voting Republican, then a landslide is absolutely possible.

And if that landslide is not just in the presidential race, but on many down-ballot races as well, you're going to start to see the non-Trumpists in the GOP distance themselves from Don pretty bloody quickly.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@mcSlibinas @etbe Really good point.

The development time and cost is an overhead. That's divided between the number of units you produce.

If the programming costs are $100k and you produce one unit, then that unit costs $100k.

But if you flash the same software on to 1 million units, then it's just 10 cents per unit.

Worth remembering that millions of people junking their two-year-old iPhones and Samsung Galaxies at roughly the same time.

I think the broader underlying issue is that our economy is optimised for labour productivity, rather than making the most out of finite environmental resources.

It really should be the other way around.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@mcSlibinas @etbe Worth noting that in the six months after Apple releases the thinnest, best iPhone ever each year, it would receive several million two-year-old iPhones as trade-ins.

So you could theoretically reflash several million units of nearly identical hardware with embedded Linux (or QNX), remove the batteries (and screens?).

You would then have several million near-identical motherboards ready for second life embedded in appliances or sensors.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @Faceman2K23 @scrubbles There is also a good video posted by @philip, who posts on the Fediverse sometimes, about a stadium in Melbourne called Waverley Park.

The plan was to build a 150,000 seat stadium in the outer suburbs.

(That's not a typo!)

Unfortunately, it never got a train station, and ended up getting demolished in the end, basically because people got sick of the car park.

(It possibly also explains part of the reason why Melburnians don't tend to like driving to major events.)

https://youtu.be/LvvLwiRCx4s?si=wEitqVbSD4WHQDcz

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@luciedigitalni @Faceman2K23 @scrubbles @philip True, and good point.

I meant more, the experience of 70,000+ people trying to leave the Waverley Park car park was enough to convince most people that a car-centric stadium is a really awful idea.

joannaholman, to random
@joannaholman@aus.social avatar

Genuinely surprised someone hasn’t tapped into millennial nostalgia by reopening sizzler restaurants. The cheese bread was a magical experience

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@joannaholman All those all-you-can-eat places were so much fun as a kid!

I almost forgot Smorgy's in Melbourne — I don't think they're still around?

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@joannaholman Yes!

And while we're on the topic, what a wasted opportunity that the new owners of Pizza Hut haven't reopened dine-in all-you-can-eat restaurants.

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

The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)

A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.

Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.

While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.

https://youtu.be/LvvLwiRCx4s?si=x2QvxepgPtBtJZfx

@fuck_cars

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@awelder @jedsetter @nictea @philip @fuck_cars You often hear from Melburnians that it's the world's most livable city, and how the CBD is laid out nicely in the Hoddle Grid is laid out compared to inner-city.

And how Melbourne's inner-suburban tram network means it has much better public transport than Sydney.

And it's true. Colonial Melbourne, funded by its gold rush, did a much better job at planning than early Sydney.

But after the World Wars, it's a very different story.

Sydney is at least constrained by Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north, the Royal National Park to the south, and the Blue Mountains to the west.

That means the only places for new sprawl are either northwest past Rouse Hill, or southwest around Campbelltown and Camden.

As a result, there's a lot more pressure from developers to densify.

Meanwhile, Melbourne just has the Dandenong Ranges to the east and Port Phillip Bay to the south.

As a result, even right now, you have new housing estates past Pakenham, Melton, Wyndham Vale, and Craigieburn.

As for sprawling Australian capitals, I think Perth has definitely been punching above its weight since the 2000s mining boom.

There's now continuous McMansions sprawl right down the Coast from north of Joondalup to south of Mandurah.

And there's new subdivisions that are closer to Bunbury than they are to the Perth or Fremantle CBDs.

CelloMomOnCars, to China
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

Renewables 2023 report

"2023 saw a step change in renewable capacity additions, driven by China’s solar PV market.

Under existing policies and market conditions, global renewable capacity is forecast to reach 7 300 GW by 2028. This growth trajectory would see global capacity increase to 2.5 times its current level by 2030, falling short of the tripling goal."

Nor far short, and conditions can change.

https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2023/executive-summary

1/

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@CelloMomOnCars And yet it's supposedly the meanie greenie environmental activists who are dominating the climate debate. Gees, wonder why noone is working with that ExxonMobil CEO.

</snark>

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