@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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futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

Could we design a skyscraper & sewer system with the intent of creating ecological niches all through the building? Some of the work with green roofs touches on this... can your building handle rain like a forest, not produce fast run-off? Maybe even act as a water sink for less well designed nearby areas. You collect the runoff and get all the moss and plants your parking garage neighbor can't be bothered with.

Don't be mad about the bugs in the walls, design walls that attract the best bugs.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@futurebird Here's a cautionary tale.

One Central Park in Sydney was an award-winning green development.

From Vogue in 2014:

"Sydney’s One Central Park complex says a lot about the possible future of our architecture: that buildings needn’t be a strain on the environment, that more high rise doesn’t have to mean less greenery, and that tall buildings may even be able to improve rather than diminish their surrounds. Designed by Atelier Jean Nouvel, One Central Park in Sydney’s Chippendale has been given 12 awards since its completion in December 2013: it took out the title of overall winner as well as taking out Sustainabilty Award at the international LEAF awards, and has just been awarded ‘Best Tall Building Worldwide’ by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) in Chicago."

https://www.vogue.com.au/vogue-living/design/one-central-park-sydney-named-best-tall-building-in-the-world/image-gallery/84423c7d5cd44773dd0b9e95c13c08b2

More from ArchitectureAU here: https://architectureau.com/articles/one-central-park/

Then, in 2022, the planter boxes literally fell off:

"2022 saw a planter box fall to the footpath below, with local Council calling for repairs to protect the public to take place immediately. Structural engineers have been assessing the safety of other planter boxes that adorn the biophilic building, with some boxes supported by ropes to mitigate risk, while 33 have been removed."

https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/news/cladding-planter-boxes-concern-one-central-park

Oh, and it also turns out the planter boxes are flammable:

"Category A and B cladding – the two most flammable – were found on the doors, structures (Cat A) and planter boxes (Cat B) respectively, with the dispute currently before the courts after the Planning Department issued an urgent fire safety order in January in the wake of the cladding inspection."

More details here: https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/a-planter-box-fell-off-broadway-s-green-building-that-was-just-the-start-of-its-problems-20231110-p5ej40.html

The building itself is beautiful — I used to work nearby and visited a number of times.

But beyond flammable planter boxes, the bigger problem with the building becomes apparent on street view.

That building on the right, covered in plants, is One Central Park.

It's on a congested six-lane stroad filled with cars and trucks.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

Happy !

Day 17

Why is it OK for Black folk to like the Black Panthers, but white folk can't like the klan? Black supremacy is just as bad as white supremacy! Why the double standard?

The Black Panthers:
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/109880423700227612

Black History Month Megathread:
https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/111856915139042511

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@mekkaokereke Nothing makes the American right scream "we need gun control" faster than a group of well-organised, politically-conscious Black men with guns.

(Go back and look at newspaper opinion articles from when the Black Panther Party was at its peak if you don't believe me.)

ajsadauskas, to twitter
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Is it too early to start referring to Elon's social media portal as MySpaceX?

#X

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

Really important article here about how big oil companies, including ExxonMobil, knew plastic recycling was BS since the'70s, but kept pushing the lie anyway.

"New research by the Center for Climate Integrity reveals that the plastics industry knew this plastic waste crisis was coming. And so petrochemical manufacturers worked hard to persuade the public that we could recycle our way out of the problem."

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4513908-big-oils-big-deception-that-plastics-are-recyclable/

This is in addition to them knowing about the dangers of carbon emissions since the 1970s, and deliberately delaying action: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/

(Worth noting the plastic used in the synthetic rubber in tyres is a major source of plastic pollution: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112009009421402914)

"Twenty petrochemical companies generate more than half of all the world’s single-use plastics. They include major oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil, the world’s leading producer of single-use plastic waste.

...

"Behind the scenes, however, they were admitting all along that such efforts were “virtually hopeless.” For more than 40 years, they knew that plastic recycling is not technically or economically feasible at scale. More than 90 percent of all plastic has ended up in landfills, ecosystems, or incinerators.

...

"Since the 1970s, these companies, their trade associations, and their front groups promoted recycling “solutions” using misleading advertising, inaccurate educational materials, performative investments, and commitments that they knew they were unlikely to meet.

...

"Internal documents reveal that the industry knew by 1986, for example, that “recycling cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution [to plastics], as it merely prolongs the time until an item is disposed of.” In 1994, an Exxon employee warned staffers at the American Plastics Council that they did not “want paper floating around” saying they could not meet recycling goals, since the issue was “highly sensitive politically.” These compelling admissions and many more are grounds for a thorough investigation.

...

"Plastics are a product made from fossil fuels. As the world moves away from fossil fuels in a race to avert climate catastrophe, journalists have shined a light on how oil companies promote recycling, in part because plastics are their 'Plan B.'"

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/4513908-big-oils-big-deception-that-plastics-are-recyclable/

These days, the CEO of ExxonMobil likes to gaslight the public and blame activists:

"Frankly, society, and the activist—the dominant voice in this discussion—has tried to exclude the industry that has the most capacity and the highest potential for helping with some of the technologies."

https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112009009421402914

Well, these same companies knew about the problems with toxic fossil fuel pollution since the 1970s. That's both greenhouse gas and microplastic pollution.

And they deliberately and knowingly lied to delay action.

@green

ajsadauskas, to random
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

The research is in, and the findings are clear: positive work environments are far more productive than cut-throat "social Darwinist" workplaces.

The studies confirm what most of us have intuitively known for a long time: a bad workplace environment is bad for business.

"But a large and growing body of research on positive organizational psychology demonstrates that not only is a cut-throat environment harmful to productivity over time, but that a positive environment will lead to dramatic benefits for employers, employees, and the bottom line."

"First, health care expenditures at high-pressure companies are nearly 50% greater than at other organizations. The American Psychological Association estimates that more than $500 billion is siphoned off from the U.S. economy because of workplace stress, and 550 million workdays are lost each year due to stress on the job. Sixty percent to 80% of workplace accidents are attributed to stress, and it’s estimated that more than 80% of doctor visits are due to stress. Workplace stress has been linked to health problems ranging from metabolic syndrome to cardiovascular disease and mortality."

https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive

@economics

ajsadauskas, to twitter
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

Called it. Elon's doing exactly what I thought he would do: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/109979152813584947

Twitter is dead.

There is no point in trying to hold on to what Twitter used to be. What Twitter used to be no longer exists.

It died the moment Elon walked in the building.

Anything posted there since then has been free content on his everything app and potential crypto scam, X: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/23/twitter-elon-musk-says-he-wants-to-change-companys-bird-logo

@technology

ajsadauskas, to twitter
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

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

@technology #X

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

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, to auspol
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

So just imagine we let one man, and his company, buy most of the papers in our regional cities and small towns.

And that man was named Rupert Murdoch.

And that man decided to shut down the print editions, and instead put those papers behind the paywalls of his big right-wing metropolitan tabloids.

Want to read the local newspaper in Lismore? It's now behind the Daily Telegraph paywall.

And then that man gutted the editorial team for each online newspaper to just one person.

And then used generative AI to centrally churn out 3000 local news articles per week across all his local publications, overseen by four human journalists.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/aug/01/news-corp-ai-chat-gpt-stories

@australia

ajsadauskas, to Futurology
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

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

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

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

@australianpolitics

ajsadauskas, to ai
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

In five years time, some CTO will review the mysterious outage or technical debt in their organisation.

They will unearth a mess of poorly written, poorly -documented, barely-functioning code their staff don't understand.

They will conclude that they did not actually save money by replacing human developers with LLMs.

#AI #LLM #LargeLanguageModels #WebDev #Coding #Tech #Technology @technology

ajsadauskas, to car
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

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

@fuck_cars

ajsadauskas, to random
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

The eight reasons ending car dependency benefits families.

Matt Caffrey @heartlandurbanist Says: "While popular culture may tell us that families need large lawns, houses, and SUVs, urbanism has a lot of benefits for children and families."

Make sure you check out his video: https://urbanists.video/w/mc2NXDhHo9Bhwb9bUdLvU7

If you like it, you can subscribe to his channel directly on Mastodon here: @heartlandurbanist_channel

And you can find more interesting and insightful videos on urban planning at http://urbanists.video

@fuck_cars @video @green

ajsadauskas, to tech
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

A few absolute shockers in the list of websites the Washington Post has revealed are used to train Google's generative AI tools. Apparently including the likes of 4Chan, Breitbart, and RT.

From WaPo:

"Meanwhile, we found several media outlets that rank low on NewsGuard’s independent scale for trustworthiness: RT.com No. 65, the Russian state-backed propaganda site; breitbart.com No. 159, a well-known source for far-right news and opinion; and vdare.com No. 993, an anti-immigration site that has been associated with white supremacy.

"The top Christian site, Grace to You (gty.org No. 164), belongs to Grace Community Church, an evangelical megachurch in California. Christianity Today recently reported that the church counseled women to 'continue to submit' to abusive fathers and husbands and to avoid reporting them to authorities."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2023/ai-chatbot-learning/

@technology @politics

kagan, to random
@kagan@wandering.shop avatar

I always wonder if the people who write job postings realize that "fast-paced, dynamic environment" sounds like code for "chaotic, messy workplace with loads of pressure". I feel like some of them think it sounds cool, and so they put it in, even when the workplace actually has things under control. But I see it and I think, "Do I even want to apply there?" — and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@hakirsch @kagan HR people almost always use long, jargonistic words to describe the worst parts of a job in a way that will bamboozle applicants:

"High performing" <- We believe in sweating our labour. You'll be set unreasonable workloads and deadlines. Hope you like working Sundays!

"Managing internal stakeholders" <- Fiona from finance has a cricket bat wrapped in barbed wire hidden under her desk, ready for the next time Tony from operations comes walking by. They both need to sign off on everything you do.

"Care about diversity" <- Our mainly white, mainly male board has been persuaded by HR to make you attend a diversity session once a year. They also know about Creepy Craig, and will gaslight you into resigning if you make any complaints about him.

"Values-driven culture" <- We have our six key values on our website somewhere. No-one knows them, and they'll never be followed in practice.

"Managing stakeholders" <- You'll spend more time in meetings or Teams meetings than actually doing work.

"Managing expectations" <- You're the poor bastard who has to tell the clients that the sales and marketing team lied their arses off, and there's no way the company can deliver half of what was promised. If they leave, you'll be blamed.

"Managing budgets" <- More specifically, the fact there's not enough money to do your job.

"KPI driven" <- We'll set you unreasonably high targets. Anything you do that these numbers don't capture means nothing. The only people meeting those targets are either gaming the system or committing fraud. If you somehow meet those targets, we'll double them next quarter.

"Solutions focussed" or "problem solving" <- The problem you'll be solving is how to do your job with half the staff we really need, and half the budget, without most of the basic tools and software you need to do it.

"Process driven" <- The department heads have set out lengthy sign-off procedures and convoluted processes to protect their turf. Disobey at your peril.

"Detail orientated" <- Your boss' boss is a micromanager. Nonsensical orders about insignificant details will constantly land in your inbox from senior management.

"Willing to go the extra mile" <- You'll be doing tasks beyond your job description, usually during unpaid overtime.

"Focussed on growth" <- The bosses here only care about making money.

FWIW, I think it'd be more effective for them to explain the less awful parts of a job in plain English, like this:

"In this job, you'll mostly be coding new features for our app. The people you'll be working with are friendly, and the staff turnover here is fairly low.

"If you need help with anything, then by all means ask, but otherwise you'll be left alone to figure stuff out without someone constantly looking over your shoulder.

"You'll be expected to come into the office on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Our office was renovated in the past few years, and is still modern, and we recently bought a new coffee machine for the kitchen."

anderseknert, to random
@anderseknert@hachyderm.io avatar

Philanthropy came up today in a discussion, and this is really all there is to say about it

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@anderseknert Fun fact: in many jurisdictions, you don't pay capital gains on the income you own on shares until you sell them.

So here's a purely hypothetical example, written with no specific individual in mind. Any resemblance to any real-world examples is pure coincidence.

So imagine you and your business partner start a little software company (with a little help from your mum and dad), and you retain a 50% stake.

Now let's imagine this personal computer thing really goes mainstream. People who don't have computer science PhDs even start to use them.

Your little startup benefits from a combination of good business contacts at IBM (thanks again mum and dad), a knockoff of CP/M that some hobbyist wrote based on a manual, copying some design decisions that Steve Jobs copied from Xerox, and a few questionable business moves that the US Department of Justice will later raise in court.

A couple of decades and an antitrust suit for anti-competitive behaviour later, your little tech company grows to a market cap of $100 billion.

Congratulations! Your 50% stake is now worth $50 billion!

At this point, you haven't had to pay tax on that $50 billion worth of shares, because it's an unrealised capital gain.

It's a huge amount of wealth, but the problem is it's all tied up in one company.

And given your firm's increasing reputation for poor cybersecurity practices and regulatory interest on at least two continents, you decide it's prudent to diversify your investments.

In this purely hypothetical scenario, you really have two choices.

You can sell off your shares. But if you do, you're likely to face a truly astronomical capital gains tax bill. We're talking tens of billions of dollars here.

Or.

You could form a tax exempt charitable foundation that you control, and donate all your shares to it.

Not only do you get out of that capital gains tax bill, but you still get to control the capital you accumulated through your foundation.

An added bonus, if your accountant is good, is that you might also potentially get a massive tax credit that will basically wipe out any income tax you may need to pay in the future.

The only real catch is that you do need to donate a portion of the wealth in your foundation to charitable causes.

But you get to pick which ones.

And not only will the amounts you have to donate be smaller than your capital gains tax bill would have been, but you also get lauded for being a visionary humanitarian.

Oh, and one more perk.

Should you choose to do so, you just make sure your kids take over running your foundation when you're done, and they'll get to control the wealth you accumulated—without any pesky estate taxes!

(They can honestly say they only inherited a few million from you, while they run your multi-billion-dollar foundation to boot!)

This is a pure hypothetical, of course...

#philanthropy #charity #business #capitalism #notforprofit #nonprofit #economics #tech #technology

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

What should I add to my '90s website?

So I'm currently toying around with NeoCities, and decided to trial it by building your classic mid '90s Geocities/Tripod/Angelfire pastiche website.

Some of the most important elements are already in place.

Tile background? Large font? Heading in bright pink with a shadow? Unusual colour choices? Random cat gifs? Under construction gif? Check! Check! Check!

In the true spirit of the '90s DIY web, some more pages (including the links page) are coming soon.

(I'm thinking of adding a page dedicated to either Britney or a nu-metal band.)

You can see the page so far here: https://that90ssite.neocities.org/

There are a few things that I want to add to make it complete, and I'm looking for suggestions.

The first, is to embed a midi file that plays automatically. Any suggestions on the best way of doing this?

Second, it's just not going to be complete without a guestbook.

Third, any webring suggestions?

Fourth, what's the best way of adding a java chat room in 2024?

Finally, anything else that really needs to be a part of a great '90s website?

UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback! I've added more annoying GIFs, a guestbook, a links page, and a cyber cat hangout.

UPDATE 2: And added even more gifs, an amazing Amiga demo, and a ton of links.

@asklemmy

ajsadauskas, to random
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

When people talk about the need for investment in country railways in Australia, they often have passenger services in mind.

But one of the most important benefits is being able to more efficiently and sustainably moving freight.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2024-05-27/transporting-freight-by-rail-not-road-reducing-emissions/103764752

ajsadauskas, to sydney
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

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

@fuck_cars

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

So who are the corporations and billionaires funding the American far right?

A lot of the discourse around the US far right, on both the left and the right, has presented it as being essentially a working class movement.

White working class Southerners (perhaps with some manipulation from Russia) advocating for their prejudiced world view, the narrative goes.

But what if that's not the situation? What if the rise of the far right has been funded with millions of dollars from extremely wealthy individuals?

Where are the resources coming from?

You probably already know about Rupert Murdoch with Fox News and Elon at Twitter, but there's a few others...

"Two billionaire Texas brothers whose fortunes derive from oil and gas fracking have pumped millions of dollars into rightwing media outfits that have promoted climate-crisis denialism.

...

"Farris and Dan Wilks have each doled out millions of dollars through separate foundations over the last decade to a number of high-profile conservative and religious groups including the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

"The Wilks brothers, for instance, have poured millions of dollars into PragerU and the Daily Wire

...

"In 2015, Farris Wilks gave $4.7m to help launch the Daily Wire and remains an owner of the media company, whose founding editor and co-owner Ben Shapiro has forged ties with Dennis Prager, the PragerU founder and talkshow host. Shapiro and Prager are slated to attend a PragerU “founders’ retreat” in September for donors who give at least $100,000 a year."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/05/texas-fracking-billionaire-brothers-prageru-daily-wire

"[One America News] founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms ... according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/

"[Robert] Mercer is a Christian conservative, gun enthusiast, a climate change denier, religious, small-government proponent and a man who despises the political establishment as incompetent and corrupt. He has donated over $100 million (€84 million) to various right-wing candidates and think-tanks. Most of that money has gone through the Mercer Family Foundation, run by Robert Mercer's daughter Rebekah.

"The Mercers hold a major stake in a company called Cambridge Analytica, which uses digital data to tailor election propaganda to voters.

"The Mercers first met Andrew Breitbart, the founder of what is now Breitbart News Network in 2011 ... The Mercers also invested $10 million in Breitbart and gained a large stake in the nascent company."

https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backers-of-breitbart/a-42100407

(1/2)

@politics

ajsadauskas, to random
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

What cynical bastards!

"In a submission to the government’s review of copyright enforcement published this week, Google argued the government needs to consider whether copyright law has “the necessary flexibilities” to support the development of AI."

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/apr/19/google-calls-for-relaxing-of-australias-copyright-laws-so-ai-can-mine-websites-for-information

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

So the RTA's own modelling showed the Rozelle Interchange would be a traffic disaster—but generating more toll road trips for Transurban was more important.

"The [NSW Roads and Traffic Authority] finalised the first business case for the WestConnex tunnel project in June 2013, with the help of road designers from around the world.

"[Paul Forward, a former CEO of the RTA] said the initial concept did not include the Rozelle Interchange.

...

"In 2014, an expert review group was formed to assess these plans.

"Mr Forward said it was at this point that TfNSW bureaucrats began to question the connectivity provided by the design.

"The RTA's former director of traffic Chris Ford told the inquiry that 15 alternative designs were modelled.

"Mr Ford said the modelling found that another motorway leading to the Anzac Bridge would cause congestion.

"'The issues that we see today were very clearly established in the modelling in 2014,' he said.

"In November 2015, after Mr Forward and Mr Ford were dismissed, TfNSW updated the WestConnex business case to include the tunnel to the Anzac Bridge, despite the congestion concerns raised by the modelling.

"In 2016, Transport for NSW updated the business case a second time ... creating a tunnel linking the Iron Cove Bridge to the Anzac Bridge."

...

"In 2018, the NSW government sold its 51 per cent stake in the Sydney Motorway Corporation, the body responsible for operating WestConnex, to Transurban for $9 billion.

"Mr Forward said the final design would generate a larger number of toll trips than previous options."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/sydney-western-harbour-tunnel-warringah-freeway-traffic-disaster/103801818

@fuck_cars

codepo8, to random
@codepo8@toot.cafe avatar

The BASIC programming language is now 60 years old.
Did you also start with it?

?OUT OF MEMORY ERROR.
READY
_

https://www.zdnet.com/article/basic-turns-60-why-simplicity-was-this-programming-languages-blessing-and-its-curse/

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@codepo8 In honour of this momentous occasion, I think we need to celebrate the most popular program ever written in BASIC:

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!"
20 GOTO 10

Australian prime minister labels Elon Musk ‘an arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law’ (www.theguardian.com)

Australia’s prime minister has labelled X’s owner, Elon Musk, an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he is above the law” as the rift deepens between Australia and the tech platform over the removal of videos of a violent stabbing in a Sydney church....

ajsadauskas,
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

@quicken @tardigrada Really great point.

If Albo really wanted to send a message to Musk, here's how he could do it:

  1. Ask all federal Labor MPs to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.

  2. Order all federal government departments and agencies to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.

  3. Bribe the states to do the same.

"Hi Queensland, guess what? We just found a billion dollars under the couch for a shiny new Olympic stadium. Hi Tasmania, likewise for your new AFL stadium. And look Victoria, here's a few billion for the airport rail link — we'll cover the cost difference to put the airport station underground.

"But only if you direct all your MPs, departments, and agencies to switch to Mastodon."

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