I understand the pushback against it being “not unix” philosophically, since it’s a large system instead of many small systems working together.

At the same time systemd is still kind of just a collection of config/script files. And as annoying as it is, the perennial “well just contribute to / code for the thing you like instead” mantra applies. init.d is falling out of favor with maintainers because they find it comparatively harder to maintain and update.

I have the vague feeling that a lot of the people that would care the most have moved to NixOS or esoteric stuff like it.

The bad ones I’ve been on are:

• between old small town stations, so now it’s suburb to suburb and you can’t access anything in between so they’re useless for commuting. If the rail-to-trail revamp continued on it would go on through the former rail hub of the local large town, but that part hasn’t been built out yet, and may never be because at some point they’ll have to deal with crossing (hopefully over / under) highways and stroads that have been built up since.

I have a proper bike trail in my home city that goes along a river and it’s amazing that it winds along for dozens of miles with stuff to look at and breezes. You’re not confined to a corridor with overgrowth on both sides causing stifling heat that’s trying to imitate a highway. It’s a pleasant commute if you happen to live along it and a relaxing recreational ride if you’re not.

• long gradual grade. Coast one way, which is nice, Sisyphean bike ride with no rest for miles the other way.

I might’ve come off harsh, I do generally like rails-to-trails. They’re better than nothing, and you’re right that having an ebike takes the arduousness out of it, but they’re very much a hand-me-down version of proper infrastructure. I would rather have the passenger light rail service.

In the 1900s the small MS town I’m thinking of had a few hundred people and a rail station. You could pay the inflation adjusted ~$15 for all the transfers to go back and forth to the coast ~100 miles away. We didn’t discard passenger rail in the US because it wasn’t useful, but because it was hard to extract profit out of the public service.

Lots of non-stop wars in Europe after WWII?

The US was built on railroads, we just ripped up and paved over most of our passenger service in favor of cars. A lot of highways going through cities use the land the old main rail line used. Basically every city over a few 10s of thousands of people had some kind of light rail service. And then we decided that every public service had to also be independently profitable. So instead of pooling transportation costs across a population we each have to buy and operate personal vehicles for everything, not just leisure or convenience.

They also feel like something designed by someone who hasn’t ridden a bike since they were 16.

I get it. “Might was well” use land where the right-of-way is already clear, etc. But a miles of straightaways followed by gentle curves designed for a train don’t make for a very engaging bike ride. I’m sure this could exist, but I haven’t been on any that would actually be useful as bicycle infrastructure. They mostly go from nowhere to nowhere and there are few options to get on or off the ‘trail’.

The podcast Blank Check goes into it while talking about the movies, but that’s admittedly “long form”. Wikipedia has a good summary.

In short, George Miller was an Australian ER doc horrified by what cars can do to people. So he got some funds together with some other doctor buddies and made Mad Max. He and Byron Kennedy wrote and filmed it because they couldn’t afford to have someone else do it. Mel Gibson was a local guy in film school. Most of the cast doubled as crew and basically made their costumes from scratch themselves. It became a bit of an indie darling in the US and Miller went back to Australia with more money and more expertise and made Road Warrior. More or less the same happened with Thunderdome. His work partner died, he made the Happy Feet and Babe movies, and he retained the entirety of the rights to Mad Max so he decided to make Fury Road and Furiosa a few decades later.

Bus lanes have higher throughput of commuters than car lanes.

If a mayor created a private lane only they could use between their house and work, that would be a crazy abuse of power. Or say, put in stop signs / lights right at their subdivision so traffic was more convenient for them in particular.

This mayor sped up the commute for thousands of people at a minimal impact to a significantly smaller number.

Yes, IIRC the “Unforgivable Curses” either carry a death penalty or wizard prison forever or something. But by the third or forth book every bad guy is a Wizard Nazi who doesn’t care about those consequences and the good guys are all fighting Wizard Nazis and are at least semi-justified in trying to kill them right back.

It basically devolves instantly into gun-fights, except instead of guns it’s a specific spell.

Which is why it’s bad writing.

“Unblockable killing spell” is the kind of thing that pops up on a middle school playground because every kid wants to have the trump card in make-believe and the last kid just cast Meteor.

Eragon is a contemporary-ish book and has killing magic that can kill normies by the dozens/hundreds, but other magic users have to do more than play rock-paper-nuclear-option.

You remember which hand you Lost your thumb(s? Igor?) on.

I absolutely hate that my subscription page is basically just recommendations and shorts at the top that I have to scroll past.

Small airfields?

IDK maybe they can be repurposed into something. Industrial sized microwave?

One of the advantages of water is even if your target area is measured in square miles it’s all roughly at sea level. If you miss your target area on land you have to account for that and trees and wildlife and hopefully not buildings.

Like the above said, you can do either, it’s kind of a wash. But a water based landing does simplify some things.

Hey it’s my desktop! Love that case. Horizontal motherboards make more sense with how big graphics cards have gotten.

I bought a 16U rack this year to organize stuff a bit. Zigbee dongle is still installed exactly like this. I’m not convinced there’s a better solution.

In 40k they’re kinda like mushrooms.

But a more eccentric one, no collision is going to waive away orbital mechanics.

Birthday hike, Batou just turned 4.

Cycle count is important for the lifetime estimate on the battery, how long before you have to spend a large portion of the cost of the car on replacing / refurbishing a key component.

“Fill up” time is the most obvious and common ‘maintenance’ anyone will ever do on their vehicle. One of the biggest objections large swaths of the population have about EVs is/was that could take an hour or more for each stop on a long road trip or if you can’t charge at home. (apartment / street parking / etc.) They usually do 10-70%r 80 or whatever because the speed trails off exponentially closer to 100%. (logarithmically? whichever.)

This is city center. The park is nice. It was the 1974 world’s fair grounds, it’s a bunch of bridges over waterfalls and there’s been a decent amount of investment / upkeep the last few years.

The business owners in the 70s all opposed it’s construction because they didn’t think it would be good for downtown. Since then they’ve really doubled down on surface lots to charge people going to the park / mall / downtown businesses.

It’s the Walmart model. A lot of the frustration is that it’s a systemic problem where individuals are incentivized against their best interests and the best interests of their communities.

Because shareholders. The Line, must go up.

Thankfully (/s) Amazon has enough money that it’s cheaper to bribe politicians than provide a better product. So systemic solutions are that much more difficult.