The person on the left is carrying bags, the one in orange is a delivery driver and a couple of people are wearing backpacks. Aside from car brained, Damaris is also blind.
I'd be keen to know your (or others) experience of biking and driving in those conditions because in my experience cars aren't well suited to those temperatures either. I don't have direct experience of biking in that low but I know people who do and they swear by it.
Of course you could throw fuel at it and keep your car running all the time to stop it from freezing. 😷
They are common and yet I still really struggle to quickly understand what any points but the three extremes mean. I'm not sure there's an alternative though.
The reason its not seen as clear cut is when research has been done such a change changes a whole host of other behaviours of people e.g. where they choose to live or even how they travel.
For example, a policy that allows hybrid working or fully remote working might lead a portion of employees to move from a city centre where car ownership is low to a suburb where it is high. So you might replace a 5-day a week short commute by public transport with a 2-day a week long commute by car which would generate more emissions. This is more than just a hypothetical and has been observed in some cases.
It's also worth just noting that whilst digital infrastructure at current levels is usually less carbon intensive than any amount of carbon intensive travel it does have a cost and that the trajectory to more and more intensive technologies is increasing that impact (e.g. blockchain and modern AI techniques)
Lastly, there are efficiencies of scale for heating and cooling that might be achieved in offices which might outweigh the transport costs. This is true where I am partly because offices have been brought up to modern spec by regulation where housing has been let go: being more draughty and less insulated.
Personally, though my take is that whilst these second order effects are super important to look at (since in the short term will be linked to real world emissions) I think they are probably best thought of as ways of showcasing issues in other sectors that need tackling serpately (e.g. the suburbs needing to transition away from carbon intensive travel and land use policies to ensure that we don't lose the necessary density of our urban environments).
The only time I think it would be important as an assessment of a particular policy is when some cost is intrinsic to that change. Say, for example that the only way home working could function for a particular use case was by using some sort of energy intensive block chain system for authenticity and the additional emissions costs outweighed the benefits of avoided travel.
I think we would do a disservice if we only talk about this being a North American phenomenon. It is true that North America sets itself apart for the scale of the chasm but quite a lot of Europe suffers from the same problem albeit on a reduced scale. Car culture having reshaped non-city (and city) urban landscapes combined with an international and local capital class that has horded city property as a form of profiteering is sadly a story you could apply to a large swathe of cities across the planet. I do also think that those wealthy people who do fantasize about "the countryside" sadly are winning near me in the sense of moving out and demanding and lobbying for modern infrastructure.
I think, this does demonstrate a key issue with unpicking impacts on climate: accounting for how humans will adjust their behaviour in reaction to a new policy or technology (see also e.g. Jevon's Paradox). This is absolutely vital research that needs to occur but rarely does. The climate doesn't actually care about why the policy made worse impacts only that there is more CO2 in the atmosphere than there would otherwise be. I do agree with you: our job is to interpret the facts and try and assess the different situations we can have as much as as we can at the system wide level and compare those to where we need to be. That will likely involve sorting out building and housing as well as measures to decrease the total amount of travel as well.
No, for sure a lot of it is happening anyway and unquestioningly (e.g. use of "AI"). I have definitely seen a shift to video conferencing away from phone calls since the pandemic though. Either way I doubt video conferencing would be enough to tip the balance unless everyone was commuting by bike before and using the most extreme technology.
I do find people assume digital
being virtual doesn't have any impact though which I find frustrating, especially now we are in a time where the technology is beginning to be
significant source of emissions relative to alternatives.
Houses require maintenance. How much and how often depends on the design and its surroundings. They also require occupants - in my brief experience at least, they degrade much faster when they’re left cold and empty than when someone lives there, even if that someone doesn’t fix things. Weather, encroaching water, mold, ice,...
I would add just a few points I think are relevant for the discussion. I think some buildings and areas might need to be actively targets for removal on the basis on a spatial plan that builds in "space for nature" by which I mean letting the land return as much as possible to some form of wilderness. We are sadly quite far down the process of completely shaping the land and its not clear that we will be able to get back but I suspect a serious and sustained attempt will be needed.
On the transport of the materials: nothing wrong with your choice of road vehicles salvaged and converted to a different fuel source but it's also worth considering another solarpunk option. Building before the availability of combustion engines often used temporary, lightweight narrow gauge railways were laid for the duration of construction. This was also used during WW1 for logistics. Once finished the track can be moved onto the next area. I suspect the narrow gauge would limit the speed and weight of any uses but for this purpose I suspect that doesn't strongly matter. I can't find a good source on the internet about this that's but I vagually recall a Tom Scott video which mentioned off hand that a monorail which is now a tourist attraction actually began life as a temporary railway for construction freight. Rail also could be used in conjunction with human power (a hand car) for workers to commute.
Not to be too negative but begging for drivers to consider us human is so tiresome.
We already know how to nearly eliminate road death. Unbundling the modes (segregation) and treating cars as guests where that's not possible. After that treat infractions by drivers seriously. If you can't drive safely your license should be removed. No more arguing in court that you need to drive to get to work.
It also, I think, centres the ability of drivers to act independently of the visual design of the infrastructure and whilst, that is possible of course, research suggests driving behaviour is more strongly determined by design than conscious choice.
This is a basic represention and inclusion issue. Unless you are actively seeking out voices of those minorities and addressing their concerns you will have a reinforcing loop where behaviour that puts people off engaging will continue and it will continue to limit people from those minorities being involved (and in the worst case causing active harm to some people who end getting involved). From what I understand the behaviour that has been demonstrated and from who those people leaving it is clear this is active issue within Nix. Having a diverse range of people and perspectives will actually make the outputs (software) and community generally better. It's about recognising the problems in the formal and informal structures you are creating and working to address them.
Additionally, but just to clarify nepotism would be giving positions based on relationships with people in power and not ensuring that your board contains a more representative set of backgrounds and perspectives.
Others have replied pointing out this is a strawman and that merit doesn't make any sense as a metric if you have discrimination. In practice performance ('merit') is complex interaction between an individual's skills and talent and the environment and support they get to thrive. If you have an environment that structurally and openly discriminates against a certain subclass of people and then chose on "merit" you are just further entrenching that discrimination.
This is a project that seemed to be having specific problems on gender that was causing harm and leading to losing talent. In a voluntary role particularly this is a death spiral for the project as a whole. Without goodwill and passion open source projects of any meaningful size just wouldn't survive.
I'm glad you care enough about diversity and evidence to have worked out how to solve these problems without empowering and listening to those minorities. Please do share it.
You say remove discrimination and then use a discriminatory strawman. No one is suggesting a code contribution must be accepted based on a minority status. They are saying that to get a decent functioning community for everyone you need a diverse range of people in positions that set the behaviour of the community. You can't get the CoC and enforcement of it right unless those affected are in positions that influence it. Your enforced anonymity doesn't work because there are other ways of gendering and racialising people (e.g. based on who people talk). Additionally, what you are saying is that minoritised people have to hide who they are so they don't get discriminated against rather than just deal with those doing the discrimination. They are called communities because that's what's they are: people want to be part of something and that involves sharing a part of themselves too. Open source projects live or die on their communities because they mostly don't have the finances to just pay people to do the work. You need people to beleive in the project and not burn out etc.
You lose nothing by making sure people from all backgrounds have the same opportunity and enjoyment being part of it. If you aren't in a minority and don't care about those that are then just say so!
It's not about "satisfying the minorities". It's about ensuring a basic base level of respect and behaviour for people from all backgrounds. The roles you are talking about were specifically to deal with the fact there was an active problem around that minority in that community that needed dealing with. So bringing in that lived experience is absolutely important. Someone can be adequate, sane, have "proper" mindset and judgement and be from a minority that is currently being targeted with lived experience of the problem. Dealing with issues around diversity and inclusion make life easier and better for everyone: it's well evidenced. I benefit daily from work that's been done to make my area easier for people with disabilities despite not having one. Those only came about by people with disabilities challenging and getting in the room where decisions are made.
It's really not that hard! If you don't feel minoritised in your daily life and therefore don't see the importance, fine, but all of us are only one incident or cultural shift to end up being the target so if you aren't motivated by the plight of people you are happy to "other" than do so because one day you might be the other.
I didn’t mean that all bikes sold were UCI compliant as directly as that. The market has focused on pursuing a fairly narrow definition of performance for a bike in part because of the narrow definitions of racing cycling. That’s had knock on effects for the type of components that have been focussed on and developed. The near ubiquity of diamond frames over recumbents which prioritise comfortably for example.
I think we have seen that effect lesson over the last decade or so (e.g. belt drives for example). Ebikes help as they have very different markets, need different properties and have by definition no need to overlap with UCI compliance at all.
Of course its quite hard to unpick the other factors that have led the market to be cater so strongly to leisure market over the utility market but the UCI I think is up there in setting a cultural standard for what a bike is at the cost to alternatives.
Being available in a niche market isn’t the same as being affordable because its a mass product. There’s more use-cases then you outline: they are particularly good for those with certain types of disabilities. You are right that mixing with traffic is another key reason why they arent as popular. There’s a reason you see them most commonly in areas with decent segregated infrastructure. Personally I have a DF for some of the reasons you outline. My point wasn’t all about the frame though that was just an example, its also true of the focus at component level where R&D has not prioritised low-cost low-maintance options because the high-cost high-performance market was more lucrative and that stems from in part from the direction performance cycling took.
One of my goals for my postcard series is to show a rebuilding society that prioritizes reducing waste and externalities, and examining what weird technologies might appeal to them because of those goals/limitations. So I’ve been wanting to do a scene of a caustic soda locomotive ever since I first heard about them....
Lots of discussion on the technology and the pros and cons and likely implications which is super interesting but also think it should be noted how cool taking a concept like this and making some art out of it.
Really nice way of showing other worlds are possible using a technology thread that got closed by the take off of fossil fuels. I think a lot of the future solutions will look like this.
Hi sorry for delay I wanted to read and absorb it before replying and my energy levels have been unpredictable.
There’s some cool and great stuff in here.
I got overwhelmed about airships trying to work out if they were viable. You can (as I’m sure you’ve found) find a lot of aeronautical industry talking about how they fundamentally are unlikely to be able to fill any niche for some of the reasons you mention and some technical details which I really struggle to understand. Obviously industry spokespeople who are heavily invested in jet engines are unlikely to give a balanced picture…
I’m skeptical about wood burning vehicles to be honest. I think its more likely we will see (electric) micro mobility plus public transport. There could still be a niche for it but I suspect we would struggle to dedicate much land for wood production for this purpose given all the other demands we have.
I particularly like your focus on industry which often gets shuffled into a difficult-to-handle category and sort of forgotten. I wonder how much concrete demand we can avoid altogether.
Have you heard of solar.lowtechmagazine.com or its companion notechmagazine.com. They are full of this sort of thinking. Also there’s www.oldandinteresting.com/default.aspx lots of examples that might inspire!
Just had the fleeting thought that maybe there is a substantial cost to review and create enormous traffic safety research systems and the subsequent training required of law enforcement personnel and administrative staff....
I haven’t seen any work estimating this. I have as part of my work spent some time trying to estimate the upstream effects of private cars (and other forms of transport) and it quite quickly gets very hard to find very much data. Even something quite basic like road maintainance gets quite difficult to unpick. So we know broad generalisations like heavier vehicles cause more damage but its quite hard to isolate this connection with individual traffic make ups (e.g. how much change in costs does a 10% change in average vehicle weight cause)
Sadly, we don’t have a culture that particularly wants to know or track the costs. I’m not sure I’d be so confident though that the administration costs would be completely neglible. Some of the costs are quite high level: highway engineering, infrastructure and enforcement which can have high labour and materials costs. Probably what you need is a “natural experiment”. Find a town or city that already happens to have a strange policy (I vagually recall somewhere that has a network of golf cart usage?) and try and ask the relevant authority whether they can provide the back history of spending and compare it to a similar size “normal” road network.
Related bugbare of my mine is the term cycling or walking infrastructure when in reality most if it is actually only necessary because of cars so its really car infrastructure (i.e. to facilitate cars going non human speeds without killing people or damaging buildings).
I agree there may be quite a large range but just to say that can still be useful.
I think its crucial to start denormalising all the costs and externalities of car focussed transport policy. Motornormativity means policy makers and general public internalise costs of progressive infrastructure and are blind to the huge costs of the status quo.
So even being able to pin a wide range on it can be helpful. Not for financial costs but for emissions I was able to show even for the lower end of a wide range of additional hard-to-quantify emissions for scenarios that didn’t drastically reduce private car usage as well as electricify would blow past thier carbon budgets.
Degrowth is a popular concept among solarpunks. This Jacobin article discusses some of its flaws from a Marxist standpoint. In particular, Jacobin reminds us an interpretation of Marxism which blames the Western working class for exploiting the Global South, and lectures the ever-more-exploited Western worker on the need to...
This is frustrating because its a strawman. A degrowth scenario could still have growth in some areas (and I would expect it to if it was part of a realignment on more equitable and sustainable principles) and the whole global experience degrowth.
At the core of this is the physical limits of energy sources (and therefore economic activity which is highly coupled and is likely to remain so). There is room for disagreement here but its down to whether or not one believes that tech will save us by providing a different high energy source in time (or a sufficient combination of energy sources and efficiency and decoupling options). On the timescales of Climate Change I’d say that’s highly unlikely and a period of degrowth will be necessary and the precautionary principle suggest we should work to this in case the tech options don’t work.
Worth mentioning that we need to be aware the degrowth in a degrowth scenario is a global average. Working classes could see growth (in living standards) whilst the whole economy shrunk.
On a lot issues people consistently say the they want the sort of changes (energy) degrowth would provide. We shouldn’t get lost in the current systems deliberate blurring of economic value and living standards.
I do understand the sentiment but I would urge that we need all the voices of discontent towards the current system to be united if we even stand a chance at the change we need on the timelines necessary.
I agree that solidarity and good faith dialogue needs to be two way and it can be difficult at times but we must keep striving to find a way of working with those voices.
Also, should go without saying but you shouldn’t judge a person by their fans (or really a subset of them). Lots in Marx has relevance and resonance to the problems we face. Solarpunk without class analysis will be subverted into techno-captialists vision for the future.
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I suspect this will generate a lot of discussion and opinions on both sides but what I think we lack is a culture of longitudinal data and study. Maybe you are right or maybe dropping new users in the deep end puts them off forever. It would be nice to see some quantative study on the Linux user experience. Does it shift wider tech beliefs or political beleifs?
It’s kind of silly, but I still really dig the idea behind torrenting and peer to peer sharing of data. It’s cool to think about any old computer helping pass along some odd bits & bytes of data, whether a goofy drawing or strange story.
Its a really interesting question. I wonder what the underlying economics and ideologies are at play with its decline. Economies of scale for large server farms? Desire for control of the content/copyright? Structure and shape of the network?
I guess it has some implications for stream versus download approaches to content?
Very interesting, thank you. I guess then the centralised server must have some sort of economy of scale.
In my head, I’m comparing the network to the electricity grid with certain shapes of network making different technologies more or less feasible. I would guess the internet network is probably similar to the electricity grid in most places having fewer hubs and lines of high bandwidth rather than a more evenly distributed network. Maybe the analogy is bad though.
Agree, a headline of “Humans aren’t dominating the climate” does the damage of subtly suggesting climate change/human impacts on environment isn’t a big deal or is overblown. Even if there is legitimate disagreement about whether we can say it has definitely technically begun or not.
If that were the case it could have been communicated as “Human Interference in the biome is at an unprecedented scale but scientists aren’t clear if it dominates natural systems… Yet”
Just a note on the climate science that might help here. We aren’t facing a binary outcome. Our actions now, even small ones, have tangible effects on the outcomes we face in a highly non-linear way.
The FF (and meat) industry absolutely want you to feel that you have no agency and no amount of change will not make a difference so may as well give them your last lot of money as you settle for a worse (if any) future. Its absolutely not inevitable, other futures are possible. Avoiding the very worst is the difference between all out collapse of human and earth systems and a situation where things gets dicey for a while but one we can recover from. I know it can feel bleak and trigger the reaction you are talking about but the best solution to that is to pick up a shovel and start helping. There’s so many ways to do that doing small but easy changes to your personal consumption is a good start. The best are those you do collectively with others as it multiplies your impact and gives you tangible resiliance networks for the changes that are coming.
Who knew recommending Distros could be so controversial 😛?
Seriously though I think this is a great flowchart and you took on board the more reasonable suggestions from the intial post. This flowchart now quickly eliminates some of the distro choice anxiety. Worst case a newbie might end up on a distro like mint and then end up migrating to a different one.
One comment I had is that I actually didn’t know what opinionated DE meant without googling despite being a long time Linux user (maybe thats just my ignorance) and I wonder if a newbie might be confused maybe there’s another way of saying it (flexible versus simple?).
Anyway, I really think early me would have appreciated this when I first started even if that would been ultimately “use Ubuntu” back then.
I’m in a bit of a productivity rut and whilst I suspect the issue is mainly between the keyboard and chair I’m also interested in what (FOSS) tools there are that people find effective....
Ah thanks for the clarification. I never did manage to use Virtual Desktops effectively but it sounds like the problem was me trying to use them within the workflow rather than for different projects. I always found it difficult to switch compared with just having an extra monitor.
I do worry it might be quite resource intensive just sitting loads in the background though.
Particularly excited about Trillium. I’m current trying Joplin but labour and time reflect and organize the noted means I’m rarely using it effectively.
Habitica sounds interesting. I definitely feel I need something like that. My struggle sometimes is in splitting projects into bitesize chunks (some are easier than others) some of my work can be quite open ended thought projects. I get caught in a trap of doing the easier work to plan work (like coding) rather than necessarily the most urgent.
I worry I’m not “hardcore” enough for emacs (I have tried in the past and now mostly use Vim). I will give it a try though as quite a few people recommend here!
It’s on the list to try. I briefly tried i3 but couldn’t get on with it. Though that was a bad time to try change as there was a lot of deadlines and I didn’t really have the time to learn. I have a bit more time so I’m going to try again.
Avoiding going on yt is definitely a plus. I am trying to move more to active choice of music rather than just what the algorithm is pushing. Obviously that requires upfront work but I think it’s worth it.
Cycling isn't legitimate transportation...apparently ( sh.itjust.works )
The person on the left is carrying bags, the one in orange is a delivery driver and a couple of people are wearing backpacks. Aside from car brained, Damaris is also blind.
Transportation mode, World vs USA ( jlai.lu )
Forcing workers back to the office could be terrible for the environment ( www.motherjones.com )
Deconstruction crew disassembling abandoned McMansions so the material can be reused - Postcard from a Solarpunk Future ( pixelfed.social )
Houses require maintenance. How much and how often depends on the design and its surroundings. They also require occupants - in my brief experience at least, they degrade much faster when they’re left cold and empty than when someone lives there, even if that someone doesn’t fix things. Weather, encroaching water, mold, ice,...
Scotland launches campaign "give cycle space", reminding that those riding bike are real persons ( www.youtube.com )
The campaign aims to promote the highway code rule that requires drivers to give at leadt 1.5 m space to cyclists when overtaking....
Much ado about "nothing" - Xe Iaso (==Goodbye NixOS) ( xeiaso.net )
https://discourse.nixos.org/t/much-ado-about-nothing/44236...
We might be closer to changing course on climate change than we realized | Greenhouse gas emissions might have already peaked. Now they need to fall — fast. ( www.vox.com )
Fedora Linux 40 Officially Released with Kernel 6.8, Gnome 46 & KDE 6 ( 9to5linux.com )
Sadly, DNF5 and the new Anaconda installer didn’t make it to the party, in case you were wondering.
“The city of the future uses bikes” Seen in Puebla, Mexico ( lemmy.ml )
todon.eu/@RadicalGraffiti/112306602944091028
No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent ( www.theguardian.com )
Caustic Soda Locomotive at a Drying Station ( slrpnk.net )
One of my goals for my postcard series is to show a rebuilding society that prioritizes reducing waste and externalities, and examining what weird technologies might appeal to them because of those goals/limitations. So I’ve been wanting to do a scene of a caustic soda locomotive ever since I first heard about them....
Has anyone calculated the administrative costs associated with traffic safety research? ( crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov )
Just had the fleeting thought that maybe there is a substantial cost to review and create enormous traffic safety research systems and the subsequent training required of law enforcement personnel and administrative staff....
Kohei Saito’s “Start From Scratch” Degrowth Communism | if taken seriously, it would lead to political disaster for both the socialist left and the environmental movement | Jacobin ( jacobin.com )
Degrowth is a popular concept among solarpunks. This Jacobin article discusses some of its flaws from a Marxist standpoint. In particular, Jacobin reminds us an interpretation of Marxism which blames the Western working class for exploiting the Global South, and lectures the ever-more-exploited Western worker on the need to...
[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]
Besides Linux isos and piracy, what are some common uses of torrenting?
It’s kind of silly, but I still really dig the idea behind torrenting and peer to peer sharing of data. It’s cool to think about any old computer helping pass along some odd bits & bytes of data, whether a goofy drawing or strange story.
Scientific Leaders: "No Anthropocene" Vote Was a Sham ( www.hillheat.com )
Gnome Flashback And Gnome Classic. ( www.youtube.com )
Random UK grandma in my recommenced giving a tour of classic gnome.
One Simple Change to Reduce Your Climate Impact? Swap Out Beef ( www.bloomberg.com )
How to choose your first distro - A guide for beginners (flowchart + text post)
So, you’re new to Linux? Welcome to our community!...
What Linux "Productivity" (ideally FOSS) tools do you use?
I’m in a bit of a productivity rut and whilst I suspect the issue is mainly between the keyboard and chair I’m also interested in what (FOSS) tools there are that people find effective....