Favorites January 25th 2023

Shoreline Park, Mountain View, January 2023

kunle.app @ay_o

hear me out: underwater high speed rail btw SFO & OAK - 2 trains each way (BART to BART or after TSA checkin) - 5 mins from SFO to OAK - treat OAK/SFO as the same airport - fund w/ $5 tkt surcharge on 18m flyers/year = $90m/y (1 mile of high speed rail = $200m, pay it off in 3y)

This is a fun idea although I doubt the cost estimate. I wonder if there's any way to measure ahead of time how much positive impact there is from turning two airports into one. Is it more or less than the benefit from simply having another transit option across the bay. Also, did you know that most new airport transit is driverless, while new trains are still manned...

Hayden Clarkin @the_transit_guy

A global cycling heat map really highlights that the Netherlands is that bitch.

Belgum too I guess? Check out how the Dutch do bike parking.

eigenrobot @eigenrobot

lmao you cant fool me ive spoken with janitors

eliza @elizalian

if every woman agrees to potty train their son to sit while peeing, we can completely eradicate pee covered public toilets within 2 generations. let that sink in.

I spent a few minutes researching this, and best I can tell, the rumors are backed up by at least a few studies: women's restrooms really are worse.

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

U.S. equilibrium: Rich people think transit is for poors, and don't use it Lefties think transit is for poors, and so demand that it be fully tax-funded Tax funding doesn't happen Lefties insist on allowing fare jumping as a substitute --> Transit doesn't get funded

David Roberts @drvolts

My feed is full of generically left people saying "transit should be free!" and transit-specific people saying "no it really shouldn't!" What's the best thing to read on this?

A lot of discussion around fare evasion today. Darell Owens argues we should decriminalize fare evasion, but that making transit free would make problems worse. Tim Lee argues we definitely should still enforce fares, because as long as there are fares, evasion is a very visible form of rule breaking that lowers societal trust, and compares it to cheating on income taxes. Another good point is that cops defacing their own license plates to steal tolls is even more corrosive to social trust.

Randall Munroe @xkcd

Planet Killer Comet Margarita xkcd.com/2729

You just know the little bits of commet are going to completely mess up the turbines.

Micah 🪩 @micah_erfan

Fun fact: the divorce rate is the lowest it’s been in 40 years

Seems like good news? Surprising to me at least. Note, this is the percentage of married women who get divorced each year, not affected by the rate of marriage.

Threads

• Thread about Joseph Rotblat, the only person to leave the Manhattan project once it became clear Germany would win WWII.

• Thread by David Roberts about transit advocates being annoyed at EV advocates, and how this pattern happens in other areas as well. TL;DR: people advocating for similar things will actually engage with your argument, leading to more arguing, but the real problem is all the other people, who don't care about any of it.

• Short thread by Eric Topol about updated data on the Bivalent Booster. TL;DR: it's quite good, maybe better than expected, including against XBB.