Favorites November 27th 2022

San Jose, May 2022

urbanmountain @urbanmountainv

"the degree of behavioural change and modal shift away from motorised travel tends to be proportional to the level of disruption to the existing car traffic network." (make driving annoying and people will walk or take transit) sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

This paper uses the term "traffic evaporation" as the opposite of "induced demand" which I had not heard before. But, TL;DR: modifying streets to have fewer lanes for cars didn't increase congestion.

You don’t actually know what I’m saying @AliceFromQueens

Changes in real wealth under Biden. 1. Varies a lot more by wealth-level than most of you probably think. 2. Bottom 50% are wealthier now than in Dec 2020 (yes: this partly reflects stock/bond dive > real estate chill; inequality's still insane) source: realtimeinequality.org

Wow, inequality has fallen in the US a lot, although I suppose the method by which it's happening is... not great.

Ajit Pai @AjitPai

On Nov. 9, Apple released iOS 16.1.1. One change applied only to iPhones sold in China: AirDrop's "Everyone" setting lasts only for 10 minutes, limiting direct connections and hobbling a tool that "has been an effective communication tool for protestors." finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-hob…

Yikes, not great. Also, I would no have expected Ajit Pai to be paying attention to this kind of thing, maybe I should have?

Threads

• Thread of analysis of the protests in China in a historical context followed by consideration of what is likely to happen next. TL;DR: most likely out come by far is that the protests fizzle out and nothing comes of them. This thread also reflects a sentiment I've seen elsewhere, that zero-covid dissatisfaction provides a unifying coordination mechanism that would otherwis be lacking.