zerakith

@zerakith@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Coventry's light rail technology a 'game-changer'⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  At the very best there are design choices here that are limiting its overall performance in order to make it cheaper and less invasive to install. Similar to a BRT.

  It is possible that there is a use case for lower density areas where the lower costs could help make or break a business case.

  To my mind though a city or large town is not the use case we know the answer for that and its regular light rail done consistently and coherently across the country to achieve economies of scale (as they have done in France). Sadly, the UK can’t get past its ideology that money spent on public transport infrastructure is a waste whereas it is an investment in functioning economies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If the UK government proposed to increase tax by 1% and make trains free would you be in favour?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am for free public transport from taxation there are some important caveats that would need to be worked out though:

  • We currently have low capacity relative to latent deamnd capacity (mostly at peak times) and at the moment that is managed through fares. We would need a system that manages demand in another way.

  • Our transport system is in large need of upfront investment to stop the current managed decline so you’d want a way of making sure that making it free doesn’t mean the government is now more limited

  Its also worth noting that its unlikely to be a direct swap in of current revenues with additionally required taxes as there are projects that are very costly that could be redirected and any successful mode shift away from cars would also carry a net positive economic effect on the whole treasury.

  Potentially in the short term what could help is a ‘sunk-cost’ ticket similar to the bahnpass where you still pay but do so yearly and get access to any trip anywhere. It makes it more competitive with cars which have massive sunk cost effects which make every trip seem cheaper.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Backup for important files/pictures?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Personally, I’m planning additional physical storage of photos off site. Not yet configured but planning for a subset of photos deemed too important to lose to be automatically printed and stored on physical media (DVDs).

  In general I’m hoping it to promote a more careful approach to what media really is important to keep.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Captcha⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Strange - I can’t reproduce that. It’s the wiki page for Simo Häyhä.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Captcha⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What if you used a flamethrower as a snowblower?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  xkcd.com/1053/ :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK ‘one of world’s least work-oriented countries’ claims BrewDog founder - as he slams obsession with 'work-life balance'⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If he retains an ownership stake doesn’t that mean he still takes home the profit of Brewdog so boycotting would still be effective/desirable?