Notices by Chris Adams (acdha@thepit.social)

@ai6yr I’ve been pondering that for awhile. When I left San Diego, they were just starting to require better defensive measures for boundary communities – things like wide ice plant perimeters in addition to structural improvements – but that extra land is expensive.

I’m not sure low-density cities built around car travel can afford to defend sprawling fire perimeters, but anything more than modest density is expensive in earthquake country and a lot of people aren’t used to it and balk.

@ai6yr there’s just this achingly-hard collective action problem here, too, where we really need to reconsider everything we do from the standpoint of reducing emissions but politically even if Californians cut way back it won’t be enough to fix the problem, and the national political situation means it’ll be will likely be misused in attacks similar to what we’ve seen for years over water use reduction.

“I am a journalist. That means it is my job to convey truth to my readers, and to describe the Court that I cover as accurately as I possibly can. And the unfortunate truth is that the Supreme Court of the United States is now a partisan institution. I would do my readers a disservice if I covered up this reality. Or if I used euphemistic language like “conservatives” and “liberals” to describe fundamentally partisan political appointees.”
https://www.vox.com/scotus/371361/supreme-court-call-republican-justices-republicans

“Our findings show that when speed cameras are doing the ticketing, the proportion of tickets issued to Black and white drivers aligns closely with their respective share of roadway users. With human enforcement, in contrast, police officers stop Black drivers at a rate that far outstrips their presence on the road.”
https://theconversation.com/police-stop-more-black-drivers-while-speed-cameras-issue-unbiased-tickets-new-study-from-chicago-238170

It’s #ParkingDay on #KennedySt #DC and I am again reminded that you get fit an entire coffee kiosk, dining table for three, and merch table in the space one person would use for car storage.

“Haitians committed the greatest sin possible in the modern world: We took our freedom back from the white man. Haiti is the birthplace of the only successful slave-led revolt in the ‘New’ or ‘Western’ world.

…

This may sound like 200-year-old history, but what a lot of Americans don’t get is that … Haiti’s economic and political instability are largely the consequence of American policy toward the island.”

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/racist-cat-attacks-against-haitian-immigrants/

Every one of the dudes who whined about the bear comparison deserves a reminder that this isn’t rare and this case is only in the news because this guy killed an Olympic athlete:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vx0kq2xr2o

That activist #SCOTUS is starting to pay off for big businesses #NetworkNeutrality
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/net-neutrality-rules-temporarily-stayed-as-judges-weigh-impact-of-scotus-ruling/

@liztai every time I hear Atlassian advertising their products as what you need to develop great software I resist the urge to shout “physician, heal thyself!” It’s wild how many things just never get better in something so many companies pay so much for.

Weird, I thought the governor’s ban on talking about it already solved #Florida’s climate change problems:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/article288581099.html

@goatsarah I have mine set to use bike directions by default, which has inspired both disbelief and also amazement that travel times are shorter.

@rsynnott @LauraLangdon @mekkaokereke @bluejekyll In general, anytime you find something in the U.S. which seems counterproductive but you can't easily explain why we put up with it, assuming it's due to racism is a safe bet.

American suburbs grew after WWII but especially after key court cases found that white people had to share city infrastructure. Those suburbs were designed prevent walking & transit which was increasingly identified with being poor/brown.

https://kinder.rice.edu/urbanedge/racism-has-shaped-public-transit-and-its-riddled-inequities

@mekkaokereke @rsynnott @SteveClough @LauraLangdon @bluejekyll I note the degree to which it’s still normal to lie about the causes of the civil war. Textbooks will have vague things about states’ rights but if you look at what the secessionists wrote in their declarations or constitutions it’s quite explicit and if quoted (“hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery”) almost certainly would not pass a textbook review committee without heavy protest.

@mekkaokereke @noyes @sepdroid @bluejekyll @Npars01 seconding this. As a middle-aged white guy some of the things people feel safe saying around me is 🤯 – it’s definitely not just wannabe klansmen.

There’s been an entire industry pushing scary story for decades (Fox is not unique in this regard) and with that kind of priming it’s easy to dredge up fear which will take a conscious effort of rationality to dismiss.

@bluejekyll @mekkaokereke racism is going to make climate change so hard to deal with – so many people are massively invested in suburbs which are barely sustainable (if at all) but are convinced that transit or infill density will bring hordes of Them (the more liberal will unconvincingly say homeless). It seems more than coincidental that all of the macho-decorated truck/SUV sales boomed as white people started openly talking about needing to run over “dangerous” protesters to get home.

@cstross @dan @mekkaokereke yeah, I’d only accept that if the vehicle was equipped with an automatic braking system which can’t be disabled and the manufacturer accepts all liability. Until that’s technically possible, we have to assume average SUV driver behavior.