pedz

joined 2 years ago
[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 7 points 8 hours ago

So you decide not to answer because it's probably someone trying to sell you something. But then a few seconds later you hear some keys jiggling, the door unlocks and opens with the concierge saying it's inspection day for the insurance.

Based on a true story. In fact I work nights and sleep during the day, and this happened multiple times. Inspection for the insurances. Inspection for bugs and rodents. Inspection of the fire system. They are supposed to warn 24h in advance but sometimes I apparently dont get their emails and it's a complete surprise.

I even installed a second lock to at least open the door myself instead of having people entering my apartment while I'm stoned on the couch.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 day ago

This somehow makes me think of Animal Farm.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 day ago

Suddenly this made me think of Animal Farm.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Indeed, electric cars may produce less brake dust particles than an ICE. However they are also heavier than ICE and the tires will shed more particles over time.

And electric cars are also somewhat less noisy but they cannot beat the laws of physics. You can still hear an electric car coming because of the noise tires make on the roads over certain speeds. The higher the speed, the noisier it is. Even if all the cars on a multi lane highway were all electric, it would still be noisy and difficult to have a conversation nearby. A six lane highway filled with electric cars will still need a sound wall.

There are also regulations to have electric cars make artificial noise to be "safe" at low speed, and some sound like they are constantly honking at low volume.

Like, yes, those two points are marginally better with electric cars, but it's not much. And it doesn't cancel all the other negative issues with cars.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

And so all the kids are safe from being crushed by SUVs. No need for bike lanes. No need for traffic reduction. No need to ticket drivers not yielding to pedestrians or passing cyclists dangerously. No need to remove parking. No need to reduce the size or speed of cars. And turning right on red is a god given right.

Helmets are all that is needed to be safe in the streets! That and obeying the law.

I guess I get the intent. It's better than nothing. But it's also pretty depressing when you see beyond the attempt at fake security.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Benzin, gib mir Benziiiiin!

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 24 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Do they have a model with AI?

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

Because they still have all the disadvantages of cars and they don't really bring anything of value. A car is dangerous for the people around not in a car, inefficient at transporting people, takes valuable space, and pollutes the air with tire and brake dust particles. They are also noisy. Electric cars won't change that.

In the case of Tesla, FSD is just a gadget for car owners that somehow don't want to drive cars.

In the case of Waymo, they are not a solution to relieve transit in busy cities. There's even more cars now, but without a driver and sometimes they get stuck and still need to call for help.

If you want me to get mildly excited for an autonomous vehicle, show me a train or a metro. Otherwise, if people want to get to places without driving, we already have solutions for that, but apparently it's better to ask everyone to buy a private autonomous vehicle that requires a driving license and won't work in the country side, rather than speak of the horrors of the T word.

EDIT: I know which community I'm in and didn't want to get into this but I was asked. Self driving cars are also wasting energy because of the computing power needed to process all the stuff that a human brain was already processing "for free". Now, instead of having billions of cars that require significantly more energy than transit to move around one or maybe two humans, we will have billions of cars that requires even more energy to plot courses and drive the individual cars around.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I guess I can understand if you live in a place without public transit, but if this is the case, it's also remote enough so that "self driving cars" may not get there for some time. Waymo is using mapping tech and is not going out of a city any time soon.

And if your self driving vehicle is restricted to a single city or area, it becomes a matter of that city asking everyone to buy or use a self driving car because they can't finance an adequate and efficient public transit system.

It's just a gadget.

EDIT: I don't have car and already don't drive anywhere. Just like millions of other people in the world. But apparently, if you don't want to drive, you need a car that drives for you. There is simply no other solution.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (9 children)

As much as I don't like self-driving cars, I must admit that Waymo indeed seems better.

However it would be interesting to see how this self-driving tech could be implemented in personal vehicles.

Tesla's "full self driving" is not a possibility for people without a driving license. AFAIK you already need to drive in order to have "full self driving", while Waymo can just act as a regular taxi but without a full time driver. And they don't just rely on cameras.

As someone without a driver's license the difference between both is enormous, but for a car company like Ford looking for real self driving, you also want something proved to be actually working without the need to be actively monitored by a human.

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (5 children)

This reminds me of the death penalty. Killing someone because that person killed is still killing someone.

However society choses to do it, it's still killing someone. Because killing is bad so if you kill, someone will kill you. Oh no, it's not a murder. It's a state employee that works in the correction department. Killers are not okay. The executioner is only applying the lethal will of society towards killers by unaliving them. It's not murder, it's justice!

[–] pedz@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago (6 children)

Do you not have ears?

I live in a high rise in a metropolis and wish they would be banned. The maintenance crew of the university the other side of the street is using those things in the spring and fall. Exactly the time of the year when I want to open my windows, they, with their ear protection are blasting their engines on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off, while I'm trying to watch a video or listen to some music. Whiiiiiiiiiiir, pap pap pap pap pap pap whiiiiiiiiiir whiiiiir whiiiiiiir whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir pap pap pap pap pap whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir.

There's a hundred windows in front of them, and another high rise just the other side of the street. How many people are just as annoyed as I am because those lazy fuckers can't be bothered to use a rake?

Worse, the maintenance of my own high rise joins them a few times a month to blow the gravel off the fucking concrete around the building. So again, windows open, all you can hear for an hour is those fucking blowers on and off and on and off and on and off.

The other day I was eating on a terrasse and the handymen were replacing pieces of wood. Well, instead of sweeping the wood chips, he used a fucking blower among the people eating, to "clean up".

Those things can go to hell for all I care.

 

Spring has sprung, the cycling networks in Québec, the Route Verte and other regional or municipal paths, are now mostly open.

So it's again possible to explore or use the network to go camping, as part of touring, or just to get from point A to B.

And you should know that if you are touring or arriving on a bike, there is a program called "Bienvenue Cyclistes" where all national parks (provincial parks here) will offer you a campground for less than $10. Keep in mind you also have to pay entry fees that are around $10 too. About the same for some wood. This is also possible in some other establishments. Consult the map linked above.

You should also know that you can use public transit around Montréal to bring your bike with you. It's included in the ticket. So you can take the metro, but more importantly, the REM, and the commuter trains. There are also some exo buses with bike racks. So you can go to St-Jérôme for Le P'tit Train du Nord in a commuter train with your bike for a few dollars. From that trail you can also reach another park, Parc national du Mont Tremblant

Today I'm going to see my family from Montréal to the Drummondville region. In the other direction. The ~140 km to get there is entirely bike trails/paths. I cut the itinerary in two stages and stop in a small national park called the Parc national de la Yamaska for a night of camping.

The first part to get there is using a network of local bike trails. The first from Longueuil to Chambly is called La montée du Chemin de Chambly. Then from the other side of the Richelieu river there is a trail called La route des Champs to Granby. And from Granby to the park it's local trails. They have very nice cycling infra in that region.

Here are some pictures of La route des Champs and the local trail before the park.

Then tomorrow, I will use another trail connecting to the park called La Campagnarde. This one goes to Drummondville, entirely on small gravel, and sometimes very remote and quiet.

I do this multiple times a year so I thought I would share some tricks and adventures. And I've been encouraged to by /u/Evkob.

Have fun cycling everyone!

 

I've been doing some rail trails on the "green roads" (routes vertes) to visit my parents for the last three weekends and I stopped at the park for overnights as I didn't want to cycle the full 140 km in one shot and then back. It's getting greener!

The Yamaska National Park is a small park located around a reservoir in southern Québec. From there it's possible to access multiple rail trails and "linear parks" going in all directions.

More pictures in the comments.

 

The last two upgrades have broken my audio setup.

First the options for Network Server and Network Access in paprefs were greyed out and my sinks disappeared after upgrading to bookworm. I just had to create a link to an existing file and it was working again but, it's weird that it was needed in the first place. Pretty sure it has something to do with the change from pulseaudio to pipewire but I'm not very up to date on that subject and I just want to have my current setup to continue working.

Then yesterday I just launch a simple apt-get upgrade and after rebooting my sinks disappeared again. The network options in paprefs were still available, but changing them did nothing. I had to create the file ~/.config/pipewire/pipewire-pulse.conf.d/10-gsettings.conf and stuff it with "pulse.cmd = [ { cmd = "load-module" args = "module-gsettings" flags = [ "nofail" ] } ]" in order to have my sinks back.

I know it's not only a Debian thing, as I can see this happening to people on Arch forums, but as Debian is supposed to be the "stable" one, I find it amusing that a simple upgrade can break your sound.

 

Using Boost for Lemmy, I got an obvious political ad from the right asking to sign a petition to scrap the gun "ban" in Canada (it's a registry not a ban).

Now I understand this is an ad but I don't appreciate having propaganda from the right injected into my browsing on lemmy. Have better ads, or let us report them.

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