planningtoride - Tumblr blog

[planningtoride]

Dog sculptures turned golden from tourists petting them throughout the years

[planningtoride]

I must not mock Gen Alpha. Mocking Gen Alpha is the mind killer. Mocking Gen Alpha is the little-death that brings total generational solidarity obliteration. I will engage with Gen Alpha lovingly. I will permit them to be cringe. And when they grow up I will turn my eye to their accomplishments. Where mocking has gone there will be nothing. Only generational solidarity remains

[planningtoride]

Now a good application for AI would be to imbue Roombas with the ability to listen and respond to shouted commands.

No! Stop! Don't eat that!

...as it's gobbling up cables.

[planningtoride]

I love kids so much. They can’t get to the protests so they’re making their own

😭❤️🖤🤍💚🇵🇸

[planningtoride]

[planningtoride]

[planningtoride]

2020.06.20 | corona walk

[planningtoride]

[planningtoride]

The work of Ed Fairburn

[planningtoride]

burning to death because i can’t remember the secret maneuver that’s different from every other car on earth or because i never read the manual or because it’s a rental or because it’s a rideshare or because i’m in the back seat and the driver is incapacitated (due to the fire currently burning us to death) or i’m a child

[planningtoride]

What the hell.

[planningtoride]

Bus drivers who see you running and open their hole are better public servants than any cop.

[planningtoride]

Honestly, I’m surprised Tumblr hasn’t mentioned Tesla’s recent melting chargers debacle. A quick rundown: a connector known as CCS is the standard universal electric vehicle charging connector in all of North America (CCS1) and Europe (CCS2), meanwhile, Tesla has been dragging its feet with its own proprietary standard (in NA) which they just recently opened up and renamed NACS. The problem? (aside from trying to convince everyone that they’re the new universal standard). Here are the current DC fast charging standards in North America (CHAdeMO is on its way out, but still around because of Nissan Leafs)

Notice how much larger CCS1 is compared to Tesla’s port? Tesla owners often use this to downplay CCS, but guess what? Bigger port = bigger pins, which = more power output. So, as more and more non-Tesla electric vehicles begin to sell, in their haste to say “hey, everybody, look! Our standard is still relevant!” Tesla opened their standard up with a published 1 Megawatt (MW) of maximum output. Problem is… we have no reason to believe that’s true. In Tesla’s own documentation they maxed out at 900 Kilowatts (kW). And running at that maximum for long durations of time heats the plastic connector and port up to 105°C (221°F). Aka, right on the cusp where shit starts to melt. So, for example, if something fails or if it’s extremely hot outside and the coolant lines can’t keep up, well, your Tesla cable might just melt.

So, in their haste to cover their ass and try protecting the only good thing about their cars, Tesla has published an electrical standard that contradicts decades of electrical standardization and safety regulations.

[planningtoride]

i want a shirt that has a QR code on it for some kind of horrible malware so that if anyone ever tries to film me in public their phone will automatically scan the code and be reduced to a functionless brick

[planningtoride]

This is Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso and at least in my eyes, the patron saint of "afro solar punk". He builds using local, sustainable materials, and uses the education he received in Germany to improve on traditional methods already known. His first project was a school in his home village, built to enable other children to receive an education like he once was. The school has a self-cooling mechanism that does not require AC and was built cost effectively together with the community. This year he won the Pritzker Prize. You know what, just watch his TED Talk, I highly recommend it.

[planningtoride]

I think that, in order to avoid catastrophic global warming, we need to give up one of the most cherished myths of modern society–the idea that future civilization should be faster, more mechanized, harness greater amounts of power, have greater amounts of production, etc.

I don’t even mean collapse (although that would be a worst-case scenario); I mean that there needs to be a sort of managed decline of capitalist modernity; we have to retire much of industrial civilization whilst (hopefully) preserving its advantages.

The consequence of this is that we will have to do without a lot of the things that we (particularly in the west) take for granted. Right now, for example, we can buy as many clothes as we want; in the future, perhaps, most people will own two or three outfits that are designed for durability. Our cities should be redesigned to be livable without the need to own a car, and we must demand machines that are built to last for years or decades; planned obsolescence must be banned. Right now, we travel by plane; in the future, perhaps we will revert to using trains or boats. Perhaps we will no longer be able to import perishable cargoes from distant parts of the world; we must learn to do without.

Right now, we remain married to a vision of the future that originated in the 19th century, before we understood just how sharp the limitations that nature imposes upon civilization actually are. As such, the visions of a slower, less mechanized, and less materially wealthy world can be tarred as dystopian; but they should not be. Perhaps it should best be regarded as a sort of strategic withdrawal from the “fast” future we were all sold on–until we know how to do it without imperilling our own existence.

The fact of the matter is that civilization is going to decline; that decline can either be managed to catastrophic. I would much rather opt for the former.