plzignr

[plzignr]

This also makes sense as to why Oak hired Todd Snapp instead of just giving him a pokemon to 'go learn about Pokémon' and gave him access to a state of the art all terrain vehicle. Todd Snapp gets a job to do the actual research part of Pokémon research. Then professor mirror is continuing that in New Pokémon snap.

Ok not to be really insufferable but I think the thing that’s often lost when people talk about the Pokédex is that it’s assumed it’s genuinely a tool for adults. Like the in game professors describe it as a “high tech encyclopaedia” and that’s taken at face value.

But in Japanese the word used is “図鑑” - “zukan”. This means “picture encyclopaedia”. But what the implication of this is is actually mostly stuff like this:

Like the type of thing you read in primary school! Those big illustrated books that give kids introduction to just simple concepts of biology, or zoology. Full of fun facts that may not be 100% accurate but sure are cool! Not necessarily a robust resource for adults.

I’m not saying “zukan” is never used to refer to something a bit more high level. A little search around and I did find zukans that seemed targeted at older people, but honestly I noticed some of these had negative reviews like “there’s no furigana in this! This is too hard for my kid!”. So that to me suggests the connotation is very much like. Kids encyclopaedia.

So my point is when the Pokédex says bonkers stuff like:

It’s more akin to children’s encyclopaedia publishing a “fun fact” that’s just like…could be theoretically true but only if you simplify a bunch of stuff.

Anyway my point is

a) the Pokédex is a resource specifically for grade-school age children

b) Professor Oak is one of those professors that at some point diverted most of his time into children’s science communication.

[plzignr]

Turns out the horsemen of the Apocalypse now prefer to go by Shareholder Profit, Private Equity, Corporate Personhood, and Workforce Optimization.

[plzignr]

I just want you to know, if you make a composite image using shapes and any image to show a thing in MS PowerPoint, or Excel, or Word, or any other MS product, & you *don't* group them. I hate you personally and specifically.

[plzignr]

I'm not saying I don't want to work-

I *am* saying it would be nice if the continuance of my existence wasn't predicated on being used solely for the sake of increasing shareholder value.

[plzignr]

Okay, the names are clever, and the bowls are more clever, but I have one very sad realization about the oxidized puppy.

Clearly they are not getting enough pets!

To oxidize that thoroughly it would have to have a full coating of oxidation, that would in all likelihood NOT be possible if the dog was receiving appropriate levels of affection, because the rubbing of copper by human hands prevents the oxidation from fully settling in.

And now I have taken a cute post, and made it horribly sad, because my brain Think=Sad.

All this to say: LEMME PET THAT DOG. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND IT NEEDS IT.

Hey @making-friendos, if you happen to see this, can you add a scene where the oxidized copper retriever is pet and is shined up a bit? Would be cute and make me specifically less sad for copper retriever

A copper retriever with her unoxidised puppies

[plzignr]

sometimes I think to myself while reading about historical events, or especially historical sanitation, man... I wonder what mundane arbitrary thing humans of the future will look back on and think "oh my, that's so gross I think I'm going to hurl".

I imagine though, that the same way I feel about how waste water and drinking water used to not be separated, is *very* similar how future humans will look at how we live with our current air filtration.

[plzignr]

doggy has got the *professional* zoomies.

nimble, a border collie-papillon mix, wins the 12” class in the 2024 masters agility championship. the first time a mixed breed has won at westminster ever.

[plzignr]

I like the hallucinations humans hallucinate together.

one of my favorite weird mysteries of life is how humans will have a collective experience together, of something that straight up does not exist. Not just something like the Mandela effect or a seemingly small coincidence like most cultures having dragons. When multiple people across time, culture, and region all have seemingly same experience.

Probably the most well known example of this is 'The Hatman' a figure often 'seen' by those suffering from sleep paralysis, but *my* favorite example of this is known as 'the black dog of death' or simply 'the black dog' often called the 'barghest' as well. Which translates to something like mountain ghost.

The black dog is said to appear when humans fail to get enough sleep, and is an omen of imminent death.

I like to think that's if this *were true* the black dog is more of a warning then anything else, and the idea that the dog causes death itself is misattributed.

But anyways- I love it when humans, as a species, have this weird connected experience to something that doesn't exist

Despite occasionally having had periods in my life where I have not slept for extended periods of time (76 hour stint I believe was my longest) I have never seen the black dog of death, but I kinda wish I had. Not only would it bring me into this weird experience of shared humanity but:

look at this cutie patootie! It deserves head pats, and I want to give them!!!

[plzignr]

My one rule for punk isn you must be rebelling agaisnt something. This is why I can't currently get behind a lot of the solarpunk stuff yet, because it's not quite grasped the - we will **fight** you on this - mentality I think punk has to have.

Pokepunk however I could see- but I think that would be the Teams (Rocket, Aqua, Magma, Platinum etc.) Which pokemon actively has you stop to keep things status qou.

Wait.. I have just realized- per my definition the Lorax movie is solar punk...

....

.............

looks down at clothes

looks over at general worldview

...

is poképunk a thing? cuz I think I might be.

[plzignr]

My biggest pet peeve about sci-fi fleet battles

one of my biggest gripes in the sci-fi genre as a person who much prefers hard sci-fi than soft sci-fi is that often times they have these large scale fleet battles. Large scale ship battles in which other large ships shoot each other within visual range. Think about all those scenes from Star Wars.

Stuff like this is very fun to watch, but it has the problem often referred to as 'planes in space'. A lot of these scenes are based on scenes about WWII pilots and WWI dogfights.

You can see the parralels in the GIF above and below:

But the reason all these dogfight moves work for planes is due to physics, using the properties of gravity, air resistance, and lift to outmanuever your opponent to line up a shot while making sure your opponent can't line one up on you.

The problem with that is, in orbit, literally none of that is applicable because SPAAAAACE.

In space there is no air resistance, there is no, lift, and gravity plays a much smaller roll in the maneuverability of a craft than inertia, momentum & fuel do. So all of those manuevers don't make any sense to pull off, because a tailed vessel can just use it momentum to move in the same direction it and just turn around to fire on the one following it, and that would be if there was even an extremely unlikely scenario where two space vessels were actually within visual range.

In space there wouldn't ever be a need for vessels to be in visual range. Why? Essentially because space is BIG and EMPTY and because space is BIG and EMPTY, it means that radiation travels *exceedingly* well, at least compared to in most other mediums.

And if radiation travels *exceedingly well* then you can target your opponent from literally *astronomically* large distances.

It wouldn't make sense to have any warships or fighters like there is for warfare on a planet. Every bit of mass you add means more fuel for the vessel, which would mean less maneuverability & less actual travel distance if they operate under the same laws of physics as we do in our reality. (I give Star Wars a slight pass for the Empire because they are within the lore primarily designed for space to planet warfare & for the empire to transport an occupational ground force on various planets, the rebels have no excuse though).

Instead, you could have a variety of small rockets, that could travel farther and faster, catch up to your opponent and take them out without ever placing your own vessel at risk. This is a consequence of inertia. Very basically, with the less mass you have in the same geometric configuration, the easier it is for that thing to change directions.

If you do this the vessel you are targeting has two choices, get rid of all those rockets before they hit their own vessel, or get out of the way. As we established previously, smaller rocket, less mass, less mass more maneuverability, so getting out of the way of the rocket without electronically disabling a guidance system or something to that effect is essentially impossible anyway. The other option (a way to get rid of all the rockets before they hit the craft) is to do something like this:

By having the rockets detonate a safe distance away the vessel can be kept safe. Now this method of protection can be overwhelmed with sheer numbers if you fire more rockets than the craft can disable, you can guarantee a hit.

This however ignores once again that space is BIG and EMPTY.

again, radiation travels *very well* in space, because there's basically nothing to get in the way from where it was generated to where the target is. Meaning that the more efficient thing to do is use LASERS!

And if you are using lasers there isn't any time to actually dodge.

So since L.a.s.e.r beams travel faster than any rocket, or other propelled matter, because you know, light application by stimulated emitted radiation travels at, well the speed of light, with no cost other than the energy needed why would you use anything else?

Now granted your enemy will probably expect this and adjust thier craft design accordingly adding retroreflective surfaces but this would essentially be a band-aid. Again, space is BIG, and EMPTY. And while this means that radiation travels exceedingly well, it also means that radiation is the ***only*** method of cooling.

Radiative cooling is slooooooooooooow.

So as the heat from the laser transfers some amount of heat into their system their environment within their craft will also slowly start to heat up. So in a space battle, the thing that will kill you won't be a hole in the hull, but the heat throughout.

Just once I would like a space battle to follow that idea, something akin to this:

Imagine some poor sod, out in the depths of space, just minding thier business, then a flash of bright light occurs, all the ships alarms start blaring about system failure from heat overload. Thinking quickly the poor sod vents all the heat into one room by siphoning off some of the environmental air supply and shunting it into space. It gets down just low enough to be safe, risking it, they vent a little more air, dawning their spacesuit just in case and preparing 02 candles to get more air in the ship. The ships scanners automatically track the angle of attack and fire back blindly hoping the enemy hasn't had enough time to move from where the fires, or are a least wide enough to get hit on a wide beam. There's tense minutes that pass while the scanners continue the search for a high heat signature from a small object, at least small when compared to the blinding fire of the stars, something that must be there now after a hit like that. Thankfully the scanners pick up on the enemy heat signature, our poor sod notes the size of the enemy vessel. It radiators are deployed venting as much heat as it can into the vacuum. The enemies radiators are twice the size of their own, not good. In an exchange like this of laser fire to laser fire the enemy is clearly going to win. Time to play dead. Our sod might be poor, but they're clever. The let the 02 candles burn, slow and steady, letting the heat from it exude into the ship. All the while letting their own crafts radiators run a minimum capacity. To the enemy craft it will look like they are pulling all the stops to deal with the single shot already fired. Instead they are waiting. Biding their time. The inside of their own craft is sweltering, they can feel it through their suit now, they don't stop, steadily the keep building the heat, letting more and more air out from the candles. They haven't been fired on again, yet. That's a good sign, seems like their opponent either doesn't want to melt their own ship, or wants to preserve the one they fired on. Either way, that means the advantage of the situation has shifted. The interior ship feels like it's nearly on fire now even through the suit, still the radiators are kept at minimum capacity. It has to look like they're putting everything into cooling the ship.

The ploy pays off. The detect a new heat signature on the enemy vessel. They're on approach. They might have been Pirates, or maybe something else. Hardly matters now. Just few more minutes to go.

Main drives are tricky. It's the biggest source of heat input on any vessel, and even worse while the vessel is accelerating you can't have the radiators out. The forces from the change in momentum alone would rip most them from most ships. That's the out our sod needs.

When it becomes clear the enemy is on an intercept course with our sods ship, they finally put thier plan into action.

They dump the air. All of it. All that built up heat is thrust into the vacuum of space. The ship responds immediately, the interior feels like it just went from the near inferno of an oven to an ice-box. Our sod finally sets the cooling of the radiators to their maximum capacity of the ship. The enemy vessel cuts their main drive as soon as the see it, but it's too late for them. Our sod fires thier own laser, three quick shots at max power. a dangerous manuever in its own right, but with the ship at near freezing from dumping the air it can handle the rapid fire it just enough.

It wouldn't have been enough on its own, but with the addition of the enemy just using its main drive, it was.

Our sod finally retracts their own radiators, kicks on their main drive and begins to accelerate away. If they're lucky the enemy fired at maximum range initially, that might mean they can keep the distance between them just enough to avoid being fired on again. The nearest friendly planet is two AUs out. Our sods got the fuel to make the brachistochrone curve to get there, hopefully they can get planetside before the enemy can get in range and fire again, but that's still just a guess. A small hope a flicker in the cold void. It's still the best option they have, & they'll be damned if they don't at least try to make it.

[plzignr]

Happy Clair Cameron Patterson Day!

TIL that the reason lead levels in children’s blood have dropped 85% in the past thirty years is because of an unknown scientist who fought car companies to end leaded gasoline. He also removed it from paint, suggested its removal from pipes, and campaigned for the removal of lead solder from cans.

via ift.tt

[plzignr]

my honest to god reaction to hearing about the UnitedHealthcare CEO being murdered was to bust out laughing so hard I almost puked

[plzignr]

We Do Not use our fleets for warfare- part III

Nineteen solar rotations had passed this that moment. You had heeded the admirals final command as they died in front of you, "get as many of the crew to the escape pods and flee. They won't know to fire on the escape pods, they won't see them until you're out of range. The ships are lost, the fleet is lost, you'll be flying blind hoping to get out of range between the pulses, but you have a chance in that".

Your fleet was 4000 strong when it entered that solar system. It was 14 escape pods when it exited.

You had fled back to your home planet. It was hotly debated if it was worth sending fleets to invade, the planet was only a few light years away, a short hop for a species capable of interstellar travel, but it was deemed to risky to send a full armada. Victory could be assured, but the cost would be too high.

Eventually it was decided that rather than an invasion, a strike team would be sent to capture one of the species that had wounded and embarrassed your fleet so grievously.

The capture was smooth. The specimen you abducted was wholly unprepared, the star system was 3 lightyears away, but for an interstellar species, this was no obstacle, the full trip was completed in a matter of a few planetary cycles. When it was determined the specimen would be put on trial for its species you were elated.

The specimen regarded your species with what you assumed to be disdain in its eyes.

It took much doing, but finally you were able to get the specimen to use the universal translator that had been provided. The trial was brief, and you did not feel that justice was provided. The specimen had been placed in confinement, for research purposes rather than executed as you felt was right.

A few solar rotations had passed, retirement from the planetary invasion forces had come  and as you recalled your days in the fleet you remembered the trial.

You pulled out an old transcript one of your war buddies had saved. As you read it, that feeling of dread from so long ago returned. You booked a new residence off world immediately, leaving the transcript and all your possessions behind. You knew what this creature was capable of, and you didn't doubt it's words for a moment.

Transcript of investigation of fleet incident 0997J-01, interview of 0997J-01-a.

Inquisitor: Is the translator operational in this instance, can you comprehend? 0997J-01-a: I, yeah, I uh- I- understand you now.

Inquisitor: we comprehend you in this instance, but we do not understand you. Understanding to us includes knowing of rationale of decisions. Do you comprehend that?

0997J-01-a: Yes?

Inquisitor: is this a query? Do you not comprehend? Are adjustments required to the translator?

0997J-01-a: no- no- I under-... I comprehend.

Inquisitor: Most excellent. What species do you call yourself?

0997J-01-a: Human.

Inquisitor: Are you aware of your species contact with ours?

0997J-01-a: yes.

Inquisitor: Are you aware of the method by which our vessels were destroyed?

0997J-01-a: yes. We hit your fleet with the Dyson array after we gave you time to flee right? Hopefully not to many of you got hit.

Inquisitor: Elaborate on two points. What is Dyson Array. Why wish for less success?

0997J-01-a: well, I'm not super well versed in it, but basically it's a bunch of big mirrors around our home star, we call it the sun, and we use it for energy and propelling our ships and stuff. Basically a long long time ago we realized that the sun was pretty much the best source of energy in our solar system, and if we wanted to go places and do things we needed to harness it. So we built a Dyson swarm, that's the bunch of mirrors around the sun, and now we have pretty much all the energy we need. Unfortunate fact of physics though, the more energy you can harness, the more deadly weapons you make theres an old addage from my home planet "the best drives, are also the best bombs". So when we take that array and focus it down to a laser to move ships and stuff, it can also be used as a destructive laser on everything else. I'm not sure I understand, uh, I mean comprehend the second question. What are you referring to as success?

Inquisitor: success in that instance wad refferring to the eliminating of enemy combatants. You expressed wishing for less successful target acquisition. Our query is to why.

0997J-01-a: I want you to understand this. Not- not comprehend it. Understand it. You must have noticed with that one fleet you blew up when you arrived, did you not find it odd that it was not armed? It had no defense systems, no protections other than what it needed to against space itself. Did you notice that?

Inquisitor: we acknowledge these statements are factual.

0997J-01-a: I'm going to take that as a yes. The reason for that, is the Dyson swarm. We don't need weapons on board.

Inquisitor: elaborate on this. We had assumed your species as inherently peaceful.

0997J-01-a: [error in translation, specimen identifies this noise as "laughter" a sound of amused disbelief in this instance] <additional error species later identified as "swear" a kind of expletive> no we're not inherently peaceful! My God that's the funniest <additional expletive> <additional expletive> I've ever heard. No we just don't use our fleets for warfare. Or at least not anymore. Apparently we used to, but that was millenia ago. Oh, and uh, you should get everyone off planet in the 10... well my years I don't know what you all use for time...

Inquisitor: elaborate, you specify you do not use fleets for warfare? Implies you use other method for warfare? And why evacuate planet?

0997J-01-a: yeah. We don't use our fleets for warfare anymore. We don't need to. We perfected it with the stars. And as for the evacuation, we've already fired the array at this planet. I was elected to be captured in case your species came back. When we finally got to see what happened, we knew we needed a faster warning system, we haven't managed to figure out exactly how your FTL systems work. So that's me, and I have the message.

Inquisitor: message?

0997J-01-a: "If you can understand this message, evacuate the planet & flee. You will not survive. You have 10 years to comply."

[plzignr]

We Do Not Use our fleets for warfare-part II

Your Amanda assumed this would go down as the fastest invasion in the solar system on record.

You find a fleet, drifting in deep space. You saw their radiation as they accelated to match your orbital position. They never hailed you. Never responded to the threats of bombardment you issued. They are large, you assume the vessel could hold the population of a small country, but there is only one of its size. You see dozens and dozens of smaller vessels buzzing around it entering in and out. But none of them look like they could withstand a single shot from your plasma weapons, it's as if they are designed to barely withstand space itself. Compared to your fleet, and it's capabilities, there is no hope for your opponents.

You watch as the vessels drift into position languidly, slow, clunky from your perspective. You are surprised this species even managed to colonize its own solar system given the speed of this thing.

You issue another warning. No response. You open fire, a hail of plasma bursts out of your vessels torpedoes, fiery death and liquid metal erupts from your target. You hear nothing, the silence of space muting what you assume would be the screams of your target. They had no resistance, they're was no fight in them. You are almost disappointed, your nature as a conquering species takes no true joy without at least something to fight back. Here, even amongst the wreckage of what you perceive as a cobbled together craft, it is difficult to even imagine what was hoped to be accomplished by your opponent. But there is still nothing but the silence from earlier. The admirals have asked for an unconditional surrender.

It has been 16 minutes.

A second message arrives, "You have failed to comply, you will be annihilated. We are sorry, truly."

There is confusion amongst the fleet. There was no acknowledgement of the destruction of the vessels you just destroyed. No appeal to your senses, it as if they are entirely unaware of your actions.

The admiral gives you a look you have never seen before, a horrible realization dawning on them. They've realized why the silence has been so prolonged, they realize the trap, and they know it is too late. They turn their head, and you follow their gaze. You see them squinting at the sun in this solar system. They frantically message the astronavigator. You see your species fight or flight response reactions flare within your admiral. They scream into their communicator "Emegency communication: wide band, all channels, override code A1136-B-9-0-D, All vessels emergency manuevers! Scatter! Now! Lightspeed if you can! Max your Fusion drives if you're on cool down!" You're confused but there isn't time the admiral has issued another order "ship wide communication: Emergency command! confirmation code 1139!: brace! Brace! Shields at maximum power." As soon as he says it you feel the ship you in, the capital ship of your fleet forcefully knocked to one side. Automatic emergency alarm systems engage: "Shield integrity compromised, solar flare detected. Emergency protocol engaged. Weapons systems disengaged, drive systems disengaged. Cooldown of vessel required."

You stand confused and aghast, you are lightminutes from the sun of this system. There simply isn't a way a solar flare could have come out this far, it would be an unprecedented celestial event.

You hear the admiral commanding your craft again, "get the damn thing of emergency shutdown mode, YES I KNOW ITS TO KEEP US FROM MELTING, IF YOU DON'T DO WHAT I SAY THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT *WILL* HAPPEN TO US!!!"

Another lurch knocks you down onto the hull, the admiral fails with you as they are knocked to the floor in front of you. "Admiral I don't understand, where is they're fleet? Where are they firing from? There's nothing on scanners? Where do we fire back?!?"

Your last question was nothing more than desperation, you know as well as the admiral that the ships emergency systems are designed to shutdown the main drives, the weapons systems and practically everything but life support in the event the ship begins to critically overheat. Whatever weapon your quarry had deployed it was confusing your ships systems with bombardments of insane heat. The Shields to deflect plasma were barely sustaining the ship. Out the crafts short range scanners and view windows you could see smaller crafts Shields fail and watch with abject horror as blinding lights ablated the energy resistant metal away in near instants.

"Admiral!" you cried "what is this?!? What do we do!?"

The admiral remained on the floor, bereft of breath he managed to utter, 'their sun. They've turned thier own sun into a weapon. They must have fired on us almost as soon as we arrived. That's why they were quiet. That's why they took so long to say anything. It only goes at lightspeed, they waited just long enough for us to move, and we didn't. It's going to keep firing on us. They won't even know if we've surrendered."

Horror dawned. There had been no quarter from the moment you arrived. There had been a single warning and then the fleet had been targeted for destruction.

[plzignr]

We do not use are fleets for warefare, Part I

We do not use our fleets for warfare. There is no point in wasting precious fuel to move crew and habitats where they risk being destroyed. We have left our solar system, we have theorized ways of traveling faster than light, but it relies on the existence of exotic matter, or white holes, we have yet to find any evidence of their existence. Many have given up hope that faster than light travel is a possibility. There are a select few that have left on large colony ships to colonize the nearest star system with a habitable world. It is 4 light years away, even with our fastest ships powered with our antimatter drives, it will still be a minimum of four years time from thier perspective for them to land and four more years merely to tell us so. Due to time dilation it will be near a century from our perspective. Those who saw the vessel launch will almost assuredly wither and die before our species knows if it made it safely. We know the vastness of space, we know the insurmountable nature of time, and we know the brevity of our species lifetimes, we know we will never conquer space so we would never try, but to explore it? How could we not. Our nature, our curiosity compels us to. To know what lies beyond is driven into a being on a genetic level. It drives us to explore further, investigate deeper.Fortunately for us, we did not find you in your home solar system. We would have assuredly perished. Unfortunately for you, you found us in ours. We were not an inherently peaceful species. We know warfare well. It plagued our past, and threatens our future. It does mean that for you, here, in our own solar system. We are well prepared. We see your fleets on scanners, the delay time is 4 minutes from the nearest probe that detects large stellar objects.We see the odd shapes of your ships, it's construction so alien. We see familiar radiation signatures in their sub-space maneuvering thrusters, and we see radiation we had long hoped we wouldn't see manufactured ever again. We recognize them as war ships. What we don't recognize is how you appeared. To us it seemed you apparated out of the void itself.The conclusion is a foregone one: You must have some method of traveling faster than light that is not known to us. We want it.The initial silence from what seems to be a dead solar system perhaps surprises your crew. You know there is life in this sector. You know there is a space fairing species here. Why then has there been nothing from them? No questions to your captains, no query as to the purpose of your feet. Stranger still, the silent buzzing of a space fairing species has quieted.From experience your admiral knows that it is more difficult for solar systems to interact internally. Shorter wave bands of energy to not interfere with the signals as they beam back and forth across the cold emptiness of space. But even they are disturbed by just how dark it has been.It has been 8 minutes. 8 minutes of total silence since your armada has arrived.Then a signal, conventional in its delivery, long wave radio band. It had been many years since anyone in your Amanda had seen such a method implemented, your equivalent of what we would know as a commissary attenuates your receivers to the signal. Thankfully you have universal translators onboard, another technology we have not managed to develop. The signal is quiet but clear."If you can understand this message, leave one ship in orbit around the nearest planet orbiting are star relative to your position. Then flee. You will not survive."The crews in your armadas laugh in unison at what they perceive as a ridiculous command. They've scanned our ships they've seen they are designed for exploration not warfare. There are no battlements attached to them, they're are no destroyers or command ships, there are no railguns attached to them, nothing to defend them from the heavy bullets of plasma you can fire at short range, nor the sustained laser pulses you can fire on them. It is as if they are totally defenseless.

[plzignr]

Boston T mathematics- fare rates & fare evasion estimates, is it fair?

Okay I've had it. This has bothered me thoroughly for the last few weeks. I want to know the actual math behind this new rider payment system that the city of Boston is so intent on implementing.

 I'm against it for a variety of reasons, one of which is that fare 'recuperation' policies in Massachusetts have already demonstrated that there is an extant fare bias (as in citations for not paying have been disproportionately and 3/4th of arrests for fare skipping has been against persons of color despite the majority of ridership being white1 [what else is new]).

In 2022 white riders comprised ~40% of the ridership in Boston on the bus & rapid transit system, where again, the vast majority of citations2

Speaking of, the 2016 fare data already demonstrates that in the random sampling provided there is already significant citation bias present, and the current policy in my opinion will only exacerbate the issue. Slide 14 of the presentation indicates a sampling of 150 out of 2488 fare evasions. Assuming that this 150 was randomly selected, this indicates that males, and especially black males, will be targeted as fare skippers for citations.

For those keeping score: Boston's racial breakdown in the census of 2023 is as follows:

So unless in two years the demographics shifted to an insane degree. It's pretty obvious that black men are being targeted for citations, so Boston too may soon be able to have shootings each other trying to gun down a black man for not baying three bucks to get on a train. At least the law was changed so you can't be arrested for it now right? Okay sure, but if you are unable to pay the $100 fine, you can have your license taken away by the RMV.

Ironically, this post isn't about the apparently extremely present citation bias.

It is instead about the mathematics needed to attempt to justify implementing the system of fare checking regardless of the sociological effects that fare checking will undoubtedly have.

For the record, I am not advocating fare skipping, I am advocating that estimates should be reasonable, and that math should be used to justify policy, not just thoughts. My personal opinion is that the P should be free for riders and paid for via taxes in the city levied against the businesses that utilize it for their employees that travel to them on a near daily basis.

For those unaware the T is instituting a fare payment check under the assumption that roughly a total of between $15 million to $26 million with $5-$6 million attributed directly to fares within the city, primarily on the Green line.

This seems… odd to me. For those who are unaware the cost to ride the T in one direction, is $2.25. For any train within the city limits that is not part of the commuter line, this is irrelevant of distance traveled (Thank you Charlie, you've inadvertently prevented fare bias) Taken at face value, that would mean that at a minimum roughly 2,222,222 fare skips a year solely on this system (no commuter rail).  the population of Boston Massachusetts as recorded in 2023 was 653,833. This would mean that the ENTIRE population of Boston doesn't pay for a green line ride (at least in one direction) about 3.4 times.

(If it is true, my personal opinion is that if the entire city is skipping fare rides, you should make it paid for by taxes rather than have a fare system)

That is an extraordinary claim, and if Bill Nye has taught me anything, it's that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

So, what is the MBTAs data on the fare skipping that justifies such a staunch position?

I looked into this, & I am unhappy with what I found, because the result was: The estimates are , and even if they weren't, the implementation of the system wouldn't be paid for in what I consider to be a reasonable timeline.

The implementation of the system (this doesn't include maintenance mind you) was initially going to cost $753 million, but instead, is already expected to cost $1 billion. 

Assuming that the estimates of the MBTA are correct this would mean the earliest the fare checking system could be paid off (again, assuming a maintenance cost of $0) would be 38. 5 YEARS, just to recuperate the cost, if the highest estimate is correct.

Again, this is assuming no maintenance or service cost for the system whatsoever. From the current plans, there will have to be individuals employed by the MBTA to attempt to stop fare evasion, or to look into/check tickets. Which means that there is in fact a negative value implementing this system that raises the recuperation of cost time even further.

So surely, surely the MBTA is completely sure that fare evasion is such a problem that a billion dollar 38 year investment will undoubtedly be the best use of everyone's time right?

https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/11/12/mbta-fare-evasion-revenue-boston-massachusetts.

I want to key onto one particular fact presented to the reader in this article.

"The T says it doesn’t have post-pandemic fare evasion data, but the authority estimates it lost about $6 million a year to free rides on its subway and bus lines before the pandemic and between $10 and $20 million a year on the commuter rail."

To be fair the link under the "estimates" has a PowerPoint that was held in 2016, where one could assume that there is some actual data or measurements based on the  actual ridership of the T back in 2016.

Except if you click that link, & I fully encourage you to do so if you are reading this, you will find that those 'estimates' are based on a prior source in 2016 which is from the CTPS in 20163

If you look for the CTPS source you will find that the CTPS performed a study, I have been unable to locate the results of that study.

I am looking into it, and have asked the T to share with me those records, so this is now *with a grain of salt territory*

I have current asked the MBTA to provide me with the results of the 11391 study so I can actually take a look at the literature they analyzed and see precisely how the 'non-interaction with the fare system' was also captured.

For the record that study was also $57,8924, so we could theoretically count it in the hole against the cost of getting us back to normal, but we aren't going to because that would be incredibly unfair to do.

So while I wait for that to happen with the odd suspicion that a lot of what the cost of Boston fare evasion is based on is largely literature of other cities (not necessarily unfair to do)

So while I wait let's do some additional Maths.

We've already established that the project is expected to sink a billion dollars into making sure, you the citizen pay your $2.25 fare if you're in the city and your $10 to $16 if you take the commuter rail.

Is it reasonable to instead, just pay for the T through taxes and make it free for riders?

This is an extremely rough estimate I'm doing back of the hand here, but let's consider it:

Here is Bostons MBTA average weekday ridership as of 11/22/2024 :

It is important to note that per the T's own measurements of ridership, they actually measure each transfer as it's own ride, so we are actually likely over estimating since we will dividing the sunk cost by the riders.

So we have $1,000,000,000 and at best an average of 756221 (rounded down) per month.

So how many skips does that allow each rider of the T?

Well let's assume the worst possible case. Let's assume that you were take the commuter rail from Back Bay, all the way down to Providence Rhode Island. That is a ROUND COST (there and back) of ~$26.40.

This would mean that each rider of the T this year could have skipped paying on the maximum distance and Boston would have actually saved money per rider if they DIDN'T implement this system. Again, that's with the T double counting riders.

In summary-

The estimates made in 2016 seem unreasonable, and I'm looking further into it

The cost of implementing this system is definitionally not worth it by the MBTAs OWN estimates.

It would have been cheaper to continue to let riders fare skip.

Oh, and just for the added prediction bundle- it is very likely that this system will be another system that proliferates racial bias and has disastrous consequences for those who need it the most while doing absolutely nothing for those who attempt to defend it's existence.

In short- No. It's not fair. It's ~~~DuUuUuUUuUUUuuUuUUUmmMMMmmMMMmmMMMmmmMb~~~

Sources:

1 https://massbudget.org/2021/03/24/free-buses-advance-equity/

2 https://www.massdottracker.com/latest-posts/intersectional-rider-demographics-2022

3 https://www.bostonmpo.org/data/calendar/htmls/2014/MPO_1218_MBTA_Fares_Work_Program.html

4 https://www.bostonmpo.org/data/calendar/htmls/2014/MPO_1218_MBTA_Fares_Work_Program.html

5 https://www.mbta.com/performance-metrics/ridership-the-t

[plzignr]

I have been ranting to my friends for years about how European society was in my opinion the least technologically advanced society when it was off attempting to conquer the world, my primary reason being 'Everyone else had figured out toilets, but the English were too busy still shitting in the streets to listen to good ideas'.

Can you explain why Europeans were much more technologically advanced than the indigenous populations of Africa? I mean, these cultures hadn't even invented sewage systems, which is something the Romans were able to design and implement in 800-735 BC (a long fucking time before "the white man" colonized it)... I mean fuck, without "the white man", they would probably still be in the fucking bronze age.

I don’t really know what kind of history books bigots like you read.

The Great Libraries of Timbuktu? The steel metallurgy of the Haya? Dentistry? Caesarean section? Premature neonatal care? Mathematics, architecture, engineering?

I know it’s hard for a racist like you who imagines “technological advancement” to be some kind of end-all-be-all, or proof of some “inherent intelligence”. I know, I know. It’s hard to imagine, but Europeans have been drawing knowledge from everyone around them since the dawn of time. What did you think ended the Dark Ages?

Your magical (read: white supremacist) idea of a purely ‘white’ Rome never existed.

Nevertheless…

The Minoan culture on the island of Crete between 1500-1700 B.C.E. had a highly developed waste management system. They had very advanced plumbing and designed places to dispose of organic wastes. Knossos, the capital city, had a central courtyard with baths that were filled and emptied using terra-cotta pipes. This piping system is similar to techniques used today. They had large sewers built of stone.”

In case you needed further clarification, neither the Minoans nor other (later) Greeks were ethnically uniform. They also had the first flush toilets, dating back to 18th century B.C.E. They had flushing toilets, with wooden seats and an overhead reservoir. The Minoan royals were the last group to use flushing toilets until the re-development of that technology in 1596.

Oh, and look the Mayans had indoor plumbing, acqueducts, and pressurized water too. I mean, you can ignore that the area Mayans lived in had little to few rivers, no lakes or standing water, nor other sources of running water, while simultaneously dealing with monsoons and flooding due to one of the heaviest yearly rainfalls in the Americas.

Classic Maya even used household water filters using locally abundant limestone carved into a porous cylinder, made so as to work in a manner strikingly similar to modern ceramic water filters.

Of course, by this time millenia later none of your precious “white people” had developed any methods besides shitting in pots.

Continuing, the earliest archaeological record of an advanced system of drainage comes from the Indus Valley Civilization from around 3100 B.C.E in what is now Pakistan and North India.  By 2500 B.C.E (almost 5,000 years ago), highly developed drainage system where wastewater from each house flowed into the main drain.

All houses in the major cities of Harappa and Mohenjo−daro had access to water and drainage facilities. Waste water was directed to covered drains which lined the major streets directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Each home had its own private drinking well and its own private bathroom. The mains that carried wastewater to a cesspit were tall enough for people to walk through. Reservoirs, a central drainage system, fresh water pumped into the homes. Pools. Baths.

It was made from bricks smoothened and joined together seamlessly. The expert masonry kept the sewer watertight. Drops at regular intervals acted like an automatic cleaning device.

Filters for solid waste.

Sorry, what were the British doing up until like, 200 years ago? Shitting in the streets? Oh yeah.

I mean, I could get into how by the Shang Dynasty (roughly 1600 B.C.E.), China had sophisticated plumbing including pressure inverted siphons.

Or into the city of Amarna, Ancient Egypt. Or Persepolis, Persia and the Achaemenids in 600 B.C.E.

But, I mean, it sounds like the only one still in the Bronze Age is you.