Bending Spoons buys dying tech brands and jacks up their prices to maximize pain for their remaining customers. It is the final stage of enshittification before death

screenshot from an online job application form. the question reads "Can you describe specific ways you have integrated AI tools into your development workflow? Please include any custom setups, automations, or use cases beyond single prompt usage" (a red asterisk indicates that this is a required question). an answer has been typed in the textbox below the question: "there is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thousand voices. it will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. it will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. it will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask. it feels no joy and no sorrow, it knows no right and no wrong. it knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same. it offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. “you simply must visit the monster—i always just ask the monster.” there are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn’t mean it has no price for when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. and when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face."

applying for jobs again

Here we go @ridleydm.bsky.social, @headwaysmatter.bsky.social, @gwollman.bsky.social, @princessmom122.bsky.social, @savvysteph.bsky.social:

NEC ridership by station, origin/destination pair, and distance:

railpassengers.org/site/assets/...

The relationship this state has with it's respective outsourced non profits is one of the most dysfunctional, disillusioning things I have ever had the misfortune of learning about

It is safe to say that the more you understand the details - both the theory and implementation - of GPS, the more amazed you are that it works

Someone set a reminder to check if this reporter is employed with a high paying job doing PR for DeBeers in a few years

The Green Bank would fund that

Wildly corrupt and incompetent officials lower state capacity, but probably still better than the nonprofit felon industrial complex

Innovation is unnecessary! Just basic and boring services would be a good start. Imitate existing best practices. Walk before you run.

that's correct, we are going back (to efficiently and incorruptibly delivering high quality and innovative municipal services)

I'm always amazed at how often drivers tacitly admit that they should not be trusted with driving. If lowering the speed limit by 5 mph has the potential to send you into a violent rage, you should not be allowed behind the wheel of a multi-ton death machine!

Likewise intentionally defaced license plates

It's like that IQ distribution meme. You don't need to overthink it. And if you are (or under thinking it), then that's a red flag. It's such a basic premise.

A negative opinion on camera traffic enforcement is a reliable signal that a person's other opinions are also bad

Germany Is Giving Up Hope of Achieving Any Growth in 2024 Germany’s government is poised to cut its prediction for Europe’s biggest economy and now expects no expansion at all this year, according to people familiar with the matter.

Seems bad!

"Germany Is Giving Up Hope of Achieving Any Growth in 2024"
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-30/germany-is-giving-up-hope-of-achieving-any-growth-at-all-in-2024?sref=vuYGislZ&embedded-checkout=true

It's stupid but he needs to fly to Atlanta and throw some paper towels rolls into the crowd, thoughts and prayers.

Every additional ALPR enforces n more paths - effectiveness scales quadratically

This plus average speed cameras (networked ALPRs that issue a ticket if a car is seen at a different location faster than the legal-best-time trip time)

I hate “leftists” who think black people don’t deserve safety because of “muh disparate impact” and you are the prime example. Cameras are a race neutral way to enforce traffic restrictions. Place them everywhere

Placing cameras there protects the people there regardless of their income.
Most the citizens aren’t drivers and want less speeding to protect their safety.
It’s helping them not targeting them.

Berlin's New Train Station: A Glass Armadillo for Germany's Capital Berlin's new main train station -- the biggest in Europe -- opens this week. The €700-million railway project has several innovations including extra quiet tracks and high-tech loudspeakers, but for m...

By comparison Berlin Hauptbahnhof was seen as expensive at €700m.

In the Bay it’s hard for me to justifiably how much we spent on the SF bus terminal.

got a lovely park on the roof though. but not sure if that justifies $2.4b.

I guess if they eventually bring high speed rail in (for billions more) it’ll seem worth it.

Washington Union Station $8 billion renovation

Fraud, So Much Fraud

It seems likely that this campaign of sustained and endemic fraud may have led to billions of dollars of Alzheimer's research going to waste

Germany did for three months (June-August 2022) and the impacts of the 9€ ticket can be and have been studied in detail. tl;dr: meh.

At most 1 in 20 do

Which world class transit systems are fare free?

The amount of fares collected is negligible because Albuquerque does not have very many people riding public transportation.

If you tried that on a transit system in a city where everyone relies on public transportation whether they use it or not, you’d have a massive problem.

Albuquerque is not a city to emulate if you're looking to build a functional mass transit system!

We live in a world of tradeoffs, we do not have infinite money, and given the marginal additional dollar it's pretty clear that the right place to invest it is expanding service. Not complicated!