matthen:

Just finished my new gravity game, where you explore a universe and test your orbital mechanics skills. If you can get into orbit around a planet, you will start mining it for fuel. You can hop from system to system in an infinite universe using wormholes, but they get more and more hostile the further you travel. Just click to fire your engines.  Try it out!

tumblrbot asked: ROBOTS OR DINOSAURS?

Robots, obviously

This is a sloppy repost of a reddit comment I made, but I wanted to put it out there.

We have known for some time that against all sound advice, Vancouver has decided to move towards fare cards. The issue at hand has always been fare evasion, even though installing and running the new system will cost more than it saves. An article today suggests that this could mean a move to distance-based fares. This is a horrible idea for Vancouver

The three zone system is already more expensive to use than other similar size cities with “OK” transit. But I it’s a reasonable tradeoff to encourage people to work close to where they live without being so expensive that they just move even farther away and drive everywhere. This change might make sense from a short-term budgetary standpoint (see below), but Translink is supposed to have a mandate to increase ridership and reduce environmental impact of transportation in the area, not just to balance a short-term budget.

It finally makes sense to me why they are putting the system in place now -so they can charge for distance travelled. I know this is only one possible configuration of the cards, but it’s the only one that adds up.

In Vancouver, renting in the suburbs is quite a bit cheaper than living close to downtown. It’s already fairly inconvenient for a lot of suburbanites to use transit, but even with a three zone pass for working downtown, one can save a lot of money by living in Delta or Surrey. Right now the balance of convenience and cost means most people drive. This change could potentially move the balance so that even more people choose to drive. We need to shift the balance the other way.

I my perfect world I would shift the balance like this: transit users would indeed pay for distance travelled, but motorists would too. Motorists are charged taxes on gas now, but it is nowhere near the actual cost of road construction/maintenance per kilometre travelled. Motorists would also pay congestion charges like those in London to bring the externality of making downtown suck into the equation. Imagine a downtown with several pedestrian areas, like Granville street was for a brief time.

Politically, that’s just not going to happen. So we need to keep flat-rate transit to compete with (almost) flat-rate driving.

Before the suggestion of distance-based fare, I couldn’t figure out how the change was justified. Fare evasion is a small problem, by Translink’s own numbers. Using fare check staff like they already do on Canada line is a pretty cheap way to deal with the problem, instead of putting in turnstyles. Turnstyles require staff at each gate anyway (that’s at least two per station) to prevent hop-overs and help wheelchairs, new customers, people that payed too little/too much, etcetera, through the process.

I am not totally opposed to distance-based fare in all cases. It works in the mature systems of London and Tokyo because it is convenient to take transit compared to other modes. You can charge more and people will still pay for the convenience. We are not at that stage in Vancouver yet. We need a cost incentive to continue to increase ridership.

At a very basic level, I think public transit development should work as follows:

1. Increase ridership to:

2. Justify an increase in convenience (add routes and frequency). Repeat 1 and 2 until service is worth more so:

4. Increase cost per distance travelled to:

5. Pay for an increase in convenience to:

6. Increase ridership

In steps 1 and 2, you have to use quality of life and environmental justifications. Once you get to 4,5,6, you can use money to make decisions, and reach an equilibrium of convenience and fare people are willing to pay. We are in steps 1 and 2 now. Making changes now that do not increase ridership or convenience will doom our transit system to stagnation, or even decline.

One more corollary I wanted to add, but wasn’t sure where to fit it in: any decrease in convenience should not decrease cost to the user. Vancouver does a good job of this right now, which is rare for North America. In most cities, transfers between routes add cost to the journey. I’m worried that distance-based fares will do this, as transfers tend to make your route indirect. This really screws up city planning, because it encourages 1970s style infrequent, circuitous, transfer-free routes instead of a grid of routes with frequent vehicles.

tl;dr

Politically, we can’t make motorists pay actual per distance costs, so we shouldn’t make transit users do the same thing. The proposed per-distance fare will shift the balance even more towards motoring and encourage 1970s transit planning. We need to make transit better now, even at a monetary cost to increase ridership. It’s worth it for quality-of-life and it’s the only way to balance the transit budget in the long term. You can’t force transit to make money, you have to make it convenient enough to compete with other modes.

This was originally a comment on someone else’s excellent blog, but I wanted to expand my thoughts a bit. Most of the discussion about wikileaks this week has been about wikileaks itself, Assange, others’ opinions of him, but not the cable content. I’m not sure that speaks more to how the media has shifted from journalism to celebrity stories, or to the banality of the cables. Either way, I’ve been troubled by some comments I’ve seen.

The focus right now is on the rape charges, with a few common reactions from the internet. I am seeing some of the skeptics toss skepticism aside because they like Wikileaks.

The charges are trumped up to get him extradited.

The persons concerned are wanted by national jurisdictions (or the International Criminal Tribunals, where appropriate) and Interpol’s role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or locating those persons with a view to their arrest and extradition.
…
The person should be considered innocent until proven guilty.

It’s not even for rape, it’s for “sex-by-surprise” and it amounts to unprotected, consensual sex.

The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
The second charge alleged Assange “sexually molested” Miss A by having sex with her without a condom when it was her “express wish” one should be used.
The third charge claimed Assange “deliberately molested” Miss A on August 18 “in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity”. The fourth charge accused Assange of having sex with a second woman, Miss W, on August 17 without a condom while she was asleep at her Stockholm home.

After I got all of my terminal keys working properly in OSX I was happy. No more fumbling with different shortcut keys in different applications. Until I used boot camp to run windows.

I like Windows 7. But there are many reasons why it doesn’t compete with OSX for me:

1. The window management is not as good as OSX. It’s improved a lot over previous versions, but nothing beats spaces and expose for me. I also prefer having one single menu bar for everything, I like that I can close all applications without quitting the application. In short, it works better for multi-tasking.


2. OSX is POSIX-compliant enough that I’ve never had major problems compiling anything that compiles in Linux. On top of that, the excellent macports project makes compiling from source easy, just like ports in FreeBSD. I’ve never had much fun using cygwin.


3. Most programs look and behave the same way. This is not a big deal, but most applications in OSX use the same shortcut keys and look more or less the same. One notable exception is MS Office, which I don’t use in OSX (I use iWork). In Windows, there is not the same level of consistency.


4. The command key. The command key has one purpose: to make shortcut keys like open, save, close, etc. The control key is left alone for its original purposes: sending control characters. Alt and shift are used to modify the command key and navigate text using the keyboard by word, line, page, document, etc. These keys just work better in OSX. This is the most irritating thing about using Windows for me. I recently found out that the standard Windows shortcut keys were copied from Apple. That’s dandy, I just wish that IBM copied the extra key, too.


5. The shortcut keys get even worse when you use an Apple keyboard. Command is remapped to the useless Windows key, and control is in an awkward spot.

;Autohotkey script
;John Walker, 2010-11-25
;http://www.inertreactants.com
;Feel free to reuse, edit and redistribute
;Key remaps for Apple users using boot camp
;(with an Apple notebook or Keyboard)

;following section remaps alt-delete keys to mimic OSX
;command-delete deletes whole line
#BS::Send {LShift down}{Home}{LShift Up}{Del}

;alt-function-delete deletes next word
!Delete::Send {LShift down}{LCtrl down}{Right}{LShift Up}{Lctrl up}{Del}

;alt-delete deletes previous word
!BS::Send {LShift down}{LCtrl down}{Left}{LShift Up}{Lctrl up}{Del}

;following section mimics command-q and command-w
;behaviour to close windows
;note these had to be disabled below for the
;command to ctrl key remaps
#w::^F4
#q::!F4

;following section remaps alt-arrow and command-arrow
;keys to mimic OSX behaviour
#Up::Send {Lctrl down}{Home}{Lctrl up}
#Down::Send {Lctrl down}{End}{Lctrl up}
#Left::Send {Home}
#Right::Send {End}
!Up::Send {Home}
!Down::Send {End}
!Left::^Left
!Right::^Right

;following section remaps command key to control key
;affects all number and letter keys
;note that some keys, like winkey-l and winkey-d
;need to be remapped a differeny way
;otherwise autohotkey will not take over
#a::^a
#b::^b
#c::^c
#d::^d
#e::^e
;following won't remap using the normal method
#f::Send {LCtrl down}{f}{LCtrl up}
#g::^g
#h::^h
#i::^i
#j::^j
#k::^k
;#l::Send {LCtrl down}{l}{LCtrl up} ;disabled, I like winkey-L
#m::^m
#n::^n
#o::^o
#p::^p
;#q::^q ;disabled --remapped to alt-F4 instead
#r::^r
#s::^s
#t::^t
#u::^u
#v::^v
;#w::^w ;disabled --remapped to ctrl-F4 instead
#x::^x
#y::^y
#z::^z
#1::^1
#2::^2
#3::^3
#4::^4
#5::^5
#6::^6
#7::^7
#8::^8
#9::^9
#0::^0

In almost everywhere in OSX, option-arrow keys and command-arrow keys can be used to navigate around text. I use these constantly, and over time I’ve come to prefer laptop-style keyboards over full size ones with home, pgdn, etc. keys.

command-left/right: moves cursor to start/end of line (equivalent to “home”)

command-up/down: moves cursor to start/end of text in a document

command-delete: delete line

option-left/right: moves cursor backward/forward by one word

option-up/down: moves cursor to backward/forward by one line

option-delete: delete previous word

fn-option-delete: delete next word

Unfortunately, these shortcuts don’t work in Terminal.app. The normal bash shortcuts alt-b and alt-f don’t work either. There is no way to bind the command key because it is used for window management. I’ve come up with satisfactory bindings to move the cursor around in the terminal.

[caption id=“attachment_135” align=“alignnone” width=“300” caption=“Terminal Settings”][/caption]

You set the bindings by going to Terminal preferences > settings >keyboard.

Hit the “+” button and bind the strings below to keys. The strings are emacs commands, which bash recognizes (\033 means “escape”).

During the first week of the Olympic games in Vancouver, it was a running joke in Canada that we did poorly after spending much more money than we ever had on training. The “own the podium” policy was intended to “win” by getting the most medals. In North America, total medal count is used to rank countries. A common rebuttal to the joke of not doing well, in the first week, was “per capita, we are doing really well -we don’t have that many people”. I wondered how true this was and kept track of the medals using this measurement.

In the end, Canada did quite well. We did not win the most medals, but we got the most golds. Some people were content with “we did well”, and others tried to redefine “win” to mean “the most golds”.

For the per capita numbers, I used “per billion people” as the standard because it made nice numbers. Medal counts are from vancouver2010.com and populations from World Bank via google. Updated 7:00PM, November 3, 2010.

My previous post had all the info I could find on the mysterious white buses in Vancouver. In short, there are up to 300 of them, and the empty ones in the city are mostly for media. It’s become quite a fun game to count them and count the passengers.

White Buses spotted: 47

Total Number of Passengers: 20

Max number of Passengers on a Bus: 5

[caption id=“attachment_53” align=“alignleft” width=“216” caption=“White bus image courtesy of YY on flickr (creative commons license)”][/caption]

Where did these things come from?

If you live in Vancouver you’ve no doubt seen dozens of old white buses with California plates driving around. I casually noticed last week there were few, if any, passengers. There’s reports of up to 300 buses. They are supposedly being used to transport athletes and media (and public?) though I have seen very few people actually riding in them. I have some good and bad thoughts about the Olympics in general but it seems like these buses will be remembered as a failure of the Vancouver games. Even if they aren’t intended to be used by the public, it just seems wrong to see empty white buses go past you as you wait in line for transit.

Why are they from the US and who runs them?

Do they work for the athletes?

So who takes them?

What do you mean they are empty?

White Buses spotted: 35

Total Number of Passengers: 18

You may be aware of Canada’s pledge to match donations by Canadians to the relief efforts in Haiti. There are a few caveats you should be aware of:

• Money is put into a fund and then aid sent to those charities deemed worthy (not necessarily the charity that you donated to)


• Prorogation may delay the sending of funds


• If you don’t earmark your money for Haiti relief it won’t count


• The donation must be made between January 12 and February 12


• The donation must be made by an individual

I have been reading information about Canada’s pledge to match the donations of individual Canadians to the relief efforts in Haiti. I am proud that my fellow Canadians and the country as a whole have made this pledge Haitians in need.

I read CIDA’s FAQ page to find out how charitable organizations will be chosen to receive money. I found this answer (question 3):

“Decisions as to which organizations will receive funding will be based on the merit of their proposals and their ability to deliver aid quickly and effectively, and will require that the humanitarian and development organizations have significant in-country capacity to deliver humanitarian, early recovery and reconstruction assistance in Haiti.”

Historically, many faith-based charities in disaster relief situations take the opportunity to proselytize while undergoing relief work. My concern is that Canada may fund one or more of these charities, giving the impression that Canada supports such activity. I believe that it is wrong to proselytize while humanitarian work is being undertaken, and that it infringes on the rights and freedoms of individuals receiving help. The victims involved are under a great deal of stress and may not be able to critically examine supernatural and historical claims that are being made. Moreover, they may feel obligated to attend church or perform another act for the organization at a later date. Depending on the nature of the proselytization, less money may ultimately go towards the goal of helping people.

I understand that many Canadians will disagree with me on the above points. It is their right to donate money to faith-based charities if they wish. However, it does not follow that Canada should select the same charities as recipients in the fund-matching pledge. Canada has a responsibility to its citizens to send money where it will be most effective. And in sending this money, Canada has chosen to be responsible to Haiti and its citizens as well. As a result, Canada and CIDA in particular must send its pledge-to-match money only to those organizations that meet the stated requirements and also will not attempt to convert or otherwise manipulate the victims of this terrible disaster.

Thank you

John Walker

Vancouver, BC

Dear Mr. Walker,

Thank you for your message to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

Please note that CIDA is foremost concerned with ensuring that the Haiti Earthquake relief Fund will provide effective, accountable and timely financial support to trusted Canadian and international partners working in the affected area.

Registered charities fundraising for the January 12 Haiti earthquake response will not have privileged access to the Relief Fund. Allocation decisions will be based on CIDA’s humanitarian and development assistance guidelines and the ability of the Canadian and international humanitarian and development organizations to access the affected populations and deliver timely, effective, and appropriate humanitarian relief, early recovery and reconstruction activities.

Non-governmental organizations interested in applying for funding should first ensure that they meet the minimum institutional eligibility requirements.

Thank you again for your interest in CIDA programs.

Kind regards,

Corinne Zimmermann