Tab Combs @DrTCombs@transportation.social

It's really adorable that I thought I could write this thing at soccer practice

Surely these things aren't connected

Partner: I still don't understand why you get up at 3 every morning to work. Can't you just get it done during the day like a normal person?

Me: hey Brain, it's time to write.
Brain: nah, got all day
Me: actually, we only have until school lets out, and it's gonna take every minute of that time
Brain: naw dude, we're good, let's goof off
[rinse, repeat for several hours]
Me: effing A Brain, school's out in 20 minutes.
Brain: I'M READY TO WRITE! LET'S DO THIS!!!

You know what makes a road expensive to design, build, and maintain?
Cars.
Cars are wide. They are heavy. They go fast. They crash hard. It takes a colossal amount of resources to accommodate them en masse.

You know what's cheap? Sidewalks and bike paths. Orders of magnitude cheaper than roads built for cars.

Streets do not create car congestion. That's ridiculous. We, as a society, create the conditions that force people to drive if they want to get somewhere, even if they have to sit in the traffic of which they are a part.

Our complete refusal to provide for alternatives to driving, even when driving sucks, is what has created "car congestion."

There is no such thing as car trip demand. Cars do not demand to make trips. People make trips. Often, they make them by car. Usually because there is not a better option provided. The fact that you can recognize a road needs to exist but argue that it doesn't need to serve the needs of people is absurd.

This is what #CarBrain does to people.

#CarBrain makes well-respected environmental advocacy organizations claim that providing facilities for all people in all public spaces is impractical, that people must already be walking & biking on a street before that street can have facilities for walking and biking, that investing in infrastructure for walking & biking costs more than infrastructure for driving, and that streets cause "car congestion," whatever that is.

First time I encountered the new version I was in a car, and was stunned at the lack of design cues telling me to slow down as I approached the slip lane.

This intersection was really dangerous and was completely devoid of any pedestrian accommodations before getting the roundabout facelift.

But that sliplane...WHYYYYY?

For real, why? Is there any legitimate* reason to include sliplanes in a roundabout?

*maintaining vehicular traffic flow does not qualify as legitimate

https://www.google.com/maps/@35.9701814,-78.9324874,157a,35y,43.98h/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

#RoadSafety #Transportation

I knew #threads wasn't going to be great, but I honestly did not expect it to get so bad so fast.

and yes, there *is* a bike path next to the road. But there's no way to get to it without hopping the curb...which I'm not doing on a loaded cargo bike.

I decided to try coming to a complete stop at stop signs on my #bicycle this morning. It only took 18 seconds for a driver to try and take me out because of it.

https://urbanists.video/w/7y9mmkpLZMbKxGpFajaZ8T

#BikeTooter #StopSigns #IdahoStop

Thanks to my fediverse friends for talking me through how to deal with this!

Sigh. I had such high hopes for productivity this morning.

I've filed a police report with my local PD, both in the hopes of covering my own ass and somehow helping the woman whose credit card appears to have been stolen.

We'll see.

TL;DR: someone managed to add a stolen credit card and shipping information to my #microsoft account, ordered $160 worth of digital xbox gift cards, and redeemed those cards this morning.

There are no suspicious logins on my account, and I have verification and 2FA turned on.

Microsoft not only does not care, they also claim that any unauthorized activity on a user's account is the user's responsibility.

So that's fun.

https://transportation.social/@DrTCombs/113074138155221026

update 7: #microsoft DGAF if people are using stolen credit cards to make purchases using other people's accounts without actually signing into those accounts.

update 6: WOW THAT WAS SOME CRAZY GASLIGHTY NOTMYJOB tech support from microsoft.

update 5: fraud report filed with microsoft; listing microsoft itself as the fraudulent company, given I've got nothing else to do while I wait to live chat with microsoft support.