The joys of English language reporting about non-English language countries.

Did I say I trust Tor? I made an entire rant about it.

Which doesn’t inspire the most confidence in this article… Like, surely CRRC has at least a render of the prototype? Most likely an entire press kit with all kinds of glamour shots.

Regarding the TGV, the great thing about them from what I understand is that they can switch basically seamlessly between track types. So if you already have a well built out rail system, you can build a HSR gradually, then reroute onto existing lines at low speed as the high speed segments are completed.

I mean… That’s literally the strongest benefit of conventional rail, and it’s a massive benefit that makes this centuries old technology almost impossible to overthrow. The fact that as long as the gauge is correct, any train can run on any track is what makes rail so powerful and why non-rail trains are called “gadgetbahns”, aka “pointless” outside of the most niche and specific situations. The great thing about rail is that your only limitation is that you’re bound by either your train top speed or your track top speed, whichever is lower, and no patents or licensing that locks your transportation network into a single company.

This is why I have my doubts that maglev will actually be able to replace high speed rail for long distance transit in our lifetimes. It probably will replace rail eventually, but it might take a small eternity.

Also, isn’t Tor still funded by the US govt? I feel like of you wanted a honeypot, there is no better option than Tor which is already under your wing.

The reality is that there is NO completely anonymous network or proxy that can be 100% trusted. None. Because you have zero ways of independently verifying any of them. You’re better off, especially if you’re political dissident, using a network that might be/probably under surveillance from a country that aligns most with your ideology (Chinese networks if you’re a communist trying to push for communism in the West, for example). It’s a shame for us that it’s actually really hard to get access to a Chinese run VPN in the West. Don’t use a US-developed privacy network if you know the US is not going to like what you send on it is what I’m saying.

Swedish government*

All EU countries have surveillance laws pretty similar to the US yet no one seems to think it’s a problem.

Tor browser? Librewolf? Ungoogled Chromium?

Why are they showing the Japanese SCMaglev in the article? I want to see what the actual train they’re talking about looks like.

It’s an internal record for the country? Not everything needs to be better than the world to be a milestone, especially since speed records mean almost nothing for actual passenger service speeds and both trains will be operating much slower if they were in commercial operation. Both a French TGV and Chinese CRH train hit 500+ kmh on conventional rails, but those were test trains and obviously the models used will never do that speed in service.

Also, interesting how Linus mentioned “displacement” and “tearing apart neighborhoods” as justifications against switching from cars to transit+bike+walk models. Because guess what the fuck also displaces people and destroys community? Highways and viaducts! A single highway interchange can destroy an entire small town, while a single train station takes up the space of maybe two suburban houses. And a double track rail line is narrower than many laneways and suburban streets, while having more capacity than ten lanes of highway. You’re in Vancouver, Linus, ever heard of the Georgia Viaduct and its effects on causing the creation of the Downtown East Side slums?

Also, just a nagging thought in the back of my mind, is he only concerned about displacement because the places that most need to be redeveloped for walk ability, the single family suburbs, are majority white residents while BIPOC residents tend to live in denser areas? Hmm… You’re also living on land where Indigenous populations were displaced by the way (the ones that were merely displaced got off lucky, actually, most were murdered).

PSA: If you don’t absolutely need ARM or the really tiny form factor and can settle for higher power consumption, you can get a used Dell or Lenovo business PC from a few years ago for less than a new Raspberry Pi or even some of the higher end alternatives/clones but with similar computing power. Or something a lot more powerful for not that much more.

I really like their ultra-small form factor models. About the size of a coffee table book so not that much larger than a raspi with a case, and if you factor in the fairly high quality case, more I/O, active cooling, non-soldered CPU and RAM, and expansion through hard drive slots and M.2, it’s an even better value.

Vancouver, Canada: Isolated pockets of bike lanes. Not like a neighborhood or an urban center where you can reasonably do everything you need within it, literally a single block of new development will have a dutch-style paved bike lane but you’re out to sea if you go beyond it.

Technically, all land vertibrates evolved from fish, make of that how you want.

From high altitude balloons to high altitude people? China really is evil!

Seriously, four hours? For what? Jesus Christ’s resurrection party was more succinct than this.

If the US is to have any right criticize Russia’s annexation of the DPR, LPR, and Crimea, it should free Hawaii and all other Indigenous lands. Otherwise it is sitting in a pool of blood while calling Russia for having blood on their hands.

DPR, LPR, and Crimea were Russian for most of the history of Russia and Ukraine, and are still majority ethnic Russian. Ukraine’s “sovereign” state is only legitimate in its native territory. The above regions have all voted that they’d rather be apart of Russia.

Meanwhile the US annexed Hawaii and ignored a petition by the vast majority of Native Hawaiians to stay independent because… Because. It was because they’re not white isn’t it?

Some carrier locked non iPhone non Android “proto smartphone” piece of shit with an even more proprietary app store than those two (the servers are definitely long dead). Still have to find it.

Might have been one of Blackberry’s hail Mary attempts to make their own smartphone OS, I forget.

This made me think! I still have a smart ish phone with a qwerty keyboard! And I type a lot on phones! Gonna see if I can load PostMarket OS on it and see what it’s like writing long rants and roleplay responses on it compared to touchscreen!

Sell the problem and the solution! Genius!