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knolan

2,697 karmajoined il y a 9 ans
Lecturer in fluid mechanics and former Bell Labs.

comments

knolan
·il y a 5 jours·discuss
I’m not a libertarian. I’m not opposed to helmets and I and my family wear helmets while cycling. I fully support vaccines.

Mandatory helmet laws have the consequence of reducing the amount of people cycling. There’s no justification for them when compared to international practices.

Many of those who support mandatory helmet laws do not understand what the purpose of a helmet is and that it will not protect you from a collision with a vehicle.
knolan
·il y a 5 jours·discuss
On the contrary I fully support vaccines and I wear a helmet while cycling. The mandatory helmet law in Australia backfired pretty badly by reducing the numbers of people cycling. Those who promise mandatory laws for bicycle helmets tend to be anti-cycling and also tend to support notions that cyclists pay “road tax”.
knolan
·il y a 6 jours·discuss
Like enforcing mandatory bicycle helmets in Australia, this law is either massively misguided or serves another purpose. While politicians are often stupid, they can’t think we’re that stupid?

If you don’t want your kids accessing certain websites then the onus is on parents to control access. I do. If you want to do this structurally do it with ISPs and mobile carriers with router and SIM level filtering.

Put age limits on the ability to buy a device, SIM or internet package like we do for so many other things. It would be trivial to restrict access (and just as easy for smart kids to bypass as the current system).

Don’t use an iPad to babysit your child. Let them discover technology in an environment you’re confident and comfortable with. But it’s your job as a parent.

Or is all this really just about more mass surveillance under the guise of protecting the children?
knolan
·il y a 3 mois·discuss
We used PoE hats for a bunch of Raspberry Pis once. It’s definitely a great idea.
knolan
·il y a 3 mois·discuss
I love that Blender can be a powerful scientific tool. Unlike a lot of software build for research, Blender is fast and user friendly, even if it has a learning curve. The addition of geometry nodes adds so much more capability too.

I’ve used it to help students visualise topologies for meshing in command line CFD tools. It’s also great for motion tracking objects in video footage. I’ve even used it to simulate various camera systems.

Unfortunately the videos aren’t working on my iPhone. I’ll try on desktop later.
knolan
·il y a 3 mois·discuss
I found 4D Golf a great game to explore higher dimensional space.
knolan
·il y a 4 mois·discuss
It works really well with the AR viewer on mobile Safari.
knolan
·il y a 6 mois·discuss
There is the Journal of Open Source Software perhaps:

https://joss.theoj.org/
knolan
·il y a 10 mois·discuss
The Dutch model is frequently cited by campaigners here as how things should be done. Unfortunately, as you point out, our government doesn’t really care. Investment is a patchwork of half arsed attempts here and there depending on local pressure. There are only two tram lines in the country and people keep driving their cars into the trams. Bus lanes are clogged with taxis and the Gardai (police) are absent from our roads.

A recent local council attempt to remove a couple of parking spaces and install a shared space in the area I live was met with a wave of anger and vitriolic abuse. In a public consultation people were complaining about how it would prevent them bringing some elderly relative to the GP in the snow, while transporting a fridge. Meanwhile the area is permanently clogged with cars dodging a nearby toll making the place extremely unpleasant to use as an amenity.

It’s incredibly frustrating and saddening to contribute to the problems after trying so hard to do better.
knolan
·il y a 10 mois·discuss
I feel like a bit of a failure when it comes to transport. I tried for many years to cycle to work in Dublin covering 25km on an ebike, but gave up after several nasty incidents that almost resulted in serious injury (for example my head almost going under the wheel of a van). I've experienced so much hatred, verbal and physical violence from drivers — and I'm the kind of cyclist that is fully lit, clad in high-vis and stopping at all traffic lights.

About a year ago I started to take the bus. My commute went from an hour on the bike to over two hours. Spending four hours a day on a bus to travel such a short distance is not a fun experience. The bus meanders through a city choked with traffic. It's often faster if I get off and walk that part of the journey (I've checked). I enjoyed cycling for the most part. It was great for fitness and clearing my head. The parts of my commute away from cars were beautiful but there was a significant risk of death or serious injury every time I got on the bike. More and more drivers are buried in their phones. Cycle or bus and you'll see this.

The bus was slowly killing me. It was hard to work as the crowded bus wobbled around narrow Dublin streets along with various degrees of anti-social behaviour. I got off the bus angry and frustrated and groggy.

I've just bought a small little electric car and I can get to work in around 40 minutes. I don't have to listen to other people's loud voice calls or TikToks that are so loud they penetrate through ANC. I don't have to ask someone to make space on the seat they are occupying all by themselves and their bag and endure the dirty looks for it. I don't have to wait and wait for buses that never show up. I hate the bus. I hate that I hate the bus. I feel like a failure for having to buy a second car but I fucking tried!

I'm happy in my car. It's fun to drive and it makes me happy and guilty. I feel like I have so much more freedom. I'm not tied to the bus schedule which placed very tight limits on my time, and the bus frequently didn't show. Otherwise it would take much longer to get home. I can stop by somewhere on the way home and pick something up. Like the bike, I am by myself in the car and I can decompress. I can sing if I want.

It makes no sense for a 25km commute to take two hours. Its madness. By travelling from one suburb to another via the city centre the bus becomes wholly impractical. A public transport system has to work so that people leave their car at home. London worked for me, I got the tube everywhere. Valencia has an amazing public transport system. Dublin is completely broken.
knolan
·il y a 4 ans·discuss
Huygens optics is a great YouTube channel with lots of homemade lithography and optics stuff.

https://www.huygensoptics.com/