This Friday (tomorrow) at 4pm, AMASE Chair @ferrous will be talking with Pete Wharmby, autistic author, about #autism, #writing, #education, #monotropism and all that sort of thing.
Tickets are free and open to anyone. This event will be recorded.
For those unfamiliar with it, Lemmy is basically a federated version of Reddit, distributed across multiple servers like Mastodon. (For anyone who wants to delve further, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, and aussie.zone are three popular Lemmy instances.)
From Mastodon, you can follow any Lemmy group by following its handle, exactly the same way that you would follow a Mastodon account. Any new posts to that group will then begin appearing in your Mastodon feed.
Even better, if you start a thread on Mastodon, you can also post it to a relevant Lemmy group just by including its handle in your post. (Please note this only seems to work with the first post of a thread.)
Received more royalties for my book Ultimate Train Journeys: World, which is very welcome... not as much as the previous six months, but it's still on the bookshop shelves and selling (coming up to two years since it was released).
I'm #autistic. The sound of the train blowing its horn as it passes my house makes me cover my ears in pain. But the throbbing bass of the engine that causes a deep pressure in my chest from the vibration makes me feel happy.
When I was a kid, I used to crank up the bass of my parents' stereo and sit directly against the woofer to feel that pressure. They would always yell at me to turn it down. I've always loved that feeling.
If you live in Melbourne's southeast, come along to my free talk at Cheltenham Library about the epic rail journey that led to my book Heading South. It's on Wednesday 30 August from 6.30pm, and you can book your place here: https://library.kingston.vic.gov.au/whats-on/events-activities/tim-richards
#Trains are mostly dead to me. Not just because of price, but also price inconsistency¹, the exclusive info systems² & payment shenanigans³.
Train fare from country A to country B can by bought in either country via the national rail provider. Each quote different prices for the same train. (the EU had some agenda to fix this, but apparently it has failed)
Tor users are blocked from even seeing which trains are available, and if that exclusivity doesn’t stop you sometimes there are extra hoops to see the prices.
Cash payers often have to pay much more than online payers (#warOnCash). Complex promos also make a game of it. E.g. there will be a cross-border weekend fare, but you cannot buy that ticket from your departure point. You have to take a train to the bordering town, get off the train, and buy the cheap cross-border ticket in that station, then get the next train.
Buses are:
cheaper most of the time
have open platforms (no blockade against Tor users or CAPTCHAs)
ironically have lower GHG than trains according to British research
The Hyperloop was never meant to be built. Elon Musk admitted it was all about fueling opposition to California’s high-speed rail project so it would get canceled.
He never planned to improve transportation; he just wants to keep people trapped in cars.
@EU_Commission things are far worse over here in North America. I'm excited to be taking the train to and from my fall vacation with my wife and friends but on average, train travel isn't even an option for most people in #Canada, despite being a country built around rail.
Good luck! Keep being an example. #trains#publicTransportation
🚄 What if you could travel through the EU for a month for free?
This year we are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Single Market, which allows us to enjoy free movement of goods, capital, services and people across the #EU.
That’s why we are giving away 10 prizes of two rail passes to explore Europe’s rich cultural heritage for a month.
Rather than a lottery, a #EU-wide plan for changing the approach on the funding on #rail#infrastructure investment and maintenance costs—which are scandalously underfunded compared to #road—would be a much better way to celebrate.
Look I am not a train autistic, but it's undeniable that trains are freaking cool. Trains are interesting, and maybe if more NTs were train people, more cities would have functioning public transport systems. Just saying.
Melbourne Airport Rail workers redeployed as project officially paused.
A really disappointing, backwards step here from the Victorian government.
And yes, stopping and then restarting a major infrastructure project (if that's what ends up happening) is almost certain to lead to delays and cost blowouts, when compared to just completing construction.
From The Age:
"Hundreds of tradespeople will be seconded to other projects after the Andrews government confirmed Melbourne Airport Rail Link construction would be paused, awaiting the results of a major Commonwealth review of the country’s infrastructure pipeline.
"Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan on Wednesday ended weeks of speculation about the future of the long-awaited rail line, saying works would be temporarily halted on the $13 billion Airport Rail Link, as well as upgrades of Clyde, McGregor and Racecourse roads."
"Fieldnotes on FlyingLess Conferencing:" Our reflection on European #STS conferencing via #train is published in the EASST review. This is an intervention to think about less energy-intensive #mobility forms for conferences. #transition#flyingless
Train fares are up to 30 times more expensive than planes in Europe (edition.cnn.com)