Author Archives: Ross

Richmond by bike

Views from my first real ride on the Capital Trail—embarrassing, I know. 15 years ago, I used to ride out to this 7-11 way back before the trail existed. Turns out bike infrastructure is real nice!

Ban cars, Part 3

Via Alon Levy: The upshot is that there are two valid strategies to deal with literally hundreds of millions of first-world citizens who stand to lose income, wealth, or social or cultural status from the green transition. The first is to buy them off, or at least buy off those who can be bought off […]

Ban cars, part 2

Self-driving cars, SUVs, and the trolley problem. The Detroit Free Press investigation showed that NHTSA knew four years ago that the proliferation of pickups and SUVs was putting pedestrians at risk thanks to heavier vehicle weights, higher bumpers, and compromised visibility. “Pedestrians are 2-3 times more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an […]

Ban cars

The ultimate goal of the green movement in general and of public transit activism in particular should be to ban cars, or else get as close as possible to banning them. Modes of transportation that are not cars that provide alternative functionality to cars are almost always a good idea in this scheme.

Garbage can wheels

A couple of years ago my pal Sam talked about fixing the wheel on his garbage can and how that made his life so much nicer. Not that it’s hard to take the garbage out when the wheel on the can is busted, but how much nicer is the chore when the wheel actually rolls […]

Who’s on my ballot?

In this morning’s GMRVA, I listed out Tuesday’s primaries for the Richmond-adjacent Senate and House Districts. I’m surprised: Is the only place with primary candidate information really these user-unfriendly PDFs? Am I imagining that a “type in your address and see what’s on your ballot” thing existed somewhere before? This seems like a valuable service […]

Just like Nicholas Quah over at Hot Pod News, I love newsletters. His plan to make a Radiotopia-inspired federation of newsletters is interesting—although you wouldn’t catch me involved in anything that shares ad sale revenue. Membership though? Maybe like Maximum Fun? Here’s Quah’s on how the relationship with his first newsletter partner will work: You […]

This accounting of teaching congressional campaigns about digital security is fun, interesting, and could have been written about extended family members instead of people running for Congress. Maciej Ceglpwski, the Pinboard person, is one of my favorite internet writers. But I never found a way to get people onto 1password in a single training session. […]