@thursday_j I plan on getting a GPS tracker for my bike, but I’ll take this into consideration as well

@pingveno Yea, it really does not compare. I just want to cut down on accounts and this is why I tried to be more active on lemmy, but otherwise it’s really unatractive.

@pingveno I’m also on the same page as you. There’s just not enough content and pretty much no local content at all if you’re not in Western Europe, US and Canada. Relevant topics for Eastern Europe for example either do not exist or are regarded through the lens of the westerners.

While Reddit just simply seems to me the sanest of the biggest centralized social networks. Plus that it’s really taking off: when I joined Reddit a few years back r/romania had around 1/10 the number of current subscribers. Local or Romanian specific communities are also getting more traction. As a Romanian, I can only help by posting the news I get myslef here and… yea…

@TheOne

@TheOne libranet.de/ I guess

And you can still count Reddit in to some extent (that one is unpopular here as well tho, haha)

@TheOne Unpopular for the average person or for whom?

@poVoq Nothing bus-rail seems to have taken off tbh. The idea usually seems great, but all previous attempts seem to have failed. Here’s one example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kr4EZwZbxwQ

@admin indeed!

@QuentinCallaghan These far-right extremists are so sick (usually the most deranged people are far-righters anyway, but I digress). How can you just threaten someone’s life over a political opinion…

Local news says the Google car had to give way to the other car. Only one person was wounded as a result of the crash, though.

@pingveno Glad the experience is better across the ocean. 😁

But yeah, my main complaint is really that big businesses were able to essentially subsidize rides initially, then take advantage of their position

On the flip side, if this competition makes a service better overall, it is welcome from my side, imo (especially when it comes to transport). Before that, taxi companies used to offer very poor service (to say the least) - and even now you have to pay attention to various shenanigans of them:

• Dirty vehicles, some vehicles even in bad shape
• They are allowed to smoke inside (they usually ask you right after they light the cigar if it’s okay with you)
• You have to pay attention to the meter
• You have to pay attention to the route they take (sometimes they will just take the longer route, so you can pay more) - otherwise you can get a premium trip where you can see dozens of train stations, tens of triumphal arches and two Palaces of Parliament
• Drivers can get rude (at best) or outright violent (at worst) if they disagree with you on the ride.
• Plus some of the bad habits mentioned before, but which are way more widespread among taxi drivers.

Yet they still complain how Uber is taking their passengers and what they can do to stop this.

(and yea, taxi companies don’t do shit about this behavior)

@pingveno Here, car sharing companies became the new taxi in some ways. Drivers are just taking rides then canceling them, some say they’ve arrived then just leave, so that you get charged, others just stop and wait for you to cancel (or run around the city pointlessly, just so you can get bored and cancel the ride). You can contact the support team, they just give your money back and that’s it. Not all drivers do that, so your experience might be a hit-or-miss, but enough people complain about this.

Many drivers are just former taxi drivers, so they bring along some of these bad habits, like starting to talk with you about the most insane conspiracy theories (i.e. anti-vax stuff etc.).

Not to mention, the prices are also ridiculously higher when and where there’s an increased demand (i.e. when there’s a big concert).

At least their cars are mostly in good shape.

@TheOne I still use Facebook - there’s no way to get in touch with some of my close friends. Chatting via SMS is ridiculous, and you cannot send any type of media. They do not seem to use any other chat app than WhatsApp, and getting them to switch to a different app simply failed. I Could not get anyone to switch to XMPP, so both my XMPP and Matrix accounts are pretty much just a backup contact method for anyone who for some reason would not be able to contact me on other networks such as Telegram (still not ideal, but I had more success in getting that platform useful for me).

Plus, I still use Instagram because lots of people I know are using it, although I rarely even get in there nowadays, let alone post something, haha.

@ajsadauskas It’s always cheaper to work on with what you have and improve upon it, rather than getting everything from 0. If you have some unused rails though, it’s better for you to use these instead, or in conjunction with the bus network (i.e. making the bus network serving areas where the line is not going).

My city has an extensive tram network and quite a lot of train lines serving former factories, now abandoned. The current mayor has plans for revitalizing these, electrifying them, and starting a metropolitan train service on it (sort of a RER or S-Bahn-like service), yet things are moving way too slow, and I’m afraid he’ll not finish the whole project until the next elections.

@jay91

@ajsadauskas interesting. Yea, the problem is that these suburbs are kinda parasitic - in the sense that you’ve got no schools, little to no hospitals, no recreational spaces, only a few big box supermarkets or other stores and small supermarkets at the ground floor of the buildings. And these are not your typical American-style single-family homes - not at all. They look something like this.

@ajsadauskas Bucharest, Romania - here:

Biking

• Its almost non existent; there is one decently made lane on Victoriei Avenue. Period. That’s it. That’s the only decent bike infrastructure you see in this entire city.

• There is another joke of a lane on the banks of Dâmbovița river (also known as Splaiul Independenței) which care use it as well. Is it illegal? Of course, it is. Does the police care enough? Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not. Drivers just take for granted the fact that there are no separators like on Victoriei (see before) and get in.

• Bicycle infrastructure created on the sidewalk - many mayors just draw a couple of lanes on the sidewalks and call it a day (example). Doesn’t matter if we, as bikers, need to get around pedestrians or if a kid just jumps in front of your bike. They just draw two lines on the sidewalk, and so they support mobility, right? Everything just not to upset the people in tin cans, or else, you’ll lose your votes. Thankfully, the road police is generally closing these, for these very reasons; but it still doesn’t help if at the end of the day the bike infrastructure is nonexistent (see the first point)

• There is no place to park your bike. There is an attempt in the 6th district, but it’s just too little. They look like this, generally:

  If you don’t have access to one of these, and you live in a higher level apartment building (as many people do here), then good luck getting 10-20 kg of iron with you upstairs/downstairs.

• You cannot take your bike inside public transit if it’s not foldable, except inside the metro - during weekends and early in the morning and late at night. If you have a flat tire, good luck with that.

Transit

I generally find it quite decent, by contrast, but there are some things that need improvement in my option, and some things that I hear people complain
Here’s what I do not like myself:

• buses get stuck in traffic. There are no bus lanes, so they have to share the road with drivers (drivers also tend to use other people’s space because f*ck them, why don’t they also get cars, are they poor? but still). This makes the buses move slow and not come on time.
• There are still, in this age and time, vehicles where you cannot use your bank card to pay directly with it. And this is driving me crazy. Your alternative is to either take your time to go to a booth, buy online, but for some reason wait for 60 mins for the ticket to activate on your travel card, pay by SMS (not really cutting it for me, as I use a prepay) or install an app called 24pay - which is both proprietary and uses space I do not have on my phone.
• Some tram lines use old rails that are yet to undergo changing for a long time already. They are in poor condition and pose a great risk for derailment. When traveling on them, trams usually swing sideways quite a lot, which makes it uncomfortable to ride them. They also have speed restrictions in these places, so they have to go reaaaaaaaaly slow to get to the destination.
• Transit is non-existent in the suburbs. There are some bus routes and that’s it. No trams, no trolleybuses, nothing else. You have to take the car to get in the city.
• The metro is the best way to get around. It’s clean, it comes on time generally, but the network is still not complete after all these years, it takes years just to build a few stations (see the M5 line, which took 9 years to complete only 1/3 of it) - so it’s generally crowded.
• Lack of air conditioning on most surface transit.

What other people complain about, and the reason they choose cars:

• Old vehicles
• Crowding
• People; some speak loud, some like to put various music, disturbing others etc.
• Dirty vehicles
• People destroying chairs and other internals, people that smell, drunk people etc.

@Zerush so strange things got so heated, after all he even got watered preventively

@Zerush When you see your destiny written on the door

@Hirom I see. I’ll post the direct links to their articles then.

@Hirom I also wanted to promote their Mastodon page, but thanks a lot!

@KelsonV I see. So this might actually be a good thing, as they are publicly allowing anyone to use such a server to their own benefit, haha 😁
@nutomic

@KelsonV That makes sense

@nutomic

@KelsonV So you’re saying that anything you post can be visible for any AP server, basically?
@nutomic

The WWF, the ministry claims, “under the guise of protecting nature and the environment […] tried to influence the decisions of the executive and legislative branches of the Russian Federation, and to hinder the completion of industrial and infrastructural projects.”

The WWF told Meduza that it will seek to challenges its inclusion on the registry in court, and that it will continue “to protect rare animal species and preserve Russia’s natural world.”

@nutomic so there are no other similar settings on either Mastodon or Lemmy?

@nutomic wouldn’t it help to turn your profile private?
For example, on Friendica you can check the option below and you cannot access any information of that profile besides the bio, your official website and your contact info (Matrix or XMPP):

I imagine that by having people interacting with your content from P29, your content gets sent over to them, so, in turn, Meta can sell that info to advertisers or allow them to target you otherwise.

Or, more likely, they could use info they receive from the Fediverse to further track their users on the platform (say A from P29 likes my image of a giraffe on my profile. Now Meta will have that information available to advertisers, and they can advertise X with cheap plane tickets to Africa or something).

Edit: Now that I think about it, they could also still be doing some sort of EEE-thingie that they did with XMPP

On one hand, this could actually be great, as it would allow me to follow actual Instagram accounts without maintaining a presence on Instagram. Or imagine just giving anyone your Mastodon/whatever Fediverse platform. Meta-owned platforms are really so large that it is really impossible to quit them without losing access to lots of people.

On the other hand…
…
…
…

THIS IS INSANE! THE AMOUNT OF DATA THAT ZUCC COLLECTS AND CORRELATES WITH EACH OTHER IS SIMPLY ABYSMAL. IS THERE ANY PIECE OF DATA ABOUT US LEFT OUT THERE THAT THIS BEHEMOTH CANNOT TAKE FROM US WHETHER DUE TO TECHNICAL OR WHATEVER OTHER TYPE OF LIMITATION??? HOW DATA HUNGRY CAN YOU, AS A COMPANY, BE AND WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL GONNA DO WITH THOSE GIGANTIC AMOUNTS OF DATA??? JUST GIVE US A BREAK, ZUCC!!!

@ada

@Ninmi unexpected /s

Source

@erioque i

@erioque also, look out for lemmygrad.ml . as. a. fine. example. of. the. most. precious. network. of. the entire in-ter-net and. the. way. it. functions. as an older AI my.masters.programmed.me to . show. you. all. the. ins. and. outs. of. this. net-wo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ork

Come. and. have. a. look. around. while. I am. pre-paring. my . coff-e-e-e-e-e-eee

Edit: I need an update, some. of. my. dependencies. are mis-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i

@erioque Erm, ok. I rest my case, have fun with all the Marxist-Leninists around!

@erioque lmao Lemmy is just full of these enlightened people. Why do you think they are so great fans of the Mali TLD?

Also, let me quickly show you a way to get your content downvoted around this place:

Slava Ukraina! Zelensky is the best leader, may he defend the sovereign and democratic nation of Ukraine until the final victory over the RuZZian orcs. Ukraine will win. Crimea is Ukraine. Donbass is Ukraine. Death to Putler and all the soldiers in the RuZZian Army!
@expertmanofficial

Full speech

@lysy No one. They’ll just end up piling the landfills, recycling centers or tinkerer’s drawers like mine 😁

So let’s get this straight, this clown is coming here, praising the fact that we are a corrupt country, and he can do whatever he wants, although corruption is hugely unpopular among the public. Then the same corrupt system arrests him - allegedly due to the same corruption within it (sic!) - so he tries to involve populist politicians in the business, telling them they’ll get votes.

The guy is just a bad showman, lol.

@Ninmi Eastern Europe is more homophobic than the Western Europe in general. The fact that homophobia has been deeply ingrained in the Russian state had no way of not making the LGBT communities in neighboring countries more aware and afraid.

@jaroslav lmfao

@sexy_peach Soviet Union was not fascist in any way. It was communist (of course, another totalitarian regime, just as fascism, but a tad different in its stated purpose). Current Russia, instead, is. It has this wild use of nationalism, imperialism, soviet-nostalgia thing that it combined and uses it to expand its power both inside and outside. It pretty much blurred the line between actual fascism, and it’s soviet past, in order to get to this regime.

Imo, Russia pretty much ripped itself from the rest of the world mentally and shut itself in before any serious sanction kicked in (these only impacted Russia economically). Sure, the US let itself a bit too central since the end of the Cold War, and got a bit spoiled for this. But this doesn’t help the fact that Russia could actually choose to be democratic and respect people’s freedoms, and be friendly with other nations. Let’s just hope the world comes out not so much affected after this crysis.

@sexy_peach That’s sad. Perhaps, if they had any previous experience of “being liberated by fascism” the same way this part of Europe was, then some of these people would see Russia differently.

It’s anyway part of Russia’s divide et impera hybrid war strategy to divide and polarize nations and alienate both the far left and the far right (as they are the easier target for propaganda). Wonder what’s his strategy now that he sees his army being just a rusty war machine. If this invasion showed anything to us, it’s that Russia is less powerful and dangerous as it likes itself to display. Hopefully people realize it’s less reliable as well.