And here it is
@oaklandbikelab elsewhere. Bicyclist, unicyclist, mobility justice advocate. Generally unpopular opinions about urbanism, often including data. Skepticism is my beat. https://bike-lab.org/ https://bayareabikerides.net/ https://totallydoable.com/
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And here it is
Serious bike commuters use Planet Bike Grateful Red with alkaline batteries.
Bike For California is back! A low-key tailgate for Texas Southern, with BBQ and brews. Rolling from Macarthur around 1:00 PM Saturday. www.facebook.com/events/80531...
"The child must be an unbearable burden for her mother, who has five healthy children to care for. Permanent placement in Am Spiegelgrund appears absolutely necessary"
I don't know the program, but SEIU has influence at the Port.
SEIU rally on Labor Day? www.mobilize.us/seiu-local-1...
Bike Party!
'[the DNC] unanimously passed a resolution in support of the much-maligned “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”' Much-maligned by who? Third Way's BS is that if we cede not only rhetorical ground but also policy to the fascists, that the people who vote for fascists will vote for Dems instead. Woo.
(Or use Dirt Tunnel if you like stupid-steep fire roads).
The Brookpark Rapid Station is half a mile from the nearest house. The stadium site is an industrial wasteland next to the airport. At best you'd get a few thousand people, eight days a year. Total grift.
Just updated: Tunnel Road in Oakland is undergoing construction to fix slides, and is closed to bikes (and cars) on weekdays at Buckingham Place from 7AM-5PM. It will be that way for weeks. Use Claremont, Shepherd Canyon or Butters if you are riding during the week. bayareabikerides.net
Just think of how many new imaginary organisms you could catalog!
The technological sublime.
One of the worst academic concepts to break containment and go mainstream is the notion that you can plot political preferences as coordinates on a cartesian line
Yes. And within the academy, many of these terms are of course matters of active debate. Which can seem esoteric to outsiders because the debate is not tied to concrete outcomes. But the purpose is production of knowledge, literally "academic", not advocacy for a particular position.
What Third Way is saying is, white cis people are threatened by the existence of people who analyze white cis behavior, and as long as anyone does that, white supremacists will use that threat to attack Democrats. OK, sure, that might be true. So what? Tell a more compelling story.
I think the biggest critique of this silliness is that absolutely no Democratic running for election uses any of these words. Like, when's the last time Joe Biden said "heteronormative" in a speech?
This has been a thing in tech forever; whatever some dude's specialty is, there's a tendency to believe everything not part of that specialty is both unimportant, and easy to do.
theonion.com/atrocities-k...
Let me introduce you to Henry Kissinger.
Yeah, definitely could push back on hidden identities. Also could do a lot to protect immigration courts. But he's not really interested. He's interested in bog-standard Democratic electoral politics, attempting to appeal to any white males who aren't actively Nazis yet.
"For Ur-Fascism...the People is conceived as...a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will.... There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People."
Let's assume that it works: that Newsom's gerrymandering ploy makes the difference in the midterms and the Dems take back the House. How will that stop fascism? How many thousands of Californians will be disappeared before January 2027?
Newsom isn't defying, he's shitposting. Better than nothing, but when he calls up the National Guard and orders the CHP to defend against ICE, that's when he'll be defying. He's acting like he has no power.
So this is straight-up eugenics, but a lot of folks don't get *why* this sort of rhetoric is- after all, she's not saying eliminate trans *people*, just *genes*...right? Your friendly neighbor trans geneticist reporting in for a quick explanation.
ICE is abducting people from immigration court this morning in San Francisco, a source onsite tells me. 100 Montgomery Street. There is resistance but I'm sure reinforcements today and every day would be valuable.
BPAC has pretty limited influence. City treats it mostly like a check-off for street projects. Potentially useful for networking if you want to connect with bike people.
More to the point, if they did get arrested it would probably strengthen the Dem response compared to what they're doing now. (Of course, arresting dissidents wouldn't stop with those two. But those two are not really dissidents.)
No, what about my comment would lead you to believe those are my positions? My comment was about the current actions of the Democratic Party, which has largely failed to address the moment now that the coup has succeeded and they are now the [ersatz] opposition party.
What opposition party is this you speak of?
Jack London Square isn’t downtown, it’s at the port. The rail lines can’t be grade-separated because that’s where the port is. To the OP, there are situations like the UPRR spur at 98th that interrupts the San Leandro Creek Greenway, that UPRR could fix but won’t. Jack London, is what it is.
New blog post: a geomorphologist's ramble across Oakland's midsection.
Local fans, my next Geologist's Walk Around Lake Merritt is coming up in a week.
Happening tomorrow! @higheredlabor.bsky.social is hosting an academic library worker organizing session to talk about issues we're collectively facing. 8/20, 7pm EST. higheredlaborunited.org/2025/07/24/a... #LibraryWorkers #HigherEd #OrganizeIt
Yeah, let's give up entirely on analyzing urban areas, and just go with the vibes of some dude from Charlotte. (One of my field study cities, by the way. Bike mode share 0.2%).
I grew up in Jersey. My brother lives in Jersey City. It has City right in the name. It’s an urban area.
OPD is attempting to expand its surveillance system to be able to easily integrate footage from public and private security cameras into one centralized database under the Flock system, a massive AI-powered tracking system that has been metastasizing across the country in the past two years. 1/x
It really is SimCity.
What would you say if I told you that building thousands of net new housing units in the Mission resulted in reduced population density? [Which is true.]
I'm sure the cultural, demographic, historical and geospatial realities of San Francisco are very similar to Tokyo, and the only reason the two cities look different is because of NIMBYs.
10K people/km^2 is urban density, by any reasonable definition. You'd be hard-pressed to find a place outside of the largest global megalopolises with neighborhoods 8km from downtown that are more dense. Certainly nowhere in Europe.
So was Brooklyn.
Dude who knows nothing about SF: "The Sunset is so suburban." Geospatial researcher who lives here: "You're wrong." Dude: NIMBY!
I really think it's about those two things: SimCity (imperial spatial control) along with aesthetics.
So could your house.
Demonstrate, please. Show me an international context with single-family homes in a largely car-dependent area where the residential density is 10K/km^2. (Not sure what's car-dependent about it, either. Walkable neighborhoods, many light rail and bus lines).
I'm not angry. Calling it suburban is simply wrong. And you don't seem curious about examining the assumptions which led you to use that term.
Show me some suburban census tracts with 10K people per square kilometer.
The population density of the tracts surrounding Golden Gate Park is 10K/km^2. That's denser than Singapore, Hong Kong, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Vienna, Mexico City, Bogotá. To these failed Sim City players, urbanism is just an aesthetic.
Self-Care Sunday with Rich City Rides. Beautiful day out there on a ride through Richmond and along the shoreline. Highlight for me was riding with 8-year-old Muhammad, who was inspired by the unicycle to do "look ma, no hands!" www.flickr.com/photos/tholu...
Rode Tamalpais the best way: up Old Railroad Grade, down the road. Panoramic Highway has too much traffic these days for the climb to be nice, but the descent is still awesome. The climb on Old Railroad is fine on a road bike. flic.kr/s/aHBqjCrae6
It was pretty good (I lived in Jersey at the time). More or less a Snickers; definitely channeling the Babe.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=95gn...
A number of people who have read "Let This Radicalize You" are unaware that we made numerous resources and tools to accompany the book. You can find all of them here including a workbook, discussion guide, zines and more. www.interruptingcriminalization.com/resources-al...
It's true that bike share is an absurdly dumb way to provide a transportation resource. Micromobility in general. Even when you ignore the ADA requirements and equity requirements (as all these systems do), it's still ridiculously expensive to run.
@ebbp.bsky.social August 2025: Hawaiian. Warm night in Concord and Clayton. Hits included Sudden Rush, The Clash, Surfaris, Beach Boys, Rebirth, Cimafunk, Incredible Bongo Band, and Elton John. Best in set, Crazy Train (RIP Ozzy). Also love for Tom Lehrer. open.spotify.com/playlist/4jG...
A bit of demographic research trivia I enjoy is that the race/ethnicity question from the U.S. decennial Census has been different every single time. Recreating taxonomies to recreate hierarchies.
Procrastination is a powerful productivity tool.
youtu.be/gyoZD5u4P24?...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuzT...
The Band's Ophelia is better than either.
Better head into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters.
Yesterday, on 79th Ave. "A minor was among those arrested, and it is the first ICE sighting in Oakland verified by the Alameda County rapid response hotline." That is, first ICE sighting *in the wild* outside of people getting snatched at their appearances. oaklandside.org/2025/08/13/s...
100% of gifs reduce usability.
God. God. God. Anas al-Sharif was one of the best humans this world has ever produced. So kind, so brave, so relentless. The occupation has killed so many of his relatives and tried so hard to kill him, and they finally fucking did it, and he kept reporting right up until his last breath.
Another oddity about rebranding of Ferran's anti-RCV to Black Action Alliance. New CEO, Sinclair Ridley-Thomas, is son of LA politician who was indicted for a pay to play scheme last year; brother an assemblyman who resigned ahead of a sexual harassment scandal, is now MAGA👀
A new entry in the "most mystifying enshittification": Now when insta notifies you that someone liked your post, you can't see which post it was.
"We find opportunities to create and improve public access to the Bay and its shoreline." "Except when we have an opportunity to destroy and reduce public access to the Bay and its shoreline." #richmondbridge www.bcdc.ca.gov/what-we-do/
Some Glasgow unicyclists need to take care of this.
It's even douchier than it seemed at first, given that it's a stunt promoting a memecoin.
Next in the activist toolkit: Bluetooth jammers. Could probably disrupt the whole operation as these dweebs are busy power-cycling their eyeglasses.
Slip the landlord a fin?
Took 60C from him and Hilfinger back in, what, 1989? Really a great educator and advocate for students.
In this week's People of ACM we interview Brian Harvey, professor emeritus, UC Berkeley, co-creator of the popular Beauty and Joy of Computing curriculum. Harvey and Dan Garcia received this year's ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. Read the article here: www.acm.org/articles/peo...
How about: the northernmost point of Brazil is closer to Canada than it is to the southernmost point of Brazil.
Never seen evidence that he's anything but a McKinsey consultant.
"Professional." One of the questions I got in a push poll call was what I thought was the most important thing for the city of Oakland to do. I answered "resist fascism." The caller didn't know what I was talking about. I had to spell the word for her.
Different in different places, but typically you can't just look up a plate. And when license plate readers are installed, there are specific legal protections to keep cops from using the data for fishing expeditions without warrants. Which doesn't stop them from doing it, because they're cops.
Because number plate info can be used by a fascist government to find brown people to send to concentration camps? Many reasons why privacy of movement is important.
I used to support speed cameras but in our current regime I think their contribution to the surveillance state is too much to ignore. Already been documented that SF and Oakland police have been sharing license plate reader data with feds illegally.
New blog post on a local attraction and its stonework
This is a disaster for rural media in particular
moeblog.substack.com/p/trump-is-i...
Gotta say, that's a really odd set of business for G to highlight.
Tipper fucking Gore.
Looking at the trail names on Strava, they're almost certainly social trails connected to youth mountain biking. There are a lot of talented trail builders around with access to infinite volunteer labor. And it's virtually impossible to get new trails officially permitted.
When it happens, you're probably not even going to learn about it directly before you feel it in the air. You'll just hear car horns and cheering in the streets. You'll feel confused, annoyed. You'll check your phone. Huh, 41 new texts.
CA produced Nixon and Reagan. Voted for Ford, Reagan twice, and GHWB. The only reason it became a Democratic-leaning state is that the Democratic Party decided to adopt Reaganism as its platform. So, par for the course here.
okay real talk- sometimes when i talk about the fears of being an out queer scientist at this moment, folks are like "idk, you don't really work on that stuff directly, you should be fine" but this is the sort of thing i'm thinking about when i worry!
They're just trying to keep Marshawn away.
Never too late!
We could replace all the billionaire tech CEOs with AI avatars and no one would notice.
I know there a lot going on but I would read 10000 words on the demise of school buses. This ish is INANE.
Bike Party! That's my wife Nancy at the "Have a Snack, Be a Snack" ride, in a costume she's kept since high school.
Was noticing, when thrift shopping for a costume, that men's pants are entirely boring. We're apparently allowed to wear colorful or goofy shorts or pajamas, but not pants.
You presumably are aware of RFC1149: blug.linux.no/rfc1149/writ...
(Also, as a long-time staffer: Compliance is a long-time principle of Berkeley administration. Berkeley claims to be "the home of the Free Speech Movement", which is true because the campus was on the forefront of suppressing student speech in the 1960s; they now take credit for supporting it).
UCOP has banned BDS: www.kqed.org/news/1204697... Berkeley is requiring "antisemitism" training and preparing grounds to arrest protestors: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs-E... They will enter lawsuits about grant funding but they won't be a part of any kind of movement.
Paint a green stripe and call it a "raised, protected bikeway." Save ya $5M.
Love On Top was a winner, rolling through Fairyland trying to kill time to let the caterers get dinner set up. Also Deee-Lite, Dancing Queen, Hot To Go. And a shout-out to the Skatalites from the Saul Goodman klezmer band.