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Down a Privacy Warning Rabbit Hole

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I've written about peer-to-peer technology before. It is essentially the underlying design principle behind DARPA's creation of the internet. Internet technologies were researched during the Cold War as a way of literally bomb-proofing communications networks, as telephone networks were essentially a client-server model. If an attacker wanted to cut off communications, especially for government, all they had to do was blow up the nearest telephone exchange to the facility they wanted disrupted. The internet inherently does what its name says, it inter-networks around centralised exchanges. When built to do so, at least. The trouble is power (and power takes many forms, not just government or authority) likes its perview to have a baked-in central distribution point, so the telcos and tech bros who built the modern, public internet opted for the old client server model and built an infrastructure with a bomb-proof peer-to-peer backend. Then they put the clients on "spokes,...
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The Immorality of the Pursuit of Artificial Intelligence

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Capitalism proliferates by manufacturing scarcity. Sometimes, the scarcity looks like a dream - "Here's a Ferrari, but you can't have one. However, you can have this Hyundai in red, if you like." Sometimes the scarcity is a lie - "We simply can't get enough programmers to solve the information management problems of the world, so we need AI." This latter is becoming more prevalent as the venture capitalists seek greater and greater returns from a technology restrained by a genuine scarcity - margins of sustainability. The global energy and pollution limits. The earth can only sustain so many "monkeys" at a given level of consumption. Fewer "monkeys" at greater resource consumption and pollution output, more "monkeys" at reduced consumption and pollution output. Venture capitalists believe in the fiction of infinite growth and, while we are limited to a single earth, this one we all share, our civilisation is built inside a ...
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A Lego TGR Y-Class Locomotive in 1960s "Blood and Custard" Livery

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Tasmanian Government Railways Locomotive Y2 at Hobart Yard (now the site of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation), circa 1970s. Image via SDS Models' Y Class page . My dad was a railwayman, starting as a clerk, studying at night to become a civil engineering technical officer, winding up as the supervisor for track rehabilitation design and works, whiile also being a derailment first responder. I grew up around trains, talking trains. I know what "BO-BO" and "CO-CO" mean. (Number of axles in the bogies at either end of a loco, for the uninitiated.) In short, I love trains. I love trains so much that, the clincher in deciding to move to Melbourne to marry my beloved Linda, was, "Hey, if it goes tits up again, at least I'll be able to get around by train!" It hasn't gone tits up, and I get around Australia's "Paris of the South Seas" by train and recumbent trike. And I still love trains. Since dad's passing in 2020, I'v...
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500km On My New Greenspeed GT20

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I've clocked a little more than 500 clicks on the new trike, actually and, while I still feel like the mid-drive doesn't help as much as my hub motor helped on the tourer, it is certainly more battery efficient and is still a measurable boost over riding unassisted. I still feel I need the seat a tad more reclined but, where the battery is mounted, under the seat, this restricts using the seat's full reclining range. I could go one more of the 6 remaining notches on the seat recline, but a bad bump might flex the seat into the battery and I actually feel like I need 2 lower more of the 6 available notches to prevent slipping forwards on the seat, especially downhill. That position isn't possible at all where the battery is. So I need to consider moving the battery onto the top of the pannier rack. A portraight of the writer 3 months ago, on test ride day. Having the battery bracket outboard-left of the frame and below the seat also puts it in the line of puddle splash...
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Australia's Road Toll - 7 people killed every 2 days in the last 12 months

Let that headline sink in. 1296 people died on Australia's roads between April 25, 2024 and April 25, 2025. Divide that by 365 and you get 3.5 (and a bit) people killed on Australia's roads every day. This is like tolerating manslaughter. For perspective, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) records that 409 people were murdered in 2023. Fewer than a third of the roads deaths figure. As far as I can tell, from daily media consumption, murder rightly draws public ire yet there's almost no outrage at the senseless deaths of people going about their daily business. This is fucked up! Murder certainly warrants public action, police work, active justice. Why do deaths, caused by weilding 2 tons of motor vehicle, weilded with compromised care or attention, draw media attention only for the spectacle of wreckage? In nearly all car crashes, there is a liable party and a victim. Where there isn't a victim, it's nearly always 2 or more liable parties. Where is the outrag...
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Mid Drive Isn't Adding Up

having now ridden a hub drive for a year and now a mid drive recumbent trike for a month or so (actually a front drive because the trike's bottom bracket is out front), I'm starting to get road experience of the benefits and problems of both. One of the biggest claims made for mid drive is better centre of mass - bollocks. the rider is the largest and highest positioned mass on either an upright or a recumbent. Another factor in center of mass is rotational momentum, and here, a mid drive wins on an upright bike, bumps lift the mass of bike and rider through a shorter "lever." On a recumbent trike, a bump lists the mid drive through a short lever (the trike's wheelbase) vectored back to a lever longer than the trike's wheelbase by a factor of nearly 2, the distance between the pedal bracket and the back wheel. All the center of mass arguments for mid drive ignore the rider's mass and, again, on a recumbent, the rider's rorational moment is reduced but...
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Say No To AI

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I have just learned that Soundcloud are planning to introduce a policy allowing AI to train on all the music therein. Being politically opposed to training AI, even for pure academic research, without the express permission of the artist/rightsholder in such works and without payment of a royalty for each instance of such use, I have summarily deleted my Soundcloud account. I strongly advise artists of any field and genre to do likewise, should their gallery site, repository or similar medium require acceptance of such terms. Training AI without paying the originator is possibly the BIGGEST cultural theft in history. If the ceators are not paid, that is piracy, by capitalism's own definition. I stand against the AI industry's "one law for them another for us" attitude to payment for access to human culture. Meanwhile, following my Soundcloud deletion, I decided to refresh my knowledge of my Bandcamp account terms. Big sigh of relief! Bandcamp stand against, and make...
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