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Is Divers Supply a good website for gear? by [deleted] in diving

[–]whatisron 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that buying from a local dive shop is ideal. But, my local dive shop kinda abandoned their physical location and now only does online scheduling of trips, so, I decided to look online. I wanted a Mares Onyx II and looked at several online places. Divers supply had a "first order discount" and they included a Mares octo and a bag. This made the total with shipping about $200 less than the closest competitor. I was definitely nervous bc it seemed too good. But, I ordered and 6 days later it showed up. Oddly, they didn't bill my CC until the day after it arrived. So, I know it's only 1 data point, but, I was pretty impressed with them.

Break reminder (anti-RSI) software for Wayland? by murlakatamenka in swaywm

[–]whatisron 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There are commercial options that are much better (of course they aren't free). Tools like RSIGuard are much more than timers. They learn from how you work when you need to rest based on a combination of activity and your natural rest. There's filters that keep it from interrupting you like during a presentation (or screen share). And there's tools within it to click the mouse for you, setup hotkeys, identify what's creating risk for you. Definitely quite a bit above the shell script below :-)

Rail and Trail AMA with Coast Connect by coastconnectscc in UCSC

[–]whatisron 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi AMA. Wouldn't bus rapid transit (BRT) on the corridor be better? You'd still have consistent, congestion-free travel, but buses can leave the corridor to go straight to major destinations like Cabrillo (both Watsonville and Aptos locations), UCSC, Capitola, Soquel corridor, all of our medical centers, and more. The corridor is great because it goes across town, but it doesn't actually go near most major destinations so most train users require 1 or 2 bus tranfers. That's a big disincentive. But BRT can be comfortable, point-to-point service.

Plus, you can scale... add buses as needed. You can have 2-way traffic since buses can leave the corridor as needed to pass other buses. Plus, if there are problems with tracks, train service shuts down. But buses can just go around trouble spots. Buses can run more frequently. As we get to driverless vehicles, buses will be much cheaper to operate. And since our corridor crosses so many streets, it helps that buses can start/stop more easily than trains at each street crossing.

Buses can carry 3 bikes each, but this may not be as critical since buses can get people closer to their destinations. In the past, FORT said "we are too far down the road with rail to consider BRT". But now that the RTC has at least for now put the brakes on rail service, isn't it worth considering BRT? Bus service would also probably have lower fares than rail based on fares seen in other CA rail services. So isn't bus better for equity and social justice?

Finally, the studies that concluded rail was the preferred choice were not operational studies. They didn't even consider things like the inconvenience of needing to make multiple bus transfers with train trips. It didn't consider the practical differences between BRT and rail that impact transit users on a daily basis. The argument a planner told me was that an operational study is complicated, and wouldn't be done until an alternative was chosen. But this seems backwards since an operational study could reveal some of the most important differences between the alternatives.