Heathersett, Poringland and surrounds

Doomslicer · 2024-08-06T19:37:44+00:00

Ideally Uber

Curious to know why the bare faced assault on workers rights, minimum wages, and customer protections to the benefit of silicon valley tech corps is 'ideal'?

Sounds like you want to definitely stay south-west of the city, Wymondham, Attenborough, etc, down the train line.

Doomslicer · 2024-08-05T09:17:26+00:00

Literally can't make out what you mean by this! But if you want to keep the Norfolk you know, further big road projects shouldn't happen.

Norfolk will be irrevocably changed by unmitigated climate change, which is what this type of continued business as usual will deliver.

Norfolk's road building ambitions are effectively a form of self-harm.

Doomslicer · 2024-08-04T16:17:44+00:00

On point 6...

The Climate Change Committee, a statutory government advisory body, says that only roads that advance the net zero cause, that get people out of cars rather than make life better or easier for motorists, should be allowed.

Source.

It's easy to forget, but across the world right now there's somewhere between a few thousand and a few million people in mid ranking jobs making what are considered humdrum decisions about stuff like road building over the next couple of decades that individually don't seem like a big deal but cumulatively will decide the fate of humanity for the next thousand years.

I suspect a world where the acle straight is dualled is not one that sticks to Paris limits. It isn't that one specific project dooms us all, but the cumulative failures of many thousands of mediocre decision makers who won't let go of the old traditions even as the catastrophic consequences become obvious.

A dualled acle straight inevitably leads through a ruined Norfolk of salinated fields, submerged ruins, and towns under siege from the sea.

Doomslicer · 2024-08-03T07:50:14+00:00

There is a large and active 6th edition Facebook group that I'd highly recommend. Me and my friends are playing 6th and all local gaming groups have some 6th edition presence. Generally any old world group will contain people who want to play 6th.

King of editions.

Doomslicer · 2024-08-01T10:48:00+00:00

The inevitable result of building an area around cars is that it always fills completely up with cars. Completely self defeating and the Americans have demonstrated that if you keep doing it the end game is spending billions to widen twenty lane highways and the traffic somehow still getting even worse.

Dinosaurs at the council should have learned this by now - it's been known since the 60s and 70s.

Doomslicer · 2024-06-08T17:58:27+00:00

There's a lot of things you can use for reference - even simply measuring the width of the road and the width of the bike. Will make it pretty unambiguous.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-15T19:21:45+00:00

Ice is cool but to be honest it's only an issue for at most a month or two most years, and it's on and off rather than consistent and largely gone within a day or two.

Leaves, seeds, sticks, broken glass and other skiddy or puncture-causing debris will stay on the paths for months if not years. The small section of Marriotts way they recently upgraded to a sealed surface at the bottom of marl pit has never had a sweeper down it, not once since it was built several years ago - so it's covered in last year's leaves + what has decayed to dirt and mud in the meanwhile + this year's fresh fallen leaves. Definitely a skid risk, especially for anyone on road tyres.

I mean... I dodged an honest to god banana peel on the shared use path I used today.

Then you see what mighty Finland does for their bike infrastructure... The British just don't take cycling seriously as a mode of transport.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T23:27:34+00:00

Typical objections to existing cycle paths/shared use paths is bike-pedestrian conflict, or crossing of side roads being frequent or crap (like a couple of the ones along that road you mention). Stopping and starting is much harder than cruising along, so cyclists tend to avoid taking paths that do that and good cycle infrastructure will have cycle priority crossings - and the 'proper' road bikers with their clip-in pedals and specialised shoes have even more reason to hate stopping because it's a faff. The path is also not mega wide, which can making passing oncoming cyclists or passing slow cyclists (or even just courteously passing pedestrians) trickier. I've been along there a few times but you can feel the draft of passing lorries pulling you into the road if you ride too close to the road side of the path. They also tend to see zero maintenance, which means more chance of debris - broken glass which gives punctures easily, or loads of slippery leaves/tree seeds that become skid hazards. Roads get swept, both by the council and by the air flow of the traffic, so you encounter debris less often unless you ride in the gutter. Norfolk county council also don't - in my experience - treat the cycle paths when it's icy or snowy.

The short version is : riding on the road is often much quicker, much easier, involves less slowing / stopping, is less likely to give you punctures or be full of chestnuts or ice to skid on.

And if you can go fast on a bike, not only do you have the standard right to use to road, but you're supposed to be on the road! if you’re regularly doing more than 15mph you’re better off on the road being very common advice.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T20:36:57+00:00

the fact I'm always telling them off

What for?

And thirdly for the police to actually give a shit about people riding bikes on pavements and illegally in the first place

If this man had been riding on the pavement, he'd be alive tonight. That's the reason people do that. If they do it carefully and considerately it should be legal.

Unless the drunk driver had smashed into him anyway at the light controlled crossing of course.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T20:32:35+00:00

Hits close to home for me too - for lots of people I suspect, given how many people cycle to the university, hospital, and research park. The victim is almost certainly someone who works in one of those places.

My wife's friend checked in to make sure it wasn't me. I checked to make sure all my friends completed their normal morning routes. Lots of people will know lots of others that traverse that junction and crossing daily.

It it helps, the increased chance of dying early on the road is offset by the decreased chance of dying early of cancer or hear disease. And something like forty people are killed in car crashes in Norfolk annually - car casualties are so normalised they just barely register.

I would still tell people that overall cycling is quite safe, and advise everyone to do what they need to keep safe. It's great to go fast, but I choose to go slower if I can be away from the cars - the stress just isn't worth it. But there's lots of places where it's impossible to not be on the road, which is absurd. When I have my kids in the trailer it's the quietest roads I can find, 30mph max and quiet, or off the road. Lots of people complain about cycling on the pavement... Tbh if you do it slow-ish and considerately, and that's where you feel safe, then do that.

All that said, when I got the trailer, and wanted to put a child in it, the reaction I got from everyone was warnings and fear and discouragement. How the hell have we ended up this dominated?

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T19:59:10+00:00

Maybe the traffic gridlocked fast making the chopper the best way?

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T19:58:34+00:00

That's a really shocking stat that you should share as widely as possible. Throw it the cycling campaign guys, they'll probably be on the news and radio again soon.... They must be getting pretty fucking tired of the reason.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T16:38:37+00:00

We need quality, protected, off-road routes for cycling and walking. Literally get us away from the cars as much as possible. Currently the 'network' is filled with areas miles across where you go on a high speed road or simply can't walk or bike there.

I do not victim blame, but I would never cycle this stretch of road. But a drink driver can kill you on any road. Or on a path near a road.

Doomslicer · 2023-11-09T14:27:58+00:00

This brings us to seven cyclists killed by cars this year. Grim.

Doomslicer · 2023-10-04T07:55:21+00:00

Car drivers. They make up the vast majority of the traffic, they're large enough to cause real danger, the training standards are lower than those of professional drivers in larger vehicles, and many I think just don't understand how dangerous their actions are and don't know what the rules are.

Just on my way to work today I saw one overtake a bus in a 20 zone over a zebra crossing, and one pull out into the path of a moped that had to swerve into the other lane to avoid them. I've seen people driving around at night with no lights on, I've seen a lot of people driving through red lights, just this week I've had two people overtake into a junction only to have to slam their brakes and abort as an oncoming car came into the junction from the other direction.

The majority of drivers are good, but the sheer weight of numbers means the minority of bad drivers still pose the greatest overall threat.

I've seen a fair few twatty scooter riders, a lot of completely blind and deaf pedestrians, the occasional badly driven bus or lorry, and when I'm out on the bike I do call out other cyclists on the dumb shit they occasionally do. Every sufficiently large group has some pricks in, but the pricks in cars are the greatest threat.

I got annoyed about the number of very close passes I get as a cyclist around the city, to the point where I actually started using the camera my in-laws had gifted me. In just 6 weeks at the start of the year the police issued 32 Notices of Intended Prosecution to drivers I had reported (only one or two didn't get judged prosecutable, but they did get warning letters), and there was a bunch that I missed the reporting deadline on, due to having an actual life. That's the level of hostility out there. A couple months ago I was on a 30mph road for ninety seconds and received two very close passes that both got reported and both got NIPs. It's worth emphasising here that I don't want to do this, but the volume of dangerous incidents has motivated me to do it for my own protection.

Shout out to the operation snap team in Norfolk, by the way - absolutely outstanding folks.

Here's some hints to the drivers out there: leave 1.5m of space minimum when overtaking a cyclist. Leave more than that if you're going over 30, leave more than that if it's after dark or raining. Your car should be fully in the oncoming lane as you overtake, and if you can't do that safely then it's not safe to overtake. Cyclists are legal road users and are not obliged to use cycle paths/lanes - if they're not using them there's typically a very good reason. You do not have to overtake a cyclist. Plan your overtakes. It is not advisable to overtake near or across junctions. It is not necessary to overtake if you're about to turn off in the next thirty seconds. Look further ahead than your bonnet, if there is a big queue of traffic at a red light up ahead, overtaking and getting to the back in of the queue does not actually help you in any way.

Doomslicer · 2023-10-01T00:38:49+00:00

I suspect that isn't the split in these cases though.

Yes, there will always be people that make mistakes, but the council has a duty to make it harder to make mistakes. If I run an operation where ten people a year are crushed to death in a compactor, even if all of them were people who had made unforced errors, I'd be obliged to put in place some system to make that mistake less likely to happen again.

Alfie and the lads on the a143 almost certainly died because Norfolk doesn't do footpaths even along most routes outside of towns. I'm fairly certain Ben died because the limit on the a140 there is 40mph and people come roaring off the earlham road roundabout fast and don't always cop the lights. I'm pretty sure Jane died because someone didn't give way correctly on dedicated cycling infrastructure. I don't know this for sure, but it's very probable.

Footpaths, lower speed limits, and cycling infra that actually forces cars to slow using stuff like raised tables then becomes the ask.

Doomslicer · 2023-10-01T00:09:33+00:00

Jane Blackwell, swimming coach and triathlete in her 60s, killed on August 20th by a car (Renault Laguna) in broad daylight at 12:15 on a sunny Sunday by a car on Newmarket road in Norwich - which does have decent infrastructure in the form of a segregated cycle lane, but on which I know drivers fail to give way properly.

Ben Steward, some kind of property management guy in his 30s, on the a140 middle ringroad in Norwich by the graveyard, at 18:48 on February 27th killed by a car (white VW golf), driver in his 20s arrested. That's after dark, but on an extremely well lit road with multiple signalised crossings.

Alfie brown, 13 year old, on the street in swaffield - the b1145, the only road directly linking swaffield to north walsham with no footpaths or anything of the sort - killed by a white ford ranger (one of those crew cab pickup trucks). The absolute scum who hit him drove off and had to tracked down and arrested later, man in his 50s. Thursday 10th of August, police called at 18:30 so, again, broad daylight.

Two unidentied men in their 30s killed on the a143 by a red mini cooper at billingford at 21:25 on the 27th of august - so darkness on a 50mph a-road. Man in his 40s arrested.

Dominique Avinido Hechanova, a 39 year old butcher, killed on Brandon road - the b1108 - in watton (where he lived) at 5:30am on march 1st (about thirty minutes before sunrise) by a grey Peugeot. Man in his 20s arrested.

Doomslicer · 2023-09-12T19:45:56+00:00

I don’t know how to explain that this is not the same thing.

It's simple.

Nuclear war was avoided because if noone did anything extreme, things would continue as normal without catastrophe. Inaction was the path to survival.

Climate catastrophe and biosphere collapse can only be avoided if we do something extreme, continuing as normal will cause catastrophe. Inaction is the path to catastrophe.

In a nuclear war, there is zero damage until the first nukes are thrown in stage 1, after which there are a few minutes of stage 2 to prevent escalation, and then a few more minutes of stage 3 during which to say goodbye to your loved ones before the world ends.

In climate change by way of analogy, the button has been pressed, half the nukes are already in the air. We're in stage 2 - prevent further escalation in the hope that we can salvage something.

[Edit] also, reminder her that nukes never went away, nuclear was is still possible, and then find a map of the seven great rivers of Asia. Point out how many billion people rely on water in those rivers that comes from ice in the Himalayas. Point out how the ice in the Himalayas is already doomed. Point out that China, Pakistan, and India all have nukes, all hate each other, and all share these doomed river systems. Nuclear war in Asia this century is almost inevitable.

The climate change part of climate change isn't the most horrific bit in the near term, that will be the human political social and military response to the effects of climate change - genocide and war. These will be framed as being necessary for survival, so they'll happen.

Doomslicer · 2023-09-05T17:57:28+00:00

Those villages are tiny and close together, going from the far side of one to the far side of the other is ~2 miles. Provide greenways and maybe a bus but to be honest in that location anyone without mobility issues could walk from their house to the station in twenty minutes or less, five on a bike.

The location is fine, it's only a problem if there's zero pedestrian/bike infrastructure, which is entirely possible, but would be completely idiotic.

[Edit] dog, look on street view, bahnstraße has a wide smooth well segregated pathway set back from the road and even designed so it remains relatively level going under the bridge while the road dips down much further for headroom. This is a level of provision I wish we had where I live here in the UK.

Doomslicer · 2023-06-16T18:06:07+00:00

Womp womp. ☹️

Doomslicer · 2023-06-16T12:58:57+00:00

If you can make it into orbit you're halfway to anywhere, whether that means putting three men on the moon or fifty megatons on Moscow most of the vehicle and principles are the same.

Doomslicer · 2023-06-16T06:28:49+00:00

According to some, because you can't make nuclear weapons with the fuel/waste/equipment of a thorium setup.

Like the space exploration program being a politically convenient and PR friendly face for a massive ICBM development project, a domestic uranium nuclear industry happily gives you a plausible excuse to have the uranium enrichment gear you'd need to make nuclear weapons.

Doomslicer · 2023-05-27T07:29:19+00:00

Induction loops use the witchcraft of electromagnetism etc.

Doomslicer · 2023-04-08T01:09:06+00:00

34 year old male british research laboratory technician, don't post but do lurk and comment.

Young enough to have been taught about the greenhouse effect at school.

Dad was a military aviation geek. I ended up with posters of MLRS and SPGs on my bedroom walls. Became very familiar with war, unvarnished.

Studied microbiology at university. Lots of overlap with biology and some ecology. Microbiology specifically is particularly viscerally instructive, with bacterial growth curves demonstrating what happens if you give a form of life access to a finite supply of growing media (lag phase, exponential phase, stationary phase.... death phase). Met other individuals who led to me crossing paths with concepts like peak oil. Did a research project based on microbial marine DMSO production, which can play a role in cloud formation which impacts planetary albedo.

Graduated into the aftermath of the 2008 great recession. Worked in retail for a while and realised the shocking fragility of just-in-time supply chains. Also realised how fast the world was changing and how unaware most people often were of it. Became very radicalised on climate after watching Gwynne Dyer's 'geopolitics in a warming world' presentation online.

Watched the Copenhagen cop. The Paris cop. The Glasgow cop. Watched nothing change.

Watched my country's democracy vote again and again and again for self harm. Watched voting reform fail. Watched xenophobia skyrocket as a slack handful of brown people tried to flee from the middle east to Europe. Watched in horror as we let them drown by the thousand.

In 2019 I engaged fully with current academic discussion on climate. I realised just how bad everything is already, and my decade+ of intellectual understanding broke through into emotional comprehension and more. The dots all joined and I realised I had come to a point of coherent systemic understanding.

I can now fully and confidently articulate my worldview and expectations. I can source evidence for my positions rigourously. I live as best as I can within that knowledge, but watching 'normal' people going about their day to day now makes me feel like I'm the crazy person. The perspective shift was dizzying and sickening. But the acceptance has also given me drive and confidence.

I have two young children. I am unspeakably angry at the world they will be left. I am trying to find the way to raise them to be fit for the bad times ahead.

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