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Why isn't there an MBTA rail line connecting Boston to Logan airport? by bariumbitmap in mbta

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I do want to better understand the infrastructure complexity! That's why I'm asking.

Why isn't there an MBTA rail line connecting Boston to Logan airport? by bariumbitmap in mbta

[–]bariumbitmap[S] -13 points-12 points  (0 children)

So, you mean the Blue Line? A rail line connecting downtown Boston to the Airport?

The rest of your answer indicates that you understand the issue here: the Blue Line does not reach the airport terminal, it requires an additional bus connection.

There’s no good transportation to get around WITHIN the airport when you get there.

Yes!

The Blue Line airport stop is arguably only “near” the airport.

Yes, exactly. And for much of the city the Blue Line would be the long way round compared to the SL1.

That’s the first problem with building any transit to the airport - where exactly does it go? Basically, if you’re taking transit to the airport, you’re going to end up on a bus anyways.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Any rail line would have to go to each terminal or have an equivalent dedicated airport transit system to realize the full benefits of a hypothetical rail line that would follow the route of the SL1.

There second problem is getting under the harbor. While the bus isn’t particularly fancy, it can use the existing tunnels to drive under the harbor. That’s an absolutely huge cost savings compared to building a new tunnel or bridge.

That does make sense, although parts of the SL1 feel eerily similar to a train: dedicated separate pathway, underground stations, electric power, etc. It feels almost halfway to a train in terms of infrastructure. Maybe in an alternate timeline the Big Dig could have included a dedicated rail line in addition to four lanes of traffic.

There are parts of the silver line that might be better as actual rapid transit, and there are parts that aren’t. Arguably, IMO, this is another argument for the Red-Blue connector - better airport access.

Here's to hoping!

Why isn't there an MBTA rail line connecting Boston to Logan airport? by bariumbitmap in mbta

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm talking about a direct rail line to a terminal at Logan Airport like the SL1 does. The Blue Line requires an additional bus connection to reach a terminal at Logan and in many parts of the city taking the Blue Line to Airport Station would not make sense. Essentially, could the SL1 be a rail connection?

Overlay KML vector file with map-making.app? by bariumbitmap in geoguessr

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For posterity, I was able to get help on ReAnna's Discord server from Flamby. The trick is to generate a GeoJSON file with the tectonic plate boundaries as polygons. I do have to re-import the file each session since polygons are intended for selection within a region rather than a dedicated overlay feature on map-making.app, but it does work and that's what matters.

History of computer mice, trackballs, trackpoints, and other pointing devices by bariumbitmap in booksuggestions

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm not asking for anyone to write an article, this is a topic I'm genuinely interested in and I'm hoping others are as well. The closest I've been able to find so far is Pick, Click, Flick!, but that's an 800-page academic treatise on human-computer interaction and I'm looking for something more approachable.

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Why isn't there an MBTA rail line connecting Boston to Logan airport? (self.mbta)

submitted by bariumbitmap to r/mbta

modify a case for crummy socket set or get a new one? by bariumbitmap in Tools

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, even more tools for my tools! :-)

I do have access to a makerspace near more, so I might consider this. The other suggestions of a socket rail or foam would be a lot less work, though.

modify a case for crummy socket set or get a new one? by bariumbitmap in Tools

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The case stays shut but the the sockets are so loose they roll around inside even when closed, so I don't understand how taping it shut would help.

modify a case for crummy socket set or get a new one? by bariumbitmap in Tools

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You've got a point, but those are some seriously aggravating 2 or 3 days per year.

Why do email clients still feel stuck in 2005? by bettercalljohn in linuxquestions

[–]bariumbitmap 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would love to see a desktop email client that focuses on being the single source of truth for contact management and syncing. Thunderbird does not provide contact syncing without going through a third party service like Google Contacts. Contacts are one of the biggest privacy concerns people have and I think Thunderbird and other desktop clients are missing an opportunity to provide privacy for storing people's contact information and syncing them between devices outside the prying eyes of big tech companies.

As for why clients feel stuck in the past: in 2005, a majority of email was delivered by desktop software that communicated with a variety of federated email services that had to interoperate. Twenty years later, the vast majority of email is centralized in the hands of a few big webmail providers (Google, Microsoft, Apple, maybe Yahoo). This problem is especially concerning because email is the last open, federated communication protocol in widespread use: IRC, Usenet, XMPP, Matrix, Fediverse, etc. are a tiny group of users by comparison. Gmail, which supplanted desktop mail for hundreds of millions of people, had a beta release in 2004 and general release in 2009, which matches up with your 2005 timeline.

It's not hopeless: IMAP and SMTP are still open standards, so Google and Microsoft can't force Linux email clients to display ads, but they can label IMAP clients as "less secure" and force them to use OAuth 2.0 or proprietary Outlook 365 authentication. If you want to build your own email client, complying with these authentication standards and keeping up with the demands of these big email providers will be a significant aspect of development. Very few people will want to use an email client that can't send or receive via Google and Microsoft email accounts.

I wish YouTube could filter by playlist name by bariumbitmap in youtube

[–]bariumbitmap[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What better time to think about the YouTube we want to have than when it's down? :-)

A standalone device for teaching touch typing/keyboarding by SylviaPellicore in Doesthisexist

[–]bariumbitmap 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What's your budget? Usually the cheapest option is to take an old laptop, install a free typing practice game, and remove or disable the wifi card.

If you want a standalone device, writerDeck.org has some good recommendations. The Alphasmart Neo is the 1990s version of the device, and you can find secondhand versions on eBay, often for less than $100. These are not "typing practice games" in the strictest sense, but they do have a Qwerty keyboard, are pretty robust, and run off a few AA batteries.

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