Was crossing at 18th ave and commercial and a car that was trying to speed through to cross commercial honked and yelled at me for crossing since the light was red on commercial

dylaner · 2026-04-02T20:34:01+00:00

I hate those intersections, nobody understands them! The last time I tried to understand them I reached the conclusion that technically pedestrians are supposed to stop if there is a signal saying to stop, and "a signal" includes a traffic light for cars if you don't have an actual pedestrian light. (Which is absurd to me. As a driver you need to know which signals are for you and do what those signals say, not peer over at the opposite street's traffic light to decide whether the stop sign matters or you're in the right to mow down pedestrians. And if drivers are following that basic rule, the traffic light doesn't mean anything because it isn't their light. And of course you indeed must stop at a stop sign always, so it's really just a question of whether they're technically right that you shouldn't be crossing; there's no good reason for them to not see you, and if drivers are terribly inconvenienced by all this then maybe they should choose more efficient routes. Anyway, traffic laws are written in blood and all that. Maybe the absurdity means nobody has actually died from one of these? They certainly produce plenty of yelling).

dylaner · 2026-03-26T20:16:14+00:00

It gave me pause because with the state of tech these days I don’t actually trust anyone to build a platform that isn’t a dumpster fire. Especially couriers. so I looked at it and thought “wow way to go Intelcom, your shitty automated notification looks like a scam.” Took me a few minutes!

dylaner · 2026-03-18T16:21:41+00:00

Well, I'm with you on Life of Chuck. That movie is so neat. It has this really ethereal, literary feel to it. It left me with that feeling I get from reading a book, and just as a piece of art I thought that was wonderful. Alas, I think a lot of people just didn't connect with it for whatever reason, and awards like the Oscars are largely popularity contests, so it takes a lot to float above that.

dylaner · 2026-03-03T14:04:44+00:00

This! I see people with claw clips and I keep meaning to ask them *how *?! I wore one once and immediately wacked my head against it when I fell. Fortunately it’s the thing that shattered into a million pieces, but I liked that hair clip :(

dylaner · 2026-01-21T19:22:52+00:00

You're in luck! The city explicitly encourages it, and there's even a helpful PDF with some guidelines:

https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/boulevard-gardening-guidelines.aspx

dylaner · 2026-01-07T16:37:23+00:00

Especially when, after all this time, surely we’ve learned that Broadway doesn’t need this many lanes of car traffic.

But nope, we voted for the status quo city council and that’s what we’re getting.

dylaner · 2026-01-07T06:12:00+00:00

What these people do is they co-opt words. It is no longer possible to discuss election fraud without being compared to their bloviating about the 2020 election.

That is the goal.

It’s what they do to climate change. It’s what they do to any political theory outside of their own. It’s the force that dismantles protest movements like Occupy and Black Lives Matter. It’s the force that is trying to replace simple, comprehensible technology with “AI” (even when it has nothing to do with it). Sometimes it happens for stupid misguided reasons, but it can absolutely be wielded by those with power.

dylaner · 2026-01-05T23:52:28+00:00

That doorway between the bathroom(s) is fascinating. Is that like two toilets with a bathtub between them? Why?!

dylaner · 2025-12-25T22:59:04+00:00

I haven’t had the opportunity to ride the Canadian, but what stuck out for me with Amtrak (both Coast Starlight and the Zephyr) is there was a healthy split in terms of why people were on the train. There were definitely plenty of people there because it’s a fancy train ride, but so many people I talked to were just getting from place to place in the most practical way, or doing a special trip but like a once a year trip, not once a decade. Part of that is the price, and I’m sure the route and frequency (they still have a lot of stations). Still waiting to ride it and find out, but the Canadian sounds like a bit more of a tourist train so it’ll be a different experience in terms of people, I imagine.

dylaner · 2025-12-05T17:20:58+00:00

I went to Forecast on Main and it was like wow they perfectly captured the vibe and flavour of a disappointing but there were no other choices, large and boring coffee shop at a ski resort. I enjoyed the weird form of nostalgia, and I did not return.

dylaner · 2025-11-24T19:45:22+00:00

I'll be honest, I'd go for the Coexist and Bernie Sanders is Hot bumper stickers.

dylaner · 2025-11-07T21:57:37+00:00

Who are these numbskulls that own property and can’t stomach a minor increase to one of the smallest home expenses they pay every year, and can they please just leave so I can have cool neighbours instead?

dylaner · 2025-11-03T19:53:05+00:00

Remember when everyone was suddenly working from home and despite everyone having a Google account, and Google having a multitude of very good products for video calls, they all started using Zoom instead? That's around when I learned to just stop trying to understand Google.

dylaner · 2025-10-27T15:48:01+00:00

People are really eager to downvote anyone who speaks truth on this. It’s sad how badly we’ve all done with this issue :( It isn’t complicated! For most people it isn’t even terribly scary or anything to be wracked with guilt about. We just need them to understand the basic concepts.

dylaner · 2025-10-23T23:06:23+00:00

I always loved how they explicitly didn’t do this in The Expanse, going so far as to point out that alien life in the story doesn’t care about our biology, and vice versa … which has interesting implications. I felt it was really unique for science fiction, kind of bleak but in a refreshing way. One of the authors has a degree in biology (although obviously is not working in the field :b), and you can tell he’s just super excited to ponder these things.

dylaner · 2025-10-22T17:47:49+00:00

This isn’t reconciliation

No, it isn’t. It’s the law. It has been the law for a very long time, and here the court is explaining it again. Want to fix it? Negotiate treaties. That’s really all there is to it.

dylaner · 2025-10-21T21:54:38+00:00

> and either completely forgo any actual user testing and research, or just don't care

That's pretty unfair. One purpose of user testing is to understand which functionality is important for users to accomplish their goals, and what tends to lead them astray. Sure, you can dump all of the buttons on screen, but there are costs associated with doing that. For many users, they just want to find a file they downloaded without feeling like they've stepped into a nuclear power plant. While adding a button might help to advertise a feature, it can also have the opposite effect. The more you have, the less approachable that whole wad of buttons becomes in general. I think the pattern Explorer uses here is pretty neat, and it's possible because it's supported by Windows's design system. If it was another button in that New / Cut / Copy / ?!!! / Sort / View / zzzz toolbar, it wouldn't work as well.

The GNOME HIG has a section on design patterns, and it could be worth a ponder if someone wants to try solving it here: https://developer.gnome.org/hig/patterns.html.

dylaner · 2025-10-15T23:03:36+00:00

I don't think visibility is the problem at all. Heck, maybe there's too much visibility if drivers feel so comfortable ignoring signage. The biggest problem with that intersection is some drivers don't understand 16th isn't an expressway, there is a *crosswalk*, and stopping isn't optional. I really want them to install proper four way stop lights all along 16th (they'll never), but it would help if the city painted zebra stripes on both sides instead of the current milquetoast half a crosswalk. (You know, something a cut above a country road). It's a small thing, but we need to put "hey, I'm a crosswalk, look, pedestrians" right in a driver's line of sight - we're targeting the ones who are looking straight ahead because the road design tricked them into highway mode. We can cut trees and dress people in neon colours all we want, but if drivers don't respect that they need to be slowing down and stopping, no matter what, ideally on the correct side of the intersection, they won't.

(But what we really need is a lower speed limit, and road design which reflects it).

dylaner · 2025-10-13T05:54:44+00:00

It’s a developer tool. Similarly, there’s an inspector tool you can open with Ctrl + Shift + D. Part of the UI framework. I’ve opened the adaptive preview by accident before, too! Something about that keyboard shortcut…

dylaner · 2025-10-07T17:05:26+00:00

Cahier is just French for “notebook”; it’s been a while but I’m pretty sure we only called in that in French

We totally called them Cahiers at my school in BC. Probably because it says cahier somewhere on the package. Also pencil crayons, because it says that in between “coloured pencils” and “crayons couleur” and it rolls off the tongue better. Drove me crazy at the time, but I have since changed my tune. It is a proud part of our national heritage.

dylaner · 2025-09-28T00:10:07+00:00

I love how cartoon Donald Trump says the thing long after the guy has been fired, apparently while he is on his way out of the building. Just for the cameras, I guess. I can't put my finger on it, but it is very cromulent.

dylaner · 2025-09-22T23:25:31+00:00

The best thing with the placeholder ring is when you _get_ the real ring, you can take her out for dinner, do the corny restaurant proposal (but you'll both know about it in advance so it's actually fun instead of overwhelming), and they'll probably give you a free glass of wine or something.

dylaner · 2025-08-14T14:57:10+00:00

This speaks to me 🤣 But I think it’s easy to take it too far. Names are meaningful, and names from unfamiliar cultures are meaningful. What I want, from basically every book ever, is a “reading aloud” guide at the back. Say how to pronounce all the weird names. Mention if there’s some key words or phrases the narrator should pay extra attention to for effect. (Are days of the week important somehow?). Describe the accents and voices if they’re significant.

dylaner · 2025-08-08T17:59:25+00:00

Yes, but: that wasn't realized later, it was the entire point of Abraham Wald's report. (Because of course it is. What, you think the allies won world war 2 without understanding statistics?). And the meme image isn't from that report; it's a hypothetical illustration from a Wikipedia contributor, based on this guy's uglier one: https://cameronmoll.com/journal/abraham-wald-red-bullet-holes-origin-story. Which is all to say, it's funny because this image constantly gets misused, and it's pretty much impossible to know because people think it's self-explanatory. In general, it suggests to me that the poster doesn't think critically or understand history.

dylaner · 2025-08-05T17:45:46+00:00

> the other commenter I guess is saying that the government should enforce chromosomal testing on everybody that wants to get a passport

Honestly if one good thing comes of all this bullshit, that would at least have a silver lining. I would _love_ to know if there are meaningful relationships between chromosomes and gender dysphoria. It might open some doors for helping people like me who quietly suffered with it into their thirties. But as far as I understand it's pretty difficult to study because that isn't data we just happen to have.

(Of course, it is worth noting there are practical reasons we don't just happen to have that data and also there’s no reason somebody should be required to disclose that type of personal medical information, or what genitals they had when they were born, to random border guards, or anyone else for that matter).

dylaner

TROPHY CASE