CIRCLE WITH A DOT

@auxonic Great example. Maybe I need to narrow my frustration to end-user-facing software.

@HyL Confirmed this is monthly active users, so anyone who accessed their account in the last month.

Serious question, speaking as a Computer Science graduate and holder of multiple professional tech certifications: has anything in software gotten materially better between 2007-2026?

I don't mean faster. I don't mean more features. I mean "the planet is better now for this change".

I can't think of an example.

Is there an AI financing bubble and corruption? Ed Zitron did the math, and [spoiler alert] yes.

The AI Industry Is Lying To You

Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my independent reporting and analysis, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newsletter that’s usually anywhere from 5000 to 18,000 words, including

Ed Zitron's Where's Your Ed At (www.wheresyoured.at)

‘We have 241GW of “planned” capacity in America, of which only 79.5GW of which is “under active development,” but when you dig deeper, only 5GW of capacity is actually under construction?’

‘Hundreds of billions of dollars have been sunk into buying GPUs, in some cases years in advance, to put into data centers that are being built at a rate that means that NVIDIA’s 2025 and 2026 revenues will take until 2028 to 2029 to actually operationalize, and that’s making the big assumption that any of it actually gets built.

I think it’s also fair to ask where the money is actually going. 2025’s $178.5 billion in US-based data center deals doesn’t appear to be resulting in any immediate (or even future) benefit to anybody involved.’

@HyL I’ll try to find out how that was determined. My suspicion is users who have logged in within the last year, but I’m not certain.

[joke about AI goes here]

Thing I just learned: VIA has an on-board police service. A “Train Marshall” just walked past us. According to Wikipedia there is no such rank, but there doesn’t seem to be much info out there - I’m guessing classic Canadian government secrecy about it means the bare minimum is public. https://www.viarail.ca/en/why-via/via-rail-police-service

I would also not serve the meal at 14h15, on a train than runs from 13h30-19:00. And not the meal that I reserved, weirdly. VIA1 has changed a lot.

If I was in charge I would add a new double track across the country, alongside existing rail, with VIA owning it. With crossovers, not high-speed separated track. Then trains could dramatically increase speed and reliability for only mumble-mumble billions of dollars.

And I would add sleeper cars to the Quebec City-Windsor corridor trains, so people could book an “office” to work in, or they could book a made-up sleeper room to nap in. No meals included, just more private seating.

Also every train would be longer, with more of the affordable tickets available, to build ridership.

Return trip on #ViaRail from Montreal to Toronto and we are on an old train again. I wasn’t surprised, as this morning I took the REM to Brossard and counted 8 parked new trains in the yard — 25% of the new fleet. And that’s just the ones here not in use, never mind Ottawa’s or Toronto’s storage tracks.

Also the drinks are smaller and weaker in business class now. Never gonna attract people to trains THAT way.

RE: https://mstdn.ca/@announcements/116266821872646846

As a volunteer moderator on #mstdnca I want to spread the word about this - check your email, fellow @mstdn.ca kids. We want your engagement and help continuing to build and support this community!

Especially invited & encouraged are women, people of colour, queer, trans, and non-binary folks - your voices are important and welcome in our community and in how the instance operates too!

Riding the new REM branch in Montreal. The smooth rails and performance are so pleasant.

#Montreal #REM #Transit #TransportEnCommun

@ShaulaEvans We have a similar spot right near our home in Toronto - love the old arcade game fun!

Montreal with the kid plans: Biodome, PWHL game, see friends, visit Transit.app headquarters and bring them Toronto transit gifts, and eat cheese curds and bagels.

Disappointed to find my #ViaRail corridor train using ancient equipment from 1981, despite the new trains all being delivered long ago. I should have done my research - the #Siemens Ventures are having nonstop problems, and a third of the fleet or more is out of service: https://www.reddit.com/r/ViaRail/s/kjcGkIfBJL

I was excited for new train with clean air. Guess I’ll be sick next week.

So glad the retail chaos finally over

RE: https://mastodon.social/@verge/116229066217170408

Do you have email addresses for your friends and relatives? May want to work on that.

@mikepmoffatt Happy birthday Mike!

Listening to a TTC briefing on transit signal priority and the relief of staff having clear direction from council to do it properly, finally, is so visible.

Great videos showing proof of benefits on Spadina, and sneak peeks at modeling tools too.

Plans to prioritize multiple bus and streetcar lines this year.

Makes me feel optimistic for surface transit.

This was a nice read about becoming a parent.

(h/t @jm_mcgrath)

https://www.derekthompson.org/p/three-reasons-to-be-a-parent