Christo Silvia
@christosilvia.bsky.social
3.2K followers 6.2K following 16K posts
Housing 🏘️, transit🚇, walking🚶‍♂️ and cycling 🚲 advocate in Woburn, MA, USA Car lite advocate, ebike owner Historic 🏠 owner, renovation amateur, and marriage enthusiast Vegetarian Senior RF Design Eng The opinions on this account do not represent my employer
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Reposted by Christo Silvia
ryannorth.ca
I used to get mad when people misused "decimated" to refer to things that weren't 1/10th destroyed, but I've given it some thought and now I've done a complete 360 on it
Reposted by Christo Silvia
yasharali.bsky.social
“The Biden FBI”

Who was President on January 6?
Donald J. Trump * © @reaDonaldTrump • 1m
THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM - DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT
Reposted by Christo Silvia
doug.city
Doug @doug.city · 19h
The standard—and not totally incorrect—narrative is that the US basically abandoned transit after WWII, but there was a real revival underway in the 1970s that stalled out by the mid-1980s as the political winds shifted. Things have improved since, but we've never fully recovered that ambition.
ndhapple.bsky.social
UMTA R&D spend from 1972-1989. The amounts in the 1980s appear to be overstated as a lot of those projects were commissioned in the 1970s and were finishing up. Dollars are not adjusted for inflation.

New spend by the late 80s was down to $13m/yr, $3m/yr of which went into 'privatization' =>
Tables of new R&D spend between 1985-1989. Spending on research related to train and system design had been entirely zeroed out. Table of R&D spend from 1972-1985. The wind-down begins in 1982.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social
It's incredible the extent to which Congress just utterly refuses to defend itself. You'd think for entirely self-interested reasons you would stridently oppose having the power of the purse arbitrarily ripped from you, ya know?

Why would you allow yourself to become the Roman Senate circa 27 BC.
kjephd.bsky.social
Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
The Office of Management and Budget sent a notification to Congress about their intent to use research and development funds to pay members of the military, two sources with direct knowledge tell NBC News.

A spokesperson for the OMB confirmed to NBC News that it plans to use the research and development funds and that there are two years' worth of funds available within the Department of Defense.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
jwvizzard.bsky.social
Mayhew taught us that members of Congress are “single-minded seekers of reelection.” We are now learning that if reelection conflicts with exercising power, they’ll choose reelection. Single-minded indeed.
gravitysra1nbow.bsky.social
It's incredible the extent to which Congress just utterly refuses to defend itself. You'd think for entirely self-interested reasons you would stridently oppose having the power of the purse arbitrarily ripped from you, ya know?

Why would you allow yourself to become the Roman Senate circa 27 BC.
kjephd.bsky.social
Unconstitutionally taking money that the law says must be spent on one purpose & using it for something else—when it's to establish personalist control over the FUCKING MILITARY—is about as dangerous a constitutional crisis/failure as you can imagine

Via: www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...
Reposted by Christo Silvia
nevint.bsky.social
I totally agree. About 15 years ago I worked with JETRO and it was astonishing how limited the vision of the Canadian govt was compared to peers like Australia or even NZ.
shawnmicallef.bsky.social
The Cdn embassy in Tokyo is epic in scope. Such grandness + materials + size in a compact city. Bungalowish bldns for staff. A real moment: Japan’s 80s boom but also a Cdn bigness vs cheapness. An internationalism too. Bring it back. It’s our only way around the USA. Pics from Oct 2023 walking by.
Embassy bldn at night Embassy bldn at night Embassy bldn at night Embassy bldn at night
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whstancil.bsky.social
Look with all due respect Trump is very unpopular and most Americans do not approve of pretty much anything he’s doing. Our political and media institutions are pathetic, filled with cowards looking for a boot to crawl under, but even despite pressure to comply Americans broadly do not condone this
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theophite.bsky.social
where did the USSR get all of its war materiel. also, when the US joined the war, the German army was in the Moscow suburbs.
telesjr.bsky.social
The US never fought to end fascism anywhere. They joined the war because Japan forced their hand, and they saw a great way to make money. After the USSR pretty much had pushed Germany out of eastern Europe and they knew the nazis were going to lose, they jumped in.
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dieworkwear.bsky.social
seems like a non-insignificant percentage of rage against the machine's fanbase are young republican men driving SUVs bopping their head to anti-oil, pro-immigrant songs thinking the lyrics are about how they wish their suburban parents would get off their back
Tom Morello tweets: "Fascinating that all those “don’t tread on me” posers and their AR-15’s are nowhere to be seen and government tyranny is instead being opposed by a guy in an inflatable frog suit."

Someone named Manny replies: "@grok
 why do some people say Tom Morello and band mates are RAGE FOR THE MACHINE and not against ?"
christosilvia.bsky.social
That's a challenging message
Reposted by Christo Silvia
rahaeli.bsky.social
like seriously team, I know y'all are working on both improving Discover and on better reply sentiment filtering and all, but it's going to take a while to tune it properly and a "never show my post on Discover" setting would be a 10 minute fix that would get 65% of why people want private accounts
leahmcelrath.bsky.social
I had a post reach the Discover feed today and was once again reminded of how many people on this site are not house trained.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
ernie.tedium.co
I feel like this theory also explains why the “Trump is weird” approach that Walz hit on last year was so effective and why everything fell apart once the consultants got involved and told him to act normal.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
macfarlanenews.bsky.social
Amid shutdown, House Democrats will return to DC next week, despite GOP cancellation of schedule

Rep Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sends letter to colleagues, “It is critically important for House Democrats to once again return to Washington.”
Reposted by Christo Silvia
politiburb.bsky.social
I've said (and heard) before that the way America shakes out after Trump is fundamentally unknowable right now because it's going to be largely contingent on the precise manner in which the Trump era actually ends, and this is basically the subtext of that.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
argellastone.bsky.social
We were *inches* away from legislators being lynched on Jan 6. Inches away from a mass shooting. And I don't know if we'll get "lucky" twice with limited casualties. And I think we should probably brace ourselves for things getting insane, without losing it and panicking when it happens.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
argellastone.bsky.social
I've been hesitant to voice it because I really don't want to come off like one of those "psh, you still think the midterms will happen?" doomers. Yes, elections will happen, and thanks to thermostatic politics we're most likely going to do very well in them. I think we win the White House in 2028.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
pogtastic.bsky.social
Grumbling about not having enough points at character creation and having to decide between "got the Shotgun Shooting merit badge" and "took introductory programming at the community college"
christosilvia.bsky.social
It's more that there are thresholds that I worry the Roomba would get stuck on
Reposted by Christo Silvia
theproudjoiner.bsky.social
What are some emerging and disruptive technologies the military should be looking at besides the usual AI, autonomy, additive manufacturing? @marforbluesky.bsky.social
christosilvia.bsky.social
He didn't say "exceptionally good"
Reposted by Christo Silvia
schnorkles.bsky.social
Just to remind people, the reason that Trump wants to blow up CDC is pretty easy: they want people to die.

The combination of destroying rural areas to centralize population and removing weak populations seems to be part and parcel of their strategy to remake the welfare state.
Reposted by Christo Silvia
regimecpa.bsky.social
Yeah I'm going to be lazy and daily drive Ubuntu, turns out I am too employed to be a neck beard with my desktop anymore.