Jesse

Musings on software development, bike infrastructure, public transport, and urban planning.

https://jessta.id.au

Public Key

npub1ncjk63e7ldpccddg3nyjnlk32zxcvsmu3kmjyehjlcjey7vg84hqnkuxny

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jessta@aus-social.mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsfuftdgul0ksuvxk5gejfflmg4prvxgd7gmdezvme0ufvj0xyr6mspzpmhxue69uhkummnw3ezuamfdejszrthwden5te0dehhxtnvdakqt0cdjv

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nostr.wine

nos.lol

relay.damus.io

Author Public Key

npub1ncjk63e7ldpccddg3nyjnlk32zxcvsmu3kmjyehjlcjey7vg84hqnkuxny

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Last Notes

2026-10-23 03:11:42 UTC

Today the Sydney Rd Accessible Tram Stop campaign bought our own ramp to try to get on the tram. Sadly even this long ramp wasn't long enough so the angle was too steep.
Hopefully we can get accessible tram stops on Sydney Rd before we're all skeletons.
#melbourne #AccessibleTramStops #accessibility
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2026-10-07 23:49:57 UTC

"Melbourne's newest train station, West Tarneit, opened last month in the city's booming outer west. The station's 400 car parking spaces rapidly fill up on weekdays."
The fundamental problem with free train station car parking is that you can never build enough of it. Even if the argument for building it is to cater to the people whose only option is to drive to the station there is no mechanism to reserve the parking for those people.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-10-07/new-tarneit-train-station-car-park-overflowing-with-commuters/107232716

2026-08-06 12:04:16 UTC

Designs for the last section of the St Kilda Rd bike lanes in the service lane outside NGV.
Due to space constraints they've gone with traffic calming and mixing bicycles with traffic for this section.
The most important part of this design is the traffic bollards blocking off the centre median preventing traffic from exiting on to St Kilda Rd and continuing north. Traffic will now need to do a u-turn and head back south meaning that the only reason to be in the service lane is to pickup or drop-off passengers or for tour buses to park. This will mean there will be significantly less cars in this service lane.
The speed limit will be dropped to 40km/h (It really should be 30km/h).
I think this is a good design. It's much better than the current situation.
Any other design would have been really expensive to do or would have required completely removing the pick-up and drop-off area, taxi rank, tour bus parking as well as food truck spaces which would be difficult to find alternatives for.
#Melbourne #Bicycles
https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/media-files/2026-07/st-kilda-road-bike-lane-design-plan.pdf
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2026-05-30 01:51:23 UTC

Bicycle Network is running a campaign to get the Victorian State Government to allocate 5% of the transport budget to building the Strategic Cycling Corridors.
It's a very small ask but would be a huge step up from current funding levels.
#melbourne #bicycles
https://bicyclenetwork.com.au/our-advocacy/strategic-cycling-corridor/
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2026-05-19 18:08:42 UTC

"Australia is wasting more than $1 billion each year building off-street car parks that end up sitting unused and unwanted
The Grattan Institute report found up to 40 per cent of car parks were left empty each night in capital city apartments.
Parking minimums add $62,000 to the price tag of a two-bedroom Melbourne apartment, $113,000 to one in Brisbane, $137,000 in Perth, and $95,000 in Adelaide."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05-19/grattan-institute-calls-for-abolition-of-parking-minimums/106698234

2026-05-08 12:05:17 UTC

This sign made out of retro-reflectors really should have been wearing some kind of high-vis.
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2026-04-16 13:18:49 UTC

Fixing my cargo bike.
#insects #bicycles
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2026-04-14 12:22:47 UTC

"Free public transport in Victoria appears to have had some effect in shifting demand away from cars, but the difference compared to NSW – where fares remained unchanged – is modest rather than dramatic....the relatively small difference between Victoria, where public transport was free, and NSW – where fares remained unchanged – suggests price is not the main constraint on mode shift. Access, travel time, service reliability and the ability to make specific trips appear to matter more."
#SpringSt #FreePublicTransport
https://theconversation.com/victoria-has-made-public-transport-free-nsw-hasnt-has-there-been-any-difference-in-uptake-280361

2026-03-24 06:45:35 UTC

I'm currently looking for work. I've been a software developer for 14yrs mainly working in small start-ups that make a webapp product (Ruby, Typescript, React) where I wear a lot of hats (support, devops, development, mentoring, and telling you that all the problems you're having is because your microservice architecture is over-engineered and insecure).
I'd like to work on something actually useful to people and I'd be less concerned about what I'm paid if I did.
Something that I'm less likely to burnout on would be great.
The AI slop phenomenon has really put me off so I've been thinking about changing careers, although I'm not sure what I'd do yet
#GetFediHired #Melbourne
https://www.jessta.id.au/resume.html

2026-02-28 08:23:02 UTC

A reminder to contact your local federal MP and remind them that you don't support US imperialism and want Australia to drop military ties with the USA and get out of the AUKUS deal.
They won't do anything, but their enraging milquetoast response will fuel your rage for revolution.
#auspol

2025-12-25 23:13:40 UTC

It looks like my 7yr old android phone has died. Anyone got a recommendation for a phone? It's probably a good chance to pick something that can be de-googled.

2025-12-08 14:44:19 UTC

When we talk about replacing car trips with bicycle trips people often think of commutes to work and that has been the focus of the state government because people riding bicycles to work means less peak hour traffic.
But the low hanging fruit for mode shift to bicycles is in trips in the 0-2km range. These are distances that a lot of people will just walk, but a huge number of people are still driving and very few people are riding bicycles.
They're distance that are often awkward and slow to use public transport for but are only a few minutes on a bicycle.
There is surprisingly less investment in enabling these kinds of trips by bicycle and they're often the trips where the existing infrastructure fails you the most even though the infrastructure for these trips is the cheapest to deliver.
The new big green Veloway is expensive infrastructure that is targeting trips in the 5-10km range but you can see that there are relatively few of those kind of trips.
#Melbourne #Bicycles #ModeShift
source:
https://public.tableau.com/views/VISTA-Trips/Tripdistance
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2025-11-28 11:30:26 UTC

Happy 30th Birthday Critical Mass 🎈🎊
#CriticalMass #Melbourne #MelbourneCriticalMass
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2025-11-25 01:59:45 UTC

WTF? Victoria police has made the entire Melbourne CBD a 'designated area' until June 2026.
For the next 6 months anyone in the CBD can be randomly stopped and searched without cause on the pretense of a search for weapons.
This is quite an escalation in the abuse of this police power.
https://www.police.vic.gov.au/public-notice-melbourne-cbd-sunday-30-november-2025-friday-29-may-2026
#VicPol #SpringSt #Melboure
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2025-10-15 13:58:30 UTC

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@nprofile…rpwy my partner had that, eventually we called a doctor and the doctor just gave her buscopan and the problem was solved.
https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/1745/buscopan-stomach-cramps-pain-relief-10mg-tablets-20-pack

2025-10-07 23:12:04 UTC

My mum is currently in Wellington, NZ and sent me this photo of Dutch style double decker bicycle parking on the street
#bicycles #Wellington
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2025-06-04 08:55:10 UTC

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@nprofile…fhu4 "People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs." - Banksy

2025-06-03 00:25:32 UTC

I really love these live streams from @nprofile…g8y8
This is Houten, a 5km² township about 10km outside of Uretcht, Netherlands.
It's got 2 train stations, a 60km/h ring road and a connection to a highway.
But most of the streets inside the ring road are 30km/h with modal filters to prevent through traffic and push cars out to the ring road which makes trips within the township quicker and easier by bicycle.
The built up area has a population density of about 4000/km² (weirdly comparable in size and density to where I live (Coburg, Melbourne, Australia)
All the road surfaces are narrow which provides a lot of space for grass and trees.
There are some more dense apartments and shops near the train stations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houten
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coburg,_Victoria
https://youtu.be/ujXqogC2zk4?t=1494

2025-06-01 03:20:18 UTC

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@nprofile…gj99 What is not in the photo is the 6 lane road below. The veloway isn't open yet, but I expect the air quality to be bad and the noise level to be unpleasant.
Footscray Rd cuts through the middle of the Port of Melbourne between the docks and the rail yards so there isn't a place to put a cycle path that isn't next to this road.
There has been a ground level path along the side of this road for 100yrs but it requires stopping at a lot of traffic lights and intersections with trucks turning. The veloway was put forward by the company building this elevated motorway as a bit of green washing and a community bribe.
It will certainly make riding from the west quicker and safer but not nicer.
https://bigbuild.vic.gov.au/projects/west-gate-tunnel-project/about/greener-and-better-connected-west/cycling-benefits

2025-05-31 12:15:33 UTC

Westgate Tunnel Project posted photos of the Footscray Rd veloway.
The white walls are the side of the elevated motorway that the veloway is hanging under/between.
The chicken wire is there to stop people in cars from throwing stuff at cyclists I guess.
I asked them a few years ago if they'd done any analysis of the noise cyclists would be subjected to on the veloway, they said they hadn't done any.
Sure doesn't looks pleasant.
#bicycles #melbourne
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2025-05-11 02:08:07 UTC

I interrupted some cheeky boys trying to steal my bike outside the Coburg market.
I didn't realise that's what they were doing until after they'd gone and I went to unlock my bike.
I use a shielded cable lock that I've had for 13yrs. It's not high security these days, but it's convenient to lock to all kinds of things.
They'd cut through the shielding and were working on the cable so I was just in time.
This is one of the downsides to getting a new bike. I'm surprised thieves are bothering with non e-bikes though.
The only thing I remember about the thieves is that they were on a bicycle with a spray can in the bottle holder.
#bicycles #melbourne

2025-04-30 00:16:59 UTC

Any candidate who receives at least four per cent of the total first preference votes in an election will receive campaign funding of $3.386/vote.
Your second preference doesn't get anything.
For small parties or independents that money can really help. But it's also money that keeps the major parties in power.
First preference smaller parties that more align with your views and would benefit from that money.
https://www.aec.gov.au/Parties_and_Representatives/public_funding/index.htm
#AusVotes #AusPol #AusPol2025

2025-04-16 13:53:31 UTC

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@nprofile…gj99 I'd love to know how much it cost to build the Veloway.
I bet it's enough to have built a big chunk of the strategic cycling network across the whole city.

2025-04-16 11:06:47 UTC

I got a chance to take a ride over the new green bridge and it's a great preview of how depressing the Veloway is going to be.
2.5km of the same blank green walls, no awareness of time or space, no hint of progress.
It's exactly the kind of bicycle infrastructure a motorway engineer would design.
#bicycles #melbourne
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2025-04-12 03:38:28 UTC

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@nprofile…d2rl @nprofile…yelu just in time to watch the federal election!

2025-04-07 04:37:28 UTC

A remember when I was part of a housing co-op, we'd done accrual accounting for decades. Every year we'd have a group of people push back the time-frame for asset replacement so we could say we didn't have a negative position (because legally we weren't allowed to). eg. Carpets should last 10yrs so we needed to save enough money over that 10yrs to replace that carpet when it needed replacement. But if we pushed that replacement time out to 15yrs when then we could say that we needed to save less.
We were concerned that the co-op was too small to have the income to manage asset maintenance on the houses over the long term because we could easily see that we were pushing asset replacement times out past a reasonable expectation of their functional lifetime. We could easily see every year that in 20yrs or so we'd have a shortfall
We'd report our zero net position every year and the people at the central non-profit that owned the houses got annoyed that we had tens of thousands in the bank and kept reporting that we were in barely scraping by. They would accept accrual accounting figures or Cash accounting figures in the yearly reports but had started to prefer cash accounting and had started distributing a software package that only did cash accounting, recommending it to co-ops and requiring reports in the format produced by that software.
Eventually we started reporting the cash accounting figure (ie. money in the bank) rather than the accrual accounting figure just to stop them complaining. We continued to keep our internal accrual accounting records so we knew our actual position.
It was a bit frightening to me that other housing co-ops weren't doing accrual accounting and just working year on year with cash.
When you're looking at asset maintenance (liabilities) over decades it's really easy to trick yourself in to thinking you're doing well when you have a lot of cash but you're actually really far in the hole.
When you suddenly and 'unexpectedly' have to replace 20 hot water heaters in the same year if you haven't saved that money then you have to borrow that money and borrowing money to perform maintenance is when you finally know you're completely fucked and in an unrecoverable position.
Borrowing to build new assets that that produce new income is fine and often a great idea, but if you're borrowing just to cover your liabilities then you're just pushing back the reckoning a little bit and putting yourself in a worse and worse position.
StrongTown's has a wild video of city councils in the USA discovering that they need to be doing accrual accounting after they are already decades behind and probably in an unrecoverable position.
https://youtu.be/n31I5T0xQKg

2024-11-24 07:02:31 UTC

"NSW Police will adopt a zero-tolerance approach to actions which threaten public safety and the safe passage of vessels,"
It's weird how they throw in that phrase "threaten public safety" when nobody is threatening public safety.
#auspol
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-24/138-arrested-during-anti-coal-protest-in-newcastle/104640562

2024-11-23 06:29:04 UTC

Melbourne cool change. It dropped from 37C to 23C in 2 hours and now it might start raining.
#melbourne #weather

2024-11-14 01:13:25 UTC

Booted up my old laptop from 2010.
An ASUS EeePC (1005NA, 32bit, single core Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB) running Arch Linux (Linux 2.6.35) with dwm and dmenu as the desktop environment, it's the only laptop I've ever bought for myself ($250 second hand in 2008)
It's just been in a box since 2010. I spilled Strawberry milk on it and broke the keyboard and then I got a job where they bought me a high end MacBook Pro and so has every job since.
#ArchLinux #linux #eeepc
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2024-09-06 11:56:26 UTC

Nice to see the VicRoads yielding to calls for reduced speed limits.
https://mediacdn.aus.social/media_attachments/files/113/090/479/508/438/458/original/19effc2f4e557358.jpg

2024-09-01 05:32:35 UTC

Negative electricity prices all across Australia. A wholesale provider will pay you to charge your EV right now.
#auspol
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2024-07-17 01:37:39 UTC

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@npub1au2…2mr6 That's just how we do software development these days. Deploy changes to customers ASAP so you can get feedback ASAP. It's much more noticeable for mobile apps than web apps.

2024-05-11 05:00:29 UTC

The Dutch spend $598€ ($986 AUD) on bicycle infrastructure every year.
The 10km North-East Link motorway ($28 billion AUD) is the same as 30yrs of Dutch bicycle infrastructure.
The Dutch have really only been serious about bicycle infrastructure for 50yrs.
#NorthEastLink #melbourne #RoadsBankruptCities #CarsRuinCities

2024-05-11 04:02:43 UTC

This crossing is where a cyclist was hit 2 days ago by a b-double truck while crossing with a green light.
The cyclist was told he is unlikely to ever be able to walk again.
The safety of this crossing relies on truck drivers turning on to a motorway on-ramp to expect and look for cyclists and for cyclists to know that trucks will be doing that while cyclists have a green light.
#melbourne #bicycles
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