The Times is right — e-bikes are a scourge and we must do everything we can to protect our fragile SUV-driving elites from these teen terrors. I propose we construct a nationwide network of separated e-bike enclosures to segregate these monsters from god-fearing motorists.

I’ve attached one such example from a European petrostate that has spent years valiantly protecting cars from the ravages of cycling. With work, we may be able to reduce the number of cyclist-on-motorist deaths to zero.

Necessary urban ingredients.

🚲 the bike
🪑 the bench
🌳 the tree

#BikeBenchTree

📍: Vienne, France

#StreetPhotography #Vienne

The amazing golden color of these scarab beetles (Chrysina resplendens) is not a result of pigmentation or actual metal, but ≈70 microscropic chitin layers of decreasing thickness that reflect light to produce a metallic effect.

Video credit: insecthaus_adi/ig
Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/BVaHvmIhjbb/

Further reading: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/882153

Ever since watching the @notjustbikes video a few months back I cannot stop seeing impossibly oversized vehicles with front bonnets coming up about as high as the roof of my regular-ass sedan.

Even being slightly less of an infestation in Australia it's still obnoxious, most notably because that puts the headlights of all of these things right at eye level and makes driving at night extremely dangerous for anyone lower down. I'm so annoyed.

It seems no one is going to save the planet as there is no real money to be made from doing it.

People would rather choke on pollution than get a slightly less polluting car. People want cheap crappy food assembled out of ingredients grown on different continents delivered to their door by someone driving a polluting car. People want to fly halfway across the planet for a two week holiday on a massively polluting cruise ship. People want cheap clothes made in sweatshops in other countries with next to zero worker protection or unions. People want electronic devices made in sweatshops in China with coltan mined by literal child slaves in Africa.

People don't want car free streets where its pleasant to be outside and children can play in safety. People don't want to spend time growing fruit and veg then preparing them and cooking them. People don't want to spend their holiday time in a quiet spot close to home where they can truly relax. People don't want quality clothing made simply by well protected unionised workers. People don't want to keep using devices that still work but are "out of date" then buying a fairly made device which costs more but lasts longer.

Industry wants to carry on polluting. Industry wants to carry on exploiting workers. Industry want to carry on finding new ways to pollute. Industry wants to carry on finding new resources to exploit Industry wants to trap people into buying products they don't need or even don't really want.

Industry doesn't want to be held accountable. Industry doesn't want to be told "no". Industry doesn't want to be regulated. Industry doesn't want to share. Industry doesn't want to cooperate.

Governments want to do what ever industry tells them to.

We know what we have to do.

I bet my girlfriend that this picture of our cats could get 10 billion boosts on Mastodon.

She said she doesn't believe me. She said there's only 13 million accounts on Mastodon. She said there aren't even 10 billion people on Earth. She said it concerns her that I struggle so hard to comprehend large numbers.

Let's prove her wrong everyone. Boost away and show her just how awesome the Mastodon community is.