Austin - something that is pissing me off

[Bernard 879]

So you want the moon towers built back?

Bernard

Edited February 4, 2022 by Bernard

[RPM 26,354]

[Fastbreak 3,992]

You moved from Singapore to the Theta house? Solid.

The ex-wife is staying across the street from it. They had a pretty massive power outage party today. But they have a party every day…

[Caponata 151]

4 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

The ex-wife is staying across the street from it. They had a pretty massive power outage party today. But they have a party every day…

How was living in Singapore?

[Guest Lobo]

7 minutes ago, Caponata said:

How was living in Singapore?

Lit as Fuck, apparently.  

[Fastbreak 3,992]

Singapore is great. Very modern European city in middle of Asia. Just super expensive.

And yes, the roads are much better and way less traffic despite 3x the people of Austin in the same physical size.

[JMFP 1,120]

On 2/3/2022 at 9:02 AM, WBT said:

I don't live in Austin but I'm glad to hear this.  People need to turn off their own lights at night too.  One of my neighbors has a flood light in the backyard that would make Clark Griswold proud.

 

23 hours ago, South Austin said:

My neighbor at my old house also had flood light.  It was motion-sensored, so it was off during most of the night, but if a squirrel or rodent happened to trigger it, it would shine right into my bedroom window for a couple minutes. 

 

 

I thought the established reaction in this scenario was that you are to tear down your own fence to show your neighbor how mad you are?

[Js1 85,576]

24 minutes ago, Fastbreak said:

Singapore is great. Very modern European city in middle of Asia. Just super expensive.

And yes, the roads are much better and way less traffic despite 3x the people of Austin in the same physical size.

Plus better public transportation

[TexasEd 8,077]

12 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Another board I frequent has lots of posts about camping.  These guys are always asking about the best LED lights to illuminate their campsites.  It boggles my mind.  The less light the better anytime you are sitting outside enjoying yourself.   I bitch at my kids when they fire up a flashlight when the ambient light would have been adequate.  

We camp a few times a year and my wife always wants me to hang up lights over the site.   I started putting rope lights on the ground that are a lot more dim so I can look up at the stars.  We were in Palo Duro Canyon and she asked me why I was outside in the pitch dark one moonless night :smh: It takes longer for my eyes to adjust than it used to but I love walking around by starlight.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5,125]

1 hour ago, Fastbreak said:

Singapore is great. Very modern European city in middle of Asia. Just super expensive.

And yes, the roads are much better and way less traffic despite 3x the people of Austin in the same physical size.

Well yeah, when the license to drive costs more than the car, and you have great public transportation, less people tend to drive.

[Ghost of LL 15,539]

14 hours ago, blacklab said:

you don't jog

[Armybrat 40,911]

14 hours ago, JimmyJames said:

You grew up in Austin for 30 plus years and the thing you find to bitch about is the street lights are too dim nowadays?

Personally I’m still pissed they tore down liberty lunch but maybe I should look into this street light issue instead.

I’m still pissed they converted my favorite rollerskating rink into the Armadillo World Headquarters.

[JimmyJames 12,271]

4 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

I’m still pissed they converted my favorite rollerskating rink into the Armadillo World Headquarters.

Fucking dope smokin’ hippies ruined this town in the late 60s. 

[Armybrat 40,911]

Damn right.

Now one of my sons is a South Austin throwback hippie. 

[RDCanecutter 26,473]

17 hours ago, Your Mom said:

Another board I frequent has lots of posts about camping.  These guys are always asking about the best LED lights to illuminate their campsites.  It boggles my mind.  The less light the better anytime you are sitting outside enjoying yourself.   I bitch at my kids when they fire up a flashlight when the ambient light would have been adequate.  

Seems like throwing an LED light on the campfire wouldn't work nearly as well as wood.

[Fastbreak 3,992]

Well yeah, when the license to drive costs more than the car, and you have great public transportation, less people tend to drive.

An interesting thing happens. Because the car registration costs so much, many people just go all in and buy crazy expensive cars (if you are going to pay 70k for the right to buy a car, you aren’t getting a Hyundai).

I see every model on super car imaginable. Usually I can open my door and step outside and there some kind of lambo or McClaren parked on my street.

Cars also have a lifespan. You have to pay a huge fee to have a car older than 10 years.

[Loop 1604 227]

The city of Austin consistently fails to provide even the most basic utilities to its customers/citizens, and you think they can handle fixing the luminosity of street lights?

Edited February 7, 2022 by Loop 1604

[NameAlreadyInUse 5,125]

8 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

An interesting thing happens. Because the car registration costs so much, many people just go all in and buy crazy expensive cars (if you are going to pay 70k for the right to buy a car, you aren’t getting a Hyundai).

I see every model on super car imaginable. Usually I can open my door and step outside and there some kind of lambo or McClaren parked on my street.

Cars also have a lifespan. You have to pay a huge fee to have a car older than 10 years.

Yeah last time I was in SIngapore, we had a long conversation with the taxi drive about this, blew my mind.  Also learned that they have commuter licenses and all the time licenses and it was cheaper to feed a kid for a year than it was to have the all the time license.  Then my husband left his cell phone in said taxi and we also got to go to the police station.  That was fun.

[F250 28,818]

6 hours ago, Loop 1604 said:

The city of Austin consistently fails to provide even the most basic utilities to its customers/citizens, and you think they can handle fixing the luminosity of street lights?

Can't even build a real Loop.

 

[dcar00 14,366]

On 2/3/2022 at 2:58 PM, used2b said:

As a woman, I find it much more unsafe.

Ok fine, don't disagree but we have rules around here.

[dcar00 14,366]

10 minutes ago, F250 said:

Can't even build a real Loop.

 

this x1000.  my favorite austin-y austin thing is that we have a Loop that doesn't Loop called 360.  pot smokin idiots runnin this town in the 70's.

[Guest Lobo]

Technically Lamar is Loop 343 but also does not appear to form anything resembling a circle.  Same with Loop 1.  

[texasdago 7,579]

It was a bit jarring from us when we moved from Houston where things like "light pollution", "environment" or, you know, "pollution" aren't really a factor.  We went from a very lit up neighborhood to no street lights, small lanterns in front of houses and absolute pitch black on Slaughter by our house.  Super dark.

...and I love it.  Gotta watch it when we pull out of the neighborhood but I love how we can actually see the stars.  

Now, I get a bit more pissed off when I see tents popping back up along Town Lake.  WTF.

Edited February 7, 2022 by texasdago

[High Plains Drifter 11,052]

 

I live in the sticks and I can't understand jack asses living out there with their houses lit up like Cinderella's castle. Why did you move out where its dark if you don't want it to be dark at night?

[BabaYaga 15,320]

44 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

I live in the sticks and I can't understand jack asses living out there with their houses lit up like Cinderella's castle. Why did you move out where its dark if you don't want it to be dark at night?

People feel safer with tons of lights on at night?  I'm with you.  Can't see the sky/stars with all that background light.  

[F250 28,818]

Friend of mine has a place just north of Camp Bullis in Bulverde that is under the Dark Sky ordinance due to the proximity of Bullis. That area is really good for star gazing the light ordinance is pretty strict and the Bullis landscape looks like a black hole at night. It's pretty crazy how dark it can get with San Antonio being so close.

 

[DaggerHorns 3,086]

90% of the posters in this thread wear socks with their sandals.

[Guest Lobo]

My oldest and I love to stargaze together.  She's becoming an astronomy nerd and it gets her off screens at night before bed.  And I love it.  Granted we're too close to downtown, but we can see a fair amount with the lenses.  And we really love going camping nowadays because of how  much sky we can see out in the Hill COuntry.  

Having said that, all the fucking street lights are off now at West Sixth/Lake Austin & MoPac bridge/access roads as part of this initiative.  Lotta y'all doing a lot of star-gazing from the fucking pawn shop at the corner there?  What the fuck?  How do we concurrently have this rolling blackout program while ramping up Vision Zero to save needless pedestrian deaths at busy intersections?  Cars pouring outta downtown after dark with homeless folks and joggers sitting at those crosswalks and Adler's great idea was to turn the lights out in case any of 'em wanna see Orion's Belt before getting slammed by a bus?  

[Biff Tannen 45,742]

11 hours ago, dcar00 said:

this x1000.  my favorite austin-y austin thing is that we have a Loop that doesn't Loop called 360.  pot smokin idiots runnin this town in the 70's.

 

11 hours ago, Lobo said:

Technically Lamar is Loop 343 but also does not appear to form anything resembling a circle.  Same with Loop 1.  

At least 360 attempts a curve. Loop 1 is a straight fucking line. 

[dcar00 14,366]

6 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

 

At least 360 attempts a curve. Loop 1 is a straight fucking line. 

which matches its number

[High Plains Drifter 11,052]

 

4 hours ago, F250 said:

Friend of mine has a place just north of Camp Bullis in Bulverde that is under the Dark Sky ordinance due to the proximity of Bullis. That area is really good for star gazing the light ordinance is pretty strict and the Bullis landscape looks like a black hole at night. It's pretty crazy how dark it can get with San Antonio being so close.

 

 

Our area has some sort of "dark sky ordinance" but its really more like a "dark sky pretty please" because there is no actual enforcement or even a penalty for noncompliance. Our skies are pretty dark, but they've gotten noticeably less dark in the 15 years I've lived here.

 

[ztejas 43,537]

56 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Our skies are pretty dark, but they've gotten noticeably less dark in the 15 years I've lived here.

Sky gentrification?

[Hook1997 5,402]

People in Austin neighborhoods claiming they can see all the stars with their low street lights or no street lights is hilarious and how I know some people have never left the “city” actually.  

Edited February 8, 2022 by Hook1997

[Guest Lobo]

5 hours ago, ztejas said:

Sky gentrification?

I'm stealing this when they inevitably brief us on why homeless encampments need extra money to have dimmable lights so they can stargaze at their leisure.

3 hours ago, Hook1997 said:

People in Austin neighborhoods claiming they can see all the stars with their low street lights or no street lights is hilarious and how I know some people have never left the “city” actually.  

I can hear the neighborhood/HOA meetings in my head..."Sure we all miss little Dougie from Maple Street who was needlessly struck to death by that scooter rider in pitch black environs.  But he died doing what he loved, trying to find constellation Cassiopeia under a decommissioned street lamp.  Moving on to committee reports for lawncare......."