tapas

@tapaseaswar

🇨🇦 tapaseaswar.com (he/him) | my opinions ≠ my employer's | be excellent to each other fediverse: @tapas@tapaseaswar.com

669 Following376 Followers431 Posts

YouTube Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and tapaseaswar.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jun 4

All part of @mark-carney.bsky.social's admiration of Trump/Bannon's tactic of "flooding the zone." youtube.com/shorts/4weS5... He's shown time and time again that he doesn't care about Canadians nor our representatives in Parliament. www.thestar.com/politics/pol... #canpoli #cdnpoli #canadasky

“He yells,” said one MP who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution from the Prime Minister’s Office. “He punches down at caucus all the time.”

Carney has told his caucus members he doesn’t want to hear their concerns, he wants solutions. While it’s a message that resonates with some, hearing complaints can be useful. It’s an early warning system for the government that certain policies or bills are not properly understood, and that the message needs to be tweaked or the legislation amended to address legitimate and unforeseen criticism.

Last week, some MPs felt the prime minister’s message was that he’s not interested in what they have to say.

Carney was making the case that the government is focused on national unity, on the CUSMA talks, on growing the economy; it has a plan, and message discipline is key. “If you don’t agree with our agenda, I don’t want to hear it. If you have criticism, keep them for yourself,” was the way another MP portrayed it.

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jun 3

My hot take is that in order to drive one of these monstrosities, you need to obtain a specialty license and be a registered tradesperson. Otherwise, they need to be banned entirely from our roads due to the dangers they pose.

An infographic that illustrates the historical evolution and changing proportions of pickup truck designs over five distinct eras spanning from 1961 to 2021. The chart details how the physical footprint allocated to the passenger cabin (Cab) has steadily increased while the space allocated to the cargo area (Bed) has shrunk over time.

Five top-down vehicle outlines are arranged horizontally, each color-coded with an orange front section for the cab and a blue rear section for the truck bed. Side brackets on the right clearly demarcate the "Cab" (orange) and "Bed" (blue) portions of the vehicles.

The changing percentage breakdown for each era is shown as follows:

1961–1979: The smallest cab size at 36%, contrasted against the largest truck bed capacity at 64%.

1980–1997: The cab size increases to 40%, while the truck bed decreases to 60%.

1997–2003: An even split in design, where both the cab and the truck bed occupy exactly 50% of the vehicle space.

2004–2015: The trend reverses completely with the cab expanding to 60%, leaving the truck bed at 40%.

2015–2021: The final era demonstrates the most dramatic shift, featuring the largest cab configuration at 63% and the smallest truck bed space at just 37%.

An infographic titled "The higher the bonnet, the bigger the blind spot: More high-fronted SUVs would mean more children drivers don't see."

It compares the forward visibility and blind zones of three vehicles relative to the heights of children. The diagram showcases the driver's line of sight over the hood for three distinct vehicle classes:

RAM TRX (Large Pickup Truck): A dotted red line extends from the driver's eye level over a very high hood line. Two child silhouettes are completely hidden within the front blind zone: a 9-year-old child (1.36m) and a 4.5-year-old child (1.1m).

Land Rover Defender (SUV): A dotted red line extends over a moderately high hood line. A single child silhouette representing a 4.5-year-old child (1.1m) is entirely obscured in the front blind zone.

VW Golf (Hatchback/Compact Car): A dotted green line extends over a low, sloping hood line. A 4.5-year-old child silhouette (1.1m) stands directly in front of the vehicle and is clearly visible above the green sightline, showing no blind spot for a child of this height.

Fine print at the bottom reads: "Analysis based on children of average European height standing to the centre of vehicle fronts. Drivers are of average European adult height. Vehicle assessment and modelling by Summerskill / Loughborough University SDCA (2025)."

tapas@tapaseaswar· May 10

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 28

If you're comparing different classes of vehicles then sure, the Prius C is certainly more compact than the Niro. But specifically in the compact SUV class, I personally wasn't able to find anything better. Plus, coming from a 2016 Chevy Cruze sedan, the learning curve for the Niro was non-existent.

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 27

I had to look this up. People have lost their goddamn minds if a Landcruiser and a Kia Niro (my current HEV) are both considered to be compact.

A size comparison between a Kia Niro and a Toyota Landcruiser clearly showing how the Kia is a compact SUV while the Landcruiser absolutely is not jfc people have lost their goddamn minds if the delta is this huge.

tapas@tapaseaswar· Oct 1

evergreen

tapas@tapaseaswar· Sep 19

Dying Wish 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘴 so goddamn hard

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jul 22

One of the best pieces of news I received yesterday was the integration of Instapaper into Kobo!

An email from _____ at Instapaper:

"Hi Tapas, _____ here from Instapaper Support. I wanted to follow-up on your request for an integration with Kobo. We have great news! Today we're announcing a new integration that will bring Instapaper and all your saved articles directly to your Kobo eReader. We're currently working closely with Kobo to get our systems integrated to ensure the best user experience and we're aiming to launch it by the end of this summer. We're excited to be partnered closely with Rakuten Kobo to power the read-it-later functionality on your Kobo device. You'll see this information available through all our different communication channels today starting with this blog post, but we wanted to share it with you first! Thank you for choosing Instapaper.

Best regards,

_____

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jun 24

From Meta's LLM allowing randos to "discover" your private chats to the US banning reps from installing WhatsApp on their gov't devices, we cannot and should not trust them with our data. And you know it's real bad when Teams is recommended over your product. www.tapaseaswar.com/2025-01-02-s...

https://www.wired.com/story/meta-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-conversations/

https://www.theverge.com/news/691288/house-of-representatives-whatsapp-ban-meta

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jun 6

a gif from Brooklyn 99. Boyle is talking to Peralta outside a court, saying, "It's Takoyaki, I'm drowning my sorrows in Octopus balls."

tapas@tapaseaswar· May 24

🫠

The classic meme from the Simpsons, "say the line, Bart," modified to say, "Say the line, Hypervisible," followed by a quote from Hypervisible: "(AI) It's a tool for the most incurious people in the world who also like to pretend that they are constantly busy ingesting information."

tapas@tapaseaswar· May 4

This is probably the best comparison I've found to date

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jan 8

#topoli #onpoli #canpoli #cdnpoli

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jan 7

lmao

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jan 4

Instantly thought of this #pandr quote.

A .gif of Ben Wyatt taking to Tom Haverford (both characters from the show Parks and Rec) about nerd culture.

Ben, to Tom: "you know, nerd culture is mainstream now. So when you use the word 'nerd' derogatorily, it means you're the one that's out of the zeitgeist."

This is from S4E3 which originally aired in October, 2011.

tapas@tapaseaswar· Jan 3

A still from the movie the 1973 movie, "Soylent Green," where the main character screams, "Soylent Green is people!" This image is a meme version, replacing the iconic line with, "box wine is bag wine!"

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 17

I mean, whiny is a pretty bang on description for midwestern emo. But they also said I had "angry stank face", so 🤷🏾‍♂️

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 17

I ask this question all the time. How is "flannel" a genre?

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 15

You were saying? https://beige.party/@SnowshadowII/113653641099964011

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 4

I am an emotionally stable person that listens to nice, upbeat music all day. #SpotifyWrapped

tapas@tapaseaswar· Dec 1

Picked up a copy of Soul Calibur 2 today (for the GameCube I picked up a month ago) and it took me ~10 minutes to dust off the cobwebs and start <-A+B~ A+B 'ing my way through the coms. God, I love this game. Still holds up 21 years later.

tapas@tapaseaswar· Nov 14

#nostr? more like, no sir, /amiright/?

A .gif of Garfield waving his hand, eyes closed, and head titled to the side to physically indicate, "no thank you"

tapas@tapaseaswar· Nov 14

One thing I've started doing since the #election (besides writing to cope) is dive deeper into #rss. www.tapaseaswar.com/2024-11-06-p... In particular, I'm trying to expand my digest of Canadian news, mostly to counterbalance the unhinged deluge coming from the States. Open to recommendations!