wonder_er (u/wonder_er)

wonder_er commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025) · Posted by u/david927

rounakdatta · 3 months ago

https://rounak.taptappers.club/fitness

I crunched Strava data (the Strava MCP project is incredible, and I ended up contributing to it!) and built myself this fitness hall of fame page (and also rejuvenated the remainder of the portfolio). Almost all of the stuff here is vibe coded, very happy how much I could achieve.

wonder_er · 3 months ago

i saw the strava mention and I clicked through - this is a super cool project! The maps + visualizations are beautiful.

Something about strava and the data we get from it is really special to me. It's a fun step into a deeply physical thing (moving our selves around the surface of the earth) and renders it in this digital space - a website, an animation.

wonder_er commented on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025) · Posted by u/david927

wonder_er · 3 months ago

working on bringing some basic, banal bits of infrastructure management to real-world traffic issues.

I'm literally trying to fix broken junctions around me.

It's at the same time laughably easy, and wildly complicated.

I'm calling the alternative, correct junction a 'traffic bean':

https://josh.works/traffic-bean

It's relevant to software, sorta. I've got rather a lot of GIS/mobility-related data available here. It's just a rails app that renders a bunch of my strava activity data all at once: https://josh.works/mobility-data

The fixes are entirely accomplishable with nothing more high-tech than traffic cones. They can be upgraded to more permanent and pretty physical objects, but the key bit of the traffic bean finds traffic cones fully sufficient. No half-million USD traffic signals, no red/green/yellow light cycles. continuous flow. safety. peace.

Some stuff that's obvious in some domains, like "at high-throughput times, don't allow key bits of infrastructure be completely unusable".

Bringing this to american municipalities is like trying to speak a language with someone that doesn't speak your language, but demands that you treat them as if they do.

it's been a big, long-running project. Most tradition in the USA is really a fig leaf for supremacy, and people can smell that I'm coming for their supremacy a mile away, and they immediately begin deploying emotional defenses.

Or so it seems.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

bpt3 · 7 months ago

> i write for me.

You sure use an awful lot of self-citations for someone who is only writing for themselves.

> I don't find most people in the USA to be worth taking seriously, either. Liiiike if someone thinks the primary purpose of police is something like "protecting and serving" vs. being deputized slave patrollers. How could I take that person seriously?

You realize you both can be wrong, correct? Because you absolutely are in most of the US, for starters.

> If I don't think political authority is real, and 90% of the us population does think it is real, and votes, I'm already out of sync with all of those people.

So you don't think political authority is real, yet you work with government authorities to enact the changes you want to see in your area?

I mean it makes sense to me to advocate for your preferred solutions to problems, but I think political authority is real (because it is, just look around you).

> And I've got at least one or two additional hot takes that could alienate another few percentage points.

Yes, it's very clear that pretty much everything you say is poorly thought out and researched and designed almost entirely to incite a strong reaction and attract attention. I agree with some of your claims and disagree with others, but there's no point in discussing any of them in depth with you.

What was your first claim again?

wonder_er · 7 months ago

I write for me, or the me of a few years ago.

It sounds like you think I use more self-citation than you would expect, for someone writing only for themselves.

Are you saying I'm wrong about police originating as deputized slave patrollers?

I suppose I'd refine my statement from "political authority is not real" to "political authority _is not legitimate_."

That someone holding the fantasy of political authority is willing to murder someone else because of that fantasy doesn't make political authority legitimate, though it's obviously 'real' from the POV of the oppressor/victim.

My first claim was that 'jaywalking' is a propagandist term that actively harms every subsequent part of the conversation. It's a slur ('jay'), and supports a narrative supporting, basically, vehicular homicide.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

bpt3 · 7 months ago

I have to assume you have absolutely no interest in being taken seriously by at least 99% of the US population, given that you are making statements like these regularly and they do not appear to be satire?

I took the time to read a couple articles on your blog, and they are wildly inflammatory and inaccurate to put it mildly.

wonder_er · 7 months ago

i write for me.

I don't find most people in the USA to be worth taking seriously, either. Liiiike if someone thinks the primary purpose of police is something like "protecting and serving" vs. being deputized slave patrollers.

How could I take that person seriously?

If I don't think political authority is real, and 90% of the us population does think it is real, and votes, I'm already out of sync with all of those people.

And I've got at least one or two additional hot takes that could alienate another few percentage points.

race and gender are constructs of supremacy thinking, the US government commits 100x more acts of terrorism than the next most terroristic group, evangelicalism is a cult, all religion is self-and-other harming, monogamy is way over-rated, marriage is harmful to everyone...

honestly, I'd be concerned if it seemed like lots of people agreed with me, especially lots of people in America! One doesn't get a nation that did 400+ years of chattel slavery without most people being pro-slavery.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

potato3732842 · 7 months ago

There's a lot of nuance to marked crossing vs not. You can definitely make an argument that waiting for a break in straight, undistracted, traffic and then jumping to the median is safer than trying to cross at an intersection where there's other things going on. If you do it right, it can be much safer.

On the other hand, if you do it wrong it can be way worse. Considering that we're talking about children who have no experience behind the wheel and no ability to accurately predict what the drivers will do I think "use a crosswalk and wait for traffic to let you cross" is likely the best advice.

All that said, your race baiting language policing game is stupid, malicious and actively detracts from the discussion.

wonder_er · 7 months ago

if a group of people (deputized slave patrols) is harassing and kidnapping another group of people (anyone perceived to be non-white), and I am talking about it, is it _me_ who is stupid, malicious, and detracts from the discussion, or is it the slave patrollers and their supporters who are stupid and malicious?

I think it's the latter.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

drcongo · 7 months ago

There's a couple of these in Bodmin [0], Cornwall that I've driven through a few times. It used to be traffic lights and was constant jams at each junction. I'd never seen one before when they first changed it, I approached cautiously, drove onto it cautiously, and exited pretty impressed. I do wonder what less considerate drivers are like on it though. Local residents apparently complain about it [1], but then it seems to be part of the British psyche to complain about anything new and different, especially if it's done by your local council.

[0] https://maps.app.goo.gl/LQ9kSNZxQwYV8S9C9

[1] https://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/bodmin-round...

wonder_er · 7 months ago

wow! Thanks for this link to the junction in Bodmin! I didn't know there were more. I'll save this and add it to the traffic bean post.

Indeed, the junction can be a bit unfamiliar, and it looks like the one in Bodmin could be less confusing - I think delinieating the inner space and keeping cars to the edges (to make it more of an actual roundabout) would improve things for everyone.

Maybe I should call it a 'traffic doughnut' to highlight the difference between the inner/outer space of the junction.

American road networks were designed to be impervious to the opinions of everyone who uses them, so I'm very pleased with myself to have gotten so close to the permission I need to do a novel junction design.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

alistairSH · 7 months ago

Is that effectively a double roundabout/traffic circle? I'm not sure I intuitively understand how to navigate the bit of the "bean" that's round but doesn't have a central circle to flow around? [I'm totally fine with UK-style traffic circles, single, double, multi-lane, etc]

wonder_er · 7 months ago

the junction in it's current form is like a wild, light-controlled, two-or-three lane hybrid between a roundabout and a standard junction.

If you can do UK-style traffic circles, you'd be fine on this junction.

My proposal to to shape down all inbound lanes of traffic to a single lane, then connect them all to the inner circulating channel - it's a little lumpy, thus 'bean shaped' instead of 'circle shaped'.

But as far as using it, from the POV of the driver of a vehicle, it's identical to a roundabout.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

roncesvalles · 7 months ago

I'm not a lawyer so I can't comment on the charge itself but as a lay citizen, after reviewing Street View, the parents are definitely at fault.

That area is not walkable and I wouldn't trust a 7 year old to go there alone, period. And then to allow them to jaywalk at the spot where the kid was struck is downright unconscionable. And the median looks like it's easy to lose your balance over (I suspect that's what really happened).

I'm not generally against the notion of letting a 7 year old walk alone in public but this isn't some cornerstore at the end of a 25mph residential street. This is basically a highway. Although the speed limit on that stretch is 45mph, I'm pretty certain drivers would be hitting 60 there since the road leading into it looks like a 60 road.

wonder_er · 7 months ago

'jaywalking' is a term that supports the concept of vehicular homicide.

A normal ethical system would say the obligation to not kill anyone with a vehicle is on the operator of the vehicle. The environment should also support safe handoffs between priorities.

The parents are not at fault - they were born into this shitty country. It is the road engineer, the city engineer, full stop.

Consider this book: [Killed by a Traffic Engineer: Shattering the Delusion that Science Underlies our Transportation System](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201978334-killed-by-a-tr...)

Jaywalking is a supremacists, propagandistic term, I would propose it be excised from your vocabulary: https://josh.works/jaywalking

It was used mostly to imprison formerly enslaved people for walking around. In some american cities in the 50s and 60s, thousands of people PER YEAR were ARRESTED for jaywalking!!!!

It's how deputized slave patrols (police) can easily initiate harassment against the enslaved/formerly-enslaved class.

wonder_er commented on The road that killed Legend Jenkins was working as designed strongtowns.org/journal/2... · Posted by u/h14h

wonder_er · 7 months ago

I live in Denver - it's got the Standard American Design on every junction (every junction is a SAD junction)

There's a house near here that was written about in an article - it's at the end of a long straight road, and then there's a curve, and often-enough people go way too fast on the road, don't catch the curve, bounce through a bunch of grassy median and end up HITTING THIS HOUSE!

It's been hit so many times.

so, I really like bollards (https://josh.works/bollards) and I went to his house to see about adding some. He'd already had large rocks (1000lbs) placed in his yard, and after the most recent car hit them (and bounced one of them into his house) he added some 3000 lb rocks. It's still not a full layer of protection, but it's better.

Anyway, the real danger is the junction, not him having good enough or not good enough bollards. So, there was a meeting at his house the next day with city traffic engineering staff, police, city council, lots of neighbors...

and I'm popularizing a fix that I'm calling 'the traffic bean' - it's a shared-space junction, that is as effective as the existing junction, and much, much safer:

https://josh.works/traffic-bean

The director of Denver's DOTI has been looking it over, as a city council person has been pushing for it to get approved, and it might get approved! This would be basically the first real improvement in how american junctions are designed in decades.

It's currently just my side-project wish. All I want is to live near and use a road network that doesn't deal death constantly to others.

i fear for my kid's life, the same way these kids lives were affected. American road networks are horrific, I cannot take seriously anyone who takes them seriously.

wonder_er commented on I'm done with social media – Or: why I have a blog now carolinecrampton.com/im-d... · Posted by u/anarbadalov

wonder_er · 8 months ago

I started blogging in 2012, have been going pretty consistently since then.

I currently 'go hard' on tiktok, because I've recently been collecting tons of footage of mobility networks via drone and 360 camera (mostly while I ride my scooter/small motorcycle around)

the tiktok editor is pretty good for that purpose, and then I bring some clips back to my blog.

For instance, https://josh.works/traffic-bean has text, links to some substacks I wrote, a youtube video embed (drone footage) and tiktok embeds (insta360 footage).

It does the trick.

But everything that isn't on my website I count as ephemeral, discard, creative detritus that I create lots of so I can occasionally get the good bits.

I love having my website. I can write whatever I want. I can write about grief, or supremacy, or ruby, or american road networks, and I have a list of subscribers (~300) via email that I can talk to directly.

I love to see other people's blogs. It's so much more interesting to me than an instagram or tik tok or whatever.

:)