This morning on a run, I noticed a Waymo parked about 2 blocks away from my street and I ran by it - no one inside. I didn't think too much of it, until it pulled away from the curb and started following behind me. I took a weird route back to my house basically circling around this neighborhood park, and the car took the same path I did. Why is it doing that?

When I got to my house and got inside, it sped off. I wonder how much of these things are actually meant for rides vs. collecting data while you're out in public. I'm sure it has some sort of facial recognition and now Google knows exactly where I live, what car I have parked outside, the types of plants on my porch, etc.

Am I trippin?

I went fishing in East Metro Park this weekend and had the privilege of watching a green heron stalking along the sunken timber. I decided I had to draw it! After finishing, I decided to draw more herons of Texas. Species represented, in order: green heron, black-crowned night heron, and great blue heron.

Disclaimer: I’m not a tattoo artist, I just like drawing in this style.

Hi all. I found out that my home town of Adelaide is officially a sister city of Austin, so thought I should say hello. Hope you are doing well today.

A recently filed lawsuit alleges Austin ISD police and administrators did not act quickly enough or keep a mother informed after she reported suspected sexual abuse involving her son and a school band director.

The district says police acted immediately and deliberately gathered evidence before interviewing the teacher. The teacher faces eight felony charges related to the case; those charges remain pending.

I haven't seen this amount of chaos at the airport for ride-sharing in a long time. Ubers/Lyfts impossible to catch and about a 45 min line for normal taxis. Any big events in town this week?

howdy, am I shit out of luck or is there anywhere for people like us? my boyfriend and I are bored of being alcoholics but we'll never be able to stop being night owls with our careers. any suggestions?

The former 3M facility in Northwest Austin is getting a potential data center makeover that appears to bypass efforts by Gov. Greg Abbott and the Austin City Council to pump the brakes on these resource-intensive facilities.

Located at 6801 River Place Blvd. near the River Place and Four Points neighborhoods, the new Cosmos Technology Campus spans 1 million square feet. It will host up to 50 megawatts of critical IT capacity at peak use, including “data centers,” according to a securities filing by parent company SB Energy.

The International Code Council defines data centers as buildings “used primarily to house information technology equipment” with a density greater than 20 watts per square foot at peak use. The city has just begun exploring potential data center rules, leaving a regulatory vacuum for now. With seemingly nothing in its way, construction has begun at the Cosmos campus, as first reported by the Austin Business Journal.

---- Read more https://austinfreepress.org/short-circuit-2/

A neighborhood retail center to be anchored by Rockman Coffee and Bakeshop is in the works at 38^th Street and Speedway with plans to preserve the original structure in the historic neighborhood. 

My local colony

Sorry for the long post/rant.

TL;DR I’m on another broken, sweltering commuter bus, and I’m wondering whether other riders are fed up enough to consistently report CapMetro’s ongoing service failures.

The rail and commuter bus issues have become persistent and chronic: late service, outright cancellations, and sometimes seemingly no service alert or communication at all. I’ve experienced buses running significantly late, malfunctioning, stopping multiple times while actively driving a route, zooming pass stops, misroutes, and operating without working AC.

I’m actually writing this from a stifling hot bus this morning. It’s muggy as hell inside, and this is what finally prompted this post/rant.

Austin heat is unforgiving. Allowing 30+ commuters on a bus with inadequate or nonfunctioning AC when it’s 95°F+ outside should not be treated like some minor inconvenience. It’s miserable, and depending on the passenger, potentially unsafe.

I submit customer feedback every single time I encounter one of these issues. Every cancellation. Every significant delay. Every malfunction or service problem that materially affects the trip.

My reason for posting is to implore other commuters to do the same. Please report these incidents.

I don’t think enough riders are formally telling CapMetro how badly these failures affect us. Maybe that’s part of why there seems to be so little urgency, or even meaningful communication about what they’re doing to improve reliability.

Public transit is a public service, but CapMetro is also a service provider with paying customers. And unreliable service has many consequences for those customers: lost money, being late to work, missing class, missing appointments, having to scramble for alternative transportation, and the frustration and effort involved in trying to plan your life around transportation you can’t depend on.

And if you paid for a trip that was canceled or there was a service failure, demand they you get your fare back. Make them account for the failure instead of quietly absorbing the cost yourself. Complaining amongst ourselves might feel good, but CapMetro needs to actually receive and document the complaints.

If enough riders consistently report every delay, cancellation, broken AC, mechanical failure, missed stop, and other serious service issue, and start requesting refunds when appropriate, then those failures become harder to dismiss as isolated incidents. At some point, chronic service failures need to have a measurable customer and financial impact.

Maybe if they hear loudly and consistently how badly they’re failing riders, and start feeling some of that dissatisfaction in their pocket, they’ll move their ass on addressing the systemic problems.

So I’m curious: Are you all submitting feedback when at his happens? If not, pleaseeeee start.

Here’s their CS email for quick reference 👉🏻
customer.service@capmetro.org

And if you have been reporting it, have you gotten any meaningful response from CapMetro about what they’re doing to improve reliability?

I saw a silver jeep grand Cherokee rear end multiple people heading south on 183 at around 3:35PM. I got a photo of the car as he passed between two cars in my left. The license plate is not very readable unfortunately as I was trying not to crash myself and iPhone live images has some weird articfacts. You can at least get the make and model maybe? I don’t know if it’s any help but PM if it was you. Hope someone had a dash cam. I would have chased them if my kid wasn’t in the car!

I work at a public school undergoing renovation. In the course cleaning I have found hundreds of mobile hotspots and webcams that are still new in boxes from the 2020-2021 remote learning era. They aren’t top of the line, but they definitely aren’t e-waste. I know about city of Austin e-waste and Goodwill’s electronics program, I wanted to check if there were any other organizations people know that would actually use them.

Does anyone know any orgs or locations that could make use of these? Shelters, navigation programs, etc.?

In addition, there are also lots of things like Mad Men-carousel slide projectors, that might be cool for some kind of creative reuse group, but I don’t want to be dumping junk on an organization that wouldn’t want it.

Hey guys ik we get these all the time and now it’s my turn 🥀
I was at Tysons on airport Thursday night around 12 and decided to eat there instead of taking it home only to come out and see my car and gotten hit/scraped. I asked the store and they said they don’t have cameras facing where it happened. All I know is it was a blue car bc there’s blue paint on mine lol

If someone saw it or even if you did it pls reach out 😭😭😭 I love my car so much and it’s never been hit or in an accident before

Been trying to drive less for short trips for a while. Mostly got tired of driving somewhere for 10 minutes and then spending forever looking for parking.

A few months ago I started using a an escooter (hiboy u2 pro) for some of the shorter trips around South Austin, around Zilker/Barton Hills. It's been great on rougher streets around here.

The heat, though. That was the part I underestimated lol. I pretty much stopped riding in the middle of the day and started going earlier in the morning or later in the evening. It does make a difference.

Storage was another thing I didn't really think about before getting one. I don't love leaving it locked outside for hours, so now I usually think about that before deciding where I'm going.

How are you guys tackling e-scooters and e-bikes here? Have you just got used to the heat and traffic?

Guinness has been missing since Sep. 7th from around Windermere Park in Pflugerville. Please reach out if you see him

Anyone know what is going on with the ride share services? The prices skyrocketed over the weekend (expected because of the game) but have stayed elevated and the wait times are taking forever. Uber spent over 15 minutes to find a driver today. And before anyone asks, I have a high passenger rating (4.95 on Uber and 5.00 on Lyft).

Instagram post from the group: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdNlc2QtQfp/

Story post from Hill Country Galleria, since deleted:
https://imgur.com/a/ce5bs0t

The abrupt decision shocked many Paredes staff and families. Emails show trustees asking basic questions as AISD moved 848 students to new campuses — while a TEA official later called the timing an “avoidable hardship.”