Velofellow

At least in Texas, I've seen this go both ways in practice. There is definitely some 'give something to get something' action that helps grease the wheels early on in the permitting or development process.

Years later, Some developments / developers will petition to annex themselves from the outer reaches of their adjacent jurisdictions to prevent the city from growing into these areas and 1) exerting control and 2) obtaining the roads, utilities and treatment facilities, and drainage facilities. Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs) are a popular avenue for this, and arguably works in some cases. Adjacent cities may not have the existing tax base, utility infrastructure and operations, and public works to support the type of growth in some areas. My experience is just in the past ~7 years working in the Civil field in Texas. Probably variations on this across the US at least.

Funny you mention schools, because on at least one project of mine, we've constructed a public middle & high school along with a charter school on-premise. No doubt that was a big selling pitch during the early development meetings.

HuFlixPrime was my portmanteau of choice in 2010-ish but mainly because I felt the coming dawn of cable company style pricing encroaching; more and more folks adding multiple streaming services to get close to what cable packages could offer.

I still like the name.

Edit: didn't Netflix have a feature called "Netflix Max" on the PS3 app? I remember it really liking it to find what to watch.

yes, and that looks pretty much just like some of the vans I've been in the back of for CCTV sewer inspections.

Megalopolis. I didn't love everything about the movie, but it did come across to me as completely divorced from art created to benefit commerce. I loved that about it...

You could argue the movie being made outside of the traditional studio system is case and point of this phenomenon.

I’m not a PE (or EIT). I run my firm’s construction services department. I have a Bachelor of Music degree, so without an ABET degree, not much hope for me ;) I’m engineering adjacent, and really enjoy the field based problem solving and bringing a different perspective to projects. Just no sealing plans for me.

Just wanted to set the record straight! Good to see others in the civil field represented here.

Another moto / cycle rider here. Recent phenomenon that makes me weep for road going competency: Phone or tablet on a suction cup mount playing YouTube, Netflix, whatever. Preferably at night with the screen 4" from your face to really make visual acuity dicey.

I thought this was a one-off, but I see probably 5-10 of these idiots a week.

not a PHEV, but I've been incredibly happy with the 2023 F-150 Powerboost. It's a Mild hybrid system, with great towing capacity, power & torque. Does not sound quite as "stout" as the Dodge, but like you I have my reservations about the brand.

I've been Using it as a honest work truck in the civil engineering / construction world, and have been able to get 600 miles from a tank without trying too hard. I've seen plenty of short (~20 mile) trips nearing 30mpg, which is above stated estimates. 23-25mpg for mixed use driving off road, on road, idling, etc. I'm on jobsites a lot, and just even having working AC / full host of accessories with the ICE engine powered down, acting as a generator when needed, is a big quality of life upgrade.

Other than waiting to see where things shake out with the Senate, perhaps Sony? I can't speak to manufacturer support, and not sure Sony will stay in the drone game in the long term where it would feel like a sound investment.

I've been looking at other commercial-esque options (mainly photogrammetry) and came across Sony's"bring your own DSLR" drone.

https://pro.sony/ue_US/products/professional-drones/ars-s1

The problem from my perspective, running a small DJI fleet in Civil Engineering, is that there are few comparative turnkey options from non-disapproved drone brands that actually compete with what I'm using now. The ones that could, are drastically more expensive.

From my understanding / research, the approved suppliers are largely focusing on the LE, Military markets.

Current list of cleared UAS https://www.diu.mil/blue-uas-cleared-list

As A renter, I wish more people thought like this. It is 100% the impediment for me going EV on my next vehicle purchase. I don't see apartment complexes like mine (built ca. 2000) retrofitting parking stalls for any level of charging without subsidy and lots of kicking and screaming.

Anything from Calvin & Hobbes!

Incorrect. I rent in Austin. I think about 50% of the population here rents. I'm sure some newly built multi family mid & high-rises have EV charging infrastructure, and some single family home rentals as well. During recent lease hunting, nothing in my price range had even a single EV charging point, never mind infrastructure to support the the majority of renters.

When I've brought this up to people making this argument, they suddenly switch tacks to "well, just charge at the public locations, they are everywhere!" Every time I respond by asking, well sure - but would you make that same compromise if this was your only vehicle and you didn't have DCFC at home? Guess their response...

oh heck yeah! This flew under my radar. Excited to check this out, thanks for sharing.

taking the coattails of your comment with great artists to throw out The Bad Plus. Fantastic body of work, highly creative and absolutely rocking jazz band. Granted, I'm most familiar with their Ethan Iverson discography. Dave King (drummer) is exciting as hell to watch.

To the uninitiated but curious - start with their mind blowing covers and branch out from there.

Thank you for remembering the other 2 Rs! I just had a conversation with someone last week where I brought up the two prior to Recycle, and they had completely forgotten.

Even the ubiquitous 3 Rs logo with arrows has now become shorthand for just recycle.

Being in the civil engineering / construction world - no, 5 years tops for "constructing pretty much anything" is not realistic. If 5 years is the horizon, I'd expect to be seeing pretty advanced proofs of concept right now, with field laborers shadowing robots performing QA/QC tasks. None of this is happening in land development or municipal construction from what I've seen.

Consider gravity wastewater installation, which is a fairly simple activity: you've got crews who 1) clear and grub the land 2) perform mass grading 3) either use trenchers or excavators to dig a trench, then backfill to allow for installation at a later time 4) utility installation crew mobilizes begins installation. 5) backfill in lifts with a geo firm taking compaction densities. This is a simplification and omits inspection staff, OSHA safety concerns (because in a world with robots, humans will still need some construction oversight and provisions for safety).

I have not seen these separate activities incorporate AI robots into any of their tasks. Not to say it won't get here eventually, but it's not gonna be 5 years.

I just checked my company's account. Third Party AI-Integrations were defaulted to "On" despite our company having a paid personal account.

My free personal account (still for work) does not have any active third party integration.

Reminded me of a fun bit of my own trivia! My Highschool guidance counselor, also an acoustic bass player in the folk idiom, babysat Bela Fleck as a youngster! She was instrumental (ha) in fostering my drive to set my sights on Music School, which I did.

She also helped introduced FIRST robotics to our small rural highs school. She was an awesome woman.

I think this really depends on the mirrors tbh. I run a small fleet of three work trucks. 2010 Ford Ranger, 2020 F-250, 2022 F-150. Out of any of them the F-250 is the easiest to park, all due to the towing mirror/ low convex tear drop mirror. Ridiculously easy to park given its size.

Any of these vehicles is easier to park (parallel especially) than my 2007 Acura TL personal vehicle. Good mirror design goes a long way.

I didn't expect to laugh so much first thing today, thank you for that link!

If anyone wants to dig further, Poisoner In Chief by Stephen Kinzer is a "fun" read about Sidney Gottlieb and these programs.

Seeing the writing on the wall that we could be headed back to the cable TV era, I had a hairbrained idea (haha- really just a name) back in like 2011/12, that would aggregate the three big streaming platform's libraries in a single interface. called: HuFlixPrime.

My idea to get cooperation and buy-in across the streaming providers was to try and "nudge" customers to subscribe and bundle competing services by directly showing all programming that could be accessed in one interface. Ideally streaming and account management and signup would be done through this single clearing house. Perhaps an incentive if all three services were active.

Obviously would be fraught with issues, and I could never really see any cooperation like that working. but I liked the name...

re: motorcycle gear: Rev'it has some pretty neutral branded options, but not inexpensive... I've had good luck with the quality and fit.

Maybe they look like bikes circa 1950, but new standard bikes that look the part certainly do not ride like bikes from the 50's. Reliability across the board is dramatically better. ABS / associated rider aids, better tires (not just for motorcycles), suspension tuning, emissions technology, better engine output per displacement from high compression, better electronics. The list goes on.

I'll take one old, one new please!

Side note- Surron really needs to work on differentiating themselves away from the EBike scene, if I'm to take them seriously. I pretty much only see kids of affluent families destroying mixed use trails on Surrons or people forgoing any sort of judgement hoping between sidewalk, pavement, drainage ditches. "Mid-Drive Electric Bike you can ride anywhere" is an irresponsible sales pitch. I've not ridden one personally, but they seem roughly equivalent to a 125CC two stroke dirt bike. No Pedals? not a bike.

I came across the link below describing his feedback techniques with his microphone. Like it or leave it - major kudos to him building an entirely bespoke instrument ecosystem.

http://www.jaysmuseum.com/freako%20insrto%20pages/web%20jack...

Still wrapping my head around this as as a bass player...

His cover of We Can Work It Out blew me away. Highly enjoyably to watch and listen.

You and many others seem to be hell bent on the lycra/ spandex outfits. I really don't get it... What's with this? Consider that wearing tight fitting sports attire makes most of your body's surface area into a highly effective radiator.

Try it, you may just like it.

In my experience yes - At an earlier role, all employees were subjected to a DISC assessment at hire. This was at the headquarter office of a large real estate franchise. Results were kept in your file, and were a big component during reviews.

The biggest flavor-aid drinkers at the company used their assessment results as shorthand to either justify shitty behavior: "oh, person X is a 'High-D', of course that's why they co-opted the meeting, were abrasive, made everyone else feel small and insignificant". If you did not test with a high decisiveness level, it was absolutely brought up in promotion conversations. High-D, High-S etc. all became quick qualifiers to know where someone's career was headed.

Knowing strong dominance was likely an attribute valued by the company, I took the assessment with that in mind, resulting in a high dominance level (I'm probably middle of the road). That it was so easy to game made me loose all respect in their application of these assessments.

Not original commenter, but I think metrics of douchery probably vary person to person. Personally, the number of pithy vanity plates specific to the vehicle's energy source is what does it for me. I think it speaks more to the occupant and their outward projections & posturing than the vehicle.

thinking of the South Park fart smelling prius meme.

FTR - I have no problems with EVs, but I do give myself a good chuckle when I see someone who was proud enough of their vehicle purchase to turn their it into a billboard advertising something / someone (Musk) who has fallen from social grace.

I understand why runners do this (asphalt is softer than concrete, no sidewalk in a given stretch) but as a cyclist I've had inattentive or aggressive(?) runners force me into traffic lanes by running contra-flow in a bike lane with painted directional arrows. Am not in your running shoes, so I won't judge where you need to run to feels safest, but please be on the lookout!