we simply do not have a union anymore if the president is using troops from one state to invade others entirely on the basis of political disagreements

Happy Battle of Lake Erie Day to those who celebrate.

My god these guys are such spectacular morons

gizmodo.com/billionaires...

one of the stranger phenomena in American life is that hate is supposed to flow in one direction (rural people get to hate urban people, Republicans get to hate Democrats) and if the hate goes the other way people pretend as if this is very upsetting.

Jason Stanley, philosopher and expert on fascism said “You know you're living in a fascist society when you're constantly going over in your head the reasons why YOU are safe.”

YOU WANNA SEE A DEAD BODY???

*This* is the NOW INFAMOUS "Footnote 12" that Jackson wrote.
It basically tells Neil Gorsuch: "Fuck you as a staff, label, and motherfucking crew."

For more fun car efficiency dimensional analysis, see Randall Munroe's take on mpg as an inverse area:
what-if.xkcd.com/11/

To rant, driving style makes a big difference in efficiency. I commute on a road with timed lights. Some people accelerate and speed on green only to stop at the next red. If I drive the speed limit, every light is green. Stopping and going is an energetic waste. Steady speed maximizes efficiency.

Steady state resistances (280 N, 63 lbs-f) at my average speed (30 mph) account for a bit less than half the average force exerted by the car. This makes sense as higher speeds have more air resistance, accelerating takes more force, there will be some losses, and the battery also runs the AC.

The car has a drag coefficient of 0.3, a cross-sectional area of 2.5 m^2, and weighs 4500 lbs. With this and some reasonable estimates for the density of air and rolling friction coefficient, at a steady 30 mph air resistance is 80 N (18 lbs-f) and rolling resistance is 200 N (45 lbs-f).

The units of mi/kWh are fun because it's a distance per energy, which is inverse force. Taking the inverse of my average efficiency (3.5 mi/kWh)^-1 gives a force of 640 N or 140 lbs-force. You can interpret this as the average force that the car exerts while it drives.

How does this compare to a gas car? Assuming gasoline density of 0.7 g/cm^3 and heat of combustion of 45 MJ/kg, a Honda Civic (40 mpg) gets 1.2 mi/kWh and a Cadillac Escalade (15 mpg) gets 0.45 mi/kWh. The EV is 2-4.5x more energy efficient than an efficient car and 5.5-12x an inefficient car.

My car's stated efficiency is 2.8 mi/kWh. My average is 3.5 mi/kWh, the worst I've seen is 2.5 mi/kWh (cold, highway driving), and I can get it up to 5.5 mi/kWh (warm, city driving). So the manufacturer gives a low estimate on range and under the right conditions you can do much better.

My electric car measures efficiency in miles per kilowatt-hour, which is a gross mix of imperial and metric. But there are some interesting comparisons and dimensional analysis with that.

We are looking forward day 1 of the 55th Midwest Theoretical Chemistry Conference at #wsuchemistry with Keynote speaker Paul Zimmerman! #MWTCC55 #compchem #ChemSky

In news from my hometown, a GOP mayor candidate was just arrested for DUI. He crashed into a house "to avoid a cat." Told the arresting officer he was drinking vodka 20 minutes prior and mentioned several times he is "going to be the mayor." Election is Tuesday.

lebtown.com/2025/05/16/p...

Vandalism.

There is a developing aviation crisis in the United States. Newark Airport is in shambles, forcing the cancellations of hundreds of flights. Ground-traffic accidents are multiplying. A major disaster is only a matter of time.

A functioning government would take emergency action to staff our

Oh my god, it’s me.

I’m not confident Europe can pick up the torch that the US is dropping. This €500 million over two years sounds good until you realize the NIH budget alone is $50,000 million per year.

Radical opinion of the day: on-street parking is a bad use of public land. Especially in extremely walkable places like @downtownroyaloak.bsky.social the space should be reserved for 15-minute parking, ride-share pickups, and handicap accessible spots.

Ever seen it done on the run?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHQd...

“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?”
- A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic

Me at the beginning of the semester vs. me at the end of this semester.