Scott Lowe
@tropicostation.bsky.social
Mostly aviation photography here. Socal private pilot into all aspects of aviation, animation, and YIMBY/urbanism. I volunteer with a transitional housing shelter, the Civil Air Patrol and World Central Kitchen.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlowe
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottlowe
Interesting failure of a 3D printed air induction elbow that softened and collapsed in the heat of an engine bay, starving the engine of air, leading to a crash. Failure temperatures of the material when tested were about half of what was expected.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Aircraft crashed in Gloucestershire after 3D-printed part collapsed - BBC News
The aircraft was completely destroyed after a spare part bought at an air show in America collapsed.
www.bbc.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Interesting failure of a 3D printed air induction elbow that softened and collapsed in the heat of an engine bay, starving the engine of air, leading to a crash. Failure temperatures of the material when tested were about half of what was expected.
www.bbc.com/news/article...
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Reposted by Scott Lowe
What a lede on this story: Man who complained about narrowing a road in order to protect pedestrians, so much that the city eventually reversed the change, then kills a woman on that very road with his car www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...
America’s plan to protect pedestrians failed. A young woman’s death reveals why.
U.S. officials adopted Europe's Vision Zero initiative, but many cities have seen an increase in pedestrian fatalities despite efforts to improve road safety.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 4, 2025 at 8:55 PM
What a lede on this story: Man who complained about narrowing a road in order to protect pedestrians, so much that the city eventually reversed the change, then kills a woman on that very road with his car www.washingtonpost.com/business/int...
NIMBYing ourselves into a stone age economy
Why is it so hard to construct major projects in the US? I looked at TSMC's computer chip factories in Phoenix, a $165 billion investment, and came away with 18,000 reasons. Our story with extraordinary photos from Loren Elliott. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/b...
18,000 Reasons It’s So Hard to Build a Chip Factory in America
www.nytimes.com
December 4, 2025 at 8:12 PM
NIMBYing ourselves into a stone age economy
Reposted by Scott Lowe
HBO Max putting out a remastered version of this post where you can see the friends
December 4, 2025 at 7:36 PM
HBO Max putting out a remastered version of this post where you can see the friends
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Date idea: we visit the land easement surrounding an unrecovered nuclear warhead on a farm in North Carolina
![In 1962, the landowner was paid $1,000 to grant the United States of America a perpetual 200-foot (61 m) radius circular easement over the remains of the buried second bomb.[56][57] The site of the easement, at 35°29′37.12″N 77°51′30.57″W, is not clearly visible, but lies approximately 250 feet (76 m) north of an obvious circle of trees in the middle of a plowed field visible on Google Earth](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lmgitpnylgvqrxdg27tkxxnu/bafkreiajwnfck7ednkfij2tdxxtjicdvdxruqtg46feyj3audrxvffn4ge@jpeg)
December 2, 2025 at 4:27 AM
Date idea: we visit the land easement surrounding an unrecovered nuclear warhead on a farm in North Carolina
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Reposted by Scott Lowe
It’s incredibly funny people flipped out about a guy running the most standard ass municipal government policy playbook imaginable.
Soon small businesses won’t have to wait for Small Business Saturday to get attention from their Mayor.
Some changes that they can look forward to:
Some changes that they can look forward to:
November 29, 2025 at 10:23 PM
It’s incredibly funny people flipped out about a guy running the most standard ass municipal government policy playbook imaginable.
Finally spotted the blimp (N614LG) that’s been around this week! Over Azusa:
November 29, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Finally spotted the blimp (N614LG) that’s been around this week! Over Azusa:
Reposted by Scott Lowe
rain in the valley 🌧️🎻 new jazz/folk song out on bandcamp/streaming now
louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/rain-i...
louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/rain-i...
November 28, 2025 at 5:38 PM
rain in the valley 🌧️🎻 new jazz/folk song out on bandcamp/streaming now
louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/rain-i...
louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/rain-i...
Glendale needs this
Greetings from the **checks notes** Traffic Safety Prayer Pagoda here in Busan, South Korea.
November 28, 2025 at 2:30 AM
Glendale needs this
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Super interesting summary of recent Rapa Nui/Easter Island research:
1. Statues were carved and excavated all around the source volcano without hierarchy
2. The “walking” hypothesis of transporting statues using ropes/rocking was how they moved to final spots
3. Deforestation wasn’t done by […]
1. Statues were carved and excavated all around the source volcano without hierarchy
2. The “walking” hypothesis of transporting statues using ropes/rocking was how they moved to final spots
3. Deforestation wasn’t done by […]
Original post on xoxo.zone
xoxo.zone
November 26, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Super interesting summary of recent Rapa Nui/Easter Island research:
1. Statues were carved and excavated all around the source volcano without hierarchy
2. The “walking” hypothesis of transporting statues using ropes/rocking was how they moved to final spots
3. Deforestation wasn’t done by […]
1. Statues were carved and excavated all around the source volcano without hierarchy
2. The “walking” hypothesis of transporting statues using ropes/rocking was how they moved to final spots
3. Deforestation wasn’t done by […]
gotta be rooting for these two in the NWSL Final
November 22, 2025 at 10:58 PM
gotta be rooting for these two in the NWSL Final
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Hmmm…what USAID wasn’t bad for America…what if getting rid of it only hurt us and everyone else?
What if the richest man in the world being responsible for ending aid to the poorest people in the world will go down as one of the most bizarre and disgusting acts of the 21st century?
What if the richest man in the world being responsible for ending aid to the poorest people in the world will go down as one of the most bizarre and disgusting acts of the 21st century?
November 22, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Hmmm…what USAID wasn’t bad for America…what if getting rid of it only hurt us and everyone else?
What if the richest man in the world being responsible for ending aid to the poorest people in the world will go down as one of the most bizarre and disgusting acts of the 21st century?
What if the richest man in the world being responsible for ending aid to the poorest people in the world will go down as one of the most bizarre and disgusting acts of the 21st century?
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Reposted by Scott Lowe
There Are At Least Seven Blimps Floating Around The USA Right Now, So Keep Your Eyes Peeled www.theautopian.com/there-are-at...
There Are At Least Seven Blimps Floating Around The USA Right Now, So Keep Your Eyes Peeled - The Autopian
Blimps are usually a rare sight in America, but not today. You can see at least seven awesome blimps that can be found flying around the USA
www.theautopian.com
November 20, 2025 at 7:17 PM
There Are At Least Seven Blimps Floating Around The USA Right Now, So Keep Your Eyes Peeled www.theautopian.com/there-are-at...
Reposted by Scott Lowe
It's so funny watching local California candidates take credit for housing made possible by state housing laws that they opposed. Not the first time this has happened!
This is rich. Connie Chan says she “built real affordable housing, not the Sacramento version that destroys our neighborhoods.”
She points to new affordable housing on Geary: housing that she didn’t build but that *was* built using “Sacramento version” housing laws & $52M in state funds. 🧵
She points to new affordable housing on Geary: housing that she didn’t build but that *was* built using “Sacramento version” housing laws & $52M in state funds. 🧵
November 20, 2025 at 7:39 PM
It's so funny watching local California candidates take credit for housing made possible by state housing laws that they opposed. Not the first time this has happened!
Reposted by Scott Lowe
DHS/ICE, which just got the largest budget increase in its history, claims it doesn't have enough money for hard drives to preserve video evidence in a detainee abuse case at Broadview. Suggests to a judge that maybe the detainees could provide them
www.404media.co/ice-says-cri...
www.404media.co/ice-says-cri...
ICE Says Critical Evidence In Abuse Case Was Lost In 'System Crash' a Day After It Was Sued
The government also said "we don't have resources" to retain all footage and that plaintiffs could supply "endless hard drives that we could save things to."
www.404media.co
November 20, 2025 at 7:59 PM
DHS/ICE, which just got the largest budget increase in its history, claims it doesn't have enough money for hard drives to preserve video evidence in a detainee abuse case at Broadview. Suggests to a judge that maybe the detainees could provide them
www.404media.co/ice-says-cri...
www.404media.co/ice-says-cri...
Reposted by Scott Lowe
Bellingcat’s contact email has always been a magnet for people with fairly unusual views; paranoid delusions, sprawling conspiracies, the works. But recently, the pattern has shifted, we’re seeing more and more emails clearly written with ChatGPT.
November 19, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Bellingcat’s contact email has always been a magnet for people with fairly unusual views; paranoid delusions, sprawling conspiracies, the works. But recently, the pattern has shifted, we’re seeing more and more emails clearly written with ChatGPT.
Reposted by Scott Lowe
I’m looking for someone with imagery and a good use case for geospatial semantic search.
If you want to try your own queries in PIMINTO, my geospatial AI search tool, now you can: piminto.obliscence.com. There are some pretty neat features that I didn't include in the demo video, including a third way to query besides text and images. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjH0...
PIMINTO Demo 01
YouTube video by John Wiseman
www.youtube.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:52 PM
I’m looking for someone with imagery and a good use case for geospatial semantic search.
Reposted by Scott Lowe
The City of Los Angeles has 43,700 homeless people. Seven of them die on the streets every day.
Mobilizing the planning department to slow-walk new mixed income housing near the train stations that taxpayers spent billions of dollars building reflects perverse priorities at best.
Mobilizing the planning department to slow-walk new mixed income housing near the train stations that taxpayers spent billions of dollars building reflects perverse priorities at best.
After failing to stop a major state housing bill from becoming law, Los Angeles leaders are turning to plan B: Delaying Senate Bill 79's implementation and pushing for unspecified legislative changes next year. My dispatch for @politico.com Pro subscribers subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2025...
POLITICO Pro: Los Angeles failed to defeat a major housing law, so it's turning to Plan B: Delay, delay, delay
A report from the city planning department outlines strategies for pushing off many of the effects of SB 79 through 2030.
subscriber.politicopro.com
November 15, 2025 at 4:59 PM
The City of Los Angeles has 43,700 homeless people. Seven of them die on the streets every day.
Mobilizing the planning department to slow-walk new mixed income housing near the train stations that taxpayers spent billions of dollars building reflects perverse priorities at best.
Mobilizing the planning department to slow-walk new mixed income housing near the train stations that taxpayers spent billions of dollars building reflects perverse priorities at best.
I’ve never seen a Tesla without horrible curb rash. Once you notice it it’s inescapable.
People think "politics" is what you say, but politics is in fact how you wield power. In that sense, driving a car is one of the most profound ways to reveal what your actual politics are.
How people drive reveals the sickness at the heart of our society: wanting power, but not responsibility.
How people drive reveals the sickness at the heart of our society: wanting power, but not responsibility.
It just needs to be way easier to lose your license and your car for reckless driving, because a few months of major societal disruption 5 years ago taught people that driving in such a way that kills others or themselves is nbd
November 13, 2025 at 6:53 PM
I’ve never seen a Tesla without horrible curb rash. Once you notice it it’s inescapable.
Reposted by Scott Lowe
The Epstein story gets a something that is tearing at the heart of the electorate: elite impunity. The idea that wealthy and powerful people can do terrible things *at scale* and face no consequences for them. Whatever political party actually stops it could rule the country for a generation.
November 12, 2025 at 10:23 PM
The Epstein story gets a something that is tearing at the heart of the electorate: elite impunity. The idea that wealthy and powerful people can do terrible things *at scale* and face no consequences for them. Whatever political party actually stops it could rule the country for a generation.
