Michael McLean
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mclean.bsky.social
Michael McLean
@mclean.bsky.social
7.4K followers 720 following 13K posts
Ideal city: ⚛️ nuclear-powered, 🏙️ dense housing, 💰 affordable, 🚇 transit. Aka Chicago.

Posting about those things here, and trying to make them better IRL.
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mclean.bsky.social
In a New York Times op-ed, Robinson Meyer calls for the northeast to band together for fleet-mode deployment of nuclear plants
There are other options: Nuclear power plants can provide zero-carbon electricity 24 hours a day, regardless of the weather outside or the temperature inside. Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York has laudably called for building five gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the state. Could she band together with others in New England to build even more? In the 1970s, France responded to the oil crisis by building dozens of new nuclear power plants — and because it built them all at the same time, it got good at building them cheaply, quickly and safely. If northeastern lawmakers want cheaper electricity, lower emissions and less oil and gas combustion, then they should consider a similar path.
January 30, 2026 at 3:40 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Wild times
January 30, 2026 at 2:20 PM
mclean.bsky.social
The vertical utility monopolies in the southeast, which a lot of the climate people constantly use as punching bags, scored nicely on the NERC long-term reliability report.
January 30, 2026 at 12:54 AM
mclean.bsky.social
Giannis just bought this apartment building in chicago for $21 million

Would be cool if they financed some of the entitled projects that cant find funding right now. Plenty of them.

www.complex.com/sports/a/ber...
January 30, 2026 at 12:28 AM
mclean.bsky.social
theres a lot of folks who havent updated their priors to the frontier models and agent harnesses.

the head of claude code ships 100% of his code using claude code without any manual edits.

as this disperses throughout more companies, it will radically change work.
January 29, 2026 at 10:54 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Ouch
January 29, 2026 at 7:34 PM
mclean.bsky.social
In that crosswalk, it was using 2000 tracts and there are a few CAs where they don't cleanly map in the boundaries. i think thats an outdated city of chicago data portal dataset it chose.

I just updated to these layers instead and got a better result www.arcgis.com/home/item.ht...
January 29, 2026 at 5:32 PM
mclean.bsky.social
It explored the new 2024 data, then instantly knew where to find a crosswalk on the city of chicago data portal, and poof, in less than 2 minutes the comparison was ready
January 29, 2026 at 4:43 PM
mclean.bsky.social
The 2024 American Community Survey just posted with tract-level data.

Here are the top 5 fastest growing community areas in Chicago, 2023 → 2024

Near North Side +2,619
North Lawndale +2,309
Near West Side +2,081
Englewood +1,784
Lake View +1,664
A data summary showing Chicago neighborhood population changes between 2023 and 2024, displayed as white text on a dark gray background. Top 5 Gainers by absolute change (table): Near North Side: 104,712 → 107,331 (+2,619 people, +2.5%) North Lawndale: 29,338 → 31,647 (+2,309 people, +7.9%) Near West Side: 66,084 → 68,165 (+2,081 people, +3.1%) Englewood: 21,411 → 23,195 (+1,784 people, +8.3%) Lake View: 101,163 → 102,827 (+1,664 people, +1.6%) Fastest growing by percentage: South Deering noted as technically showing -9.5% (a loss) Englewood +8.3% North Lawndale +7.9% West Englewood +5.3% Hyde Park +3.4% Chicago overall: +3,193 people (+0.1%), growing from 2,667,799 to 2,670,992. Caveat note: Explains that ACS 5-year estimates are rolling averages (2019–2023 vs 2020–2024), so changes reflect gradual shifts rather than true year-over-year snapshots. Single-year ACS data would show sharper changes but isn't available for all geographies.
January 29, 2026 at 4:37 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Oh wow, it comes with The Stove
January 28, 2026 at 10:06 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Very neat startup from @yimbyland.com

Their first project in Austin:

3 Stories
4 Bedrooms / 2.5 Bathrooms
8 Weeks Manufacturing
3 Weeks Install
2 Weeks Finish Out

www.americanhousing.co
January 28, 2026 at 6:41 PM
mclean.bsky.social
43% ice coverage on the Great Lakes on Monday

hell yeah
NOAA CoastWatch map titled "Great Lakes Surface Environmental Analysis (GLSEA)" dated January 26, 2026, showing ice coverage across all five Great Lakes. The total ice cover is 43.3%. Lake Superior (top) shows the heaviest ice concentration, with large areas of 90-100% ice cover (shown in dark gray and black) across much of its surface, particularly in the western and central portions. Lake Michigan (center-left) has moderate ice coverage concentrated along the northern shoreline and Green Bay, with the southern portion near Chicago remaining mostly ice-free. Lake Huron (center-right) displays significant ice in the northern sections near Sault Ste. Marie and scattered coverage throughout, with lighter concentrations (10-69%) in many areas shown in cyan and light blue. Lake Erie (bottom) shows a distinctive band of heavy ice (90-100%) stretching across its center from Toledo toward Buffalo. Lake Ontario (far right, partially visible) appears mostly ice-free with only light gray shading indicating minimal ice concentration. A legend shows median ice concentration ranging from less than 10% (white) to 100% (black), and a water temperature scale on the left ranges from 0°C to 30°C (32°F to 86°F) in purple-to-red gradient. Major cities including Duluth, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Toronto are labeled.
January 28, 2026 at 5:42 PM
mclean.bsky.social
You know shit is bad when Fico is telling EU diplomats, who he doesn’t even like, that Trump is mentally unfit

www.politico.eu/article/dona...
January 28, 2026 at 8:13 AM
mclean.bsky.social
6 years ago today
January 28, 2026 at 5:51 AM
mclean.bsky.social
Alabama guy is MAGA
January 28, 2026 at 5:44 AM
mclean.bsky.social
Example
I was raised in a Christ-centered home, and I still profess to be a Bible-believing Christian. Because of that, my politics are not rooted in party loyalty or media narratives. They are rooted in Scripture, conscience, and fruit. And because of that, I cannot stay silent anymore, especially given recent events. I keep seeing claims like "Obama deported more people under and got an award for deportations while Trump's ICE gets called a Nazi. The difference is mainstream media brainwashing." That framing misses the point entirely. Immigration enforcement is not just about how many people are deported. It is about who is targeted, how enforcement is carried out, and what the human cost is. The same individual can operate very differently depending on the rules, priorities, and discretion set by the administration above them. Under Obama and later Biden, enforcement was tiered and discretionary. The focus was on national security threats, serious criminals, and recent border crossers. Officers were instructed to consider context, risk level, and humanitarian factors. Under Trump, those priority tiers were largely removed. Nearly all undocumented immigrants became eligible for enforcement regardless of risk level. That led to more interior arrests, more detention, and far more aggressive tactics. Even though Obama deported more people overall, largely because of how border returns were counted, broader enforcement under Trump produced different outcomes. And outcomes matter. From 2009 to 2016, 57 people died in ICE custody. Under Trump, 96 people have died. Thirty-two of those deaths occurred this year alone, and five are currently being investigated as murders. This is not brainwashing. As Christians, we are called to judge trees by their fruit. We are called to protect human dignity. We are called to care about the stranger, the imprisoned, and the vulnerable. We are called to truth, even when it is uncomfortable and even when it challenges our political tribes. You are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to rescind an opinion when evidence and consequences become clear. That is not weakness. That is integrity. Whatever your politics are, this is not Christ-like. And silence in the face of harm is not neutrality. "When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt" Sources: https://leitf.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/
January 28, 2026 at 5:22 AM
mclean.bsky.social
(Can someone check to make sure the survey link isn't unique to me?? I clicked this button)

www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/parks-facili...
January 28, 2026 at 3:18 AM
mclean.bsky.social
🚨🇮🇹 Action Alert!

Chicago Park District is soliciting public input about which Italian should be commemorated with a new statue in Arrigo Park.

It appears they took my suggestion seriously. Enrico Fermi is a candidate!

Fill out this survey!!!

forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...
enrico fermi with some wires. smiling!
January 28, 2026 at 2:23 AM
mclean.bsky.social
The people desire good governance from young charismatic leaders in suits
@NYCMayor if this is how @NYCSanitation will operate under your leadership. Ill vote for you 3 more times. Should have always been this way. We all have to go to work.
January 28, 2026 at 12:27 AM
mclean.bsky.social
duplexes and triplexes wont cut it either. we need to blitz 5 over 1s everywhere they pencil, ASAP
January 27, 2026 at 8:59 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Hell yeah
January 27, 2026 at 7:41 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Here's the USS Nautilus entering New York harbor on August 25 1958, after her voyage under the North Pole.
January 27, 2026 at 7:39 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Everyone say Happy Birthday to my favorite Chicagoan, Admiral Hyman Rickover,

Born in Poland on Jan 27 1900. Immigrated to Chicago, and built the world's first nuclear submarine.

He was a big proponent of the light water reactor, which was eventually commercialized to power the grid we use today.
a portrait of rickover in a nice suit
January 27, 2026 at 7:35 PM
mclean.bsky.social
at this point, who cares about aesthetics or whatever. build ANYTHING that can pencil.

Put these everywhere that a developer can make the math work
January 27, 2026 at 5:19 PM
mclean.bsky.social
Fuck your neighborhood character. We need to blitz 5 over 1s everywhere we can in blue states.

THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS
January 27, 2026 at 5:13 PM