Michael McLean
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mclean.bsky.social
Michael McLean
@mclean.bsky.social
Ideal city: ⚛️ nuclear-powered, 🏙️ dense housing, 💰 affordable, 🚇 transit. Aka Chicago.

Posting about those things here, and trying to make them better IRL.
In a New York Times op-ed, Robinson Meyer calls for the northeast to band together for fleet-mode deployment of nuclear plants
January 30, 2026 at 3:40 PM
Wild times
January 30, 2026 at 2:20 PM
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
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
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
Ouch
January 29, 2026 at 7:34 PM
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 i think thats an outdated city of chicago data portal dataset it chose.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
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
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
January 29, 2026 at 4:37 PM
Oh wow, it comes with The Stove
January 28, 2026 at 10:06 PM
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
43% ice coverage on the Great Lakes on Monday

hell yeah
January 28, 2026 at 5:42 PM
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
6 years ago today
January 28, 2026 at 5:51 AM
Alabama guy is MAGA
January 28, 2026 at 5:44 AM
Example
January 28, 2026 at 5:22 AM
(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
🚨🇮🇹 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...
January 28, 2026 at 2:23 AM
The people desire good governance from young charismatic leaders in suits
January 28, 2026 at 12:27 AM
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
Hell yeah
January 27, 2026 at 7:41 PM
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
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.
January 27, 2026 at 7:35 PM
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
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