Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
@zbigalke.bsky.social
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Husband Puppy papa Former pro cook Unapologetically profane sport historian Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor Penn State Kinesiology Secretary Society for American Soccer History Book Review Editor Sport History Review NSHOF voter
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zbigalke.bsky.social
I've decided to collect all of my 2025 race pace analysis threads into one thread of threads. You can check back here throughout the season to see the latest data and to review past races.

Round 1
Australian Grand Prix
Albert Park Circuit
16 March 2025
zbigalke.bsky.social
First race is in the books, and here are the first race pace calculations of the 2025 F1 season.

On the left, you can see the data calculated just for the two green-flag stints on intermediates. The table on the right includes the short middle stint on slicks.

Lots of things to take away...

1/x
Race pace calculations for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix held on 16 March 2025

Pace calculated solely for the two stints on intermediates under green-flag conditions.

The table lists the following average lap times by driver:

Lando Norris (McLaren) — 90.243s
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) — 90.692s
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) — 90.814s
George Russell (Mercedes) — 91.397s
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) — 91.780s
Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) — 92.122s
Alexander Albon (Williams) — 92.203s
Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) — 92.412s
Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) — 92.502s *
Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) — 92.566s
Pierre Gasly (Alpine) — 92.602s
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) — 92.704s
Nico Hülkenberg (Sauber) — 92.969s
Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) — 93.350s *
Esteban Ocon (Haas) — 93.523s
Liam Lawson (Red Bull) — 93.621s *
Oliver Bearman (Haas) — 93.958s

* — This driver's average only includes the first intermediate stint, as the driver crashed out of the race before the second intermediate stint.

Jack Doohan (Alpine), Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), and Carlos Sainz (Williams) all crashed out before completing a lap under green-flag conditions.

Data aggregated from F1-Tempo.com and visualized in Microsoft Excel by Zach Bigalke using Bigalke font on 17 March 2025. Race pace calculations for the 2025 Australian Grand Prix held on 16 March 2025
Average race pace is calculated by omitting opening laps, in-laps and out-laps from pit stops, and any yellow-flag running from the calculations.

The table lists the following average lap times by driver:

Lando Norris (McLaren) — 89.803s
Oscar Piastri (McLaren) — 90.281s
Max Verstappen (Red Bull) — 90.380s
George Russell (Mercedes) — 91.049s
Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) — 91.704s
Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) — 91.764s
Alexander Albon (Williams) — 91.819s
Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) — 92.103s
Pierre Gasly (Alpine) — 92.141s
Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) — 92.323s
Yuki Tsunoda (Racing Bulls) — 92.392s
Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) — 92.502s *
Nico Hülkenberg (Sauber) — 92.568s
Gabriel Bortoleto (Sauber) — 92.693s **
Liam Lawson (Red Bull) — 93.041s **
Esteban Ocon (Haas) — 93.269s
Oliver Bearman (Haas) — 93.652s

* — This driver's average only includes the first stint, as the driver crashed out of the race before the second stint.

** — This driver's average only includes the first two stints, as the driver crashed out of the race before the second intermediate stint.

Jack Doohan (Alpine), Isack Hadjar (Racing Bulls), and Carlos Sainz (Williams) all crashed out before completing a lap under green-flag conditions.

Data aggregated from F1-Tempo.com and visualized in Microsoft Excel by Zach Bigalke using Bigalke font on 17 March 2025.
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
sivav.bsky.social
The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously.

newrepublic.com/article/2013...
Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down
How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education
newrepublic.com
zbigalke.bsky.social
Why, oh why, am I not surprised that this was the Atlantic's take on this deplorable move?
zbigalke.bsky.social
One of my colleagues turned on the AI note feature in a meeting in an org where I'm the secretary and take minutes. I was pissed. Made sure not to say a word during the meeting.

And the "notes" it produced absolutely sucked. They're definitely not replacing human-generated minutes any time soon...
estherschindler.bsky.social
"The bots silently record everything, create transcripts, and summarize meetings for the humans who couldn't — or wouldn't — attend themselves. The trend has created bizarre new etiquette problems."
AI note-takers are flooding virtual meetings
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan envisions AI "digital twins" replacing humans in future meetings. But experts warn about information overload and the implications of perfect digital memory.
boingboing.net
zbigalke.bsky.social
... but while pro success was fleeting, the game still flourished on an amateur level and in schools. And it wasn't just in immigrant enclaves, either. The work I'm doing on women's soccer is currently looking at its growth on campuses throughout flyover country.
zbigalke.bsky.social
The professional game was stunted in the 1920s by the feud between the American Soccer League and the US Football Association (modern U.S. Soccer), and by the time it was reconciled the Depression was already putting pressure on the league...
zbigalke.bsky.social
This is nothing new... I remember when Carnie Wilson broadcast her gastric bypass surgery live online back in 1999.
zbigalke.bsky.social
When have Democrats NOT slow-walked an autopsy after an electoral defeat?

About the only time I can remember is 2000, when they latched on to a convenient scapegoat in Nader rather than having to truly evaluate their failure.
zbigalke.bsky.social
1884 marks the first great national championship controversy in college football. Working on this chapter next...
Clipping from page 1 of the November 29, 1884 San Francisco Examiner

Text reads:

Their dirty canvas jackets and knickerbockers were streaked and flecked with blood. All the men were tattered and muddy, and nearly all had bleeding wounds or bruises showing amid the dirt crusted on their heads and faces. It became too dark to play further, so the game was called. The referee reserved his decision, though the crowd thought Yale had won by a score of 6 to 4. Later in the evening representatives of both teams met Referee Appleton at the Fifth-avenue Hotel, who, after an hour spent in consultation, finally decided to call the game a draw. The referee said to your reporter: "Properly speaking Yale won the game, but on a mere technicality I was forced to call the contest a draw. The rule calls for two full three-quarter-hour innings to be played. This rule as not complied with. I am compelled to decide as I have done." The Yale men say they will bring the matter up in the annual convention, which probably will be held at the Fifth-avenue Hotel next Wednesday. They are confident the game will be decided in their favor. They appeared very much displeased with the verdict of the referee.
zbigalke.bsky.social
Almost time to head across campus to teach, and then I decided I'm doing my office hours from home today. I'd rather be near my puppy than sitting in this too-hot office.
zbigalke.bsky.social
I got my first paid writing gig because of social media.

I published my first academic work because of social media.

I attended my first NASSH conference because of social media.

I landed a place as a PhD student because of social media.

For all its ills, social media has been a net good for me.
conradhackett.bsky.social
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?
zbigalke.bsky.social
Yeah, I'll buy this when they start punishing ICE shitheads who target pastors.

But we already know they won't do that, because the only thing this regime knows how to do is weaponize Christianity and use it to justify unlawful conduct.
zbigalke.bsky.social
And it is also important to note that it wasn't just a men's game.

The work I am doing right now — first for a nearly-finished anthology chapter, and then in the planning stages for a monograph — shows that the U.S. was a soccer nation for men AND women by the turn of the 20th century...
brianquarstad.bsky.social
The US is and has been a soccer nation despite what you have been told by US Soccer and even Don Garber.
Soccer was in New Jersey before Brazil
US had a pro league before Italy or Spain
An American Game podcast tell these amazing and entertaining stories told by @soccertownmedia.bsky.social
zbigalke.bsky.social
And, as @edzitron.com has so capably catalogued over time, that valuation is all built on a house of cards that lacks any really hope in hell at profitability.
revealnews.org
Silicon Valley once laughed off OpenAI. Now it’s the world’s most valuable private company.

Tech journalist @karenhao.bsky.social has been writing about OpenAI’s remarkable rise and joins us to examine the AI boom on this week’s “More To The Story.”

🎧 Listen here: tinyurl.com/4v5by3wm
zbigalke.bsky.social
It is always easy to throw OTHER people under the bus, Jeff.

It takes way more integrity than Jeff shows to hold firm on your principles & stand with the most disadvantaged in society.

Triangulation hasn't been a winning electoral strategy since the goddamn 1990s, Jeff. GTFOH with that bullshit.
jeffryder.bsky.social
Maybe don’t die on transgender hills when we need to attract independents in order to actually take back the govt.
zbigalke.bsky.social
Okay, I'm done talking to that AI apologist. Just completely unoriginal and inaccurate thought, as though it was produced by a goddamn chatbot.

Stop wasting your own time, Zach, just block and move on with life...
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
fibrojedi.me.uk
At the college my wife works at, if a student needs a photocopy (running it through a machine) of more than 40% of a book or other work, they have to get the author's **written** consent, even if it's a purchased work.

If they don't they could be breaching copyright.

Your example is no different.
zbigalke.bsky.social
You bought a copy of the book, you didn't buy the right to reproduce it in another medium. You'd have to turn it into text first to feed it into your algorithm.
zbigalke.bsky.social
At this point there OUGHT to be more punitive use restrictions on AI corporations, because they proved they are incapable of doing anything ethically without intervention.

Artists should 100% have the right to tell AI corps to fuck themselves, even if they pay the price of the copy.
zbigalke.bsky.social
They could've done the right thing out of the gate, and this would have likely never turned into a thing.

But the AI corps decided to make it a thing by stealing shit. You really do not have to hand it to them for being forced to do the bare minimum right thing after they already stole everything.
zbigalke.bsky.social
I'm all for artists controlling whether their products may be fed into a machine. It's one thing to disseminate knowledge for human consumption, another to allow it to be fed into the maw of a Mechanical Turk.

Also, doing the right thing retroactively is not a good thing. It's merely a CYA move.
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
disabilitystor1.bsky.social
For those of us in higher education this company has snaked its way into our institutions—and this is the kind of care and thought they put into the risks of their products.
Do you imagine our students are safe with these people?
hypervisible.blacksky.app
Altman claims the company didn’t anticipate people not wanting their deepfakes to say “offensive things or things that they find deeply problematic,” which sounds like a lie but is also indicative of how they recklessly release tech into the world.
OpenAI wasn’t expecting Sora’s copyright drama
It felt “more different to images than people expected.”
www.theverge.com
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
allisonbetus.bsky.social
Folks, if ICE shot a pastor in the head with a pepper ball on camera, what do you think they do to people behind closed doors?
flglchicago.bsky.social
Here’s video of the incident
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
bookjackie.bsky.social
“The irony was not lost on the faculty: The university was censoring its own conference about censorship.”
Reposted by Zach Bigalke (he/him/his)
shamjaff.bsky.social
It’s a "crisis" when immigrants "take jobs away", but "innovation" when machines do. Funny.
zbigalke.bsky.social
The name was undoubtedly the hype engine, and tons of four- and five-star recruits flame out every season.