Connor

20 Apr 2025

the weather is nice, so we are back in the bird zone 🧵 all taken in a kayak with a canon r6 mk2 and the RF 800mm f11 I use a waterproof flyfishing bag from fishpond for the camera, but it's still a fraught endeavor first up, some osprey action #birds

Random Saturday take: DC is heavily underrated as a sports city. one of the most accessible clusters of pro sports teams in the country. I can walk like 10 minutes to a train that will take me to hockey, 2x basketball, baseball, and 2x soccer teams in <30min, I guess football in a few years too.

That’s without even living in DC proper Plus, if you like the NBA, the wizards being terrible for so long means incredible deals. I sat courtside a couple years ago for a few hundred bucks, which is an unbelievable steal compared to every other arena

youtube.comMONEYBALL (2011) Clip – Carry the OneYouTube video by Sony Pictures Entertainment

love it when I can recommend the perfect clip/quote/link for a blog header www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpb...

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift.bsky.social

Dance with the devil and the devil leads. It never ends well.

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heavy emphasis on the deal part of permitting deal deals work best with two sides agreeing in good faith

I wonder if, like, API and NGA are yelling at people somewhere to try and get grandpa to stop grinding axes for just a few weeks so the bill has a chance

Erik Schlenker-Goodrich@riogranderift.bsky.social

Dance with the devil and the devil leads. It never ends well.

the single most obvious glaring flaw of the permitting deal is one that isn't even in the text how could you possibly trust that promises mean anything?

Connor reposted

Matt Belloni

@mattbelloni.bsky.social

Amid the upheaval at Netflix, an analysis of executive movement reveals you’re much more likely to get fired faster at a streaming service than a traditional studio. Via @stephenfollows.com. ⬇️⬇️ puck.news/why-streamin...

pnas.orgPNASProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

neat new paper #energysky Leveraging existing grid infrastructure for rapid US renewable and storage deployment | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

terra firma, terra eterna 🚱🌉

When I have basically no clue what past Connor was trying to tell future Connor

Connor reposted

@kavi.bsky.social

This is not even slightly true! Texas has "cities" that are large collections of suburbs and a density profile where it's densest cities are lower density than the typical California suburb

William B. Fuckley@opinionhaver.bsky.social

Californians pretend they live in the city and Texans pretend they live in the country, the suburbs where people in both states actually live are largely identical

People who say “just do what ERCOT does” to get more new stuff on the grid probably need to reckon with the dollar signs in everyone’s eyes post-Uri when the market was being run in a way that made the merchant case look way way better than it currently does

Interconnection reform (to not-a-queue) would be great! Refundable deposits to the TO (since, ya know, they will own and profit from those lines) also makes sense to me! But the specific milieu of Texas land deals and the opportunity to capture huge value out of ”conservative operations” also key

Huge value from ratepayers ultimately of course, the IMM put out plenty about extra costs with no clear reliability benefit in those years if you want to go read about it

Like half of this article is platforming an open nazi, wtf.

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bbc.comTip-off foiled US teen's plot to attack Hindu temple, police sayThe alleged plot only failed because the 19-year-old suspect's gun jammed outside the place of worship, say police.

Crazy, pure luck that the guy’s gun jammed and he went home to google it. Feels like it’s impossible to ignore the context of recent anti-Indian stuff that’s been percolating over on X, the “friendly” app www.bbc.com/news/article...

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi@congressmanraja.bsky.social

My family and I were worshipping at our Hindu temple in Aurora on Sunday when a white supremacist attempted a mass shooting targeting Indian Americans. I'm grateful to those who prevented a tragedy, but we must all come together to confront the hatred that put so many innocent lives at risk.

feels very pertinent to the current permitting reform bill (and obviously there are many many many many examples from the last 2 years)

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Connor reposted

Grid Status

@gridstatus.io

On Tuesday, PJM's system could face one of its highest stress moments of the year, as system-wide capacity saturation is forecast to exceed 170 GW Forecast demand is well below summer highs, but demand alone is not enough to assess overall risk amidst ~60 GW of shoulder season outages 🔌💡

daringfireball.netX Once Again Marks the SpotIf you returned from exile on a desert island and took a look at X today for first time in a year, you might reasonably guess that Elon Musk got bored and sold it while you were away.

look, tech loves to pull the “I just don’t want to think about politics card”, but is it just politics to prop up the platform of a tech CEO who bragged about condemning millions of the most vulnerable people in the world to death?

John Gruber@gruber.foo

I'm sure this one won't make anyone angry.

The guy has his hands in the algorithm, is one of our biggest political spenders, and has birth rate concerns that reverse depending on race, but his position is almost uniquely vulnerable to public opinion compared to other tech CEOs, which is where the moral piece becomes very clear

like, he destroyed my wife’s dream and cost taxpayers extra to do it, but that’s down the list of things to even complain about because of our personal privilege and the widespread immiseration everywhere else

"no healthy trees that are contributing features of the historic golf course" is a massive loophole for every other tree (including historic cherry trees) that are not part of the existing golf course

Scott MacFarlane@macfarlanenews.bsky.social

Despite ongoing lawsuit seeking to stop Trump overhaul of DC's East Potomac Park, the National Park Service has notified the court that it's going to take down nearly 530 trees at the site Team Trump is pursuing plan to redevelop the golf course on site

not too long before the trees in friends' wedding photos down on Hains point are all dead and gone for another Trump vanity project

gaspriceguy.substack.comThe Dyed Diesel Waiver Has Catches Most Truckers Will Run IntoEarlier tonight, President Trump signed an executive order that temporarily allows tax-exempt dyed (red) diesel to be used on roads and highways.

Feels like it should be illegal for our mortgage company to repeatedly spam call us this is pretty new and seems directly linked to their desperation over rising rates

Connor reposted

Patrick De Haan

@gasbuddyguy.bsky.social

Replying to @gasbuddyguy.bsky.social

I just spent time in detail spelling out the details so you don't have to. Please consider sharing/liking to boost these and get information out there! gaspriceguy.substack.com/p/the-dyed-d...

github.comGitHub - MisterClean/rss-to-bluesky-bot: A general purpose bot that will fetch and post RSS feeds on BlueskyA general purpose bot that will fetch and post RSS feeds on Bluesky - MisterClean/rss-to-bluesky-bot

It’s crazy that in 2026 the biggest wholesale power market in the US, PJM, still reports their basic fuel mix at an hourly granularity (with separate, higher frequency wind and solar feeds) #energysky

Connor reposted

Michael McLean

@michaelmclean.me

Next on the list of my great Bluesky Bot Rust Migration is this RSS bot. I abstracted it such that it should work for any RSS feed. Just supply the feed, and the Bluesky app password and it will monitor for updates and post them like the example post below. github.com/MisterClean/...

Chicago YIMBY Unofficial@chicagoyimby.bsky.social

Three-Flat Approved As Demolition Awaits At 4514 North Central Avenue In Portage Park Read more: https://chicagoyimby.com/2026/10/three-flat-approved-as-demolition-awaits-at-4512-north-central-avenue-in-portage-park.html

It’s not dynamic scoring bad, it was real analysis, but I keep thinking about how the IRA was sort of breathlessly modeled. 4 years later its provisions have been delayed and dismantled legally and illegally through a plethora of overt and hidden actions while

Kevin J. Kircher@kevinjkircher.com

Anyway, "deregulation will decrease pollution" and "deregulation will help Democrats win elections" are weird claims that, IMO, require pretty high thresholds of evidence to support. Food for thought as you read coverage of the federal permitting bill draft, which is deregulation legislation.

other admin priorities have put capital markets in a worse spot for projects as well. Sure, it has been unpredictable in many ways, but at this point I’m treating all of this way more skeptically given what we’ve seen the last couple of years.

@selfstyledsiren.bsky.social

it's pretty funny to me that Dario, a vegetarian, makes an exception for shrimp, a food that was incurring enough bad environmental impacts that I had sworn it off 8 or so years before I went vegetarian this is particularly amusing in the context of all the LLMs are alive stuff

Connor reposted

Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧

DMV folks: The AFI Silver Classic Film Weekend returns this year! Participants include biographer Scott Eyman, historian David Stenn, @sheilakathleen.bsky.social, and me. Tomorrow, from noon to midnight, the AFI holds a flash sale for the weekend! Link: silver.afi.com/events/detai...

silver.afi.comAFI Silver Classic Film Weekend | AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center

I’m in a plan, not in a plan, re-certified, recertification failed, somehow in forbearance, then not, unclear timelines, lifetime payments higher on a 10-year plan than longer plans, hours on the phone, and all with federal loans at rates many times higher than the fed rate at the time

Debt Collective 🟥@debtcollective.bsky.social

A day later, the information has changed. Now you're stuck. You cannot get back onto SAVE. And the federal government has you enrolled in autopay and — oops, maybe they take out too much money next month, sorry! This is a disaster. Everything is broken. www.ed.gov/about/news/p...

There’s a particular level of cursed where your undergrad/grad were in the beginning and aftermath of the financial crisis and federal student loan interest rates were completely decoupled from the cost of capital

I’m ready for 2030 now

ok, so maybe it’s just us against CONMEBOL vs UEFA

You know Cavan Sullivan is real young because for the 2001 Eminem hairstyle to come back he’d need to be ~2 generations on from millennials

has there ever been a moment where the third way shtick has rung more hollow? I get that the overwhelming asymmetry at play in terms of policy pursuits makes it pretty impossible to thread that tired middle path, but it also makes equivalency in fault and continuing on look ridiculous

U.S. Soccer Men's National Team

21 Sept

T-shirt and shorts weather, finally

Connor reposted

@usmnt.ussoccer.com

18 Sept

Last looks before the international break!

gridstatus.ioInsights | Grid StatusStay up to date with our team's live analysis of events happening on the grid

15 Sept

My analysts recorded a podcast for fun back in January, named it Status Check, and then they're been running with it ever since Tough to get a spot on it, they've only let me guest once 😅

Grid Status@gridstatus.io

We've had a stealth podcast for the entire year, but now it's on the site! www.gridstatus.io/insights/sta... (also Apple, Spotify, etc.) ~15-20 minutes once a week on what's happening in the power markets, no CEOs talking their book, just our analysts chatting through what they're watching 🔌💡

youtu.beMeet the HeavyYouTube video by Valve

13 Sept

youtu.be/jHgZh4GV9G0?... Man, 17 years ago

Sky Marchini@sky.skymarchini.net

some people think robot can outsmart me. maybe. maybe. I've yet to meet robot that can outsmart bullet.

we actually have an opposite example in power markets, where PJM and Joe Bowring ended up at loggerheads almost 20 years ago, and the feds eventually sided with the market monitor examples like this are on my mind more and more as tech people have rushed into power (even preceding AI, worse now)

Jeremy Sheff@jnsheff.bsky.social

The problem with private monitoring is a classic collective action problem: if any one private monitor identifies risks that the target does not want to abate, the target can simply contract for a more pliant monitor.

my perspective is always going to be filtered through the ~5 years I spent at the other independent market monitor, but it does make a nice differentiator to see if people even know the function exists, let alone what it does

(of course, this doesn’t exactly apply to ERCOT, which does have an MMU, but the position doesn’t have federal protection)

Jeremy Sheff@jnsheff.bsky.social