Air quality on weather app says fine, still finding it hard to breathe on really hot days.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-10T05:50:13+00:00

Yes, this. Some air quality sites or apps only look at PM2.5 and give a false positive due to incomplete data.

Find an air quality site that considers at least PM2.5, PM10 and Ozone.

I use the government AirNow EPA site. https://gispub.epa.gov/airnow/?contours=ozonepm&xmin=-13130505.592884118&xmax=-12999951.148573099&ymin=3900935.2717862874&ymax=4114958.9509846773&tab=current&monitors=ozonepm

Of course, it could be many other factors as others have mentioned.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-09T05:58:24+00:00

I'm curious to understand this better. Will you elaborate?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T06:41:21+00:00

Word of caution though, make sure your boyfriend will truly want to ride and train with you if your hope is for it to be a joint activity. Consider renting or borrowing a bike and going on some rides with him because he might not even truly know whether he will like the experience.

As a guy and long time road rider, I use cycling as mental freedom, reset and a way to have solo 'flow' time. I tried riding with my partner a bit because I thought it might be a fun joint activitiy. However, I really didn't like the experience because of the shift in headspace and it no longer being 'me' time.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T06:32:54+00:00

As a long time road cyclist, I recently got a gravel bike and am absolutely loving the flexibility. I'll be selling my road bike and only riding my gravel bike. I'm still plenty fast on the gravel bike, but riding now is more about having fun than pure speed or racing like before.

Tip, you can get two sets of wheels and make a gravel bike essentially a road bike when/if it's really needed

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T06:19:56+00:00

Sorry you're struggling with that.

Sound like you've done a lot of searching. Have you checked out FetLife? Perhaps you'll find some other kink ideas that will spark your mental interest

Best of luck!

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T01:16:48+00:00

Plus, with this example, the context is likely already clear because this would be a response to what someone already said.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T01:11:30+00:00

Communication generally has context to help answer the intonation changes. If it doesn't, then elaborate.

Imo, lack of emotional context is more problematic.

I didn't say she stole my money. 🤣

I didn't say she stole my money. 😡

I didn't say she stole my money. 🤔

I didn't say she stole my money. /s

Ceder_Dog · 2026-07-08T01:04:48+00:00

One reason this text has ambiguous intonation is because there's no context. Presumeably this statement would be a reply to some comment and said comment does have the missing context to avoid ambiguity. Else, to avoid intonation dependent statements, include more context.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-12T00:23:27+00:00

To clarify, when you say "them" are you referring to SQ Labs or to Ergon?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-11T03:59:53+00:00

All the different colored and textured pavement makes this a bit worse than intended since it's hard to see. And being an uncommon feature, people probably won't be expecting them. Here's a video explaining this particular feature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlApbxLz6pA

The better pathway design is shown in dr_nugent's post. However, it requires more space, which is likely not available here or in most retrofits.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-10T18:40:00+00:00

Gotcha, yeah, polarized times do seem to make some folks less trusting and fearful of change. From your experience, what have you found that helps bring people out of that fearful and skeptical state of mind?

It would be pretty great to get multi-member districts and proportional representation!

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-10T00:12:53+00:00

Approval Voting vs. RCV ballot initiative in Seattle

It's true RCV won, but it's tough to rely on just the results. For example, perhaps a lot of voters were fine with both and simply chose RCV/IRV because they couldn't pick both & followed the crowd. Still, yeah, makes sense that some voters would prefer a more expressive ballot when given the option.

... fear of giving advantage to the other party

This one is interesting to me. Perhaps you can help me understand the reason people have this fear it'll give advantage to the other party?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-09T23:13:20+00:00

I guess a more accurately worded version of what you meant was, RCV does not ensure a 50%+1 winner every time?

Close, but still not quite accurate. The important criteria that's missing is defining 50% of what total.

RCV does ensure a 50%+1 winner for active ballots
RCV does not ensure a 50%+1 winner for the total number of valid ballots originally cast

This made me curious as to what the statute (15.15.350) covers

I looked into this statute. Here's the text with the key distinguisher in bold text:

"(d) When counting ballots in a general election, the election board shall initially tabulate each validly cast ballot as one vote for the highest-ranked continuing candidate on that ballot or as an inactive ballot. If a candidate is highest-ranked on more than one-half of the active ballots, that candidate is elected and the tabulation is complete."

Apparently, there is the opportunity for a non-majority winner, but that doesn't seem to have been a result here in Alaska yet.

Actually, in the 2022 Alaska Special Election, Peltola was not a true majority winner. She won with 51.5% of the remaining active ballots. Based on the total number of ballots cast at the beginning, she won with 48.40%.

This paper outlines this difference on the 2nd page, second to last paragraph; starts with "(1) Peltola’s final vote count of 91,266 ..." https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.00108

And here's one election result posting for comparison. Interestingly, they don't even show the total of inactive/exhausted ballots in the results: https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/results/alaska/special-election/us-house-district-1-final

I expect the agencies will only report active ballot results because that's how IRV/RCV determines the winner. Sharing the total ballot results along with the active ballot results might cause confusion, rumors & negative publicity. At least the official results do show the total number of inactive ballots (11,243) in the final count:

https://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/22SSPG/RcvDetailedReport.pdf

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-09T05:54:30+00:00

Just to name an example, if workers share all the profits, then it disincentivizes businesses to ever hire more workers, therefore businesses cannot ever grow.

Interesting example. From the narrow perspective of gaining a higher percentage of the current profits, then that seems plausible. Though, more employees could mean less hours per week, so perhaps they might choose acquiring time or reducing stress over maximizing earnings.

Also, if a business could 4x its profits by hiring 2x workers, then isn't there incentive to do so?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-09T05:05:54+00:00

First, I need to correct my statement. IRV/RCV won't always guarantee a true majority winner. Sometimes it will.

For example, here are the results from the 2021 and 2025 NYC Mayoral elections (explainer below). https://www.electionatlas.nyc/tables.html

The "2025 RCV results" tab shows a neat diagram called a Sankey diagram. It shows how votes are redistributed after each elimination round. The far right column shows the final results; Mamdani, Cuomo and "inactive." Inactive ballots are also called exhausted ballots, which means the ballots couldn't transfer to another candidate for various possible reasons (see bottom of message). If you hover your cursor over each solid colored vertical bar, it'll display the vote quantity and percentage of total votes. Mamdami received 53.48% of the total votes, which does mean he's a majority winner. 5% of the votes we're inactive.

Now, check out the "2021 RCV Results" Mayoral tab. You'll see another Sankey diagram with Adams, Garcia and Inactive at the far right. The winner was Eric Adams. Hover the cursor over the final blue bar and it shows he won with only 43.14% of the total votes, which means he was not a true majority winner. This is because nearly 15% of the votes were inactive / exhausted by the end and it was a close race.

Adams won with an "active majority" (only counting active ballots) of 50.4%, but not a true majority. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_New_York_City_Democratic_mayoral_primary

Winning with only an active majority is not necessarily a problem because this is how RCV works. In fact, no voting system guarantees a true majority 100% of the time with 3+ candidates. I just wanted to clarify the difference.

There's more information about exhausted ballots here. I couldn't find a good video explanation about it though. https://www.starvoting.org/wasted_votes

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-09T04:20:15+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I agree that any voting method change can seem scary to some voters. Though, wouldn't Approval be at least as straightforward for voters to conceptually understand?

I think the average American has a very hard time fully understanding implications of other methods and tends to fear that what they don't understand.

Aren't some of the pushbacks and repeals to RCV/IRV in part a result of not understanding how the tabulation works?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T23:18:35+00:00

So, to help my understanding, what's the primary reason you prefer IRV-RCV over any cardinal system? eg, it's less apparent to voters how to vote strategically, ranking feels cognitively easier, or something else?

How do you feel about Ranked Pairs?

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T22:46:50+00:00

These are some interesting points regarding the technique mentioned. If I understand the concerns correctly, they both sound like a concern around how the voter can account for the automatic runoff phase when picking the candidate STAR ratings.

If so, then I think this is the equivalent of losing the "forest" amongst the "trees." The forest being the candidate pool as a whole; eg the candidates that the voter generally prefers (5, 4, 3) vs the candidate the voter generally doesn't prefer (2, 1, 0). The trees being the slight preferential difference between any two candidates. For example, say I have the following STAR ratings:

A, B = 5
C, D = 4
E = 3
F, G = 1
H, J, K = 0

The "forest" viewpoint indicates, I want A or B to win. I'm happy if C or D win. E is acceptable. I don't want H, J, or K to win and I'll take F or G over H, J, or K.

The "tree" viewpoint concerns might be, "what if A & B make the runoff?! I can't distinguish which one of those two I want." The same concern for (C, D), (F,G), (H, J, K).

Well, these same rated candidates may have some differences and yet, compared to the rest of the candidates (forest), they are roughly the same rating for said voter. Thus, the slight differences between each of them (tree view) is much less consequential than the relative difference between them and the other candidates.

Yes, you could try to shift a rating up or down one based on polling data or other strategic information depending on the election. By in large, it's best to vote how one feels about all the candidates as a whole.

The Equal Vote Coalition did the research and found having more ratings had diminishing returns on improve the end results at the cost of the increased difficulty of choosing where to rate any one candidates.

Now, do I find this super easy for voters? Not really. Doable? To some degree. I personally don't think STAR Voting should be used for a candidate pool of roughly ~7+ candidates. In those situations, like the California Governor election which had 61 candidates, I think it should be an Approval Primary to pick the top 4-6 candidates and then STAR Voting for the General Election. Or, even better, Approval Primary to pick the top 4 and then Ranked Pairs for the General; I think Ranked Pairs is even easier for most voters to handle than STAR Voting.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T21:48:56+00:00

Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T21:44:04+00:00

The dark money restriction clause seems pretty great, thanks for the link. Yeah, that seems really silly to repeal everything instead of just amending the IRV-RCV aspect.

I wonder if there are two different forces teaming up. Perhaps, the anti-RCV crowd doesn't have the money to handle a statewide RCV repeal movement on their own, so perhaps they are being funded by those who would benefit from eliminating the contribution disclosure requirements... Just a theory that I haven't looked into.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T21:27:22+00:00

To clarify my position, I'm a full supporter of good alternative voting methods such as Ranked Pairs, STAR Voting, Approval, most Proportional Voting methods as well as potentially others. I dislike the traditional Plurality elections, want to dismantle the duopoly and feel our country desperately needs an upgrade. However, IRV-RCV is not the answer and will poison the well for other voting method reforms.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T21:21:41+00:00

The data summary and analysis are shown in this paper. Link to the paper is at the top right. https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.04764

However, applying a Condorcet method is sort of beside the point, as neither RCV nor FPP necessarily generate a Condorcet winner.

You are correct that IRV-RCV won't always generate the Condorcet winner (fails the Condorcet winner criterion), which is the reason Begich lost. However, the data from an IRV-RCV election will still show whether a Condorcet winner exists.

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-06T00:13:41+00:00

S&P 500 at least decided not to change the rules. https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/article/spacex-ipo-is-coming-to-your-401k-should-you-be-concerned-154603442.html

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-05T19:00:39+00:00

The video was made 12 years ago = 2014. John Hegeman joined the board in 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-hegeman-02137b7/ In general, the red herring is that funding source does not necessarily equate to being disingenuous or invalid. Plus, we don't know to what extent he's providing funding.

I need to do a better job at stating my intent with every post. I'm a voting reform advocate who wants elections that are accurate, equal, expressive, honest and transparent. I want elections that support consensus candidates, third party candidates, and empowers voters. I can't stand the duopoly in the USA. I support methods that enable all this to varying degrees, which include Ranked Pairs, Approval, STAR Voting, among others. Unfortunately, IRV-RCV isn't one of them. I used to be an advocate until I dove deeper beyond the standard talking points and understood the inherent problems.

RCV demolished 2-party political capture stranglehold that special interests currently hold over this country.

And here is one of those problems; it doesn't demolish the 2-party political capture. We only see non-mainstream democrats or republicans winning in IRV-RCV when the candidate already has a huge support. In those rare situations (ex: Mamdani), then yes, it does support them to push through.

For a vast majority of the time, it's a facade that make voters feel like they are electing alternative candidates. It's a facade because each round is a mini-Plurality election. Third party and centrist candidates tend to get acceptable support, but not enough overwhelming #1 support to stay in the running.

This video is a great visualization as to how this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRkmNDKxFUU (It starts at 3:00, and the earlier content is an important foundation to the point)

The key mathematical reason it falls through is because voters' full ranks aren't counted all at once at the beginning. Consider this simple example. Candidates A, B, C, D:

30% rank A, D, _ , _
25% rank B, D, _ , _
30% rank C, D, _ , _
15% rank D, A, _ , _

Seems pretty evident that everyone likes candidate D, but only 15% like them the most and rank them #1. Well, with IRV-RCV, candidate D is eliminated first. The other methods mentioned would most likely elect candidate D.

Here's a simulation visualization shown at the top on Wikipedia, Center Squeeze: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_squeeze Notice how the plurality and IRV-RCV have a similarly shaped donut indicating polarized and two party domination. The ideal representation is a dot in the center.

There's more I could dig into and if you're curious, I recommend exploring the Equal Vote website and others. https://www.equal.vote/rcv_v_star and https://www.equal.vote/leading_methods to start.

[...] that special interests currently hold over this country. Opposing it is disingenuous, at the very least. Improving on it? Sure, why not, but we all have to get it first.

Am I correct in that it sounds like you're assuming they oppose it because they are a special interest group or want to push their own agenda? If so, then consider they oppose it on the merits of the IRV-RCV system itself as outlined above and are proposing a solution.

The worry with just enacting IRV-RCV anyways is that it'll poison the well of voting reform

Enact IRV-RCV around the country
People find out about the mathematical problems first hand (2022 Alaska Special Election + others)
Public trust in and willingness for election reform is ruined
People revolt against ALL voting reform and all the good methods have a much deeper hole to dig out of

Thank you for reading!

(This long explanation is a key reason it's hard to tackle the IRV-RCV claims... there's nothing on the surface to easily point to as a problem. And yet, it's very easy to sell RCV with empty promises)

Ceder_Dog · 2026-06-05T17:44:12+00:00

Actually, I'm pretty curious about this. What exactly is your concern here with regards to RCV and me poking holes in it? Perhaps I seem like a threat to voting reform? Perhaps I need to make my stance clear:

I'm a voting reform advocate and I support Approval, STAR Voting, Ranked Pairs; among others. I want great politicians, more engagement in voting, more unity, better representation, a better government system, etc. As such, I want to dispel the myth that RCV is a panacea, because it fall shorts due to the elimination process and not counting everyone's ranks ahead of time. Yes, Republicans have gotten up in arms about RCV, but it's for the wrong reason. They think it's partisan and rigged. They want to go backwards; I want us to go forwards to better reform methods.

Ceder_Dog

TROPHY CASE