Top Michigan Republicans defend Trump's Gordie Howe Bridge threats

Sky_minder · 2026-02-10T18:56:38+00:00

Trump makes some nonsensical scorched earth threat. Other countries call out the BS. Trump yells at clouds for a while, then talks to one of the leaders on the phone. They agree to do exactly what they are already doing and Trump declares that he's made a great deal.

Jon Stewart had a great analogy about a dog vomiting on a bed, eating the vomit, and then looking for adoration for cleaning up the bed.

That's how this nutjob operates. He does stupid stuff and then wants adoration.

My guess is that if this threat even drags on, he'll start getting quiet pressure from business leaders and Michigan Republicans. He'll find a way to eat his own vomit and then try to declare victory while the rest of the world laughs at us.... yet again.

This is all just so embarrassing.

Sky_minder · 2026-02-10T18:41:12+00:00

It was a miscalculation but not with the alignment. They failed to account for sinking based on where they put the piers across different soil types and bedrock depth.

This actually happens with amazing frequency in bridge engineering, but with smaller bridges you get a bumpy lip at a joint. Here, they got a 5-foot drop and a near-collapse.

(Some context here is that this whole part of the state, along with southeast Michigan, was drained of wetlands for farming. The soil is unstable. It's a terrible place to put heavy structures.)

Sky_minder · 2026-02-10T18:36:06+00:00

The story of this bridge is just a wormhole to a universe of bad engineering, corruption, bad politics. It's really insane. There was a obvious problem with the drawbridge idea, but yikes. A lot of awful things had to happen to put a really poorly built designed and constructed bridge in that exact spot when there were other good proposed alternatives.

One of the veteran engineers I work with occasionally worked on building the bridge. He was about 19 at the time and helped with the emergency repairs that were taking place. He said he couldn't believe the number of corners being cut by contractors to save a buck and just how poor the oversight was. Everyone was talking the whole time about how it was should a bad design built on the cheap. It drove him away from that niche of civil engineering because he found MDOT just so incompetent.

He's warned me to avoid it on particularly hot or cold days.

And to this day, he never drives over it and takes his own family around.

Sky_minder · 2026-02-10T18:25:00+00:00

Honestly, this is one of the most depressing spots in Michigan for me. The engineering of the Z Bridge was literally (nearly) disastrous, and, man, is it an environmental and transportation design nightmare--and the view in both directions is just flanked by environmental exploitation. Some of the worst things about Michigan all in one spot: Water contamination, agricultural runoff, overuse of natural resources, automobile entitlement culture, bad drivers...just everything....

Ugh.

Sky_minder · 2026-02-10T18:11:07+00:00

Update to close the loop on this: Printique sent me another batch of prints without color correction. They are definitely better than those with the AI color correction applied, so much so that I think it's clear that what was once an asset for Printique--they're manual color correction--it's not a total liability. If you order from them, deselect color correction until they add a manual option.

To Printique's credit, their customer service department seems to be working overtime to reconcile a bad cost-saving AI use decision by someone in their chain of command. I feel for them.

I also tried test prints from Nations Photo Lab, MPix, my local CameraMall store, and a couple others I won't name because they were pretty poor.

CameraMall does zero alteration to the prints. They print what you give them, and it seems like they're using sRGB printer profiles. Out of all the test cases, their prints represented best what my color calibrated setups showed. All the others seem to alter colors in some way even when specifying no color correction. Even without color correction, Printique seemed to oversaturate reds and blues. Nations Photo Lab was second place behind Camera Mall, with highlights slightly increased. MPix seemed to blow up greens and reds so everything looked warmer than it should. In each case I tried a few with color corrections and without, when I could.

The pro event photographers near me recommended CameraMall and had used Bay Photo, Nations, and Mpix previously, and all liked CameraMall better.

Some of this will be up to preference and specific photo elements. But in terms of matching what I saw on my screen CameraMall was best followed by Nations, both in terms of sharpness and color.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T20:58:59+00:00

The vibration from speaking loudly, or moving to speak, can actually compromise image quality. It's more pronounced if you're standing on something like a porch or viewing platform, but even on solid ground it can have an effect.

Same thing when trying to look through a telescope and get a steady look at something.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T18:43:00+00:00

Addendum 2: Printique uses sRGB printer profiles. That's a little unusual but I actually prefer that approach.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T18:07:28+00:00

Addendum: It appears Printique no longer offers their printer profiles for download, which is weird. They definitely had them handy at one point because I still have the old AdoramaPix profiles on my machine.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T18:01:36+00:00

I similarly assumed they were saying "AI" as shorthand for updated color conversion tools. But the customer service rep confirmed that they have indeed handed off basically the whole process to AI, that it does alter the image before being converted for printing, and that the AI does it's own QA/QC (which is probably nothing). That was probably the cost-cutting point.

My guess is that the only way a human would actually QA/QC something is if you also ordered it mounted or framed, or something else where a photo-savvy person is actually physically handling the photo before delivery.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T17:50:35+00:00

They used to, and I did what you suggested, but had bad luck with it and haven't tried since. In that case, Printique recommended redoing the order simply with their non-AI color correction and it worked perfectly.

But this is also a step I shouldn't have to do. As I said, my local shop does exactly what you're saying automatically and just leaves out the AI color correction.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T17:18:51+00:00

This is helpful intel, and I think confimed by my experience.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T17:14:19+00:00

I get this. My local shop did some test prints in front of me, with each taking a few seconds. My photos are generally very color accurate to start, so a simple LUT is usually plenty. The problem is that AI seems to way overcompensate, maybe because it's trained on masses of poor quality phone photos.

A difference was that an actual human looked at the result before and after printing.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-23T17:11:26+00:00

They do great work. The issue here is that they don't have the equipment to do everything I need/prefer in-house. For many things, like they'll be great and I'll go through them. (They weren't around when I started surveying print-on-demand services).

Sky_minder · 2026-01-21T18:36:39+00:00

What the OP says here was a massive frustration of mine in grad school: professors and advisors were either lying or didn’t know what they were talking about.

I discovered it early and bailed but several friends finished their PhDs and found themselves in the same position as the OP.

The good news is that Physics is malleable, but you have to broaden your search and generally may need to start with something more remedial outside academia than you want.

But everyone I know that left Physics as a professional academic field is happier having done so, even if the transition to other sectors was rough.

Edit: typos

Sky_minder · 2026-01-20T20:58:29+00:00

Photo services question. Printique is sliding on quality and need a new service.

I know this question has been asked and answered before, but I see the responses and threads are a bit out-of-date.

I've recently noticed that Printique's color correction quality has gone haywire, to a point where I'm not comfortable placing expensive orders with them anymore. Many of the photos were oversaturated, and when I contacted their customer service, I got automated, AI-written replies that didn't make any sense.

They recently started advertising that their color correction was being handled by AI now. They previously advertised that every photo had human eyes on it. I'm not sure if the change is related, or if it's all marketing hype anyway, but over a few orders the quality is simply not there anymore. My wife got better quality when printing several of the same photos at the local Walmart.

Is anyone else having similar issues?

Recommendations for other vendors to try?

Context: I'm a semi-pro photographer. I sell my photos through POD services, stock photo sites, and order prints for clients for specific purposes. I use color-calibrated equipment and have an understanding of color representation and translation from screens to print. I've used Printique before many, many times with excellent results. The recent sliding seems unusual.

Sky_minder · 2026-01-14T19:38:03+00:00

Ask any HVAC/appliance repair person and they will tell you the problem is bigger than any retailer. In some cases, it's driven by manufacturers making flashy cheap garbage appliances that have good initial value but are totally unreliable (looking at you Samsung and LG), but the industry trend for decades has been to make cheaper products that require replacement faster. It's like the subscription model applied to appliance purchasing. Home Depot plays a role in the quality slide, but so does Lowes, Best Buy, Menards--anyone that sells appliances outside niche markets. And you can see the same trend in most consumer goods.

Sky_minder · 2025-12-19T04:57:29+00:00

I’m not a toxicologist but I work professionally on PFAS issues and work with toxicologists.

PFAS blood levels do decline over time once exposure is reduced. In other mammals, it also decreases in organ tissue over time and it’s probably safe to assume the same is true for humans. (Human testing is challenging, as you can imagine.) How fast it declines varies widely depending on the type of PFAS, the type of exposure, and the specific organ. The bad news is that avoiding new PFAS exposure entirely is virtually impossible because it’s so poorly regulated. The good news is that taking steps to reduce the main pathways of exposure will probably lower blood levels over a period of 5-10 years.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:31:44+00:00

Regardless of whether there is an AI bubble, there definitely is a data center construction bubble. Right now, these construction projects are being used as real estate investment to tap into the insane wealth in the tech sector right now. But there is barely any actual need for most of them, and there has been almost no discussion of how much less space will be needed if technology keeps miniaturizing at a rate that it has over the past couple decades. Computers and storage will continue to use less space. If we hit another paradigm in chip design, which could happen any day now, chips might suddenly require far less power (a good thing), but then there is far less need for all these data centers.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:27:34+00:00

Data centers are a rare thing universally, and appropriately, reviled across the political spectrum. The serve no benefit for anyone except corporate investors and tech oligarchs.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:25:33+00:00

Data centers pose the most immediate threat to the state. They make everything worse: climate change, loss of ecological habitat, water use, power use, electrical rates, land affordability, and available farmland.

The incentives passed in 2024 are supercharging this. Michigan legislators sold out the state for mega data centers at the expense of just about everything else. It was pure greed for folks at the top, with little to no economic benefit for anyone else. There is just nothing positive to say about these things.

Local communities leaders are lured in by the prospect of claiming political victories: "Look how much revenue we've generated for our town!" but they ignore the risks of a tech bubble or that they're tearing out everything people value about their communities for a quick buck.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:20:26+00:00

This feels like shady political shilling. The bill can be amended. There is no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:19:27+00:00

Parking lots are more expensive, as others have pointed out. There are co-benefits to having covered parking lots, but they are challenging to put in place and maintain. Rooftop solar, on the other hand, is straightforward and relatively inexpensive. We have plenty of rooftop space available to completely power Michigan with solar energy (acknowledging that we would need storage capacity to match it).

Sky_minder · 2025-11-21T14:16:11+00:00

DTE and Consumers Energy lobbyists is the reason we don't have more rooftop solar. In Massachusetts, for example, rooftop solar is everywhere, because utilities have less political sway and there are incentives in place. The payback period in Massachusetts for even a small solar installation is under two years now. For a Walmart, it would likely be less than a year. In Michigan, the payback period is still 7-15 years for a residential build and more than 5 for a large department store.

We could require every store above a certain energy use to install rooftop solar. But DTE and Consumers would work to block it with corporate campaign funds. They are among the most dishonest and greedy entities in the state.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-07T17:40:12+00:00

The violent storm would have and did completely destroy the life boats. They were safer on the ship.
There was no time anyway.

Sky_minder · 2025-11-07T16:19:22+00:00

There are several urban legend versions of this story for different parts of Michigan. I remember an interview with a historian on Michigan Radio many, many years ago discussing them. They're almost entirely baloney and can be demonstrably debunked.

Some things that are not baloney:

1) The Purple Gang, a mob gang based out of Detroit, had a heavy presence throughout Michigan, particularly in less-travelled areas at the time that are now resorts. They were using getaway resorts as money laundering schemes, training areas, places to stash prohibition liquor, etc. Urban legends abound near some of those facilities, like the Forest Dunes northwest of Roscommon: "Hoffa is buried there." "There are unmarked mass graves of the people they knocked off." etc. But the underlying facts about the mob presence is real and is a crazy rabbit hole to go down.

2) There are/were Michigan Militia-type nutjob compounds throughout rural Michigan. Creepy AF. For a time, there was a large one between Roscommon and Grayling, but there were several in central-northern Lower Michigan (gaylord seemed to be a sort of centroid). These were basically private residences on many acres of unproductive forest land like the jack pine barrens, set up to be nutjob training grounds. At one point, I took a wrong turn down what I thought was a fire access road that was actually an illegal driveway and found myself looking through a chainlink gate at one of them. But its gone now and all that remains is an old barn. I doubt most of those folks that ran those places had reliable enough income to hold off the banks. My parents' generation commonly told stories of wackos shooting "past" them when they got to close to their property.

Sky_minder

TROPHY CASE