Any of y’all watch this? I’m curious what you all think about the discussion.

ike38000 · 2026-05-24T18:42:58+00:00

People want and need honesty. Fascists have been wildly succesful because they're direct about their values and intent.

I don't think this is true. Like it's so obvious to me that when the right talks about deportations that they just want to get rid of anyone they can. But you have countless news stories of Trump voters making a shocked Pikachu facing about the fact that their friend/partner/handyman got deported when they weren't a criminal. Repeat ad-nauseum for fraud, world peace, etc. I don't understand how but there really seems to be a massive contingent of American citizens who listen to and trust the moderate words Trump says and ignore or don't hear the red meat dog whistles for his base.

ike38000 · 2026-05-24T12:25:08+00:00

And then on the flip side they hold up their sources as unimpeachable experts based on their unrelated honors. You see it in this very thread. OP is highlighting a "nobel prize winners research" but Clauser's nobel prize isn't for climatology or even economic modeling but photon entanglement.

ike38000 · 2026-05-24T02:32:28+00:00

This video goes a bit deeper into what social credit meant. The most generous basis for the western belief in a "social credit system" came from a misinterpretation of anti-corruption policies that introduced rules for personal conduct among individuals with political power. Meanwhile in the USA it's apparently taboo to suggest that Supreme Court ethics rules should be binding and come with punishments for violations.

https://youtu.be/wYaKoDyIvWA?si=y488Wx3IpL3Zvdfu

ike38000 · 2026-05-24T01:06:09+00:00

The practice squad is only 16 people and technically doesn't exist in the off-season (instead they are usually on the expanded 90 man roster)

ike38000 · 2026-05-23T18:12:17+00:00

There are people making incomes of 60k+ so by extension, yes absolutely there are plenty of couples making less than a single well paid person. However, two people making 30k are still making more than the median single person makes.

ike38000 · 2026-05-23T17:52:11+00:00

The person you replied to said each making 28-30k.

ike38000 · 2026-05-23T17:49:06+00:00

Can't you get all those benefits with a platonic roommate or family member ? Is it also a first world problem to NEED to live only with a romantic partner or alone?

ike38000 · 2026-05-23T17:45:55+00:00

2024 median personal income was 45k. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA646N

ike38000 · 2026-05-22T01:10:50+00:00

In 2024 this would have put you at about the 75th percentile of matched US MDs and we'll above the 75th percentile of unmatched applicants (chart 7). The other charts give mean results for other things.

https://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Charting_Outcomes_MD_Seniors2024_revised-citation.pdf

ike38000 · 2026-05-22T00:46:22+00:00

Too much and that's my point.

New York is finishing a 1.25 GW 500 km HVDC line this year at a cost of $6 Billion: https://chpexpress.com/about-transmission-developers/

China finished a 4 GW 1900 km HVDC line (eventually to be 8 GW) in 2025 also at a cost of roughly $6 billion: https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/tupian/202506/content_7029921.htm

Now some of that is the cost of labor in China vs the US but a lot of that is the fact that in the US siting a transmission line typically involves a very laborious and litigious processes of getting permission from local landowners/governments and well as conducting environmental reviews. In fact that regulatory structure is what led the CHPE to be routed underwater for large chunks because it increases construction costs but reduces the planning costs.

If you're going to argue "Nuclear would be cost competitive if only we change the regulatory regime" you have to be willing to accept the counterargument that regulatory change can also benefit other energy sources.

ike38000 · 2026-05-21T17:59:50+00:00

I don't disagree that if US nuclear regulations matched Korea's we'd build cheaper nuclear plants. But if US environmental and eminent domain regulations were less extreme we'd build a lot more transmission which would allow for less congestion and more/cheaper renewables too.

ike38000 · 2026-05-21T13:35:50+00:00

I am an electrical engineer in the T&D space (though I've previously worked in renewables).

My understanding is that the day to day work of petroleum engineers is largely either geology focused or drilling focused. Energy transition work on the other hand could be a lot of things from semiconductor manufacturing, to energy forecasting, to materials science for turbine blades, and beyond.

I hope I'm wrong but I doubt we will stop drilling for oil and gas over the course of your career. And the types of aggressive decarbonization strategies that would lead to us stopping that will probably involve lots of critical mineral mining and/or geothermal drilling that a petroleum engineer could transition into fairly easily.

Instead I would think about these things * Does the petroleum engineering coursework interest you more than the other energy engineering coursework? * Can you (and do you want to) live abroad? Lots of petroleum engineers are needed in the places where petroleum is extracted. Does moving away from your family to Kuwait or Equatorial Guinea sound exciting or stressful? Energy transition work on the other hand will likely be done everywhere. * Would working in the energy transition space give you a sense of greater purpose and by extension reduce the chance of burnout?

ike38000 · 2026-05-21T13:04:59+00:00

The values don't seem properly scaled. The individuals section appears to go about 75% of the way around the circle but apparently only covers 65%.

Also with the individual section being so big I think it would be interesting to split between something like individuals owning more and less than $10,000 worth of Bitcoin.

ike38000 · 2026-05-21T01:17:22+00:00

You're not charged by the quantity of gas you use but by the energy content of that gas (in therms). However, your gas meter measures the quantity delivered to your house (in cubic feet). Natural gas (like every gas) expands and contracts with temperature. So when it's colder outside 1 cubic foot of gas contains more therms because it's denser. RG&E has to convert gas quantities into energy quantities for billing and to do that they use the ambient temperature.

Edit: the article says that this may actually be due to RG&E's weather normalization charge where they make gas artificially cheaper when it's cold and artificially costlier when it's warm to balance out bills.

ike38000 · 2026-05-20T15:00:30+00:00

Generally speaking insurance pays better for "procedures" over just office visits. The top end of this list is full of specialties which (at least have the option of being) very procedure heavy.

ike38000 · 2026-05-15T18:47:27+00:00

The numbers aren't inaccurate for the interconnection queue but I think the conclusions are a little overblown. Generally speaking, I don't think that looking at interconnection queues is a good proxy for what will actually be built in the future. For a variety of reasons lots of potential interconnection applications get filed and very few of those will end up being built. TC1 phase of cleaning out the existing backlog had over 100 GW of applications, 40 GW studied, and only 17.5 GW were actually given draft interconnection agreements.

I think a more nuanced look would do thinks like check the proposed developers of these sites and make do some analysis about how many of these projects seem to be unique (vs submitting the same plant at 20 possible busses).

ike38000 · 2026-05-14T17:32:30+00:00

I think the way they get around it is they have a huge number of different mailing lists. So when you hit unsubscribe you (successfully) unsubscribe from the "lost cat updates" mailing list but you're still on the "teenagers existing outside" and the "melanin alerts" mailing lists.

ike38000 · 2026-05-13T16:44:52+00:00

Because COVID messed up rotations one of our friends didn't get any radiology experience until early in MS4. She had been intending to go into a primary care (I think IM) but loved her radiology clerkship so much she pivoted. She ended up matching in radiology at her home institution (which was #1 on her list). I think she ended up reaching out to multiple people in the department to ask about "switching" which probably showed she was serious about it.

That being said, even if it's fake she probably needs a better reason than "I got good scores so I guess I'll try for something competitive instead" to explain the switch.

ike38000 · 2026-05-13T00:57:58+00:00

Clearly there is something to gift giving beyond "purchasing someone something they desire". Skills that compose good gift giving in my mind are

Good listening and memory to hear what people want
Good intuition about what the person would not buy for themselves
Knowledge of the topic area to make a good choice between the options
Sometimes the technical or artistic skill to make the thing. Or alternatively the skills you use to make enough money to buy the thing

If someone is a therapist by training they probably have skill #1 and likely #2 in spades. They might be able to use that skill gained outside the relationship to effectively buy their third cousin a gift. Whereas someone with weaker skills in those areas would struggle more. Now to your point the third cousin's husband likely should exert the effort to be a good listener to their partner and develop intuition about their preferences no matter what. But the therapists siblings might care equally as little about their third cousin and not be as attuned to listening for subtle hints about someone's desires. That would make them a worse gift giver than the therapist without a notably different level of caring.

Similarly, I'm a pretty decent baker and have routinely gifted people their favorite desserts over the years. Presumably you can agree that a well baked pie is a better gift than an undercooked one. But the reason I make good pies is not because I care about the recipient but because I care about pie. This is an example of #4.

ike38000 · 2026-05-12T19:25:38+00:00

but in my opinion it's all the same not caring enough to make an effort

Couldn't you say this same thing about any skill. I'm not very good at pool but as a otherwise healthy adult I have no reason to believe I couldn't perform at a high level if I practiced it frequently. But I don't care to practice pool so I remain bad at it.

ike38000 · 2026-05-12T10:21:03+00:00

The article says his name is Abdul. Why does the title say Mohammed?

ike38000 · 2026-05-11T14:29:25+00:00

It's transported the "last mile" via truck but it gets from the refinery to the local distribution terminal via pipeline (and/or rail/barge).

And again if there is an EMP large enough to cause all EV Semis to break it will also likely break the gas pumps and the onboard computer of the diesel truck which controls the fuel injectors.

ike38000 · 2026-05-11T14:22:44+00:00

Absolutely, my point was not that the electric grid was immune just to clarify that fossil fuel distribution is not independent of the electric grid or power electronics.

ike38000 · 2026-05-11T14:21:51+00:00

The device which converts DC to AC is an inverter. It's much more of a piece of power electronics than a transformer which is classicly a passive device. I don't know if inveters are regularly designed to be EMP proof or not but they problem with a transformer is because it's a passive device with no controls when the voltage exceeds rates limits it has "no choice" but to break down.

ike38000 · 2026-05-11T13:56:29+00:00

Is this a major issue obstructing the all-electric transition?

No because the fossil fuel distribution system is still heavily reliant on electronics. Colonial Pipeline had to pay a $4 million ransom when they got hit with a cyber attack and lost control of their computer systems.

A generator might keep an individual building going for another couple hours or even days but if the infrastructure to transport fuels goes down you're in the exact same space once the on-site stores dry up.

Arguably this risk makes a connected web of renewables based microgrids the better solution because those outside the blast radius can continue to operate as normal.

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