iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

26th and powell is closed for construction and my neighborhood is so nice and quiet without hundreds of cars trying to cut through to division 😊

photo of a road closure seen from a block away

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 19h

unfortunately I have not been given a choice in the matter

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

not just a ridership story either (although MTS light rail is pretty high ridership). those two variables are surprisingly uncorrelated in US systems

chart showing a mostly flat correlation between annual unlinked passenger trips and cost per trip for light rail

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

arnold actually beat zimmerman in the first round in D4

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I don’t believe anyone actually thinks steve novick and terry parker are indistinguishably bad candidates

DoNotRankthePMCpdx2026
Steve Novick*
Why Not: Received donations from multiple real estate developers, endorsed by at least one PMC-aligned official. (Click for more about his record.)
Terry Parker
Why not: Favors increased funding for police and a harsher approach to drugs, homelessness, and crime; less support for bike and bus infrastructure

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

absolutely PRISTINE leckdown happening in ladd’s

an intersection with a roundabout where fallen leaves have narrowed the walkway and created an island in the middle of the pedestrian crossing

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

maybe this can finally get american policymakers to care about prefab construction

infographic showing the construction process of a data center in china

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

chinese state capacity and construction expertise is really something else newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/the-chines...

Speed and cost: a different sport

The US buildout is power-gated with interconnection queues, transformer lead times, behind-the-meter workarounds, which we have covered at length here. China’s is chip-gated: generation is abundant, state-owned utilities treat datacenter load as a development win, permitting is a policy funnel rather than a bottleneck, and construction labor is plentiful. With no physical friction on the facility side, the build cycle is driven purely by internet platform demand.

On speed, the standard delivery time for a 100MW facility has compressed from ~18 months in the cloud era to ~12 months in the AI era, with state-of-the-art projects finishing faster still.

For reference, our US modular deep dive The Wild Wild West of LEGO Datacenters found the best-case full-modular buildout in the US still takes 12–18 months of construction, sitting behind 12–13 months of permitting that cannot overlap. For China, the permitting period before construction is typically 3–6 months, and faster in EDWC regions.

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

germany should send some representatives to portland to study what a real high performing railroad looks like

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

silver bulletin is holding strong

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

parks has $8 million for facilities maintenance and spends quite a bit more on various kinds of programming. it's probably the latter group that gets put under the PB umbrella

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

united for portland explicitly recommends their supporters only rank zimmerman and clark and no one else. interesting move when they have another candidate (arnold) who’s theoretically aligned with their politics

Portland City Council,
District 4
Our recommendation:
Rank Eric Zimmerman #1. Rank Olivia Clark #2.
Do not rank any other candidates.
An acceptable alternative: If you prefer, it's okay to rank Olivia #1 and Eric #2. But don't rank anyone else.

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I don't think this is code compliant though

control resonant screenshot showing a train moving vertically through a subway tunnel shaft that's seemingly pointing in the wrong direction

control resonant screenshot showing an upside down train traveling through mid-air

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

the last fifteen years aren’t a good baseline

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

gun to my head we’re still looking at a kotek photo finish here

Results changed somewhat when pollsters pressed undecided voters on which candidate they were leaning toward, a step pollster John Horvick said offered the clearest reflection of where the race stands. That resulted in Drazan receiving 47% support to Kotek's 46%.
Smith maintained 3%, and 5% of respondents remained undecided.

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

however, it is tragic what they're doing to these buses

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

also a huge fan of the control resonant bike lane

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

@nomorefreewayspdx.com a friend of mine had an intriguing policy proposal that I think is worth investigating

Fischer, is it feasible to lower the drinking age in Oregon to 18 in order to cut off highway development

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I don't know if I agree -- her worst performing county vs 2022 in the primary this year was multco

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

in fact here’s a notification I got from tobi’s company just this morning

shop notification 20m ago
You got $15 off
7 days left to claim it-then spend it on anything you like

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

huge fan of the control resonant bus lanes

control resonant screenshot showing the bus lane in front of the bureau of control in the starting area

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

will say this feels like support for my general sense that "bluesky is dying" discourse is driven by politics posters with an unusually impoverished experience with this website

screenshot of the bluesky atlas network showing a node of "political discourse and global affairs" that's fairly disconnected from other discussions

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

delighted to find a pdx bluesky appearance after a bit of scrolling

node in the bluesky atlas titled "City Council Budget Scrutiny". the first item in the list of sub themes is "Portland Mayoral Endorsement Controversy"

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

quite excited to these enter service — apparently the plan is to have the fleet fully cut over by march next year. if you’re a regular cascades rider you know there is an urgent need for functioning, full size trains on this corridor!

“greet the new fleet” placard in portland union station

side view of the door to car 1 on an auto train

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

new bathrooms look great as well. another exciting feature they called out on the tour: adjustable height wheelchair seating

a spacious train bathroom with blue floors

two floating tables for wheelchair users, each set to a different height

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

business will have reserved seating but both sections have these LED displays that would let them do reserved seating in coach as well

an LED display over a seating section that shows both seats open

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

business (left) and coach (right) seats seem comfy, if a bit less cushy than the amfleet seats

a pair of new train seats with green and white head cushions

a pair of train seats with gray and red styling

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I screwed up my route then! will have to come back. I was also really impressed with the narrow intersections and raised crosswalks at this new development over by the charles jordan community center

google maps street view screenshot of 9007 N Dwight, looking south at a raised crosswalk with curb bump outs that narrow the roadway by a couple feet in either direction

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i like the part where AI creates The Entertainment

When the researchers come in on Monday, the AI has become tens of thousands of times funnier than any human being who ever lived. It greets them with a joke, and they die laughing.
In fact, anyone who tries to communicate with the robot dies laughing, just like in the Monty Python skit. The human species laughs itself into extinction.

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

on some of these you could even do that without the cost of demolishing the original structure, like I happen to know irvington elementary has this huge impermeable blacktop surface that's actually larger than the school itself

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

people in the 90s in this state were genuinely insane

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

on the other hand, 2028 is going to be less crowded on the progressive side and I’m honestly not sure what a more credible centrist challenger than terrence hayes looks like — and he didn’t do all that well

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Fischer 🛠️🚇 @fischer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

nate silver’s model has the polling average tied but kotek still at 90% to win

silver bulletin polling average showing kotek and drazan tied at 44.9% after the latest DHM research poll

silver bulletin model showing kotek with a 90.6% win probability

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