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The Agile Sloth

@theagilesloth.com
52 followers 72 following 241 posts

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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 07/10/2026
A new neighborhood greenway opened up on Sacramento between Montrose and Irving Park Rd and predictably some locals are perplexed. For those that regularly bike in the area, it's obvious why Sacramento was chosen and how much of an improvement it is for northbound Irving Park Rd crossings. #bikechi
Facebook comments questioning why there is a new neighborhood greenway on Sacramento Ave between Montrose and Irving Park Rd:

"It’s bewildering to have so many unexpected changes when behind the wheel"
"As if kedzie wasn't enough. Someone wanted to pad their goals for the year"
"Cyclist here! The new bike system is whack. Did not increase safety one bit, as a motorist as well, I see so many flaws in the new designs"Google street view from California Ave heading north across Irving Park Rd. It shows heavy traffic and little room for cyclists to operate.Google street view heading north on Kedzie across Irving Park Rd. It shows a high amount of traffic and little room for cyclists.Google street view heading north on Sacramento Ave across Irving Park Rd. It shows a single car turning left with plenty of room for cyclists.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 27/09/2026
One of the most popular engineering humanities electives at UIUC in the mid-2000s was a geography class that had us read King Leopold's Ghost. Of course even after that class I was oblivious to any of this stuff until I started listening to podcasts in the mid-2010s.
Cover of the book King Leopold's Ghost. Subtitle: "A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa"
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 26/09/2026
Working on a new feature for @realtimerides.app where you can flip between similar rides. Here's Lincoln on a rainy September day in 2026 vs a sunny day in June 2025.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 23/09/2026
The map integration was my way of tying all these routes together into a view that gives a sense of how they are located in the city and maybe to give folks that live near these routes a reason to give biking a shot.
Map view of Chicago showing common bike routes on Lincoln Ave, Clybourn Ave, Elston Ave and Milwaukee AveRide view showing a YouTube video with a first person view of a bike ride in the first half and bottom section is a map tracking the position of the ride.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 14/09/2026
Don't know if I'd ever use a cheap one for work but I tossed DeepSeek v4.1 Flash an idea that's been floating around in my head about taking a GoPro video and extracting geolocation data from it and linking it up with a map based on a timestamp and it spit something out in ~8 minutes for $0.25.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 01/09/2026
They even hosted a Paul Vallas event during the last mayoral election!
LinkedIn post with this text: "We had a huge crowd of over 200 supporters at our Ward Tour event last night at Wrigleyville North Bar! Thanks to everyone who came out to be part of our campaign. Tonight, we will be at Danny’s on S. Archer for our next Ward Tour event." The attached image to the post shows Vallas at Wrigleyville North speaking to supporters.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 31/08/2026
TAC Quick when Wrigleyville North (owned by "Irish Dave") is right there a block south.
Meme posted by "Irish Dave" showing Trump extending a middle finger with the text "Just a Reminder to All the No Kings Protestors, Tomorrow this man will still be your president for the next 1190 Days!"Post from "Irish Dave" shares a meme that mocks no kings day with text "No Brains Rally, Thinking Optional, Chanting Required".Post shared by Irish Dave "Attention Liberals. ICE is now using Trains. Please Stand on the Railroad Tracks to Block Them! 😂"Meme shared by "Irish Dave" depicting a union soldier near a apparently freed slave with the text "Juneteenth celebrates the day that republicans freed the slaves who were owned by the democrats". He adds the comment: "The Irish were the cheaper of the slaves.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 24/08/2026
Very interesting to see how boundaries deal with the river where it generally acts as a boundary but in the case of Waters ~25% is on the west side which on one hand reduces any option of neighborhood cut-throughs but on the other forces way more traffic onto Wilson/Montrose.
Map showing boundaries of the Waters attendance area. It straddles the river where about ~25% of its area is on the west side of the river and closer Bateman.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 22/08/2026
They should pay parking more than $50 a day, they're great
Photo of the band Parking performing at The Empty Bottle.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 12/08/2026
I wish they'd do something like this on the southeast edge of Horner Park after the bridge.
View of the curb between Horner Park and Irving Park Road looking west. Right side of the image you can see the bridge and guardrail and the center of the image shows where the mixed use path enters the park. The right side of the image is car traffic.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 22/07/2026
Underrated terrible thing about that spot is how they knocked down the building on the corner to build a smaller building to house that Chase with even more parking!
View of South corner of Damen and Clybourn showing large single story building most of the space with a Chase branch visible in the strip mall in the background from September 2024.View of South corner of Damen and Clybourn showing a new, smaller single story building replacing the previous now occupied by Chase where the previous Chase location in the background remains vacant from December 2025.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 15/07/2026
Watching this Sandlot homage all star segment where they have a bunch of kids essentially doing a spontaneous bike bus to the all star game and like yeah I'm glad we all agree that it's an awesome idea, just sucks we don't build our cities to allow for that sort of thing in reality.
Screen cap from end of segment where kids ride their bike to the all star game. It shows 4 kids on their bikes outside the stadium, none wearing helmets and riding in the street.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 13/07/2026
Absolutely enchanted by this clip from his Instagram story 😅
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 08/07/2026
Having a flashback to that time I tried to enter the trail just north of Superdawg and finding the whole trail was torn-up and deciding to briefly head east on Devon assuming there'd be another entrance. There was not.
Strava route showing an attempt to enter the trail north of Superdawg and failing due to construction on the parking lot and trail entryway. The attempt to find an alternate route on Devon failed resulting in a complete route from Devon/Milwaukee to Devon/Caldwell. This is very unsafe.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 02/07/2026
Not the first time the Bay Area has seen a head coach with an interesting work history.
List of odd jobs held by former 49ers head coach Jim Tomsula including night janitor, firewood cutter and doormat salesman
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 23/06/2026
And when I say "don't get crushed by car" mode, this is literally what my route looks like immediately before and after the protected sections.
Street view of Orleans turning onto Division towards the northbound Clybourn protected bike lanes.Street view of northbound Clybourn at Halsted showing a busy three-way intersection with the Apple Store in the background with a Garbage truck obstructing the lane with the bike sharrow.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 23/06/2026
As a regular Clybourn commuter, this has me thinking of how pedestrian conflicts could partially be due to the relative rarity of protected lanes? Like, I'm hypervigilant immediately before and after this protected section but it affords me a brief moment to relax and not worry about getting killed.
Instead, Kurkulis said his biggest issue is pedestrian safety. The protected bike lane separates parked cars from the sidewalk, creating a situation where customers — particularly older shoppers unfamiliar with the area — must cross the bike lane to reach their vehicles.

“We’ve had close calls multiple times,” Kurkulis said. “Whenever we have elderly people in here, especially from the suburbs, generally one of us will walk them outside and make sure they don’t get run over by a bike.”

Despite those concerns, Kurkulis said he supports the existence of bike lanes and understands why they were installed, recalling a fatal crash involving a cyclist he witnessed years before the project was built.

Kurkulis added that the city could do more to improve interactions between cyclists and pedestrians, particularly as e-bikes and scooters become more common on the corridor.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 15/06/2026
If the Zillow pictures are to believed, they actually put in a urinal as well. Very normal thing to have in a house. Looks like the user would have a great view too!
Interior shot of bathroom with an exterior window on the left and a urinal and sink in the center of the shot with mirrors on the wall on the right.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 15/06/2026
My exact thought every time I ride down Grace and see this place.
Former multi-unit building in Roscoe Village converted to 5,685 sqft single family home.Original multi-unit pre-conversion that has the characteristic look of a Chicago multi-unit building that occupies the entire city lot.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 13/06/2026
If my rough math is correct, it'd be about ($17K * 19M) $330B/year to fund early childhood the same way we do K-12 so I'm thinking a great prize for the world's first trillionaire would be to force him to fully fund this for a couple of years. He'd still have plenty of cash left over.
May 7, 2026 — Nationally, public school current spending per pupil rose 6.6% from $16,526 in fiscal year (FY) 2023 to $17,619 in FY 2024, according to new data from the 2024 Annual Survey of School System Finances released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Statistics are not adjusted for inflation or cost-of-living differences between geographic areas.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2026/school-system-finances.html?hl=en-USThis reality argues not just for federal and state-level investments in child care and paid leave, but also a broader set of investments that counteract the conditions that obstruct a family’s economic mobility, especially given that 1 in 4 children—18.8 million children—are under the age of five, 52% of whom are children of color.

https://www.childrensdefense.org/tools-and-resources/the-state-of-americas-children/soac-child-population/?hl=en-US
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 05/06/2026
Mr. Trump sports are not semi-free on TV! Please liberate me from these owners that put these games behind a $20-$30/month paywalls!
Costs $20/month to watch Cubs games in Chicago via MarqueeCosts $30/month to watch Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox via CSN.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 04/06/2026
Literally every time I'm biking north on Clybourn during my evening commute there's at least 2-3 cars parked in the tow-zone/sharrow-lane near the red line stop.
Street view of Clybourn near the Apple store and red line stop showing a car and UPS truck parked in the tow zone which is also the lane marked with sharrows for bikes.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 03/06/2026
Very possible Shabazz Palaces is another qualifier but track titles make it hard to confirm
Shabazz Palaces - Black Up cover
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 03/06/2026
TIL 100 start-to-end album listens is actually a very lofty goal as in the 20(!) years I've been tracking my listening habits only one album has each track with >100 plays. And my typical approach to listening to music is via albums!l, not singles. www.last.fm/user/agilesl...
Radiohead - OK Computer
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 31/05/2026
Yep! I volunteer at a community radio station and help out with some internal software projects and ever since I saw your pokemon video I thought your chart visualization would be an awesome way to present our station's history. It's interactive + each cell links to a particular DJ's weekly playlist
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 30/05/2026
Working on stuff for the radio station h/t @notdavidyt.bsky.social
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 21/05/2026
And we've got this keeping watch on the Western border of Cook County!
Villa Taj Mansion on the Western edge of Cook County in Burr Ridge. A 30,000 sq ft middle eastern inspired mansion.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 19/05/2026
Tossed a couple of these in my garden last year and was amazed at how purple everything was!
Purple Rio Zape flowersPurple Rio Zape bean pods on the vineFreshly shelled Rio Zape beans with a pronounced purple color
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 15/05/2026
Who is our favorite Commedia dell'Arte character? 2500 Americans polled:
Columbine: 0%
Scaramouche: 0%
Pulcinella: 0%
Pantalone: 0%
il Dottore: 0%
Don't know: 100%
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 12/05/2026
Reminds me how every week I'm confounded by how I'm supposed to use the greenways out in Irving Park when traveling east. If I choose Cullom I get no stop sign at Kimball and if I choose Berteau I get a stop sign but direction of travel flips from two-way sharrows to one-way westbound at Kimball.
Two-way sharrows on west side of Kimball leads to a controlled intersection between Kimball/Berteau but east of Kimball is westbound one-way so if you you were traveling east you're forced to turn onto a busy Kimball.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 02/05/2026
Always found it amazing how Roscoe Village has no real option for Ice Cream.
Search for Ice Cream in St. Ben's and Roscoe Village on Google maps showing almost no hits.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 20/03/2026
It's Double Nickels on the Dime time!
The cover of the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, which depicts an over the shoulder view of a driver driving exactly 55 miles per hour ("double nickels" in trucker slang) traveling southbound through downtown Los Angeles, where Interstate 10 ("The Dime"[23] in trucker slang) meets the San Pedro Intersection of Route 11/110. The album was named Double Nickels on the Dime as a reaction to the Sammy Hagar song "I Can't Drive 55," a protest against the federally imposed speed limit of 55 miles per hour on all U.S. highways in place at the time.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 17/03/2026
Giving me strong "The Invention of the White Race, Volume 1" vibes
Cover of Theodore W. Allen's "The Invention of the White Race Volume 1."
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 16/03/2026
remembering this classic
Post from Chicago Bears wishing people Happy St. Patrick's Day showing the Chicago River dyed orange instead of green.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 13/03/2026
My former progressive leadership appearing right above RayLo 😩
Headshot of Alderman Scott Waguespack appearing right above a headshot of Ray Lopez
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 24/02/2026
Stress testing software that handles music metadata: The Album.
Comments for the album on Bandcamp that are bleeding over into the side bar due to long track names and another comment saying it won't load into their music player properly.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 19/02/2026
Guess I gotta stop putting off this ride.
Google maps directions from downtown Chicago to 3 Floyds Brewing in Munster Indiana. Highlights the section of the route where the Bears are claiming the site of their new stadium will be.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 11/02/2026
Chairs are being recognized more and more
Cover to Bad Bunny's 2025 album Debí Tirar Más FotosAlbum cover to Ratboy's 2026 album Singin' to an Empty Chair
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 30/01/2026
A prolific (16th overall in points) right-wing poster on YCombinator's Hacker News was just posting in mid-December about how Minnesota owed it's high levels of social trust and low corruption to it's Scandinavian roots. Also some legit anti-Italian discrimination thrown in for good measure!
You can look at the data and see that about 50% of the difference in levels of social trust between people in Italy and Scandinavia are reflected in the descendants of immigrants from those countries to the U.S., even after generations. You can then use your eyes to look at Minnesota versus New Jersey and see more social trust and less corruption in the former than the latter. You can even tie cultural background back to concrete social indicators! Parts of the midwest settled by Dutch settlers perform better on versus metrics than parts settled by Germans. Parts of the country settled by Puritans outperform nearly everywhere else in terms of good governance and low corruption.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 20/01/2026
Should probably just make better posts like this one.
Post from earlier today by @danielgray.com including a link to a Guardian article about cows scratching their back with a tool and the post text simply: "COW TOOLS COW TOOLS COW TOOLS"
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 13/01/2026
Apparently the owner of Beck's and Toons is also anti-bike lane. From my firsthand experience of biking down Clybourn multiple times a week, I think if Beck is concerned about traffic congestion he should not operate a business right next door to Pequod's.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 12/01/2026
Sucks that the owner of Carol's was complaining about those bike lanes today in response to some anti-bike lane Facebook post by the owner of Moe's Cantina.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 29/12/2025
Coming down from the Northside to join the @chicagobikesox.com / @bridgeportkidicalmass.org family White Sox ride. Hoping to do it all again next year!
Safety talk before the group ride at a nearby playground.Kidical mass riding to the White Sox game. Visible riders include: a Divvy biker, multiple cargo bikes, a large tricycle, multiple kids riding bikes.View at the bike racks outside the White Sox game. Kids are drinking juice boxes while adults have beer.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 25/12/2025
Scene from Mad Men S4E3 where Lane and Don go to the movies drunk. Lane quietly whispers to Don "This movie's very good".
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 05/12/2025
Never forget when I tried looking up nutrition facts for Jif peanut butter and stumbled upon a review that included an image where the peanut butter was notably absent.
5 star review of jif peanut butter with an included image of a two pieces of toast on a paper plate. Peanut butter is no visible anywhere in this image.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 05/12/2025
Suppose 17 minute brown line headways during the heart of rush hour are a slight improvement over just completely broken trains. Still, eager to get back to my bike if the city will ever do anything about road conditions.
CTA train tracker showing loop bound brown line trains arriving in 10 and 27 minutes.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 05/11/2025
Enjoy the herring!
Photo of Dutch style herring with onions and pickles with a small Dutch flag planted in one of the herring pieces.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 04/11/2025
Convenience stores in other cities missing that fabric softener selection.
Panel from Captain Underpants where the main characters are slapping themselves because outside a store named "Everything Except Fabric Softener"
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 29/10/2025
This must be why ICE mostly avoids Old Town.
Google street view image of WIle E. Coyote Mural in Old Town in Chicago. The mural makes the building appear like a large bridge with dynamite attached to the underside with Wile E. Coyote in the bottom right corner poised to depress the plunger to make it explode.
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The Agile Sloth @theagilesloth.com · 24/10/2025
Minor detail, but the cherry on-top of ICE's lawless behavior is how they were headed the wrong way on this one-way street.
Google streetview of intersection of Henderson and Lakewood in Chicago looking South. All parked cars are facing south because this is a one-way street.
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