Yana

I recently learned how Tropic, #Utah, is actually pronounced, and I am displeased. That's on par with Hooper for messed-up level. Somewhat worse than Hurricane and approaching Mantua levels.

I thought that it pouring right before sunset would help prevent fires tonight, but, alas, someone caught the hillside at the Sharon Steel site on fire. #SaltLakeCity

Today was so easy

🌳 Plant #965 🍀
I figured it out in 2 guesses!
🟫🟩
🔥 1 | Avg. Guesses: 8.6

https://flora.metazooa.com
#metaflora

The @sltrib@mas.to ran a story on the financial disclosures for the men in the 1st CD Democratic primary, and they focused on McAdam's having stock in one of the gigascale data centers being built, which makes sense considering *gestures broadly*. But they also could have written a whole article on the fact that the Democratic nominee didn't even file on time. Also the crypto-bro candidate doesn't even know where Delta is. Lots of meat in that story. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2026/05/22/ben-mcadams-has-stock-rural-utah/

Ngl I find simple errors in writing comforting now because it increases the odds someone wrote it.

A VMT tax is a good idea and governments should switch to them from the gas tax, but they are seizing the moment to gather invasive location data that the gas tax never provided. A VMT tax should literally just be change in odometer reading over a period of time, paid to the state (which then forwards a portion to the feds). Even that is more information than the gas tax gives. No need to track which roads people are driving on, when they're driving, their habits, and all that.

I've been noticing that a bunch of roadsides disturbed by UDOT in the last few years have a bunch of native plants in them (most obviously this time of year Lewis flax and some sort of globemallow), and I'm guessing that means they've been putting down a local wildflower seed mix after construction. Good for them!

@Neblib@mastodo.neoliber.al Depends on the district and the user. If the industry is on secondary water, that may or may not be metered and the government can say they need to cut usage but have no power over them to actually do so (save an expensive water court suit). If they're metered, the government can put in steeper progressive pricing to incentivize them to use less. And they can be subject to the same landscaping rules that apply to homes.

I never did figure out what's up with the fire, but it looks agricultural from traffic cams

I was going through the TV news websites to try to figure out what's up with the big fire in Syracuse and saw that Riverdale is losing 20% of their usual water allocation this year. Not great (very bad) that we're not even through spring and we're already doing mandatory cuts.

#utpol

In a company townhall they touted that removing the knowledge base search function and replacing it with an LLM reduced support demand. In my experience it's because the LLM is very good at frustrating you to the point you just give up and don't do the thing you wanted to do.

We finally got an electric range to replace the gas range that came with the house. There was a 50 A spot in the breaker labeled "range", and we could see the outlet in the correct spot, so we thought we didn't have to do any electrical work. When the delivery people came through, they told us the outlet was for a dryer 🫠. Construction companies delenda est.

I woke up this morning strongly thinking it was Saturday and I didn't have to go to work, but then my husband's alarm went off :boo_hoo:

@kemotep@mastodo.neoliber.al It's an insane amount of power. More than double the entire electrical usage of the state, including the massive NSA and Meta data centers

One of the hyperscalers wants to build a 9 GW data center powered entirely by fossil gas at the north end of the Great Salt Lake with the involvement of the military and an enormous subsidy from all government agencies involved.

#utpol

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/04/25/hyperscale-data-center-may-be/

We are beyond the need for "clean energy fees". Utilities should be giving customers a discount to pick clean energy. Instead they charge extra fees and still refuse to actually build any solar or wind developments.

(I'm salty at Pacificorp colluding with the coal and gas industries to keep consumer prices high and poison the air and land).

#utpol

Google: We're introducing a new privacy violation! I guess you should opt out now if you don't want us to sell this data. Also we haven't finished the opt out webpage yet so be sure to remember next week/month/year for when we get that together.

I was at a Mexican restaurant earlier and they had on their menu carbonara Buldak with chips, corn, mayonnaise, nacho cheese, and cojita cheese, and honestly they have the whole "fusion" concept nailed down. The trendy Japanese-Italian places should take notes. I was there for dessert, but I'll defs be back for that another day.

@kemotep @AwoogaGeneral I've just been using my workplace's default TDF, but it has far too much Tesla, Exxon Mobile, Chevron, Palantir, ConocoPhilips, etc. for my liking. Unfortunately the best the market has come up with "sustainable" funds that the folks in power want to ban and are a scam anyways (the "sustainable" fund I have access to through my retirement plan has a huge chunk of Exxon Mobile and Shell). Active management sounds like a pain but something I really ought to start doing.