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MY NEW OBSESSION 🍵✨ new protein matcha latte code ALIONA Recipe 🍓4-5 strawberries 🥥Half a glass of coconut milk 💧Splash of water (if it’s too thick) 🌿1 scoop matcha latte protein powder 🧊Ice (I didn’t have any :( ) It’s high in protein yet tastes ...

22,073 views • 12 days ago •via X (Twitter)

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Gpt image 2 via chat gpt Prompt Image Prompt Create a premium photorealistic vertical 6-panel food photography storyboard for an iced matcha latte, arranged in a clean 2×3 grid. Use the same warm natural visual identity, props, lighting, composition, and green color palette across all six panels. Rustic Japanese-inspired kitchen aesthetic, cinematic editorial food photography, soft natural window light, realistic human hands, shallow depth of field, highly detailed textures, creamy matcha, transparent ice cubes, elegant glassware, green linen/checkered cloth, bamboo matcha whisk, ceramic bowls, blueberries, and wooden accents. Panel 1 — INGREDIENT PREPARATION: Top-down flat lay showing a bowl of vibrant green matcha powder, bamboo whisk, small ceramic pitcher of milk, bowl of sugar, glass of green matcha liquid, bowl of ice cubes, and cream/milk arranged beautifully on a dark green tabletop with a checkered cloth. Panel 2 — MATCHA PREPARATION: Close-up of realistic hands whisking vibrant green matcha powder in a rustic ceramic bowl using a traditional bamboo matcha whisk. Foamy matcha texture forming naturally. Panel 3 — INITIAL MIXING: Pour freshly prepared bright green matcha into a transparent measuring glass filled with ice and milk. Capture the pouring action, swirling green-and-white layers, realistic splashes and condensation. Panel 4 — MAIN PROCESS: Extreme close-up of creamy milk being poured over iced matcha in a clear glass. Beautiful green-and-white marbling around transparent ice cubes, highly appetizing texture, cinematic macro photography. Panel 5 — SERVING: A spoon gently adds a generous layer of white whipped cream/cream foam onto the top of the iced matcha latte. Full glass visible, surrounded by matcha powder, bamboo whisk, blueberries and rustic props. Panel 6 — FINAL HERO SHOT: Premium hero shot of the finished iced matcha latte in a tall crystal-clear glass, vibrant green matcha with creamy white swirls and a soft cream topping, condensation on the glass, ice cubes visible, matcha bowl and bamboo whisk softly blurred in the background, blueberries scattered naturally around the glass. Visual style: luxury beverage advertisement, photorealistic, cinematic food commercial, warm earthy tones, natural soft lighting, realistic materials, subtle film grain, professional food styling, 85mm macro lens look, shallow depth of field, HDR, ultra-detailed, premium editorial photography, appetizing and authentic. Aspect ratio: 4:5 vertical. Important: Maintain consistent props, glass, lighting, tabletop, color palette and visual continuity across all six panels. No people’s faces, only natural hands where required.

Dua Fatima

10,321 views • 13 days ago

The bacterial flagellum looks like a simple tail, or whip. But it’s actually a rotating motor, and perhaps the most sophisticated protein complex nature has ever evolved. In e. coli, these motors are capable of astonishing speeds; about 15,000 rpm. (The world record, according to one study, is for a Vibrio cell that was “clocked at 100,000 rpm by laser microscopy.) The flagellum propels the cell forward at speeds of 20-30 microns per second, or roughly 15 body lengths per second. If scaled up to the size of a cheetah, E. coli would *nearly* be the fastest land organism. The darting movements of a microbe were first observed in 1676 by Antony van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch cloth merchant. Antony was delighted by the motion of his “animalcules,” writing: “I must say, for my part, that no more pleasant sight has ever yet come before my eye than these many thousands of living creatures, seen all alive in a little drop of water, moving among one another, each several creature having its own proper motion.” But Leeuwenhoek did not see flagella. He assumed, rather, that these animalcules must be “furnished with paws” instead. Christian Ehrenberg would not properly describe flagella until 1836. But amazingly, all the way up until the 1970s, nobody actually knew how the flagellum spun! In 1973, there were two competing models people argued over: the helical-wave (bending) model and the rotating (corkscrew) model. The first model suggested that the flagellum whipped back and forth, side-to-side, to propel the cell like paddle. The corkscrew model suggested that the whole flagellum instead spins around like a screw. In 1974, the corkscrew model finally won out. For two separate studies, scientists affixed flagella to glass slides using antibodies, and watched as the cells spun around and around like corkscrews. And finally, in just the last year, high-resolution structures of the flagellum have revealed a LOT more about its intricate assembly. The tail is made from ~20,000 self-assembling copies of a single protein, called flagellin. A “driveshaft,” or rod, spins the tail and is itself made of 26 protein subunits. Each “motor” in E. coli consists of 11 stators, each of which is made from 7 proteins.(Other types of cells have even more stators, and swim with much higher torques.) The flagellum spins when protons flow into the cell through tiny channels in these stators; akin to water running through a turbine. Each proton makes a small part of the stator change shape and push against the rotor, nudging it forward one step. With dozens of stators working at once, these nudges quickly spin the propeller. I'm writing an essay for Asimov Press about this now, and am really enjoying learning about the flagellum and its history. It's an extraordinarily complicated structure, though, and has been a challenge to understand!

Niko McCarty.

51,959 views • 1 year ago

And now, the recipe for the room-temperature glass layer… although unfortunately, you probably won’t get very far with it. The reason I haven’t shared the recipe until now is because I wanted to keep the Nobel Prize all to myself. NO. It’s because I spent the last two weeks trying to eliminate one component from the equation — a component that is almost certainly not something the average modern household has lying around. But now I’m going on vacation 🏝️, and obviously I’m not taking my labs with me. I’m not going to continue the experiments, I won’t be posting either, so it’s going to look as if I’ve simply disappeared. “Look, the guy tricked us and then disappeared without a trace!” Well, no. The result is real, the recipe is simple — you just probably won’t have the starting material you need. And despite struggling with this for two weeks, I couldn’t find a substitute for it. But maybe you will! 👍🏻 So I’m sharing the recipe as I currently know it, exactly as it is, in case someone can take it further while I’m sitting on a beach getting a tan. All I ask is that if someone manages to completely solve this mystery while I’m away, please consider a shared Nobel Prize! 🤪 So, the “secret ingredient” is none other than old, completely whitened, end-of-life waterglass. Yep. The stone shown in the video is proof that the glass layer is actually a precipitation. The layer is present on one side of the stone, but completely absent on the other side, even though the stone was standing vertically in the solution. Don’t let the visibly rough condition of the glass layer fool you — this was the first one, and I subjected it to all kinds of tests - too early. The important thing is that there is glass on one side, and ABSOLUTELY NONE on the other, even though the stone was standing vertically in the solution! So this isn’t the bottom and the top of the stone. It’s the right and left sides. Yeah. The glass is indeed a preipitated layer. So let me explain in detail what I did the first time I got this result. This stone was cast in that sour cream container (so it is an artificial one), and then I cut it in half with an angle grinder because I wanted to see what was inside. The inside was quite crumbly, so I decided to strengthen it. I soaked it in this, then that, then something else, impregnated it with one thing and then another, thinking that eventually it would become stronger. And while doing all this, I dipped the stone into all kinds of things. Ash lye, wine, waterglass, God knows what else. At this point, it doesn’t really matter. The funny thing is that now, having reconstructed what actually happened, I wasn’t trying to create a glass layer at all. I was simply trying to strengthen a crumbly stone. But there wasn’t enough waterglass in the lab to completely cover the stone standing in the container. Fill up with water? Nooo! I didn’t want to dilute it with water, so I started looking around in the cupboard and found a bottle of waterglass that was more than a year old and had already turned completely white. I poured this waterglass into the container on ONE SIDE of the stone. And I really mean one side. I did NOT mix it. I thought the waterglass will be "smart enough" to mix its old self with its new self. But the old one didn’t flow around to the other side. It simply accumulated against this curved surface of the stone and deposited there. The best evidence that this is exactly what happened is that even toward the edge of the curved section, the layer wasn’t nearly as thick as it was where I actually poured the old waterglass. And on the cut side of the stone, where I DID NOT pour any old waterglass, absolutely nothing was deposited. And this old waterglass is the thing you probably don’t have at home. Because modern people simply throw this stuff away. “It’s gone bad. Into the trash.” I spent the last couple of weeks trying to find an alternative solution that doesn’t require this old waterglass. Exactly so that I could start public beta testing. I didn’t want to release a recipe that would require you to wait an entire year to have one of the ingredients before you could even start experimenting with it. So I tried artificially aging the waterglass using all sorts of methods — baking soda, acids, slaked lime, carbon dioxide — but none of them produced suspended particles in the waterglass. So far, only waiting did. I did, however, lose a SodaStream machine in the process. RIP. 🪦 So, for now, the answer seems to be: either wait a year, or find some old waterglass in your cupboard. I haven’t found another way. Over the past few weeks, a few people volunteered to beta-test the process. But I only chose people who have been working with me for a long time, so there was at least a chance that they might have some old waterglass, or artificial stone, or both, at home. Mondo Mondo in Australia actually did the experiment, and it worked. I don’t know the Canadian guy, Odhinn , so I have absolutely no idea how he did it. Mondo’s waterglass wasn’t completely white, but it was thicker than normal — 46% from the shop — and it was at least six months old. Bingo. The experiment worked for him. What’s interesting is that once I finally identified the old waterglass as the responsible component, I tried using it directly — just soaking stones in the old waterglass by itself. And that didn’t work 😵 The important thing is (?) the mixture and ratio of fresh and old waterglass. Something like two-thirds fresh waterglass and one-third completely whitened, old waterglass. The explanation may be the following — and this isn’t me saying it, it's Mr. Grok: "The old waterglass provides the amorphous silica nuclei that are essential for the precipitation, while the fresh waterglass provides the chemical activity and high pH that keep the whole process going." Okay! There’s one more thing I need to add. I was only able to create really thick precipitated layers on artificial stones. All the other thick layers, such as the ones on granite or eggshell, were not precipitation. Those were simply the thickened sludge that had formed, which I then smeared onto the surface. Because when an artificial stone is dipped into the magical mixture, it somehow thickens the entire mixture. Even in the last experiment, when I thought the egg was responsible for thickening the magical mixture, there was actually a small piece of artificial stone sitting in the corner of the container. From there, suspicious brownish streams were spreading in every direction. In other words, the artificial stone was releasing something that caused the entire mixture to turn into a gel. So, that’s where we are right now. Feel free to experiment. As far as I know, apart from the half-dead waterglass, I haven’t found another method that works. And now, my flight is about to leave. ✈️

Marcell Fóti 🪨

21,092 views • 10 days ago

Back when I had nothing… I was a nobody to most people. TBH, my parents didn't even see me getting to where I am today. It's just the truth, the chips were stacked for my sister. Not me. But it's just not the reality today. However, there was ONE person in my life that didn’t see me that way. My significant other saw something in me before a lot of things. Before all my wins. Before the $. Before any proof. And honestly… that means a lot to me, if not the most of all. I’ve always been wired a little different. I’m a mix of finance, engineering, and tech, with a sprinkle of obsession. I learned and studied from the best. Warren Buffett for how to invest. Elon Musk for work ethic and where the future is going. And once I saw it… I went all in. Bc when you truly understand what you own… you don’t need 20 bets. What you really need is conviction and just a few bets. That’s how I approached everything in my life. All the way from Apple… to Tesla… to 𝕏… to xAI… and now SpaceX. I believe I have an eye for spotting the best entrepreneurs and companies early, before it becomes obvious to everyone. And when I see it, I back it 100%. That’s just who I am. I don’t need a big circle. I’ve already got my day ones. I don’t need approval. I grew up my whole life with doubt and hate, so what’s one more? At this point, the levels are just too different. And yeah… it's true, it actually gets harder to make new friends when you’re moving like this. So I stay loyal to the ones who were there when I had nothing. I made it with Apple - youngest in, youngest out. Then I made it with Tesla… while people were laughing, doubting, calling me crazy, telling me I was going to go bankrupt with Elon. Fast forward to today, now I'm heading into something even bigger. If the story plays out the way it’s shaping up… SpaceX could have the largest IPO in history this year. The company is talking about raising over $75B… at a $1.75-$2 trillion valuation. For context… the biggest IPO ever - Saudi Aramco - raised about $29B. This would be more than double that. Let that sink in deep. To me this is more than just an investment. This is owning a piece of the future of space, energy, AI... extending the light of consciousness forward in case something happens to Earth. People can call me crazy. People can call me cocky. Arrogant. But the people that actually know me know the truth - I’m just real AF. I say what I believe, and I stand on it. And I genuinely don’t care what people think. I have two middle fingers always held high for those kind of people. That’s probably why I’ve been able to win the way I have. My significant other tells me to slow down sometimes. And I get it. But for me… What’s the point of life if you play it safe? If you see an opportunity that can change everything… and you just sit back? That’s not me. I’d rather go all in on something I believe in… live with intensity… take the hits… and actually feel alive and live life with fulfillment. Laugh if you want, doubt if you want. Some play it safe, a few go all in. You can call it risky. You can call it stupid. You can call it crazy. I call it living. Bc at the end of the day, I'd rather go all in on something I believe in and fail... than spend my life wondering "what if."

Teslaconomics

29,404 views • 5 months ago

My Prediction Market Tools list + Trading Workflow A) Tools I use: - Betmoar: Filtering + Analysing specific smart money wallets - : Spotting volume and OI changes + whale flows - Polymarket Analytics: Comparing markets across different Prediction Markets - Polycule: Trading on the go - Polysights: Advanced Metrics related to volatility and trends B) My workflow: 1) I usually trade sports + crypto price prediction markets since I have some kind of expertise there 2) I use Betmoar to filter and find interesting markets. Try to enter new markets as early as possible since there are significant mispricings 3) I then use Hashdive to see what OI changes and whale flows are like for a particular market 4) Polymarket Analytics to compare markets across PM and Kalshi to see where I can get the best price 5) Trade directly through PM and Kalshi for now to execute if im on my laptop and Polycule when I'm not 6) I also check in daily on smart money wallets I follow on BetMoar to see if they've made any interesting trades recently I don't focus on Arbitrage, LPing or delta-neutral trades at all. Prefer to either take directional trades where I have an information edge or I'm early Sometimes I'll 'gamble' on sports markets because it's fun C) Takeaways for you: - Only trade in markets you have in-depth knowledge/edge - Being early is lucrative in prediction markets - Pro tools can save you hours trying to find alpha - Don't use too many tools. Use a few and master them instead - Everyone has their own process. Don't copy mine it won't work for you. The point of this tweet was to educate you on how you can build your own process LMK if there's any other useful tools I should check out that could optimise my workflow further!

Yoshi

31,759 views • 1 year ago

Tomorrow is a very special day for me… ~A year ago, I was tasked with building business at what was a very dormant Larry Flynt's Lucky Lady Casino. I brought some folks in with me to help build a 2/3 NL game and a $5 DBPLOBP game. It was a STRUGGLE… Turns out it’s incredibly hard to get poker players to try new venues, even if they are beautiful, even if you offer them free food, even if you spew hard and buy bucket after bucket of beer! So, I started @Live_Poker_Show, to make the allure of Lucky Lady even stronger for LA poker players. At the time, my only intention was to build business at LL and hopefully become a complimentary stream to HCL one day. Tomorrow, at 4 PM, we have our first DLPS MUG to help celebrate Lucky Lady’s 8th Anniversary AND just how far we’ve come as a show in only a few months. If you are available, I highly encourage you to come by to see the FUCKING INCREDIBLE community we are building at LL/DLPS. I got a DJ for the occasion. I got a Field Reporter too. There will be: 2/3 NL $5 DBPLOBP 2/5 NL 5/5/10 NL Bounty Join me, Peter Martin, 🇦🇲HanaScorsese💜🎥🎞️🇦🇲, Lucky Lady’s John, Melissa K, @eddthefunplayer, Bren, Eddie T., Saiko🇯🇵🇺🇸, Julia from Palmdale, Jennifer Gianera, Poker Daddy, Vent, Mike X Poker, Aaron Kweskin, Nate Hill, Tyler Dickinson, Cass, Board Girl Nicki, Old man Beer, DK, Z, Bad Beat Bryan, X-man Jake, Fadi, Karen, Morgan, XTC, Dr. Eli, Finn, OMC, Ivey, Gonzo, Regan, Koo, and SO MANY OTHERS in what will undoubtedly be POKER PARTY OF THE YEAR. 🔥 Please sign up on Poker Atlas NOW for your game(s) of choice so we can properly staff! Really hope to see you there (if you are chill). 🙏

DGAF

40,180 views • 2 years ago

And finally! The Holy Grail! The Artificial Granite! Using Caveman Resources Only! Oh, this was a painful and long development process! Just in time! I have almost deleted this chapter from my new book as this thing nearly missed the deadline! But luckily 🍀 Is there quartz in it? Yeees! A lot! In fact, as many as I want: I can mix aaanything into this material, including quartz grains. (In fact I can create stone even from 🐴 💩 or whatever 🤣) Is the binder SiO2, to fool archeologists using mass spectrometry and XRF? Yeeees! Indeed! But is the binder quartz? Noooo! (Btw: this👆🏻would be the right question to ask.) Can we tell the quarry of this artificial stone ball using the common analysis tools? Sure, we can! This “carved” granite ball is from South Africa, so some 10.000 kms away. It was carved there and shipped to Hungary - in a paper bag as a powder 🤣 Is it waterproof? Yes. Boiling proof? Yes. Acid proof? Yes. Alkali proof? Yes. Mohs scale: 6-7 Ideal to fool unsuspecting people. Ingredients: • Waterglass • “Secret ingredient” I’ll reveal later • Billion years old, natural granite powder • created on room temperature I also attached the video of the 20 minutes boiling test. (Explain this to me: why do we exactly expect the glass binder to fall apart in boiling water? Glass is glass.) Ah! Almost forgot! Do you need a nub to create it in large size? It depends. If you happen to build a wall from it, then… Absolutely! This mix releases so much water it’s unbelievable! You need to drain it or else you find your stone in a puddle. Bubbles 🫧? Glad you asked. None. This is a “dry” technology, meaning: you press the water out from the mix, from a semi-dry material. Jimmy Corsetti you asked the first piece of the artificial granite. No luck, you’ll not get it. You know exactly why. (Just between you and me) Brian Roemmele I think this development is important Joe Rogan I’m ready to tell you the secret first as someone who did a lot of things to clear the picture of the ancient past. Ben van Kerkwyk - UnchartedX I learned a lot from your excellent videos. One day I’ll cast precision stone vases 🏺 for you! 😉 The Land Of Chem you are my hero @CosmicSummit24 George Howard I’m ready. 2025 will be “the year”! Now please share this info to the world. This knowledge is important. Even if our current generation will not accept it. I don’t care, we’ll die out sooner or later, and the next gen will take it as granted. As always. This is human nature. Someone please tell Joe Rogan that I’m both ready and open to cast a fake granite in his show in live revealing the secret.

Marcell Fóti 🪨

42,705 views • 1 year ago

A new EV in the offing SERES 3 is going to be launched (locally assembled) soon in Pakistan. The expected launching price is PKR 9 million. I was given the opportunity to test drive the car. Here is my take: Like any other EV it is a more economical, soundless, and environmentally friendly car with a thrill of enjoying instant torque – I did 0 to 100 in 9 seconds (video attached). According to the manufacturers – in ideal conditions – the range is 400 km in full charge (battery capacity is 50 kwh). My experience is doing approx. 300 Km in Lahore traffic. Assuming electricity cost of Rs60/Kwh, the cost/Km is Rs9 which is 1/3rd of Sportage (the car I drive). Additionally, there is no engine maintenance cost, which makes it more economical (calculation comparison with Sportage FWD is attached). EV is the best driving option to improve the environment in your city – especially in smoggy Lahore. The biggest issue people have with EV is range anxiety – We as a family used this car for our daily errands and school runs and there was no stress for two days if we drove 80–100Km a day. The second biggest issue is that of charging. We charged this at home during the night -started charging after 11 PM (to avoid peak hour) and by 6 AM in the morning, the car is fully charged (from 30% to 100%) – hence, within city, there is no need to find a charging station. I may not prefer it on the long route – though technically it can run easily from Lahore to Bhera and within 30-40 mins charging there, the car would cruise to Islamabad. It’s a Chinese car, and I don’t like ICE Chinese cars; but in case of EV, it is a doable option. Chinese auto players are better in EV technology than Japanese and others. SERES has a very good road grip, very decent interior, and a good family car. My driver wants me to replace the one he usually drives with this one because of the cost saved in petrol. My gas guzzler-loving friends also approve of this eco-friendlier model. It’s going to be a new and exciting addition to the locally assembled cars. Good luck to Regal Motors.

Ali khizar

65,449 views • 2 years ago

A day in the life of an 100,000+ acre farm. Meetings start at the shop at 4:30am. You get in your drill and head off to your designated seeding area. There is about a 70km radius of crops to seed from the main binyard. I always thought 4:30am was so awesome. Imagine having to get everyone on board to wake up at 4am daily to crush acres, it’s a feat in this day and age undoubtedly. It’s also a reason why few can compete against operations like this, pure savagery. Every team that seeds together gets a crew truck. Nothing pisses a tired crew off more than being late & chances are you are driving your own truck out to the seeder when you show up late. It has to run like clockwork to seed everything in a timely manner because you may lose some days to rain. Typically you would run as long as you can every single day. A 16 hour days are easy, it’s the back to back to back 18 or 20 hour days that are killers. I really enjoyed the long hours, I had started to track every one of my movements by acres. I knew on a perfect day I could do about 766 acres a day, but every turn I would deduct acres, stop to piss I would deduct acres, run out and grab supper I would deduct acres, fill the seeder I would deduct acres, check my runs I would deduct acres, fix my hoses I would deduct acres, I knew exactly how to bang out an awesome day and that usually meant no liquids after 10am so I didn’t have to stop to piss. Not everyone did this, in fact probably no one but me did this but I was obsessed with efficiency at the time. Seeding could last anywhere from 25 to 45 days depending. 2 of the seeding units were kept to finish sloughs, while the rest of the tractors were cleaned up, serviced and dropped back off at the JD dealership. 5 or 6 tractors were kept for grain carts to use at harvest but next seeding year all brand new JD tractors will be used, there is never used tractors used, the deadline is far too important and the dependability & warranty is crucial to complete seeding on time.

bu/ac

57,117 views • 2 years ago

8 things I'm doing to capture the "magic window" of my kid's childhood. For a bit of context: I'm 42 with 4 kids, ages 11 to 2, and run my own content + services business for creators. 1. I work from home Even though I own my business, I used to have an office too. I miss it sometimes (ok at least once a week), but being closer to the kids is a bigger benefit. I get to take breaks to hit golf balls at the park, fish, and play. 2. My wife stays at home Prolly worth a whole post, but this was a shared decision that was led by my wife. We wanted to have one of us available for the kids as much as they needed. She's a nurse, which definitely comes in handy 🤕 Also means she can start work again when she wants. 3. We homeschool I was homeschooled until 9th grade, so this wasn't a hard sell for me. My wife leads the charge here, but I help the older boys with math and other topics. One cool part is they have a desk in my office room too, so we can "cowork" together. 4. I coach their teams If my kid is playing a sport, I'll be coaching. We get to be physical with each other, learn teamwork, he gets to be coached by other dads and see my coach other kids. I also started leading jiu-jitsu classes in the neighborhood for kids and my 11 yr old helps me teach. 5. We exercise together I stopped going to CrossFit a couple years ago and built a simple garage gym so my kids could work out with me. Bodyweight exercises and GORUCK sandbags are the majority of our shared movements, but they also get to see their Dad being active and practicing good habits. 6. We're active in Church Another one that deserves an entire post, but similar to coaching their teams, our kids get to be around like-minded families, mentored by adults who care about them, and build a shared faith that binds us together. We also read the Bible and pray together each day. 7. I create content May not have expected this one, but when I started my YouTube channel a primary motivator was for my kids to be able to watch the videos when they got older. To see what Dad was thinking about, how I solved problems, set goals, etc. In many ways my content is a snapshot of our lives that has value beyond audience or monetization. 8. Leveraging AI AI has made me a lot more productive—I'd say 2-3x what I was capable of just a year ago. But a few months ago I realized I was just putting those "saved" hours right back into more work. If I was twice as productive, why wasn't I working half as many hours? I'm not quite working part-time, but I have cut back and used my new efficiencies for more time with the family instead of working at the same pace. ---- If you're reading this partly because this post is blowing up— hope it gives a little more context to how I'm structuring my life and work to be as intentional as I can with my family while being the provider they need too. It's a constant balancing act, more like walking a tightrope than balancing the scales of family and work. But I'm incredibly blessed to have such a great family and good work to do with cool people. Thanks for reading!

Matt Ragland

10,335 views • 3 months ago

Since my account is somewhat anonymous I’m going to disclose where some of the California high-speed rail money gets wasted. 99% of you don’t realize where giant chunks of the money is disappearing to. The California high-speed rail authority, literally owns thousands of parcels of land that are in various stages continued litigation, tenant improvements, eviction, and constant maintenance. For example, there are many homes and apartment complexes in the plant path that have been purchased years ahead of construction. Removing those tenants is a slow and expensive process. (let’s ignore the extra stress on housing that all of these destroyed properties are causing) In some cases, these are low rent apartments with a lengthy eviction process During that process, the state of California is the landlord and has to maintain the property codes the same as any other landlord. This means repairs, adding smoke detectors, fixing roofs, vegetation management, landscaping, paying off tenants to leave early, boarding up Windows, constant trash cleanups, towing vehicles etc. But the High Speed Rail Authority doesn’t just have to maintain these properties at normal cost. Every single bit of that work has to be done at California prevailing wage rates. The work can only be done through qualified contractors that have passed through a long series of idiotic mazes to qualify to perform the work. An average rate per hour (charge rate) for a worker to perform any service on these properties is approximately $200 an hour for labor only. The cost go up for specialized work, like electricians, plumbers, or machine operators. Properties that are literally worthless are being maintained at huge expense just so the next round of homeless transients can break into the property and cause more damage. For reasons I can’t explain, the process to finally demo and remove the structures takes years. I’m only mentioning the tip of the iceberg regarding my firsthand knowledge. Completely separate from those outlandish costs are the inflation caused by the construction. The prevailing word on the street is that nothing is getting done. The truth is that a lot is getting done and none of it efficiently. The amount of concrete being poured daily and monthly to build gigantic overpasses for both the rail and roadways is not understood. In these work areas, every concrete mixing company is fully scheduled out and cannot offer building materials for other basic services such as building a house often times for weeks when the average lead time for many of these services used to be one day. And that’s just the schedule, never mind the huge cost increases from straining the supply chain and Labor pool. The amount of concrete and steel that has gone into the structures so far is massive. Dozens and dozens of new water wells have been dug just for dust control. Thousands upon thousands of acres of highly productive tree fruits and nuts have been torn up and shredded. Utility scale solar fields have been uprooted and sometimes relocated at extravagant costs. Every type of business you can imagine has gone through either a closure, relocation, or a long-term tenant agreement with the rail authority. In some cases, it’s just a buyout where the business closes its doors forever. The owners get something all of the workers get nothing. Don’t get me started on how thick the layers of bureaucracy are for these minute tasks that occur on all of these properties. The inefficiency is far beyond your wildest dreams. In many cases, this is not related to fraud in any way it’s just absolute ignorance, red tape, and failed leadership. I can go much deeper into specific examples, but I think that gives some of you an idea of what’s actually happening in California. If a rail is ever usable, some portions of the structures will be decades old and already in disrepair.

No Safe Words

271,640 views • 6 months ago