Mike Hicks
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mulad.bsky.social
Mike Hicks
@mulad.bsky.social
1.4K followers 430 following 17K posts
Tech guy into transpo and urbanism, politics to push the needle. Once a streets.mn person. A Swiftie to ease my unhappy singleness

Transit blog: https://hizeph400.blogspot.com/
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mulad.bsky.social
I should point out there's a second color scheme
homes.luddy.indiana.edu/ccshan/for/f...
The text "There's a button in the lower right" in a white, red, and blue Mamdani campaign sign style
November 9, 2025 at 11:11 PM
mulad.bsky.social
A formative album
Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness in the Zohran Mamdani campaign sign format
November 9, 2025 at 2:52 PM
mulad.bsky.social
A couple other bands that came to mind
Porno for Pyros in the yellow and red text on blue background format of a Zohran Mamdani campaign sign Death Cab for Cutie in the same style
November 9, 2025 at 3:47 AM
mulad.bsky.social
Christmas was under construction at the mall this morning
A view looking at the screen at the Mall of America east-side rotunda, with tall conical fake trees on either side. The one on the left has most of its lighted covering installed, while the one on the right only has lights and fuzz on a portion near the bottom
November 5, 2025 at 11:24 PM
mulad.bsky.social
William H. Macy as The Shoveler in Mystery Men
October 27, 2025 at 8:42 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Some impressive cakes at The Baker's Wife today
A green cake on the left with accents mimicking plants, with a green dinosaur on top with a tall spine sticking out of its back. In the middle is a dark green cake with a small model truck and bucket digger on top. To the right is a cake made to look like a minion from the Despicable Me movie series
October 26, 2025 at 2:48 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Getting closer to peak color in the neighborhood
An autumnal view down a city street with trees sporting leaves in green, yellow, and orange
October 25, 2025 at 11:13 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Some graffiti on Blue Line car 214 today
Red writing on white panels inside a rail car. Angling upward to the right, "The Vikings will never win a Super Bowl" with a more coarse/confusing message to the left saying, "Bitch Tri-angle dollar bill ghost NFL 4:45"
October 22, 2025 at 1:26 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Some accidental anti-Frey political messaging along Minnehaha Parkway due to an odd choice of Halloween decorations
A Jacob Frey yard sign in front of a house with a large tan-colored tarp attached to the chimney with "NEVERMORE" scrawled on it over splattered red paint meant to look like blood
October 17, 2025 at 6:20 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Japan's NHK has a report on Norway closing in on having 100% of new-car sales being EVs. They recently reached 97%. Also witness the sight of 400kW chargers in place at a Circle K station
youtu.be/_TTVa5ExwbI
A bald white man in a black shirt standing in front of a red and white Circle K charging station and convenience store. Text overlaid on the video screenshot states it is produced by NHK World Japan, and that the man is Anders Kleve Svela, Senior E-Mobility Manager for Circle K. Additional text says, "Norway nears finish line on road to full electrification"
October 17, 2025 at 11:39 AM
mulad.bsky.social
😬
Screenshot of part of the linked article showing that an 88-year-old woman in Wayzata has given over $400,000 in donations to so-caller "Spam PACs" in recent years, approaching the value of her house
October 16, 2025 at 9:13 PM
mulad.bsky.social
The $1 coin designs for 2026 commemorate Norman Borlaug, the Cray-1 supercomputer, Steve Jobs, and mobile refrigeration, for Iowa, Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota, respectively
www.usmint.gov/news/press-r...
Four bronze-toned coin designs featuring a man holding crops for Dr. Norman Borlaug on the Iowa coin, a top-down view of the C-shaped Cray-1 supercomputer for Wisconsin, a rendering of Steve Jobs sitting cross-legged with landscape in the background for California, and a curvy mid-20th-centruy semi truck with Minnesota and various foods and supplies on the side for the final coin
October 16, 2025 at 2:04 PM
mulad.bsky.social
An old video clip of someone talking about "narco terrorists" popped up in something I watched yesterday, and I just thought about how old that term sounded. These illegal attacks on purported Venezuelan traffickers feel like yet another way Trump's brain is stuck in the 1980s
Google Ngram Viewer screenshot of "narco terrorism" and "narco terrorist" phrases appearing in books over time, showing an initial spike from the early 1980s and peaking around 1990, with another spike peaking in the early 2000s, then the terms largely leveling off from about 2010 onwards
October 15, 2025 at 12:36 PM
mulad.bsky.social
According to an acquaintance who works with Metro Transit, they're going to try using package lockers to aid with lost-and-found retrieval
www.instagram.com/p/DPmIWZ3jrgb/
Image of a gray row of outdoor package lockers with the caption: lundb305 COMING SOON: Metro Transit will have a locker based lost and found retrieval for small items, removing the need to schedule an appointment to get it back! 🔐🆒
October 14, 2025 at 1:13 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Sigh. The odd thing is that the nvme0n1 device that's having trouble is on a more direct link to the CPU than the one that is still alive (at least in this case, though I think the same thing happened last time too)
Oct 05 20:48:36 3po kernel: md/raid1:md127: Disk failure on nvme0n1p2, disabling device. md/raid1:md127: Operation continuing on 1 devices. Oct 05 20:48:39 3po mdadm[1191]: mdadm: Fail event detected on md device /dev/md127, component device /dev/nvme0n1p2 Oct 06 00:39:59 3po kernel: FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): FAT read failed (blocknr 32) Oct 06 02:48:19 3po kernel: FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): Directory bread(block 2080) failed Oct 06 02:48:19 3po kernel: FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): Directory bread(block 2081) failed Oct 06 02:48:19 3po kernel: FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): Directory bread(block 2082) failed Oct 06 02:48:19 3po kernel: FAT-fs (nvme0n1p1): Directory bread(block 2083) failed [... last message repeats many times ...] A diagram of how CPU cores and PCIe devices are laid out in my computer, from the "hwloc-ls" / "lstopo" command. The nvme0n1 device has a closer connection to the CPU than the nvme1n1 device does, and yet the nvme0n1 device is the one that is dropping connection
October 11, 2025 at 3:26 PM
mulad.bsky.social
One of these things that feels bad enough here in Minnesota, and we're nearly the safest state on a per-capita basis (after Nebraska, apparently)
A map of pedestrian fatalities in collisions across the US (Pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people in 2023, by state) showing Minnesota in a light pink color and a ratio of 0.72 per 100,000. It appears to be the second-safest state by that measure, after Nebraska at 0.65
October 11, 2025 at 2:05 PM
mulad.bsky.social
This one is from the current bridge being built just south of the previous one, of course
libnews.umn.edu/2015/10/look...
An aerial view of the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis, looking from the West Bank of the Mississippi River in the foreground toward the East Bank in the distance. Two bridges cross the river -- one with active car traffic on the left and another under construction to the right. A trench is also being dug up through the West Bank as an approach to the new bridge
October 10, 2025 at 6:37 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Forgot to mention I saw Bill and Ted. I did not pay $1,400.
Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves standing for applause at the end of Waiting for Godot
October 9, 2025 at 2:16 AM
mulad.bsky.social
I had to snap a picture of one of these while in town. A minority of the ads were altered, but that's simply because there are *so many* of them pushing this product
An ad for the friend pendant device altered to read No friends [frend] noun someone who listens, responds and supports you, WHO IS HUMAN. ORWELL WAS RIGHT SMASH THE ORBS
October 8, 2025 at 8:19 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Being multimodal while waiting for the Borealis to depart. Fortunately the Lake Shore Limited arrived on time / a bit early (Amtrak's site wanted to have me take the Empire Builder in the afternoon for a linked trip, so I booked the legs separately)
The brown metal Jackson Boulevard bascule bridge over the Chicago River with the white and green First Lady architecture cruise boat just about to pass underneath, as seen from tracks in Chicago Union Station
October 7, 2025 at 4:05 PM
mulad.bsky.social
It's dark out now and I don't have a good frame of reference looking out the window, so it was funny to open my GPS app expecting to see us trundling along at 40 mph, but the actual speed was over 100
Map of my location west of Albany, New York with an overlaid GPS app showing a speed of 108 mph
October 6, 2025 at 11:23 PM
mulad.bsky.social
I have no idea if there's a familiar connection to Hicksville, but I figured I should give it a quick visit anyway
A Long Island Rail Road train arriving at Hicksville station on Long Island Hicksville station sign seen above the open door of a boarding MTA Long Island Rail Road train A sign in a stairwell/escalator circulation structure to a Hicksville station platform Welcome to Hicksville The Community With Time For You A floor mat with a Pennsylvania Railroad-style LIRR logo
October 5, 2025 at 9:32 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Stumbled upon an open-gangway G train
A New York City Subway car with people seated along the sides. Instead of a door at the end of the car, there's an open space, allowing people to move freely and more easily balance the load
October 5, 2025 at 8:49 PM
mulad.bsky.social
Sorry, stuck on the sad Gritty remake part
The furry orange Philadelphia Flyers mascot, Gritty, sitting on a couch in a dejected pose, with spent tissues all around
October 3, 2025 at 3:43 AM
mulad.bsky.social
Went through Princeton Junction at 150 mph and accelerated to 160 for a bit afterward. Most of the route is taken at a relatively leisurely 125, with bits of 135 and above
A GPS tracker app overlaid on Google Maps, showing a speed of 160 mph a bit northeast of Princeton Junction in New Jersey
October 2, 2025 at 9:08 PM