This is massively less likely than sorting out the Electoral College, but imagine for a minute that 100 Senators woke up tomorrow and decided to do the right thing.
Dianne Feinstein, the senior Senator from California would wield 6.04 votes. Mike Enzi, the senior Senator from Wyoming would have to make do with 0.09 votes.
Overall a party line vote would see 55.85 Democratic votes to 44.15 Republican, assuming normal independent caucusing habits. Not quite a supermajority, but enough to not send Kavanaugh to The Supreme Court for instance.
This is based on 2010 census figures from Wikipedia.
Not going to happen, but find my estimate of your State's fair voting power by Senator below.
| State | Votes per Senator |
|---|---|
| California | 6.04 |
| Texas | 4.08 |
| Florida | 3.05 |
| New York | 3.14 |
| Pennsylvania | 2.06 |
| Illinois | 2.08 |
| Ohio | 1.87 |
| Georgia | 1.57 |
| North Carolina | 1.55 |
| Michigan | 1.6 |
| New Jersey | 1.43 |
| Virginia | 1.3 |
| Washington | 1.09 |
| Arizona | 1.04 |
| Massachusetts | 1.06 |
| Tennessee | 1.03 |
| Indiana | 1.05 |
| Missouri | 0.97 |
| Maryland | 0.94 |
| Wisconsin | 0.92 |
| Colorado | 0.82 |
| Minnesota | 0.86 |
| South Carolina | 0.75 |
| Alabama | 0.78 |
| Louisiana | 0.74 |
| Kentucky | 0.7 |
| Oregon | 0.62 |
| Oklahoma | 0.61 |
| Connecticut | 0.58 |
| Iowa | 0.49 |
| Utah | 0.45 |
| Arkansas | 0.47 |
| Nevada | 0.44 |
| Mississippi | 0.48 |
| Kansas | 0.46 |
| New Mexico | 0.33 |
| Nebraska | 0.3 |
| West Virginia | 0.3 |
| Idaho | 0.25 |
| Hawaii | 0.22 |
| New Hampshire | 0.21 |
| Maine | 0.22 |
| Rhode Island | 0.17 |
| Montana | 0.16 |
| Delaware | 0.15 |
| South Dakota | 0.13 |
| North Dakota | 0.11 |
| Alaska | 0.12 |
| Vermont | 0.1 |
| Wyoming | 0.09 |
(Published to the Fediverse as: What if the Senate Voted Proportionally to Population #politics #senate #electoralcollege #politicalreform Dianne Feinstein would get 6.04 votes in CA and Mike Enzi 0.09 in WY if the Senate voted based on population. Based on 2010 Wikipedia census figures. )
Moorhen and her chick at the village pond in Mapledurwell, Hampshire, UK.
The photograph titled "Moorhen and Chick" captures a tender moment between a moorhen and its young chick, hidden within the shaded embrace of verdant foliage. The adult moorhen, with its deep, dark plumage, bends gracefully towards the small, fuzzy chick, creating a gentle narrative of care and nurturing. The chick, a tiny bundle of downy feathers, eagerly leans towards the adult’s vibrant red and yellow beak. A soft, dappled play of light and shadows bathes the scene, with hints of green leaves framing the interaction, adding a lush backdrop that accentuates the intimacy of this wildlife vignette.
In terms of composition, the photographer has employed a natural framing technique using the surrounding leaves, enhancing the focus on the bond between the moorhen and its chick. The use of chiaroscuro—contrasting light and shadows—adds depth and a sense of privacy to the scene, drawing the viewer into the intimate encounter. The placement of the subjects within the lower half of the image grounds the composition, giving it stability and balance. However, the low light and shadowy setting might obscure some of the more delicate details, reducing the visual clarity of the subjects. Despite this, the photograph beautifully conveys emotion and connection, which is its strongest artistic merit, inviting viewers into a quiet, yet poignant moment in nature.
(Published to the Fediverse as: Moorhen and Chick #photo #moorhen Photo of a Moorhen and her chick shot at the village pond in Mapledurwell, Hampshire, United Kingdom. )
Badgers in Mapledurwell, UK. Captured by running a GoPro for hours looking down a suspected badger trail.
In the photograph titled "Badgers," a solitary badger stands amidst a rich tapestry of foliage and shadow. The canopy overhead filters the light, creating an interplay of dark and light across the lush undergrowth. The badger's distinctive black and white stripes contrast with the vibrant greens and earthy browns, drawing the eye immediately to its presence in the foreground. Twisted branches weave a natural frame around the scene, their skeletal forms echoing the untamed wilderness that envelops the creature. The overall atmosphere is one of mystery and quietude, capturing a moment in the hidden world of these nocturnal wanderers.
The photograph employs a candid, documentary style, immersing the viewer in the intimate world of the badger. The composition adheres to a diagonal line created by the branch and the badger's body, guiding the gaze from the top right to the bottom left, which adds a sense of dynamic movement to the stillness. While the natural framing adds depth, the image is perhaps slightly underexposed, leading to some loss of detail in the darker areas. This, however, contributes to the mysterious ambiance. I appreciate the raw, unfiltered beauty of the scene and the photographer's ability to capture the elusive nature of wildlife, though a touch more light could enhance the visibility of the background elements.
(Published to the Fediverse as: Badgers #photo #badger Photo of badgers running down a badger trail in Mapledurwell, Hampshire, United Kingdom. )
The Bay Model in Sausalito is a two-football field sized working model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento - San Joaquin River Delta. Here's a 360 degree timelapse of the model in action so you can see the tide coming in and out (best in a VR headset but you can pan around as well):
Shot on a Ricoh Theta S and post-processed in LRTimelapse and Adobe Lightroom.
(Published to the Fediverse as: Bay Model Tide 360 Timelapse #timelapse #sanfrancisco #spherical #360 #video 350 degree spherical timelapse of the tide coming in and out at the Bay Model in Sausalito CA )
A relatively pleasant Sunday in San Francisco, which means the second you turn your back fog and low cloud are going to swoop in:
The first part of the video is looking west toward the ocean. Once any trace of blue is obliterated we turn south to see fog rolling over San Pedro Mountain near Pacifica and increasingly gloomy cloud cover over the French Chateau Sanatorium (which I think of as the West Portal Retirement Castle). This is a deeply strange building, nestled in a hollow and surrounded by trees. Most of the time you don't see it and then suddenly, on the right street at the right angle you're startled to realize that there is a massive chateau hiding in the neighborhood.
If you're in the mood for more West Portal oriented time lapse enjoy: West of West Portal, West Portal Mosaic Timelapse, West Portal Timelapse of Timelapses and Spherical Sunset.
(Published to the Fediverse as: June Gloom #timelapse #4k #sanfrancisco #westportal #video Timelapse of fog and low cloud over West Portal in San Francisco, featuring views towards the Pacific Ocean and the deeply strange French Chateau Sanatorium. )
5/5
Spoiler alert: we still don't know. Excellent review of the history of quantum mechanics and how we should think about science.
3/5
3/5
Update April 19, 2020: I made a longer, higher resolution version which you can find here.
Here's an animation showing a year of global cloud cover (from July 2017 to July 2018) :
The clouds are sourced from the free daily download at xplanet. I run a Google apps script that saves a copy of the image to Google Drive every day (basically the same as this script to save Nest cam images). The hard part was waiting a year to get enough frames. Xplanet combines GEOS, METEOSAT and GMS satellite imagery with some reflection near the poles. Although I didn't need to for this project note that you can subscribe to higher quality / more frequent downloads.
As well as the clouds you can also see the terminator between day and night change shape over the course of the year. This video starts and ends with the Summer equinox when days are longest in the Northern hemisphere.
Where it's nighttime the image is based on NASA's Black Marble. The daytime is based on Blue Marble, but blended with a different older image which has better ocean colors and interpolated daily between twelve monthly Blue Marble satellite images. The result of this is that you can see snow and ice coverage changing over the course of the year. If you look closely you'll also notice vegetation growing and dying back with the seasons.
Rendered in a slightly modified build of Catfood Earth (the main release doesn't know how to access my private cache of xplanet cloud images). As well as combining day, night and cloud images Catfood Earth can also show you earthquakes, volcanoes, US weather radar, political borders, places and time zones. It has been enlivening Windows desktop wallpaper for fifteen years now (as shareware back when that was a thing, these days it's a free download for Windows and Android).
(Published to the Fediverse as: Animation of a year of Global Cloud Cover #code #software #video #animation #appsscript #drive #earth #nasa #xplanet Timelapse video showing cloud cover, day and night and changing seasons. Rendered in Catfood Earth. )
Summer starts now in the Northern Hemisphere and the Sun is at its highest point in the sky. For those in the Southern Hemisphere I'm sorry to report that the opposite is true. Rendered in Catfood Earth.
(Previously, Previously, Previously, Previously, Previously)
If you're going to read Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber don't decide to follow that up with Adjustment Day by Chuck Palahniuk.
5/5
I'm not entirely sure if this is a bullshit book or not, but it was brilliantly written and provocative (and largely persuasive).
3/5
3/5
3/5
Having read (and loved) The Information I was expecting something similar. Time Travel is far more of a literary review than a popular science book. It touches on relativity and quantum physics but not in any great depth and spends far more time dissecting H. G. Wells.
3/5
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