Ben Monreal

Columbus school board votes to slash jobs, close schools to save $50M

Ohio spent more than a billion dollars on private school vouchers in fiscal year 2025

#pairedtexts

I feel like the reason billionaire investors like (a) fusion rather than solar power (b) satellite internet rather than rural fiber, (c) flying cars over trains/buses (d) etc., is that they're too lazy to work in spaces where local regulatory bodies exist at all

good: 15 minute bus headways
worse: 30 minute bus headways
better: 30 minute bus headways but there's a coffee shop at your stop
COFFEE IS INFRASTRUCTURE
#transitsky #gcrta

If TV is included, you'll have hundreds of hours of amiable material available if you pick Ted Danson

Congratulations to #cwru outstanding seniors Zachariah Jones, MG Davis and Samuel Diener and advisors Prof. Jesse Berezovsky and Prof. Pino Strangi! The students presented their research projects in today's Fall Senior Physics Project Symposium. Very impressive! 🔬🌟💡 #physics #undergraduateresearch

So Hale has really written a sprawling Venice-centered history survey, interleaved with writing about Titian's work, minutiae from his account books, his few letters, in decade-spanning meandering sentences that practically count sheep for you. Do not operate heavy machinery. A+ 7/7 #booksky

Thus, the knowable part of Titian is the part embedded in power-broker history, in a way that's not true of self-documenting chatterboxes like Michelangelo or Cellini. 6/7

Everything we know about Titian has to be gleaned from scraps like this; since he was not a writer himself, we only him when he latched onto, or bounced off of, clients and patrons powerful enough to have passed their letters on to us. 5/7

But WHY? Cobos was thrilled, but the painting in question is lost. Recounted in surviving letters between the various parties, complaining about the paintings' slow production, is a rare insight into Titian's private life: how he was inconsolable after his wife Cecilia's illness and death. 4/7

(Long version: Hale walks the reader through capsule biographies of ALL of these people, plus the Sack of Rome, the Counter-Reformation, Clement VII, Henry VIII surprisingly, scene-stealing guest star Pietro Aretino, et cetera. Got multiple good nights' sleep out of this chapter, it's great) 3/7

There is a whole chapter about how Titian came to paint Cornelia Malespina, lady-in-waiting to some Gonzaga B-lister. Short version: a huge cast of characters trying to get into the good graces of Cornelia's heartsick lover Francisco de los Cobos, a counselor of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. 2/7

Titian The first definitive biography of the master painter in more than a century, Titian: His Life is being hailed as a "landmark achievement" for criti...

I am 100% enjoying Sheila Hale's Titian biography BUT ALSO it is the most effective sleepytime reading I have ever picked up. Long soothing sentences about a huge cast of late-Renaissance notables and non-notables. Pure ducat-based melatonin. 🧵 1/7 www.harpercollins.com/products/tit...

I wonder if there are cases where a propane tank + propane delivery are a better fossil fuel backup than maintaining a gas hookup? More expensive per therm, but perfectly happy sitting there unused for 360 d/y and turning on for one cold snap.

More in the category "geography trivia fun facts" than "essential knowledge" but: Chimborazo's summit is further from the Earth's center than Everest's is. (Everest is tall with respect to sea level, but sea level is oblate due to Earth's rotation. Chimborazo is nearly smack on the equator.)

Is there a simple reason Chimborazo isn't the answer?

"Whether it was mere luck, or whether the potato and I were destined for a life partnership, I do not know, but from that moment my course was set, and I became ever more involved in problems associated directly or indirectly with a plant with which I then had no particular affinity, gustatory or romantic."

Perhaps she'd like to read Redcliffe Salaman's supposedly classic "The History and Social Influence of the Potato" (1949). From the preface:

I want to add: "one labor-intensive 5.4 kW array" is not how we save the planet; tacking my project's budget onto a utility-scale solar plant would have yielded 4x or 5x as much power? With the GOP curb-stomping those projects, this is (a) second-best (b) good enough, and (c) under my control.

Happy to recommend/advise if anyone else wants to do something similar. Good luck 9/9

So after many years of waffling over unsatisfying options for rooftop arrays and/or sketchy top-of-pole ideas, we're getting our solar array PLUS an attractive shady pergola we can can sit under. 8/

The panels are getting mounted flat; tilting them just isn't worth the trouble. (I believe the flat mount will actually maximize output on cloudy days, of which we have many.) I'm hoping an occasional leafblower pass can keep them clean. 7/

BT Solar | Solar power Better Together Solar, a leading solar power company in Ohio, provides sustainable commercial and residential energy solutions. With 17+ years and 200+ projects, we help clients cut bills and benefit ...

In a few weeks the solar panels go up courtesy of www.bettertogether.solar. 12x 450W CS panels, 5.4 kW total, IronRidge hardware, EnPhase electronics. Electrical run from the pergola to the house got trenched in in September. Ready to add storage later. 6/

The pergola kit vendor says their 12x12 kit assembles in 4 hours with "a tradesperson and helper" or "two skilled homeowners". I'd guess I put in 12--15 assembly hours SOLO plus 30m with a helper. 5/

Metered Concrete Delivery Service in Northeast Ohio - OtherGuys Concrete We provide custom quantities of site-mixed concrete when and where you need it throughout Northeast Ohio and the Cleveland area. Perfect for residential or small commercial and municipal projects.

The pergola is totally DIY accessible (albeit the biggest thing I've ever done). The footers were the hardest part; www.otherguysconcrete.com mixed and poured my concrete (great guys, super helpful) but I did my own surveying (tedious), digging (difficult), and rebar (fun, honestly). 4/

... which let it meet OH building code including snow/wind load on the panels. I've got engineer-stamped drawings for my specific kit for Ohio; happy to share if that helps you? (If it doesn't, engineer charge was $950.) 3/

Starting point is a 14'x18' "classic cedar" pergola kit (16' x 20' top surface) from www.pergolakitsusa.com (very satisfied, happy to recommend.) Slightly over-specced from the catalog kit (taller headers and rafters) ... 2/

I want to post a bit about my BACKYARD SOLAR PERGOLA in case someone else is in a situation like mine.
a) Weird roofline/clay tile makes rooftop hard
b) Couldn't make ground mount or pole mount work since they're too ugly for local zoning
Solution: #solar pergola! 🔌💡☀️ Details: 1/

<overheard>
STUDENT: I need some help
COLLEAGUE: ok
STUDENT: I have a problem with a person named Chad
<me, thinking: omg please close the door before these sensitive ombudsman conversations>
STUDENT: Chad has a board and a rope
<me: 😱 wtaf>
STUDENT: I'll draw the free body diagram
<me: oh> 🎢

If you like that sort of thing, The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959, Gary Cooper and Charlton Heston) sounds like it's going to be a high seas survival adventure film but most of the screen time is a dull-as-dirt marine salvage rights courtroom drama

dear sports bettors: you are the problem. you. "my favorite part of baseball is the first pitch of the second inning", my god, it's not even the winning/losing outcomes that humans care about. you ruined sports to get a random-number generator to bet on. go bet on dice in the Biltmore garage, jerk

Case Western Reserve Department of Biology is hiring! We're recruiting for a tenure-track position focusing on eukaryotic microbiology, especially microbial/environment interactions. Please share widely: apply.interfolio.com/174456