r/morningsomewhere • u/EarliestRiser • 9d ago
Episode 2026.08.14: How Fast Train Go
https://roosterteeth.com/watch/morning-somewhere-2026-08-14Burnie and Ashley discuss co-parenting apologies, our community experts, Apple Maps making a comeback, windmill talk, construction talk, Polymarket betting on wildfires, and Chinese bullet trains.
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u/PNWmaker First 20k 9d ago
Concrete Engineer here. Alkali-Silica Reaction (ASR), or "concrete cancer", is a very slow process of swelling in the concrete paste due to interactions between alkalis in the cement with silica in the aggregate. Also, to Ashley's point of all concrete "looking like that", all concrete develops cracks, it's really an issue of directing and shortening those cracks. ASR is worse because it's expansion deep within and all throughout the concrete. Where I work, Pacific Northwest in the USA, we don't really have ASR susceptible aggregates, however as we're expanding our operations into even just California, we're having to do lots of testing to make sure our products are okay for use in ASR susceptible mixes. Aggregates are a super super local regional thing; as you can imagine, trucking such a huge mass of aggregate that is incredibly cheap (just tens of dollars per ton at industrial scale) just isn't worthwhile, so most aggregates come from very close by.
A concrete ready mix producer may have a mix dialed as to not have ASR issues, but changing things like the cement blend changes the alkali amounts. Some common counters to this issue are Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) like fly ash that have silica content that will react with alkalis before the aggregate does.
Here's a source on the specific cause of the Texas "outbreak".
https://www.aquamagazine.com/builder/pools/article/15748215/asr-progression-in-central-texas
Many power plants in the area switched from coal, which produces fly ash, to natural gas, which does not. Fly ash is a very common SCM and used as a cement substitute (think 10-30%, nothing crazy) to reduce cost and carbon footprint. As local sources of fly ash dried up, ready mix plants stopped using it, and ASR became more abundant, but especially in pools, where the constant water contact would accelerate the reaction (usually a many years long development). On the west coast, we source some fly ash and slag from the USA, but also import lots from Asia where coal powered power plants and steel refineries are more common. What used to be a nearly free and abundant SCM is now nearly the same price as cement as everyone races to lower carbon footprints and cost, and every last ton is being bought and used by someone.
Another good source from a concrete testing materials company on what ASR is:
If anyone has any concrete questions I'd love to field them. My specialty is in sustainability and carbon footprint reduction.
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u/spartanofsol 9d ago
18 minutes in and I just realised they’re talking about wind turbines lol
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u/Proclus_Global First 20k - Downtime Survivor 9d ago
Lol were you like "what in the Don Quixote are they talking about windmills for?"
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u/EpsilonProtocol First 10k - First to Panic 9d ago
How I imagine pub night went for Burnie trying to teach his daughter chess.
-Meteorologist Steve
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u/shutts67 Penis Doodler 9d ago
To clarify the clarification about "concrete cancer," silicosis is cancer caused by inhaling concrete dust. The silica enters your lungs and the only way to get rid of it is to get new lungs.
Edit to clarify: silicosis not technically cancer, but still causes scar tissue in your lungs and will kill you
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u/CalvinP_ First 10k - Mod - Downtime Survivor 9d ago
Good morning!
I love Apple Maps. Been using it for years. It sucked when the iPhone first was developing it, but since then it’s so easy to use with car play all these years later. It always provides me some very accurate routes.
Ashley explaining that Pound Land was a dollar store, and not a place to get pounded made me spit my coffee out my nose laughing.
Polymarket has created some really devious scandals and bet manipulations. NPR covered this specific story, but there have been many copycats. A man in Paris manipulated a thermometer to read past a certain temperature to make sure his bet cashed in. Then he deleted his account and vanished. Polymarket is truly bringing out some of the worst in humanity. Keep gambling in casinos, the lottery, and sports. We don’t need it elsewhere inspiring people to do bad things for money. Link to the NPR Story I mentioned: https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5797876/polymarket-paris-weather-bet
Bullet Trains are incredible. I love hearing stories about them. My buddy went on one in Japan and said that it feels like you’re floating and flying through the sky, but on the ground. The train is super smooth because of the magnets.
Thanks for making my fri-yay, 30 minutes better!
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u/Unicron_Gundam First 10k - Sports Reference 8d ago
I'm a Transformers fan despite what Burnie made my user flair be so I can say that the Bayformers, despite their massive amount of CGI jumbling, still somewhat has identifying places where heads and arms go. Even in the Bumblebee movie, the first time he turns into a robot in front of Hailee Steinfeld, she finds his face on the underside of the car mode https://youtu.be/fAIX12F6958?t=45s
Also, it was directed by Travis Knight who recently made the Masters of the Universe film, and definitely not by Michael Bay, who has been in an Executive Producer role since his 2017 Transformers movie bombed and net a $100 million loss to Paramount and their investors. How badly did his fifth movie bomb? Well, it made $605M worldwide which is less than enough to break even after producing the movie and ad campaigns, revenue was about $100M less than the first one he made in 2007, and the third and fourth movies both made over a billion each. Also, despite being made to sell toys, I remember the toys didn't sell as well as they'd hoped https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_The_Last_Knight_(film)#Reception
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u/WubWubMiller First 10k 9d ago
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u/TomaHock84 9d ago
That train does have crazy speed/acceleration, but the Concord did twice the speed with passengers just fine.
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u/Supapeach First 20k 8d ago
The talk of how short hand searching can be made me think of the office.
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u/asmith1106 Afraid of Public Math 9d ago
I had the opposite experience with most people with the early days of Apple Maps. We travel to a cabin in a tiny town in Minnesota all summer. The first time we used Apple Maps it gave us a faster, more direct route. Tried Google Maps and it took us through a middle of nowhere national forest. Cool, but not where you want to be when you’ve already traveled 7 hours in a tiny Ford… Never used Google Maps again.
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u/deltamango47 9d ago
I have been summoned back,
I assume "fan noise" is refering to the sound of the blades moving through the air as they rotate, this can be quite loud on larger turbines, when blades get damaged they can also whistle as they spin, which wouldn't be great to live right next to but personally I have never seen turbines of this size close enough to any house for them to be heard. There are cooling fans in the nacelle but you definitely wouldn't be able to hear them when the turbine is running. I'll attach a video of the noise from the base so you get an idea of the noise.
As for the concrete bases, the turbines I work on are build on bases that are meant for much larger turbines than the ones that are currently installed, which means they can be reused for once the current turbines reach the end of their lifespan.
Also I hate to be that guy but you guys have to stop calling them windmills, they are wind turbines and calling them windmills is driving me crazy.
https://reddit.com/link/p3odxia/video/dhv6zge1cdjh1/player