Good Morning, RVA: It’s perfect!

Let’s all promise to make today something special.

May 20, 2015; 7:00 AM • by Ross Catrow

Photo by: Heaton Johnson V

Good morning, RVA! It’s 65 °F, and today may be the most perfect day. Highs right around 80 °F, less humidity, tons of sunshine–don’t screw it up.

If you’re angling to spend more time on a bicycle ahead of The Big Bike Race™, today would be a humdinger of a day to bike to work!

Water cooler

The RTD’s Graham Moomaw has some secret details about the coming bike-share system. Exciting that it is happening, slightly disappointing that the city is willing to accept a “partial launch” of only 10 stations (compared to the planned 30) to get it up and running before the The Big Bike Race™. I choose to remain optimistic about these things! The race is doing an excellent job of pushing forward a lot of these projects—I just hope we can keep up the momentum moving into October and beyond.

The new Style Weekly is out, and its cover story about Richmond’s video game developers by Rich Griset is worth your time. More stuff coming out of Richmond that you should support and be proud of!

WTVR with today’s best headline: “New ordinance will displace two humans, one cougar and exotic monkeys.”

Did you know that the NFL has decided to move extra points back to the 15-yard line from the 2-yard line? Vox does a tiny bit of math on the new expected value of kicking an extra point versus going for two. Because coaches are superstitious creatures that refuse to believe in data, I expect most teams to continue kicking extra points.

A super massive airbag recall will affect 34 million vehicles, and the Washington Post has a partial list of those makes and model affected.

Sports!

Of note: The UVA men’s tennis team won its second national championship in three years by knocking off top-seeded Oklahoma yesterday. Go Wahoos!

• Kickers play a rare Wednesday night game at home tonight against the Virginia Beach City FC in the second round of the US Open Cup. Tickets are on sale and are just $12.
• Squirrels evened the series against Erie with an 8-6 win. They play again this morning at 11:05 AM.
• Nats bested the Yankees, 8-6. They’ll look for the sweep tonight at 7:05 PM.

This morning’s longread

Self-Driving Trucks Are Going to Hit Us Like a Human-Driven Truck

Late last year, I took a road trip with my partner from our home in New Orleans, Louisiana to Orlando, Florida and as we drove by town after town, we got to talking about the potential effects self-driving vehicle technology would have not only on truckers themselves, but on all the local economies dependent on trucker salaries. Once one starts wondering about this kind of one-two punch to America’s gut, one sees the prospects aren’t pretty.

We are facing the decimation of entire small town economies, a disruption the likes of which we haven’t seen since the construction of the interstate highway system itself bypassed entire towns.

This is the most thought provoking article I’ve read in a while–and the craziest part: self-driving trucks already exist! The first one started driving itself around Arizona a couple of weeks ago. Bonus crazy article: Tesla will add an “autopilot” mode to their cars with a software update in the next couple of months.

This morning’s Instagram

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May 20, 2015 7:00 AM 0