Ryan Bristle

🚨 2027 four-star power forward Donovan Davis commits to Iowa State 🚨 Davis is the second-highest rated commit in program history and the No. 38 player in the Class of 2027. The 6-foot-7 forward chooses the Cyclones over Iowa, Marquette, Nebraska and Wisconsin. Iowa State now has the No. 1 rated class by 247Sports.

TJ gonna be a lifer at Iowa State. Turning down biggest jobs possible, building an elite long term culture, wife is in the ISU hall of fame, from the Midwest. TJ Otzelberger might forever be in Ames🌪️

@anishmoonka Don’t know what I’m gonna do in 600 million years when I can’t see a total solar eclipse through a shoebox anymore.

Our moon is leaving us. It creeps 3.8 centimeters further from Earth every year, as fast as your fingernails grow. And yesterday, for the first time in 53 years, humans got close enough to fly around it. 70 million years ago, when dinosaurs were still walking around, a day on Earth was only 23.5 hours long. A year had 372 days. Scientists used lasers to count growth rings inside ancient fossilized seashells, where each ring recorded a single day. The shorter days happened because the moon was closer back then, pulling harder on our oceans and slowly braking how fast the planet spins. As it drifts further out, days get longer. Your grandchildren’s days will be a tiny fraction of a second longer than yours. Artemis II sent four astronauts around it last week. They looped behind the far side on April 6, and the moon blocked every signal between them and Earth for 40 minutes. Total silence. The crew hit 252,760 miles from our planet, about 4,100 miles further than anyone has ever been from home. They splashed down yesterday off San Diego. The moon is still shrinking. Its interior is cooling, cracking the outer shell into cliff-like fractures. NASA has mapped over 3,500 of these cracks. One near where Apollo 17 landed in 1972 has been causing moonquakes for at least 90 million years. Moonquakes are nothing like what we get on Earth. They rumble for hours instead of seconds, which becomes a serious concern if anyone plans to build a base up there. Water ice has been quietly accumulating in craters near the south pole, craters that have not seen a single ray of sunlight in billions of years. A team at CU Boulder published findings this week in Nature Astronomy showing the moon has been collecting this water for about 3.5 billion years. One crater called Haworth has probably sat in complete darkness for over 3 billion years straight. Astronauts could eventually mine that ice for drinking water or break the water molecules apart into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. I did not know this until I looked it up: Earth has been feeding the moon. A University of Rochester team found that our planet’s magnetic field funnels tiny atmospheric particles outward along its field lines until they stick to the lunar dirt on the near side, the side we see every night. The moon has been soaking up little bits of our atmosphere for billions of years. 600 million years from now, the moon will be too far away to fully cover the sun. Total solar eclipses will stop happening. The Artemis II crew saw what we will eventually lose during their flyby: a solar eclipse from behind the moon, with nearly 54 minutes of total darkness. From down here on Earth, the longest total eclipse you will ever see lasts about 7 minutes.

@gothburz You forgot the most important thesis. People don’t buy the ugliest vehicles on the market

I bought Rivian stock on IPO day. November 10, 2021. $172 a share. I bought 58 shares. That was $9,976. I remember the exact number because my girlfriend asked what I spent ten thousand dollars on and I said "the future of transportation." She said "you drive a 2017 Civic." I said "exactly." $1,000 invested at IPO is now worth $149.06. I have that number memorized. I check it before coffee. I check it after coffee. I check it during meetings where I'm supposed to be listening. The number changes by pennies. The pennies matter to me now. The thesis was simple. Rivian was the next Tesla. They had the Amazon delivery vans. They had the adventure truck. They had the factory in Normal, Illinois. I told people the factory was in a town called Normal. I thought that was meaningful. A sign. The future of transportation, built in a place called Normal. The factory produced 24,337 vehicles in its first full year. Tesla produced 1.8 million. I called that "room to grow." I have been through six theses on Rivian. Thesis one: they're the next Tesla. (Stock dropped 40%.) Thesis two: the Amazon vans are the real play. (Amazon cut the order.) Thesis three: the R2 platform will be the mass-market breakthrough. (Delayed 18 months.) Thesis four: the Georgia factory changes everything. (Paused indefinitely.) Thesis five: Volkswagen's $5 billion investment validates the technology. (Stock kept falling.) Thesis six: Uber robotaxis. This is the pivot. Every time the stock drops, I find the new thesis. I don't look for it. It finds me. I open Reddit. I open the Rivian subreddit. Someone has written a post titled "Why this is actually bullish." It has 400 upvotes. I read it. I agree with it. I was going to agree with it before I read it. The agreement is the point. The DD is the prayer. My cost basis is $172. The stock is $14.06. I am down 91.8%. I could have bought a used Rivian R1T with the money I've lost on Rivian stock. I have not done the math on this. I'm doing it now. Yes. I could have bought one. A 2022 with 30,000 miles. I would have the truck AND the remaining money. I drive a 2017 Civic. My coworker Dave bought index funds. Dave is up 34% over the same period. Dave brings a sad lunch to work every day. Turkey sandwich. Same sandwich. Dave will retire at 65 with a comfortable nest egg and a lifetime of turkey sandwiches and he will never know what it felt like to be early. I am early. I have been early for four and a half years. At some point early and wrong have the same return on investment. But they feel different. Wrong feels like a mistake. Early feels like a strategy. I feel like a strategy. The Uber partnership was announced Tuesday. I texted three people. One was my brother. One was a guy from the Rivian subreddit whose real name I don't know. One was my girlfriend. My ex-girlfriend. She stopped asking about Rivian in 2023. She stopped asking about anything in 2024. The stock jumped 10%. It gave half back the same day. But for eleven minutes I was only down 81% instead of 85%. I called that momentum. I took a screenshot. I still have the screenshot. Rivian will build robotaxis for Uber. Rivian has not built a profitable vehicle for anyone. Rivian lost $38,784 on every vehicle it delivered last year. That's not my number. That's their 10-K. But I don't think about it that way. I think about it as investment in scale. Scale means you lose money faster until you don't. Uber needs thousands of autonomous vehicles. Rivian needs to not go bankrupt before 2027. These are complementary needs. That's a partnership. That's synergy. That's the pivot. Dave asked me yesterday how much I'm down. I said "I'm long-term." He said "it's been four years." I said "Tesla was down 80% once." He said "Tesla was also profitable once." Dave went back to his sandwich. Dave doesn't understand pivots. I bought more shares this morning. This is the pivot.

@MatthiasISU 

Gonna do an Iowa State X Follow Train for the Sweet Sixteen! 🚂 If you’re a Cyclone fan, comment an emoji below and like the others in the thread! Follow whoever likes your comment! Let’s grow the Iowa State community!

@CycloneLarry69 At this point the first stat I want to see for potential ISU transfers is FT%

I happen to know a guy who has a decent track record of developing St Mary’s PF transfers into All American 1st Round draft picks…

IOWA STATE STORMS INTO THE SWEET SIXTEEN 🌪️ Forced Kentucky into 20 turnovers and only 21 field goals made 😳



Turns out Toure is who we thought he was earlier this season. Incredible game by the frosh and maybe one of the best all time tourney games by an ISU player

Up by 33 points, TJ Otzelberger just turned and looked at Heise/Toure/Buchanan who are getting ready to check in and screamed, "No more second chance! No more second chance!" after Tenn St just got one. Cobra Kai, sweep the leg. Intensity stays up. 93-60 ISU. 7:00 2H

Iowa State shows off firepower and depth in a 108-74 win over Tennessee State. Killyan Toure scores a career high 25 points, Nate Heise adds 22. The Cyclones lost All-American Joshua Jefferson early to an ankle injury, severity unstated. ISU plays Kentucky Sunday for spot in the Sweet 16. Iowa State capable of winning without Jefferson, but all Cyclones hoping JJ returns at some point with dreams still intact. Photo: AP

Is this going to be the biggest blowout of R1 without our All American?

Please be okay Joshua Jefferson. Please be okay Joshua Jefferson. Please be okay Joshua Jefferson. Please be okay Joshua Jefferson. Please be okay Joshua Jefferson.

Challenging a call up 26 is the most TJ Otzelberger thing ever and I love it. Relentless

Don’t know what the outlook is but JJ’s injury is so gut wrenching. Don’t even know what to say.

@Heartland_CS Larry Eustachy. Obviously

Which Big 12 coach would be most likely to do this? Bill Self seems like the obvious answer. Is Jamie Dixon a sleeper pick?

@Stuckey2 You can safely edit out the word semifinal. Doesn’t get better than that. Last with the ball was gonna win. What a game

One of the best semifinal games ever

ISU didn’t play perfectly. Just made shots when it counted and showed the nation their potential. First loss all year where they didn’t totally beat themselves with poor execution. If this is what it takes to beat us when playing even close to our potential, I’ll take it. Next!

@brentblum *also disagree*

@brentblum Yeah disagree. Last year was one miracle 60 footer and this game was incredible shot after another, we were down 5 several times in the last few minutes and kept hitting huge shots, the team with the ball last was going to win this one for sure. Just happened to be them.

Comparing this this team to last year after AZ with Keshon and Tamin’s injuries are not even remotely close. I have 100 percent confidence in this team’s mentally. They will be fine and excited to see.