Events

I'm a little busy today, preparing for three different projects even though I can only actually do 1.5 of them. So as is common on days like this, I have a list of things I don't have time to read: Jeff Atwood suggests ways of minimizing online douchery. The Economist Gulliver blog maps how many times French people kiss when greeting each other. Hint: It's more than Americans. Pilot and journalist Jim Fallows explains yesterday's aviation accident outside D.C. involving a helicopter and a small plane....

Cranky Flier, a nerd after my own heart, sees so much missed potential with the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, an airplane that makes its last commercial passenger flight this weekend: This week marks the final commercial flight of the last of the Douglas widebody aircraft. When KLM flight 672 from Montreal touches down in Amsterdam at 635a on Sunday, the era of the trijet in airline service will officially end. I’ll miss the MD-11, but today I’m going to focus on the negative. The MD-11 was a symbol of...

The total lunar eclipse two weeks ago required getting up early in the morning and trying to find the moon through trees and Chicago street lights. Late this afternoon, Chicago (and most of North America to the west) will get a much better show from the moon as it partially obscures the sun. Starting around 16:35 CDT this afternoon, the moon will creep in front of the sun, reaching maximum eclipse right at sunset (17:59 CDT). Of course, this being Chicago, and despite the crystal-clear blue skies above...

This is pretty alarming: A gunman has been shot and killed inside Parliament Hill’s Centre Block and police are swarming over downtown Ottawa hunting for other possible suspects after several shootings Wednesday morning — including one at the War Memorial that wounded a soldier and another near the Rideau Centre mall. The War Memorial shooting occurred just before 10 a.m., and the shooter then apparently drove to the gates of Parliament Hill and ran inside the buildings. A witness also reported that...

After getting pounded by Uber and Lyft, Hailo has pulled out of its North American markets: Tom Barr, co-chief executive and president, said Hailo would concentrate on markets in Europe and Asia and enhanced products such as payment technology and a "concierge" service. "In the next phase of our growth, we have decided to put all of our energy and resources into these areas," Barr said in a statement to AFP on Wednesday. "We have therefore decided to end our operations in North America, where the...

Waiting at Heathrow for the flight home has only one consolation: the lounge and its open bar. Still, I've just spent four days doing essentially all of my favorite things to do in London, so it's a little melancholic being back at the airport. I also didn't take a lot of photos. Once I'm back in Chicago and can tell what time of day it is (tomorrow, most likely), I'll extract them from my phone. Regular blog postings should resume in the morning.

And still in London. Postings should resume tomorrow.

This is only my 7th time at O'Hare in the past month, but since two of those times were yesterday and the day before, it feels like I just never left. Today, though, I'm going to the Ancestral Homeland. That makes it all better. Well, almost. I mean, it's still O'Hare. And Heathrow isn't exactly the jewel in the British crown, either. And so far this week I've flown the equivalent of a trans-Atlantic trip already. No matter. Boarding in 20 minutes; dinner in London tonight. Mustn't grumble.

The New Republic today looks into the Mormon practice of baptizing dead people, and the church's related efforts to preserve genealogical information: “The core concept of why this church cares so much about genealogy stems back to the notion that families can be eternal organizations past death,” [Jay] Verkler, [CEO of Family Search, the Mormon organization that manages the vault's records and promotes genealogy throughout the world], explained. “Members of the church seek out their ancestors because...

Ubiquitous WiFi is of the benefits of flying on American's new 737-800s, especially on 4-hour flights between the West Coast and Chicago. And early-morning flights have a large proportion of business travelers. So imagine the collective despair of all the laptop-toting worker bees on my flight this morning when the entire entertainment system (which includes WiFi) was dark and inert. Then, suddenly, the entertainment system rose like Frankenstein's monster and a wild hope leapt into our hearts. Yes! We...