Events

I stopped in to my new company today and started unpacking boxes. It's coming together:

Just in time for Christmas travel, I got three links from one Daily Parker reader over the last 24 hours: Marissa Mayer isn't Steve Jobs. Yes, the 113th Congress was objectively the worst ever. The Interview isn't the first time Hollywood has caved on censorship. And yes, today is cloudy. Again.

If you live in Chicago, your gloominess may have something to do with the cloudiest December in 39 years: The full month [of December 1975] managed just 19% of its possible sun that year–the same lackluster sunshine allotment on the books in 2014 as we move the final days of December. Failure to boost that pitifully limited tally between now and the month’s close at midnight this coming Wednesday, would put the Chicago area in line for a possible new record. There have been cloudier months. Our veteran...

I've gotten an offer I couldn't refuse. Starting January 5th, I'll be the Chief Technology Officer of Holden International. Holden has a deep technology strategy for 2015 and beyond. As the guy who (with 10th Magnitude) developed a good hunk of their existing technology, they had me as their first choice for this new role. I'm beyond excited to be working with them again. It's kind of weird to be leaving West Monroe Partners after such a short tenure. Really, I can't think of better circumstances for my...

Major announcement coming this afternoon. While prepping for that, however, I have cued up more things to read and one to watch: The Times revisits John Hughes locations in and around Chicago. Surprising no one, a study has found that Chicago's red light cameras don't make us safer. But they do generate revenue for the city. Crain's reviews the biggest Chicago architecture stories of 2014. And I found this classic Margo Guryan tune from 1968 that I can't get out of my head:

The trouble with holiday parties on Wednesday is that you have to function on Thursday. So, to spare my brain from having to do anything other than the work-related things its already got to do, here are things I will read later: Dick Cheney is a monster. Police subterfuge is a security problem, and can have very bad unintended consequences. There are some new improvements in Microsoft Azure automation. Our policy on Cuba, which the president just ended, was colossally stupid. Chicago's winter may not...

After 38 years of publication, Dr. Dobbs is shutting down: Why would a well-known site, dearly loved by its readers and coming off a year of record page views, be sunset by its owner? In one word, revenue. Four years ago, when I came to Dr. Dobb's, we had healthy profits and revenue, almost all of it from advertising. Despite our excellent growth on the editorial side, our revenue declined such that today it's barely 30% of what it was when I started. While some of this drop is undoubtedly due to...

Finally, after 50 years of stupidity: The United States intends to open an official embassy in Cuba in the coming months, the White House announced Wednesday, part of a broader normalizing of diplomatic relations after the countries exchanged prisoners. The White House said that Obama would order Secretary of State John Kerry to begin discussions with Cuban officials on re-establishing diplomatic relations and high-level discussions and visits between the countries are expected to follow. The opening of...

What happens when you're a talking head and your mom calls into your show? The Woodhouse brothers are on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Brad is a Democratic operative who helps run the super PAC American Bridge and Dallas, by contrast, is a Republican who helps run the conservative Carolina Rising. The were on C-SPAN to talk about their documentary, Woodhouse Divided, when their mother called in. Hilarity ensued:

Very busy today; less so the rest of the week. So after I'm done with this deliverable today I'll read these: Wow, the Bears suck ass. Wait, yak poop is a problem? Oy, NASA spent $349m on a project after the project was cancelled. Heh, politicians sometimes lie. Cool, the space L2O is leaving next month will reopen quickly with a rotating-chef concept. Yo, come hear The Messiah on Saturday. Back to the mines...