Events

Via Fallows, video of a small plane ditching in the South Pacific with no injuries: Fallows explains: On yesterday's flight, the pilot discovered that a valve from the extra fuel tanks was jammed or broken. So he was fated to run out of gas before reaching Hawaii. After several hours of debugging and discussion with his flight-managers by radio, as the fuel level dwindled he decided to fly as close as possible to a cruise ship (which was alerted) and then pull the Cirrus's unique whole-airplane...

The Northeastern U.S. is bracing for what the National Weather Service calls "a storm of historic proportions:" Snow accumulations of around 500-750 mm with locally higher amounts [are forecast]. Snowfall rates of 50-100 mm an hour at times. A blizzard warning is issued when sustained winds or frequent gusts over 56 km/h are expected with considerable falling and/or blowing and drifting snow. Visibilities will become poor with whiteout conditions at times. those venturing outdoors may become lost or...

Duke Basketball coach Mike "Coach K" Krzyzweski won his 1,000th Division 1 game yesterday: Mike Krzyzewski earned his 1,000th career win Sunday, making him the first NCAA Division I men's coach to reach the milestone, when No. 5 Duke surged past St. John's in the second half for a 77-68 victory at Madison Square Garden. When the final horn sounded, Blue Devils players engulfed Krzyzewski and he received a bear hug from assistant Jeff Capel. Photographers swarmed the coach on the court, and players were...

In other news, American Airlines took delivery of its first Boeing 787-8 yesterday: The airplane, N800AN, is scheduled to leave Paine Field at 10 a.m. and arrive at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport at 4:21 p.m.. It’ll be parked at an American hangar there. “Once the plane arrives, the Tech Ops team at our DWH maintenance base at DFW will begin the acceptance process and prepare the airplane for flight training and other readiness activities, including putting the final touches on the interior and...

The powerful New York State Assembly Speaker surrendered to the FBI yesterday: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver used his office to mask millions of dollars in “bribes and kickbacks” as legitimate outside income from two private law firms over more than a decade, according to a bombshell 35-page criminal complaint filed by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara today. The five-count complaint on charges of wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy, and extortion outlines two schemes Mr. Silver used to leverage his official...

On Tuesday of this week, Elan Lee, Matthew Inman ("The Oatmeal"), and Shane Small launched a Kickstarter for their new game "Exploding Kittens." As of last night, it's the 22nd-most funded campaign ever with over $3.3m in pledges from over 84,000 backers (including me). Well done, guys. I'm looking forward to getting my set (with the NSFW pack) sometime this summer. Inman previously used Kickstarter to fund the Tesla Museum on Long Island. Eat it, Charles Schultz.

The Economist has a new Big Mac Index out today, reflecting the gyrations in currency exchange rates that will (I hope) make my trip to Berlin next month a lot less expensive: The Economist whipped up the Big Mac index in 1986 as a bun-loving way of explaining currencies’ relative values. It is based on the theory of purchasing-power parity, which posits that over the long run, currencies should adjust so that a basket of identical goods costs the same everywhere. We fill our basket with just one item...

Today is the last day the CTA will run 1970s-era trains from the 2400 Series: With their traverse-style seating, return to sliding doors and bicentennial trim, Chicago Transit Authority’s 2400-series rail cars proved popular with riders when they first debuted in 1976. CTA also got more than their money’s worth from the 200 cars they ordered from Boeing-Vertol, as they were only phased out of use once CTA began adding the Bombardier 5000-series rail cars to its fleet. Over the next four decades the...

Yep. Pretty dreary today: At least it's above freezing.

Interesting things to read: Climate change deniers, take note: even though 2014 was really cold in part of the U.S., it was still the warmest year ever worldwide. Two posts on the Microsoft Azure blog: how to add auto-complete suggestions using Azure Search, and how to tune Azure DocumentDB performance. Could airlines start giving landing preference to their own high-value flights? Chicagoist has their best brunches list up. Yum. We might start using JetBrains TeamCity for continuous integration. More...