Events

Eurozone economic stagnation has beaten up the currency this week; Krugman explains how it might affect us: [T]he main driver [in the euro's fall] is the perception of permanent, or at any rate very long term European weakness. And that’s a situation in which Europe’s weakness will be largely shared with the rest of the world — Europe will have its fall cushioned by trade surpluses, but the rest of us will be dragged down by the counterpart deficits. Now, this is not how most analysts approach the...

Rebecca Leber at New Republic states the obvious: The phrase, “believe in climate change” returns almost a quarter-million Google results. As McCarthy said, science is neither a faith nor a religion, yet the term belief pervades media and politics. Why do advocates so consistently play along with the climate-change-denier narrative? Conservatives have long drawn comparisons between climate change science and a fervent religion. A 2013 National Review column articulated the parallels thus: “Religion has...

Business lunch, business dinner, 8:30am call, 1:30pm call—and right now, six minutes to click "Send to Kindle:" From WaPo: "How parents create narcissistic children" Also from WaPo: "Threatened by climate change, Florida reportedly bans term ‘climate change’" From Cranky Flier: "Why Improving Elite SkyMiles Earning Requires Delta to Get Even More Complex" (aviation nerd alert) From the L.A. Times: "Saved from Dumpster: Amazing map collection makes librarians tingle" From the Daily WTF: "The Lockdown"...

Paul Krugman explains: [W]hat fitness devices do, at least for me, is make it harder to lie to myself. And that’s crucial. It’s all too easy to convince yourself that you’ve done enough walking, that shuffling around filing books is a pretty good workout, that you only miss exercise once a week or so — OK, maybe twice. But there’s your Fitbit telling you that you only walked 6000 steps and burned 1800 calories yesterday, that you only did serious exercise three days last week. You might say that the...

People who have read The Daily Parker know I have strong feelings about Le Corbusier, the French architect who nearly destroyed central Paris and who designed the vertical slums that packed in impoverished Americans like cattle. So I found it interesting when I received this email: I saw that you were interested in Le Corbusier when I stumbled upon your page - www.thedailyparker.com/PermaLink,guid,a36518c4-5f44-4e64-813a-2a9c08ef9c9d.aspx By happenstance, I’ve been working on something that you might...

Via Jeff Atwood, this is very cool: Algorithms are a fascinating use case for visualization. To visualize an algorithm, we don’t merely fit data to a chart; there is no primary dataset. Instead there are logical rules that describe behavior. This may be why algorithm visualizations are so unusual, as designers experiment with novel forms to better communicate. This is reason enough to study them. But algorithms are also a reminder that visualization is more than a tool for finding patterns in data....

Six and half hours at Rockefeller Chapel, a Euchre tournament (my first—middle of the pack), a dinner party, and yet more rehearsals for an April performance all left my weekend kind of full. Somehow I managed to walk Parker enough times and to do laundry. So, good weekend, full weekend, not exactly the Daily Parker's finest hour. Regular posting will resume presently.

Following up on the previous post, this is what my bus stop looked like at 7:45 this morning: Yes, it's pretty, but we're really over it already.

Tom Skilling started his Explainer column today by depressing the hell out of me: Chicagoans haven’t seen a temp above 8°C since late December. And a reading of 12°C or higher has been a no-show here since Nov 11th when the mercury last made it to 14°C. As if that’s not been bad enough, the city’s sat beneath a cover of snow that’s been at least 125 mm deep since Feb. 1—a run which moves into a 34th consecutive day Friday. Thursday’s bone-chilling and unseasonable -9°C high–a reading 14°C below normal...

Since the middle of August, before I got my Fitbit but after my Android phone started tracking my steps, I've lost 7.6 kg, finally hitting my goal yesterday. This morning I was only slightly above the goal; and also for the last three weeks I've been barely creeping towards it; so I figure this might be permanent. I only made two adjustments that I'm aware of: one, I pretty much stopped drinking beer in favor of other things; and two, I'm much more likely now to make detours that add walking distance to...