Events

I was here until 7:30 last night and would probably stay that late tonight if I didn't have a prior commitment. At least last night I got to see this: At least I've isolated the code causing the problem. Unfortunately it's one of the most-called methods in the application. Sigh.

Chip-and-PIN cards have ruled Europe for almost 10 years, because (a) they reduce fraud that (b) customers are liable for over there. In the U.S., where banks are liable, consumers haven't pushed as hard for the security measure, so it's rare. I've had a chipped card for two years now but even my bank hasn't gone the whole way to requiring PINs for purchases with it. Chase, however, has had enough, and has decided to issue them to everyone: Chip cards have significantly cut into fraud globally. For...

I was going to write a couple of entries today on various topics, but then this happened in production: That's a production database getting overloaded. I am now going to continue debugging it.

The Trib expects noise complaints to take off: The Federal Aviation Administration is expected within the next four months to release a preliminary report based on thousands of computer-generated flight simulations involving what will become O'Hare's fifth east-west runway and a subsequent runway that the city plans to open in 2020. All this work, however, might not bring relief after a record year for O'Hare jet noise complaints. The simulations are aimed in part at finding the best way to squeeze in...

I mean, yes:

The New York Times has the story: Mrs. Clinton is expected to begin her campaign with a video message on social media, followed by a visit to important early-primary states next week, said two people briefed on her plans. But for all the attention paid to how Mrs. Clinton would reveal her 2016 candidacy, little has been said about her reasons for mounting another presidential bid. Her campaign rollout is expected to provide voters, particularly users of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, a...

The Inner Drive Extensible Architecture (IDEA) is now on NuGet.org. This means anyone, anywhere can download it and install it into their own .NET project. I'll publish the Inner Drive Azure Tools at some point after I figure out a cool acronym. This was actually forced on me by a new requirement to share the code with overseas partners. They would be unable to use the software I wrote for work if I hadn't done this.

Sometime Tuesday or Wednesday I hit 2 million steps since October 23rd. Unfortunately, a combination of weather and talkative sales people on Wednesday prevented me from getting my 10,000 steps that day. Otherwise I've hit that goal 64 times this year, averaging 11,750 steps per day since January 1st—going up to 13,400 steps per day in the last 30. I've also lost 3.7 kg this year, stabilizing right around my target weight three weeks ago. I realize this is old news, but I'm really jazzed how some simple...

My to-do list today only has 14 items on it, of which 6 are checked off already. The actual time it will take to accomplish the remaining eight items varies between 20 minutes (laundry, tonight, essentially a fire-and-forget activity) and four hours (Staging release of the Holden Adaptive Platform). So, once again, I'm going to shove a bunch of articles to my Kindle: Within a 10-minute walk from my house is a mausoleum built in 1858 that the city didn't move when it created Lincoln Park. Virgin America...

It looks like I went .500 yesterday in voting for mayor and alderman. Rahm Emanuel won his runoff against Chuy Garcia: With near-complete totals in, Emanuel had just under 56 percent of the vote, narrowly topping the 55.28 percent he received four years ago in first winning the office. He had 315,545 votes to 250,773 for Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, who got enough in February to force Emanuel to a runoff. Emanuel's 55.72 percent of the vote may rise slightly in coming days as thousands...