Events

I'm at the—no kidding—state fair. It's warm. And way outside my normal life. But I did see the butter cow, so it's worth the trip. Full report tomorrow.

Via IFLS, the Independent reported yesterday that the Prime Meridian is not at 0°W: Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world descend on the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to pose for a photograph astride the Prime Meridian, the famous line which divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the earth. There is just one problem: according to modern GPS systems, the line actually lies more than 100 metres to the east, cutting across a nondescript footpath in Greenwich Park...

It's so depressing sometimes, living in the Greatest City in North America and realizing that we have the worst pension system in the country: The city of Chicago is the local government most burdened by unfunded retirement plans in the nation, with a pension debt that's more than eight times annual revenues, according to a new study by Moody's Investors Service. The city's unfunded pension obligations total $29.80 billion, based on a three-year average calculated by Moody's. That is 15.9 percent of its...

I go through Heathrow often enough that this pisses me off: To the anger of many travellers, some airport concessions have been reclaiming taxes on purchases for consumption outside the European Union (EU) rather than passing the saving onto the shopper. The wheeze is simple. When you line up with your sandwich, suncream and bottled water, checkout operators ask to scan your boarding pass. If it is for travel within the EU then the VAT, or sales tax, goes to the government. If it is for travel outside...

No matter what it's called, or how it's ranked, it's still the tallest building around:

Crain's Chicago Business has done a yeoman's job investigating the Illinois pensions crisis. Today's installment digs into how it happened: A dense, 78-page bill aimed in part at curbing pension abuses in downstate and suburban school systems landed in lawmakers' laps two days before their scheduled May adjournment [in 2005]. One sponsor called it the first “meaningful” reform in 40 years, a reversal of “decades of neglect and bad decisions.” Another predicted that it could save the state up to $35...

New Zealand is voting over the next year to replace its national flag: It’s not everyday that a nation chooses a new flag by its own volition, with the support of the voters, without any drastic regime changes. New Zealand is doing exactly that. With the Flag Consideration Project, the Kiwis are trying on a new look. In an open letter to the peoples of New Zealand, the panel for the Flag Consideration Project introduced 40 finalist designs for an all-new flag. Voters will decide what happens next in two...

For my upcoming trip to London I have once again planned a trip to West Sussex. I last visited six years ago this week, and walked along the River Arun and through the village of Amberley before refreshing at The Bridge Inn and heading back to London. For just £13 I've booked a train not to Amberley, but one stop further, to Arundel, on my birthday. The plan is to walk through the village, past Arundel Castle, and then on various footpaths up the River Arun to Amberley and, yes, the Bridge Inn. Wow, I...

Problem: my keyboard suddenly wouldn't respond to the left-shift, enter, 3 or F5 keys. No idea why this is. Tested with mskey.exe, tested on another machine...still those four keys aren't working. Solution: Get a new keyboard. Walk 10 minutes to Staples, find the same make and model, buy it, return to office. New problem: New keyboard's spacebar is broken. When I say "rinse and repeat" I mean that when heading back from Staples—this is the Chicago Loop, so one walks everywhere—it started to rain. Which...

The three-month period ending July 31st was the wettest in Illinois history: Illinois experienced its wettest May – July on record with 500 mm of precipitation, 200 mm above the 20th century average, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Most of that was due to the record precipitation of June with 240 mm statewide, based on their latest numbers and discussed in more detail here. That is about an extra two months of precipitation during that three-month period. Factors include...