Events

The Economist reports that gun seizures at TSA checkpoints have risen dramatically: TSA agents discovered 68 firearms in travellers’ carry-on bags. That is the most the agency has ever found in a week. Of them, 61 were loaded, and 25 had a round in the chamber, ready to fire. The record probably won’t stand for long. The prior high-water mark for intercepted guns was  set a month earlier, when TSA agents found 67 firearms. As the Washington Post points out, it’s all part of a steady upward trend that...

First, Pabu Izakaya, early Saturday night (pre-party): The inscription reads, "One Time, One Place." Second, yesterday, on approach to Chicago: That's approximately over Devon Ave., on approach to 27R, as I predicted.

The normal high temperature in Chicago on November 2nd is 12°C, which we aleady hit between 7 and 8 am today. Yesterday Chicago got to 22°C at O'Hare and 23°C at Midway, with similar temperatures expected to continue through Thursday. These temperatures make more sense mid-September than at the beginning of November. But we'll take them anyway. Temperatures will go back to normal Friday and Saturday, with frost expected Saturday night.

A G3-class solar storm (i.e., a big one) is predicted to hit the earth tonight, generating category 7 aurorae, which are rarely seen on earth: Auroral activity will be high(++). Weather permitting, highly active auroral displays will be visible overhead from Inuvik, Yellowknife, Rankin and Igaluit, to Portland OR, Cheyenne, Lincoln, Springfield, and New York City, and visible low on the horizon as far south as Carson City, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh. Here's the prediction map from the University of...

Krugman destroys the myth of Job-Killing Obama: And yes, I'm back in Chicago.

We live in an era of ubiquitous, high-speed connectivity. I'm writing this on a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, with all my current documents synchronized with OneDrive, and six browser tabs open on Chrome...on an airplane over Wyoming. I love in-flight WiFi. Sometimes. But right now, with three of my browser tabs spinning endlessly while I wait for them to download, and a Microsoft Excel document taking a few minutes to close (because it's uploading changes to OneDrive), I'm just trying to keep things in...

Now that O'Hare's runway 10R/28L has opened, travelers on flights unlucky enough to land on the new tarmac have reason to be unhappy: The normal taxi route from new runway 10 Right to the gate follows parts of three taxiways to wind around one runway instead of crossing over it, which would create potential collision risks. But the taxi route then requires a turn to directly cross a different runway — staying behind planes that are taking off on that runway — followed by another turn, and then another...

The CBC weighs in on one of this blog's perennial topics: Going by the sun's position in the sky, Saskatchewan should be on mountain time, the same as Alberta. The border city of Lloydminster gets it right and uses mountain time but the rest of Saskatchewan is effectively on daylight time year round, while the province says it's on standard time. Lots of places do the same, and some by more than an hour. And Newfoundland, where the clocks are 30 minutes ahead of the ones in most of Labrador and the rest...

If you live in the parts of the U.S. and Canada that observe Daylight Saving Time, don't forget to move your clocks back an hour tonight. It couldn't come soon enough, though this is the soonest it can come under the 2007 changes to DST observance. This morning's 7:22 sunrise in Chicago is the latest we'll have to endure until next November 1st, but tonight's 5:47 sunset is the latest we'll get to have until March 6th. Tomorrow the sun rises at 6:23 and sets at 4:45, as our available daylight shrinks...

 Seriously, it's like this about 250 days a year: