Events

I really, really like the Original Pronunciation movement started by David and Ben Crystal. Through analysis and performance, they're trying to understand Shakespeare's plays as audiences 400 years ago would have understood them. The Crystals are back in the news with the upcoming publication of the Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation this June. The Atlantic has the story: It’s a book, a guide to Shakespeare’s first folio, that Crystal has been working on for 12 years (on and off...

I'm leaving Harold Washington in a few minutes, now that I've caught up on some reading: Clancy Martin attempted to explain the martyr-like appeal of Ted Cruz. Deeply Trivial, who writes survey questions as part of her job, explained why she doesn't take surveys. Via Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, the University of Arizona outlined some new data linking sunspots, shipwrecks, tree trunks, and hurricanes. Suzy Khimm described the return of the pillory—via Internet, of course—as a tactic of some public...

I have a couple hours to kill in the Loop after having lunch with a friend. I don't really want caffeine or alcohol right now, which rules out the two classes of places to where I would most likely go. Then I remembered: there's a great big library here. And yep, it looks like a library on the inside: shelves full of books, people reading, literary quotes on the walls, free WiFi. OK, that last bit isn't something I remember from the 1980s, but everything else is. They even have a shelf full of phone...

In between four rehearsals and two performances this week (Monday through Sunday), I'm taking tonight off. So while I have a minute or two between helping new developers understand some old code, I'm jotting down this list of things that looked particularly appealing when they came up on RSS feeds: Citylab explores cities that use numbers for both streets and avenues. They also wonder why America hates roundabouts. New Republic reassures Republicans that it's OK to burn down their own party, and...

The Chicago Transit Authority has concluded a deal worth up to $1.4 bn for 850 new rail cars: The CTA’s board Wednesday approved the largest single purchase of rapid transit cars in Chicago history, giving the contract to a Chinese rail manufacturer that has promised to build a final assembly plant on the city’s Far South Side. CTA officials said riders will see several major improvements when the prototype 7000-series cars arrive in late 2019. There will be full-width on-board LED screens capable of...

Yesterday's temperature at O'Hare got up to 21°C, which we last hit on November 5th, and is the normal temperature for May 15th. It was quite a lovely day, in fact. Tom Skilling pointed out that this was the earliest 21°C day in 16 years, and was 3 weeks earlier than the average date of its first occurrence based on 145 years of data. I tried, I really tried, to hit 30,000 steps, but...well: Crap. I missed 30,000 by 225 steps, and missed my record by only 721: 2015 Apr 26 30,496 2016 Mar 8 29,775 2015...

Man, I have missed this: I had lunch with a friend here at the Duke today (and I walked, getting me to 15,000 before noon), so why not stay and write some documentation? I've also decided on a new rule. I gave up beer for February because I think there's a correlation between me drinking beer and me staying consistently 3 kg over my target. Well, not much changed, and I missed beer, so my New Rule is that I can have one beer per 10,000 steps (or fraction thereof). And I think I'll aggregate this over...

Yesterday's 17.2°C temperature at O'Hare was the warmest since it was 17.8°C on November 15th. It might not get warmer than that, but who cares, because it that's plenty warm for early March. 17.8°C is Chicago's normal temperature for April 29th; the normal for March 8th is 6.1°C. That's the good news. The better news is that working from home means Parker is working napping from home as well. And we just got back from an 80-minute, 8.1-km walk, his longest in (no surprise) even more months. Now the bad...

Think Progress grinds through the history of Trump Steaks™: Reporters from Home magazine, Gourmet magazine, People, New York Daily News, and Every Day with Rachael Ray showed up to the launch, which featured speeches by both Levin and Trump. Trump took the opportunity to boast of the steaks’ quality, telling reporters that the product was going to be a boon for the company, equivalent to Trump Vodka, which had launched just a year earlier. The steaks were only available for mail order, and ranged from...

Not surprisingly, he behaves like a dick: Though Trump is pitching himself to voters as a dealmaker who wins, the 12-year drama of the Trump International Hotel & Tower offers a more complicated narrative. While it reinforces his preferred image as a bold risk-taker and consummate salesman, it underscores his darker reputation as a bullying businessman willing to back out of deals and trash the competition when it's convenient. And that big TRUMP sign on the front of the building fits perfectly with the...