Events

I'm in Bend, Ore., today, doing nothing of value (except blogging and photographing). I'll have a few photos tomorrow or Monday. My goal for the next several hours is to get 25,000 steps in this perfect weather. (I have sunscreen.)

I went to my first Cubs game tonight after not entering the park for an entire season. As I write this, they're up 8-0 over the Reds going into the 9th. But I'm not there, because I didn't dress appropriately. By the end of the 4th inning my teeth were shivering. It's April; 8°C is not that unusual. I'll be back, when it's warmer. Possibly by then the Cubs won't be in first place anymore. I think it's going to be a weird season.

Pilot Patrick Smith wishes Boeing would update the 40-year-old aircraft instead of pushing the 737 into ungainly configurations: What I think about the 737 is that Boeing took what essentially was a regional jet — the original 737-100 first flew in 1967, and was intended to carry fewer than a hundred passengers — and has pushed, pushed, pushed, pushed, and pushed the thing to the edge of its envelope, through a long series of derivatives, from the -200 through the -900, and now onward to the 737 “MAX.”...

Because no one has actually cleaned up a database of IP address geocodes, a Kansas farmer is getting blamed for all manner of bad behavior on the Internet: As any geography nerd knows, the precise center of the United States is in northern Kansas, near the Nebraska border. Technically, the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates of the center spot are 39°50′N 98°35′W. In digital maps, that number is an ugly one: 39.8333333,-98.585522. So back in 2002, when MaxMind was first choosing the default point...

This is wonderful:

Here we go: Sam the Dog is missing after being launched into the stratosphere; an English primary school is sad. You really can have too much grit. Chicagoist is trying to find the best beer brewed in Chicago. The American Public Transportation Association has decided that public transit agencies can be friends with Lyft and Uber. Via Bruce Schneier, what does the game Werewolf tell us about security? The Ricketts family bought Brixen Ivy last month, so they now own 10 of 16 Wrigley rooftops. Bastards....

Friday went long, so yesterday was pretty quiet. The Apollo Chorus had its annual fund-raiser on Friday. As one of the volunteers, I tagged along to the official after-party, which turned into two subsequent unofficial after-parties, and a completely lazy day yesterday. We should get preliminary results on the total fundraising take by tomorrow's rehearsal. We did get a pretty good haul at the door, and during our "Money Song," which included a challenge grant that got completely used. So, in all, great...

Via Chicagoist, astronaut Tim Kopra snapped this from aboard the International Space Station earlier this week: The city's borders show up brilliantly because unlike most of the surrounding suburbs, Chicago uses sodium-vapor lamps, which glow yellow-orange. But that's changing (including right in my own alley): The Chicago Infrastructure Trust will replace the city's 348,500 outdoor lights with energy-efficient LED technology, according to a statement from City Hall. The Smart Lighting Project is aimed...

The Ph.D. psychologist at Deeply Trivial is participating in the A-Z Blog Challenge this month. She's six posts into a great primer on social psychology, starting with last Friday's Attribution through today's Festinger. The Daily Parker is not doing the A-Z challenge this year because I'm not nearly as disciplined as Deeply Trivial. That, and I'm not clear on a topic that would interest anyone else. Maybe next year.

After a much-warmer-than-normal early March, we've had typical Chicago weather for the first week of April. The Climate Prediction Center still says April might be warmer and drier than normal, but the 6-10 day outlook is just cold. Today it doesn't know what to do. Walking from the train I got sun, snow, pellets, and mist. And it's barely 3°C. So, it really is spring in Chicago, but I'd very much like the week we get (usually in May) when it's warm and sunny. Like we had at the beginning of March.