Events

After announcing yesterday that Sears will close its oldest retail store in the U.S. in the wake of a $1.13 bn loss last year, CEO Eddie Lampert told investors that he intends to return the chain to profitability in five years. Apparently their loyalty program is the problem: Shop Your Way members sign up to receive coupons, and free shipping, and earn points that can be converted into dollars. Membership also provides access to a “social commerce” community on shopyourway.com that lets shoppers see...

This is Sears, Roebuck & Co.'s very first brick-and-mortar store, located just a few blocks from my house: The store opened in November 1925, and is closing this summer, as a consequence of Eddie Lampert's rape and involuntary homicide of the company. Our local NPR affiliate, WBEZ, has the complete story.

A feature film based on a wicked creepy Neil Gaiman story from his anthology "Fragile Things" will be released later this year: Director John Cameron Mitchell brings Elle Fanning and Nicole Kidman to a seedy east London location for his latest feature, a punk-alien love story. [He] looks to be in his element. It is December 2015 and he is on an industrial site in Wapping, east London, surrounded by aliens, punks and Nicole Kidman in a spiky white wig. The US actor-writer-director is instructing...

Canadian brothers Tim and Alex Foley discovered that their parents were spies for the Russian SVR when the FBI raided their house on 27 June 2010: [T]he FBI had not made a mistake, and the truth was so outlandish, it defied comprehension. Not only were their parents indeed Russian spies, they were Russians. The man and woman the boys knew as Mom and Dad really were their parents, but their names were not Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley. Those were Canadians who had died long ago, as children; their...

Via Daily Kos, the President gave the commencement address at Howard University Saturday, giving a clear rebuke to Bernie Sanders' central message throughout: The president was not attacking Sanders’ ideology of fairness. But he was clearly separating himself from Sanders’ dogmatic insistence on revolutionary transformation. If you want to make life fair, then you have to start with the world as it is. The balance between idealism and pragmatism was clearly at the forefront of the president’s mind....

With two performances and two rehearsals over the weekend, I didn't have any time to post. I also didn't have as much time as I wanted to walk, though I did manage 20,249 steps for the weekend. (That was a little disappointing, especially because yesterday's weather was perfect for being outside.) Meanwhile, the chorus have finally put up videos of our April fundraiser. So, yeah, we did this: I'll leave finding videos of me holding a puppet as an exercise for the reader.

Last night, the Colorado Rockies beat the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park 17-7, scoring 13 runs on 9 hits in the 5th: For 37 long minutes in one-half inning Thursday, the Rockies sent 17 batters to the plate against the Giants at AT&T Park, starting with Trevor Story's home run and ending with DJ LeMahieu's groundout in the top of the fifth. In between, the Rockies collected four doubles, five singles, two errors, one walk, one hit-by-pitch — and 13 runs. They shattered records. Nevermind Coors Field....

Yesterday I mentioned in passing that Illinois State and Chicago police chased a murder suspect pretty much right past my apartment Wednesday night. Both local newspapers have updated stories today. The Tribune has an interactive map and audio from the CPD. The Sun-Times reports that one of my neighbors, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, wants to know (a) why the chase was a chase and (b) how the suspect got away: “There’s a question there. At the end of the day, the [suspect in] the homicide in Lombard, driving...

Despite being a long-term .NET guy, and despite thinking Java has lagged significantly in language features and power over the years, and despite the ludicrous claim that .NET isn't portable, I laughed very hard at this Norwegian video:

Some articles: Security analyst Julian Sanchez points out that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is totally wrong when she says Apple using the legal process to oppose a subpoena puts them "above the law." Crain's columnist Joe Cahill points out that outgoing United CEO Jeff Smisek's $36m golden parachute "exposes the hollowness of the 'pay-for-performance' rhetoric so many companies spout." The Atlantic's CityLab blog points out that Jane Jacobs (whose 100th birthday was this week), looking at urban...