Events

Every day that I'm in my office (about 3-4 times per week), I take a photo out the window. Here's today's: We're on the 35th floor of Willis Tower. But we have access to the 66th floor lobby, so on really clear days I'll sometimes post something like this:

Members of the Apollo Chorus backed up Josh Groban at Northerly Island last night. I wish they'd been on stage longer, especially after they sweltered all day without air conditioning backstage. Sarah McLachlan was one of the opening acts, and the weather, once it cooled down, was superb:

The world's most recent nuclear attack on 9 August 1945 immediately springs to mind, as does Richard Nixon's resignatoin on 9 August 1973. But 9 August 1991 may be almost as important: On this day 25 years ago the world's first website went live to the public. The site, created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, was a basic text page with hyperlinked words that connected to other pages. Berners-Lee used the public launch to outline his plan for the service, which would come to dominate life in the twenty-first...

We had nearly-perfect weather this past weekend, so I'm just dumping a bunch of links right now while I catch up with work: Foursquare reports that Trump's presidential campaign is really, really hurting his businesses. Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field (the minor-league park on the South Side) will be getting more events now they've worked out a deal with the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority. Wired reports on how scary-easy it is to hack electronic voting machines. Paul Krugman puts out the economic...

What can I say? I have nerdy friends. Also the weather forecast for the Faire calls for sunny skies and 26°C—damn close to perfect. Only question is, should I bring my real camera?

Fifty years ago today, the Beatles released Revolver: [I]n their spare time, the Beatles make the greatest rock album ever, Revolver, released on August 5th, 1966 – an album so far ahead of its time, the world is still catching up with it 50 years later. This is where the Beatles jumped into a whole new future – where they truly became the tomorrow that never knows. Revolver is all about the pleasure of being Beatles, from the period when they still thrived on each other's company. Given the acrimony...

Voters in Kansas yesterday called borderline-crazy Tea Partier Tim Huelskamp home from the U.S. House: Frustrated voters in a sprawling Kansas congressional district sent a blunt message on Tuesday that might yet break through the din of this election: At some point the government needs to do something for them. That sentiment was delivered in the harshest possible terms to Representative Tim Huelskamp, a firebrand Tea Party conservative who lost in a primary landslide after spending most of his six...

Yet another reporter stumbles upon the Dunning-Krueger effect (though without naming it) to explain Trump's stumbles upon the body politic. Meanwhile, some Republicans are finally distancing themselves from him, but in a way that makes them look even more craven than they already looked. It's even looking like they know they've made a huge mistake. Maybe. And even though his balloon is on fire, he's already starting to blame "them" for "fixing" the general election. Via Schneier, the NIST no longer...

I thought earlier today that this was unique. James Fallows, who knows more about the presidency than most living journalists, agrees: To the best of my knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened before. Presidents of one party call nominees from the other party “bad choices” or “wrong for America” or “risky bets” or in some other way second-best options to their own preferred candidate. As far as I am aware, none of them has previously declared a major-party nominee categorically unfit. Again we...

President Obama yesterday called Donald Trump "woefully unprepared" and "unfit" to be president: During a press conference at the White House with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Obama posed the question to the Republican Party: "If you are repeatedly having to say what Trump says is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?" "The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn't appear to have...