Events

In about 10 minutes, time will once again stop for just a moment as clocks go from 23:59:59 UTC to 23:59:60 before slipping to midnight: In a bulletin released this summer, the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, or IERS, said it would be necessary to introduce a "leap second" at the end of December. Timekeepers use this added second much as leap years are used — to bring the world's atomic clocks in sync with the Earth's own distinctive rhythm, which in this case is determined...

It's just past midnight in the island nation of Kiritimati (pronounced "Christmas"), which means 2016 has officially ended somewhere in the world. I am overjoyed. I just hope 2017 goes better for everyone, but with the least-qualified person in history about to become President, my hope has limits. Happy new year, central Pacific island states!

I spent an hour and a half this morning dealing with an engine failure light on my car. Since I just got it back from having a repair done yesterday, the warning light ("Engine malfunction! Get to a dealer!") did not make me happy. It turned out, the repair had completed a job started on a sensor wire previously by...rodents. And apparently, I'm not alone: NBC 5 Responds found consumers nationwide who say they’ve experienced rodent-damages wires in several carmaker brands. It’s a problem so widespread...

Even though there are about 58 hours left in the year, I still have work to do. Meanwhile, a few things to read have crossed my RSS feeds: Maybe I should retire to Ecuador? 538.com lists the best and worst data stories of the year. Will President Obama violate previous norms of office to weigh in on the Trump administration's egregious violations of previous norms? One can hope. What's Brexit going to do to London, and vice-versa? OK, back to work.

From the Intertubes: Paul Krugman, "Greed Springs Eternal." What happened to O'Hare Terminal 4? Imagine how much New York's Hell's Kitchen stank in the 1860s. Deeply Trivial has a lot to say about Carrie Fisher's untimely death. 538.org rounds up their 11 favorite stories of 2016 (that they didn't write). There are a bunch of improvements (and fare increases) coming to Chicago's transit network next year. I'll also have some blog entries in January. December seems to have been pretty light.

I didn't spend a lot of time blogging this weekend. Once I have a chance to go through the photos I took in London, I'll post some. (Probably Thursday.)

Yesterday's flight to London took only 6 hours, 37 minutes from wheels-up to landing. That is, in fact, the fastest I've ever gotten from O'Hare to Heathrow, by 8 minutes. I am impressed.

High above the North Atlantic, our hero reads the articles he downloaded before take-off: Releasing to Production the day before a holdiay weekend? No. Just, no. OMFG no. American Airlines just won a lawsuit started by US Airways that opens up competition in airfare consolidation—maybe. Bear with it, because this one article explains a lot of what's wrong with competition in any endeavor today. (I'll find a link to the Economist print article I just read on this topic when I land.) The Washington Post...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the Lake View neighborhood of Chicago has some epic binge drinking: The data looked at the 500 largest cities in the country, split into more than 28,000 smaller areas. Large swaths of Lake View ranked in the top 1 percent for binge drinking nationally in 2014, the most recent year data were available. The CDC estimates that in some parts of Lake View, more than a third of residents are engaged in binge drinking, which is defined as more than five...

So: Hillary Clinton officially won 2.9 million votes over Trump, making her the most popular losing candidate ever. What's this about a supervolcano in Italy? Christmas Day in Chicago will be unusually warm. I won't be here, but when I get back, my car will be out of its snowdrift (I hope). OK, traveling tomorrow, reports as circumstances warrant.