Events

January 3rd is one of my favorite days of the year in astronomy, because it's the day that the northern hemisphere has its latest sunrise of the winter. This morning in Chicago, the sun rose at 7:19 (though it rose behind a thick rainy overcast), just a few seconds later than it rose yesterday. But tomorrow it will rise just a few seconds earlier, then a few more, until by the end of January it'll rise more than a minute earlier each day. Meanwhile, thanks to the eccentricity of our orbit around the...

Welcome to another of my annual traditions: the stats dump. In 2016: Traveling was way, way down over previous years. I only visited one foreign country (the UK) and took only 15 flights all year. That amounted to only 42,588 km, not enough to re-qualify for Platinum status for the first time since 2008. The Daily Parker had only 459 posts, down from 2015's 493, and the lowest since 2010. I was really, really busy this year. Posting suffered. Parker got 211 hours of walks, up 62 from 2015. So he did not...

The 2017 Chicago sunrise chart is now available. Share and enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2017 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:10 19 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:39 17:30 10:48 26 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:07 11 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 16th Earliest sunset until Oct 26th 06:09 17:54 11:44 12 Mar Daylight saving time...

Via Deeply Trivial, this:

With the passing of midnight just a few moments ago in Samoa, the world has officially and completely moved into 2017. Whew.

2016 has officially ended here in Chicago. About fucking time.

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...