Events

On Tuesday, a Federal judge in Chicago dismissed with prejudice a case against Zillow that alleged its "Zestimates" made houses harder to sell: In the suit, first filed in May, Glenview homeowner and attorney Barbara Andersen alleged that the estimates Zillow posts with for-sale listings essentially act like an appraisal of exact market value. Under Illinois law, only licensed appraisers can issue an appraisal. Andersen's suit alleges Zillow is engaging in illegal practices. Not so, U.S. District Judge...

Via Bruce Schneier, an essay on how the fact that something appears in nature means it can exist, and what this means for military robots: In each of the [Planet Earth II] documentary’s profiles of monkeys, birds, and lizards, I saw what technologists refer to as an “existence proof.” Existence proofs are the simplest way to resolve an argument about what is technologically possible. Before 1900, people argued whether building a human-carrying powered airplane was possible. In 1903, the Wright Brothers...

It's hard to overstate how bad this is. Via Bruce Schneier, it turns out that the Swedish Transport Ministry outsourced its database hosting to IBM, which subcontracted the work to a Serbian company with ties to the Russian military. And what databases did Sweden wind up hosting in its "Cloud" facility in Serbia? All of them: Part of what IBM contracted to was run, and which was run from Serbia, was the Swedish government’s secure intranet – the SGSI, the Secure Government Swedish Intranet. This network...

...to your whisky: [A]dding water releases molecules that improve the flavor. Water and ethanol don’t make for a perfectly uniform mixture. Aromatic compounds could become trapped in ethanol clusters and never reach the surface. Our tongues are only capable of identifying the flavors, sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and umami (savory), so aroma is really important for detecting all the other flavors that connoisseurs appreciate in whiskey. Guaiacol is what gives whiskey that smoky, spicy, peaty flavor....

The organization will no longer defend armed hate groups: The change in policy followed the ACLU of Virginia’s decision to file suit to ensure that an assortment of white supremacist groups could hold the now-notorious “Unite the Right” rally earlier this month in Charlottesville’s Emancipation Park. While the ACLU wasn’t responsible for the fatal violence that ensued, the entire organization was convulsed in the fallout. One ACLU of Virginia board member resigned in protest. In a historic gesture...

I'm back home, and I've shoved all the Scotland photos out of the way so I could post this: I didn't notice until I processed the photos from my 7D, but there are two solar storms visible: one at about 3 o'clock and the other, fainter one at about 1 o'clock. We're already looking into a vacation in Chile in the summer of 2019...

I'm in Wildwood, Mo., where I saw my first total eclipse of the sun. It was well worth the trip. I'll have at least one photo when I'm back home tomorrow. (We stayed an extra day because of traffic.)

...the United States launched a space probe that is now one of the three fastest-moving and farthest human-made objects in the universe. Voyager 2 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 9:29 CDT on 20 August 1977. As of today it's about 115 AUs (1.72×1010 km) from Earth, moving about 15.4 km/s or 55,000 km/h away from the sun. It's still alive. NASA expects the probe to continue transmitting from interstellar space for at least another 7 years, by which time it may be able to sample the...

I'm heading to Missouri tomorrow to get into position for Monday's eclipse. Since Springfield is on the way, I spent the day at the Illinois State Fair. Again. So, naturally, we had to make a pilgrimage to the butter cow: No idea what we're doing tomorrow, but Monday we'll be standing in a parking lot with our eclipse glasses on. And sweating. It's warm out there.

Example of why, from last Saturday: