Events

More Scotland photos. On the 10th, we visited the Lagavulin Distillery. But we got our first look at it from the ferry two days earlier: Up close, from the ruins of Dunyvaig Castle, it looks like this: And for comparison between the LG G6 and the Canon 7D mark II, here's the camera-phone photo I took at about the same time:

At 8:40 CDT on 31 August 2007, I joined Facebook. And then did nothing with it for several days. I didn't add any Facebook friends until September 4th. My first post, on September 5th at 7:43 CDT, was "in Evanston," which makes more sense when you remember that Facebook used to preface every post with "Nerdly McSnood is...". (This was before Facebook allowed public posts, and there doesn't seem to be any way to change the post's privacy, so if you're not Facebook friends with me you probably can't see...

I promised to post photos from Scotland once I had a chance to go through all 800 or so from my 7D, and today, I had a (short) chance. First: the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, where we had breakfast on August 8th: Second, Glenmachrie House, where we stayed: (This is the reverse of the image I posted earlier, about an hour later, and with a real camera and HDR software.) More tomorrow.

I first visited New York in July 1984, stopping by the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the 25th. I took a photograph of Georges de La Tour's "The Fortune Teller," painted sometime between 1620 and 1639: Last month I visited again, on the 23rd—just two days shy of 33 years later: Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, I have tried to get the photos to look as similar as possible. But my LG G6 phone and its 13 Megapixel camera just provides so much more data than the 4 Megapixel scan of the Kodachrome 64 slide...

It took less than a week for two separate entities to challenge President Trump's pardon of racist thug former Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff Joe Arpaio. Via Jennifer Rubin, the Federal judge who convicted Arpaio of criminal content has stopped short of vacating the conviction: Instead she ordered Arpaio and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is prosecuting the case, to file briefs on why she should or shouldn't grant Arpaio's request. Bolton has scheduled oral arguments on the matter for Oct. 4...

Via WGN-TV, the fourth-largest city in the U.S. has received more rain in the last week than Chicago receives in an average year.  Chicago's average annual precipitation is 910 mm. Since last Friday, Houston has gotten 1,070 mm. The wettest year in Houston history (1900) dumped 1,851 mm on it. So far this year, with 4 months left to go, Houston has gotten 1,798 mm. Of course, the odds are pretty good that the city will get another 53 mm of rain before December 31st. We have no idea how bad the damage is...

Today's XKCD: Shameless plug: Inner Drive Technology can help!

Hurricane Harvey has dropped so much rain on Houston that two 1930s-era dams have been overwhelmed for the first time in history: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed Tuesday morning that water was spilling from around the dam gates of the Addicks Reservoir, which has been overwhelmed by extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey. Officials said they expect the Barker Reservoir, to the south of Addicks, to begin overflowing similarly at some point Tuesday. A Harris County Flood Control District...

Walking to work is an easy way to hit my step goal before lunch. It's 6.75 km and 8,500 steps. At just over an hour, it takes only about 20 minutes longer than the bus or 30 minutes longer than the train. The problem is the dewpoint. When I left my house, the temperature was a delightful 19°C...and the dewpoint was a sticky 17°C. By the time I'd gone ten blocks I was already uncomfortable. Note to self: bring a fresh shirt when you walk to work, no matter what the weather looks like.

Articles I haven't got time to read until later: Tropical storm (and former hurricane) Harvey has dumped more rain on Houston than the city has ever seen, and it's still coming down. The Chicago Tribune recaps last night's Game of Throne finale. (I've already read the New York Times, Washington Post, and Vox.) Greg Sargent says President "Trump is dragging us towards a full-blown crisis" which leaves open the question what the ongoing crisis actually was already. On the same topic, James Fallows...