Events

Last night HBO aired the series finale of Game of Thrones, the TV adaptation (and extension of) George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire. After 73 episodes, perhaps a quarter-million deaths, and 4 years of screen time expanded over 9 years of our time, what have we got? I think we've got two distinctly different shows, and the second of them, starting with the 6th season, was distinctly less satisfying than the first. I'm not alone. Here are just a few of the critics on last night's finale: Spencer...

Yesterday evening, I needed to wear earmuffs and gloves when walking Parker because of the 7°C weather. Yes, it's the middle of May, but we've had a really screwy spring this year. Today I don't need gloves. Our official temperature bloomed from 8°C to 26°C in the past six hours. Even close to the lake, where I live, it's already warmer outside than inside—and I had the heat on briefly this morning! Today the forecast looks hot and humid, before temperatures plunge again Sunday night. Then hot again...

Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei died yesterday. He was 102. Internet sensation Grumpy Cat died Tuesday. She was 7. Comedic genius Tim Conway also died Tuesday. He was 85.

Federal judge Amit Mehta could not believe the arguments the president's lawyer, William Consovoy, made on Monday: Consovoy, a beefy former law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas, offered two related points: (A) Congress can’t issue a subpoena or otherwise probe a president unless it is doing so for a “legitimate legislative purpose.” (B) Any “legitimate legislative purpose” Congress could conceivably devise would be unconstitutional. As a result, Consovoy argued, Congress can’t investigate to see if a...

Though we'll probably talk about this week's news out of Mauna Loa for many years to come, other stories got to my inbox today: Chicago's budget deficit will hit $740m in 2020, the city's CFO announced less than a week before Lori Lightfoot takes office as our new mayor. Both MSNBC and Josh Marshall pin our escalating tensions with Iran right on John Bolton's butt. (Cap may have America's Ass, but Bolton is America's Arse.) Physicians believe a boy who died 50 years ago today was the country's first...

The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii reported that atmospheric carbon dioxide had reached 415 ppm on Friday: This is the first time in human history our planet's atmosphere has had more than 415ppm CO2.Not just in recorded history, not just since the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. Since before modern humans existed millions of years ago.We don't know a planet like this. https://t.co/azVukskDWr — Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) May 12, 2019 In poetic punctuation to that point, Arkhangelsk...

I've been a little busy lately, so I missed posting that yesterday was the 20th anniversary of my first quasi-blog post. Yes. You read that right. The Daily Parker, which used to be just Braverman.Org, is 20 years old. I'm betting on 20 more.

Scott Hanselman recommends teaching systems thinking over technical coding: I told this young person to try not to focus on the syntax of C# and the details of the .NET Framework, and rather to think about the problems that it solves and the system around it. This advice was .NET specific, but it can also apply to someone learning Rails 3 talking to someone who knows Rails 5, or someone who learned original Node and is now reentering the industry with modern JavaScript and Node 12. Do you understand how...

Former Associate Justice John Paul Stevens believes District of Columbia v Heller was "unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during [his] tenure on the bench:" The text of the Second Amendment unambiguously explains its purpose: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” When it was adopted, the country was concerned that the power of Congress to disarm...

Scientists will soon have access to samples from a box of moon rocks that no one has opened since Neil Armstrong sealed it on the moon 50 years ago: The upcoming experiments, on vacuum-sealed cores and a long-frozen rock, can be performed only once, at the precise moment the samples are opened. That’s why the materials have been held back since they were retrieved from the moon, said Ryan Zeigler, who curates the Apollo rocks collection. NASA was waiting for the right scientists, with the right...