Events

I just started Sprint 52 in my day job, after working right up to the last possible minute yesterday to (unsuccessfully) finish one more story before ending Sprint 51. Then I went to a 3-hour movie that you absolutely must see. Consequently a few things have backed up over at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters. Before I get into that, take a look at this: That 17.1°C reading at IDTWHQ comes in a shade lower than the official reading at O'Hare of 17.8°, which ties the record high maximum set in...

When I got home from our Messiah performance yesterday, my car ended up here: If you don't have International System conversion factors ready to hand, just know that one statute mile is 1,609.344 meters. So right before I got to my garage last night, my car hit 10,000 miles exactly. And how about that average fuel economy? For the luddites, 2.2 L/100 km is about 105 MPG. If you recall, I bought the car just shy of 3 years ago. So in three years, I've driven about 10,000 miles and filled up the car 12...

Messages for you, sir: As of yesterday, officially 800,000 Americans have died of Covid-19. Two members of the president's bi-partisan commission looking at ways to fix the Supreme Court say we shouldn't fix it because "Federal judges aren't politicians." Ah, ha ha, how droll. Those non-politicians comprising the Republican wing of the Federal judiciary are helping nudge the country to civil war, according to Charles Blow. Why isn't the media covering the war on democracy like an actual war? asks Mother...

Just two of note. First, on this day 21 years ago, Al Gore conceded the 2000 election to George W Bush. Good thing that made almost no difference at all in world events. Another anniversary is the one that happens every January 1st to works of art created a certain point in the past. A whole bunch of books, films, and musical compositions pass into the public domain as their copyrights expire, including: The Sun Also Rises and Winnie-the-Pooh, both published in 1926; The works of Louis Armstrong and Jim...

Pity Cassie, who had to stay home alone yesterday for about 8 hours and will have to do the same today. She trusts that I will eventually come home, though, meaning she just crossed her paws and waited for me. While she slept in various positions on the couch, I sang Händel's Messiah for the first time in nearly two years. It's great to be back on stage. And here we go again... Regular blog posts resume tomorrow.

My outdoor thermometer has alerted me to an unusual temperature swing: Yes, that's a 4°C rise in one hour. At least it's stopped raining. But there is a tornado warning about 100 km from here, so there's a lot of energy in the air right now. Meanwhile, indoors, my fireplace caused a spike in CO2: Don't worry, 2,000 ppm won't hurt me. But I did get an alert about it.

We're all set to perform Handel's Messiah tomorrow and Sunday, which got noticed by both the local news service and local TV station. Otherwise, the week just keeps getting odder: Monkees singer-songwriter Michael Nesmith died today at 78. Consumer prices rose at an annualized rate of 6.8% in November, the highest rate in 39 years. Catherine Rampell wonders who would ever design a political system like ours. Kate Riga explains the dog-whistle Justice Amy Coney Barrett (R) used in last week's oral...

Today's litany of disappointments, with a couple of bright spots: First-term US Representative Peter Meijer (R-MI) has not enjoyed the fallout from taking principled votes his first month in office. Designer David Sotokarlin sketches out a map of what the Chicago El could become, and I would love to see at least some of these ideas in reality. The Washington Post's TV critic Inkoo Kang calls the Sex and the City reboot a "bloated, laugh-free comedy about grief." Travel writer Geraldine DeRuiter ate at...

Via reporter Stephen Watson, the US Coast Guard attempted a daring rescue from a car stuck less than 100 meters from the American Falls in the Niagara River—which unfortunately became a daring recovery: The harrowing effort by a Coast Guard diver to reach an occupied vehicle caught in the churning Niagara River just 50 yards from the brink of the American Falls drew international notice Wednesday. The rescue attempt ended with the somber news that the woman in the vehicle was already dead before the...

Just a few: What is Putin's real game with Ukraine right now? Julia Ioffe thinks it may just be R-E-S-P-E-C-T. After Bob Dole's death this week, Paul Krugman bemoans the disappearance of Republican grown-ups. A stupid-looking statute of KKK founder Nathan Bedford Forrest finally came down. Germany's incoming government claims it wants to protect end-to-end encryption, a move Bruce Schneier likes. Bloomberg CityLab asks, why does US infrastructure cost so much? A rash of earthquakes shook the Pacific...