Events

I'm so close to being completely unpacked (except for the books I plan to put on the bookshelves that I plan to have built), and yet I'm stymied by trivial things. At the moment, I would really like to sit on the couch with Cassie and watch TV. And I could, even though the guys won't come to mount the TV on the wall until the 15th, because people get paid fair wages these days. No, I'm stymied by the lack of a single 2-meter HDMI cable. I could at least have video and sound with one of those. So for $26...

The Daylight Saving Time arguments that crop up twice a year encapsulate American decision-making so well. People argue for one position or another based on what works best for them; people predict doom and gloom if their view doesn't prevail; Congress makes a change that everyone hates (and, as in 1975, they have to repeal); and not a lot changes. It also has nuances that most people don't understand (or care to) and stems from a social construct completely within our control that people think is a...

So far I've managed to avoid getting soaked running lots of errands, but the cold front descending upon us has stirred things up anyway. Right now, O'Hare reports 48 km/h winds with gusts up to 65 km/h and a peak wind just before noon of 92 km/h from the south—directly across all 6 main runways there. Whee! I sincerely hope no one tried to land in that.

Elon Musk had a lot going for him when he started his first company: rich parents, being white in Apartheid South Africa, malignant narcissism, etc. Like other well-known billionaire charlatans, he has had his share of spectacular successes, and still decided to find his own little corner of the Peter Principle. So let it be with Twitter: Some might say Elon Musk, who last week became Twitter’s official new owner, has buyer’s remorse. But that implies he had actually wanted the thing before he bought...

If, as seems likely, the Republicans take over the House next January, they will likely either blow up the United States welfare state or the world economy, depending on how the Democrats react: In several recent posts I’ve told you that most of the near-term (pre-2024) dangers of a GOP House majority are manageable. I don’t mean no big deal. It’s disaster after disaster. But I mean manageable in the sense of things the country can get through. With one exception, a debt limit hostage taking stand off...

The Houston Astros won game 4 of the World Series last night with a no-hitter, which hasn't happened since 1956: Pitching like a Game 1 starter, the young right-hander Cristian Javier put on a clinic on a night Houston was in need of something spectacular, throwing six no-hit innings at Philadelphia and combining with three relievers for the first combined no-hitter in World Series history. Javier’s outing positioned the Astros for a 5-0, World Series-tying win in a Game 4 classic. Bryan Abreu struck...

It got up to 23°C at IDTWHQ this afternoon, and even now, three hours after sunset, it's still 17°C. Not a record, but not bad for November. I still have all the windows open. (Not for long though.) We've also had amazing foliage this year. For example, this ash tree a few blocks from my house still hasn't dropped all its leaves: And Cassie found another sunbeam after we got home: The forecast says we get three or four more days of this before we get back to normal autumn temperatures. I'm OK with that.

Here are some short thoughts that add up to longer thoughts today: John Scalzi muses about the car that Elon Musk caught. Brynn Tannehill draws parallels between the GOP's acceptance of anti-democratic anti-Democratic violence and the end of the Ba'ath regime in Iraq. Julia Ioffe interviews her old friend Robert Draper about the latter's new book Weapons of Mass Delusion, which explains how the Republican Party got from Liz Cheney to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Finally, from 2021, the Calgary Real Estate...

I've spent the morning playing matchmaker between disparate time-streams of data, trying to see what relationships (if any) exist between them. They all seem pretty cool to each other at the moment, which is sub-optimal from my perspective. If I can get a couple to get together amicably, then I can get baby time streams to analyze, which I need desperately. Speaking of sub-optimal: One more voice reminding people that "we" don't have a violence problem; Republicans do. One more beautiful old...

A week after moving, I'm averaging 30 minutes more sleep and my Body Battery score is back to normal levels after two weeks of waking up like a zombie. I might even have all the boxes unpacked by this time next year. Meanwhile, me shifting a couple tonnes of matter a few hundred meters did not affect the world's spin by any measurable amount: Max Boot reminds everyone that comparing right-wing and left-wing violence in the US is a false equivalence. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeated...