Events

Today is the 100th anniversary of Howard Carter poking his head into the 3,000-year-old tomb of Egyptian King Tutankhamen: After World War I, Carter began an intensive search for Tutankhamen’s tomb and on November 4, 1922, discovered a step leading to its entrance. Lord Carnarvon rushed to Egypt, and on November 23 they broke through a mud-brick door, revealing the passageway that led to Tutankhamen’s tomb. There was evidence that robbers had entered the structure at some point, and the archaeologists...

I thought Wednesday might turn out the last warm day of 2022, but yesterday and today haven't felt too bad either. Apparently tomorrow will also get above 13°C as well. Not a bad Thanksgiving weekend. And Cassie got almost 2 hours of walkies yesterday and may get about the same amount today. Otherwise, regular posting will probably resume tomorrow or Sunday.

Cassie and I took a 33-minute walk at lunchtime and we'll take another half-hour or so before dinner as the temperature grazes 14°C this afternoon. Tomorrow and each day following will cool off a bit until Wednesday, the first official day of winter, which will return to normal. Meanwhile... As every lawyer who paid attention predicted, Justice Clarence Thomas's (R) opinion in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen last summer articulated a Republican policy platform while providing...

With only about a week of autumn left officially, we have some great weather today. Cassie is with her pack at day care and I'm inside my downtown office looking at the sun and (relative) warmth outside, but the weather should continue through Friday. What else is going on? A reader who remembers watching The Play live on TV sent a story about the statue the Bears erected to Keven Moen and unveiled last week. A new study ranks Asian and Scandinavian public-transit systems best in the world, with...

Despite coming in "later and cost[ing] more than originally expected," construction on a new Terminal 2 and revamped Terminal 1 will start soon: Under the latest plan, two new remote satellite terminals will be the first to open, in 2027 and 2028, off the existing Terminal 1, where most United Airlines flights are located. Once that is done, full-scale work will begin on the centerpiece of the project: the demolition and reconstruction of Terminal 2, which will be converted into a combination domestic...

...this happened: I admit, I never heard of "The Play" before this morning, and I'm not even really a football fan. So when this popped up on my history feed, I had to Google it. I'm glad I did; reading a description of this event and seeing the video are two different things (yay Internet!). I laughed so hard I even woke Cassie up. Go Bears!

Josh Barro explains the FTX collapse in simple terms: [T]his is not a technology story, because FTX was not a technology company. Sure, FTX’s business relied on technology, but so do most businesses. FTX has an app; so does Fidelity, and so does Chipotle, and that doesn’t make them tech companies. FTX was a brokerage, and there were two things that set them apart from a regular brokerage. One is that they dealt principally in nonsense financial products with no underlying economic value, and the other...

Photo number 1: Cassie, from above. (My office is in a loft over the master bedroom, where Cassie has a bed.) Photo number 2: can anyone give this 1½-meter (5'3") scratching post a good home? I'm keeping it for a friend who went back home to Spain "for 6 weeks" in August 2020. He will come back to Chicago eventually—for a visit. Photo number 3: a Tweet that made me laugh out loud. I know that the super-rich in previous eras also had more narcissism than good sense, but watching Musk destroy Twitter in...

No matter where you find yourself today, at least you're not in Western New York: The lake-effect snowstorm keeps pounding the Southtowns, with major highways and some roads closed. A travel ban has been reinstituted for the City of Buffalo from William Street downtown to the Town of Cheektowaga line and everything south, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday the Thruway from Rochester to the Pennsylvania border was closed to commercial traffic, although...

The new boss of Twitter, who laid off half his workforce and watched as half the remaining employees quit last night, found the silver lining: And yes, I linked to the Tweet, because I cite my sources. Kind of like putting a bookmark in a scroll in Alexandria as the fire spreads to the next room, I suppose... While the site still keeps going, check out the #RIPTwitter memes. Will Twitter last longer than this head of lettuce? And as I'm typing this, the BBC News Hour presenter just said they'll have a...