Events

Yesterday's temperature at O'Hare got up to 17°C, with a forecast of 17°C again today. Just perfect for a 4 km walk (in each direction) to Horner Park DFA, where Cassie met tons of new friends and stole dozens of their toys (she gave them back): Today's plan calls for a Ride in the Car! (I need groceries) and another 10 km or so of walkies. We get about 30 days a year this perfect, so we use them. Pity I have to go into my downtown office tomorrow...

The North Dakota Senate Republican majority has really outdone themselves: Ten days after narrowly defeating a bill to provide free school lunches to low-income K-12 students, the North Dakota Senate approved legislation [along party lines] to increase the amount of money lawmakers and other state employees receive in meal reimbursements. A leading Republican senator says employee meal compensation rates and free school lunch programs aren't related issues, but top Democrats see the chamber’s...

Justice Clarence Thomas (R) began his lifetime tenure to the United States Supreme Court with the help of some old men who knew their behavior towards their subordinates would get them in trouble if they held Thomas accountable for his deplorable behavior towards Anita Hill. Since confirmation, Thomas has become more like himself, as the saying goes. In 1991 he was an arrogant, contemptuous middle-aged man who assumed anyone criticizing him or his behavior had a mental deficiency. Ah, but how much he's...

Life is skittles and life is beer! Seriously, just check out this forecast: Today Sunny, with a high near 7. East northeast wind 15 to 20 km/h. Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 3. Northeast wind 10 to 15 km/h becoming southeast after midnight. Saturday Sunny, with a high near 12. South southeast wind 15 to 20 km/h becoming east northeast in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 30 km/h. Saturday Night Mostly clear, with a low around 4. East wind 10 to 15 km/h. Sunday Sunny, with a high near...

I spent all day updating my real job's software to .NET 7, and to predominantly asynchronous operation throughout. Now I have four stubbornly failing unit tests that lead me to suspect I got something wrong in the async timing somewhere. It's four out of 507, so most of today's work went fine. Meanwhile, the following stories have backed up: The Economist wonders what our friends should think of the XPOTUS's dog and pony show. Alex Shephard worries that television and cable news just don't have the...

I woke up this morning to about 450 error messages because our team's Twitter account got suspended at midnight UTC—that is, at 7pm last evening. No one knew about it because we never considered Twitter errors critical enough to keep them in our inboxes; they all go to an Outlook subfolder. Apparently, Twitter finally decided that our 15-minutes-apart API calls violated a policy, but we never got informed that this would happen or that we needed to correct something. As near as I can figure out...

Cassie and I ran the last block of our first walk of the day because I underestimated how fast a squall line was moving. You know what comes after a squall line? A cold front: Because who doesn't love a 10°C temperature drop in 2 hours? The forecast for the rest of the week is for gradually warming temperatures and dry skies.

I thought that the two most important races near my house would take days to resolve because so many people voted by mail, but it turns out, people I like won both. First, in Chicago, Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson defeated Republican former Chicago Public Schools chief Paul Vallas for mayor: “Chicago, tonight is just the beginning,” Johnson said as he kicked off a emphatic victory speech, which aimed to strike a conciliatory and upbeat tone after a polarizing campaign against former Chicago...

The New York County District Attorney charged the XPOTUS with 34 felony counts stemming from his payment of hush money to Stephanie Clifford, aka adult film actor Stormy Daniels: The indictment against the former president, People of the State of New York against Donald J. Trump, Indictment No. 71543-23, has been unsealed. The former president was charged with 34 felonies and pleaded not guilty before State Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan. The charges include filing false business records in the...

No, not that incompetent authoritarian; that bit of history hasn't happened yet. I mean the one whose adventure in Ukraine has succeeded in adding 1,300 km to his border with NATO: Finland has become the 31st member of the Nato security alliance, and its flag will soon be raised at the alliance's headquarters. The Finnish foreign minister handed the accession document to the US secretary of state who declared Finland a member. Finland's accession is a setback for Russia's Vladimir Putin, who repeatedly...