Events

I think I wrote software and read a lot. You know, just what I do today. Stuff like this: Josh Marshall sums up the current Republican majority on the Supreme Court as a "casual mix of sweetheart deals and billionaire gifting [that] just stems from the same arrogance and corruption at the heart of the Federalist Society project," which sounds correct to me. On the same front, Pema Levy argues that "the Dobbs leak didn't wreck the Supreme Court—the justices' scandals did," which also sounds correct to...

Fifty years ago this week, steelworkers fastened the final girder to the tallest building in the world: Placement of the beam — painted white and signed by thousands of Sears employees — ended nearly three years of construction that required Porzuczek and other ironworkers to climb up and down the steadily rising tower, wearing up to 70 pounds of tools around their waists. The 110-story skyscraper at 233 S. Wacker Drive was topped out May 3, 1973. It ended the Empire State Building’s four-decade reign...

Graupel are snowflakes covered in rime ice. They're like big styrofoam snowflakes, and because they form in warmer air, they melt almost immediately on contact with anything solid. Yesterday the Chicago Tribune had a handy explainer on the back page, just in case people were curious what was hitting them on the head standing on "temporary" railway platforms this morning. (Fuck Bruce Rauner and his entire party.) Sorry. I get a little grumpy when I wake up on May Day to mid-March weather. With graupel.

Yah, my old phone ist kaput. It works fine, if you can guess the contents of the bottom 40% of the screen. Right now it's transferring all its contents to my new phone, after which I'll start going through all my MFA settings, email, sounds, pictures, etc. I really would rather be doing something else. At least this didn't happen while I was traveling.

Last night my phone's screen started to fail. It turned out to be really good at failing, because by the time I got home, it was completely black. I rebooted the phone this morning and I can get in, at least. The worst part about a failing mobile phone is that you could lose all your multi-factor authentication data. If you've ever had to unwind MFA, one site at a time, you know what I'm talking about. The nearest T-Mobile store opens in half an hour. Cassie and I will be there.

The North Carolina supreme court reversed itself on a major Gerrymandering question for the simple reason that it flipped parties. Guess which way: Last year, Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts drawn to give Republicans lopsided majorities were illegal gerrymanders. On Friday, the same court led by a newly elected Republican majority looked at the same facts, reversed itself and said it had no authority to act....

I'm chasing down a bug that caused what we in the biz call "unexpected results" and the end-users call "wrong." I've fixed it in both our API and our UI, but in order to test it, I need the API built in our dev/test environment. That takes about 18 minutes. Plenty of time to read all of this: Ruth Marcus wants you to really think about Jean Carroll's testimony in her defamation suit against the XPOTUS. Tom Nichols sees narcissism, not "misguided patriotism," as the root of the classified intelligence...

A plethora: Google has updated its satellite photos of Mariupol, clearly showing the destruction from Russia's invasion and subsequent siege. Senators Angus King (I-ME) and Lisa Murkowsky (R-AK) have introduced legislation to force the Supreme Court—read: Justices Thomas (R$) and Gorsuch (R)—to adopt a binding code of ethics. Presumably a Democratic bill that would actually let Congress set the Court's ethical standards will come soon. On Monday, the city will cut down a bur oak they estimate has lived...

Cassie and I had a lovely time yesterday afternoon. I grabbed some pizza at one of my childhood favorite places, then we did a 5½ kilometer walk around the Skokie Lagoons: She seemed to enjoy it: Later this afternoon I'll jot down all of the news I didn't read while having a great time in the forest yesterday.

I got an update today from Metra about the Ravenswood Union Pacific North station, after sending an inquiry last week. Before I get to that, let's take a look at photographic evidence that we've had to use the "temporary" platform north of Lawrence Avenue for just under 12 years now: That's the Google Street View from July 2011 showing that Metra has already closed the 1950s-era inbound platform (on the left) and opened the "temporary" platform (on the right). I took these two photos a week ago, but I...