Tomorrow is, quite unexpectedly, October. Though the official temperature at O'Hare has not hit 32°C since August 16th, our weather has remained stubbornly summer-like. The 16-day forecast suggests the weather will continue as far as the model can predict, and may see 32°C as early as this weekend. That will make my Friday plans a bit more challenging as my Brews & Choos buddy has gotten over Covid and we're all set to walk to Lake Bluff then.
For my part, I am experiencing a very rare side effect of the Moderna MRNA vaccine: a persistent, metallic taste on the tip of my tongue. Its incidence is apparently something approaching less than 1 in 10,000, but it appears to be harmless and to clear up on its own. I have never had this side-effect from the Pfizer vaccine. I will request Pfizer again next year. Bleah. I'll let everyone know if I start growing a giant spike protein on my forehead.
Meanwhile, the OAFPOTUS has threatened to send 100 more troops to Chicago, a city which has something like 12,000 sworn police officers already. But it's kind of hard to take the regime seriously when this sort of thing happens. Or this sort of thing. Or this sort of thing.
As Joe Biden said five years ago yesterday, "Will you shut up, man?"
How is it October in two days? As in, how is it already a full month into autumn and O'Hare is reporting a higher temperature than Phoenix?
Meanwhile:
- Incumbent New York City mayor Eric Adams has dropped his re-election bid as polling reveals that most of the city actively despises him. Josh Marshall shrugs, but runs the numbers on a possible victory by former governor Andrew Cuomo.
- Paul Krugman warns that the Republican spending bill the Democrats are currently blocking in the Senate would cause massive increases in everyone's health insurance premiums next year.
- Brian Beutler wants the Democratic Party to pick new, better fights to get people on side, instead of continuing the same focus-group-tested crappy messaging it can't seem to shake.
Finally, if you've ever visited Chicago, you'll know that we have a lot of brick construction here. (In fact, the current Inner Drive Technology World HQ is the first place I've lived in Chicago that didn't use bricks.) It turns out, a guy named Will Quam will give you a guided tour of Chicago's brick structures for a small fee. What would Chuck Rainey say?
As planned, Cassie and I walked a lot yesterday: 13 km total, in 2¼ hours. The temperature at Inner Drive Technology WHQ got up to 26.9°C, and 30.6°C officially at O'Hare; i.e., a warm, July day, except for the sun setting just past 6:30 pm.
As good as yesterday was for me, and however great it was for you, I guarantee Cassie's day was better. Did you get to splash in a kiddie pool?
By the time we'd walked 11½ kilometers, and plopped ourselves at Spiteful Brewing, Cassie did what she always does after lots of exercise:
And, despite spending 7 continuous hours outside in beautiful weather, I still managed to get GitHub Copilot running the ChatGPT 4.1 card to write some pretty good integration tests for what will become The Daily Parker's replacement for BlogEngine, which replaced DasBlog almost exactly 10 years ago, which replaced my own custom code almost exactly 10 years ago. There seems to be a pattern here...
Cassie and I are about to spend the next 8 or so hours outside. The official temperature at O'Hare hit 29.4°C (85°F) a few minutes ago, and it's 25.8°C (78.4°F) at Inner Drive Technology World HQ.
Just for comparison, the normal high temperature from July 11th to July 17th is 29.3°C.
We're in no danger of setting a record high temperature today—that was 33°C set in 1971—but yes, I can tell you it feels like July, just with a lower dewpoint (12.2°C at O'Hare, compared with an average of 20.8°C this past July).
Still: I'll take it. Looking forward from the last weekend in September, I don't see too many more sit-outside-with-a-beer days in 2025. But right now, Cassie and I have a date with a dog park.
I'm doing a lot of work today, and I don't want to waste my flow. That said, it's 23°C with clear skies. Maybe I can knock off at 4 and take Cassie on another long walk?
Speaking of, my Brews & Choos buddy planned to come with me on my 42.2-km walk today, but she tested positive for Covid on Tuesday. (She does Ironman races; a marathon-length walk is practically a recovery activity for her.) So we're going next Friday. We hope it's cooler by then.
The stupidest person ever to sit behind the Resolute Desk has made most of the world feel sad for us. Let's check on why:
And yet, both Jennifer Rubin and Josh Marshall see the tide turning hard against the administration, though George Packer thinks we now live in an authoritarian state.
Meanwhile,
And finally, the mold count in Chicago hit an all-time high on Tuesday of 82,121, which is nothing to sneeze at. The mold count is forecast to remain high until the first frost, which might be in November given the climate predictions this fall.
I haven't regularly used an Apple product in over 30 years when my college newspaper used Mac Classics for compositing. Even by then, I didn't like Apple's closed architecture, having built at least one Windows box from scratch. If you agree with Freddie DeBoer, turns out my instincts were right:
There exists, in the digital ether and in the physical world, a peculiar kind of human organization that has no name, no leader, and no stated charter, yet which operates with the ideological precision of the most passionate and conformist political groups. I am speaking, of course, about the unthinking, unwavering supporters of Apple. These are the people who (by their own account!) are not simply consumers, but rather members of what has long been accurately labeled the Apple Cult. They are the iSheep, to use an earlier pejorative, the fanboys. Their devotion is a fascinating and disturbing case study in the dynamics of modern brand loyalty, a phenomenon where rational thought and technical specification are subordinate to an emotional, almost spiritual, attachment to a corporate logo.
What follows is not, obviously, a neutral analysis of product history, but a pedantic walk down memory lane for the faithful, coming from a lifelong Apple hater, a polemical catalog of intellectual contortions and breathtaking ideological pivots, demonstrating that the most impressive product Apple has ever created is not a piece of hardware but a collective psychology. This psychology allows its adherents to embrace the very things they once mocked and dismissed as inelegant, superfluous, or a matter of feature creep. To truly appreciate the breathtaking scope of these mental gymnastics, we must observe the various contradictions.
Remember the one-button mouse? Small iPhones? Motorola chips? Yeah, neither do Apple's customers.
Chicago alderman Timmy Knudsen (43rd) has proposed an ordinance to allow dogs in restaurants:
Right now, Chicago restaurants are prohibited from serving patrons accompanied by dogs — either indoors or outdoors — unless that customer has a service dog.
Although the ban is widely ignored and sporadically enforced, usually in response to a complaint, restaurant owners allow dogs at their own risk and sometimes face the consequences.
The ordinance, slated for introduction at Thursday’s City Council meeting, is tailor-made to resolve the health department’s food safety concerns.
Restaurant owners who post signs declaring themselves dog-friendly would be free to welcome patrons and their leashed dogs inside or outside their establishments without fear of inspection or fine.
Dogs would be limited to one per table. They could only be provided with water — not food or table scraps — either by their owners or by restaurant employees.
The other restrictions outlined in the proposed ordinance make sense. I wouldn't necessarily want to see dogs in certain kinds of places, like buffets or anywhere that has self-service food, as I have seen both my dogs do their own self-service. At the very least, I would hope the city allows dogs unequivocally in outdoor patios.
I have emailed my own alderman to express support of the propsal.
Rosh Hashana begins in just a few hours. To celebrate, let's sing!
Corruption, corruption! Corruption!
Corruption, corruption! Corruption!
Who, day and night, has got his tiny hands out?
Reaching for a pay-out, raking in the cash?
And who keeps on whining, every day he's whining,
"I'm the real victim here!"
The POTUS, OAFPOTUS! Corruption!
The POTUS, OAFPOTUS! Corruption!
Who must know the way to break a proper law,
A needed law, a settled law?
Who must shred all precedent and end the law,
So billionaires can plunder all the dough?
The SCOTUS, the SCOTUS! Corruption!
The SCOTUS, the SCOTUS! Corruption!
I voted for the guy who said
He's gonna kick them out,
But now my soybeans and my corn are all
Moldy.
The MAGAS, the MAGAS! Corruption!
The MAGAS, the MAGAS! Corruption!
And who gets all the loot
And tax breaks and a yacht?
And who will get a pardon if
They're ever fin'ly caught?
The KLEPTOS, the KLEPTOS! Corruption!
The KLEPTOS, the KLEPTOS! Corruption!
Oy, where did that come from? I mean, other than today's news:
- Republicans on the US Supreme Court once again used the "shadow docket" to allow the OAFPOTUS to fire the last Democrat on the Federal Trade Commission, paving the way for him to gut all cryptocurrency regulations so he can continue bilking his followers and taking bribes from everyone else.
- White House "Border Czar" and cosplaying tough guy Tom Homan allegedly accepted $50,000 in cash in a sting operation last year, so of course the OAFPOTUS ordered the FBI to drop the investigation.
- The White House announced, to the surprise of literally everyone including the State Department, that henceforth H1-B visas would cost $100,000, in what looks a lot like an attempt to shake down small tech firms that need foreign experts to compete with the OAFPOTUS's billionaire tech donors.
- Adam Kinzinger, who you'll remember still considers himself a Republican, castigated the OAFPOTUS and the VPOTUS for turning right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk's funeral into a hateful event. (Kinzinger was no fan of Kirk, either.)
It's still more than 15 months until the next Congress, when at least we can put out the flames and start planning the repairs. But wow, such corruption.
I had a really busy weekend, leading to the first time in years when I went 2 days without posting. The highlight yesterday was the San Diego Padres beating the Chicago White Sox 3-2 at Rate Field. Both of the Sox runs were walked in, highlighting the Padres' stellar defense and hitting and the Padres' dismal pitching:
Against San Diego starter Michael King and a Padres' bullpen highlighted by three All-Star relievers, the White Sox totaled five hits and nine walks. But an 0-for-11 day with runners in scoring position resulted in their eighth loss in the last nine games.
The White Sox fell into an early hole in the second inning due to a self-inflicted mistake. After giving up singles to Jackson Merrill and Gavin Sheets, White Sox starter Sean Burke's errant pickoff attempt to first base allowed a run to score.
The Padres added a second run in the second, thanks to a single from Jake Cronenworth. Burke made a mistake in the third, leaving a fastball over the heart of the plate to All-Star Fernando Tatis Jr., whose 432-foot blast gave San Diego a 3-0 lead.
A prime chance to cut into the Padres' lead came in the sixth, when the White Sox loaded the bases with zero outs after singles by Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas, plus a walk from Edgar Quero. Despite the golden opportunity, they were unable to bring any runs home. Lenyn Sosa popped out, and Curtis Mead and Michael A. Taylor struck out against All-Star reliever Adrián Morejón.
The game also included a perfectly-executed double steal by San Diego, something you almost never see in the MLB. The Padres need just one more win to clinch a playoff spot.
Other than Friday, when I plan to do my annual 42.2-km walk, posting should return to normal this week.