The Daily Parker

A 25-meter section of the Pacific Coast Highway slid into the Pacific about 30 km south of Big Sur this week:

Caltrans spokesperson Jim Shivers said the damage to the highway is called a slip out. "It's where we lose a part of the highway and now we're facing a project to clean and repair that stretch," Shivers said. "This is the only location we're aware of where this happened in the storm. Our maintenance team is patrolling the highway now to look for other damage."

The closure is in Rat Creek between MPM 40 and the San Luis Obispo county line, the California Highway Patrol said.

A common phenomenon called an "atmospheric river" delivered half a meter of rainfall to the region last week. CA-1 has a history of sliding into the ocean; for example, the area just south of Pacifica, Calif., known as "Devil's Slide" collapsed so frequently that that Caltrans bored two 1200-meter tunnels through solid rock from 2005 to 2013 to keep the road open.

I'm having a series of productive days lately, which has taken me away from wasting a bunch of time. So for example, I haven't yet today read these items:

• A group of Redditors has put a short squeeze on two hedge funds to the tune of billions of dollars, and there was much rending of clothes that kind of, sort of, made the Redditors' point for them.
• Journalist Yudhijit Bhattacharjee investigates a source of thieving phone scams in India.
• From November 2019, National Geographic explains how a phenomenon called "true polar wander," caused when the entire surface of the planet rotates around the core, in turn caused massive climate shifts 174 million years ago.
• General Motors announced it will cease making gasoline-powered cars within 14 years.
• The Chicago Transit Authority released renderings of the four new Red Line stations whose $2 billion construction project will affect my neighborhood for the next two years. Of course, we get another 120 years of functioning public transit out of the deal, so we're not complaining.

And all of this on the coldest day in two years, in a month in which most days have had no sunlight. But hey, we're still having an abnormally-mild winter, so again, we're not complaining.

Today is the last day of Sprint 28 at my day job, and I've just closed my third one-point story of the day. When we estimate the difficulty of a story (i.e., a single unit of code that can be deployed when complete), we estimate by points on a Fibonacci scale: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21. A 2-point story is about twice as hard as a 1-point story; a 5 point story is about 5 times harder than a 1-point story; etc. If we estimate 8 or more points on my current team, we re-examine the story in order to break it into smaller chunks. Similarly, a 1-point story could turn out to have so little complexity that it takes almost no time, like today's story #304 that required adding one line of code to here and removing 37 lines of code from there. That one took about 15 minutes. The other two took a couple of hours each, as "knowing where to put the bolt" takes longer than actually attaching the bolt.

While all that happened on the west side of my desk, the monitors on the south side lit up a few stories for me to read when I get back from the walk I'm about to take:

• Jennifer Rubin lists 50 things that have improved in the US in the past 5 days, starting with "you can ignore Twitter."
• Though Rubin mentioned replacing Andrew Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office, she didn't mention that the Biden Administration has taken steps to complete replacing his racist mug on the $10 note with a portrait of Harriet Tubman. (The outgoing administration, for obvious reasons, mothballed this plan upon taking office.)
• Charles Blow warns against the Democratic Party should keep advocating and stop "subconsciously modulating responses" in the face of Republican criticism.
• National Geographic describes the Roman road network that spanned over 320,000 km and still remains largely intact today.
• Philippa Snow suggests the French series Call My Agent if you're looking for serious entertainment. For my part I'm about to start Series 2 of Peaky Blinders.
• Loyola University Chicago professor Devon Price has a new book out: Laziness Does Not Exist. I may have to buy a copy. Eventually.

And I will now try to get in a 45-minute fast walk as our first real winter storm bears down on us from Iowa.

Lunchtime roundup:

• Author John Scalzi gives the STBXPOTUS a colossal take-down on his blog today: "We don’t have to wait on history, but as it happens, this is how history will remember Donald Trump: Not as a forceful, charismatic authoritarian, but as a corrupt and pathetic wretch, who spent the final days of his presidency shouting at the walls about how the world is against him."
• Alexandra Petri: "Now is not the time to point fingers, Julius Caesar. Now is the time for healing." ("I am frankly appalled when I think of all the things that have been said on both sides, like, 'Death to Caesar!' and 'Ouch!'")
• National security experts, including the former chief research psychologist for the US Secret Service, advise treating the STBXPOTUS "like he's a terrorist leader."
• It appears that Ivanka and Jared wouldn't let the people protecting them into the house to pee, forcing the US Secret Service to spend nearly $100,000 over the past few years renting an apartment close by.
• Republicans in Congress supported intrusive security for everyone else in the past, but now that it affects them personally, they don't like it. How surprising.
• Since the Senate has recessed, presumably so Mitch McConnell can avoid an impeachment trial, President-Elect Biden still has no confirmed cabinet officials, forcing the incoming administration into an alternative plan after taking power next Wednesday.
• Chicago teachers locked out of the Chicago Public Schools online learning platform because they refused to return to unsafe classrooms found a poetic way of expressing their displeasure: they taught from the Board of Education President's front lawn.
• Chicago's regional heavy-rail system approved a $1.8 bn purchase of 500 slick new rail cars, which should start to arrive in 2024.

Finally, the authors of The Impostor's Guide, a free ebook aimed at self-taught programmers, has a new series of videos about general computer-science topics that people like me didn't learn programming for fun while getting our history degrees.

The Economist's Bartleby column examines how Covid-19 lockdowns have "caused both good and bad changes of routine."

We had a relatively quiet day yesterday, but only in comparison to the day before:

• Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao (wife of presumptive Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell) and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned after nearly four years (and with nothing to gain from staying in Cabinet) mostly because they no longer needed those jobs. Said the Post: "Resigning now feels a little like eating all but the last bite of a piece of cake at a restaurant and then asking for a refund."
• The BBC has a commendable round-up of fact-checking who actually broke into the Capitol on Wednesday.
• The US hit a new record for daily Covid-19 deaths: 4,112.
• The STBXPOTUS whined that he won't attend President Biden's inauguration, becoming the first crybaby-in-chief to skip the event since his spiritual ancestor Andrew Johnson.
• Nonfarm payrolls fell 140,000 from November to December, though unemployment held steady at 6.7%.

Meanwhile, here in Chicago:

• Reports of Southport Lanes' demise may have been premature.
• The South Shore Line will get a new route after the Federal Transit Administration released $945 million for it.
• Chicago restaurants may re-open next week thanks to falling Covid-19 infection rates state-wide.

Finally, Bruce Schneier advises the incoming administration on how to deal with the SolarWinds intrusion.

See? Yesterday was quiet.

I dropped off my completed ballot this afternoon, so if Joe Biden turns out to be the devil made flesh, I can't change my vote.

Tonight, the president and Joe Biden will have competing, concurrent town halls instead of debating each other, mainly because the president is an infant. The Daily Parker will not live-blog either one. Instead, I'll whip up a stir-fry and read something.

In other news:

• Chris Christie continues the tradition of Republican politicians not understanding something until it happens to them directly by imploring people to wear masks now that he's out of a week-long stint in the ICU.
• Former White House Counsel Bob Bauer and Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith suggest six ways to protect the rule of law once the president leaves office. Separately, University of Chicago law professor Ryan Doerfler explains how to "make the Supreme Court safe for democracy."
• TNR's David Daley takes us through the "Republican plot for permanent minority rule."
• Illinois hit a record number (4,015) of confirmed Covid-19 cases today.
• We don't actually have to have a surge of Covid-19 cases; we can stop it.
• Google explains how their popular times and live busyness information feature works.
• Metra has sued Union Pacific for lost ticket revenue as their contract lurches toward an end.

Finally, a pie-wedge-shaped house in Deerfield, Ill., is now on Airbnb for $113 a night. Enjoy.

Today's lunchtime round-up only had one article about current politics:

• John Scalzi warns that "nostalgia is a luxury."
• The president, sick with Covid-19, took a joyride around the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center yesterday, resulting in several aides and USSS officers going into quarantine.
• Devon Price asks, "do you have 'Zoom Fatigue' or is it existentially crushing to pretend life is normal as the world burns?"
• Spirit Hub, a Chicago-area startup, aims to sell spirits from distilleries too small to get on liquor store shelves.
• The Union Pacific Railroad has started collecting tickets from Metra riders again, by herding us into pens at Ogilvie Transportation Center.
• The BBC asks "who had GPS failure for November?" (I'm paraphrasing.)
• Google explains how they maintain their satellite photo library.

Finally, I came across an interview actor Michael Shannon gave Playboy in 2018 that's worth the read.

The consequences of buying a Toyota Prius Prime continue to amaze me. On my trip yesterday, I filled up after almost completely emptying the tank. It cost $18.18. I last filled up in April.

So for the 168 days between fill-ups, I drove 1,860 km at an average fuel economy of 1.9 L/100 km. That gives me a fuel cost of 98c per 100 km.

I really love this car.

Just a few of the things that crossed my desktop this morning:

• Astronomers have detected phosphine gas in the clouds on Venus, which is a strong indicator of life.
• Astronomers have also detected a ping-pong-ball-sized black hole orbiting the sun, getting as close as 133 kAUs in its orbit.
• An aircraft made a precautionary landing on an Interstate in Tennessee, and got a full police escort on take-off. No one was hurt.
• Car manufacturers are teaming up with insurance companies to share data on almost every aspect of how you drive.
• The Democratic governor of Nevada slammed the president for holding a "reckless and selfish" rally inside a Las Vegas arena over the weekend.
• Disappointed would-be marijuana retailers have sued to get some of the remaining Illinois licenses, saying the process as run has created an oligopoly that harms consumers.
• Via pro photographer Scott Kelly, Iain Stanley explains why your camera equipment matters less than you think.
• There are currently 8 active tropical systems in the Western hemisphere today, including the 21st storm of the Atlantic season.

And last night, Cubs pitcher Alec Mills threw the club's 16th no-hitter against the Milwaukee Brewers. In the history of Major League Baseball, there have only been 315 no-hitters. The last time the Cubs won a no-hitter was 51 years ago.

I've had an unusually busy (and productive!) day, so naturally, the evening reading has piled up:

• Adam Weinstein says the president "is the military-industrial complex", explaining something of his effect on active-duty military personnel.
• Ivan Krastev explains why the pandemic has not helped authoritarians as one might think it would. (Hint: authoritarians usually "solve" problems that they have created themselves.)
• Ed Yong thinks "America is trapped in a pandemic spiral."
• Graceland Cemetery in Chicago, closed after the August 10th derecho, reopened yesterday.
• Will Senate Democrats end the filibuster if the GOP blocks all our legislation next session?
• The City of Chicago will, we think, maybe, someday, start replacing lead water pipes. (This is why I use a filter.)
• The Chicago Transit Authority has a new tool to help riders avoid crowded buses and trains.

Finally, National Geographic has a slideshow of the world's best ghost towns.