Events

Wal-Mart will soon start scheduling employees based on predicted customer loads, requiring the employees to be more "flexible:" The move promises more productivity and consumer satisfaction, but could demand more flexibility and availability from workers in place of reliable shifts and predictable pay checks, the Journal reported. Wal-Mart started using the system for some workers, including cashiers and accounting-office personnel, last year, the paper also reported. This is an example of software...

Today's Chicago Tribune asks, "Who needs Florida?": Balmier days are forecast to continue in Illinois over the next few days, a result of warmer air masses flowing in from the west and southwest and the effects of an El Nino year. While no records are being broken—back in 1876 it was 65°F (18°C) on Jan. 2—temperatures in coming days are expected to remain mercifully above the historic average high of about 30°F (-1°C). I find this funny because I'm sitting in shorts and a polo shirt by a pool surrounded...

Anne and I are someplace warm (see second photo), but Parker is never far from our thoughts. Here he is New Year's Eve in what we must assume is doggy heaven: At the moment, we are in people heaven, so I can't guarantee any more postings until Saturday. I hope everyone else is, if not as warm as we are (25°C, 77°F on the beach), at least as happy.

Weather Now is all new. We're ecstatic to roll out a completely new visual design by Katie Zoellner. It's actually been lurking as a Beta site for several months. We didn't roll it out because not all of the features from our old site (see http://old.wx-now.com/) are complete. But today is the first day of a new year, which we thought an appropriate moment to finally give Katie's design some exposure. (Nearly-)Total Internationalization Notice the flags along the left side of this page. Is one of those...

Richard Clarke reminds the Administration (751 days, 2 hours) that Iraq isn't the only problem we face, even though it's consuming all of the Administration's bandwidth via Talking Points Memo): National Security Council veteran Rand Beers has called this the "7-year-old's soccer syndrome"—just like little kids playing soccer, everyone forgets their particular positions and responsibilities and runs like a herd after the ball. Without the distraction of the Iraq war, the administration would have spent...

I'm an hour late getting in TDP, for which I'm sorry. Today was the last business day of 2006, and possibly Parker's last day in the office for a while (I'll be working downtown starting next month). Fittingly, here's Parker, doing what he does best: being a good office puppy. The ParkerCam will return! (Possibly tomorrow...)

It's time to update the sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Notice that in 2007, Daylight Saving Time lasts a lot longer than in years past: from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. This actually makes the autumn a little darker, as you can see from the chart. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2007 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 30 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 5 Feb 7am...

The couch is dead. We're going to take it to the street tonight or tomorrow, because Parker has quite literally beaten the stuffing out of it. He even knows he's being bad, running away from it the moment I take a step toward him. But just seconds after I turn away, there he is again, performing dog-o-suction on the cushions: I'm going to bet that no one takes it before the trash haulers find it. I might even bet that they will leave it behind, too.

Parker made it all the way to St. Louis and back without yakking. How did he do it? He slept the whole way:

...there was Eliza: I got my first camera in June 1983. Now, more than 23 years later, I'm scanning all the old slides and negatives. It's a little trippy. I keep finding things like this photo of the pet gerbil I had back then. I've also found a whole bunch of documentary shots around Northbrook, Ill., where I grew up. I'll re-shoot some of these at some point and post some then-and-now views. Here's a preview: the LP stacks at the Northbrook Public Library. They were still about two years from their...