Events

I'm not sure what to make of this: Inside, the capsule's sole passenger would ride in a near-standing position, wearing a G-suit to help force blood to the head during acceleration. The passenger's head would sit in a transparent hemispheric dome topped with an aerospike for better supersonic performance. It gets better. Dimensions of the capsule's cabin area are roughly two feet (diameter) by 7.5 feet (length). There will be no room in the capsule for movement once the vehicle goes weightless. After...

The bridge opened for foot traffic on 27 May 1937: Naturally, the city is having a party.

The last time I flew home from San Francisco, we landed in Rockford after missing the approach at O'Hare because of wind shear. Yesterday, we didn't divert to a different airport, but neither did we take the most direct path: We almost flew into Canada, according to the captain. As it is we were only about 20 minutes late.

Before leaving for California last weekend, I made sure to park my car on a street not scheduled for street cleaning while I was away. At 9:02 this morning, with me still half a block away, I watched a cop put a ticket on the car. Two minutes. Because I stopped for coffee. Herp derp.

I'm once again in an airport, on my way home. While you're waiting eagerly for my next blog post, check these out: A tool to calculate travel times in Europe during the Roman era; A review of letters from P.G. Wodehouse; and Some 40-year time lapse photos of Toronto storefronts. Share and enjoy. Oh, and there's a Lufthansa Airbus 380 parked here today. I really must see one of those monsters up close someday.

At dinner last night with some of my B-school friends, conversation turned to the two most perplexing stock offerings of the last year: Facebook's and Groupon's. In both cases, the companies' very young owners and very rich venture capital investors got rich, but what happened after that? Here's Facebook's performance this week: And Groupon's: This morning, Groupon announced a proposed settlement in the class-action suit accusing them of practicing their well-known business model: If you purchased or...

The fog will roll in after noon, but at 7am there wasn't a cloud: This is my fourth-favorite city in the world.

This evening's eclipse, through clouds: Also visible in the shadows: An hour later, it's a lot brighter out.

I've never seen this before. Here's the French presidential airplane, parked on the south apron at O'Hare yesterday: Parked nearby were Azerbaijan's, Italy's, and (I think) Russia's, but I couldn't get good photos with my tiny backup camera. Let me be an aviation nerd for a second. This is an Airbus 320, without any obvious modifications. So how did it get an all the way here from Paris? I assume it stopped at Andrews AFB in Maryland to drop President Hollande off. But even Paris to Andrews seems like a...

This week's Charlemagne column: THE Merkozy era is over. So how to label the partnership of Angela Merkel and François Hollande? Merging first names to make Frangela is too familiar for leaders who barely know each other. Homer is too American (or worse, Greek). Merkollande sounds too close to Merkozy. That leaves just the shortened Merde, which at least sums up the state of the euro. I read this on the plane yesterday, sitting next to someone eagerly studying his Bible (with highlights!). I laughed so...