Events

The Atlantic's Max Fisher has a roundup: Flipping through a few of the many English-language tourist guides provides a fascinating, if non-scientific and narrow, window into how people from the outside world perceive America, Americans, and the surprises and pitfalls of spending time here. Of the many pieces of advice proffered, four of the most common are: eat with your fingers (sometimes), arrive on time (always), don't drink and drive (they take it seriously here!), and be careful about talking...

It turns out, the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva gets a little out-of-sorts because of it: The moon’s own gravitational field was pulling more strongly one side of the Large Hadron Collider, every-so slightly deforming the tunnel through which the proton beams pass. The deformation also changed as the Moon rose and fell in the night sky. In order to keep the proton beams on track, the operator at the LHC’s control center had to subtly alter the direction of the proton beams to accomodate the Moon’s...

I've got a deadline, which didn't stop me reading these articles (but did stop me posting thoughts about them): Right-wing Wisconsin governor Scott Walker held on to his job yesterday, for a variety of reasons The Economist's Democracy in America blog sees worsening partisanship in the U.S., especially after yesterday's failed recall election in Wisconsin The Atlantic Cities blog has two posts today about pollution: first, how Pittsburgh suffered in the 1940s, and second, how Latin America and Canada...

Because they improved downtown L.A. immensely: In 1999, Los Angeles passed its Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, making it easier and cheaper for real estate developers to convert old offices to new housing. While the ordinance arguably jump-started the revitalization of downtown L.A., a key (though overlooked) element was pet-friendly policies in these newly converted lofts. Walking dogs drove residents out of their homes and into the street at least twice each day. Elsewhere in Los Angeles, where...

Assuming the polls are correct, the contest in Wisconsin today will be close. Whatever the result, Scott Walker can hardly claim a mandate with somewhere around half the state wanting to take the unprecedented (for Wisconsin) step of yanking him from office. This is not trivial: voters have to overcome their natural disinclination to end a governor's term early, and then they have to select someone who lost an election just two years ago. I look forward to the results.

Apparently it's more common than I thought to gag on raw tomatoes even while having no problem with tomato sauce: People like me just lack certain key taste receptors, preventing us from appreciating the rich, sweet, meaty flavor of raw tomatoes that the rest of you are always rhapsodizing about. The problem is that tomatoes have something on the order of 400 volatile compounds and who knows which one of those (or combination thereof) might be responsible for the harsh reaction many of us experience in...

As feared, Chicago is experiencing a weekend of perfect weather. As a consequence, Parker and I just finished an hour-and-three-quarters walk that had to include time at Noethling Park (aka "Wiggly Field"). We're recovering for a moment before heading outside again for another one. Regular updates will resume when the crisis concludes. (Note: Ordinarily I would have linked to the Chicago Park District's official page on one of its parks, but apparently they forgot to pay the Internet bill, so at this...

After logging the warmest spring and third-mildest winter in Chicago history, we have a huge likelihood of a warmer-than-normal summer. Yesterday, though, we had one of those perfect days Chicagoans can count on two hands every year: sunny, dry, and 24°C, the kind of day that Parker and I spend entirely outside. It turns out, a relatively unusual weather pattern could give us more than a week of this sort of thing: [C]omputer models indicate what is meteorologically-termed an upper-level "Omega...

As just about everyone who watches these things predicted, Groupon's shares declined 9% just as soon as insiders were able to start trading them: Friday marked the end of the company's lock-up period, which prevented insiders from unloading their Groupon stock. Groupon went public in November with a small float. The expiration of the lock-up period puts into play 600 million shares, amounting to 93 percent of the company's total outstanding shares. About one-third of those shares will not be sold, as...