Events

I fretted earlier this week about the pattern that has emerged in the U.S., driven primarily by the the Republican Party (though my party isn't guilt-free), to return to the golden age of fiefs and barons. Paul Krugman provided another clear example: Over the past few days, The New York Times has published several terrifying reports about New Jersey’s system of halfway houses — privately run adjuncts to the regular system of prisons. The series is a model of investigative reporting, which everyone...

To readers who couldn't care less about my Exchange migration post, here is Parker reacting to the cleaning service's vacuums: They're about to vacuum under my desk, which will make him a very unhappy dog for a few minutes. He'll survive.

Last weekend I described moving my email hosting from my living room home office out to Microsoft Exchange Online. And Thursday I spent all day at a Microsoft workshop about Windows Azure, the cloud computing platform on which my employer, 10th Magnitude, has developed software for the past two years. In this post, I'm going to describe the actual process of migrating from an on-site Exchange 2007 server to Exchange Online. If you'd prefer more photos of Parker or discussions about politics, go ahead...

The email migration I did over the weekend so far has made my email experience better, in part because the server rack temperatures have dipped a full degree C (despite really hot weather outside). More details about the migration will follow this weekend. Since 10th Magnitude has become a 100% Azure shop, Microsoft has invited us to participate in an all-day summit here in Chicago about the Azure cloud-computing platform. I'm leaving for it anon; I'll report this, too, weekend.

What do you call a system in which: Massive and increasing private wealth; Increasing inheritance of that wealth, reducing social mobility; Private control over traditionally public resources; Debts to private interests that persists after death, sometimes burdening families for generations; Increasing economic growth in non-productive ("rentier") sectors with declines in productive sectors, like manufacturing; Public officeholders continuing to use their former titles of office long after leaving...

The view from my office window:

The Affordable Care Act has helped 3.1 million people get health insurance: As a result of the law, the proportion of insured adults ages 19 through 25 has increased to nearly 75 percent. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to allow young adults to remain on their parents' family plans until their 26th birthday, even if they move away from home or graduate from school. This policy took effect on September 23, 2010. "Today, because of the health care law, more than 3 million more young adults have...

A few months ago, when Chicago finished its 10th warmest winter (followed by its warmest spring ever), I predicted a warm summer. Actually, the state climatologist predicted a warm summer, and I repeated this prediction. Regardless, the mechanics are simple. Warm winters and springs keep Lake Michigan warm, which means come summer the lake can't absorb as much heat on hot days. This means, all things equal, a warm spring leads to a warm summer. (Oddly, though, warm summers have no effect on winter...

Before coming to 10th Magnitude, I was an independent consultant, mostly writing software but occasionally configuring networks. I hate configuring networks. And yet, since 2008, I've had a 48U server rack in my apartment.* A “U” is 25mm, so this means I have a 1.2 m steel rack behind an antique dressing screen in my living room home office, which sits between my dining room and my bedroom in a compact apartment in Chicago: It looks modest enough, yes? On the server rack are three 2U and one 1U rack...

As promised, Parker's birthday photo from yesterday: 1/250 at f/5.6, ISO-3200, 116mm