Events

My latest 10th Magnitude blog post is up, in which I dig into Microsoft's changes to Azure Web Sites announced Monday. The biggest change is that you can now point your own domain names at Azure Web Sites, which solves a critical failing with the product that has dogged them from its June release. Since this Daily Parker post was embargoed for a day while my 10th Magnitude post got cleared with management, I've played with the new Shared tier some more. I've come to a couple of conclusions: It might...

Crain's Chicago Business yesterday ran the first part in a series about How Chicago became one of the nation's most digital cities. Did you know we have the largest datacenter in the world here? True: Inside the former R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. printing plant on East Cermak Road, next to McCormick Place, is the world's largest, most-connected Internet data center, according to industry website Data Center Knowledge. It's where more than 200 carriers connect their networks to the rest of the world, home...

It seems that the more I have to do, the more I'm able to do. In other words, when I haven't got a lot of assignments, I tend to veg out more. Right now I'm on a two-week development cycle, with an old client that predates my current job anxious for some bug fixes. Oddly, the old client tends to get his bug fixes when I have more to do at my regular gig. Of course, blogging might suffer a bit. In fact I just submitted a draft blog entry for the 10th Magnitude Developer Blog that should hit tomorrow...

Remember how I've spent the last three months moving stuff into the Cloud? And how, as of three weeks ago, I only had two more services to move? I saved the best for last, and I don't know for sure now whether I can move them both without some major changes. Let me explain the economics of this endeavor, and why it's now more urgent that I finish the migration. And then, as a bonus, I'll whinge a bit about why one of the services might have to go away completely. I currently have a DSL and a 20-amp...

I've banged away at the 30-Ballpark Geas for four seasons now, long enough for three new parks to spring up since I started. Next weekend I'm visiting Cincinnati, the 24th park, leaving eight to go. (Citi Field and New Yankee Stadium got added to the list because they replaced parks I visited before finishing the Geas. The third new park, New Marlin Ballpark, replaced one I hadn't ever visited before, and therefore wasn't already ticked off only to be un-ticked by new construction.) With the MLB 2013...

Everyone knows that San Diego has year-round perfect temperatures, lots of sun, and great pizza. Except today, only two out of three: The National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook for Friday and Saturday, saying temperatures could reach up to 38°C near the beach. Extremely high temperatures are unusual for the coast, which is where people typically go to escape the heat. This weekend the beach could be as warm as the inland areas. At this writing, the temperature has hit 41°C at...

Via the Economist's Gulliver blog, Airbus Industrie has some ideas about the future: More flights, fewer emissions and quicker passenger journey times. Welcome to Smarter Skies, the latest installment in The Future by Airbus. For the first time, our vision of sustainable aviation in 2050 looks beyond aircraft design to how the aircraft is operated both on the ground and in the air in order to meet the expected growth in air travel in a sustainable way. Already today, if the Air Traffic Management (ATM)...

The area of Chicago approximately bounded by the river, North Ave., Clybourn St., and Division St. used to house factories, warehouses, loud Goth clubs, and—who could forget?—the Cabrini-Green towers. Here's the area in 1999: Since the Whole Foods Market moved in and Cabrini-Green came down in the last few years, the area has changed. And over the next year or so, it will become unrecognizable to my dad's generation: Target Corp. is readying a big box at Division and Larrabee streets that would extend...

Major League Baseball released its 2013 schedule today. Here are the highlights for the Cubs: They start the season April 1st in Atlanta. The home opener on April 8th will be against Milwaukee. The first appearance at a park I haven't gotten to yet won't happen until they visit Seattle on June 28th; but: ...with their first-ever trip to Oakland immediately following on July 2nd, I sense a trip to the West Coast coming next summer. Same with back-to-back series in two other parks I haven't seen, Colorado...

Last night, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, died in an attack on our consulate in Benghazi. The attack initially seemed predicated on the release of an anti-Muslim film funded by infamous Florida bigot Terry Jones (of Qu'oran burning fame), as the film caused riots in Egypt at the same time. The New York Times is now reporting that sources in the US suspect the Libya attack was planned: Officials in Washington studying the events of the past 24 hours have focused on the differences between...