Events

Yesterday Chicago only got up to -1°C. It's the first time since February 25th, 308 days earlier, that we had a high temperature below freezing, and it's the longest time in recorded history (tying the record set in 1878) Chicago has gone between them. We woke up today at -9°C, the coldest temperature here since February 11th. But tomorrow's forecast calls for a high just above freezing, giving us only 13 days in all of 2012 that failed to get above freezing. I haven't done the analysis but that seems...

Not even 8:15 in the morning, and already NPR has run a story that made me furious. It seems the latest theory right-wing billionaires have concocted to escape scrutiny has somewhat different origins from its present use: In defending secret money, [former bug exterminator Karl] Rove invokes that Supreme Court case, NAACP v. Alabama. He lines up Crossroads GPS on the same side as Parks and the NAACP, and he says the transparency advocates make the same argument as the segregationists. "I think it's...

You remember how Voyager 2 launched two weeks before Voyager 1? This is similar: I got photos of nephew #2 before nephew #1: Yes, sir, that's a baby:

Late next year, Earth could get the best show from a comet in decades: By the end of summer [Comet Ison] will become visible in small telescopes and binoculars. By October it will pass close to Mars and things will begin to stir. The surface will shift as the ice responds to the thermal shock, cracks will appear in the crust, tiny puffs of gas will rise from it as it is warmed. The comet's tail is forming. Slowly at first but with increasing vigour, as it passes the orbit of Earth, the gas and dust...

In a completely shocking, unforeseeable move, the people who stole leased Chicago's parking meters will raise rates next week: In an annual ritual that has become as predictable if not as joyous as a New Year’s Eve countdown to midnight, Chicago drivers again will have to dig a little deeper to pay to park at meters in 2013. Loop rates will go up 75 cents to $6.50 an hour as part of scheduled fee increases included in Mayor Richard Daley’s much-criticized 2008 lease of the city’s meters to Chicago...

I don't know how Amazon figures out what to recommend, nor do I know who's buying what from them. Sometimes I wonder, though, like when it gives me these helpful suggestions: But of course it's important to have cookies when the revolution comes...

I still haven't gotten a holiday snap of No. 1 Nephew, so here's Winston Churchill Brendan again: And here again is Roger, expressing exactly how I felt by 9pm yesterday:

XKCD tackles the astronomical and geographical challenges of following the Star of Bethlehem: If the wise men leave Jerusalem and walk toward the star Sirius, day and night, even when it’s below the horizon, this is the path they follow over the surface: If we allow a little theological confusion and assume the wise men can walk on water, they’ll eventually wind up going in an endless circle, 30 kilometers in diameter, around the South Pole. Re-reading Matthew 2:7-10, however, I can't quite tell who the...

There he is, my sister's kid: No, no, no. This is my sister's kid: Sheesh. Merry Christmas, kid. And dog.

You'll never guess where I am: This is Chicago in December (though it looks and feels more like November). I tried flipping that photo between black & white and color a couple times, and I couldn't tell the difference. Tonight I meet the nephews...