Events

With former governor George Ryan's release from prison this morning, Illinois has finally returned to the situation of having fewer former governors in prison than out of it. In an especially nice touch, former governor Jim Thompson is Ryan's attorney. I guess Dan Walker and Jim Edgar are both still alive, too, so the current count is: 1 incumbent, non-convicted governor; 2 former, non-convicted governors; 2 former, convicted governors; and 1 former governor still in jail. There's a nice symmetry there...

I have a new post up at my employer's developers blog. Hard-core Daily Parker enthusiasts may have seen it already. Still, click through to XM. We like blog visitors!

Chicago's normal high temperature for April 17th is 16°C, which by strange coincidence is the new record high for January 29th: The warm front associated with the strong low pressure system passed through the Chicago area between 2 and 3AM on it’s way north and at 6AM is oriented east-west along the Illinois-Wisconsin state line. South of the front south to southwest winds 24 to 45 km/h and temperatures in the upper 10s°C prevail – Wheeling actually reported 15.6°C at 6AM. North of the front through...

I'm sitting at my remote office working on a conundrum: how to balance human usability against good software design. The problem is: how can I create an Azure table partitioning scheme that uses Azure efficiently and still allows the user (me) efficiently to troubleshoot problems with the feature in question. This is a direct consequence of the issues I worked on this morning. The feature is the component of the Weather Now parsing system that stores raw weather data from NOAA temporarily. By...

Even though we've just gotten our first snowfall, and today has started giving us snow, freezing rain, sleet, and icy roads, there is good news. January 27th is when things officially start looking brighter in Chicago every year. Tonight, for the first time in almost two months, the sun sets at 5pm. Then things start to become noticeably brighter: a 7am sunrise next Monday, a 5:30pm sunset two weeks after that, then a 6:30am sunrise less than a week later. Yes, this is dorky, but trust me: you'll notice...

The Inner Drive Technology International Data Center continues to whir away (and use electricity), despite my best efforts to shut it down by moving everything to Microsoft Windows Azure. Most of the delay finishing the move has nothing to do with its technology. Simply, my real job has taken a lot of time this month as we've worked toward launching a new application tomorrow. Against the 145 hours spent on that project this month, not counting the 38 hours spent helping with other projects, squeezing...

I've come a across a number of stories over the last few days about the Republican Party's efforts to win elections. GOP chair Reince Preibus wonders where they go from here. Legislators in Mississippi apparently don't understand federalism. Republican legislatures gerrymandered every state they controlled in 2011—nothing new there—but now they want to get more Electoral College votes in swing states by going to proportional voting. Virginia's legislature passed a bill that would have thrown 9 of 13...

Well, Chicago finally found out how long was the longest stretch in recorded history without a 25 mm snowfall: 335 days. The official tally through 6 am was 28 mm, which looked like this in Lincoln Park: It really won't last. The forecast calls for 11°C by Tuesday.

Work, work, work, and more than an hour each way to the airport, and it turns out I haven't flown in three years. Time to renew my medical certificate and get back in the air. I miss this, this, and this. Oh, and this.

Maps? Check. Dogs? Check. New York? Check. I give you, Dogs of NYC: If you own a dog in New York City, odds are it’s a mutt named Max. The city’s dog licensing records show that out of almost 100,000 registered dogs, this is the most common breed and name in town. WNYC obtained the complete list from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which runs the dog licensing program. The first thing you notice is the names. The most popular ones in the city hew pretty close to the most popular names...