Events

For the first time in about 5 years—since 2008, I believe—I have no travel scheduled. It's an odd feeling, but one I'll soon rectify. Just not sure where or when to go yet. Meanwhile, Chuck Thompson, author of Better Off Without 'Em: A Northern manifesto for Southern secession, bemoans the homogeneity of every small city and its brewpub: Whenever some self-appointed hometown convention and visitors’ bureau rep (and sometimes it’s an actual CVB rep) takes you to that cool little place in the downtown...

Over the past two days, Microsoft Azure had two outages they're still investigating. The first, from 18:26 CST through 20:00 CST Monday (0026 to 0200 UTC Tuesday), and the second, from 13:50 to 15:27 CST (1950-2127 UTC) yesterday, affected SQL Database and related services in the Azure datacenter outside Washington, D.C. I noticed the Monday evening outage as it happened, because when a database goes down, a number of applications start sending me emails. A couple of people had minor inconveniences, but...

After only 147 years, the state of Mississippi has finally ratified the 13th Amendment: On Dec. 6, 1865, the amendment received the three-fourths' vote it needed when Georgia became the 27th state to ratify it. States that rejected the measure included Delaware, Kentucky, New Jersey and Mississippi. In the months and years that followed, states continued to ratify the amendment, including those that had initially rejected it. New Jersey ratified the amendment in 1866, Delaware in 1901 and Kentucky in...

Via Sullivan, a catalog of strange things we do with gadgets: You’re on your cell phone, talking to a friend, pacing in circles, fidgeting with your hands, checking your cuticles–whatever it is you do while you’re on the phone. They’re odd, pointless behaviors, but we do them nonetheless, and a group of designers from the Art Center College of Design has taken it upon themselves to illustrate and document all of them (sort of like that Illustrated Dictionary of Cyborg Anthropology). There’s the...

Flying out of O'Hare yesterday we passed this unhappy specimen: The 787 Dreamliner has been there over a month now, having gotten stuck in Chicago when the difficulties started. (I've actually been through O'Hare five times since it got stranded, but yesterday was the first time my airplane took off from 22L, giving me a close enough look to snap a photo.)

Blogger Rod Hilton believes he has found the best way to watch the Star Wars films: IV, V, II, III, VI. First he lays out the problems watching the saga in episode order and filmed order: The problem with Episode Order is that it ruins the surprise that Vader is Luke’s father. If you think that this reveal doesn’t matter since it’s common knowledge, I suggest you watch the looks on these kids’ faces. This reveal is one of the most shocking in film history, and if a newcomer to the series has managed to...

Some links: James Fallows annotated SOTU is an annual must-read. Crain's sniffs out a letter from the Illinois Congressional Delegation to AMR and USAirways along the lines of, "nice merger you've got there, shame if something were to happen to it." I'm way behind on Paul Krugman's blog. Wired examines the Battle of Hoth in strategic terms. Lots to do in the next 19 hours...including a conference call with a data center at 10:30 tonight.

The Cranky Flier gives American and USAirways advice following their Valentines Day announcement of corporate nuptials: Get Rid of the Old American Sure, technically everyone who works at American today is part of the old American, but that’s not what I mean. There are key people – and processes – that epitomize the old American and those need to be swept out quickly. If these folks don’t see the writing on the wall, then the new management team needs to act. Number one on that list is, of course, Tom...

It's official: The boards of American Airlines parent AMR Corp. and US Airways Group late Wednesday separately voted to approve a merger that would create the world's largest airline, The Wall Street Journal reports. "The merger will be formally announced early Thursday morning. Under the all-stock deal's terms, American's creditors would own 72% of the combined airline, and US Airways shareholders the balance," the Journal writes. "Under the all-stock deal's terms, American's creditors would own 72% of...

Paul Krugman has a more considered view of Rubio's blame-game: Look, this is one of the most thoroughly researched topics out there, and every piece of the government-did-it thesis has been refuted; see Mike Konczal for a summary. No, the CRA wasn’t responsible for the epidemic of bad lending; no, Fannie and Freddie didn’t cause the housing bubble; no, the “high-risk” loans of the GSEs weren’t remotely as risky as subprime. This strikes me as a bigger deal than whether Rubio slurped his water; he and...