Events

Tomorrow afternoon is the Day of the Doctor already, and then in a little more than four days I'm off to faraway lands. Meanwhile, I'm watching a performance test that we'll repeat on Monday after we release a software upgrade. So while riveted to this Live Meeting session, I am pointedly not reading these articles: A Times editorial about soil bacteria and how we screwed up the prairies; John Gray eviscerating Malcom Gladwell; Alec MacGillis praising Harry Reid; and Scott Hanselman explaining node.js...

As interesting as infrastructure is to most people, it's possible this was a bigger story yesterday: Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday put his signature on a historic measure making Illinois the 16th state to allow same-sex marriage, capping a 40-year push for gay rights that picked up major momentum during the past decade. The bill-signing illustrated the rapidly changing views in Illinois and the nation on gay rights. Supporters first introduced an anti-discrimination bill in the legislature in 1974. It...

After a year, the Wells Street bridge has reopened: Just before 6:15 a.m., construction workers in reflective vests and hard hats dragged orange traffic barrels to the sidewalk, clearing the traffic lanes for the first time since last November. Moments later, the first person crossed the bridge: Bike messenger Lionel Floyd. He pedaled south and appeared surprised to see a crowd of reporters waiting for him at Wacker Drive. The $50 million reconstruction was aimed at extending the lifespan of the while...

After some thought and reflection, I realize I've spent more time in some parts of North America than I remembered the other day: As before, red are places I've been to but not stayed overnight; amber indicates at least one overnight; blue shows multiple visits; and green means I've lived, worked, or spent more than 30 aggregate days there. The mapping applet is here.

A popular Canadian broadcaster, Rick Mercer, reminds Ontarians that Rob Ford's politics matter:

I had enough time during today's 8-hour meeting to queue up some articles to read later. Here they are: From August 2012, Paul Ryan's Ayn Rand Reader From today, Sam Harris on the high cost of tiny lies and an interview with Paul Bloom The New Republic reminds us that Rob Ford may be awful, but Mel Lastman paved the way for him, and how bad a burst pipeline really is to your community Split family portraits, by artist Ulric Collette, are really cool Anita Sarkeesian has another installment in her series...

Geography is fun. It explains how Canadian airline WestJet can manage their newest trans-Atlantic flight which gets to Dublin in a little more than 4 hours using a 737-700: Dublin itself might not be that strange, but this isn’t coming from a big city. No, it’s actually going to be a flight from St John’s, way out in Newfoundland. The metro area, if you can call it that, has almost 200,000 people. That’s good enough to be the 20th largest metro area in Canada. Yeah… 20th. For WestJet, there is very...

I always seem to miss the live shows: A nude woman claiming to be the "goddess of the train" halted southbound Red Line service for a short time early Saturday afternoon until police could escort her off to jail at the Granville station. The "goddess" said she was going to the front car to drive the train and told everyone else to get off, according to Anne, who shared these photos. The Sun-Times speculated "it appeared she was suffering from a mental illness." That's just harsh. I suspect performance art.

This little app is fun. Red are places I've been to but not stayed overnight; amber indicates at least one overnight; blue shows multiple visits; and green means I've lived, worked, or spent more than 30 aggregate days there: Clearly I need to visit the Maritimes and Territories. Oh, and Alaska and Hawaii.

At least, by number of stations: There’s more good news on the Divvy bike-share front. The Chicago Department of Transportation announced this morning that they scored a $3 million federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement grant to add 75 more docking stations to the 400 already planned. The system recently reached 300 stations and 3,000 bikes. While the expansion of Divvy is an exciting development, CDOT’s press release exhibits a bit of Second City syndrome, boasting that with 475...