Lunchtime reading
It has cooled off slightly from yesterday's scorching 36°C, but the dewpoint hasn't dropped much. So the sauna yesterday has become the sticky summer day today. Fortunately, we invented air...
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Two stark comparisons
First: the difference between how Garmin handled a global outage that lasted 5 days, and how SendGrid managed one that lasted 5 hours. SendGrid handles billions of emails per day, including for...
View ArticleWe really can't take much more of this
The president and his eldest son both promoted a video, since taken down by all the major platforms, that featured what they seem to believe passes for medical expertise:After social media companies...
View ArticleThe virus doesn't care about your beliefs
Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and notoriously uninformed candidate for the Republican nomination for president in 2012, has died of Covid-19:Cain, 74, was hospitalized earlier this...
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Spiraling out of control
First, this chart:And yet, there are so many other things going on today:NPR has the clearest take-down on the president's election-postponement trolling I've seen today, noting in particular that...
View ArticleFifth month in a row over 50
This is my 55th post this month, and the fifth month in a row in which I've posted over 50 times. That brings my 12-month total to 581, the third record in a row and the fifth record this year. I guess...
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Another record
No, not about The Daily Parker (though I'm hoping to keep extending the record I set yesterday). I mean Lake Michigan:The Lake Michigan-Huron system ended July at 177.5 m MSL, averaging just below that...
View Article157,000 deaths
I am trying to put that number into perspective.Assuming 112.5 passengers per flight (4.378 billion passengers carried in 2018 divided by 38.9 million flights[1]), that's the equivalent of 1,395...
View ArticleAs the pipeline builds...
I'm waiting for a build to finish so I can sign off work for the day, so I've queued up a few things to read later:The Atlantic's cover this month will be "How the Pandemic Defeated America" by Ed...
View ArticleJonathan Swan interviews the president
Yesterday, Axios and HBO ran a 45-minute interview between Axios' Jonathn Swan and the President of the United States filmed last Tuesday. I haven't seen it, and I'm not sure I can stomach the whole...
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The equivalent of a 3-kiloton bomb
Yesterday approximately 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate exploded in the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, leaving hundreds feared dead and thousands injured. If you've ever worried what a "tactical" nuclear...
View ArticleBeirut update
Casualties continue to mount along with accusations of official malfeasance from Tuesday evening's blast at the Port of Beirut:Lebanon's President, Michel Aoun, blamed the detonation on 2,750 tonnes of...
View ArticleReactionary right-wing corruption under scrutiny
New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed suit to dissolve the National Rifle Association:The lawsuit sets up a legal confrontation that could take years to play out and will leave the...
View ArticleWhere did it all go wrong?
I admire the New York Times for digging into how our pandemic response was so much worse than every other rich country, but ultimately, we already knew:First, the United States faced longstanding...
View ArticleFun little video
I took the Mini out for a spin yesterday evening, and got a couple of cool shots:Enjoy.
View ArticleAbout the schools
Josh Marshall has a good summary of why things suck for parents, kids, and teachers right now:But the plan [New York] city and most of [New York] state has come up with shows how limited this can be...
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Well, blow me down
The National Weather Service has confirmed that Monday's storm spawned 7 tornadoes over Northern Illinois, including one that skipped through the far-North Side neighborhood Rogers Park:Local news site...
View ArticleWasted time
I just spent 90 minutes driving to and from two different Drivers Services facilities because I wanted to renew my drivers license with a Real ID version. At both places the lines stretched into the...
View ArticleSo many things today
I'm taking a day off, so I'm choosing not to read all the articles that have piled up on my desktop:Tropical Storm Josephine has formed east of the windward islands, becoming the earliest 10th named...
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