Anthony's Song
I'm movin' out. A lovely young couple have offered to buy Inner Drive World Headquarters v5.0, and the rest of the place along with it. I've already gotten through the attorney-review period for IDTWHQ...
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We heard a loud crash in the Chancellor's office
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (equivalent to the US Treasury Secretary) Kwasi Kwarteng (Cons.) announced significant tax cuts along with £72 billion in new spending to forestall higher energy bills...
View ArticleThe value of cities
CNBC released a 35-minute documentary earlier this month that fairly discusses the value of cities relative to suburbs and exurbs:A lot of this is old hat to people who follow Strong Towns or other...
View ArticleUpdate on the Ravenswood Metra station
The local alderman's office sent me an update this afternoon on Metra's and the Union Pacific Railroad's stupefying 9-year mission to construct a single station platform that thousands of commuters per...
View ArticleAlmost as long as a Mahler symphony
Wow, yesterday went on a bit. From getting on the bus to Peoria to getting off the bus back in Chicago, I spent 18 hours and 20 minutes doing something connected with the Peoria Symphony's performance...
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Sterling drops to lowest price ever
The pound fell to $1.033 in early trading this morning before rebounding to the still-ahistorical $1.08 by mid-day:Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak hasn't had the job for three weeks and he's...
View ArticleNorth American traffic engineers hate pedestrians
YouTuber Not Just Bikes shows how North American traffic engineers prioritize the convenience and speed of drivers in ways that make our streets the most dangerous in the developed world for pedestrians:
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Bank of England fights "moron risk premium"
After Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng's shocking mini-budget announcement last week, worldwide markets (and the IMF) have clobbered Sterling and the Conservative government in general. Today the Bank of...
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Ian makes landfall
Hurricane Ian has made landfall over Tampa, Fla., as a strong Category-4 storm:In a 3:05 p.m. update, the National Hurricane Center said the massive Category 4 storm made landfall on the southwest...
View ArticleGetting a jab today
No, not the Covid booster. I'm getting the flu shot. You should too:"It's time to get your flu shot right now," advises Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious disease at Vanderbilt...
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Really, you should buy this armoire
As previously mentioned. Just check out those hand-inlays and working ca. 1800 hardware!
View ArticleCensus story maps
James Fallows loves the new data visualizations from the Census Bureau:Through its existence the Census has been an irreplaceable trove of data. A minor illustration: this past April it released a...
View ArticleComplete pile-up in my "to be read" stack
I've had a busy day. I finally solved the token-authentication problem I've been working on all week for my day job (only to discover another flavor of it after deploying to Azure), while dealing with...
View ArticlePacking day
As far as I know, I'm moving in 2½ weeks, though the exact timing of both real-estate closings remain unknown. Last time I moved it took me about 38 hours to pack and 15 to unpack. This time I expect...
View ArticleConsequences
Man-shaped bag of feces Alex Jones may be "done saying I'm sorry," but a Connecticut jury suggests he should have tried just one more time:The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $965 million to...
View ArticleBuilding a grocery oligopoly
Bloomberg reports that Kroger and Albertsons, two of the biggest grocery chains in the US, have started merger talks. This would create an enormous entity about the size of Wal-Mart. In Chicago, it...
View ArticleHow the brain manages illness
As I sit at my desk, sniffling and nursing a scratchy throat from all the dust my packing has thrown up, I found a pair of articles quite timely.From the Washington Post, new research explains how your...
View ArticleNot the shortest term as Chancellor ever
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng is out on his ass so that PM Liz Truss (who also holds the title First Lord of the Treasury) can put off going to the country for just a little...
View ArticleNot at the End of History quite yet
Stanford University historian Francis Fukuyama outlines why liberal democracies have better governance than dictatorships, and why authoritarianism comes back like an old stray cat ever couple of...
View ArticleNobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded
Last night while packing I caught this interview with Rebecca Jennings, whose recent trip to Positano, Italy, taught her something important about travel in the Instagram era:Positano is blessed with a...
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