Events

It looks like I might fly this afternoon: I've had to postpone my annual flight review four times because of weather. Finally, today, the forecast calls for what you see above: clear skies, light winds, cold temperatures. (It's 0°C this morning.)

As usual, the primary color is gray: There's a rumor we will have sunlight tomorrow. Unconfirmed.

Pilot and author James Fallows is thankful for the reasonable and minimal changes to New York City airspace the FAA announced last week: When regulators and security officials address a problem through minimal rather than excessive rule-setting and interference or panicky over-reaction, that is worth our thankfulness too. Building toward a crescendo of things to be thankful for at this time of year. By the way, it's a very fun trip for private pilots: (From a flight I took in March 2000.)

Not Always Right, vigniettes that demonstrate how customer stupidity is an absolute limit on customer service: Me: "Thank you for calling ***. How may I help you today?" Caller: "I'm having problems with my computer and–" (Suddenly, what sounds like an air raid siren sounds off in the background.) Me: "Ma'am, I apologize. I was unable to hear what you said." Caller: "Stupid tornado warnings! They always make it hard to talk on the phone." Me: "Oh...should I let you go?" Caller: "Nah. This happens all of...

Carl Kasell is retiring December 30th: Kasell will, however, continue as official judge and scorekeeper of the Chicago Public Radio-produced quiz program, "Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me!," "the show that turned him from a newsman into a rock star," as noted in a memo to staff Monday from David Sweeney, NPR's managing editor for news, and Margaret Low Smith, its vice president of programming. Sigh.

The Chicago Tribune today has an in-depth article about the misuse of autism research in therapy: In his letter, obtained by the Tribune, [Florida family physician Dr. Dan] Rossignol justified the unorthodox treatment in part by writing that "a recent study out of Johns Hopkins has shown that children with autism have evidence of neuroinflammation on autopsy and (cerebral spinal fluid) evaluations." It was [Dr. Carlos] Pardo's study. Rossignol did not mention that Pardo's team had written in its online...

From reader DW, a Durex commercial not likely to run in Alabama:

Field trip to Noethling Park (a.k.a. Wiggly Field) today, with a ball and a Chuck-It: Everyone had a blast until Sadie, a beagle, got tired of waiting for Parker to give her his ball. After some snarling and snapping, both humans decided the dogs were done with the park for the day. Here's Parker saying "nyah nyah" to both Sadie and me:

IBM has created a supercomputer with more cerebral capacity (as measured by neurons and synapses) than a housecat: The simulator, which runs on the Dawn Blue Gene /P supercomputer with 147,456 CPUs and 144TB of main memory, simulates the activity of 1.617 billion neurons connected in a network of 8.87 trillion synapses. The model doesn't yet run at real time, but it does simulate a number of aspects of real-world neuronal interactions, and the neurons are organized with the same kinds of groupings and...

After two hours of classes this morning, both of which reminded me I need to study more, what better way to recover than with another Parker puppy video? The bed, by the way, lasted about four days. He shredded the thing like a Cuisinart.