Events

Would you take more free stuff, or more stuff you pay for? Probably the latter, according to Duke University professor Dan Ariely: DAN ARIELY: ... [T]here's some interesting exceptions [to cheaper prices being better]. And the most interesting one is the price of free. Imagine that one of your co-workers comes to the office with home-baked cookies, and she's offering you the cookies for a very cheap price. Let's say 5 cents per cookie. And she has 100 cookies on the tray, and there are 20 people in the...

It's amazing what you can do with a well-focused dog: Unfortunately, he was focused on a cat. Baby steps.

The Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, opens tomorrow. The Chicago Tribune reports on its historical debt to Chicago: [T]he Burj Dubai has a broader -- unmistakably global -- significance for Chicago, which invented the skyscraper in the 1880s, pioneered supertall structures in the mid-1960s and had bragging rights to the world's tallest building title from 1974 to 1996, when Sears (now Willis) Tower wore the crown. These days, the city's cloud-busting architectural achievements aren't...

Have you ever tried to introduce a dog into a house full of cats? We've had more fun in the past three weeks doing this than seems fair. We're finally at the point where we think Parker will leave the cats alone just long enough for them to flee. The terrier and beagle bits take over on occasion and he has gotten uncomfortably close to the cats more than once—which explains why we've kept him tethered to the desk where I can get to him immediately. Being untethered has huge benefits, though. For...

Since I'm spending so much time here, I thought I should do a Raleigh sunrise chart to complement the one for Chicago. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting note about 2010: the sunset on November 6th will be the latest sunrise for most places in the U.S. (7:43 am in Raliegh) until 2021. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2010 6 Jan Latest sunrise until Mar. 14th 07:26 17:17 9:50 20 Jan 5:30pm sunset 07:23 17:30 10:07 17 Feb 7am...

Once again, a major American newspaper has reported on something as universal fact, but that only makes sense in the U.S.: The day is a palindromic date: 01-02-2010, meaning the number can be read the same way in either direction. There will be 12 palindromic days this century, [Aziz Inan, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Portland in Oregon,] said, and Saturday is the second. The first was 10-02-2001. (To check out his complete list: faculty.up.edu/ainan/palindrome.html) Well...

...nothing happened. And I spent all night in a data facility in New York watching nothing happen. Fun times, fun times.

Happy 22! That's a little geek humor. See, 01/01/10 is 22. Get it? You know, like, "There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't"? Right. Starting off the year well, I can see....

...could be today, depending on which competing definition you use: A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is...

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting note about 2010: the sunset on November 6th will be the latest sunrise in Chicago (7:30am) until 2021—and that, only within 4 seconds of precision. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2010 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct. 29th 07:19 16:33 9:14 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:09 20 Feb 5:30pm...