Events

Something not often seen (or felt): a 7.0 earthquake just hit Haiti.

Apparently I got back to Chicago just in time for a heat wave: Arctic air's grip on Chicago's weather enters its 19th day Tuesday. But far-reaching changes in critical upper level steering winds taking place on a continental scale are to undermine the frigid air's dominance. The break in arctic-level temperatures may span much of the coming two weeks. Not until month's end may bitter winds of arctic origin return brutally cold air to the metro area. Coming days will offer winter weary Chicago area...

Via several sites, a NASA photo of Great Britain from Thursday noontime: The U.K. doesn't usually get a snow cover at all, let alone one this thorough. The U.K. Met Office has an explanation: In most winters, and certainly those in the last 20 years or so, our winds normally come from the south-west. This means air travels over the relatively warm Atlantic and we get mild conditions in the UK. However, over the past three weeks the Atlantic air has been ‘blocked’ and cold air has been flowing down from...

Funny on so many levels: File under "lazy Sunday posting."

Software entrepreneur Joel Spolsky says that's a good start, but only part of it: [L]et’s stop talking about “backups.” Doing a backup is too low a bar. Any experienced system administrator will tell you that they have a great backup plan, the trouble comes when you have to restore. And that’s when you discover that: The backed-up files were encrypted with a cryptographically-secure key, the only copy of which was on the machine that was lost The server had enormous amounts of configuration information...

Each day that we spend getting Parker to exist peacefully with the cats brings us closer to the goal of peace and harmony. This, I think, is what Parker fears (and the cats want): (Hat tip DK.) Yesterday, for example, one of the cats (Lily, the boldest) let Parker sniff her. Of course, I had my hand on his collar the whole time, but still, progress. Then, later that day, another cat (Nick, the ball of orange spite that makes Bucky look like a model citizen) tried to hit him for no reason. Oy.

But not this: The Chicago area was bracing for a long, hazardous evening rush hour as it continued to be socked by a major snowstorm that has canceled more than 500 flights, closed more than 150 schools and caused numerous spin-out accidents on expressways. The Illinois State Police is warning of "extreme travel times" for the rush hour. Tonight also will turn bitterly cold with wind chill values as low as -17°C to -24°C. Today's high temperatures are expected to be [around -5°C]. At the peak of the...

The Duke CCMBA has a five-term course called "Culture, Civilization, and Leadership" that gives us structures to help us understand—wait for it—cultures and civilizations. At the end of each term, each team produces a paper analyzing the place in which we started the term. This term, I drew the short straw volunteered to write the first draft. We just submitted the final paper, after a few days of revisions. If you're interested, here it is. We didn't put it in the paper, but throughout the process, I...

It turns out, Raleigh isn't that cold. All my life I've just accepted that Chicago winters build character. But I'm not sure anymore, especially after three sunny, 5°C days here while temperatures back home have skulked around -12°C. Then, today, this: A winter storm warning will be in effect across the Chicago area from this evening through Friday morning. By the end of that warning, anywhere from 15 to 30 cm of a fairly fluffy snow will have come down, according to the National Weather Service. The...

Diane and her sister made Parker a bed for Xmas. I think he likes it: Three guesses what he's staring at.