Events

I had hoped, as I hoped about Post #1,000, to write something lengthy and truly self-indulgent. This will disappoint many readers, but I don't have time to do that. Instead, just a quick update: even though Inner Drive Technology still exists (as does all of its software and ongoing maintenance), I'm now working for Avanade, a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture. And, in the spirit of the season, on my way to Avanade's Chicago office yesterday, I noticed something...odd...about the Daley...

A friend and I toured the Big Boss Brewing Co. in Raleigh yesterday. Possibly owing to the gorgeous weather, or a widespread spirit of scientific inquiry, or—long shot here—the $1 33 cL beer samples, yesterday's tour seemed awfully popular: Brewmaster Brad Wynn dragged all 642 of us around the tiny brewery, entertainingly explaining their brewing process quickly enough for us to get more of the aforementioned $1 beers: Great fun. They're having a party on Wednesday which I'll have to miss, but their tap...

Via Dan Savage, a meta-analysis showing a correlation (not necessarily causation) between religious dogmatism and racism: The February issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review has published a meta-analysis of 55 independent studies conducted in the United States which considers surveys of over 20,000 mostly Christian participants. Religious congregations generally express more prejudiced views towards other races. Furthermore, the more devout the community, the greater the racism. This study...

In the U.S., today is 3.14. The rest of the world will celebrate Pi Day when we have 14 months in a year, because most places write dates "14/3". So we'll just have to wait until International Pi Month in March 2014. Too bad most of us slept through 3.14 1:59:26...and then lost an hour of sleep 34 seconds later. Yes, I'm a nerd.

The Chicago Tribune has a story this morning about the controversy blowing through DeKalb County (about 150 km west of Chicago) because of wind turbines: Ben Michels' friends say he may have the worst of it. Five turbines stand in a line behind his home, the nearest 435 m away; the county restricts turbines from being any closer than that. Michels, who has raised goats for 20 years and averaged one death per year, said nine have died since December. Autopsies didn't reveal anything physically wrong with...

Via Freakonomics, the City of Edmonton noticed some unusual water-use patterns during the U.S.-Canada hockey game February 27th: The end result, of course, is that Canadians were flushed with pride.

Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has run out of patience: Many Republicans now are demanding that we simply ignore the progress we've made, the extensive debate and negotiations we’ve held, the amendments we've added (including more than 100 from Republicans) and the votes of a supermajority in favor of a bill whose contents the American people unambiguously support. We will not. We will finish the job. As you know, the vast majority of bills developed through reconciliation were passed by...

NPR ran a story this morning on gender-bending chickens: Michael Clinton of the University of Edinburgh studies these peculiar chickens, called "gynandromorphs." They're split down the middle: One side looks male; the other side, female. Clinton wanted to know how this happened. When he started studying the half-and-half birds, Clinton figured there would have been some weird chromosomal abnormality so the gonads would send out scrambled hormonal signals. But that turned out to be wrong. The chickens...

You never need to watch cable news again (NSFW): The British version:

After months of beautiful weather I finally arranged a flight check-out at a local flight school. I had to get an hour of additional training to learn how to use the Garmin G1000 flight instrument panel yesterday, but today's flight went just like any other check-out. (Google Earth track.) My passport, unfortunately, is at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago getting a visa stuck in. So I'll have to wait until I get it back to rent planes. This is because the TSA believes, as would anyone, that only U.S....