Events

I've just pushed out an interim build of the Inner Drive Technology demonstration project, Weather Now. In addition to fixing a couple of annoying bugs, I added a significant new feature. The weather lists on the home page now can show whatever text I want for the weather station names. Before, it could only show their official designations, which made the lists harder to use. You can see how useful this is immediately. The list of NFL football games now shows you what game the weather goes with. Also...

I'm not entirely sure what I think of this: Amazon is working on a solution that could revolutionize digital gift buying. The online retailer has quietly patented a way for people to return gifts before they receive them, and the patent documents even mention poor Aunt Mildred. Amazon's innovation, not ready for this Christmas season, includes an option to "Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred," the patent says. "For example, the user may specify such a rule because the user believes that this potential...

The Economist's Anthony Gardner didn't mind getting stranded: Sure, there were dark moments. The first came with the news that our delayed flight from Cairo to Heathrow was being diverted to Brussels; the second, when we learnt that all the airport hotels were full. But thereafter things began to look up. Though it was after midnight by the time Egyptair despatched us to the Hotel Le Plaza in the city centre, its elegant lobby told us that we had landed firmly on our feet. Brussels—a city I had never...

Yesterday's storm, which right now has parked itself over Cape Cod, dumped 80 cm of snow on parts of New Jersey and pretty much shut down New York: Morning commuters faced the daunting prospect of cutting fresh tracks in over a foot of snow along roads and sidewalks that looked more like Colorado than the urban north. In New York City, a badly crippled subway system hobbled along, but Long Island Rail Road service remained suspended early on Monday, as did some New Jersey Transit and Metro-North...

I can imagine that my friends in the Northeast aren't too happy today: URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY 1240 PM EST SUN DEC 26 2010 ...DANGEROUS WINTER STORM IMMINENT... ...BLIZZARD WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM EST MONDAY... * HAZARDS...HEAVY SNOW AND STRONG WINDS...WITH CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING OF SNOW WITH NEAR ZERO VISIBILITY AT TIMES. * ACCUMULATIONS...15 TO 20 INCHES...WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS UP TO 2 FEET POSSIBLE. * IMPACTS...EXTREMELY...

This came to me in 1988 from the Internet (though back then no one called it "the Internet" and we ramped onto it through CompuServe). Enjoy. Hotline! By James Zachary Every now and again, a caller to the water and wastewater department will ask about issues of national concern. RING! Southeast plant, this is Zack. "I am taking a survey for my organization. Do you have time to answer a few questions?" Ma'am, this is a sewage plant... "You are a taxpayer and a voter, aren't you?" Yes Ma'am, but... "This...

From 1995, various historical figures answer the age-old question, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" PlatoFor the greater good. Karl MarxIt was an historical inevitability. MachiavelliSo that its subjects will view it with admiration, as a chicken which has the daring and courage to boldly cross the road, but also with fear, for whom among them has the strength to contend with such a paragon of avian virtue? In such a manner is the princely chicken’s dominion maintained. HippocratesBecause of an...

A spokesman for Pat Robertson has clarified the Rev's stance on pot: Dr. Robertson did not call for the decriminalization of marijuana. He was advocating that our government revisit the severity of the existing laws because mandatory drug sentences do harm to many young people who go to prison and come out as hardened criminals. He was also pointing out that these mandatory sentences needlessly cost our government millions of dollars when there are better approaches available. Dr. Robertson's comments...

Do you know why the Senate doesn't seem to get anything done? It might have something to do with the 63 filibusters they perpetrated in the current Congress. That's more filibusters than the Senate had from 1919 to 1982 combined, and two more than the previous record, which they set in the last Congress. Drill down into the lists of individual cloture actions in each Congress, and you get a sense of just how obstructionist the Republicans have become.

Even Pat Robertson—yes, that Pat Robertson—can no longer pretend that U.S. drug policy has in any way succeeded: The salient part: We're locking up people that take a couple of puffs of marijuana and the next thing you know they've got ten years—they've got mandatory sentences and these judges, they throw up their hand and say, "Nothing we can do, it's mandatory sentences." We've got to take a look at what we're considering crimes, and that's one of them. I mean, I’m not exactly for the use of drugs...