Events

Yes, Illinois was #1 in rainfall last month, making us the wettest state in the country: The National Centers for Environmental Information (formerly NCDC) released their numbers for June, showing that Illinois did indeed have its wettest June on record with 236.2 mm (according to their calculations). That made Illinois the wettest state** in the US for the month. **There are no statewide records for Hawaii. However, an examination of the four main sites in Hawaii indicate June totals that are far less...

Apparently Republican Maine governor Paul LePage (aka "the country's craziest governor") let "accidentally" let 19 bills become law by "forgetting" to veto them: As the Bangor Daily News reported Tuesday evening, LePage appeared to be attempting to use the parliamentary procedure known as the pocket veto. By not signing the bills and "pocketing" them, LePage could under some circumstances have effectively vetoed them. In theory, that would have allowed the proposals to die without legislators having a...

OK, I think the Fitbit "sensitive" sleep setting has to go. Last night, I know I slept for longer than my Fitbit believes I did: I think it's interpreting very slight arm movements as actual restlessness, whereas it used to ignore most of them. If I'd only gotten four hours of sleep last night, I'd have crashed at my desk already. I'm setting it back to "normal" sensitivity now. Let's see what it shows tomorrow.

There's something kind of sad about spending several days extracting code I wrote for one company from code I wrote, while working at that company, for the company I now work for. Then I gotta test it all...

Yesterday I changed my Fitbit sleep monitor setting from "normal" to "sensitive." I got to bed last night at almost exactly the same time I went to bed Sunday night; and I got up this morning within 5 minutes of when I got up yesterday. But my Fitbit says I got 90 minutes less sleep last night. Here's Sunday night: Here's last night: This means either it's been overestimating my sleep, or last night it hugely underestimated it. Or, possibly, last night I just tossed and turned a lot more than usual....

Astronomers have discovered compelling evidence of alien life on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: Evidence of alien life is "unequivocal" on the comet carrying the Philae probe through space, two leading astronomers have said. [Astrobiologist] Chandra Wickramasinghe said: "What we're saying is that data coming from the comet seems to unequivocally, in my opinion, point to micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very...

The weather's perfect, there are holiday parties, and possibly some hiking. So not much blogging this weekend. There was also a small Ribfest nearby, but aside from Rod Tuffcurls & the Bench Presses, kind of disappointing (especially the vendor who ran out of ribs). More later as circumstances warrant.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2015 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:07 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:50 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:32 16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27 23 Sep Equinox , 03:21 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:10 26 Sep...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2015 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:07 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:50 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:32 16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27 23 Sep Equinox , 03:21 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:10 26 Sep...

Remy Porter at The Daily WTF points out the implementation issues with marriage equality: In a landmark decision, the United States Supreme Court revised the business requirements and integrity constraints on the marriage relationship, removing some legacy constraints and essentially updating to better reflect the actual needs of their end users. This policy decision now has to be implemented in every state, county, town and hamlet across the country. Every change breaks somebody’s workflow, and this...