Events

This was originally published on 31 March 2016. You can see an updated version of the table in a post from 26 January 2024. In late March 2016, I ordered what may turn out to be the last desktop computer I'll ever buy. I think this may be true because (a) I've ordered a box that kicks proportionately more ass than any computer I've bought before; (b) each of my last three computers was in use for more than two years (though the one I bought in 2009 would probably have lived longer had I not dumped a...

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 2016 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:01 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:08 12 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 17th Earliest sunset until Oct 24th 06:07 17:55 11:47 13 Mar Daylight saving time...

After two of the remaining four diagonal runways at O'Hare close later this month, the airport is planning to experiment with alternate landing runways to reduce noise: The city has developed a concept to rotate the designated "fly quiet'' runways at night to abate noise. Instead of planes flying over the same air corridors night after night, the rotation of runways — on possibly a weekly basis — would move the worst noise impacts from one community to another, aviation officials said. The experiment...

Via Schneier, a new paper by researchers at Google discussed the differences between the ways security experts and non-experts treat online security. Not surprising, experts have better habits. When asked about the security practices that most matter to them, experts talked about multi-factor authentication, password safes, and getting the latest software patches, while non-experts worried about anti-virus software and changing passwords frequently: The most common things-you-do responses from each...

Just some of the news stories I haven't got time to read this morning: Two men stole a puppy at knifepoint on a CTA train last night. I mean, WTF? An airplane part that could be from Malaysia Airlines 370 was found on Réunion, an island near Madagascar some 4,000 km from where searchers were looking for the missing plane. Via Schneier, an argument that it wasn't a legal limit on spying that prevented the NSA from intercepting a crucial phone call to Osama bin Laden in 2001, it was incompetence in the...

We're well into our fourth day in five above 30°C, but around lunchtime a front passed that dropped the dewpoint from 22°C to 9°C. What a difference. It's still hot, but at least it's not so sticky. Walking home from trivia last night I practically swam through 25°C air with a 23°C dewpoint and lost two belt sizes along the way. The Climate Prediction Center guesses that August will be cooler than normal, as will September and October. And I guess one week of every year we just have to take the heat....

I really love my camera:

While in Phoenix, I took an unscheduled side-trip to Rúla Búla in Tempe: The bar features prominently in Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid series, which one of my oldest surviving friends turned me on to about a year ago. In the series, the protagonist frequents the bar, including at one point to buy a shot for Jesus. (Yes, that Jesus, in one of the funniest scenes in the novels.) Since I was only 18 km away, I just had to make a field trip. I did not, alas, have the fabled fish and chips, so I'll never know if...

Why would anyone go to Arizona in July? A geas. On Friday I visited Park #26: The trip also gave me a chance to take my 7D Mark II for a spin. Sitting 18 rows behind the Diamondbacks' dugout, I was able to get photos like this, no problem: Let's take a closer look, yes? This is at ISO-3200, 1/500 at f/5.6, from about 100 meters away: Cool, right? More photos of the game and of my field trip to Tempe later.

Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, is 38: On this day in 1978, Louise Joy Brown, the world’s first baby to be conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF) is born at Oldham and District General Hospital in Manchester, England, to parents Lesley and Peter Brown. The healthy baby was delivered shortly before midnight by caesarean section and weighed in at five pounds, 12 ounces. Before giving birth to Louise, Lesley Brown had suffered years of infertility due to blocked fallopian tubes. In November...