Yes, that's right, I've earned the Master of Beer Appreciation from Goose Island Beer Co., here in Chicago. It took nearly four years—I started on 12 September 2004—but I persevered, drinking 35 different brews, and now I get Imperial pints (as opposed to regular ones) whenever I visit their twin pubs.
All right, it's not up there with my J.D., but it's still an accomplishment, if for no other reason than I no longer need to carry the very old booklet in my wallet any more.
I've been slaving over a hot keyboard for a few days to finish the Inner Drive Extensible Architecture™—the Idea™—release 1.10. I've added two major components to support auditable business objects and money, the latter being much more interesting but a lot simpler to code. For the truly geeky, I've also published a Software Developer Kit (SDK) for your perusal. Some of the documentation may be slightly out of date as I needed to get the bits out sooner than the docs.
<SelfPromotion>
If you're extraordinarily geeky, or looking for a great buy-not-build decision, I'm open to licensing and consulting deals.
</SelfPromotion>
Columbian president Alvaro Uribe admitted today that members of the hostage-rescue team last week wore the Red Cross symbol during the mission, which is a serious violation of the laws of war:
Such a use of the Red Cross emblem could constitute a "war crime" under the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law and could endanger humanitarian workers in the future, according to international legal expert Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association.
...
Misuse of the Red Cross emblem is governed by articles 37, 38 and 85 of Additional Protocol One to the Geneva Conventions, the international rules of war. The articles prohibit "feigning of protected status by the use of ... emblems" of neutral parties and say that such misuses are considered breaches of international humanitarian law that qualify as a "war crime."
Oops.
Via Dad, it seems a network administrator for the City of San Francisco has locked out all the other administrators:
A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco's new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday.
Terry Childs, a 43-year-old computer network administrator who lives in Pittsburg, has been charged with four counts of computer tampering and is scheduled to be arraigned today.
...
Childs created a password that granted him exclusive access to the system, authorities said. He initially gave pass codes to police, but they didn't work. When pressed, Childs refused to divulge the real code even when threatened with arrest, they said.
He was taken into custody Sunday. City officials said late Monday that they had made some headway into cracking his pass codes and regaining access to the system.
He's about to find out that you can sit in jail on a contempt of court charge for, well, ever.
Interesting juxtaposition of stories in the Chicago Tribune this morning. First, scientists have linked warm weather to kidney stones, implying that climate change will increase the number of reported cases in Chicago:
Linking climate change to kidney stones seems odd, but it's based on the solid medical finding that people in warm regions develop the condition at increased rates. Sweating in warm weather removes fluid from the body and increases the salt concentration in urine, which can spur the growth of kidney stones.
By the year 2050, the new report estimates that a large chunk of Illinois will fall within America's "kidney-stone belt," which currently includes only Southern states. The Chicago area alone would see up to 100,000 extra cases each year, according to the report published Monday in a widely respected journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Then there's today's weather forecast, calling for actual summer weather:
Strings of 90-degree days—like those predicted here for the remainder of the workweek—have occurred in 98 percent of the city's summers since 1928. But, the first of them typically occurs on or about June 7. That makes the hot-weather period predicted to dominate the area almost five weeks late. As many as four consecutive 90-degree highs are likely to occur here by the end of the week, something that has occurred on 53 of the past 80 warm seasons—or nearly two-thirds of the time.
In other words, usually it's this hot earlier in the year, so be glad. Sort of.
At the All-Star break, the Cubs remain in first place, 4½ games out. I'm looking forward to October.
I had just started to write about the despicable ICE raid in Postville, Iowa, last May, when my only dog puked a volume of food so large I didn't know his stomach could hold that amount, right onto a 19th-century Persian rug.
In situations like these, you can't get mad at the dog, but oh my goodness you really want to.
Update: Nature's Miracle seems to be working, but that can't be good for the rug.
Parker and I went for an 8 km walk this afternoon, including a swing past the Belmont Harbor dog beach. I didn't think Parker would go into the water but he did, surprising himself almost as much as he surprised me. He came straight back out, however, and wouldn't go near the water after that, but he seemed to have fun.
I only had my mobile phone with me, so this is the best I got:
I've lived here five months already, and I just discovered my kitchen has not one, but two lights over the main countertop.
A couple nights ago this guy landed on my porch and stayed the night. He tolerated me and my camera but seemed overwhelmed Parker's hospitality, which involved barking and trying to sniff. Possibly he (the robin) simply forgot how to fly until 25 kilos of wagging dog encouraged him to remember. He flew just fine after that.
