The Daily Parker

Forget Christmas songs: Chicago does not have the most wonderful time of the year between mid-November and the beginning of January. We haven't seen the sun all month (well, I have, but I was in California), and we had a lovely thing we call "wintry mix" during morning rush hour. It looks like we might get up to 13°C on Friday, at the cost of an obscene amount of rain dumping on the Pacific Northwest as the warm air mass makes it way toward us.

Elsewhere:

• When the head of your climate summit is a hereditary noble whose portfolio includes the state-owned petroleum company, what could go wrong?
• As part of their preparations for deliberately murdering defenseless children in front of their mothers, who they then raped, the leadership of Hamas appears to have shorted the Israeli economy right before their attack.
• After Arts Council England de-listed the English National Opera in November and told it to get out of London, the company has agreed with the City of Manchester to move there.
• Trevor Jacob, a YouTube influencer with more money than sense, will spend a couple of months in jail after deliberately crashing an airplane in the California wilderness to build an audience.

And finally, Bruce Schneier believe generative AI will greatly enhance spying capabilities enabling spying on a scale never before imagined. "We could limit this capability. We could prohibit mass spying. We could pass strong data-privacy rules. But we haven’t done anything to limit mass surveillance. Why would spying be any different?"

With that, 5 straight days of overcast skies doesn't seem so bad.

Nothing major in Wx-Now 5.0.8730: annual .NET version update (to .NET 8), minor bug fixes, and some internal changes to how the app logs information from the AspNetCore subsystem.

It seems to be a little faster now, probably because it's ignoring 99% of the log messages that it used to write to .NET tables.

Despite the XPOTUS publicly declaring himself a fascist (again), the world has other things going on:

• Josh Marshall plots out how House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) knows he has to pass a budget that Democrats can stomach, but because he still has to placate the extreme right wing of his party, he's pretending he can pass something else. And the clown show continues.
• The US Supreme Court has published their new ethics rules, which look a lot like a subset of the rules the rest of the Federal courts have, minus any enforcement mechanism.
• Tom Nichols warns that many students protesting the Gaza war have turned to old canards of anti-Semitism, possibly without realizing it, but certainly without hesitation.
• The Economist reminds everyone that Lord David Cameron caused most of the problems current UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak (Cons.) hired him back to fix.
• James Fallows advises journalists to report facts and analysis of current news, without distracting themselves and the public with prognostication that turns out wrong almost every time.
• The State of Illinois has finally stopped using my tax dollars to subsidize private and religious schools in addition to the public schools I already pay for, even though some parents make arguments to pity to get me to continue.

Finally, Google has built a new computer model that they claim will increase the accuracy of weather forecasts. I predict scattered acceptance of the model with most forecasters remaining cool for the time being.

I closed a 3-point story and if the build that's running right now passes, another bug and a 1-point story. So I'm pretty comfortable with my progress through this sprint. But I haven't had time to read any of these, though I may try to sneak them in before rehearsal:

• The XPOTUS has started using specific terminology to describe his political opponents that we last heard from a head of government in 1945. (Guess which one.) Says Tomasky: "[Republicans] are telling us in broad daylight that they want to rape the Constitution. And now Trump has told us explicitly that he will use Nazi rhetoric to stoke the hatred and fear that will make this rape seem, to some, a necessary cleansing."
• Writing for the Guardian, Margaret Sullivan implores the mainstream print media to explain the previous bullet point, which she calls "doing their fucking job."
• The average age of repeat home buyers is 58, meaning "boomers are buying up all the houses." My Millennial friends will rejoice, no doubt.
• Bruce Schneier lists 10 ways AI will change democracy, not all of them bad.
• The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says not to worry, the Gulf Stream won't shut down. It might slow down, though.
• The Times interviewed Joseph Emerson, the pilot who freaked out while coming off a 'shrooms trip in the cockpit of an Alaska Airlines plane, and who now faces 83 counts of attempted murder in Oregon.
• Author John Scalzi got to see a band he and I both listened to in college, Depeche Mode, in what will probably be their last tour.
• The Times also has "an extremely detailed map of New York City neighborhoods," along with an explainer. Total Daily Parker bait.

Finally, a firefighter died today after sustaining injuries putting out a fire at Lincoln Station, the bar that my chorus goes went to after rehearsals. Given the description of the fall that fatally injured him—he fell through the roof of the 4-story building all the way into the basement—it sounds like the fire destroyed not only the restaurant but many of the apartments above. So far, the bar has not put out a statement, but we in the chorus are saddened by the fire and by Firefighter Drew Price's death. We hope that the bar can rebuild quickly.

I'm still thinking about propaganda in the Gaza war, but I'm not done thinking yet. Or, at least, not at a stopping point where a Daily Parker post would make sense. That said, Julia Ioffe sent this in the introduction to her semi-weekly column; unfortunately I can't link to it:

The absolutely poisonous discourse around this war, though, has taken all of that to a whole other level. The rage, the screaming, and the disinformation, ahistoricity, the anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, the propaganda—all of it has felt overwhelming at times. The way that reasonable people I otherwise respect have shown themselves to be hard-hearted zealots—clinging to what they want to believe, starting not with the facts but rather their ideology and working backwards from there—has led me to stop talking to people on both sides of the divide. The facts of what’s happening in Israel and Gaza are hard enough to absorb as it is.

As usual, Ioffe wrote what I was thinking. Again, I'll have more, but that's a very good take.

• The column Ioffe introduced in that email, an interview with international lawyer David Scheffer, is a must-read.
• A jury found the National Association of Realtors liable for restraint of trade and anti-competitive practices, awarding the plaintiffs $1.87 billion in damages. (Where's my refund from my last house purchase?)
• Strong Towns points out that contrary to the wishes of many on the left, rent control works as an anti-displacement policy, but not as an affordability policy.
• Chicago Tribune sports writer Paul Sullivan laments that this year's World Series, between the 5th and 6th seeds, for which three 100-win teams lost in the playoffs, has the smallest audience of any World Series in television history. Can't think why.
• It turns out, AI image generation can only be as good as the images it learns on, which means AIs have even more bias than humans do.
• Somehow I wrote a 20-page paper for 11th grade on Mark Twain and never read the account of him meeting Winston Churchill in 1900.

Finally, Michelin just announced its Bib Gourmand list for Chicago, with its US stars all coming out next Tuesday. The Bib list has five new restaurants that I must now visit. We'll see who gets new stars in a few days.

I spent way too much time chasing down an errant mock in my real job's unit test suite, but otherwise I've gotten a lot done today. Too much to read all these articles:

• Julia Ioffe interviews Ambassador Dennis Ross on the disappearing hopes for a two-state solution in Israel.
• Ruth Marcus wonders whether Associate Justice Clarence Thomas (R) committed tax fraud when he accepted a $267,000 motor home.
• Josh Marshall wonders WTF with House Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) black "son?"
• Paul Krugman bemoans the Republican Party for going "full-on extremist."
• National Geographic takes a trip down US-50 in Nevada, the "loneliest highway in America."
• Pilot Jim Fallows explains the trio of scary aviation stories that hit the press this week.
• Pilot Patrick Smith remembers the Boeing 707.
• Ezra Klein ponders Marc Andreesen's odd blend of futurism and reactionary politics.

OK, assuming this build works, I'll have closed 4 story points today—with 4 very small 1-point stories. The harder ones start Monday morning.

It's 22°C and sunny right now, making me wonder what's wrong with me that I'm putting together a software release. I probably should fire off the release, but I'm doing so under protest. I also probably won't get to read all of these things I've queued up:

• Peter Hamby expresses concern about the rise of the illiberal left in the younger generation.
• Despite the ravings of Fox News and other right-leaning propagandists, the US economy is actually doing better right now than at any point since Obama was in office, says Paul Krugman.
• Greg Sargent slow-claps "the quiet vindication of Hakeem Jeffries."
• Writing in Lawfare, Susan Landau rolls her eyes that law enforcement has turned to scaring people about child sexual abuse in their latest gambit to break end-to-end encryption.
• Archaeologist and sculptor Oscar Nilsson has reconstructed the face of a 14-year-old Inca girl ritually sacrificed in the Andes about 500 years ago.
• An off-duty pilot riding in the jumpseat of an Alaska Airlines E175 attempted to trigger the fire suppressors on the plane's engines Sunday. No one knows why.
• A literature review study has shown convincing evidence my generation really did have a lot more autonomy growing up.
• Google has changed its maps colors for some users—they're still rolling out the changes.
• Today is the 20th anniversary of the Concorde's last revenue flight. Maybe Virgin Galactic will get its SST off the ground someday?

Finally, Stan's Donuts will open a new store just three blocks from the apartment I moved out of one year ago today. I might have to stop in soon. I will not, however, wash them down with CH Distillery's latest abomination, Pumpkin-Spice Malört.

Yesterday I complained that some combination of factors had made it impossible for me to evaluate an expensive tool for my day job. The manufacturer responded overnight:

First, we want to express our apologies for experiencing login problem. This is really uncommon and is usually related to OS restrictions. We also want to thank you very much for your interest in Telerik products. We are sure you will be able to build beautiful applications with lots of rich functionality really easy with guaranteed support, demos and documentation, etc.

Back to the login problem. The trial installer is an application that provides web login flow. This means that when you click on Login, your default web browser will be launched landing on the login page. If your system is configured to block applications to launch the default browser, the flow will be interrupted. From the provided error, we can see that System.Diagnostics.Process.Start fails to launch the browser. This information, however, is insufficient to know what the exact reason for this failure is.

We did a quick research and found a solution for a similar problem - OpenWith.exe error. Could you please let us know if that resolves the problem on your side?

Well, then. That's helpful and articulate. They suggested a few options, one of which is simply to use their private NuGet feed, so I will try that first.

For my real job, I'm evaluating graphics packages to report (informally) at tomorrow's sprint review which ones I think we should investigate further, so that at the next sprint review in two weeks, I can recommend which one we should buy. These packages cost between $1000 and $6000 per year to license. You would think that helping me choose would top the priority list of everyone involved in the demo and trial process.

With that preface, here is the bug report I filed with Telerik earlier today:

When attempting to install a trial version of the Blazor UI controls, I am unable to progress beyond the Login step. This is unfortunate as without the trial I can't make the case that my company should spend thousands of dollars on Telerik instead of, say, Syncfusion. I have to say this experience is not encouraging.

I examined the conversation between the installer and the mothership using Fiddler. The endpoint dle.telerik.com:443 responded with HTTP202 (Accepted) to this POST:

POST https://dle.telerik.com/metrics/v1/events/errors HTTP/1.1
Accept: application/json
Authorization: Bearer {snip}
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Content-Type: application/json
Host: dle.telerik.com
Content-Length: 1211

{"Type":"HandledError","SessionId":"f2ee3acd-37dc-487a-b5ea-1b2647a2eeb3","Source":"Installer","SourceVersion":"2023.3.1012.0","Timestamp":"2023-10-23T21:10:19.7047547Z","OS":"Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit v.10.0 ","CLR":"4.8","MachineId":"6uI7wmYbX4Q9h0+vgpSj5xbBF4o=","Exception":{"OS":"Windows 10 Enterprise 64-bit v.10.0 ","CLR":"4.8","MachineId":"6uI7wmYbX4Q9h0+vgpSj5xbBF4o=","Message":"The system cannot find the file specified","Type":"Win32Exception"},"ErrorDetails":"   at System.Diagnostics.Process.StartWithShellExecuteEx(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)\r\n   at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start()\r\n   at System.Diagnostics.Process.Start(ProcessStartInfo startInfo)\r\n   at Telerik.Sso.SsoClient.MakeAuthorizationRequestInBrowser(Int32 port, String appProtocol, String appName, String productCode)\r\n   at Telerik.Sso.SsoClient.GetAccessToken(String appProtocol, String appName, String productCode)\r\n   at Telerik.CommonInstaller.DataAccess.RuntimeServiceClient.GetAccessToken(String appProtocol, String appName, String productCode)\r\n   at Telerik.CommonInstaller.Application.Services.AuthenticationService.Login(String user, String password, Boolean rememberCredentials, Boolean useRemembered)"}

HTTP/1.1 202
Cache-Control: private
Content-Type: application/json
X-Frame-Options: DENY
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2023 21:11:55 GMT
Content-Length: 0

So, something is throwing an exception and keeping me from evaluating whether to give Telerik money.

One thing which may be important: the installer requested local disk access that required me to run it as a local Admin account. That account is not the domain account I used to register for Telerik. Not that it should matter; since the admin account has never seen the Telerik account, I would expect that the installer would ask for credentials instead of trying to use non-existent cached credentials.

It occurs to me that a better response to a login failure with cached credentials might be to ask for new credentials. Otherwise the end user might get frustrated and file a very snarky bug report.

Please advise. I'm expecting to give my informal evaluation to my team tomorrow at 3pm CDT/20:00 UTC. I'd hate to exclude Telerik from consideration merely because we couldn't load the free trial.

In other news, Syncfusion (which is more expensive but just requires a set of NuGet packages) and Infragistics (which is about the same cost as Telerik but lacks one feature we really need) have moved up in the rankings.

I'm naming the vendor because my tolerance for bugs in software may be higher than the average user's, but not when I'm trying to install the trial version. Then you get no mercy.

I'm iterating on a UI feature that wasn't 100% defined, so I'm also iterating on the API that the feature needs. Sometimes software is like that: you discover that your first design didn't quite solve the problem, so you iterate. it's just that the iteration is a bit of a context shift, so I'm going to read for about 15 minutes to clear my head:

• Kevin Philips, whose 1969 book The Emerging Republican Majority laid out Richard Nixon's "southern strategy" and led to the GOP's subsequent slide into authoritarianism and ethnic entrepreneurialism has died, but unfortunately his ideas haven't.
• The US and Qatar have agreed not to release any of the $6 billion of Iran's money that Qatar currently has in escrow for them, which will no doubt make Iran yet another country demanding to know why Hamas attacked Israel just now.
• The Chicago Tribune digs into Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's $16.6 billion budget.
• In the wake of huge class-action settlements, two major Chicago real-estate brokers have changed their commission policies, but we still have to see if they'll change their actions.
• The History Channel blurbs the origins of Oktoberfest, which started in 1810 and ends for this year today. Und nächstes Jahr, ich möchte nach München zum Oktoberfest gehen!
• Jacob Bacharach says the core problem with Michael Lewis's recent biography of Sam Bankman-Fried is that SBF is just too boring to be the subject of a biography.

Finally, Chicago's heavy-rail operator Metra formally proposed simplifying its fare structure. This will cut my commuting costs by about 11%, assuming I use the day passes and individual tickets correctly. It will have the biggest impacts on suburban riders who commute into the city, and riders whose travel doesn't include the downtown terminals.