I've added a bunch of small but useful features to Weather Now:
- Users can now set their preferred measurement system (metric, Imperial, default) and time/date formats.
- On Nearby Weather and Nearby Places, users can double-click the map to re-center and load new info.
- Moved the Weather Score column on lists to increase usability.
- Tweaked the Weather Score formula.
- Several other bug fixes and feature tweaks.
So if you set up a profile, which you can do simply by logging in with any Microsoft ID, you can customize the app in a bunch of ways. (There's no cost, but I'd appreciate it if you'd subscribe on Patreon.)
Have fun with it. I'm probably going to slow down on Weather Now updates for a bit as I change focus to replacing BlogEngine.NET.
In just a few hours, though, I'm going to a work conference in Nashville, Tenn., where I will have the opportunity to visit at least three breweries. Stay tuned!
Workers have started demolishing three historic buildings along Sheffield Ave just north of Addison, including Cubs Rooftops building at 3631, the location of the annual reminder of the Chicago Cubs' dismal record:
One of the most iconic buildings in Wrigleyville is being torn down just weeks before Opening Day.
Demolition is underway at 3631 N. Sheffield Ave., one of three historic Wrigley Field rooftop buildings slated to be torn down and replaced with a 29-unit apartment building.
A contractor at the site said the demolition, which began earlier this month, is expected to take up to another week to complete.
Longtime Chicago Cubs fans will recognize the trio of properties at 3627, 3631 and 3633 N. Sheffield Ave. as having housed the famous Torco billboard on its roof and as well as the property that became famous for its “Eamus Catuli” sign — loosely translated from Latin as “Let’s go Cubs.”
The owners of the three buildings spent a lot of money to build those grandstands, plus all the back-and-forth with the Cubs over revenue sharing. I expect the new building will have seating too. But unless incentives have suddenly changed in the real-estate industry, it won't have the charm of these old 3-flats:
And let's not forget, the Anno Catuli sign once looked like this:
Let's see what the developers put up, and if they bring the sign back. History deserves better.
Leading the hit parade of horrors this morning, London's Heathrow Airport completely shut down after an electric transformer caught fire yesterday, leading to over 1,100 flight cancellations so far. Flight operations have resumed, sort of, but Europe's busiest airport going offline will cause rippling failures throughout world aviation for a few more days at least.
Speaking of massive transport failures, we have yet more evidence that the Clown Prince of X knows dick about cars (or rockets or software or anything, really) as Tesla recalled nearly all of its Cybertrucks after people discovered the door panels can fall off. That's if they don't rust, or crumple, or warp, or cut your fingers off.
I Googled "how bad is the Tesla Cybertruck" and got so many responses I had to whittle the search down to just the last month, and it still took a couple of pages to find a source that most people trust: Consumers Union. And they don't like it at all. (I love this bit, too: "Unfortunately, we can’t ask Tesla any follow-up questions about the vehicle—even clarifying ones that could help us better understand it—because Tesla dissolved its media relations department in 2020, and the company did not respond when contacted through its press email." This is the guy now destroying the US government. You were warned, and you voted for the OAFPOTUS anyway.)
Time to walk the dog again, now that it's up to 9°C.
Before getting to the weather, I don't anticipate any quiet news days for the next couple of years, do you?
- Someone who owns at least 16 rooms and condos in the OAFPOTUS's Wabash Ave. building in downtown Chicago has sued, alleging that—wait for it—the organization running the building is bilking investors. I mean, how preposterous!
- Speaking of corruption flowing from the OAFPOTUS like toxic waste from a Union Carbide plant, Molly White mourns the end of SEC oversight of the crypto industry.
- Former US Representative Adam Kitzinger (R-IL), the last sane Republican, calls the "desperate, weak, and ultimately meaningless bluff" that the OAFPOTUS won't honor President Biden's pardons.
- James Fallows steps through the "correlation of forces" that defines the struggle between the OAFPOTUS and the Constitution.
- Jennifer Rubin interviews Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D), "a man refreshingly candid about his disgust with the current administration's policies and its lack of humane leadership."
- Yascha Mounk thinks "the World Happiness Report is a scam," just a pile of elite misinformation.
- A sophisticated supply-chain attack may have put 20,000 GitHub projects at risk of subtle but far-reaching security problems.
Finally, the snow that covered Chicago and parts north and west has indeed melted in the past few hours, even though we've barely gotten above 2°C:
It wouldn't be a day ending in "y" without people looking at some stupid thing the OAFPOTUS said and asking "why?" Or, you know, lots of people:
Finally, not that I complain about the weather enough already, but just look at the cold front that came through yesterday around 7:30pm:
I got caught outside wearing just a sweater and was quite unhappy. As in every March, we just want warmer weather already. Like, you know, yesterday afternoon.
Ten years ago today, a bunch of these arrived at work:
The Microsoft Surface 3 tablet (shown with optional detachable keyboard) had really great features for its time, with 128 GB of storage and 4 GB of RAM. When I left the company, they let me keep mine, so for the last 10 years it's been the personal device I use at work and the lightweight but fully-functional device I take on the road. My little blue Surface has been all over the world.
It was therefore no small irony that on my Surface's 10th birthday, I got an email from Microsoft:
End of support for Windows 10 is approaching
What does this mean for me?
After October 14, 2025, Microsoft will no longer provide free software updates from Windows Update, technical assistance, or security fixes for Windows 10.
What can I do with my old computer?
Trade it in or recycle it with local organizations.
Will my Windows 10 PC stop working?
No. Your PC will continue to work, but support will be discontinued.
Well, that's disappointing. Inevitable, though. I don't really want to buy a new tablet right now, so I'll just have to keep this one limping along until autumn and get a Surface Pro 11 in October or November. Who knows, maybe the 12s will be out by then?
Stuff to read:
- Forgetting (or just plain ignorant) that we have a Coast Guard better suited to the task of guarding our coasts, the OAFPOTUS has ordered the guided missile destroyer USS Gravely to the Texas-Mexico border.
- The OAFPOTUS and the Clown Prince of X, apparently not seeing the connection between weather forecasters and weather forecasts, have illegally fired 10% of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staff just as a violent tornado outbreak killed 40 people in the Midwest and South.
- The administration's attacks on universities fit the Orban plan of creating a failed democracy, so naturally the OAFPOTUS has doubled down on them.
- Krugman points out that all of the above administration malfeasance has had a depressing effect on the US economy by reducing demand for our key exports, not least of which includes the $50 billion foreigners used to spend to get American educations. (He also has a good, long explanation of how inflation works, if you subscribe.)
- Surprising no one but still an illegally-targeted exercise of Federal power, the Federal Communications Commission has demanded to see the contracts between a number of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System stations and their acknowledged donors.
- The Waterbeach development outside Cambridge, England, has a new car-free housing complex—though it's still a 10 kilometer walk from the nearest railway station.
- Pilot Patrick Smith wishes the public would have a better sense of perspective about the safety of air travel, while acknowledging that it has seemed a bit rockier than usual.
Finally, thanks to reduced funding and deferred maintenance, the Chicago El has seen slow zones balloon from 13% of its tracks to 30% since 2019. Fully 70% of the Forest Park branch has reduced speed limits, making the trip from there to downtown take over an hour. But sure, let's keep funding below the minimum needed to function, and keep the CTA, Metra, and Pace all separate so they can each fail in their own ways.
It's 21°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ and 22°C at O'Hare right now. In addition to being the normal high temperature for May 20th, that reading at O'Hare is the warmest since 11pm on October 30th. The forecast for O'Hare predicts a high near 26°C, which is normal for June 10th.
Which is all a long way of saying: I'm about to change into a polo shirt, take Cassie for a walk, and open every window in my house—not necessarily in that order.
By the way, the eclipse last night was really cool. I only wish I could have fallen back asleep more quickly after getting up to view it.
When the OAFPOTUS and the Clown Prince of X turned their attention to the Environmental Protection Agency this week, it hit Chicago almost immediately:
President Donald Trump this week ordered closures of offices at the Environmental Protection Agency that help low-income communities overwhelmed with pollution.
It’s unclear how many positions will be cut in Chicago, but union officials estimate it may affect 20 to 30 of the roughly 1,000 EPA regional employees. Most significantly, the order ends a practice of “environmental justice” at the agency that has responded to people threatened by pollution in urban and rural areas.
“Environmental justice simply means ensuring the communities most disproportionately impacted by pollution are protected,” said Nicole Cantello, president of the union representing EPA employees in Chicago and across the Midwest. “The core mission of the EPA is simple: Protecting human health and the environment.”
Of course the Republicans want to cut these programs: it will allow their friends in polluting industries to create more externalities. Or, rather, to return to the way it was before the EPA existed, when industries happily shifted their environmental remediation costs to the public.
As an illustration, here's a photo I took 40 years ago this week:
Notice the lovely, warm colors behind Lauren. That's not an artifact of Kodachrome or of the scan; that's what the air around Chicago looked like in 1985. Since then, those orange skies have completely disappeared (except when we get hit with wildfire smoke from out west), and we all breathe a lot easier. That's what the EPA and the Clean Air Act did.
When anyone lies that the EPA "costs too much," get the person lying to you to admit that deaths and illnesses that result from pollution cost a lot more in the aggregate. That's the whole point of externalities. And that's what the OAFPOTUS wants to bring back.
It seems Elon Musk tanking Tesla's brand value may lead to some very bad consequences for him and for the car company he pretends to run:
Donald Trump transformed the White House into a car dealership to save Elon Musk’s floundering Tesla stock—to keep him from defaulting on his massive loans.
Trump took a shot at being a shady car salesman Tuesday during a press event for Tesla at the White House. The president posed for photos behind the wheel of a Tesla he apparently can’t drive with a grinning Musk, remarked with astonishment that “everything’s computer” in the futuristic vehicles, and even read from what appeared to be a sales pitch sheet listing prices for different Tesla models.
Trump’s rather unpresidential measures to boost Tesla’s floundering stock could serve a greater purpose: keeping the not-so liquid Musk from defaulting on his loans.
In a 2024 SEC filing, Musk was listed as holding a whopping 238,441,261 shares of Tesla stock that were “pledged as collateral to secure certain personal indebtedness.” At the time, he held 715,022,706 shares in total, according to the filing, meaning that roughly one third of Musk’s shares were serving as collateral for his loans.
The Daily Show had a ball with this.
In all seriousness, though, it highlights Musk's crashing lack of qualifications for the job—any job, really. Two SpaceX rockets blew up in quick succession this year, Xitter is destroyed, and who even thinks about the Boring Company anymore?
Musk is the greatest living advertisement for a real inheritance tax we have had since the House of Bourbon.