Events

I've just finished Edward Tufte's essay, "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint." It is now on the Inner Drive Technology required reading list: Explanations of these choices to follow shortly.

In the Northern hemisphere, yesterday's was the earliest sunset of the year. Kieron Taylor, writing for the Sheffield Astronomical Society in the U.K., has a pretty good explanation of why this is so. Suffice to say, it's because the earth's orbit around the sun is elliptical. Here, then, is a quick chart of the shortest days of the year, for Evanston, Illinois: Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 4 Dec Earliest sunsets start 07:02 16:19 9:16 13 Dec Sunsets get later 07:10 16:20 9:09 21 Dec...

Figure 1: Figure 2:

I have never, as far as I can remember, in all my years, seen a traffic report like this. I can't imagine it's accurate, showing as it does five hours from Northbrook to the Loop (a distance of 40 km, 25 mi.):

As I mentioned earlier this week, my friend Danielle is returning today from Peace Corps duty in the Republic of Kiribati. For her entire tour she has lived in a place that almost never gets below 30°C (86°F). At this writing she's waiting at LAX for her flight home. Here is what home looks like as of 15 minutes ago: The airline claims her flight is on-time. I guess I'll find out later tonight... Update, 3:56pm CST/21:56 UTC: The airline now reports a two-hour delay, so technically Danielle won't be...

Yesterday at the gym's coat check, I got claim check 404. The coat-check guy didn't find this nearly as funny as I did. Even more funny—to a software nerd, anyway—was that when I gave him check #404 after working out, he found my coat. One can imagine other possibilities. But 404 is the best, I think.