The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Happy dog

Yesterday's temperature at O'Hare got up to 17°C, with a forecast of 17°C again today. Just perfect for a 4 km walk (in each direction) to Horner Park DFA, where Cassie met tons of new friends and stole dozens of their toys (she gave them back):

Today's plan calls for a Ride in the Car! (I need groceries) and another 10 km or so of walkies.

We get about 30 days a year this perfect, so we use them. Pity I have to go into my downtown office tomorrow...

Spring is here, spring is here

Life is skittles and life is beer!

Seriously, just check out this forecast:

Today
Sunny, with a high near 7. East northeast wind 15 to 20 km/h.
Tonight
Mostly clear, with a low around 3. Northeast wind 10 to 15 km/h becoming southeast after midnight.
Saturday
Sunny, with a high near 12. South southeast wind 15 to 20 km/h becoming east northeast in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 30 km/h.
Saturday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 4. East wind 10 to 15 km/h.
Sunday
Sunny, with a high near 13. Southeast wind 10 to 15 km/h, with gusts as high as 25 km/h.
Sunday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 7.
Monday
Partly sunny, with a high near 18.
Monday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 9.
Tuesday
Sunny, with a high near 21.
Tuesday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 12.
Wednesday
Sunny, with a high near 23.
Wednesday Night
Clear, with a low around 12.
Thursday
Sunny, with a high near 24.

That's about as perfect an April week as we can get.

Oh, and check out this girl, who lost 3.6 kg since her last vet visit. That means she only has 800 grams to go before hitting her ideal weight:

She's fitting into her harness again. Now, if I could just lose 5 kg, that would be great.

Asyncing feeling

I spent all day updating my real job's software to .NET 7, and to predominantly asynchronous operation throughout. Now I have four stubbornly failing unit tests that lead me to suspect I got something wrong in the async timing somewhere. It's four out of 507, so most of today's work went fine.

Meanwhile, the following stories have backed up:

Finally, a very rich person is very annoyed after his or her private jet got stuck in the mud at Aspen's airport. It seems the guy sent to pull it out of the mud maybe needed another lesson on how planes work, because he managed to snap the nose gear right off the $3.5 million airplane. Oopsi. (There's video!)

Ah, spring...

Cassie and I ran the last block of our first walk of the day because I underestimated how fast a squall line was moving. You know what comes after a squall line? A cold front:

Because who doesn't love a 10°C temperature drop in 2 hours?

The forecast for the rest of the week is for gradually warming temperatures and dry skies.

Stubborn March weather

After having the 4th-mildest winter in 70 years, the weather hasn't really changed. Abnormally-warm February temperatures have hung around to become abnormally-cool March temperatures. I'm ready for real spring, thank you.

Meanwhile...

  • ProPublica reports on the bafflement inside the New York City Council about how to stop paying multi-million-dollar settlements when the NYPD violates people's civil rights—a problem we have in Chicago, for identical reasons—but haven't figured out that police oversight might help. (One Daily Parker reader suggested taking the money out of the police pension fund.)
  • A bill moving through Florida's legislature would address suburban sprawl by redefining it. (Want to bet a real-estate developer lobbied for this one?)
  • A ransomware attack a few weeks ago has affected up to 130 organizations, according to researchers and online boasts from the attackers.
  • United Airlines wants to start air-taxi service between the Loop and O'Hare by 2025, using electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) airplanes.

Finally, I laughed out loud at the YouGov survey that found 46% of American men who have never flown an airplane think they could land an air transport with only some help from Air Traffic Control. I laughed because I do know how to fly a plane, and I don't think I could land a 787 well enough to use the plane again under any circumstances without a few dozen simulator hours. In fact, I would probably spend several crucial minutes trying to figure out how to change the radio to 121.5 and the transponder to 7700. But hey, the United States put Dunning and Kruger on the map, so this seems about right to me.

First sunny day since I returned

We had four completely-overcast days in a row, including one with some blowing snow, so I'm happy today has been completely clear. Tomorrow might even get above 10°C—which would at least get into normal March temperatures. This whole winter has been weird, as the next few will likely be until temperature increases start leveling out.

In other news:

Finally, Bruce Schneier and Nathan Sanders explain how AI could write our laws in the future.

Phoenix

I'm in the desert southwest for a company event. They gave me this (East) view:

Since I last visited Phoenix in 2015, they've added a light rail system. It got me from the baggage retrieval carousel at the airport to the hotel (which is by the convention center, pictured above) in 32 minutes, which I appreciate.

The first airplane they had us on to get here broke, so I got to Phoenix two hours later than planned, which I did not appreciate.

I've got nothing scheduled for the next two hours so I'm going to explore. Unlike the 39°C that baked my last visit, right now it's about 22°C and pleasant, and I need 3,000 more steps for today.