Watching "The Girl Can't Help It" (1956) in honor of Ray Anthony's 104th birthday.

Geomagnetic storm (G4) in progress right now from a X-class flare yesterday; Bz is swinging wildly, as low as -39nT; at -20nT I consider aurora to be possibly visible in the city of Chicago. Waiting for reports from Europe and spaceweather.com to see if there's an auroral component to this storm.

All of it is partially to distract from the not-released Epstein files. And they've done a good job at that

I don't think so

Joke's on me! DEADLINE: This training must be completed by March 13, 2026. If it is not completed on time, you will not be eligible for any merit increase as part of the July 2026 payroll. Yeah well we got 0% last year.

Hey, X space folk, why do you keep giving this guy $8/month? Would you have done so for David Duke?

this major line of precip is legitimately warned as a flash flood warning and places are hitting 2" of rain by this point with more on the way.

I am impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem, who is an incompetent leader and a disgrace to our democracy. She wreaked havoc in the Chicagoland area and has brought her reign of terror to Minneapolis. One of her rogue ICE agents shot and killed an innocent woman today. It must come to an end.

the bad place is just post after post of Grok violating the "Take It Down Act"

The daily US oil consumption is about 20 million barrels.

"A backdoor utility called SQL Server Management Studio"

When that eigenvalue is really goes big

Planned obsolescence. I replaced my Brother laser printer at home that I had for a decade or so because it needed a new toner or fuser and at school's end UChicago students are dumping all their stuff for cheap. However recently the replacement decided the toner cartridge didn't exist. I found (1/x)

Crows roosting for the night in front of the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

This has been a long standing concern for critics of LLMs, and the media just went along with the hype.

I look forward to the legally required, transparent peer review process required by the US Global Change Research Act and the Information Quality Act. I always thought they would try to do a NCA with Judith Curry, five old men and a LLM.

Blerg. Saw a Buick SUV pullup, one gets out and tries handle of work van in front. Gets back into SUV. 2 guys get out and they throw something and break the window. I start calling UCPD. They get in the van and take 2 table saws, a DeWalt case, and a Makita case. Get back into SUV. Start leaving 1/x

Some big event at MSI. Super dark North of 47th, heavy rain, then super foggy bright at Cermak

This is an incredibly illuminating video on what we're up against.

TIL there exists pneumatically powered chainsaws.

I think people today don't understand just how dramatically the night sky has changed - it looked like it does in super remote areas *everywhere* before the invention of electric lighting, and light pollution that obscures the sky has gotten dramatically worse in the last 25 years.

The Waymo failure in SF should be exceptionally looked at given the risk of fire following a major earthquake that the city hasn't seen in a very long time

N117HD aka ABC7 helicopter just drew this flight path.

Did the annual *White Christmas* rewatch, time to reup this take (which I know I've posted before but bsky seems to have eaten): *White Christmas* is an extended riff on *The Waste Land*. A land no longer productive (of snow) can only be restored when a once-great ruler is restored to honor.

My shortwave radio antenna is roughly tuned as a dipole for about a 20m wavelength. In the depths of the winter solstice at night I try to tune it as a super short 160m band (just above the Broadcast AM radio band) and see who can hear me.

trying to get my class action settlement payment via a debit card that requires me to accept forced arbitration

The state water engineer was always considered independent and unbiased by all the governors, regardless of party. This is a disturbing trend.

"We go through the cheese like ... Like it's butter."

Would post on Instagram (that you might see in between the ads) but UI doesn't like narrow vertical composition

haiku on morning walk in: menards shopping bag pineapple chunks strewn sidewalk windowed envelope

Cooper's hawk in the backyard tree, it's been there for like 20 minutes

Who in the Monroe Building pissed off someone at Encyclopedia Brittanica? cdn.britannica.com/07/114407-05...

Stealworkers

TIL: Seismometer out at Midewin www.iris.edu/app/station_...

Heartbreaking. The University of Nebraska will terminate its entire Earth science department. One of the country's most successful and respected geology & climate programs: gone. When ideologues & politicians are threatened by the very act of studying climate change, I wonder: who of us is next?

tonight, you know how you saw the moon with defined features through the clouds? It tells you the clouds were water droplets, not ice. This complicated plot shows it, no need to interept, as your eyes tell you. vortex.plymouth.edu/test/wsgi/sk...

"...so I came away none the wiser even on the basic question of whether the title of his album referred to a gourd or a sheep dog (or possibly both) or a sustained state of pensive sadless." This. This is why I subscribe to the Hyde Park Herald.

last 12 days to see my game handiwork: www.lib.uchicago.edu/about/news/c... closes Dec. 12th.

(how the day is going) well, I think I'll go back to putting my Flintstone vitamin results into a spreadsheet

"and more customers are gravitating toward less-costly cars such as the pint-size Chevrolet Trax". It's a SUV. What world are we living in.

Time to check up on my fleece-lined jeans Thursday Mostly sunny, with a high near 17. Thursday Night Partly cloudy, with a low around 6.

You want to hear about being behind? I'm on Eastern Time and I haven't finished my morning coffee.

I once knew a Federal bank examiner, and one time someone asked him why we had to KEEP inspecting banks over and over. He basically said every new batch of business school grads invents bank fraud from first principles.

Lulz 4th Crowdstrike alert (and I get 2 emails per alert) in a couple of days for Roblox

do you have any idea how much you have to piss somebody off to make them change their gauge

That makes more sense for tomorrow's game than slicing through Michigan Ave and scaring all the kids. Would still be impressive!

It's the Blue Angels. I don't know what for.

IonQ Center for Engineering and Science. 1st corporate naming?

8-11-62 RAS Logbook: ... Further investigations indicate that the irradiated roof is not the observatory roof. (According to the University radiation protection officer. Further inquiries should be made about the sign. The beam has been on during spring quarter. So there.

A number of AT&T phones are not working in Hyde Park right now