The Daily Parker

NPR's incredible visualization of Moore, Okla.

David Braverman — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:27:58 GMT

National Public Radio has created an interactive map that uses Google Maps and new satellite images Google obtained yesterday to show 10-meter images of the Oklahoma tornado's destruction:

This may be the best, most timely use of geographic information in a news presentation I've ever seen.

The images are stunning. I can only imagine what life must be like in Moore right now—and with the NPR app, it's a lot easier to understand.

Rioting where?

David Braverman — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:37:56 GMT

Stockholm, apparently:

Hundreds of young people have torched cars and attacked police in three nights of riots in immigrant suburbs of Sweden's capital, shocking a country that has dodged the worst of the financial crisis but failed to defuse youth unemployment and resentment of asylum seekers.

The riots were less severe than those of the past two summers in Britain and France, but provided a similar reminder that, even in places less ravaged by the financial crisis than Greece or Spain, state belt-tightening is toughest on the poor, especially immigrants.

While average living standards are still among the highest in Europe, successive governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst.

But...Sweden? That seems like a sign of the Apocalypse.

Then again, even in the article I quoted it seems as if something has changed in Sweden. The article alludes to rising inequality after government belt-tightening. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt came into office in 2006 with the Moderate Party, which Wikipedia calls a "center-right coalition." I have no opinion about this yet, but given my usual search for confirmation bias, I'm sure I'll have something to say about Sweden's rightward lurch at some point...

Or, maybe, our long-held myths about Sweden just aren't true? Maybe they have problems just like everyone else?

How disappointing.

Arcologies, already?

David Braverman — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:58:53 GMT

If you've ever played SimCity, you have probably encountered the Arcology, a massive self-contained building that houses thousands of people. They're almost here:

BSC is going to stuff 30,000 people into these self-contained skyscraper communities—a resident of Sky City will use up 1/100th of the land used by a typical Chinese citizen.
And it really is a city in and of itself—4,450 apartments, nearly 100,000 square feet of indoor vertical farms, 250 hotel rooms, 92 elevators, 30 foot courtyards for athletics, and a six mile ramp that can be used to walk or run around the entire city.
Once again, BSC intends to build this thing in seven months. How will that work? Treehugger's Lloyd Alter explains: "16,000 part-time and 3,000 full-time workers will prefabricate the building for four months and assemble on site in three months." (For a closer look at all of the design specs, see Alter's in-depth piece on the project.)

Imagine 7,000 apartments between 50 m² and 225 m² in size (as one variation calls for), and you've got either a really cool vertical city or Cabrini-Green to the third power.

When complete, the first one will be 828 m tall—10 m taller than the Burj Khalifa, but presumably better integrated with local water treatment and the local real estate market.

If they built it in Streeterville, it would look this scary:

I do not know whether this is a welcome idea or a truly horrifying one.

(Via Sullivan, of course.)

UK Commons passes marriage equality by huge margin

David Braverman — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:25:45 GMT

In the end, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron probably didn't need to go hat-in-hand to Ed Miliband, but the dead-enders in his own party forced him to. Regardless, marriage equality has passed the House of Commons tonight 375-70, will probably pass the House of Lords easily:

But the prime minister, who attempted to reach out to his party by emailing a "personal note" to all members saying that he would never work with anyone who "sneered" at them, suffered the humiliation of having to plead with the Labour party for support. He also saw more than 100 Tory MPs, including the cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Owen Paterson, vote against him on the first amendment of the day.
The prime minister will understand the dangers of relying on opposition support for a flagship measure after he personally ensured that Tony Blair's schools reforms survived with Tory support in 2006 three months after he became leader. Within months, supporters of Gordon Brown forced Blair to name the date of his departure the following year.

But who could become Tory leader next? William Hague? And how likely would that make an election before 2015?

I'm glad the U.S. isn't the only English-speaking country with swivel-eyed loonies, but still, can you imagine the U.S. House passing marriage equality by the same margin? (366 to 68, for those keeping score at home.) Hell, marriage equality has overwhelming support in Illinois but somehow it can't get to the house floor in Springfield. It's disappointing that the U.K. could have marriage equality before Illinois—but that's fine. The U.K. can teach the U.S. something about conservative values in the meantime.

There's an annual coyote census?

David Braverman — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:02:40 GMT

Apparently Chicago has one:

Typically, a team of four to six researchers fans out, whacking through the brush looking for holes surrounded by fresh digging or other signs, such as tracks, fur or scat. Sometimes they find two or more in a day, but often they strike out.
At a promising site near Hoffman Estates, a team recently dug for an hour. Forest preserve biologist Chuck Rizzo wormed his way in and explored it with his burrow cam — an infrared camera with its cable stiffened by a noodle, one of those long, floating pool toys. He was pulled out by his feet, looking disappointed.
When a den is found, researchers put their ears to the opening and listen. The mother may still be close, so sometimes they can hear her barking — either to warn the pups or draw away the intruders.

You know what else we have in Chicago? Coyote puppy photos.

Oh, the results of the census: the Chicago area has about 2,000 coyotes, and litter sizes have leveled off. That suggests the area has about the population it can support, as long as they don't start eating fast food.

Complete time waster (but fun)

David Braverman — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:09:27 GMT

If you're a geography nerd, whatever you do, don't try playing Geoguessr. It will take hours of your life away.

The idea: it puts you down at a random spot on Google Street View, and you have to figure out where you are. Here's one of my attempts, before I realized I needed to do some work today.

I blame Randall Munroe.

Nom nom nom

David Braverman — Tue, 21 May 2013 02:18:10 GMT

A little grisly accident via The Atlantic:

Now you know the last thing a whole bunch of salmon ever saw.

Wrapping up a project

David Braverman — Mon, 20 May 2013 20:40:52 GMT

I have 21 hours of budget to finish a substantial project at work, and then another project to finish by the end of May. Posting may be iffy the next couple of days.

Coming up, the final figures on how much moving to Azure saved me.

Too nice to post

David Braverman — Sun, 19 May 2013 19:07:37 GMT

It's 26°C and sunny in Chicago right now, so I'm going for yet another walk. Regular posting to resume later today or tomorrow.

He slipped his moorings

David Braverman — Sat, 18 May 2013 14:25:29 GMT

The BBC has a list of 10 euphamisms that bring back memories of political scandals past:

2. "Discussing Uganda" In 1973, the satirical magazine Private Eye reported that journalist Mary Kenny had been disturbed in the arms of a former cabinet minister of President Obote of Uganda during a party. Variations of "Ugandan discussions" or "discussing Uganda" - the term is believed to have been coined by the poet James Fenton - were subsequently used by the Eye to describe any illicit encounter, and the phrase soon became part of common usage.

I am still trying to work out how badgers fit into it...

An observation about the passage of time

David Braverman — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:14:24 GMT

It's sobering that babies born the day I graduated college can take their first legal drinks today.

Rumsfeld's Rules

David Braverman — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:08:25 GMT

Via Sullivan, American Public Media's Kai Ryssdal yesterday committed an act of journalism against the former defense secretary:

I don’t know if y’all had a chance to listen to Donald Rumsfeld being torn a new one on Marketplace yesterday, but it was glorious to hear. Rummy was no doubt expecting softball questions about his new book Rumsfeld’s Rules and instead was grilled about how the wisdom in his book is in stark contrast to his work with Iraq and Afghanistan. I’ve never felt a man squirm through airwaves like that.

I had to rewind a couple of times during the interview. As Sullivan said, "this guy is dangerously out of touch with reality, even as he insists he alone grasps reality."

Racial tolerance worldwide

David Braverman — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:38:30 GMT

Via Sullivan, Max Fischer at WaPo found an interesting proxy for racial tolerance:

Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society.
Here’s what the data show:
Anglo and Latin countries most tolerant. People in the survey were most likely to embrace a racially diverse neighbor in the United Kingdom and its Anglo former colonies (the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) and in Latin America. The only real exceptions were oil-rich Venezuela, where income inequality sometimes breaks along racial lines, and the Dominican Republic, perhaps because of its adjacency to troubled Haiti. Scandinavian countries also scored high.

Here's the map:

I'd love to see this data mapped at the U.S. county level...

Meanwhile, in the reality-based community

David Braverman — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:11:45 GMT

Noam Scheiber shakes his head about the origins of the IRS-Tea Party scandal:

Fine—there’s no law against neurosis. But, to borrow a thought experiment from my colleague Alec MacGillis, consider all this from the perspective of the IRS’s Cincinnati office, which handles tax-exempt groups. You’re minding your own business in 2009 when you start to receive dozens of applications from right-leaning groups, applications you didn’t solicit and don’t require. You peruse a few of the applications and it looks like many of the groups, while claiming to be “social welfare” organizations, have an overtly political purpose, like backing candidates with specific ideological agendas. Suffice it to say, you don’t need an inquisitorial mind to decide the applications deserve careful vetting. One Tea Party activist from Waco, Texas, has complained that an IRS official told her he was “sitting on a stack of tea party applications and they were awaiting word from higher-ups as to how to process them.” The quote is intended to sound nefarious—an outtake from some vast left-wing conspiracy—but it’s actually perfectly straight-forward: The IRS was unexpectedly flooded by dodgy 501c4 applications and was at a loss over how to manage them.

So the crime here had nothing to do with “targeting” conservatives. The targeting was effectively done by the conservative groups themselves, when they filed their gratuitous applications. The crime, such as it is, was twofold. First, in the course of legitimately vetting questionable applications, the IRS appears to have been more intrusive than justified, asking for information about donors whose privacy it should have respected. This is unfortunate and intolerable, but not quite a threat to democracy.
Second, the IRS was tone deaf to how its scrutiny would look to the people being scrutinized, given that they all subscribed to the same worldview, and that they were already nursing a healthy persecution complex.

Meanwhile, the Tin Foil Hat crowd now has something that appears, at first glance, to be real government overreach for ideological reasons, and now the IRS will be even less likely to go after Astroturf groups.

This is what most people in the world call an "own goal."

London, 85 years ago, in colour

David Braverman — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:50:04 GMT

Via Kottke, a few fascinating minutes color footage of London shot in 1927:

Want more 1920s UK footage? Voilà.

Extreme weather in the Midwest

David Braverman — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:14:33 GMT

Less than two weeks ago, southern Minnesota had 25 cm of snow on the ground. Yesterday, the region hit 40°C following the biggest two-day temperature swing in decades:

Even more dramatic were the stunning weather changes which occurred to Chicago's west Tuesday. Soaring temperatures smashed records from Nebraska into western Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin—areas which less than 2 weeks earlier had been crippled by a record-breaking foot or more of late-season snow.
Albert Lea, Minnesota recorded a 38°C high Tuesday. Only 12 days earlier that city had been buried under a 250 mm accumulation of snow.
Iowa's state climatologist Harry Hillaker reported in a special weather statement out of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Des Moines Tuesday that 38°C or higher temperatures have occurred in the month of May on only 11 occasions since official weather records began in the state in 1873. Even rarer have been 38°C readings two weeks after a major snowstorm. Hillaker reports this has happened only a few times over that period.

Here in Chicago, O'Hare hit 33°C and Midway hit 32°C, while at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters—800 m from Lake Michigan—the temperature hovered around 21°C until the sun went down. Without the sun heating the city, the lake breeze stopped, and temperatures rose. Sitting at Wrigley Field last night, I had my sweater on in the first two innings and was down to a T-shirt by the 6th.

Today's forecast calls for rapidly dropping temperatures bottoming out around 14°C by 4pm.

Welcome to 400 ppm CO₂, folks. With more energy in the atmosphere, continental climates like the Midwest U.S. will have these violent temperature changes pretty normally from now on.

Minnesota makes 12

David Braverman — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:09:01 GMT

Yesterday, the Minnesota Senate passed, and Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton signed, legislation making Minnesota the 12th state with marriage equality:

Minnesota becomes the first Midwestern state to legalize same-sex marriage by legislative vote, and the latest victory for those working to extend marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples across the nation. Monday’s action technically repeals a state statute that had prohibited such unions.
Gov. Mark Dayton [signed] the bill at 5 p.m. Tuesday, on the Capitol steps, kicking off a parade that [took] supporters to a massive downtown St. Paul celebration. The law will take effect Aug. 1.
[Sen. Branden] Petersen, the only Republican in the body to support same-sex marriage, found himself a national villain with those who thought he betrayed his party.
Petersen acknowledged the vote could cost him his seat, but closed with parting advice to his young children: “Be bold, be courageous, and you will never regret it a day in your life.”

This victory comes just two years after Republicans floated a referendum to make marriage equality unconstitutional in the state.

Support for marriage equality was more popular in the Twin Cities, around Albert Lea, and in the far northeast and far west sections of the state. Legislators from the rural middle and southwest parts of Minnesota generally voted against the measure.

Update: I just did the math. Adding Minnesota's 5.4 million people to those who live in U.S. marriage equality jurisdictions makes the total 56.9 million, or 18.1% of the U.S. Illinois would push the total to 22.2%.

Ground control to Col. Hadfield

David Braverman — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:37:26 GMT

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield transferred command of the International Space Station to Cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin yesterday afternoon. As a parting gift, with a little help from his friends (including David Bowie), he made this:

I've followed Hadfield's Facebook page for a while, enjoying his photos, observations, and occasional scoops (he did, after all, know about Saturday's space walk before anyone in the press). I hope Commander Misurkin continues Hadfield's habit of posting stuff. Here, as just one example, is London in February:

Sadly, Canadian budget cuts make it unlikely Hadfield or any other Canadian will return to the ISS for a while.

Welcome home, Col. Hadfield!

Criticizing renowned author Dan Brown

David Braverman — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:20:53 GMT

Snicker:

Renowned author Dan Brown hated the critics. Ever since he had become one of the world’s top renowned authors they had made fun of him. They had mocked bestselling book The Da Vinci Code, successful novel Digital Fortress, popular tome Deception Point, money-spinning volume Angels & Demons and chart-topping work of narrative fiction The Lost Symbol.
The critics said his writing was clumsy, ungrammatical, repetitive and repetitive. They said it was full of unnecessary tautology. They said his prose was swamped in a sea of mixed metaphors. For some reason they found something funny in sentences such as “His eyes went white, like a shark about to attack.” They even say my books are packed with banal and superfluous description, thought the 5ft 9in man. He particularly hated it when they said his imagery was nonsensical. It made his insect eyes flash like a rocket.

But since when have the masses listened to critics?

Vampires in the Lemon Grove

David Braverman — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:21:39 GMT

I don't usually make specific book recommendations on the blog. That said: read Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell.

Russell's collection of eight short stories has kept me away from productive work all day. They're funny, horrifying, surprising, entertaining. I'm going to have to read her novel Swamplandia! next.

Is Tom Ricketts destroying the Cubs?

David Braverman — Sat, 11 May 2013 16:17:18 GMT

Chicago Tribune op-ed writer Marty Sandberg thinks so:

Ricketts has done one thing successfully — creating the most apathetic, undemanding fan base possible. Over the past few years third-generation die-hards have quietly been returning their season tickets. The knowledgeable, fun and sometimes offensive regulars that used to pack the park and make game day such a raucously enjoyable experience have disappeared. In their place, we find a ballpark full of expense-account-toting managers, teenage girls posting self-portraits on Facebook and a few drunken college bros confused by the ramp system. And let's not forget the legions of first-timers still traveling to Wrigley from out of state, somewhat disappointed by the lethargic atmosphere they encounter. But don't worry about them — they'll stop coming soon, too.
Ricketts loves to repeat that he "just wants to run his business like a business," because he "bought a private business, not a museum." Spare us the act, Tom. When you purchased a community institution like the Cubs, you were never naive enough to think you were buying an Al's Beef franchise. The Cubs have thrived for generations because of devoted fans. Professional sports is a give-and-take relationship — Ricketts can't expect to get whatever he wants without repercussions, simply because he bangs his spoon on the table loud enough.
Does Wrigley need a little face-lift? Most definitely. But the proposed alterations to Wrigley go beyond what is necessary or even tolerable. They discard the very atmosphere the Cubs spend so much time promoting. The renovations gut the soul of a stadium that has survived so long because of its character, not in spite of it.

I've been to 24 ballparks, including Fenway and the old Yankee Stadium, and on that basis I agree with Sandberg on the value of Wrigley Field. I don't agree entirely that one or two upgrades to Wrigley would kill its character. Jumbo-Tron in Left Field? Meh, as long as it's not too big. The old scoreboard will stay there above the bleachers, right? How about a hotel across Clark St.? Almost anything would improve the current situation of a temporary sports clothing store and a McDonald's.

He's right that the Cubs need to start winning games again. They've been in last place since April 16th, and just lost their 22nd game (out of 35) yesterday.

Maybe Tom Ricketts will surprise everyone and invest in the Cubs. I don't believe Ricketts would abandon or destroy the biggest asset the organization has. We'll see, though. It's already been 104 years; what are a few more?

MapFrappe

David Braverman — Fri, 10 May 2013 17:32:26 GMT

Via Atlantic Cities, this is cool. MapFrappe allows you to draw a geographic figure in one place and superimpose it on another. Like, for example, my neighborhood over London, or Chicago's Loop over the Vatican.

One World Trade takes the title

David Braverman — Fri, 10 May 2013 12:24:18 GMT

Just about an hour ago, crews lowered the last piece onto the 124 m spire topping One World Trade Center, making it the tallest building in the hemisphere:

The 18-piece silver spire will top out the tower at a symbolic 1,776 feet (541 m), a nod to the year America signed the Declaration of Independence. The new building is just north of the original towers, now the hallowed ground known as Ground Zero.
"This really is a symbolic moment because this building really represents the resiliency of this country," Port Authority Vice Chair Scott Rechler told [NBC's] Matt Lauer, who earlier had made his way up the 104 floors to witness the process. "These people, the thousand men and women who have worked here tirelessly, really as a tribute for the people that perished on 9-11 right on this site."

This also bumps Chicago to second place. Until this morning, the 442 m Willis Tower was the tallest building in the U.S., and had been for 40 years.

More night events at Wrigley

David Braverman — Thu, 09 May 2013 18:54:20 GMT

The Chicago City Council could ratify a proposal allowing 46 night games as early as next month:

The proposal also would permit the Cubs to host four concerts and to make changes to its schedule as soon as next month. It allows for six Friday afternoon games starting at 3:05 instead of the traditional 1:20. The Cubs would like to move back some Friday afternoon games this season if the City Council approves the night-game plan.
The changes are consistent with a tentative agreement struck last month involving Emanuel, Tunney and the Cubs. The introduction of the night-game ordinance is the first legislative step in a process to renovate historic Wrigley Field.
Cubs' ownership has proposed spending $500 million to make extensive renovations to the ballpark and develop surrounding property in the North Side neighborhood. But before the Ricketts family, owners of the team and Wrigley Field, makes the financial commitment, it asked the city to ease regulations that limit night games and advertising signage in the ballpark. The family says more night games and signage would allow the team to generate more revenue that would be used to pay for the park restoration and field a more competitive team.

I would, of course, go to more games if the ordinance passes. I used to live three blocks from Wrigley, though, so I understand the deleterious effects more night games could have on the neighborhood. Still, if Ricketts' improvements actually help the Cubs win games, I'm in.

A year and a half without Hyperbole and a Half

David Braverman — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:41:06 GMT

Allie Brosh has returned after an 18-month absence with a new post:

[T]hat's the most frustrating thing about depression. It isn't always something you can fight back against with hope. It isn't even something — it's nothing. And you can't combat nothing. You can't fill it up. You can't cover it. It's just there, pulling the meaning out of everything. That being the case, all the hopeful, proactive solutions start to sound completely insane in contrast to the scope of the problem.
It would be like having a bunch of dead fish, but no one around you will acknowledge that the fish are dead. Instead, they offer to help you look for the fish or try to help you figure out why they disappeared.

It's scary stuff. It's also a view of depression that more people need to understand.

I've missed Brosh ~~ALOT~~ a lot. Wow, what a sucky year she's had. I'm glad she's writing again, and I sincerely hope she's turned the corner on her illness.

But still not allowed at Wrigley Field

David Braverman — Wed, 08 May 2013 14:41:18 GMT

The Tribune reports this morning that some groundskeeping duties at O'Hare will soon get turned over to a herd of goats:

The city's Department of Aviation is expected to announce Wednesday that it has awarded a contract to Central Commissary Holdings LLC — operator of Lincoln Park restaurant Butcher & The Burger — to bring about 25 goats onto airport property, helping the airport launch its pilot vegetation-management program.
Joseph Arnold, partner at Butcher & The Burger, said the goats now live on a farm in Barrington Hills and will make "the perfect lawn mowers" for the city's largest airport.
In about a month, Arnold said, the goats will be delivered to O'Hare and begin their task of munching away at overgrown greenery. According to the city's request for bids last fall, the animals will be expected to clear about 23 square meters of vegetation per day.

Apparently the goats can go up and down embankments a lot easier than the lawnmowers they currently use.

Time to drop by Butcher & the Burger.

Yes, I've noticed

David Braverman — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:09:27 GMT

Pollen levels in Chicago have exploded in the past week:

The area’s pollen values surged Tuesday to the highest levels of the year, the latest development in a allergy season which has brought misery to many across the Chicago area. Dr. Joseph Leija, allergist at Loyola Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and provider of this area’s pollen counts, lamented in his daily report that the slow pace of spring warming has combined with the season’s huge rain tallies to bring high tree counts at the same time high grass and weed levels are present. The result, says Dr. Leija, has been to make allergy sufferers miserable despite the lovely weather of late. Swollen and itchy eyes were among the reasons many patients visited his office as well as the need for medication adjustments
Tree, grass and weed pollen were ALL reported as “high” Tuesday. Tree pollen reached 1,000 grains per cubic yard—just 500 below the “alert level” of 1,500.

This is just tree pollen; the mold, grass, and ragweed maps have pretty colors over Illinois also:

I've been sneezing and coughing for three days now. I'm really looking forward to the plants finishing up their orgy of...well, orgies.

Illinois GOP continues eating its young

David Braverman — Tue, 07 May 2013 18:13:49 GMT

Illinois Republican Party chair Pat Brady has quit:

With same-sex marriage legislation pending in the Illinois legislature, Brady this year voiced his support for the proposal despite a plank in the state GOP platform that said marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman. Brady said he made the endorsement personally, not as Republican chairman, but conservatives in the top echelon of the GOP party quickly complained.
Though Brady survived immediate attempts to dump him, a meeting of the Republican State Central Committee in Tinley Park last month made clear his fate. GOP leaders agreed to put together a succession plan, allowing Brady, of St. Charles, an exit strategy that made clear his days were numbered as they began a search for a new chairman.

Meanwhile, Minnesota today passed marriage equality in the State Senate, clearing the way for the state to become the 11th to enact such a law, possibly as early as Friday. Illinois will almost certainly pass the legislation this term as well.

The Illinois GOP is on the wrong side of this, as Brady well knows. I'm sorry they're following Jim Oberweis into legislative irrelevance. A healthy democracy needs a healthy opposition, to keep the majority from over-reaching. We don't have that in Illinois right now, largely because the state GOP has become a rigid, ideologically-hidebound caricature of itself. And we're all suffering for it.

Wells St. bridge sections complete

David Braverman — Mon, 06 May 2013 20:09:17 GMT

Over the past week, the city replaced the north leaf of the Wells St. Bridge. This morning it looked like this:

Previous coverage here.

O Apostrophe, thou art but a backwards open quote

David Braverman — Mon, 06 May 2013 15:08:10 GMT

Unfortunately, as Paul Lukas points out, people have forgotten the difference:

Here's the deal: Virtually any software that includes a typography function (whether for word processing, desktop publishing, graphic design, or whatever) now employs something called "smart quotes." The idea behind smart quotes is that the software recognizes when there's a blank space immediately before or after a quotation mark and adds the appropriate curvature to the mark, creating open-quotes and close-quotes. That way you end up with nicely curved quotation marks instead of straight or "neutered" marks (like the ones you see on most of this page).

This all works fine unless you have a word or term that begins with an apostrophe, like ’til or ’em (as in "Bring ’em on"). Since the keystroke for an apostrophe is the same as the one for a single quote mark, the software improperly interprets the space and the keystroke as the start of a quotation and imparts the wrong curvature to the mark. There's a way to override the smart quotes and impose a proper apostrophe in these situations (on a Mac, you type option-shift-close-bracket), but an increasing number of writers, editors, and designers either aren't bothering to do so, don't feel it's necessary, or don't even realize it's necessary. The result is a cascade of improperly oriented apostrophes on signs, on billboards, in TV commercials, in the names of businesses, and even on mainstream media web sites. Call it the apostrophe catastrophe.

To the extent I have pet peeves, it's a big one of mine. For example, there's a coffee shop at the corner of Webster and Sheffield called Jam 'n Honey—or, rather, Jam ‘n Honey—with a half-meter-high open quote where an apostrophe should be.

Actually, they're a two-fer. They're also missing a second apostrophe, as ’n’ drops off both the a and d from "and." What the typography-challenged proprietors have there is "jam an honey," which is just stupid.

This is how civilization crashes: simple acts of negligence.

Not-so-crafty Goose Island

David Braverman — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:23:12 GMT

Since its purchase by InBev (Anheuser Busch) two years ago, Goose Island Brewing Co. has increased production significantly by brewing beer in other states. While this does allow them to produce more beer and to sell it nationwide, it has also changed the beer. Green Line Pale Ale now comes from Baldwinsville, N.Y., which I'm pretty sure doesn't have an El. Flagship 312 Urban Wheat Ale comes from Baldwinsville (area code 315) and Fort Collins, Colo. (area code 970). Since water is the principal ingredient of beer, I wonder how this could fail to change the formula.

Goose Island CEO Andrew Goler says it doesn't:

“Anheuser-Busch is letting us do our own thing,” says [Goeler], who took over as Goose Island's CEO on Jan. 1, replacing founder John Hall. “I'm not getting directives.”
When Belgium's Anheuser-Busch InBev swallowed Goose Island for $38.8 million in 2011, it provided a relief valve for an overwhelmed brewing facility. (The companies were intertwined in 2006 when Goose Island signed a distribution deal with Anheuser-Busch.)
Moving production for three of Goose Island's most popular beers out of Chicago, a decision that enthusiasts worried was the beginning of the end for the craft brand, solved a long-standing problem of pent-up demand. Top sellers are now brewed at Anheuser-Busch InBev facilities in Fort Collins, Colo., and Baldwinsville, N.Y., an expansion that allows Goose Island bottles to be carried in all 50 states.
"I think there were some irrational doubts about what's going to happen to Goose Island," says Greg Hall, 47, Goose Island's former brewmaster and son of its founder. "It's not like they're trying to make India Pale Ale and Bud Light comes out."

No, but it's no longer the same IPA, either.

Large corporations tend to digest smaller acquisitions. And Goose Island is no longer part of the Craft Brewers Association, because it's no longer a craft brew. We'll see how long Goose Island retains its independence.

Walking across the country

David Braverman — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:52:26 GMT

I just listened to a This American Life segment by Andrew Forsthoefel, a 23-year-old from southeastern Pennsylvania who walked across the U.S. for a year. Fascinating.

He wound up, after walking 6,000 km, in Half Moon Bay, Calif., about 800 m from my family's house. I have to say, if I were to walk across the U.S., I'd want to wind up in Half Moon Bay, too.

What a start to this kid's life. I'm looking forward to hearing more from him.

Slammin' SAML

David Braverman — Fri, 03 May 2013 22:46:06 GMT

After a lot of really difficult work and evaluating a half-dozen 3rd-party libraries, I've finally gotten a round-trip between a local ASP.NET application and SalesForce. This is the first victory in two big battles against the SalesForce integration model I've been fighting for the last two weeks.

The next hurdle will be to get the SalesForce API to accept my application's SAML assertion after the user is authenticated. I really have no idea how to do that yet—and no one I've spoken with knows, either.

Still, this was a good way to end a long work-week. And soon: pizza.

Pizza politics

David Braverman — Fri, 03 May 2013 21:23:38 GMT

OK, Papa John's, you're out of the doghouse. Sort of.

About six months ago, Papa John's CEO John Schnatter speculated about cutting worker hours to avoid some of the Affordable Care Act's requirements. As a direct result of this, I joined the millions of other Americans in a quiet boycott of the chain.

It's unfortunate. They make the best pizza in their category (cheap and delivered). I mean, of course I'd rather have a thin, wide, gooey slice from some nameless deli on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 2am. But for the last six months, on those rare occasions when I've had a craving, I've ordered from Domino's, who really aren't much better on the political side. I suppose I could order from Ranalli's, which used to be right around the corner (and allowed dogs on the patio).

Anyway, I actually like Papa John's pizza. I think six months may be long enough for this round. Schnatter seems to have learned his lesson. And he still makes decent, cheap, fast pizza.

Honey Badger Tom Ricketts Don't Care

David Braverman — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:40:45 GMT

I find it fascinating when someone whose entire brand rests on its association with a particular place makes this kind of threat:

"I'm not sure how anyone is going to stop the signs in the outfield," Ricketts said upon the unveiling of drawings of his renovation plan, "but if it comes to the point that we don't have the ability to do what we need to do in our outfield then we're going to have to consider moving."

Ah, yeah. "Consider" moving. Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom scoffs:

Look, if you’re going to play the move card, then play it like you mean it. Ricketts didn’t. He came off like a guy who wanted nothing to do with those words in any order. It was done so weakly, in fact, that I’m surprised there wasn’t closed-captioning.
I can see how people got the wrong idea, though. Supporters were thrilled to have Ricketts hint even slightly that he knew how to play politics. Nope. Sorry. Not happening.
The only place anyone might believe Ricketts could move the Cubs today is Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the Cubs actually won last night, putting them only three games behind the 4th-place team. We can't even give our tickets away at this point.