Before I link to anything else, I want to share Ray Delahanty's latest CityNerd video that explores "rural cosplaying." I'll skip directly to the punchline; you should watch the whole thing for more context:
Elsewhere,
There is some good news today, though. In the last 6½ hours, the temperature at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters rose almost 9°C (15°F), to an almost-balmy -3.5°C. The forecast says it'll keep rising another 12°C or so through Sunday. So our first cold snap of the winter appears to be behind us.
I just had a hilarious meeting with a vendor.
We (at my day job) use a JavaScript library for a small but useful feature in our application. We've used it for probably the app's entire 10 year lifespan and haven't given it a second thought. Recently, a security issue showed up on a routine scan, implicating the (obsolete) version we use. So we have to get the latest version, and company policy requires us to get a commercial license to protect our own IP.
So we got in touch with the vendor, which took some doing because this library has existed for such a long time and passed through so many owners.
First problem: the vendor's sales guy didn't have the first clue what our app does, even when explained three different ways. I feel like I spread a little knowledge into the world when I spelled "actuary" for him. I hope he reads at least the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article.
Second problem: after I guessed (inaccurately) how many actual customers use the app, he threw out a license fee of $12,000 per year. I had to choke back actual laughter. I said "well, that's not what we were expecting; are you sure that's the number you want me to take back to our head of engineering?"
In fact, our license costs would probably wind up around $2,000 per year. But given that an entire library of tools like Syncfusion offers would only cost $3,600 per year and would give us all kinds of bells and whistles, not to mention an actual support organization and frequent, predictable upgrades, even that seems high.
So, in conclusion, if you produce a tiny JavaScript library whose functionality can be found in a few dozen other libraries out there, you may want to reconsider requesting a license fee so high that the customer's only rational action would be to swap your library out for another one. If it takes one of our developers two entire days to put in a new library, it would still be cheaper than the requested license fee.
Remember: price is a function of supply and demand, not of wishful thinking.
My, we've had a busy day:
Finally, paleobiologists have narrowed the range of Neandertal-Sapiens interbreeding down to a period that peaked 47,000 years ago. Cue the jokes, starting with: "Who knew yo mama was that old?"
Two stories I mentioned previously have updates today:
As long as I've got five minutes before my next meeting, I also want to spike these two for reading later on:
- William Langewische goes deep into the Proud Prophet war game in 1983 that demonstrated the frightening speed that a conventional war in Europe could escalate into total nuclear annihilation.
- A bridge closure in Winnepeg, Man., has allowed the city to redirect some funds to other basic services that it struggles to pay for after years of sprawling infrastructure spending.
Time for my morning stand-up meeting.
Grocery giant Kroger has long drooled over acquiring Albertsons, for the simple reason that competition drives prices towards equilibrium and away from rent-seeking. When Kroger published the list of (Albertsons-owned) Jewel-Osco and (Kroger-owned) Mariano's stores that would remain open in Chicago, magically most of the Mariano's stores didn't make the cut—including the big one just 400 meters from my house.
Today, US District Court Judge Adrienne Nelson (I-OR) blocked the merger, probably killing it for good:
In a decision filed in Oregon federal court Tuesday, Nelson found in favor of the US Federal Trade Commission. The agency had argued that the proposed tie-up violates US antitrust law and that a divestiture of hundreds of stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers Inc. wouldn’t do enough to replace the lost competition.
Nelson’s decision is a major victory for the FTC and its outgoing Chair Lina Khan, who came under harsh criticism from conservatives and business groups for stepped-up antitrust enforcement under the Biden administration.
Ultimately, both chains will likely close some stores, but based on their own independent analyses aimed at comparative advantage, not based on a unified analysis aimed at rent-seeking. This is a good result.
Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran an interactive feature showing you the walkability of your neighborhood, in average minutes of travel time (by any method) to get things you need. They divided most metro areas into 200-meter hexagons and evaluated three criteria.
My current hexagon comes in at 8.2 minutes. The one I lived in a decade ago, in Lincoln Park, is at 5.2 minutes. The best scores of places I've lived in are Brooklyn (4.8 minutes) and Chicago's Near North Side (4.2 minutes). The specific part of the specific suburb where I grew up is the only bit of the town that shows up as blue, with a score of 13.6 minutes.
I could play with this for hours.
Incidentally, the absolute worst place I ever had the pleasure of living was Mason, Ohio, on a project in late 2010. Mason is so bad, in fact, that the Post interactive map doesn't even attempt to measure it.
Today may wind up being the last nice day of 2024, even though long-range forecasts suggest next week may have unseasonably warm and dry weather as well. Yesterday had nicer weather than today, with the temperature hitting 13°C under sunny skies. Yesterday was also the monthly Dog Day at Morton Arboretum in Chicago's southwest suburbs. And one of my friends has a membership.
We took the girls on the longest possible loop through the grounds, 8.7 km, in just over an hour and a half:
Sadly, we were so busy enjoying the day that we forgot to take pictures.
The next Dog Day is January 19th. Given Chicago's normal weather that time of year, we may skip it. Then again, both Kelsey and Cassie really enjoy snow.
First, Andrew Sullivan makes a very good, nuanced point about President Biden pardoning his son:
A consensus of sorts has emerged among historians. Little abuses of power in the Roman system slowly multiplied, as rival factions exploited loopholes, or made minor adjustments, for short-term advantages. And so, for example, the term-limits of consuls — once strictly limited to two years in order to keep power dispersed — were gradually extended after the first breach, which set a precedent for further bigger breaches. An esoteric emergency measure — the provision of a “dictator” to restore order in a crisis for a limited six months — was — surprise! — extended indefinitely under Sulla and then Caesar.
This was always the model for the collapse of liberal democracy in America. Not Weimar, which was a very new republic, buffeted by sanctions and reparations after a calamitous war. Rome, like contemporary America, was well-established in its republican ways, and, after throwing off a monarchy, had practiced them for centuries, before it slid into strongman rule.
And if there were a single constitutional provision that, if abused, could tip the American republic into a post-legal authoritarian system, it would surely be the pardon power.
A pro-active pardon for criminality ordered by the president is, after all, another phrase for the categorical end of the rule of law. It means that a president’s flunkies — or anyone else in presidential favor — can commit any crime in the secure knowledge there will never be punishment. It thereby puts an entire class of people selected by the president effectively above the rule of law. It makes the president a king.
Second, for some reason this story gave me hope and inspiration:
The world’s oldest known wild bird, a 74-year-old Laysan albatross named Wisdom, is expected to welcome another baby chick in the coming months, astonishing scientists who have been tracking her since the Eisenhower administration.
Wisdom laid an egg on Nov. 27 on Midway Atoll, a speck of land in the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. Researchers said they were optimistic that it will hatch in about two months, making her a mother for the 30th or so time. Her last chick hatched in 2021.
While albatrosses usually mate for life, they will find new mates to breed with if their partner dies. Dr. Plissner believes Wisdom has outlived at least three mates.
Wisdom has outlived Chandler Robbins, the well-known ornithologist who banded her in 1956. He died in 2017.
Two things immediately occurred to me: (a) we're all better when wisdom outlives romance; and (b) my jokes have laid eggs my whole life, but clearly I have a long way to go.
Finally, if you want to relax this winter, NASA has just the ticket. Enjoy.
The USGS (and no doubt millions of fish) has detected a 7.0-magnitude earthquake off the coast of California. People as far away as San Diego and Hawaii have gotten tsunami warnings. So far no tsunamis have been reported; we'll see when the first possible wave reaches San Francisco in an hour.
More info when available.
Update, 14:12 CST: NOAA cancelled the tsunami warning for the US and Canadian West Coast about 15 minutes ago.
Today is the 30th anniversary of the trope-namer first appearing in Calvin and Hobbes, making the comic strip self-referential at this point. (It's the ur-noodle incident.)
Unfortunately, today's mood rather more reflects The Far Side's famous "Crisis Clinic" comic from the same era:
Let's hope tomorrow's mood is a different Far Side comic...