The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Clearer air on an "inside" day

I had one of those "why am I working inside today?" moments when I got my lunch a few minutes ago. The obvious answer—Cassie needs dog food—doesn't always work when it's 27°C and sunny. It did get me to re-evaluate my dinner plans, however. Cooking pasta just doesn't appeal when my favorite sushi place has an outdoor patio that allows dogs.

Meanwhile, I'm adding a feature that might take the remainder of this sprint as it completely changes how we store and present 3rd-party calculation results to the end user. Previously we just presented the user's most recent calculation on the results page. But our pesky users seem to want to see their previous calculation results as well. Since we were throwing those away when the user made a new calculation, I have some work to do.

Meanwhile:

  • Via Bruce Schneier, the Gandalf AI app lets you socially-engineer an AI to get its password. Schneier himself hasn't gotten past Level 7, so good luck to you.
  • Tyler Austin Harper sees an uncomfortable connection between the movies Oppenheimer and Barbie, both of which open this weekend.
  • Office furniture brokers have a glut of inventory as post-pandemic return-to-office plans get slower and slower.
  • Today is the anniversary of Massachusetts Commodore Dudley Saltonstall's incompetent attack on the British garrison at present-day Penobscot, Maine, in 1779, that should remind all y'all commando wannabes what happens when amateurs attack a vastly superior professional force. (Also a reminder that Benjamin Franklin's diplomacy really won our War of Independence, not George Washington's soldiering.)
  • In what can't be politely described, so I'll call it a dick move, Universal Studios denuded a stand of trees along Barham Blvd. in Los Angeles to harass the striking writers and actors who had used the trees for shade in the 32°C heat. And the suits continue to wonder why everyone roots for the talent.
  • Of course, the suits broke the business in the first place, so maybe that has more to do with it.

Finally, now that Cassie has had her birthday photo and her sardine dinner, it's time for her bath. Wow, does she need one. And she's going to get one tomorrow morning, traumatizing though it is for her.

Of note, Monday afternoon

Just a few items for my reading list:

  • The Supreme Court's Republican majority have invented a new doctrine that they claim gives them override any action by a Democratic administration or Congress.
  • John Ganz thinks all Americans are insane, at least when it comes to conspiracy theories.
  • Chicago's Deep Tunnel may have spared us from total disaster with last week's rains, but even it can't cope with more than about 65 mm of rain in an hour.
  • Oregon's Rose Quarter extension of Interstate 5 will cost an absurd amount of money because it's an absurdly wide freeway.

Finally, for those of you just tuning in to the multiple creative labor actions now paralyzing the film industry, the Washington Post has a succinct briefing on residuals, the principal point of disagreement between the suits and the people actually making films.

Florida's in hot water

Sea-surface temperatures around our embarrassing southern peninsula have passed 32°C, significantly warmer than normal:

Not only is Florida sizzling in record-crushing heat, but the ocean waters that surround it are scorching, as well. The unprecedented ocean warmth around the state — connected to historically warm oceans worldwide — is further intensifying its heat wave and stressing coral reefs, with conditions that could end up strengthening hurricanes.

Much of Florida is seeing its warmest year on record, with temperatures running 2 to 3°C above normal. While some locations have been setting records since the beginning of the year, the hottest weather has come with an intense heat dome cooking the Sunshine State in recent weeks. That heat dome has made coastal waters extremely warm, including “downright shocking” temperatures of 33°C to 35°C in the Florida Keys, meteorologist and journalist Bob Henson said Sunday in a tweet.

Such warm water temperatures “would be impressive any time of year, but they’re occurring when the water would already be rather warm, bringing it up to bona fide bathtub conditions that we rarely see,” Brian McNoldy, senior research associate at the University of Miami and hurricane expert for Capital Weather Gang, said in an email.

The marine heat wave will likely make this year's hurricane season more active and more powerful, and cause continued above-normal temperatures in the Caribbean and southern US.

Slow day

As predicted, the weather is great and I'm working from home with the windows open. And I'm doing an open-ended research project that is leaving me with more questions than answers, which is always good.

I haven't spent a lot of time online today, except for the research. But I would like to point out yesterday's Strong Towns post, which hit home almost literally. In most parts of the US, the suburban city plan (aka sprawl) gets a pretty heavy subsidy from urban property-tax payers:

A couple of years ago, I conducted an infrastructure study for the Town of Nolensville, Tennessee, at the request of Mayor Derek Adams, analyzing their tax revenues in relation to their development pattern's maintenance costs. You can find that study here, but I'm sure you can guess what I found, if you're a Strong Towns reader. 

I looked at five different streets, each with a slightly different development pattern. I categorized these streets based on what infrastructure they contained, their levels of density, and their historic context. The final street on the list was a townhome street (consisting of typical 24-foot lot widths, as opposed to the 69- to 114-foot-wide lots of the other suburban streets). All four of the non-townhome lot development patterns resulted in long-term deficits for the city under the existing level of taxation. What's more, I adjusted these deficits to allow for the more expensive homes to contribute more taxes (since their higher assessments would, of course, generate more money in absolute terms), and they still didn't break even. The townhomes, on the other hand, produced a budget surplus of $51.43 per lot.

In the study's conclusion, I discussed how this result may be received politically. In the past, people have moved to towns like Nolensville precisely for the suburban development pattern. Even today, when more urban and traditional forms of community are increasing in popularity, not everybody wants to live in a townhome. Am I advocating some kind of 15-minute city conspiracy to forcibly abolish side yards?!?

No—despite the proven financial and logistical problems with suburbs, I don't think we should abolish them. It could be argued that heavy-handed strategies like that don't fit with our political culture and traditions in this country. Instead, I think we should do something eminently American: we should tell the suburbs to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

That doesn't mean abandoning them. Rather, it's a call for a frank, down-to-earth conversation between the taxpayers and the suburbs; the type of conversation any responsible parent would have with a teenager who's living beyond his means.

Sure, but if you're getting subsidized million-dollar housing, why would you ever vote to pay your actual bill?

OK, lunch is over. Back to the mines...

Why am I inside?

I'm in my downtown office today, with its floor-to-ceiling window that one could only open with a sledgehammer. The weather right now makes that approach pretty tempting. However, as that would be a career-limiting move, I'm trying to get as much done as possible to leave downtown on the 4:32 train instead of the 5:32. I can read these tomorrow in my home office, with the window open and the roofers on the farthest part of my complex from it:

Finally, does day drinking cause more harm than drinking at night? (Asking for a friend.)

Hottest day in modern humanity

Monday was the hottest day on the planet in 125,000 years. Yesterday was hotter:

Tuesday was the hottest day on Earth since at least 1979, with the global average temperature reaching 17.18°C, according to data from the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

Tuesday’s global average temperature was calculated by a model that uses data from weather stations, ships, ocean buoys and satellites, Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at London’s Grantham Institute, explained in an email Wednesday. This modeling system has been used to estimate daily average temperatures starting in 1979.

“This is our ‘best guess’ of what the surface temperature at each point on earth was yesterday,” he said.

Instrument-based global temperature records go back to the mid-19th century, but for temperatures before that, scientists are dependent on proxy data captured through evidence left in tree rings and ice cores. “These data tell us that it hasn’t been this warm since at least 125,000 years ago, which was the previous interglacial,” Ceppi said, referring to a period of unusual warmth between two ice ages.

Because of the El Nino building in the Pacific, the normal seasonal warmth in the Northern Hemisphere, and human-caused climate change, we can expect more records as the summer goes on. Nice work, people.

A little fall of rain

Yesterday's rain in Chicago set a few records:

Sunday’s heavy rain poured upward of 200 mm in Berwyn, Cicero and Garfield Park, according to preliminary reports from weather officials, sending residents in search of supplies to clean up flooded homes.

The National Weather Service said that daily rainfall totals ranged from 75 to 175 mm in the immediate Chicago area after “extended rounds of heavy/torrential rainfall.”

The preliminary data came from radar estimates, personal weather stations and rain gauges. Official information will be released over the next few days, weather officials said.

O’Hare International Airport broke the record for daily rainfall on Sunday, recording 85 mm of rain. The previous record was 52 mm in July 1982.

Yesterday's rain didn't even come close to the record 24-hour rainfall that ruined a summer party I'd planned for weeks on 13-14 August 1987. That day we got 238 mm of rain and a flooded basement.

Walkies deficit

Because of yesterday's rain, poor Cassie only got 23 minutes of walkies yesterday—almost all of it in drenching rain. I went through two towels drying her off after each of her walks. And of course, because she was (a) being rained on and (b) couldn't smell anything, it took her way more time than I preferred to find where to do her job.

For my part, I really got a close shave on my step count:

Today we have blue skies, sun, and a forecast high of 23°C: perfection. (The AQI is down to 47, too.) I have to do a few hours of work for a freelance client and get a bag of kibble, but other than that, I plan to take Cassie on several walks worthy of my dog.

No hurry to get to Ravinia tonight

I've got tickets to see Straight No Chaser with some chorus friends at Ravinia Park tonight—on the lawn. Unfortunately, for the last 8 hours or so, our weather radar has looked like this:

I haven't got nearly as much disappointment as the folks sitting in Grant Park right now waiting for a NASCAR race that will never happen in this epic rainfall. (I think Mother Nature is trying to tell NASCAR something. Or at least trying to tell Chicago NASCAR fans something. Hard to tell.)

While I'm waiting to see if it will actually stop raining before my train leaves at 5:49pm, I have this to read:

I am happy the roofers finished my side of my housing development already. The people across the courtyard have discovered the temporary waterproofing was a bit more temporary than the roofers intended.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

Some stories to read at lunch today:

Finally, our air quality has improved slightly (now showing 168 at IDTWHQ), but the Canadian smoke may linger for another couple of days.