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At midnight Chicago tied its high-temperature record for January 9th, 15.6°C (60°F), set in 1880. Then from 4am to 5am the temperature dropped 7°C (12°F) and now hovers around 6°C (42°F). This is a weakening La Niña plus human-caused global heating plus Chicago generally having weird weather. In other news: Glenn Kessler warns that the OAFPOTUS's vandalism of our foreign policy is the equivalent of Cortez burning his ships, with similarly grim prospects for the natives. Matt Ford thinks it will "haunt...

I've posted the Chicago Sunrises 2026 page a few days before the end of the year in part because I'm still thinking about the way the new blog engine will handle static pages. The fundamental abstraction in the new blog engine is an Event, which is a thing that occurs in time; static pages are, well, static. The solution I'm experimenting with is to have "favorite" or "pinned" posts, which will show up second on the main landing page. First, I have to finish comments, which has led me to re-evaluate...

Here's the annual Chicago sunrise chart. As always, you can get sunrise data for your own location at Weather Now. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2026 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:09 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:31 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:29 17:39 11:10 7 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 12th Earliest sunset until Nov 1st 06:16 17:49 11:32 8 Mar Daylight saving time begins Latest sunrise until...

Just so I can keep track, my month so far: Mon Dec 1, Messiah dress rehearsal, Millar Chapel, EvanstonTue Dec 2, chorus fundraiser planning committeeMon Dec 8, Messiah rehearsalThu Dec 11, Messiah tutti rehearsal, Holy Name Cathedral, ChicagoSat Dec 13, Messiah performance, Holy Name CathedralSun Dec 14, Messiah performance, Millar ChapelTue Dec 16, Messiah sing-a-long, EvanstonWed Dec 17, Christmas Eve rehearsal, EvanstonSun Dec 21 (morning), 4th Sunday of Advent service, EvanstonSun Dec 21...

As happens every December 1st, winter has begun. It's the first of 63 days with a 7am sunrise or later. And yet that's not as depressing as some of these stories: Jennifer Rubin argues (as do most lawyers with military backgrounds) that any order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to kill survivors of a boat the US Navy attacked would violate US law, international law, the law of war, and the US Law of War Manual, not to mention being morally abhorrent. An appeals court has ruled that Alina Habba's...

A coronal mass ejection late last week caused Kp7-level aurorae last night that people could see as far south as Alabama. Unfortunately, I missed them, though some of my friends did not. Fortunately, NOAA predicts that another mass of charged particles will hit around 6pm tonight, causing even more pronounced aurorae for most of the night. This time, I plan to get to a dark corner of the suburbs to look for them. Meanwhile: ProPublica has an extended report about how the OAFPOTUS uses pardons and...

With the unusually late colors we have this autumn against the much earlier sunsets that started yesterday (before 4:30 pm from November 15th to December 31st, ugh!), things have remained tolerable. It will snow eventually; we'll have a freeze eventually; but for now, I'll just enjoy it. I didn't enjoy these things, though: Humans formed governments in the first place to feed people; the OAFPOTUS and his village of idiots have failed at that basic task. Architects who have looked at the paltry plans and...

It's late October, so the days are shorter. Then on Sunday, we get an extra hour of sleep at the cost of an hour of afternoon daylight. Which is all to say I ran out of time today doing actual work and taking meetings at odd times because the UK switched their clocks yesterday. And now I have to walk two dogs, feed two dogs, and run to rehearsal. More tomorrow.

I just got back from a 30-minute walk with Cassie in 22°C early-autumn sun. We suffered. And now I'm back in my home office and she's back on the couch. She will spend the next several hours napping in a cool, breezy spot downstairs, and I will...work. I will also read a bit, which is a skill that I'm glad Cassie does not have after encountering the day's news: It's official! The June jobs report showed a decline in US employment for the first time since December 2020, making President Biden the only...

A total lunar eclipse has just started and will reach totality at 12:30 Chicago time, which is unfortunately about 10 hours too early for us to enjoy it here. It's a good way to end the first day of meteorological autumn, though, as is the 8 km walk Cassie and I have planned around 2 this afternoon. With a forecast high of 19°C, it should be lovely. In other eclipses this past week: The OAFPOTUS has so badly damaged US foreign policy and our standing in the world that China has eclipsed us as the de...

I spent a lot of time outside over the weekend until the temperature started to slide into the single digits (Celsius) last night, so I put off reading online stories in favor of reading real books. I also failed to mention that we had an honest-to-goodness haboob in Northern Illinois on Friday, the first significant one since 1934. Because hey, let's bring back the 1930s in all their glory! Adam Kinzinger rolls his eyes at the world's oldest toddler: the OAFPOTUS himself, the biggest champion of the...

I've never walked around the Edgebrook neighborhood in Chicago, and I've kept meaning to. So today, with clear, cool weather and nothing pressing to do, I took Cassie for a 40-minute walk up there. I expect I'll have more interesting things to say tomorrow. The sun doesn't set for almost four hours, and we'll have twilight past 8:30, so I think I'm going to take Cassie out for another walk.

On Monday, Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin (the one with phallic space ships) sent an all-female "crew" into low orbit for ten minutes, pretty much demonstrating everything wrong with 2020s America: Blue Origin's all-female crew, which included pop star Katy Perry, completed their trip into space Monday morning. Along with Perry, the crew included Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos' journalist fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, who is also a helicopter pilot. Speaking after touchdown, Perry said she brought a daisy...

It's 21°C at Inner Drive Technology WHQ and 22°C at O'Hare right now. In addition to being the normal high temperature for May 20th, that reading at O'Hare is the warmest since 11pm on October 30th. The forecast for O'Hare predicts a high near 26°C, which is normal for June 10th. Which is all a long way of saying: I'm about to change into a polo shirt, take Cassie for a walk, and open every window in my house—not necessarily in that order. By the way, the eclipse last night was really cool. I only wish...

After our gorgeous weather Sunday and Monday, yesterday's cool-down disappointed me a bit. But we have clear-ish skies and lots of sun, which apparently will persist until Friday night. I'm also pleased to report that we will probably have a good view of tomorrow night's eclipse, which should be spectacular. I'll even plan to get up at 1:30 to see totality. Elsewhere in the world, the OAFPOTUS continues to explore the outer limits of stupidity (or is it frontotemporal dementia?): No one has any idea...

I want to start with a speech on the floor of the French Senate three days ago, in which Claude Malhuret (LIRT-Allier) had this to say about the OAFPOTUS: Washington has become the court of Nero, an incendiary emperor, submissive courtiers, and a jester high on ketamine in charge of purging the civil service. This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will...

So much to read...tomorrow morning, when I wake up: Fallows and the Post have solid takes on President Biden's farewell address. Kim Lane Scheppelle shakes her head at how authoritarians use playground taunts keep their opponents off balance. John Scalzi does not expect much from the incoming administration. The Daily Overview has an amazing post today on the Los Angeles fires, and other fires in the recent past. Arwa Mahdawi calls out United HealthCare for going "villain mode." Heather Souvaine Horn...

A friend pointed out that, as of this morning, we've passed the darkest 36-day period of the year: December 3rd to January 8th. On December 3rd at Inner Drive Technology World HQ, the sun rose at 7:02 and set at 16:20, with 9 hours 18 minutes of daylight. Today it rose at 7:18 and will set at 16:38, for 9 hours 20 minutes of daylight. By the end of January we'll have 10 hours of daylight and the sun will set after 5pm for the first time since November 3rd. It helps that we've had nothing but sun today....

It's New Years Eve, so it's time for the Chicago Sunrise Chart for 2025. Other end-of-year and beginning-of-year posts will dribble out today and tomorrow.

Here's the annual Chicago sunrise chart. As always, you can get sunrise data for your own location at Weather Now. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2025 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 19 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:41 17:30 10:48 26 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:08 8 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 13th Earliest sunset until Oct 28th 06:14 17:50 11:36 9 Mar Daylight saving time begins Latest sunrise until...

I happened to be on the 40th floor of a downtown high rise at just the right moment yesterday:

The sun sets at Inner Drive Technology World HQ this evening at 4:19pm, which is just a few seconds later than tomorrow's. Given the variability in atmospheric conditions it's safe to say that the sun sets at the same time for the entire period of December 5th through 10th. Sadly, sunrises will keep getting later until January 4th. These are literally dark times. This happens every year, though. And we'll get through it.

The US Thanksgiving holiday tomorrow provides me with a long-awaited opportunity to clean out the closet under my stairs so an orphan kid more boxes will have room to stay there. I also may finish the Iain Banks novel I started two weeks ago, thereby finishing The Culture. (Don't worry, I have over 100 books on my to-be-read bookshelf; I'll find something else to read.) Meanwhile: Even though I, personally, haven't got the time to get exercised about the OAFPOTUS's ridiculous threat to impose crippling...

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe. Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can...

Following a coronal mass ejection on Monday, tonight's aurora forecast is epic: Unfortunately, I have an event just outside the Loop that ends around 10. By the time I got home, loaded up the dog, and drove to a place without streetlights, it would be around 1am. So no photos; but maybe I'll see some aurorae when I get home. We'll see. Fortunately, we have had perfectly clear skies for 4 straight days, with no significant cloud cover forecast until tomorrow afternoon. Aurorae peak at local midnight...

Because I had a busy weekend, I had quite a full inbox this morning. After deleting the 85% of it that came from the Democratic Party and the Harris-Walz campaign (guys, you've already got my vote, FFS), I still had quite a few items of interest: Michael Tomasky reminds everyone: the XPOTUS is an evil buffoon, not an evil genius. Yesterday that same evil buffoon mooted a "Purge"-like day for the police to rough everyone up a bit. Contra most New York Times articles this election cycle, the Post's...

Seventy-five years ago today, George Orwell published 1984, a horrifying novel that gets closer to reality every day. Also on 8 June 1949, the FBI released a report naming acting stars and filmmakers "communists," kicking off a horrifying chapter in American history that gets closer to coming back every day. And yesterday, NASA astronaut Bill Anders died in a plane crash. You may not know who Anders was, but you've seen the photo he took on Christmas Eve 1968: By NASA/Bill Anders (Link) Public Domain...

Despite a high, thin broken cloud layer, it's 23°C with a light breeze and comfortable humidity at Inner Drive Technology World HQ. Cassie and I had a half-hour walk at a nice pace (we covered just over 3 km), and I've just finished my turkey sandwich. And yet, there's something else that has me feeling OK, if only for a little while... Perhaps it's this? Maybe this? How about this? Or maybe it's Alexandra Petri? In other news: President Biden just announced that Israel has proposed a three-phase peace...

NOAA has predicted a severe geomagnetic storm watch for tonight: NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) — a division of the National Weather Service — is monitoring the sun following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that began on May 8. Space weather forecasters have issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch for the evening of Friday, May 10. Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist through the weekend. A large sunspot cluster has...

The forecast today called for a lot more rain than we've had, so Cassie might get more walkies than planned. Before that happens, I'm waiting for a build to run in our dev pipeline, and one or two stories piqued my interest to occupy me before it finishes: Jennifer Rubin grabs the popcorn as the XPOTUS finds himself not really helped by his first criminal trial. Mary Trump says it's because the world finally sees him for the loser he's always been. The Federal Trade Commission has issued a sweeping ban...

The International Space Station caught some video of the moon's shadow yesterday:

Getting down to Whitestown, Ind., yesterday took about 4 hours and 45 minutes, including a stop to empty Cassie, which isn't great but isn't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Getting home, however, taught me about the limitations of Google Maps in a way I'm not likely to forget. Here's the first leg of our return trip, from Whitestown to just south of Wolcott, Ind., a distance of 109 km: That took us 3 hours and 41 minutes, an average of 29.6 km/h. People ride bikes faster than that. You can see spots where...

I'm almost done with the new feature I mentioned yesterday (day job, unfortunately, so I can't describe it further), so while the build is running, I'm queuing these up: Philip Bump analyzes the New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan's dismissal of the XPOTUS's bogus immunity claim. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson (D) told reporters he's done everything he promised to do when he took office a year ago, at which point the reporters no doubt collectively cocked their eyebrows. Molly White doesn't think...

My body thought this was around 8:30am, but no, it was 6:30: Also, it turns out that my three favorite people in Southern California live 60, 90, and 120 minutes away from here. Aw, snap.

I do love this aspect of Daylight Saving Time: for the first time since November 2nd—131 days ago—my normal commute and walking Cassie home from day care got me home before sunset. This happens every March, but it still feels revelatory. Barring a late night at the office I won't walk Cassie home after sunset until around October 21st, 223 days from now. It's a little thing, but I enjoy it.

My team works in the downtown office 3 days a week. Given Cassie's daycare pickup deadline and the Metra schedule, I leave at almost exactly the same time every day: 5:20pm. That makes the rapidly-lengthening days in late winter very noticeable. Yesterday, for example, was the first day since November 2nd that my normal departure time was before sunset. And in just a couple of weeks—March 7th, most likely—I'll pick Cassie up from daycare before sunset. It really makes a difference.

Even though we have clouds and snow today, the sun will still set at 4:30pm, a milestone that reminds us things are getting brighter. You can see how much brighter by checking out the 2024 Chicago sunrise chart. If you want to know the sunrise times in your own city, go to Weather Now.

Here's the annual Chicago sunrise chart. As always, you can get sunrise data for your own location at Weather Now. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2024 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:08 9 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 14th Earliest sunset until Oct 27th 06:12 17:52 11:39 10 Mar Daylight saving time begins Latest sunrise until...

I'm just monkeying with code today, not waiting six years for the perfect alignment on a clear evening to take one photo. Seriously, Monday's NASA Astronomy Photo of the Day blew my mind.

I complained yesterday that Chicago hadn't seen sunlight in almost a week. Ever the fount of helpful weather statistics, WGN pointed out that it made it the cloudiest start to a December since 1952. This streak had nothing on my winter break in 1991-92, when Chicago went 12 days without sunlight, or spring 2022, which had only 1 day of sunshine from March 21st through May 2nd. So the sun on my face this morning was delightful. In other gloominess: Julia Ioffe reports that Hamas has refused to release...

Today's roundup includes only one Earth-shattering kaboom, for starters (and I'll save the political stuff for last): Scientists hypothesize that two continent-sized blobs of hot minerals 3,000 km below Africa and the Pacific Ocean came from Theia, the Mars-sized object that slammed into the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, creating the Moon in the aftermath. October was Illinois 31st warmest and 41st wettest in history (going back to 1895). National Geographic looks into whether the freak winter of...

Yesterday, during the eclipse, which I guess some people in the US and Mexico got to enjoy: Gotta love Chicago during astronomical phenomena. Next April, I will make sure that I'm somewhere along the eclipse path where I can actually see the eclipse. Today, though, we have much better weather, as Cassie will attest: I've got chicken soup in my slow cooker, but I have two hours until I need to pull the chicken, so I'm going to go do nothing of value for a bit. With the dog.

Other things actually happened recently: Slate's Sarah Lipton-Lubet explains how the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and the US Supreme Court keep allowing straw plaintiffs to raise bullshit cases so they can overturn laws they don't like. Julia Ioffe, who has a new podcast explaining how Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's upbringing as a street thug informs his foreign policy today, doesn't think the West or Ukraine really need to worry about Robert Fico's election win in Slovakia. Chicago Transit...

House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) lost the first procedural vote to prevent a second vote aimed at kicking him out of the Speaker's chair, which will probably result in him getting re-elected in a few days. The Republicans in Congress simply have no one else who can get 218 votes for Speaker. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would get 214, but no Republican would ever vote for him. And my party's caucus have absolutely no interest in helping the Romper Room side of the aisle get its own house in order. Fun...

Since I live in a temperate climate, I think about seasons more than my friends who live in, say, San Jose, Calif. This becomes especially pronounced the closer we get to the equinoxes as the change in daylight hours peak then. On my walk with Cassie earlier today, I started thinking about how actually to quantify the lengthening shadows in autumn. Here, then, is a chart of the position of the sun in Chicago for the first day of each month, along with its equivalent day on the other side of the equinox....

I think I finally cracked the nut on a work problem that has consumed our team for almost three years. Unfortunately I can't write about it yet. I can say, though, that the solution became a lot clearer just a couple of weeks after our team got slightly smaller. I will say nothing more. Just remember, there are two types of people: those who can infer things from partial evidence. Just a few articles left to read before I take Cassie on her pre-dinner ambulation: Titanic director James Cameron, who has...

But for me, it was Tuesday: The Democratic National Committee has selected Chicago to host its convention next August, when (I assume) our party will nominate President Biden for a second term. We last hosted the DNC in 1996, when the party nominated President Clinton for his second term. Just a few minutes ago, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed suit in the Southern District of New York to enjoin US Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) from interfering in the prosecution of the XPOTUS. Speaking of the...

I've had a bunch of tasks and a mid-afternoon meeting, so I didn't get a chance to read all of these yet: Fifty years ago today, United States combat troops left South Vietnam. The DC foreign policy elite have grown impatient for President Biden to articulate a clearer policy on Ukraine. The Post has a fascinating story of a Russian spy who posed as a Brazilian student to get into Johns Hopkins, but got arrested when he tried to take a new job at the International Criminal Court using his fake identity....

At my day job, we just ended our 80th sprint on the project, with a lot of small but useful features that will make our side of the app easier to maintain. I like productive days like this. I even voted! And now I will rest on my laurels for a bit and read these stories: If you don't worry that the entire US Supreme Court has the technical expertise of your 99-year-old great uncle, perhaps you should? Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen explains how giving economic aid to Ukraine benefits the West. In part...

I have no idea. But today I managed to get a lot of work done, so I'll have to read these later: A whopping 78% of voters in Rep. "George Santos" (R-NY) district think he should resign. Who should I vote for in the upcoming Chicago Mayoral election? National Geographic explains the science behind seasonal depression. Via Bruce Schneier, it looks like ransomware payments have declined 40% since 2021. Writing for Strong Towns, Michel Durand-Wood compares urban planning to...pizza. James Fallows describes...

The sun finally came out around 3:30 this afternoon, as a high overcast layer slid slowly southeast. Of course, the temperature has fallen to -11°C and will keep sliding to -18°C overnight, but at least the gloom has receded! January will still end as the gloomiest ever, however, with around 18% of possible sunshine all month, plus whatever we get tomorrow. Meanwhile, I want to come back to these articles later: Radley Balko points out that giving hyper-aggressive cops less oversight and a...

I enjoyed my lunch in the Loop today, but not the walk back to the office: Sigh. At least the sun sets at 5pm for the first time since November 5th.

I forgot to do this in July, so the previous Chicago sunrise chart stayed up all year. As always, you can get sunrise times for your own location at https://www.wx-now.com/SunriseChart. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2023 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:32 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:09 17:00 9:51 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:09 11 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 16th Earliest sunset until Oct 27th...

Here's the (semi?-)annual Chicago sunrise chart. As always, you can get sunrise data for your own location at https://www.wx-now.com/SunriseChart. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2023 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:32 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:09 17:00 9:51 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:09 11 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 16th Earliest sunset until Oct 27th 06:10 17:53 11:43 12 Mar Daylight saving...

The world continues to turn outside the Chicago icebox: Julia Ioffe sees an interesting power play between the US and China taking shape in Africa. Ed Zitron experiences unbridled Schadenfreude as three billionaires experience the Dunning-Krueger effect up close and personal. David Frum says we should thank Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky for reminding us of our own history. 538 created an interactive map where you can see for yourself that moving time zone boundaries will probably make more...

We get one or two every year. The National Weather Service predicts that by Friday morning, Chicago will have heavy snowfall and gale-force winds, just what everyone wants two days before Christmas. By Saturday afternoon we'll have clear skies—and -15°C temperatures with 400 mm of snow on the ground. Whee! We get to share our misery with a sizeable portion of the country as the bomb cyclone develops over the next three days. At least, once its gone and we have a clear evening Saturday or Sunday, we can...

With tomorrow night having the earliest sunset of the year, it got dark at 4:20 pm—two hours ago. One loses time, you see. Especially with a demo tomorrow. So I'll just read these while devops pipelines run: Reversing their First Amendment argument from only 18 months ago, the Chicago Tribune editorial board finally agrees with most Chicagoans that the big sign facing down Wabash Street from the tower named after the XPOTUS has to go. After reporting on elections for 22 years, Josh Marshall finally...

In Chicago, from November 15th to December 31st, the sun sets before 4:30pm. Not much before; for about 11 days, it sets within a few seconds of 4:20pm before getting just a few seconds later. The only point I'm making is: it's dark already. Cassie has gotten exactly one walk in full daylight a day for the last week, and that will likely continue. Ah, winter. Oh, and the Fourth Circuit has once again (metaphorically) called XPOTUS-appointed Federal Circuit Judge Aileen Cannon an idiot.

The Daylight Saving Time arguments that crop up twice a year encapsulate American decision-making so well. People argue for one position or another based on what works best for them; people predict doom and gloom if their view doesn't prevail; Congress makes a change that everyone hates (and, as in 1975, they have to repeal); and not a lot changes. It also has nuances that most people don't understand (or care to) and stems from a social construct completely within our control that people think is a...

It happens every September in the mid-latitudes: one day you've got over 13 hours of daylight and sunsets around 7:30, and two weeks later you wake up in twilight and the sun sets before dinnertime. In fact, Chicago loses 50 minutes of evening daylight and an hour-twenty overall from the 1st to the 30th. We get it all back in March, though. Can't wait. Speaking of waiting: Buckingham Palace just warned people that the queue to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin has a 24-hour wait at the moment, so...dress...

We have some intense aurora activity this week: The Northern Lights may be visible in the mainland U.S. this week due to a strong geomagnetic storm, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The phenomenon, known scientifically as the aurora borealis, typically occurs closer to the North Pole, near Alaska and Canada. But the storm could push the aurora lights farther south Thursday and Friday, and if weather conditions permit, could be seen in regions of Pennsylvania, Iowa and...

I will definitely make time this weekend to drool over the recent photos from the James Webb Space Telescope. It's kind of sad that no living human will ever see anything outside our solar system, but we can dream, right? Closer to home than the edge of the visible universe: Josh Marshall highlight's a reader's note explaining how the historic conservatism of the Executive Branch legal team won't work any more. The President's conservatism doesn't work either, as recent polls and Democratic-party...

Chicago's two baseball teams gave up a combined 36 runs yesterday, with the Cubs losing to the Reds 20-5 and the Sox losing to the Red Sox 16-7. Perhaps the bullpens could use a little work, hmm? In other news: US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has taken more money from gun lobbyists since taking office than anyone else in the Senate, and did not like a British reporter asking him about it yesterday. The local police in Uvalde, Texas, bungled basic policing during the school shooting Tuesday in ways that just...

In a strange confluence of lunar calendars, today is Easter, and also the second day of Passover, and also the 17th day of Ramadan. So...Pesach Mubarak, He is Risen?

I've gotten two solid nights of sleep in a row, and I've got a clean desk for the first time in weeks. I hope that this becomes the norm, at least until November, when I'll have a packed musical schedule for six weeks as the Apollo Chorus rehearses or performs about 30 times. But that's seven months off. That gives me plenty of time to listen to or read these: Time Zone Database coordinator Paul Eggert explains the TZDB, its history, and how it works. David Sedaris discusses how the US changed between...

Josh Barro and Saray Fay get to the heart of the time-change issue: The first thing I want to note is something I’m amazed many participants in this debate don’t seem to know: We have tried this policy before. In January 1974, the US entered what was supposed to be a two-year “experiment” with permanent daylight saving time. Unfortunately, daylight saving time does not add daylight to the day, it only shifts the daylight into the afternoon from the morning. And once people realized that — that daylight...

I just finished upgrading an old, old, old Windows service to .NET 6 and a completely different back end. It took 6.4 hours, soup to nuts, and now the .NET 6 service is happily communicating with Azure and the old .NET Framework 4.6 service is off. Meanwhile, the Post published a map (using a pretty lazy algorithm) describing county-by-county what sunrise times will look like in January 2024 if daylight saving time becomes permanent. I'd have actually used a curve tool but, hey, the jagged edges look...

As if from nowhere, the US Senate yesterday unanimously voted to pass S.623 (the "Sunshine Protection Act of 2021"), which would end daylight saving time by making that the new standard time, effective 5 November 2023. This blew up the Time Zone Committee mailing list, mostly with the implementation problems around time zone abbreviations. One of the maintainers listed four separate options, in fact, including moving everyone to a new time zone (Chicago on EST? New York on AST?), or possibly just...

Eighty years ago today, the US imposed daylight saving time as a wartime energy-saving measure. It took until April 1966 for Congress to enact a permanent regime of changing the clock twice a year. But that's all ancient history. More recent history: Peter Wehner examines how the loser XPOTUS really hates that he's a loser. Meanwhile, Michelle Cottle wonders when the Republican Party turned "into a bunch of snowflakes?" The City of Chicago has (finally!) started cracking down on "dibs," the practice of...

A friend on social media posted a graph of how quickly or slowly the amount of daylight changes per week. Unfortunately the graph was for London, and pretty ugly, so I decided to make one for Chicago that was a bit more spare: Here in Week 6, we get 15 more minutes of daylight than we got last week. For most of March, we'll get 17 minutes more per week before things slow down a bit, then reverse. The weeks of both solstices have zero change. The friend wondered in her post what it would look like in the...

Last night I went to the "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" taping at Harris Theater in Chicago, and afterwards my friend and I talked about how gloomy the weather and darkness of winter are. I pointed out to her that tomorrow, February 5th, the sun rises at 7:00 for the first time since November 15th, and we've got 55 minutes more daylight than we had at the solstice six weeks ago. In other words, yes, it still gets dark early and we get up most weekdays before dawn, but things have already improved since...

The snow has finally stopped for, we think, a couple of days, and the city has cleared most of the streets already. (Thank you, Mike Bilandic.) What else happened today? The James Webb Space Telescope reached Lagrange-2 this afternoon, and will now settle into a "halo orbit" that will hold it about 1.46 million km from Earth. (It's still traveling at 200 m/s, which gets you from Madison to Peterson in about a minute.) Lord Agnew (Con.), the minister responsible for policing Covid fraud in the UK...

Three items: James Fallows reminds us that the US Senate filibuster "is a perversion of the Constitution," that "enables the very paralysis the founders were desperate to avoid," among other things. (He also links to an essay by former US Senator Al Franken (D-MN) about how cynical the filibuster has become.) Jacob Rosenberg brings together workers' own stories about how they got fed up, illustrating how "the big quit" happened. Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon has had enough of the...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) We don't have the latest sunrise in 47 years like we did last November. The coming year will have bog-standard sunrise and sunset times, and one hopes, bog-standard politics and health crises. But that's not the subject of this post. Here's the 2022 chart: Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2022 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm...

The James Webb Space Telescope took off from French Guiana this morning at 6:20 CST: Ground teams began receiving telemetry data from Webb about five minutes after launch. The Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket performed as expected, separating from the observatory 27 minutes into the flight. The observatory was released at an altitude of approximately 75 miles (120 kilometers). Approximately 30 minutes after launch, Webb unfolded its solar array, and mission managers confirmed that the solar array was...

Just a couple of eye-roll-worthy lunchtime links today: Chicago police union head John Catanzara, who I referred to on Facebook yesterday as a "whiny, belligerent infant," has quit the CPD and announced a run for mayor. My previous comments stand. Sears closed its last remaining store in its home state of Illinois on Sunday. I still hate Eddie Lampert for it. Michelle Goldberg takes the "social justice industry" to task for policing words instead of accomplishing real change. Ordinarily-idyllic coastal...

As I pointed out in the last Chicago Sunrise Chart, tomorrow morning the sun will rise in Chicago at 7:30:11, the latest sunrise in most people's lifetimes. I found only one occasion from 1975 to 2040 when the sun rises later: at 7:30:35 on 6 November 2032. The last time the sun rose after 7:30 was at 7:31:26 on 26 February 1974, after Chicago started daylight saving time on 6 January 1974, due to the oil crisis. Chicago also observed year-round daylight saving time during World War II, from 9 February...

Not exactly like clockwork, but still at least in the month of July, I've got the latest semi-annual sunrise chart for Chicago. Enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting thing happens in 2021: on November 6th at 7:30:11, we'll have one of the latest sunrises possible—indeed, the latest sunrise in 47 years. I found only one occasion from 1975 to 2040 when the sun rises later: at 7:30:35 on 6 November 2032. The last time the sun rose after 7:30 was at 7:31:26 on 26 February 1974, after Chicago started daylight saving time...

After taking Cassie on a 45-minute walk before the heat hits us, I've spent the morning debugging, watching these news stories pile up for lunchtime reading: The US Supreme Court once again upheld Obamacare, with only Alito and Gorsuch dissenting. The Illinois legislature passed a common-sense gun control law, supported by the State Police, that largely brings us back in line with the rules we had in the 1990s. Illinois Deputy Governor Dan Hynes has resigned (ahem) ahead of the 2022 election. The BBC...

Oh, to be a dog. Cassie is sleeping comfortably on her bed in my office after having over an hour of walks (including 20 minutes at the dog park) so far today. Meanwhile, at work we resumed using a bit of code that we put on ice for a while, and I promptly discovered four bugs. I've spent the afternoon listening to Cassie snore and swatting the first one. Meanwhile, in the outside world, life continues: Ukrainian police arrested members of the Cl0p ransomware gang, seizing money and cars along with the...

As much fun as Cassie and I have had over the last few days, the news around the world didn't stop: After 448 days, Illinois will finally reopen fully on Friday. Security expert Tarah Wheeler, writing on Schneier.com, warns that our weapons systems have frightening security vulnerabilities. Fastly's content-delivery network (CDN) collapsed this morning, taking down The New York Times, The Guardian, Bloomberg News, and other major properties; no word yet on the cause, but we can guess. About 12,000...

Two travel stories arrived in my mailbox overnight. First, China has landed a probe on Mars, becoming the third country in history to do so: The touchdown makes China the second country in history to deposit a rover on the surface of Mars. After months in orbit around the red planet, the Tianwen-1 spacecraft released the Zhurong rover for a landing in Utopia Planitia, a vast plain that may once have been covered by an ancient Martian ocean. The 529-pound rover survived a perilous descent to the surface...

Hello, CDC? I'd like to report some side-effects of my second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. To wit: All I wanted to do on Friday was sleep. When I finally slept, my left arm was sore enough to wake me up a couple of times. But hey, I planned to sleep in yesterday anyway, so no biggie. Cassie had other ideas. She poked her nose in my ear at 6:30. I shooed her away. At 6:45, she decided that the squirrel or bird or whateverthefuck outside had to die, and that was the end of my slumber for good. According to...

This morning, around 2:30 Chicago time, we flew an aircraft over an alien planet: At about 3:30 a.m., the twin, carbon-fiber rotor blades began spinning furiously, and the chopper, called Ingenuity, lifted off the surface of the Red Planet, reaching an altitude of about 10 feet, where it hovered, turned and landed softly in an autonomous flight that lasted just 30 seconds, the space agency said. Inside the flight operations center at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, engineers broke into...

It's exactly 0°C in Chicago this afternoon, which is a bog-standard temperature for February 3rd. And it's sunny, which isn't typical. So, with the forecast for a week of bitter cold starting Friday evening, I'm about to take a 30-minute walk to take advantage of today's weather. First, though: Trump political appointees who knew or should have known they would lose their jobs on January 20th are throwing tantrums because they lost their parental leave benefits at noon that day, despite other Trump...

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago/Clearing) will lose his job later today after serving in the role since 1983. Rep. Emanuel "Chris" Welch (D-Hillside) received 69 votes (of a required 60) in the Democratic Caucus this morning, making his accession to the Speaker's chair all but guaranteed when the whole House votes in a few minutes to elect the Speaker. Welch will become the first Black Speaker in Illinois history. In other news: The Illinois legislature ended its previous legislative...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting thing happens in 2021: on November 6th at 7:30:11, we'll have one of the latest sunrises possible—indeed, the latest sunrise in 47 years. I found only one occasion from 1975 to 2040 when the sun rises later: at 7:30:35 on 6 November 2032. The last time the sun rose after 7:30 was at 7:31:26 on 26 February 1974, after Chicago started daylight saving time...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting thing happens in 2021: on November 6th at 7:30:11, we'll have one of the latest sunrises possible—indeed, the latest sunrise in 47 years. I found only one occasion from 1975 to 2040 when the sun rises later: at 7:30:35 on 6 November 2032. The last time the sun rose after 7:30 was at 7:31:26 on 26 February 1974, after Chicago started daylight saving time...

December 7th is usually the day when the sun sets earliest in the Northern Hemisphere. In Chicago this evening, that meant 16:20, a few minutes ago. We get back to 16:30 on New Year's Eve and 17:00 not until January 27th. We didn't see the sun today at all, though. So in the dark gloaming, I will (a) try to get my 10,000 steps for the day, and (b) try to find some fresh-ish basil for dinner.

Just reviewing what I actually got up to yesterday, I'm surprised that I didn't post anything. I'm not surprised, however, that all of these articles piled up for me to read today: Dunn County, Wis., Democratic Party chair Bill Hogseth, writing in Politico, explains "why Democrats keep losing rural counties" like his. Ross Douthat asks, "why do so many Americans think the election was stolen?" Author Ben Judah explains why The Crown's portrayal of Prince Charles is wrong. The STBX...

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the latest Star Trek series immensely. But the third season's handling of its pretty stark historical implications bug me to death. Warning: spoilers possible ahead. Star Trek: Discovery's third season begins with the series protagonist, Cdr Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), having jumped from the year 2259 to 3187, more than 900 years after the events of season 2. The eponymous starship shows up a year later. Now, even though Discovery has a unique propulsion...

So many things to read at lunchtime today: Philip Bump calls a video the soon-to-be-ex-president posted yesterday "the most petulant 46 minutes in American history." But whatever, because as David Graham points out, the STBXPOTUS is becoming irrelevant. As for voter fraud, and for accusing opponents of what you're actually the one doing, Georgia authorities have begun an investigation of a (Republican) Florida attorney who recommended to people that they illegally register to vote in Georgia ahead of...

Happy Sunday. Tonight the sun sets in Chicago at 4:30pm, and won't set after 4:30 again until New Year's Eve. So in the few hours of daylight I have left, I'll read a few things: A low pressure area northeast of Chicago has brought 100 km/h winds to the area, but at least it won't snow today. Entomologists in Washington State eradicated a "small" nest containing several hundred murder hornets. They worry a couple of queens might have escaped. The BBC fact-checked rumors that 10,000 dead people voted in...

I cracked the code on an application rewrite I last attempted in 2010, so I've spent a lot of my copious free time the past week working on it. I hope to have more to say soon, but software takes time. And when I'm in the zone, I like to stay there. All of which is why it's 9:30 and I have just gotten around to reading all this: The president stomped out of a 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, and for reasons passing understanding, has threatened to release it himself. Pope Francis has officially...

Just a few of the things that crossed my desktop this morning: Astronomers have detected phosphine gas in the clouds on Venus, which is a strong indicator of life. Astronomers have also detected a ping-pong-ball-sized black hole orbiting the sun, getting as close as 133 kAUs in its orbit. An aircraft made a precautionary landing on an Interstate in Tennessee, and got a full police escort on take-off. No one was hurt. Car manufacturers are teaming up with insurance companies to share data on almost every...

My birthday is Saturday, but owing to leap years and that I was born early in the morning, I'm actually turning [redacted]—[REDACTED]!—at 9:09 am Chicago time tomorrow. See, Earth revolves around the Sun every 365.24217 days, you see, so if you take the time and date I was born ([redacted]-09-05T[redacted]) and add [redacted]*365.24217 days to it, you get 2020-09-04T14:09, give or take a few seconds. So today is my last day in my [redacted - 10]s. And yet I don't feel a day over [fraction of redacted]....

Every six months or so, I update the sunrise chart for Chicago. Because of a bug in the tool I wrote to generate the raw data I use, and because fixing that bug fell nearly to the bottom of my priority list, I didn't fix it until Monday. So, finally, I've updated the chart. Enjoy. The next one should be on time at the end of the year.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart (a bit later than expected, but hey). (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:21 20:30 15:08 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 15 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:51 13:51 28 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 13 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:33 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 08:31 CDT...

Since January 2019, Chicago has had only two months with above-average sunshine, and in both cases we only got 10% more than average. This year we're ticking along about 9% below, with no month since July 2019 getting above 50% of possible sunshine. In other news: Former White House Butler Roosevelt Jerman, who served from 1957 to 2012, died of Covid-19 at age 91. One wonders, if the current White House had acted more propitiously, would Jerman have lived longer? Researchers suggest yes, if we'd locked...

Illinois' doubling time for Covid-19 cases has increased from 2.1 days to 7.9 days, as of yesterday. In other news: The Times has a complete timeline of how the White House missed all the warnings about the disease until it became too big to lie about. George Conway places the blame for Wisconsin's voting fiasco last Tuesday on the state legislature, not on the courts. Thirsty? How about a Covid-19–themed drink? NPR interviews a psychiatrist about how single people are coping with quarantine. Food &...

At some point, we will probably settle on the red planet. In a fascinating article from 2018, The Atlantic wondered how we'll police it: Consider the basic science of crime-scene analysis. In the dry, freezer-like air and extreme solar exposure of Mars, DNA will age differently than it does on Earth. Blood from blunt-trauma and stab wounds will produce dramatically new spatter patterns in the planet’s low gravity. Electrostatic charge will give a new kind of evidentiary value to dust found clinging to...

Some highlights: The Union of Concerned Scientists report that ride-hailing causes 69% more pollution than the services it displaces. Republican columnist Michael Gerson believes a Trump-Sanders matchup in November would "destroy our politics." Jeffrey Toobin explores the problems with Trump's pardons. Newly declassified documents make it clear that the NSA hoovering up phone metadata didn't accomplish anything, really. Medium tells the story of a $100m company that abruptly ceased operations last fall....

Longtime readers will no doubt find joy in their hearts that the semi-annual sunrise chart for Chicago is up. Share and enjoy.

Summer ends in about two hours here in Chicago, after a kind of perfect late-summer day. The day is ending with a cool, gentle rain, which will clear up before dawn. The end of August being the end of summer infused art and music for millennia before meteorologists set September 1st as the first day of autumn for statistical convenience. Maybe this is happy alignment of science and art? Here's Dar Williams with the verdict:

Apparently the morning people haven't let up in their assault on us night people: [S]o far, legislation to go on year-round daylight saving time has passed in at least seven states, including Delaware, Maine and Tennessee this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Oregon was the most recent, approving year-round daylight saving on June 17. “After the 2018 time change, I don’t know what happened, but people got grouchy,” Oregon state Rep. Bill Post, a Republican who sponsored...

Just a few for my commute home: New York Times reporter James Stewart interviewed Jeffrey Epstein on background a year ago, and it was weird. The Post analyzes temperature records to find which parts of the US have warmed faster than others. Chemist Caitlin Cornell may have discovered an important clue about the origin of life on Earth. The site of the city's first Treasure Island store, just two blocks from where I lived in Lakeview from 1994-1996, might become an ugly apartment tower unless residents...

Including sitting with a lost dog for 45 minutes this morning, I've had a pretty lazy Sunday. Here are some of the articles I might read if I decide to do anything productive today: Astronomers in Hawaii have mapped the structure of the entire universe. Closer to home, what's up with Jupiter's great red spot? A book published in 1968 attempted to predict the world in 2018, and got some things right. Graeme Wood calls President Trump's El Paso photo "obscene." Andrew Sullivan says, of the Democratic...

The semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart is up. Enjoy.

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing Saturday afternoon, CityLab asks the obvious question: Many experts say there was nothing stopping humanity from following the Apollo missions with a permanent settlement. We had the technology to do it. But given the huge expense involved in such an endeavor, humans opted to spend limited resources solving (and, well, creating) problems here on Earth. “The bottom line why we’re not there is there hasn’t been political will for it,” said...

Scientists will soon have access to samples from a box of moon rocks that no one has opened since Neil Armstrong sealed it on the moon 50 years ago: The upcoming experiments, on vacuum-sealed cores and a long-frozen rock, can be performed only once, at the precise moment the samples are opened. That’s why the materials have been held back since they were retrieved from the moon, said Ryan Zeigler, who curates the Apollo rocks collection. NASA was waiting for the right scientists, with the right...

On my list today: After Commons last night voted down every single proposal for navigating Brexit, Theresa May will bring the agreement she negotiated with the EU up for a vote tomorrow. Jeanne Gang has won the contract to design O'Hare's new Terminal 2. What's behind the generational divide over climate change? Whether individual European countries go off (or permanently on) Daylight Saving Time in 2021, their transport ministers will have the final say. The Housing and Urban Development Department has...

The European Union Parliament today voted 410-192 to allow member states to end Daylight Saving Time in 2021: The vote is not the last word on the issue but will form the basis of discussions with EU countries to produce a final law. The countries have yet to take a stance. A parliament report in favour of operating on a single time throughout the year said scientific studies link time changes to diseases of the cardiovascular or immune systems because they interrupt biological cycles, and that there...

I'm not going to link to any of the articles published in the last few days about how no one likes changing the clocks to and from Daylight Saving Time. Suffice to say, the debate hinges on two simple questions: how early do you want the sun to set, and how late do you want it to rise, in winter? For a concrete example, if you live in Chicago, do you want the sun to rise at 7:19 or 8:19 on January 3rd (the latest of the year)? And if the sun rises at 8:19 that morning, is that an acceptable price to pay...

The semi-annual Chicago Sunrise Chart is up. Enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2019 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:32 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:09 9 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 14th Earliest sunset until Oct 29th 06:13 17:51 11:37 10 Mar Daylight saving time...

The December solstice happens today at 22:21 UTC, which is 16:21 here in Chicago, which it turns out is the exact time of tonight's sunset. This is also true for everywhere along the lightest gray line on this map: Note also that Africa and Europe will have a brilliant gibbous moon at the same time. Happy solstice!

Journalist Kelly Weill, writing for the Daily Beast, went to a flat-earth convention: Thousands of years after ancient Greeks began referencing Earth as a sphere in mathematical proofs, people who believe in a flat Earth have become a movement. They’ve found their voice in the disinformation age, fueled by YouTube videos. For true believers, it’s more than just a conspiracy theory. It’s whole world view, a level plane onto which hucksters, trolls, and Christian fundamentalists can insert their own...

This morning's sunrise in Chicago, at 7:26, will be the latest until 6 November 2021. It is not the latest possible sunrise; that would be the one we'll have at 7:29 on 6 November 2027 (and had on 5 November 2016). I do not really understand the law passed in 2007 that moved our return to standard time from October to November. Who wants to wake up before dawn? Not me. Tomorrow the sun rises at 6:28. (I will probably do the same around 8.)

In the geocentric model of how things work, it's really easy for you to fall directly toward Earth. This happens because you are already moving fast enough to have a very small delta vee with the surface at any particular moment. Not so falling into the sun, which is so hard, we only just launched the first probe that can do it on purpose: The reason has to do with orbital mechanics, the study of how natural forces influence the motions of rockets, satellites, and other space-bound technology. Falling...

Astronomer Scott Sheppard has discovered 10 more moons orbiting Jupiter, bringing the gas giant's coterie up to 79: Sheppard found them with the help of a ground-based telescope in Chile that had recently received an upgrade: a camera made for scanning the night sky for very faint objects. Sheppard was looking for Planet Nine, the planet some astronomers believe lurks somewhere at the edge of our solar system, jostling the orbits of other objects in strange ways. As the telescope gazed in the darkness...

...is up. You can get sunrise info for any location on earth (just not quite as pretty) at Weather Now.

Governor Jerry Brown approved AB 807, which would put to the voters in November an initiative to go to "year round Daylight Saving Time:" Wrote Brown in a signing message: "Fiat Lux!" (Let there be light.) Assemblyman Kansen Chu, D-San Jose, who authored Assembly Bill 807, has called the practice of changing clocks twice a year, in the fall and the spring, "outdated." He argues altering the time by an hour has adverse health affects, increasing chances for heart attacks, workplace injuries and traffic...

This past weekend included the Chicago Gay Pride Parade and helping a friend prepare for hosing a brunch beforehand. Blogging fell a bit on the priority list. Meanwhile, here are some of the things I'm reading today: From last week, the Times discusses whether Earth's 23.4° axis tilt was actually a necessary precursor to life. New Republic's Josephine Huetlin asks, "Why do populists get away with corruption?" One of Chicago's last remaining over-the-tollway oases is slated for demolition. Josh Marshall...

An article in this month's Atlantic points out that we humans can wonder how we got here only because we got here: After all, there are 100-mile impact craters on our planet’s surface from the past billion years, but no 600-mile craters. But of course, there couldn’t be scars this big. On worlds where such craters exist, there is no one around afterward to ponder them. In a strange way, truly gigantic craters don’t appear on the planet’s surface because we’re here to look for them. Just as the wounds of...

Florida's legislature has voted overwhelmingly to change the state's clocks: The Florida Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday, three weeks after the state’s House of Representatives, and sent it to Gov. Rick Scott for his signature or veto. (Asked on Wednesday whether Mr. Scott would sign it, and why or why not, his press secretary, Lauren Schenone, said only, “The governor will review the bill.”) The margins of victory in both chambers were overwhelming — 33 to 2 in the Senate and 103...

Via Deeply Trivial, a video that claims to be the most detailed map of the universe to date:

Every six months or so, I put together a handy chart of what Chicago's sunrise and sunset times will look like for the next 12 months. The first one was in July 2006. Today I posted what I believe is the 24th. Share and enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2017 31 Dec 4:30pm sunset 07:19 16:30 9:11 2018 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:09 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:29 17:38 11:07 10 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 15th Earliest sunset until Oct 27th 06:11...

According to a new study, it seems to depend on how big they are: Michael Varnum, a psychologist at Arizona State University and a member of its new Interplanetary Initiative, is trying to anticipate this response. The scientists asked 500 people to describe their reactions to a hypothetical discovery of alien microorganisms. Respondents also had to predict how humanity at large would react. Like the journalists, people in the study used positive words. There were no characteristics that set responses...

Jimmy Carter captained nuclear missile submarines. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar. Barack Obama was a Constitutional Law professor at one of the top-5 law schools in the country. Donald Trump thinks...well, I'll let Japan Times explain: Trump said ‘samurai’ Japan should have shot down overflying North Korean missiles U.S. President Donald Trump has said Japan should have shot down the North Korean missiles that flew over the country before landing in the Pacific Ocean earlier this year, diplomatic...

I'm back home, and I've shoved all the Scotland photos out of the way so I could post this: I didn't notice until I processed the photos from my 7D, but there are two solar storms visible: one at about 3 o'clock and the other, fainter one at about 1 o'clock. We're already looking into a vacation in Chile in the summer of 2019...

I'm in Wildwood, Mo., where I saw my first total eclipse of the sun. It was well worth the trip. I'll have at least one photo when I'm back home tomorrow. (We stayed an extra day because of traffic.)

Via Eclipse2017.org, Xavier Jubier has created an interactive map showing all the data for the eclipse that takes place three weeks from today. I'll be staying here the night before, and I'm planning to watch from here the day of.

...is now available. Don't worry, you haven't missed anything.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2017 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:21 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:55 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 19:59 14:06 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:49 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:14 19:29 13:15 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:02 12:31 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:31 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 15:02 CDT 06:39 18:48 12:09 25 Sep 12-hour...

Paul Allen has funded development of an airplane designed to launch satellites into space. It's...huge: Called Stratolaunch, the plane has some impressive stats: a wingspan of 117 m, or longer than a football field, and a height of 15.24 m. Unfueled, it weighs 226,800 kg. But it can carry 113,400 kg of fuel, and its total weight can reach 590 tonnes. But, really ... how big is it? It’s so big that it has 28 wheels and six 747 jet engines. It’s so big that it has 96 km of wire coursing through it. It’s...

The Atlantic has a collection of portraits of the Earth-Luna system you simply have to see.

A little busy today, so I'm putting these down for later consumption: Via the Illinois State Climatologist, NOAA has released its state climate summaries for the country. Brian Beutler worries about President Trump's ego driving life-or-death decisions. Hollywood Reporter has some new photos from Game of Thrones' upcoming 7th season. Space junk and thousands of tiny, new satellites might make low orbit inaccessible in 50 years. Why are Germany's nude beaches (and parks and lawns and basically every part...

Author Tim Harford, who wrote The Logic of Life and a few other books I've liked, yesterday published an explanation of what telling time is all about: Water clocks appear in civilisations from ancient Egypt to medieval Persia. Others kept time from marks on candles. But even the most accurate devices might wander by 15 minutes a day. This didn't matter to a monk wanting to know when to pray. But there was one increasingly important area of life where the inability to keep accurate time was of huge...

Sigh: Your neighborhood affects how you age. My neighborhood is on its 6th day of record warmth. Sean Spicer demonstrated some of the administrations worst problems in one exchange. A top Blagojevich aide offers some advice on how to deal with a crazy boss. Could Vice President Pence unseat President Trump? David Brooks says this century is broken. NASA announced today they've discovered seven exoplanets about 40 light years from Earth that could support life. ReSharper supports unit-testing .NET Core...

Not exactly a slow news day: Former Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions won confirmation as Attorney General of the U.S. on a 52-47 party-line vote. Meanwhile, the Senate told Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren to sit down and shut up, but "she persisted," thus beginning her 2020 presidential campaign. And though the event was almost 26 full hours ago, yesterday's appeals court hearing in California resulted in a Trump tweet being rebuked by the President's own nominee for the Supreme Court. (The BBC has...

Stuff I'll read before rehearsal today: Senior administration officials are re-thinking their strategy after doing almost nothing correctly in their first two weeks. The "bucket with no bottom" that is the West Wing continues to leak in historical proportions. The Republican Party has been bullshitting the American public, and now it's even more obvious. The Speaker of the UK House of Commons has forbidden President Trump from speaking at Westminster Palace. We've had almost no snow since December 19th...

January 3rd is one of my favorite days of the year in astronomy, because it's the day that the northern hemisphere has its latest sunrise of the winter. This morning in Chicago, the sun rose at 7:19 (though it rose behind a thick rainy overcast), just a few seconds later than it rose yesterday. But tomorrow it will rise just a few seconds earlier, then a few more, until by the end of January it'll rise more than a minute earlier each day. Meanwhile, thanks to the eccentricity of our orbit around the...

The 2017 Chicago sunrise chart is now available. Share and enjoy.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2017 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:10 19 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:39 17:30 10:48 26 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:07 11 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 16th Earliest sunset until Oct 26th 06:09 17:54 11:44 12 Mar Daylight saving time...

For those of us in the northern hemisphere in places that observe daylight savings time on U.S. rules—that is, for most of the U.S. and Canada—this morning's sunrise was (or will be, west of the Rockies) the latest sunrise until 6 November 2027. I've got to say, the sun rising around 7:30 has not helped my mornings. Tonight we return to standard time, putting tomorrow's sunrise at 6:30, and making it easier to get out of bed Monday morning. Of course, from Decmeber 1st to February 4th, the sun will rise...

The Chicago sunrise chart for 2016-17 is up, just a few weeks late. (Look, I've been busy.)

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2016 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:21 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:50 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:14 19:29 13:14 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:32 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 9:21 CDT 06:39 18:48 12:08 25 Sep 12-hour...

In the last 40 years, astronomers have gathered more and more evidence that our moon came out of a scarcely-imaginable collision between a baby (100-million-year-old) Earth and another proto-planet named Theia. (Watch this video for a good explanation.) Just two weeks ago, astronomers at UCLA announced a clarification: Theia didn't hit Earth in a glancing blow, as previously thought. Instead, the two planets hit head-on: “We don’t see any difference between the Earth’s and the moon’s oxygen isotopes...

This means I have some time to digest this over the weekend: Temperatures in Chicago rose 25°C, from -18°C to 6°C, from Wednesday evening to yesterday evening. They're forecast to plummet tonight. Yay Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has a decent history of Captain George Streeter, who "discovered" what is now the Streeterville neighborhood. Astronomers have discovered a supernova that was 50 times brighter than our galaxy. The Atlantic said last night's Republican debate had "Trump's Finest Moment." Not...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. I'm posting it as a regular post in addition to posting it as a permanent page, to maintain deep-linking archiving. The previous post was here. In just a few hours we'll see the latest sunrise of winter, until the days just before the change back to Standard Time in November. That will bring us something really rare: the latest sunrise in Chicago until November 2027, at 7:29am on November 6th. Thank leap years and orbital eccentricity for that. This...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2016 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:01 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:39 11:08 12 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 17th Earliest sunset until Oct 24th 06:07 17:55 11:47 13 Mar Daylight saving time...

...this app might be fun. CityLab explains: Floating in space among the stars and planets are more than 2,250 satellites and “space junk” traveling at up to 18,000 miles an hour. Some are large enough to be seen with the naked eye—though you’d have to first figure out which ones are within your line of sight. Luckily, there’s a map for that now, by Patricio Gonzalez Vivo, a graphics engineer at Mapzen who has a knack for turning pure data into mesmerizing visuals (like this one of New York City). His...

A G3-class solar storm (i.e., a big one) is predicted to hit the earth tonight, generating category 7 aurorae, which are rarely seen on earth: Auroral activity will be high(++). Weather permitting, highly active auroral displays will be visible overhead from Inuvik, Yellowknife, Rankin and Igaluit, to Portland OR, Cheyenne, Lincoln, Springfield, and New York City, and visible low on the horizon as far south as Carson City, Oklahoma City, and Raleigh. Here's the prediction map from the University of...

If you live in the parts of the U.S. and Canada that observe Daylight Saving Time, don't forget to move your clocks back an hour tonight. It couldn't come soon enough, though this is the soonest it can come under the 2007 changes to DST observance. This morning's 7:22 sunrise in Chicago is the latest we'll have to endure until next November 1st, but tonight's 5:47 sunset is the latest we'll get to have until March 6th. Tomorrow the sun rises at 6:23 and sets at 4:45, as our available daylight shrinks...

The weather in Chicago cleared up enough that we got a great view of the total lunar eclipse last night: For comparison, here is the full moon when Earth doesn't get in the way: Note that it's a lot harder to photograph the moon when it's eclipsed. The full moon reflects 9% of the light falling on it, or about half as much as a standard gray card or green grass. So when shooting the moon, the correct exposure is surprisingly fast: about 1/250 at f/5.6 at ISO 100. Shooting the eclipse last night, I used...

OK, so, astronomers predicted tonight's lunar eclipse about 6,000 years ago, but it was still bloody cool. I'll have photos tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am happy the clouds over Chicago parted long enough that I could see one great rock cast a shadow on another. It happens every six months, I realize, but it won't be visible again in Chicago for many years.

WGN's Tom Skilling is optimistic about seeing Sunday night's eclipse: While the first vestiges of Sunday evening’s full moon will begin at 7:40pm, the partial eclipse stage is to be reached at 8:07 pm Chicago time moving toward the “total eclipse” phase at 9:11pm. The disc of the moon will take on a dim rusty-red cast in the total eclipse phase for 1 hour and 12 minutes (through 10:23pm Sunday evening). The partial eclipse phase is to be reached at 11:27 pm and the eclipse ends at 11:55 pm. The early...

I hope Chicago has decent weather for the full moon 11 days from now: It's coming Sept. 27 at 9:47 p.m. CDT. For starters, it is what some astronomy enthusiasts call a "super" moon because it will occur when the moon is close to perigee, its nearest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit. The moon reaches perigee Sept. 28, and it will be just more than 222,000 miles away at the time of the full moon. That is about 31,000 miles closer than lunar apogee, the moon's farthest point in its orbit. The moon...

Today is the Summer Bank Holiday in the UK, which has the same cultural resonance to the British that Labor Day has to us. It marks the psychological end of summer over. August 31st also marks the end of meteorological summer in the northern hemisphere. Over the next month in Chicago we'll see days shrink by almost two hours and temperatures fall by almost 6°C. I hope, also, that by the beginning of winter, The Daily Parker will have a new home and infrastructure, and the ENSO will have pushed the storm...

Via IFLS, the Independent reported yesterday that the Prime Meridian is not at 0°W: Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over the world descend on the Royal Observatory in Greenwich to pose for a photograph astride the Prime Meridian, the famous line which divides the eastern and western hemispheres of the earth. There is just one problem: according to modern GPS systems, the line actually lies more than 100 metres to the east, cutting across a nondescript footpath in Greenwich Park...

NASA released a really cool video yesterday: The agency explains: The images were captured by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), a four megapixel CCD camera and telescope on the DSCOVR satellite orbiting 1 million miles from Earth. From its position between the sun and Earth, DSCOVR conducts its primary mission of real-time solar wind monitoring for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). EPIC maintains a constant view of the fully illuminated Earth as it rotates...

Meanwhile, this: Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

New Horizons zips past Pluto in the early hours of the morning U.S. time tomorrow: Last night at 11:23 p.m. EDT (this morning at 4:23 a.m. BST), New Horizons moved within one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) of Pluto, speeding towards the dwarf planet and its five moons at 30,800 mph (49,600 km/h). It will arrive tomorrow at 7:49 a.m. EDT (12:49 pm BST), although owing to the vast distances involved and a one-way communications time of 4.5 hours, we won’t know if it has been successful until the...

Astronomers have discovered compelling evidence of alien life on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko: Evidence of alien life is "unequivocal" on the comet carrying the Philae probe through space, two leading astronomers have said. [Astrobiologist] Chandra Wickramasinghe said: "What we're saying is that data coming from the comet seems to unequivocally, in my opinion, point to micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2015 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:07 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:50 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:32 16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27 23 Sep Equinox , 03:21 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:10 26 Sep...

For no reason other than it was out last night:

No, really. Today will have 86,401 seconds in it, as opposed to the usual 86,400 seconds that every day for the last 18 years has had. Because the earth interacts with lots of other gravity sources in the universe—most notably the moon—its rotation sometimes speeds up and sometimes slows down. Over the last 18 years or so, the planet has lost an entire second because of these perturbations, requiring us to update our most accurate clocks to compensate. Of course, when those clocks get updated, there's a...

Between unpacking, preparing for a party (which encourages the unpacking), and the regular business of working, I didn't have time to write this weekend. I still don't, but I did want to catch up on a couple of things. First, a coronal mass ejection over the weekend is producing large aurorae today, which could be visible in Chicago, New York, Dublin, and Seattle—way farther south than usual. Second, Rhianna Pratchett, Sir Terry's daughter, says the next Discworld novel will be the last: The author...

First, because NASA's reputation is such that climate-change deniers have difficulty refuting the agency, Republicans in Congress are trying to get NASA out of the discussion: As has been widely reported, the House Science, Space and Technology Committee recently approved a bill that would cut at least $300 million from NASA's earth-science budget. This comes after the head of the Senate committee overseeing NASA claimed the agency should stop doing earth-science and focus only on space exploration....

The French abbey Mont-Saint-Michel was completely cut off from land yesterday as once-in-a-century tides flowed into the English Channel: Tens of thousands of curious visitors have crowded historic Mont Saint-Michel and other beauty spots along the French coastline with the promise of a ‘tide of the century’, but it may not have lived up to everyone's expectations. Anticipating a wall of water that could equal the height of a four-storey building, tourists and locals staked out positions around the...

This happens all the time, so to speak, but every winter there are proposals to scrap daylight saving time in various state legislatures. The latest one that passes the laugh test is Oregon's, especially since it wouldn't take effect until 2021. It probably won't go anywhere. Once people start thinking about 4:30am sunrises in June with 7:30pm sunsets, daylight saving time makes more sense. But we'll keep watching.

January is long, cold, and dark in Chicago. We've got no more holidays, we've got much more snow, and we hardly see the sun. So January 28th always makes me a little happy, because it's (usually) the first day in almost four months that the sun sets after 5pm. (The last time was November 1st.) It marks the log-jam of dark and cold nights breaking up. Sunset will slide to 5:30 in only three weeks and, thanks to Daylight Saving Time, blast almost to 7pm two weeks after that. Of course, it's still another...

Simple: Go down to Amundsen-Scott Station and walk around the pole. But if you don't want to cheat, get a very fast airplane: Jeremy Newton is an Air Force veteran who flew F-18s, but, when contacted by e-mail, suggested the F-22 for a variety of reasons. First, it can fly at 1.5 Mach (about 1,000 mph) without using its afterburner, meaning it burns much less fuel. It tops out at 2 Mach, though that burns more fuel. Second, it can refuel in 10 minutes -- in mid-air while traveling at 400 mph. And third...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2015 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 29th 07:19 16:33 9:14 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:53 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:29 17:39 11:09 7 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr 12th Earliest sunset until Oct 30th 06:17 17:48 11:31 8 Mar Daylight savings time...

Very busy today; less so the rest of the week. So after I'm done with this deliverable today I'll read these: Wow, the Bears suck ass. Wait, yak poop is a problem? Oy, NASA spent $349m on a project after the project was cancelled. Heh, politicians sometimes lie. Cool, the space L2O is leaving next month will reopen quickly with a rotating-chef concept. Yo, come hear The Messiah on Saturday. Back to the mines...

It's 7:35, and pitch black outside. When people talk about permanent daylight saving time, because they don't want to switch clocks twice a year, they should consider that France is an hour ahead of the "correct" time zone for its longitude and therefore has sunrises at 8:30 in the morning this time of year. If there were daylight right now, I'd upload a photo of all the airplanes taxiing past my hotel window. It's kind of cool. Tomorrow, when I can sleep in.

Since we can't really see it in the middle of November in Chicago, here's what we're missing, sped up 58 times:

The total lunar eclipse two weeks ago required getting up early in the morning and trying to find the moon through trees and Chicago street lights. Late this afternoon, Chicago (and most of North America to the west) will get a much better show from the moon as it partially obscures the sun. Starting around 16:35 CDT this afternoon, the moon will creep in front of the sun, reaching maximum eclipse right at sunset (17:59 CDT). Of course, this being Chicago, and despite the crystal-clear blue skies above...

Vox's Sarah Cliff reports some data from health gadget maker Jawbone about when we go to sleep, and for how long: Jawbone's data shows that, on average, no major American city gets the National Institute of Health recommended seven hours of nightly sleep. You see that in the light green areas [on the interactive map], which tend to surround large populations. Jawbone also put together a map of when people go to sleep. And there you see mostly people who live in large cities and college towns staying up...

Last night's lunar eclipse had reached totality when I dragged Parker and myself out of the house around 5:30 this morning. Eclipses are always worth seeing, especially on a perfectly clear morning like today. Now if I could just do something about the streetlights next time...

The earth will blot out the sun tonight, if you're standing on the moon, but the earth's atmosphere will bend red light just enough to put on a great show: Much of North America will have front-row seats for this special sky show, which will particularly favor the western part of the continent. Sky-watchers there will be able to see the entire eclipse unfold high in the western skies; East Coast observers will see much of the first half of the eclipse. For early risers in the East, the full moon will be...

There are so many things in life we know intellectually but forget in reality before getting an unhappy reminder. The ever-later sunrises in October, for example, just suck, but we forget. Since the end of daylight saving time moved from early October to early November in 1986 and 2007, October mornings are just grim, especially when it's overcast and gloomy, like today. The sun rises in Chicago before 7am until October 12th, but even at 6:45 (like today) many people still wake up before dawn. My...

Illinois state climatologist Jim Angel explains, it depends: No doubt today (September 22) will be announced as the “first day of fall” because of the fall or autumnal equinox. However, that concept refers to the date when we get equal amounts of daylight and dark. Climatologists and meteorologists prefer to use calendar months to define the four seasons in the US. For example, fall would start September 1 and end on November 30. Not only is this more convenient, because you can use monthly data, but it...

Good morning. It's the 1st day of September, 2014, and meteorological summer is over. School is back, Labor Day is upon us (but only in the U.S., where it doesn't remind anyone of actual labor struggles), and I've had Parker for 8 full years. (The annual Parker Day photo will have to wait until he and I are both back home. I know, this is the second year running that I've missed the day itself. I hope he forgives me.) On the whole, summer wasn't bad. Autumn should be fine as well: I'm attending a dear...

When I visit my folks in northern California for short visits, I use the same trick to ward off jet lag that I use in London: I stay on Chicago time. This means, however, that I get up around 5:30 and hike over to the Peet's to work until everyone else wakes up. Combine that with this being the end of August and it really brings home how short the days are getting. At home I've already noticed how gloomy it is at 6:30; here, I'm leaving the house at 5:45, almost an hour before sunrise. The last time I...

He thinks we should all use GMT instead: [W]ithin a given time zone, the point of a common time is not to force everyone to do everything at the same time. It's to allow us to communicate unambiguously with each other about when we are doing things. If the whole world used a single GMT-based time, schedules would still vary. In general most people would sleep when it's dark out and work when it's light out. So at 23:00, most of London would be at home or in bed and most of Los Angeles would be at the...

Imagine you're sitting on your front stoop, strumming your guitar, and Eric Clapton comes out of nowhere to give you some pointers. That's about what happened to me today. Earlier this week, Jon Skeet (described by Scott Hanselman as "the world's greatest living programmer) noticed something I posted on the IANA Time Zone list, and asked me about the Inner Drive Time Zone library. So I sent him the package. And this afternoon, he sent me a benchmark that he wrote for it. Just like that. Of course, the...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .) In the early part of July, we hardly notice sunrises and sunsets. Days are long, it's still light out at 9pm (in Chicago), and we commute to work in broad sunlight. About a month from now we'll get a twinge when the sun sets at 8pm, and then, faster and faster, we'll notice the days getting shorter and our morning commutes getting darker. Meh. That's in a month....

When I go anywhere for only a couple of days, I try not to shift my body clock. It prevents jet lag, mostly. This weekend I'm at my folks' house outside San Francisco, which has a two-hour time difference from Chicago. That is why I woke up at 5am and walked to the local Peet's Coffee, as I usually do. This trip I may allow my clock to drift westward, though. I'm going to Tuesday night's Cubs game at AT&T Park at 7:05pm—9:05pm Central time—and would like to see the whole game. The Cubs might even win. I...

Actually, it's a live feed from the ISS: Live streaming video by Ustream IFLS explains: One of the latest missions from the ISS is kind of amazing. The High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment consists of four cameras that have been attached outside of the ISS. Though temperature is controlled, the cameras are exposed to the radiation from the sun, which will allow astronauts to understand how radiation affects the instruments. The cameras point down at Earth at all times, which makes for some...

Via the IANA Time Zone Database mailing list, through Randy Olson, comes this map showing the difference between local solar time and what wall clocks show throughout the world: At the time I’m writing, near the winter solstice, Madrid’s sunset is around 17:55, more than an hour later than the sunset in, for example, Naples, which is at a similar latitude. The same difference holds at the summer solstice and around the year. Just because it applies to most places I’ve been, a time like that in Naples...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart . (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx .) Sunrises are just starting to get earlier, but today's (7:18 CST) is only a few seconds earlier than the latest sunrise of the year on January 3rd. Even though the sunrise times creep earlier by seconds every day, sunsets start to get noticeably later: 16:39 today, 7 minutes later in a week, 25 minutes later in three weeks. January is cold and dark, but (on average)...

It's cold in Chicago right now: -7°C with a wind chill of -13°C and gradual cooling predicted towards a low of -16°C Wednesday night. This is only the second time in 30 years it's been so cold, so early. Two things: first, though I don't have time to link to anything right now, it turns out this cold in Chicago is caused by abnormally warm temperatures in the North Pacific. So, yeah, aggregate global warming causes localized cold snaps. Second, thanks to celestial mechanics, tonight's sunset will be...

Since we moved the end of Daylight Saving Time to the first week of November, sunrises at the end of October are later than those in mid-December. Yesterday's sunrise was the latest sunrise in a year, and will be the latest until 2016. (The sunrise on 6 November 2010 was the latest until 2021, so it really could be worse.) In Chicago this morning, the sun rose at 6:26, the same time it rose on September 12th. It won't rise this early again until March 3rd—but then a week later we shift the clocks again...

The week between when we used to switch back to Standard Time and when we do so now (since 2007) makes me want to stay in bed. This morning sunrise happened at 7:18 and will slouch out to 7:25 on Saturday morning. It's the latest sunrise we'll have for three years, and it's 45 minutes after I usually get up in the morning. I know a lot of people prefer more light in the afternoon. I don't care, really. Sunday the sun sets at 16:42; but it rises at 6:26, and gives me another month before the sun rises...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2013 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 19:59 14:06 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:49 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:14 19:29 13:15 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:02 12:31 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:31 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox, 15:44 CDT 06:39 18:48 12:09 25 Sep 12-hour...

Even though we've just gotten our first snowfall, and today has started giving us snow, freezing rain, sleet, and icy roads, there is good news. January 27th is when things officially start looking brighter in Chicago every year. Tonight, for the first time in almost two months, the sun sets at 5pm. Then things start to become noticeably brighter: a 7am sunrise next Monday, a 5:30pm sunset two weeks after that, then a 6:30am sunrise less than a week later. Yes, this is dorky, but trust me: you'll notice...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2013 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:39 17:31 10:52 26 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:08 9 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr. 14th Earliest sunset until Oct. 28th 06:12 17:51 11:38 10 Mar Daylight savings time...

Late next year, Earth could get the best show from a comet in decades: By the end of summer [Comet Ison] will become visible in small telescopes and binoculars. By October it will pass close to Mars and things will begin to stir. The surface will shift as the ice responds to the thermal shock, cracks will appear in the crust, tiny puffs of gas will rise from it as it is warmed. The comet's tail is forming. Slowly at first but with increasing vigour, as it passes the orbit of Earth, the gas and dust...

I'm a little late getting the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart out this summer. Sorry. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2012 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:06 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:48 13:48 28 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 13 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:03 12:33 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:33 19:00 12:28 22 Sep Equinox...

The aurora borealis could be visible as far south as Chicago, Belfast, and Seattle tonight and tomorrow: A significant event located on the Sun facing Earth took place on July 12. The effects of this event will begin to reach Earth early on the 14th of July GMT. Observers in North America should watch for aurora on the nights of the 14th and 15th local time. Depending on the configuration of the disturbance, auroras may be visible as far south as the middle tier of states. Activity may remain high also...

This evening's eclipse, through clouds: Also visible in the shadows: An hour later, it's a lot brighter out.

But only if you're near the Pacific: The midwest might not have the best view but the annular solar eclipse will at least be partially visible from here. The southwest will have the best vantage point when the sun appears as a "ring of fire" when the moon passes between it and the earth on Sunday. The moon will cover about 95% of the sun's diameter during this event. The eclipse will follow a path 8500 miles long for about 3 and a half hours. The "ring of fire" spectacle will last up to 5 minutes...

Researchers at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station have been watching the sun set for weeks. At the poles, the sun traces an excruciatingly slow corkscrew between equinoxes, first spiraling up to a point 23° above the horizon (only about as high as the sun gets in Chicago around 10am on December 21st) on the solstice, then slowly spiraling back down to the horizon over the next three months. In about an hour from now, the last limb of the sun will slip below the south polar horizon, the twilight gradually...

I've never felt great about the Daylight Saving Time switch happening in the beginning of March, but here it is. Oddly, I have no trouble changing eleven or twelve time zones, but the one-hour change in the spring (but not the fall) always messes me up. Anyway, if you live in the U.S. or Canada (excluding Arizona and Saskatchewan), it's probably an hour later than you think it is.

In general, people using words they don't understand, presumably to sound smart, drives me up a tree. In specific, I wish against reason that more people knew how time zones worked. Microsoft's Raymond Chen agrees: One way of sounding official is to give the times during which the outage will take place is a very formal manner. "The servers will be unavailable on Saturday, March 17, 2012 from 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM Pacific Standard Time." Did you notice something funny about that announcement? On March 17...

At this time of year, people from the tropics to the poles really become aware of changes in the lengths of the days. Yesterday Chicago had 11 hours of daylight for the first time since October 18th; we get 12 hours of daylight less than three weeks from now. Tuesday the sun set at 5:30pm for the first time since standard time returned on November 5th; it sets at 7pm on March 16th. From the solstice through February 1st we only get about one additional hour of daylight (though, because of the Earth's...

The judge responsible for the case against the time zone database filed back in September issued an order yesterday demanding that the plaintiffs actually pursue the case. Under the Federal rules of civil procedure, the plaintiffs now have 21 days to show they've served the defendants, or the case will be dismissed. I'm asking my attorney friends how common this kind of negligence is.

Sure, I've posted photos of the moon before, but it never gets old to me: Well, all right, at 4½ billion years it is old to me, but you know what I meant. On a side note, I just Googled "age of the moon" and discovered that many of the top results are from outside the reality-based community. For example, the second item on my results came from the Institute for Creation Research ("Biblical. Accurate. Certain."), in which one Thomas G. Barnes, D.Sc., begins with the assertion: "It takes but one proof of...

The thing I like most about February: at the end of it, Chicago has an hour and a quarter more daylight than at the beginning of it. Today we have 10 hours of daylight, the most since November 10th, and on the 29th we have 11 hours and 14 minutes. I notice this every year around now, just as I forget every year how grim December can be.

Two items I haven't had time to read fully, and intend to do over the weekend: The Economist explores Boeing's immense order book; James Fallows has annotated the State of the Union address President Obama delivered Tuesday. That is all. Oh, except: tomorrow the sun sets in Chicago at 5pm for the first time since November 5th.

A couple of things have happened on two issues I mentioned earlier this week: On SOPA, my congressional representative, Mike Quigley, came out with a statement this morning formally declaring his opposition to the bill. Yes, he was also a dollar short...but we'll give him a pass. The Economist spent six column-inches about it in this week's issue explaining how this year's leap second would be the world's last. Today, however, the International Telecommunications Union punted the decision to 2015...

This looks a lot like a shot from last February: It's still cool. And it's only about five minutes old. It suggests, however, that I might want to rent a really cool lens sometime. I used the same equipment (Canon 7D, 200mm), but shot hand-held at ISO-400, f/5.6 at 1/1000, then developed it differently than the one from 11 months ago. I also shot this one raw instead of as JPEG, which gave me a lot more flexibility in post. Mostly, though, we have clear skies and a full moon, so what more reason do I need?

The Paris Observatory has announced a leap second between June 30th and July 1st this year: A positive leap second will be introduced at the end of June 2012. The sequence of dates of the UTC second markers will be: 2012 June 30, 23h 59m 59s 2012 June 30, 23h 59m 60s 2012 July 1, 0h 0m 0s ... Leap seconds can be introduced in UTC at the end of the months of December or June, depending on the [available rotation data]. Leap seconds occur from time to time because the earth's rotation on its axis doesn't...

Welcome to the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2012 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:14 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:07 17:00 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 21 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:39 17:31 10:52 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:08 10 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr. 15th Earliest sunset until Oct. 27th 06:10 17:52 11:42 11 Mar...

There is no tomorrow for the island nations of Samoa and Tokelau: At the stroke of midnight on Dec. 29, time in Samoa and Tokelau will leap forward to Dec. 31 — New Year's Eve. For Samoa's 186,000 citizens, and the 1,500 in Tokelau, Friday, Dec. 30, 2011, will simply cease to exist. [Samoan] Prime Minister Tuila'epa Sailele Malielegaoi earlier said it would strengthen trade and economic links with Australia, New Zealand and Asia. Being a day behind the region has meant that when it's dawn Sunday in...

Finally. In Chicago, anyway. The farther north you go, the more likely your latest sunset is...earlier. I explained why this happens December 8th a few years ago. And yet, I feel the need to comment on it yet again...

No, not my student loan; my horological one. I might be alone here, but the return of standard time means I get the hour back that I loaned out in March. It also means I don't have to wake up before dawn any more—at least for a couple of weeks. Even Parker seems to like the "fall back." At least, he had the decency not to wake me up until 7:30am. For most of the U.S. and Canada, today's was the earliest sunrise until February 28th. Unfortunately, today's sunset will the earliest since January 10th, as...

Apparently the aurora borealis came all the way down to the middle of the U.S. earlier this week. With a little probing, I found the University of Alaska aurora forecast page. Tonight, we probably won't see the aurorae in Chicago. But there's a huge sunspot right now, so possibly we'll see one later in the week. Here's the self-updating NOAA map. The bright area shows the current aurora; the red line points to the sun.

I'm not the only one watching sunrise times these days. Naomi the Nature Nerd also wishes we'd end Daylight Saving Time earlier: I know that this weekend's Fall Back means I'll be coming home in the dark, instead. I'd rather just have longer days :) but given the latitude... If I have to choose, I'd choose to leave work at night, not arrive there at night! At least this weekend won't be the latest sunrise ever in Chicago. That honor goes to 6 January 1974, when the U.S. went on Daylight Saving Time...

Reader AT actually met Tom Shanks, the chief programmer behind the ACS Atlases, and corrects my understanding of how the ACS team put it together: Contrary to what you assume in your post, Tom Shanks did not hack his atlas into an Apple II. ACS was rather professional in their IT. The worldwide city database with longitude and latitude they had licensed from on of the big atlas (map atlas) publishers, if I remember correctly Rand McNally. The timezone history data they had collected from numerous...

To better understand the facts behind Astrolabe’s stupid trolling quixotic lawsuit against the guys who coordinated the worldwide time-zone database (tzinfo), I bought copies of the Shanks Amercian and International atlases that Astrolabe claims to own. (I went through the secondary market, so I didn’t actually give Astrolabe any money.) First, an update. According to Thomas Eubanks of the IETF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken over Arthur Olson’s legal defense. Mazel tov. I expect to see a...

The AP has picked up the story about the tzinfo database moving to ICANN: The organization in charge of the Internet's address system is taking over a database widely used by computers and websites to keep track of time zones around the world. The transition to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, comes a week after the database was abruptly removed from a U.S. government server because of a federal lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. Without this database and others...

This morning The Daily Parker received a press release from Gary Christen, responding to my analyses of their lawsuit against the guys who maintain the Posix time zone database (here, here, and here). Unfortunately for Christen, Astrolabe's response fails to rebut my central assertions. I said, essentially, they have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted by a Federal court (or, as one of my colleagues who actually practices law suggested, their complaint is actionable in itself)....

After the shocking disappearance of the Olson time zone database yesterday (described here and here), some things have become clearer overnight. o The wonderful land of Oz has stepped up. Robert Elz, an Australian computer scientist who has actively supported the tzinfo project throughout, has revived the time zone mailing list maintained at the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). My, but the list was active overnight, with dozens of people volunteering to host the database, move it to non-U.S....

The National Institutes for Health, through a quirk of history, maintainsed the worldwide-standard time zone database until today. A Massachusetts-based company, Astrolabe, Inc., has sued the people who maintain the database for copyright infringement. The company claims to have purchased the rights to The American Atlas, from which the time zone database derived some of its data. From the complaint: Defendant Olson’s unauthorized reproduction of the Works have been published at...

I'm David Braverman, this is my blog, and Parker is my 5-year-old mutt. I last updated this About... page in February, but some things have changed. In the interest of enlightened laziness I'm starting with the most powerful keystroke combination in the universe: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V. Twice. Thus, the "point one" in the title. The Daily Parker is about: Parker, my dog, whom I adopted on 1 September 2006. Politics. I'm a moderate-lefty by international standards, which makes me a radical left-winger in today's...

It happens every year, and every year it surprises me: from mid-August to mid-October, the days get shorter quickly. Three weeks ago I was waking up to daylight; this morning, I realized I was waking up to twilight. In three weeks it'll be dark at that hour. Right now, every day, the sun rises a minute later an sets a minute earlier. Nothing profound or particularly surprising here. Just an observation.

Welcome to the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2011 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 17 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:06 17 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:48 13:48 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 15 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:01 12:30 16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27 23 Sep Equinox, 03:05 CDT 06:39 18:49...

First, a report out of Punxsutawney, Penn., that Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog) did not see his shadow: Punxsutawney Phil emerged from a tree stump at dawn and, unusually, did not see his shadow, signaling that spring is just around the corner, according to tradition. "He found that there was no shadow," said Bill Deeley, president of a club that organizes Groundhog Day in the western Pennsylvania town of Punxsutawney. "So an early spring it will be." Ah, but there's a catch: "There is no question...

Should they go to year-round Daylight Saving Time? Scotland says no: Britain currently sets its clocks at Greenwich Mean Time in fall and an hour ahead of that in spring. (New York is generally five hours behind Britain; Western Europe is an hour ahead). The problem is that while a clock change might bring afternoon joy to London, it would condemn Inverness in the far reaches of Scotland — in relative terms, about 700 miles north of Montreal — to long, dark winter mornings with sunrises as late as 10...

Welcome to the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2011 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct. 29th 07:19 16:32 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:11 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:50 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:29 17:39 11:09 12 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr. 17th Earliest sunset until Oct. 26th 06:08 17:54 11:45 13 Mar...

The earth will cast its shadow on the moon Monday night: But on the longest night of the year, a full moon will disappear at 1:40 a.m. behind the Earth's shadow. There won't be another total lunar eclipse on the night of the winter solstice for 84 years. Weather permitting — and the forecast isn't favorable in the Chicago area, calling for clouds building Monday and snow overnight — the eclipse will be visible everywhere in the continental United States, and at its darkest, the moon will be halfway up...

It's getting on toward 7:30 in Chicago, and the sun still hasn't risen yet. We return to standard time tonight, meaning the sun will rise at 6:30 tomorrow. Today, however, will be the latest sunrise in Chicago (and in the rest of those parts of the U.S. that observe daylight saving time) until 2021. What's wrong with the last weekend in October? Or, as they do in parts of Europe, the last weekend in September? The "extra" hour of daylight in the evening has to come from somewhere. I, for one, prefer...

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) I'm a little late with the mid-year update because I've been a little busy. You haven't missed much—and anyway, they overlap. An interesting note about 2010: the sunset on November 6th will be the latest sunrise in Chicago (7:30am) until 2021—and that, only within 4 seconds of precision. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2010 2 Jul 8:30pm...

Tomorrow morning's sunrise is the earliest of the year in Chicago. This bit of useless information was brought to you by the letter Q and the number 5.

Since I'm spending so much time here, I thought I should do a Raleigh sunrise chart to complement the one for Chicago. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting note about 2010: the sunset on November 6th will be the latest sunrise for most places in the U.S. (7:43 am in Raliegh) until 2021. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2010 6 Jan Latest sunrise until Mar. 14th 07:26 17:17 9:50 20 Jan 5:30pm sunset 07:23 17:30 10:07 17 Feb 7am...

...could be today, depending on which competing definition you use: A blue moon is a full moon that is not timed to the regular monthly pattern. Most years have twelve full moons which occur approximately monthly, but in addition to those twelve full lunar cycles, each solar calendar year contains an excess of roughly eleven days compared to the lunar year. The extra days accumulate, so that every two or three years (7 times in the 19-year Metonic cycle), there is an extra full moon. The extra moon is...

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) An interesting note about 2010: the sunset on November 6th will be the latest sunrise in Chicago (7:30am) until 2021—and that, only within 4 seconds of precision. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2010 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct. 29th 07:19 16:33 9:14 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:51 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:09 20 Feb 5:30pm...

A number of confusing changes occurred to the world while I slept: President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I love the man; I voted for him; I gave lots of money[1] to two of his campaigns. I'm still confused. It might offend some of my fellow progressives to say, but possibly the prize means nothing more than "thank you for not being like the last guy, and keep up the good work." The President is, in fact, the second person who is not George W. Bush to win the Prize in the last four years. For...

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2009 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:10 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 19:59 14:06 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:50 13:49 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:14 19:29 13:16 14 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:02 12:31 15 Sep 7pm sunset 06:31 19:00 12:29 22 Sep Equinox, 16:18 CDT 06:38 18:48...

Spring officially begins Friday at 6:44 CDT, but today we're getting a little hint of it. Right now it's 19°C in Chicago; if it can squeak up to 22°C it will be the warmest day since October 12th. Another trivial tidbit: because the earth's atmosphere bends the sun's rays a little, today, and not the official equinox Friday, is the day when we have 12 hours of daylight. From tomorrow until September 25th, days are longer than nights just about everywhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Arctic...

Yesterday was the 30th consecutive day below freezing in Chicago. The chart doesn't show that we've had only 10 hours above freezing all year. The last time we had 24 hours above freezing was December 27th. One little bit of good news: Today the sun sets after 5pm for the first time since October, as each day becomes noticably longer than the one before. Roll on April...

Turns out, 2008 will be one of the longest years ever when astronomers insert an extra second at 17:59:60 CT tonight: The additional second makes up for the difference in two clocks – one based on Earth’s rotation and the other on the more precise atomic time of the UTC. In the U.S., the extra second will be added by the U.S. Naval Observatory at 6:59:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:59:59 p.m. Universal time). It will be the 24th "leap second" tacked on to the universal time scale since 1972. The...

It's a little thing, but it means our evenings won't seem as gloomy from now on: tonight's sunset in Chicago is the earliest of the year. Seriously. It has to do with the speed of the earth's orbit around the sun this time of year (it's faster, as we approach perihelion). In any event, tomorrow night the sun sets just a few seconds later than it does tonight, which just adds a little happiness this time of year.

Happy autumn, y'all.

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2008 2 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 16 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:55 8 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 16 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:48 28 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 15 Sep 6:30am sunrise; 7pm sunset 06:30 19:00 12:29 22 Sep Equinox, 10:44 CDT 06:39 18:48 12:08 25 Sep 12-hour...

For those of you who missed it last night, we had a total lunar eclipse, which the cold, clear weather in Chicago let us see perfectly:

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2008 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28 07:19 16:33 9:14 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 5 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:11 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:40 17:30 10:49 27 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:08 8 Mar Earliest sunrise until April 12thEarliest sunset until Oct 28th 06:14 17:50 11:36 9 Mar...

We atheists need holidays, too; why not an astronomical event? Eight minutes past midnight in Chicago tonight, light a candle to mark the bottom of the analemma.

This is one of my favorite milestones. Thanks to the analemma, tonight's sunset (4:20 pm) is the earliest of the year in Chicago. Of course, the sunrise still gets later every day until January 4th. At least tomorrow we'll have just a smidge more evening light than we'll have today.

I can't remember the last time Chicago got all the way through October without a freezing day. This year, even by November 2nd, we still haven't officially had a freeze. Also, tomorrow has Chicago's latest sunrise: 7:25 am. For those 33 years old and under, it's the latest sunrise ever. (During the 1973 energy crisis, Chicago didn't return to Standard Time in the fall.) Delayed edit, 11:05pm: Moments after posting this, O'Hare recorded its first freezing temperature since April 16th.

It's time for the semi-annual update of the Evanston/Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2007 1 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:19 20:30 15:11 17 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:54 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:52 20:00 14:08 17 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:49 13:48 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:17 15 Sep 6:30am sunrise; 7pm sunset 06:30 18:59 12:28 23 Sep Equinox, 04:51 CDT 06:39 18:47 12:08 26 Sep...

Tonight's sunset in Chicago (8:31 pm) is the latest of the year. The United Nations reported this week that, for the first time, more than half of all people live in cities.

The June Solstice happens in 15 minutes, at 1:06pm CDT. Happy Summer! (Or, you know, winter, for the one-third of the world who live in the Southern Hemisphere.)

The clouds broke this evening just long enough for me to see the eclipse. As they say in Boston: wicked cool.

The eclipse will be total from 4:44 pm CT to 5:58 pm, so when the moon rises over Chicago at 5:39 pm it will appear a deep red. (If it appears at all, of course; the weather will likely be cloudy.) Observers on the East Coast will have a better view; Europeans will get to see the whole thing.

It's time to update the sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Notice that in 2007, Daylight Saving Time lasts a lot longer than in years past: from the second Sunday in March through the first Sunday in November. This actually makes the autumn a little darker, as you can see from the chart. Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2007 4 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 30 07:19 16:33 9:13 28 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 5 Feb 7am...

The Winter Solstice happens today at 6:22 pm CST (00:22 UTC).

I also forgot to mention, because it happened while my office DSL was down (cutting off my Web servers from the world), that this past Friday had the earliest sunset of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Ordinarilly at a juncture like this I would write a dissertation on why the earliest sunset precedes the latest sunrise by four weeks, or why neither coincides with the solstice, but I'll spare you for now. No, the sun is setting later now, but the sun is also rising later, until January 4th, sorry to...

Illinois changes to Standard Time at 2:00 tomorrow morning, making today's 7:18 sunrise the latest until December 29th. Despite the cold, I trekked over to Dawes Park in Evanston to see it: Next year, most of the United States changes back to Standard Time on November 4th, making the November 3rd sunrise (7:25 am) unquestionably the latest one of the year.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, today is the first day since March 17th with less day than night. Yes, Friday was the autumnal equinox, when the earth's axis was perpendicular to its orbital plane. But because the atmosphere refracts the sun's light about 0.85°, days are always just a little longer than nights on equinoxes. You can get sunrise and sunset information for your location at Weather Now.

Note: These "site news" historical posts come from the original data sources in the proto-blog that debuted on the Q2 website in May 1997. Thursday 12 February 1998 Total eclipse approaches The only solar eclipse visible in the United States this year will begin at 9:50 EST on Feb. 26. The moon will completely obscure the sun over equatorial South America from 10:48 until 12:09 EST. Most parts of the U.S. should see a partial eclipse. Americans will not see either 1998’s second solar eclipse, on Aug....

Note: These "site news" historical posts come from the original data sources in the proto-blog that debuted on the Q2 website in May 1997. Thursday 1 January 1998 Dave gets pager (19:30 EST) Your web designer’s employer, Q2, has provided him with a pager for an indefinite period. If you don’t already have the number, call or email Dave to get it. Q2 gets yet another voicemail system (19:40 EST) Q2, your web designer’s employer, switched last week to a Bell Atlantic voicemail system that works. You will...