Brian Gongol

Or the satisfaction of watching a good defragmentation.

Stand by for the unanticipated consequences. Chaos theory remains undefeated.

Ford reportedly considers ending production of all-electric F-150 Lightning Ford is considering ending production of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck amid mounting losses and challenging market conditions for EVs.

Toyota's plan to hybridize basically everything in its fleet took a lot of criticism earlier, but I think it's looking pretty smart now.

www.cnbc.com/2025/11/06/f...

The Louvre's video security password was reportedly 'Louvre' Oh dear. It may not have had anything to do with the jewel robbery, but audits of the Paris museum's security system have revealed glaring issues that go back years.

This never would have happened if their password had been "m0mA!".

www.pcworld.com/article/2961...

The value of a category rating is mainly prospective: That is, "There's a Category 5 hurricane coming! Evacuate now!"

For truly informative purposes (including insurance and government policy-making), the actual data (including but not limited to wind speeds) matters more.

My intuition is that adding a Category 6 to the hurricane scale would represent a counterproductive form of mission creep. It's a somewhat subjective scale as it is, and we now have very good tools for measuring other values with precision, like wind speed, barometric pressure drop, and storm surge.

A hundred thousand color commentators and nobody available to do play-by-play.

Ten times better than scripted drama. A tied Game 7 in the bottom of the ninth with bases loaded. Cannot beat this. It's epic poetry on the diamond.

Baseball is the only sport that demands its fans love math and suspense.

There's no contest. It's the only sport that can stop your heart like this.

As a Cubs fan, I think I have to go for the team with the longest drought. Ergo, go Jays.

Everyone - protect Kevin Bacon!

This is 100% correct.

By contrast, show me 5-10 years of income statements plus a current balance sheet and I'll deliver you a business valuation faster than a pizza from Domino's.

I mean, yeah, some of them really do want to buy companies, but it's entirely a waste of time to engage with the cold-calling "buyers" unless you're 71 years old and don't have a succession plan in place.

*(There's never a number.)

It's exactly the same with private equity firms. I get calls and emails every week, asking about whether I'd sell my business. My response every single time is "Send me a starting price or a valuation method and I'll believe you're serious."

If there's no number, the "buyer" is unserious*.

The more the American urban population grew, the worse the problems got -- but there was so much resistance to the idea that cholera and typhoid were waterborne problems that a bunch of attitudes about "fresh air" and "overcrowding" put down deep roots that still matter in both policy and culture.

I've been working a lot on the history of public drinking water lately, and you wouldn't believe how much of the period roughly from 1825 to 1925 was shaped by waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid. It took forever to get people past thinking the problem was "miasma" in the air.

While I'm tempted to chalk up some of these choices to the classic problem of "STEM majors need to study the humanities, too!", it's looking more like a problem of "Computer engineers need to study the rest of engineering, too!".

a computer screen displays greetings professor falken hello and a strange game Alt: Clip from the movie "WarGames", in which the computer declares, "The only winning move is not to play"

42 years later, and it's still directionally right:

In which direction is the grooming purported to take place? I need to know which dystopia is hot right now.

This is really first-class information visualization.

Just be sure they don't counter you with an EITC claim if the neighbors hand out butterscotch discs.

An excise tax on every Almond Joy, I say.

There's a sociological pipeline from (a) excessive emphasis on youth sports to (b) breaking useful ties to institutions like clubs and churches because nobody has time to (c) the overreach of sports gambling to (d) masses of people with no hobbies and no community but a lot of screen addiction.

Iowa's strongest Highs and deepest Lows — Midwest Weather Center What’s the highest pressure recorded in Iowa? How about the lowest?

For perspective, the drop from standard pressure at sea level to where Hurricane Melissa is now is a bigger drop than the span from the highest atmospheric pressure ever recorded in Iowa to the lowest. It's incredible.

www.midwestweathercenter.com/nstew-blog/2...

Truly historic (in all the worst ways). That pressure drop really is extraordinary.

www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh...

Broadcasting can't be far behind in these awful rankings. It may not be a literal decimation, but it's close.

May I just say how impressed I am with the quality of the @wttw.bsky.social account here? A very good resource for tracking news and events from Chicago.