Thoughts on the anti-NATO rally in Chicago today

I went down to Grant Park for the Coalition Against NATO/G8 rally at noon today, and I took a bunch of pictures, but I didn’t stick around for the whole march.  As I write this, there’s still folks being herded around downtown by cops in riot gear, and Twitter is blowing up with “they’re putting … Read more

Why I’m never going to buy a Groupon

Does this look like good business to you? Photo via Techcrunch

A couple of evenings ago, I went to a little spot around the corner from my house, here in the far north side of Chicago.  It’s a friendly little place, and I like it quite a bit — their prices are fair, their food is decent, and some of the folks on staff recognize me and say ‘hi’ when I come in.  What’s even better is that they have a nice selection of microbrews, scotches, and even some really rare stuff from time to time.

So, I’m sitting at the bar, enjoying a burger and a Guinness, and a fellow comes in and stands next to me while he collects his order from the bartender.  He’d ordered a to-go order of some sort of food, and I noticed he was using a Groupon to help pay for it.

“So,” I asked the bartender, “what are your thoughts on the whole Groupon thing?”

The bartender surprised me with his reply.  “It may well put us out of business,” he said.

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Chicago homicide/ethnicity map mashup

So, this is kind of interesting. I noticed a story on Utne Reader about some great visualizations that a gentleman named Eric Fischer made, using demographic information from the 2000 Census to map out which ethnicities lived where, to demonstrate the kind of de facto segregation that still happens in cities in the US. That, … Read more