Good Morning, RVA: Christmas for nerds!

It’s here, both the rain and Apple’s announcement of their latest and greatest.

September 9, 2014; 7:10 AM • by Ross Catrow

Good morning, RVA! It’s 68 °F, and today’s weather looks a whole lot like yesterday’s. I don’t want to say chilly, as highs will reach the mid-70s, but it’ll be whatever’s two steps after chilly. Maybe, “cool”? Or “crisp”? The continual rain will definitely not warm things up either.

Water cooler

City Council returned to action last night after their summer vacation, and the RTD’s Graham Moomaw has the recap. This month’s meeting was a bit scattered as half of the 47 agenda items were “withdrawn or continued because they needed amendment or weren’t ready for a vote.” You know how that first week back from vacation goes…

Local hospitals have seen an increase in children admitted with respiratory illness over the last couple of days, leading to some overly excited reporting that enterovirus D68 has spread to Richmond. Before you freak out, Vox has an even-handed look at the virus, the recent Midwest outbreak, and what it all means. To keep you and yours healthy, the best thing to do is wash your hands!

I don’t know why, but I’m bursting with an unreasonable amount of pride after reading this piece in the RTD about Mrs. Yoder’s doughnuts. What I really like about Richmond’s current doughnut boom is that there’s a doughnut for every occasion, and Yoder’s is clearly the best “special treat” doughnut around. Yes, that is a specific category of doughnut.

The Apple keynote begins at 1:00 PM today. You can watch it live, right here.

By now you’ve probably seen the video of Ray Rice violently assaulting his fiancée Janay Palmer. The incident has prompted a conversation, on the national level, about domestic violence, and once again Twitter is an excellent place to go and listen. If you’ve got some time today, #WhyIStayed and #WhyILeft are both worth reading. Here’s Vox again with eight sobering facts about violence against women.

Sports!

• Squirrels battle Binghamton tonight at 6:35 PM in one of the last home games of the season. The winner of this series will be crowned Eastern League champions! Tickets are available online, and, as always, remember to have funn and go nutz.
• Nats beat the Braves, 2-1, the series continues tonight at 7:05 PM.

This morning’s longread

Randall Munroe Of xkcd Answers Our (Not So Absurd) Questions

Here’s a nice Q&A with author and one-time Richmonder Randall Munroe. He’s got a new book out, and if you don’t already follow his What if? site, you’re missing out.

Some of my favorite questions come from kids. I think sometimes adults put too much effort into crafting a scenario designed to cause as much destruction as possible. At that point, if I answer it, I’m effectively just illustrating what they narrated, which means there are no surprises. Whereas little kids will just submit weird, straightforward questions (like “What if I built a million-story building?”). I like that, because then when I try to answer them, it often takes me off in some unexpected direction.

Photo by: Special

This morning’s Instagram

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September 9, 2014 7:10 AM 0