TIL: The pound sign is also called an "octothorpe"

Borrowing from Reddit's, TIL motif, today I learned that an "octothorpe" is the name for a pound sign. From the wiki article:


The term octothorpe was coined by Bell Labs but opposed by Western Electric and therefore never gained any popularity.^[2] 


Interesting stuff. 

SNL Home Page is Terrible

I mean, really, NBC?  Really??  You can't find crap on the home page of the SNL show:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/

What is all that garbage on the page?  I don't care about tiny, short, clips that I don't want to view.  And Fan Polls?  Is this the late 90s?  And the Fan It points?  At least this is the early 2000s.

What we want are links to info about the site, e.g. when does the new season start and who will be on it and information about past episodes.  Or at least details on the show that is airing tonight.  Not just a unclickable picture of the host.

Useless.  IMDB to the rescue.

A non Social web is slowly disappearing

When it comes to social networking, I'm the odd man out for sure.  I'm the black duck, the weirdo, the 17th wheel.  I like to consider myself a hold-out.  I don't get it.  I don't understand the need for sharing what sandwich I'm eating right now and when I'm in the bathroom releasing the same sandwich back into the wild.  Who cares what I'm reading??  Who care's where I'm at??  And I sure don't care what you're doing and where you're at.  Because I'm not there with you!

Ok enough of that.  My biggest concern is that the web is becoming totally reliant on social channels.  I tried to check out a new search engine today and no where on the main page do they even give you an option to add your email to be notified of the launch.  It's either like on Facebook or Follow on Twitter.

Check out the screenshot from blekko.com

What about giving an option for email?  For people like me that don't have a twitter account (*yes I know you can follow without one) and or a Facebook account?

The new Digg sucks

So, what's up Kevin?  Why the changes?  Do you have to keep up with the social movement that badly to lose some of the features and usability the site had?  I've been a member since the site switched over to the "new" style in mid 2005.  (*Somewhere around Aug/Sep 2005).  That said, I'm pretty familiar with the site and how it worked.  Here's why the new digg sucks:

1. Where are my links?  Where are the stories I've been "digging" for the last 5 years?!?!? WTF??
2. What is with the Twitter style, "Load More"??  I mean, Digg, you set the standard for "Next" and Pagination buttons.  So many sites use the Digg style pagination buttons.  Google reports 80,000 articles related to "Digg style pagination".  You used to set the standard, now you're following another.
1. The page buttons allowed me, and a lot of other users to see how much news we've missed since our last visit.
3. What happened to "open links in new tab"?
4. Not everybody is into the social networking movement!  While I can't deny that 500MM people is anything to ignore, there are a lot of people that don't have a facebook account, a twitter account or other inane social networking crap.

I'm taking the digg newsfeed off this blog and I'm off to reddit.

Update 9/1/10: It seems I'm not the only one that was displeased with the new Digg.  This TIME article talks about how the users lashed out and moved to Reddit.  According to the article, Reddit is loving it and even updated their logo to look like Digg's.  Or at least make fun of "digging" to make the reddit alien look dirty and holding a shovel.  And what I consider to be the funniest thing, one of the Digg users created a feed to autopopulate Reddit articles on Digg which in turn allowed reddit to take over the digg home page.  Comedy.

Chicago Needs More Food Served From Trucks

Sure we have our Flirty Cupcakes but cities like NY and LA have really embraced the mobile food preparation concept.  LA even has a site with all the food truck twitter feeds listed on one page.  How great is that?  Now you can see in one place, what food will be outside of your front door for lunch!

We need this!  It seems as though I wasn't the first to say or think that this was a good idea.  This article is asking all Chicagoans to reach out to their local alderman to change the street food laws.  This isn't a new movement either.  Chicago is just behind the times and doesn't make it easy.

I for one am for the street food movement!

Cool: Star Wars Re-done as a Silent Film

This is great.  I want to see more!

If the embedded video doesn't work, use this link to view:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOjzLggAKis

Another Chicago Invention: Soul Train

Soul Train debuted on WCIU in Chicago on 8/17/70.  Don Cornelius wanted a show that show cased the positive side of a group that was always portrayed as negative in MSM.  Not only did he achieve that goal but he also unwittingly provided the launching pad for pop locking, breakdancing, the robot and the infamous moon walk originally created by Jeffrey Daniel on the show.  Awesome.

New Samsung Rogue Update - Effed up the browser

So, Samsung and Verizon, mostly Verizon, what were you thinking when you updated the browser on the Rogue with the latest Software Update?  The browser before was fine.  This new version (Name: u960.DE26) adds a new browser version to the phone: Polaris Browser ver 6.2.1VEN005.  It's definitely a mixed bag.  It seems to be faster, which is good but it adds new "features" which suck.  First and foremost, the history drop down arrow doesn't actually produce any results when you click on it.  It only produces results after you start typing.  On and it will only show pages that start with the letter of which you start typing with.  Meaning you can't put in any letter and it will show.  Which means, you need to have the slider open or start typing with the onscreen.  Terrible for public trans, hanging on with one arm kind of scenario.  They move the "tabs" button, not a big deal and it's actually kind of nice that it pops up automatically after clicking a link.  This makes it very easy to click, switch tabs and let the page load in the background.

The biggest annoyance is the removal of Display Mode: Fixed Width.  Where did this feature go?!?!?!  This was the best, especially for text heavy mobile pages.  Now, you have the choice of Page View, Scan View or Detail View.  All of which are terrible at best.  And, with this new "bounce animation" feature that shows when you're at the edge of page, unless you have perfect downward thumb swipes, your page is bouncing down the edge of the phone as you scroll.

Another reason to switch to a droid or *gasp* an iPhone.

Google's Doodle has a Chicago connection

The Doodle on the Google home page is of Wizard of Oz.  People are still trying to figure out why it's being posted today.  It is the 71st anniversary but that's kind of an odd number to celebrate.

Whatever the reason, Google now has a Chicago connection by way of the doodle: L. Frank Baum lived in Chicago at the time of publication.  According to the wiki page, "It was originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900"  He also may have used the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the "White City") as an inspiration for the Emerald City.

Pretty cool.

Duck Race Chicago

I adopted 6 ducks today.

I hope my ducks are the fastest!

Update 8/23/10: My ducks didn't win but I'm sure they put up a good fight. Here are highlights and the list of winners.

Next year my ducks will be quacking all the way to the bank!

CT: Maybe Apple Purposefully Chost AT&T

This begins a new set of posts: CT's or conspiracy theories.  These will be random and offbeat thoughts about the news, the world and what's going on in both.

First up: What if Apple purposefully chose AT&T, knowing that their backbone and infrastructure couldn't handle standard cell phone calls, essentially paving the way for app usage.  And lots of app usage.  Which would mean more $1 downloads.  And, similar to iTunes, those microtransactions add up.

Chicago, 2.7 Million

According to this Life article, Chicago is the 5th most photographed city in the world with 2.7MM photos (*based on the number of times the tags appear in flickr)

Most popular flickr tags

Chicago: 10 Great Cities for Young Adults

According to this Kiplinger article, Chicago is one of the top cities to live in if you're a young adult.  I would wholeheartedly agree!

Walgreens Launches Photo Ideas Page

Walgreens launched a new photo ideas sharing page:

Tips & Ideas from Members

Neat idea.  Let's see if it takes off.

$750 million to divorce Tiger?

Assuming 15 mistresses, that's $50M per mistress.  Nice.

My morning bus ride

Everyone is a little pissy this morning. It's almost like they're on edge because of the storm coming.  People are curt and on the verge of arguing with people about space on the bus.  Something that never exists and which most people accept as a fact.

Finding Jobs the Social Media Way

This site, Your Job Stop, helps people find their perfect job with the help of social media.  Cool idea.

I learned something new today: Lotus Notes and U of I

While doing some research on the market share that Lotus Notes has, if any at all, I came across Wikipedia (of course!) and found an interesting tidbit of info:

From the History Section of this article:
Lotus Notes has a history spanning more than 20 years.^[12] Its chief inspiration was PLATO Notes, created by David Woolley at the University of Illinois in 1973.

So that means that Mosaic, which turned into the original few versions of IE, and Lotus notes both originated at U of I.

Part of me is proud, because that's my alma mater, but part of me is embarassed because mosaic and notes are so archaic.  I guess, though, they both paved the way for bigger and better versions of the program.

Now if we could just get IBM to retire notes.

Update: I found a fairly recent article on Lotus market share.  According to this site, the program had 10% of the market share in 2008.

Dramatically Smart Animals

Every time I see the CarMax Dramatically Smart animals, I laugh.  They're pretty funny to me for some reason.  I have to pay homage to the original: Dramatic Chipmunk posted on YouTube in 2007

Vuvuzela

I learned something new today.  If you've been watching any of the world cup soccer, you've probably wondered what the bee buzzing noise is.  I found out today that it's called a vuvuzela.  According to this video, one vuvuzela is louder than a chainsaw.  Wow.

I think the cubs fans should have these.

Facebook = The Party

With Facebook on its seemingly endless quest of world (aka Internet) domination, it's no surprise to see people wanting out of the machine that it has become. It seems as though Google searches show that this is true, people do want out. The number of times people search for "how do i delete my facebook account" is on the rise according to Google's Insights for Search.

French Market in Ogilvie

I learned today that the Ogilvie transportation center has an "open air French market" in it. After doing some searches on Google, I finally found the website: Chicago French Market.

I hope to check it out this week or next week at the latest.

In The 80's

I was doing some research for 80's food products that no longer exist and found this site:

http://inthe80s.com/

I love all things 80's so this site is getting added as a blog post.

It has a section dedicated to cereal:
http://www.inthe80s.com/cereal/

And toys from the 80s!
http://www.inthe80s.com/toys/index.shtml

What a great site.

Free Geek Chicago

I saw a flyer for this website and thought it was a good idea so I'm posting and sharing.

http://freegeekchicago.org/

From the website:

"FreeGeek Chicago is a not-for-profit community organization that recycles used computers and parts to provide functional computers, education, internet access and job skills training to the underserved communities of Chicago in exchange for community service."