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.