Hot Dog Stand 'Wieners Circle' Closed Down By Board of Health

It's practically an institution on the North Side of Chicago. The Hot Dog Stand 'Wieners Circle' has been closed down by the Board of Health due, according to a sign on the door, to problems with their "hot water service". In other words, the pipes have burst.

I remember going there as an undergrad after a late night on the town. We'd first go to Neo's (then in its 'New Wave' phase) and then hit Wieners Circle for a Polish with grilled onions. This was way before they developed the schtick about swearing to customers and concentrated instead on the quality of the food.

Anyway, the sign on the door says they'll be back to continue their "love affair with Chicago" once they've completed some "needed re-modeling".

Old Year Resolution

Generally you make resolutions for the New Year but this is something I want to get done in the day or two I have off prior to January 1: Convert about half a dozen Drupal sites (like this one) to 6.x. It's about time! [Note: old site used Drupal.]

FaceBook Scandal Points to Strengths & Weaknesses of Social Networking Tools

A fascinating scandal on Facebook, uncovered by blogger Brad J. Ward, points to both the strengths and weaknesses of Social Networking tools.

The scandal revolves around an attempt by at least two companies, CollegeProwler.com and MatchU to corner the market, so to speak, on as many College 'Class of 2013' Facebook groups as possible using non-attending individuals to set up the groups and serve as Admins.

Once they were found out, representatives of these two companies, possibly sensing a public relations disaster, left comments on Brad's original post, apologizing for their actions and promising to vacate the groups they had so improperly created.

Many commentators called this 'squatting' and appropriately identified the need for Colleges and Universities to stake out prominent roles for themselves in social networking sites so that vacuums like this don't occur in which case marketers (or even worse) inevitably come in to fill the void.

But that's only half the story.

The other half is the casual almost breathless use of collaborative technology that went into uncovering this scam.

The thing was first mooted on a blog, screen-shots were put up on Flickr, a screencast was created using Jing. Brad and others searched LinkedIn, ZoomInfo and even Craigslist eventually nailing down the companies responsible for this.

They communicated with each other on his blog, through Twitter or using a group spreadsheet on Google Docs. The spreadsheet itself which has since been taken down for privacy reasons, quickly incorporated the work of at least 30 volunteers listing more than 400 schools.

And all of this happened within the space of a day or two!

Communication has been instantaneous for a while now but the variety of ways we can communicate and the number of formats we can employ is truly remarkable.

Current Cites for December 2008

Current Cites for December 2008 is out! You can find the issue here...

I focused on a couple of interesting articles, one having to do with site optimization and the other with data preservation, from the December issue of Communications of the ACM.

Drupal4Lib - One Year Old!

I almost forgot about this but it's been a year (give or take a few days) since I started the Drupal4Lib ListServ.

I sent out the word on December 5 and within two days we had 200 subscribers.

As I said on a post that I sent out to the group, the original motivation for starting the List remains the same now as before, namely to provide an easily accessible environment to get helpful and reliable information on Drupal in a library context.

I'm pleased to say we now have 474 subscribers -- almost all who have been wonderfully 'helpful and reliable'.

So thanks to all the subscribers and happy holidays!

The Art of Reading John Milton

NPR had a segment on the 400th anniversary of John Milton. It wasn't too bad in relating the importance of Paradise Lost though I don't think I agree with Modern Library's William Kerrigan who recommends the "best way" of reading it as all at once in one sitting. As an undergrad, I had to pound my head against this work more than once. Not only is the language and imagery a bit tricky but the allusions to classical and contemporary events are enough to sink even the most motivated reader. The trick then is not to become frustrated but rather to come back to it, over and over again if necessary, until the outstanding beauty of the work starts speaking to you. For that reason, I'd say that the best way to read Paradise Lost is to read it three times over.

UPDATE: One of passages that totally knocked me over when reading this as an undergrad:

                                              ... Full soon
Among them he arrived; in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand Thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their Souls infixed
Plagues; they astonished all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropped;
O're Shields and Helmes, and helmed heads he rode
Of Thrones and mighty Seraphim prostrate,
That wished the Mountains now might be again
Thrown on them as a shelter from his ire.

         -- John Milton, Paradise Lost, VI.

eBook Killer, Thy Name is NetBook

So remind me again, who's going to pick the utterly drab and uni-functional Amazon Kindle for $359 when they can get this baby for the same price?

Courtesy of MiniNote User.

UPDATE (1/5/09): Not to make this sound like the GadgetBlog but HP just came out with an update to its top of the line model, the HP Mini 2140. Faster chip, bigger lcd panel -- Hoo Baby!

Facebook 'Loses' My Email Notification Preferences

File under, 'Weird Email of the Day':

Please reset your email notification settings. Unfortunately, the settings that control which email notifications get sent to you were lost. We're sorry for the inconvenience. To reset your email notification settings, go to... Thanks, The Facebook Team

How do you 'lose' settings like this?