Posted by knorby on August 18, 2008 under Chicago, food | 
I enjoyed another lunch today from the Indian restaurant component of a 7-11 close to where I work (IT stuff at a trading firm) at Washington and Wells. I have never seen another 7-11 with its own restaurant before (fast food, maybe, but this place is different), so I was pretty shocked to see it. When I went last time, I asked if there were any others, and she said it was the first one like it (who knows though). It is also an “internet cafe,” which means they have wifi I think, but I haven’t had a reason to stay. They are only open from 11-6, so it is a lunch place. One of the most bizarre sights I have seen in a while.
old signs for what I guess was an internet cafe before. Who knows if they still have that going.
Posted by knorby on August 5, 2008 under Chicago, personal |
Last night, the block my apartment is on lost power. It was during a pretty harsh thunderstorm, so I didn’t think much of it until I realized that our power lines are underground. My neighborhood in Oak Ridge has above ground lines with lots of trees, so I am used to the power going out during storms. The storm last night was also one of the harshest I have seen in Chicago; the Ryerson weather station reported a high wind of 56mph around midnight and around 2 inches of rainfall in an hour. Anyway, the power was incredibly screwed up for the rest of the night. We unplugged everything after I saw the TV sort of flicker on (it was off before) when lightening struck really close by. Hopefully are surge protectors didn’t get the full 1.21 gigawatts of power. For a while, we got an extremely low amount of power; enough for some lights to barely glow. It was strange. At some point, a firetruck came by, which one of my roommates and I watched from the porch while clearing the drain, so we could watch a whirlpool form (entertainment options for a bunch of computer geeks is severly limited sometimes without power); A cop watched us and pulled off as soon as we went inside, which was pretty funny. As far as I know, the power is still out; hopefully we will get it back soon. We heard some strange, almost explosion-like sounds throughout the night, so hopefully the damage is not that bad.
The other side of the street wasn’t affected, but all of the streetlights and even the university police boxes were all off and all of the buildings next to ours were off, which made for about the darkest I have ever seen Chicago. I am used to being able to see around, even if all of the lights are off. There is so much background light, that it is easy to forget it is even there. It made for an interesting evening.
Posted by knorby on July 20, 2008 under Chicago, google, internet, uchicago |
Google Street View Map of Hyde Park. The streets without highlighting cannot be viewed.
I noticed recently that many of the streets in Hyde Park lost Google Street View, notably where my current apartment is. I also noticed that many of the streets had darkened. Is it really necessarily to remove the images? There used to be pictures taken inside the quads as well, which are now gone; I thought those might have been removed by request of the university, but I don’t really get why they removed the other ones. If they wanted to update them, fine, but there is no reason to remove images. I suppose it is a free service, so I have no right to complain, but I just think it is screwy when I can see my home in Oak Ridge, but not in Chicago. I did some quick googling, but nothing came up. Any ideas?
Posted by knorby on February 5, 2008 under Chicago, design, rants, uchicago |
I pass a sign every morning that reads “no trespassing violators will be prosecuted,” only with each word on a new line. I walk through the place as it blocks off my street. I don’t think I should have to walk through a sketch ally turned road that is without a sidewalk just because some construction group bribed some local politicians. The place’s location makes next to no logical sense without considering graft or “patronage.” Back to the point, the place seems like the type that would definitely want to go after trespassers, though I don’t think UofC students are exactly the target audience. I always find this sign curious as it does nothing to separate “no trespassing” and “violators will be prosecuted,” which I assume is what it meant as that message is the norm. Regardless, the full statement clearly says that no one will be prosecuted for trespassing. I don’t know much about what the legal meaning of sign even is, but I would think that if they meant anything, the apartment complex might have a hard time going after trespassers in court if the trespasser just pointed out the sign. Perhaps the usual meaning would win…
I noticed the same problem on a sign outside the botany pond. The sign read “keep off thin ice.” If there was a separation, the intended meaning would come through. I of course am assuming that the UofC would generally prefer people to stay of a possible hazard…
I just don’t get why companies who do nothing but make signs would have gotten the concept of separation down at this point.
Posted by knorby on February 2, 2008 under Chicago, food, personal |
I went to the Med today, which I have been frequenting for take out recently, and I decided to get an old love of mine, but with a new twist… For a long time, my favorite sandwich, perhaps my favorite food, has been a grilled cheese sandwich from the Med with blue cheese on rye bread. When I was a vegetarian, I would always get it. Since I went back to eating meat, I have tended to get burgers. I have never regretted a Med burger, but I had forgotten how great the blue cheese grill cheese is. This time, I got it with bacon, which made it just that much better. Bacon really makes everything better… It is really hard to get it by take out and have it be decent, so I suppose the moral is that I need to eat in at the Med more.
Posted by knorby on February 1, 2008 under Chicago, internet, personal |
Since my roommates and I first moved into our apartment, we have left our wifi access point open. No security al all. None of the other people in our apartment building strike me as the type to break any sort of security. Besides, some of my roommates were having some trouble getting it setup with security on their computers, and I really didn’t want to have to configure their computers or deal with problems that came up. Really, I liked the idea of leaving an access point open. I knew the security was weak to begin with, and it can be a lifesaver for others at times. Bruce Schneier wrote a piece on why he keeps his wireless network open that follows this same line of reasoning. Unfortunately, there is a very real problem with open wifi in apartments. Some people moved into the apartment a floor above ours, and it appears they never bothered to get an ISP; they just leached off ours. I would think that few people would mind someone using their connection while waiting to get their own. The connection started to really slow down. I suppose one way to solve the problem would have been to talk to them, but I decided to implement MAC address filtering instead. I suppose such things were to be expected, but I always hate when I end up being disappointed by human nature.
Posted by knorby on January 18, 2008 under Chicago, TV, humor, media, uchicago |
I spotted three local new crews today when I went to watch the UofC annual polar bear run today. It is a naked run in the quads, as part of the Kuviasungnerk and Kangeiko festival here. Events in the festival are normally early in the morning all week to celebrate winter or something dumb like that; I have never attended any of these and I expect I never will. Anyway, it finishes up with the naked run. It is 28F outside, so it is a challenge of sorts, but it is mostly an excuse for some to streak in the quads. There are always a few photographers out there, and the pics have made it to internet in various forms (see video from last year). I was surprised today to see the local news show up. I saw cameras for CBS, FOX, and WGN. It is just a little bit creepy. Slow news day or whatever, but it seemed at least a little bit odd to me. Any runners pretty well gave up there privacy, but it seems a little bit on the wrong side. Either way, it was good for a laugh. I think I might have been in one of the few pans they did of the crowd…
Update: Here are some news stories about it:
Maybe more to come…
Posted by knorby on December 2, 2007 under Chicago, Python, coding, design, humor |
I follow the local Python user group’s mailing list (see chipy.org). Though UChicago has prevented me from going to all but one meeting, I can say that it is a fun group. Anyways, someone asked a question that spurred a few hilarious responses. The two best are this one bit of coding absurdity and this one just hilarious response.
