Year: 2007

Alexander Hamilton is featured on the American 10-dollar bill. The source of this image is John Trumbull’s 1805 portrait of Hamilton that belongs to the portrait collection of New York City Hall. Here’s animation featuring the portrait overlayed on top…

Something I’ve been pondering lately. What is the difference between the questions, “Who am I?” and “What am I?”

Imagine if nickels were made mostly from copper. Oh wait. They already are! According to CNN, nickels are made mostly of copper, and that pennies are made mostly of zinc. How bizarre. You’d think it’s the other way around, that…

Tribune Media Services (my employer) occupies four floors in the Tribune Tower: 13, 14, 15, and 16. I work and spend 99.5% of my time on floor 14. Visiting the other floors is like visiting a parallel dimension, because they…

We in Chicago just had 22 consecutive days below 32 degrees. That’s the longest streak in 23 years. 1984-85 had a string of 33 below freezing days (whoa, 33 days). You’d think this was one of the coldest 3-week periods…

Meevee.com is cool. You can save a bunch of your interests as keywords and it will give you a tv grid with just the shows with your interests. I added dodgeball as an interest, so now it will include any…

It’s fun to look back at all the different Macintosh models you have used. Here’s my list: Mac Classic (1993-1997) This was the first Mac that I learned Photoshop on at an Art Institute class. Also used at college to…

In general people look kinda dopey when their mouth is open for an extended time and they are not speaking or breathing heavily. What if a comic strip had a character where his mouth was always open? It would look…

At first I felt kinda bad for city trees when they would shovel snow off the sidewalks and up against the tree. “Oh no! The trees are being buried!” But actually this must help the trees. The water underneath would…

While watching the tv show 24 on my ipod, I become a lot more critical of the show. “Oh this is such a plot device by the writers!” “Oh the acting!” But I’m not like that as much when I…

eBible.com is a site where you can bookmark bible verses and share your notes. Here’s the most bookmarked verses: 63 bookmarks: John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him…

Instead of treating “missing person” postcards like another piece of junk mail, try to think of someone you know that most closely resembles the person in the photo. That will help you to really think if you can recognize the…

(photo courtesy of tiseb) Estonian Independence day is a mere two weeks away. Let the celebrations begin! On February 24, 1918, the Republic of Estonia was declared free from Lenin and his monster Russia. It was actually the Germans who…

It would be really cool if museums would organize their permanent collections by color. Right now all art museums organize their permanent collection by style which does create for interesting connetions between artworks. However, it does get a little old…

In modern art museums the color field artists of the 1960s always tend to appear after the action abstract expressionists of the 1940s and 1950s. It makes sense because of the time sequence. But here’s another reason: After seeing all…

The Portland Press newspaper asked readers what comic strip they should run to replace the retired ‘Foxtrot.’ Here’s the results: “Wiley’s strip collected 180 votes, far outpacing the second-place comic – “Get Fuzzy,” with 92.” 180 votes. That’s it? Granted…

Page views according to alexaholic.com: Observations: 1. Flickr rules due to web 2.0 features. 2. Photobucket is rising due to ease of use for MySpace users. 3. Webshots is dying. 4. Deviantart still growing. 5. Snapfish stays low. I’ve never…

Here’s where Illinois ranks in terms of population among other nations: 13,881,427: Cambodia 13,547,510: Ecuador 13,013,926: Malawi 12,763,371: Illinois 12,525,094: Niger 12,293,545: Guatemala 12,236,805: Zimbabwe Here’s where Estonia ranks amoung U.S. States. 1,429,096: Idaho 1,324,333: Estonia 1,321,505: Maine 1,309,940: New…

Right now in Chicago, it’s 6 degrees outside, and nobody is wearing a scarf over their face. I must have passed 100 people, and I was specifically looking to see if anyone was wearing a scarf. None. Zip. What is…

Next time you are walking to work, sing the “Bear Down” song. It really sings well with walking. The beat goes in sync excellently with a brisk marching walk. When walking in downtown Chicago, I like to wear a scarf…

Recently I gave 13 recommended design links to a graphic design student: Advertising: A must for anyone interested in advertising. www.adrants.com Publications and newspapers: A must for anyone interested in publications and newspapers. www.newsdesigner.com/blog Illustration: The essential illustration blog. www.drawn.ca…

Walgreens no longer has a toy section in its downtown Chicago stores. With the redesign of Walgreens floor layout last summer, they completely eliminated their toy section. So now other than the Lego Store on Michigan Avenue, there is a…

When you spell out the letters to “you” out loud, it actually becomes a sentence, “why oh you.” Here’s some other words that when spelled out loud, the letters become sentences: our: oh, you are out: oh, you tee gut:…

Here’s a handy graph of how many Chicago bloggers are using blogspot, livejournal, typepad, xanga, and diaryland. Almost half of the 2,000+ Chicago blogs registered at chicagobloggers.com use Blogspot. I’m rather shocked that so many people are using that system–over…

The most popular Chicago blogs written by one person (according to alexa.com and google) 1. southsidesox.com 2. cosmicvariance.com 3. www.edbrill.com 4. popculturejunkies.com 5. www.timboucher.com/journal 6. almostgirl.coffeespoons.org 7. briangardner.com 8. chronicbabe.com 9. livemusicblog.com 10. makelovenotdebt.com 11. houseinprogress.net 12. toomanychefs.com 13. wiphey.com…

Chicago Magazine recently did a bit on the local Chicago group blogs revealing how much traffic they get. Unique visitors monthly: –150,000: chicagoist.com –93,000: gapersblock.com –NA: chicago.metblogs.com –10,000: ctatattler.com –7,000: beachwoodreporter.com There’s a couple other chicago-based group blogs not mentioned…

I just want to give a public thanks to Data393, the company that hosts spudart.org. They gave me great, honest, and fast answers when my site was briefly down today. When the site was down, I asked them if I…

What would be the top photo on Flickr for a search on “very“? Would it be something very extreme? Nope. It’s a quiet photo that is very interesting. Photo by ChristinaLutze. UPDATE, 1/19/2017 Ten years later, what is the top photo on…

Imagine if your middle name was “Very.” For instance, here’s my name: Matt Very Maldre. It’s like I’m so exemplifying the Maldre name. Very serves to reinforce that fact that you are so part of your family heritage.

Winning lottery numbers from 1988 to 2006 You’ve been seeing more and more graphs on spudart.org, because GRAPHS RULE RULE RULE. (That phrase has two meanings. One: “rule” as in they are really cool. Two: “rule” as in line.)

I’ve been carrying around an aluminum foil ball around in my pocket for that past week, and I’ve gotta say, it’s been a ball! I will hold the ball with my hand in my pocket and imagine various scenarios: I…