I love the library, especially the main library. Today I journeyed down to the main public library in downtown Chicago. As expected it was bigger than columbus’, a lot bigger, but when it came to people it felt right at home. It seems there is a very interesting group of people who are drawn to libraries on a daily basis, those who want to learn and grow, and those who just go there for free internet. The chicago public library went to great lengths to prevent internet use on the vast majority of their computers, living under the two assumptions that people really use those computers to search for books, and that people wouldn’t figure out how to get around their blocks. Big mistake. So when you go to look for a computer to access the library catalogue, you have a lot of trouble because there are at least 5 people looking at yahoo personals. Today I saw a guy go one step further, and just go where those yahoo personals people are afraid to go, porn. Yep that’s right, on the library catalogue computer directly across from the librarians help desk sat a man who dared someone to enforce the “no personal web browsing on this computer” sign. I suppose it’s possible he was looking for a book and somehow stumbled on to “bootylovers.com” And I guess it is just as possible that the library had a detailed video of what the book “bootylovers.com” was really all about, because he sure was enjoying watching it. I sure was enjoying his groans and grunts with each click of the mouse. Take that computer policy at the cpl!
Google maps are amazing. If you haven’t tried them, you’re missing out. They are scrollable meaning you don’t have to reload every time you want to move the page. They also allow for you to search for things in a certain area, say “pet stores” in your neighborhood and it will peg the map with every pet store in your area. Google maps can also give incredible directions, with a detailed map showing you all the way there. But as good as google maps can be, as well as they can show you how to get your destination, they can not always get you there. They’re especially difficult to use, when you use the wrong map. On a way to a meeting last night, my friend who was due to pick me up somehow pulled off this amazing feat. Armed with two sets of google maps directions, one to pick me up and then one to our meeting, he managed to follow the wrong one and get really lost. When I called him to check up where he was, he cursed google maps “google is so wrong, I’m nowhere near the train station.” “It says I should be right here, on brinker road, but I don’t see any train tracks!” “Brinker road,” I said, “that’s the right place, wrong time.” “Ohhh fuuuck.” Whoops.
It’s great that blogger (owned by google) has put in a spell checker for blog posts, but I think it is pretty pathetic that when you run the spell checker, it can’t help but try and correct your spelling of google to googol. Huh? That’s embarrassing.
