I can haz grassroots protest? Wikipedia and Google are among the many websites "on strike" today to protest two bills before Congress that they say would cripple the open nature of the internet. more ›

As in the music industry, the high-bandwith Internet age has shifted the ground beneath the feet of cable and satellite television providers. more ›

Here's a scene playing out with alarming regularity: "Hey what's out that's worth watching?" someone will ask us, and before we finish rattling off an optimist's litany of new releases and revivals worth going out to take in, they interrupt us. "No, I mean something I can download or stream at home tonight," they say, and look at us if we'd given directions to Western Union when asked to borrow our cell phone. Look, we get it. Proper springtime weather has hit the snooze button again and nobody wants to make a trip out while the down payment on all those May flowers is being deposited. But if you're going to be lazy, be lazy with a purpose. Those Netflix titles available for instant streaming aren't on the list forever; those contracts expire. If you notice the total number of titles in your instant queue has mysteriously decreased overnight, it's because you waited too long. So we'd like to inaugurate a Chicagoist public service: Last Instants, a handful of movies that you only have a few more days to stream for free if you are a Netflix subscriber.* more ›

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin loves puppies, and we can't fault the man for standing up for puppy rights: Sen. Durbin has introduced a bill that requires breeders who sell more than 50 dogs a year to be licensed as well as undergo inspections to make sure that the dogs they are selling receive proper care until they are sold. more ›

In about 40 minutes Windy Citizen is hosting a Q&A with Chicago News Co-Op's Dan Mihalopoulos about the ins and outs of being a reporter covering City Hall. The question portion of the Q&A consists of submissions from Windy Citizen users, in a unique crowdsourcing experiment. more ›

Hard to believe that, 17 years ago, people didn't know what the Internet was all about. Some of us still don't. more ›

We admit it - sometimes we miss fabulous internet phenomena. On the other hand, you probably do too, and sometimes a story is just too amazing to pass up, even if it is (gulp) three years old. Minnesota Monthly writer Dara Grumdahl created the Burger Inherent Awesomeness Quotient in 2008, but an equation of such import is still relevant today. Heck, we think it should've won some sort of prize for mathematical genius. The problem Grumdahl faced, during a roundup of the best burgers in the entire state, was keeping a solid set of criterion which didn't let the most expensive burgers with the fanciest ingredients trump the diners. The result was this miraculous equation. more ›

Comcast high-speed internet subscribers looking for a refund on their service due to Sunday night's DNS outage better get in line and be prepared to scream at the top of your lungs. more ›

If you're a Comcast high-speed internet user and were trying to get online between 7:30 p.m. and midnight yesterday, chances were that you were receiving Domain Name System (DNS) errors preventing you from doing so. A DNS outage affected thousands of Comcast subscribers in the Chicago area, northwest Indiana, southwest Michigan and Minnesota. Comcast has since fixed the outage, but said that there are still some customers without internet service (and probably not reading this award-eligible reporting). more ›

Have you ever wondered what the 16th President of the United States was doing on your birthday, 150 years ago? Finally, fans of Abraham Lincoln will be able to figure out what the famous president did throughout his life without having to dig through dusty historical archives. Thanks to a new searchable online database run by lovable nerds at UIUC, the database is based on a book that was published in cooperation by the Lincoln Sesquicentennial Commission and by the Abraham Lincoln Association, titled Lincoln Day-by-Day: A Chronology. more ›

If you are susceptible to addictive internet mini-games, and you have things to accomplish at work today, stop reading now. more ›

This 1969 film actually does a fairly accurate job predicting what was to come in terms of home computing. But we're still waiting on our flying cars, dammit. [via] more ›

Picture if you will two well-informed dining adventurers. Clad in their safari hats and clutching their Zagat guide - or, dressed in work clothes and clutching a Google map printout - they close in on their prey, their restaurant of choice for the evening. They venture into a strange neighborhood, eyes wide and scanning for an unfamiliar sign. There it is! They crow with victory. Approaching the door, their stomachs growl with anticipation. Inside, the restaurant is awash in inviting yellow light. They pull the handle. Nothing happens. They pull harder. Nothing happens. more ›

A habitually litigious Loop business filed court papers Monday to initiate a defamation suit against an individual Yahooligan (yes, that's what they're called) over complaints made on a Yahoo.com message board. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Advanced Equities Financial, a Chicago venture capital firm, is suing Yahoo Inc. to find the identity of one robinlove(at)yahoo.com regarding some disagreeable statements the user allegedly typed and submitted for temporary perusal on the site. more ›

It might, if the government is to be believed. As swine flu escalates, leveling everything and everyone in its path, the wide-spread absences that have shut down schools might also lead to similar wide-spread absences in offices across the country. And what will millions of bored, sick, bed-ridden Americans do to pass the time? Why take to the internet, of course. And such simultaneous web-surfing could overload the information super highway, crashing the web for people all around the world. The Government Accountability Office issued a 77-page report that sets guidelines as to how we can all help, including "voluntary public reduction of Internet use," and trying to "limit video streaming, gaming and peer-to-peer and other bandwidth-intensive applications during daytime work hours." Right, that'll happen. more ›

Sprint has been teasing Chicagoans for over two years with its proposed WiMax, a 4G wireless network that would blanket the city with high-speed internet access. Although the network was originally supposed to be available in 2008, PC World reported that technical issues (providing sufficient backhaul to wired networks) and "upheaval in the company" blocked the path to success. As it turns out, Sprint, alongside ClearWire and Comcast, have finally ironed things out and will begin selling WiMax in the next several weeks. Other locations for the end-of-the-year roll out include Philadelphia, Seattle, three North Carolina and three Texas cities, and Hawaii. more ›

As a chef, Lockwood's Phillip Foss is starting to come into his own. His take on the Chicago Hot Dog (made with diced lobster rolled in a scallop mousse in response to a challenge from MP Chicago's Helen Rosner) was said to be "like Hot Doug's in a tuxedo having sex with a Maine Lobster Roll" by Michael Nagrant. He's also a very prolific, engaging, and quite talented blogger. It seems academic that Foss be part of a unique tasting next Tuesday, from 6-9 p.m. Lockwood is hosting what Foss calls the first-ever "digital tasting" with Farmer Lee Jones of The Chef's Garden in Milan, Ohio. more ›

Since its announcement in February, Chicago sports fans have been awaiting today's launch of ESPNChicago -- the sports network's first city-specific website. Why start with Chicago? While it made sense for HuffingtonPost to choose the Second City as its first local site, given the city's steep political history and well-known shenanigans, Chicago is perhaps not quite so obvious a choice for ESPN. Sure, we may think we're the best sports city in the land -- what other city's fans will sit through a blizzard on baseball's Opening Day or fill an arena to watch a 13-69 basketball team? But we can hear the objections from Boston and New York all the way here in the Middle West. more ›

We're getting educational on you! Learn how the Internet came about and developed ... ultimately making it possible for you to fall in love with a certain Chicago-based group weblog! (And for us to fall in love with you too, of course.) Plus, after watching this, you will sound super smart as you dominate the idle chatter at this weekend's cocktail parties. more ›

Now you can: In a book! That he probably won't read. Though maybe he will, since we expect that, like many Americans, he'll be unemployed for a while and will have more free/vacation time than he had even as president. Farewell 43, a Santa Monica, Cal.-based project that claims to be "unbiased, unaffiliated, and politically neutral," is publishing a collection of messages generated from the American public to be given to Bush after Inauguration Day. more ›

A Sox fan would never stoop to this level... more ›

Today, as it's been noted, is my last day as editor of this fine site, and one of my last in Chicago. This gives me license for some seriously corny self-indulgence. more ›

Who owns Chicago2016.com? Currently, MBA student Stephen Frayne Jr., who bought the domain back in 2004. But now the Chicago Olympic bid folk, whose website is currently Chicago2016.org, and the USOC are suing him, claiming the site belongs to them. more ›

Margaret: Marcus, I'm having sort of an off day. Let us turn to the internet in search of wonder. more ›

Millions of football fans have either drafted or will soon be drafting their Fantasy Football teams. As a way to connect with friends, possibly win some money, and as a definite way to kill time at work, it's no wonder that Fantasy Football has grown in popularity. And the web makes drafting and maintaining teams so damn easy! more ›

Well, is it? more ›

Five people were injured, three seriously, when a car plowed into a crowd in a West Side alley last night. "The incident was sparked when someone in the crowd sprayed mace at the motorist, who then drove through the crowd, possibly twice." [S-T] more ›

Wordle is a sweet little applet that takes text and turns it into a word cloud. You can customize the layout, font and color scheme, too. We made this one with some of today's posts.
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If you haven't checked out the official blog of the Chicago Pizza Club, you're doing yourself a major disservice. Using the "where is the best pizza in Chicago" argument that has taken lives and broken families and marriages, the members of the club scour the city's far reaches with one simple goal in mind. more ›

Wired's blog Threat Level has an interview with "Defiant" and "EBK," the hackers who took down Comcast yesterday. They say they did it because they hate Comcast. more ›