As I’m typing this, I just heard some screeching by the eagle and switched tabs to see another eagle fly into the nest. The first eagle made some more noise then flew away leaving the first eagle on the nest. I don’t know much about eagles, so I have no idea what happened. But it was pretty cool to catch some action.
While I personally know several people who have found love online, I also know quite a few who have had terrible experiences with it.
But no one has told the story quite so poignantly as three friends in the movie Catfish.
I’m not sure what took me so long, but I finally got around to watching it – on Valentine’s Day actually! And I’m still processing…
If you decide to check out the movie, watch it first then cruise around and check out some of the controversy associated with it. I’m completely intrigued.
Things were a little hectic yesterday so I didn’t get a chance to turn up the volume in the newsroom. Instead I watched some of the Jeopardy IBM Challenge online.
The of the greatest Jeopardy champions to date are taking on an IBM computer named Watson.
At stake is $1 million. If Watson wins, IBM will donate the money to charity, if the humans win, they’ve agreed to donate half of their winnings to charity.
The computer pulled ahead in the beginning, but ended the show tied with Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings in second.
Below is an interview with Jennings on MSNBC where you can see some clips from Day 1. You can watch the rest on KWWL today and tomorrow at 4:30.
Late last week, Schnack told me there had been an AT&T 3G sighting in the Cedar Valley. For those of you not on AT&T – you have no idea how exciting this is because you’ve probably had 3G for quite a while. But all of us iPhone users have been stuck on the Edge network, and many of us had nearly given up hope that 3G would ever come our way. So I put the 3G question out on Twitter – anybody else seen it? Sure enough, there had been some sporadic 3G coverage in the area. So I decided to put in a call to AT&T, and they told me that towers in the area were being upgraded, but until they were finished, your signal in the Cedar Valley would depend on your location. Over the weekend, I switched back and forth traveling around Waterloo and Cedar Falls. But for the last few days – it’s been a solid 3G everywhere I’ve gone. Finally! Just another factor in my upcoming upgrade decision.
And while I’m rejoicing over my 3G – President Obama highlighted his National Wireless Initiative in a speech in Michigan on Thursday. To be honest – I didn’t really get a good grasp on the plan from the President’s speech so I went digging for some more info and found a little video explainer put together by the White House crew.
So – from all my reading, I’m gathering this initiative aims to provide 4G coverage to 98% of Americans, while improving technology, lowering the deficit and improving pricing models. Sounds pretty cool – but there are two big obstacles to that. First, this plan relies heavily on increased spectrum, which means those that currently have the spectrum have to give some of it up. This is a big ol’ debate that has a lot of competing interests and I’m not even going to try and break it down right now.
But the more easily solved problem – what the heck is 4G? Right now it is whatever the wireless carriers say it is. There are actual global 4G standards adopted in December 2010 – but so far no one is really offering it. The 4G you see advertised is really just improved 3G and not real 4G. And there’s currently a Blu-Ray/HDVD style debate going on over the technology behind 4G. This is getting a bit above my head – but Mashable has a great breakdown if you want the geek speak.
The difference between 3G and real 4G is huge. You could realistically cancel the Internet connection in your home and rely on your wireless phone as your Internet source without sacrificing speed.
The Mobile World Congressis happening in Barcelona next week – so there’s likely to be a lot of 4G discussion going on there. Hopefully it will provide a clearer picture of what 4G really is.
I guess I’ll just have to be thankful for my now-3G and see what happens next.
While the Super Bowl may have been the most watched television event ever, it was not the most tweeted. That honor is held by the Japanese New Year. But it did break records for the most tweets per second (TPS) during a sporting event. Here’s a handy chart from Twitter.
Click to view larger version. Photo Courtesy of Twitter
The highest spike was no surprise – it came near the end of the game. But the second highest was Usher’s (@UsherRaymondIV) entrance during the half-time show. In fact, he was the most mentioned person during the game. The most mentioned football player came in sixth, reinforcing that the Super Bowl is about much more than football. The most mentioned brand? Doritos.
NBC News and TheGrio.com are teaming up with Foursquare to offer a special Black History Month badge.
If you check into any of the 100 locations around the country with ties to African-American history, you’ll get the badge during the month of February.
The only Iowa location is the Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School at 7200 Southeast 5th Street in Des Moines. It was the training schol where African-Americans were trained to be officers in the U.S. Army during World War I.
Unfortunately – I don’t think I’m going to be in Des Moines this month to pick it up. But hopefully a few of you can!
