They've got your number

The In-N-Out chain is a beloved California institution replete with local lore, legend and myth.

Apparently, there are only four food items on the 'public' In-N-Out menu: Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Double-Double and French Fries. But like a Masonic handshake, there's more for "those who know" than their straight-up alternate menu of shakes and cola beverages.

Fr'instance, there's a secret Flying Dutchman burger, an Animal Style burger and a 3-by-Meat burger. Many web sites claim to have the complete secret In-N-Out menu, but this one claims to have the whole enchilada (with pictures to prove it).

The folks at Badmouth recently discovered that employees at In-N-Out will do anything to a burger if you ask them -- and in any number.

Badmouth had heard of a 2x4 Burger that had two beef patties and four slices of cheese. Undaunted, they challenged In-N-Out with an order for a 20x20 burger. Sure 'nuff they got it!

Word got out and soon a good ole Canadian boy named Will stepped up to the plate upping the ante with an order for a 100x100 (actually a Double-Double with 98 extra patties). Will's blog entry indicates 19,490 calories were consumed by 8 eaters, with only one call made on the porcelain telephone.

Now, while the above-linked tales of mass-consumption may disgust (and offer indigestion), nothing can match the claim of eating an entire loaf of Wonderbread in a single bite. Compressing a whole loaf to the point of spontaneous fusion, the intrepid (read foolhardy) folks at Badmouth tried just that with documented results.

Google 2.0?

Page shows Google.com may get makeover

Google's sparse search results page is about to get a whole lot more "integrated."

Wizened Google users have long-enjoyed the search engine's relevant-only results page (albeit slightly encroached in the recent past with "sponsored links"). Things are about to change -- at least according to what some users have seen and reported in the link above. From the article:

Some Web users are reporting seeing a reformatted Google Inc. results page that has the links to specialized search pages listed in the left-hand column instead of placed horizontally across the top of the search box.

In addition, these links to the image, groups, news, Froogle and local search pages are each accompanied by a horizontal bar graph with a gray background and a green fill.

Jeepers! What's next? Banner ads?

And in case the screenshot link in the above-posted article doesn't work due to the slashdot effect, it can be viewed here.

Yahoo! has some answers

Yahoo Answers

Yahoo! recently caused a ripple in the search engine news world when a Bloomberg News article made the wires suggesting the also-ran search engine was throwing in the towel in it's race with Google. Apparently it's not so -- at least according to a post on the Yahoo! Search Engine blog. But that's yesterday's news.

Quietly debuted on the "We're number two - we try harder" site is an overhaul of their long-running feature Ask Yahoo!

Yahoo! Answers (in beta as this post is written) seems to be a response to the wave of user-content driven Web 2.0 info-culture sweeping the net. And they're having their birthing pangs as recorded on their Yahoo! Answers Team blog.

So, you ask, what questions does the world want Yahoo! to answer? Here's a recent sample:

At a restaurant, when you drop food on the floor, is the proper etiquette to pick it up or just let it be?

Why are babies fat and cute?

The Big Bang? Who did it?

... and ...

Do they have girl’s bathrooms in gay bars?

Visitors can post answers and then vote on them. The question we'd like to ask Yahoo! is ... why?

We see dead people

Newspapers Get a Jump on Death With Pre-Written Obits

Editor and Publisher ("America's oldest journal covering the newspaper industry") offers some insights as to how and why obituaries are occupying so much newspaper space (and public interest).

From the piece:

Major papers continue to stockpile advance obits more than ever, while also devoting more writers to the dedications. Growing interest by readers in biographical pieces, along with an increased effort to present them more as stories than public notices, also adds to the renewed effort to stay one step ahead of death.

"It has become more popular in the paper," says Jon Thurber, who for seven years has been executive editor/obituaries for the Los Angeles Times. Even Hollywood has taken note, casting Jennifer Aniston as an obituary writer in Rumor Has It, a new film in which she laments a career "that is going absolutely nowhere."

Thurber has nearly doubled his supply of advance obits to some 400 during his time at the helm, while also increasing his staff to five writers from two. Much the same is true at the New York Times, where Obituaries Editor Charles Strum boasts 1,200 pre-written stories (about 150 more than when he began five years ago) and a staff of five writers.

A 26-year Times veteran, Strum does not rely solely on his staff, noting that a handful of other current and former Times writers contribute now and then. "I use other staffers from all over to write advances," he says, citing reporter Judith Miller, who wrote Yasser Arafat's obituary several years before his 2004 death, as one example. "It is very hard to find time to write 2,000 words about someone," he explains, "and these are people who take an interest in a certain obit, and former Times writers who want to stay active."

Editors agree there's no doubt that the obituary section has assumed greater notice by many readers. Thurber, who says he did not even have a dedicated space for obits until 1998, claims they are seen more as vehicles for good writing and storytelling than ever before. "We take the view that they are news stories rather than encyclopedic reviews," he says. "A recognition that people of historic note are interesting."

Fight back against telemarketers

EGBG Counter-script

We've all been there. We're eating supper, washing the dog or watching Mythbusters when the phone rings. We answer the call thinking it's someone important but "Drats!" it's another annoying telemarketer.

What do you do? Hang up, listening politely and say no, buy into the pitch feeling guilty? Now there's another option (and a way to fight back).

Using the telemarketer's own trick -- a script -- you can turn the tables on your evening's invader. Just follow the counter-script at Martijn Engelbregt's site and you'll soon have the cretinous callers hanging up on you!

And no matter who's calling, you can probably counter the telemarketer in their own language. Engelbregt's site provides the counter-script in Dutch, Swedish, Hebrew, Belgian, Finnish, Italian, Estonian, French and German. Bye bye.

Gentlemen, start your search engines

Head to head and side by side

Goodugle

We don't know much about the folks behind Goodugle (except that they're headquartered somewhere in Shanghai) but they're the lastest to offer search comparisons (see also Twingine). What sets Goodugle apart is that you can set up battles between 8 different search engines.

Now, Google doesn't take kindly to these sorts of aberrations of their name, so let's see how long it takes the long arm of their legal department to cut short Goodugle's leash on life. Meanwhile, have fun ...

Attention law-abiding terrorists

Help the government by making your search activity public.

Patriot Search

Save time! Save government money!

Why risk having your criminal search history take days, weeks and months to reach government officials when you can practically let them surf over your shoulder.

It's the American way!

Man posts late-issue blog

Always defying convention

Slow Illustrated




An Edmonton man is no longer member of the Internet Conservation Society. In his bid to be information-ecology friendly, Peter Schoenberg held out creating a web presence until he really had something important to say. The issue that drove him to finally create a blog? Sports Illustrated.

Seems Mr. Schoenberg has had it up to the eyeballs seeing new issues of the magazine appear on the stands while his postal-subscription copy is making its way through the waters of Tierra del Fuego on its three-week journey to his mailbox.

Mr. Schoenberg did whatever any reasonable man would do and that was start a blog. See how he's making out at Slow Illustrated. He would love to hear from other Slow Illustrated sufferers.