What I Learned This Week For August 14 2020

By Mike Maddaloni on Saturday, August 15, 2020 at 09:28 PM with 0 comments

photo of Field of Screens drive-in screen

Most of what I share this week was learned earlier in the week, as the latter part was pre-occupied with why my kiddos’ school system did a last minute change from partial in-school learning to all virtual. I guess the silver lining was that learning was on my mind all week, right?

  • Chipotle recently added riced cauliflower to its menu as an option for its burritos and bowls, and I finally tried it. It’s not bad, but not sure if it’s worth the $2 upcharge.
  • A few weeks ago I talked about other weekly summary-type posts out there, and one that predates even my first run at this is Five Things on Friday by my friend James Whatley. James shares a lot of great tech, social and cultural things in his unique, energetic style. You can read it on his site or sign-up for this weekly emails.
  • Do you know what a favicon is? If you’re on a desktop or laptop computer, look at the browser tab and you will see a small icon there. Why do I bring this up? This week I learned of an online credit card skimming scheme using favicons. Talk about things not being as they appear.
  • Remember Google+? Did you even know what it was? It was another short-lived social platform from Google that was shutdown last year. If you had a Google+ account you may want to check out this class action lawsuit about Google+ private user information being leaked public.
  • This summer we were originally planning a trip back to Denmark, this time taking the family we didn’t have the last time we went. Had we went we likely would have gone to CopenHill, which I learned about this week from a native Dane. It is a combination biomass generator and recreational facility, including a year-round skiing hill. Anything to avoid seeing the Little Mermaid again.
  • Years ago I learned a lot of the success of Redbox was due to the fact people didn’t return DVDs right away, and thus paid extra as the discs just sat there. This happened to me, and I ended up carting them to another city we visited this week. As I had no idea where the nearest kiosk was, I searched on “redbox near me” and the first result was for Google Maps, so it had to be correct, right? Wrong. It took me to a former Walmart store that was closed. I then tried the Redbox mobile app, and quickly learned of its lack of intuitiveness to find a nearby location without first searching for movies. What I eventually found was just across the street from the former Walmart.
  • Kathy Fredrickson is a friend and a digital marketing professor at University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and realized as coronavirus was altering businesses that said businesses needed digital marketing help. And she had the students that could help them. As the virus continues its impact, she has branded this as SOS for Small Business and is not only continuing it locally but expanding it across the country. Watch this presentation Kathy gave last week on SOS and how the first offering went and helped businesses.
  • GIMP is an open source image editor, and a suitable, affordable replacement for Adobe PhotoShop. The more I use it, the more I like it, and I don’t need to subscribe to PhotoShop. One feature I used a lot in PhotoShop, putting a box with a colored border around part of an image is easier to do in GIMP.
  • Within a short drive of me are 2 drive-in movie theatres, and the other night I went to one where we watched Open Season, an animated comedy, and Paul Blart: Mall Cop, a comedy animated in a different way. Though I have seen Paul Blart several times, Open Season was new. As I watched it, there was something familiar about the music. As it turns out, Paul Westerberg, the lead singer of The Replacements, composed most of the songs. Open Season came out in 2006 and I am just learning this, but that’s fine with me.

The wisdom of the fool won't set you free.


This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.


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