File this one under worlds colliding for the benefit of domain names at the expense of Hollywood disobedience.

Rob of TheRobboReport.com sent this article from TMZ.comon domain names, where it mentions that domainers with an eye towards Tinseltown have registered the domain names lohanbusted.com and lohaninjail.com back in May, prior to the rehab visit and subsequent arrest of actress Lindsay Lohan. The article even posed a challenge for someone to register britneymeltsdown.com, which was done earlier today.

TMZ.com is an entertainment gossip Web site that is somehow affiliated with AOL. If you think you may have heard of TMZ, you may have seen it featured on your favorite local newscast, as in the constant effort my local media to not cover local events, they prominently feature the escapades of celebrities... but I digress.

Domain names registered based on news events is nothing new, but the coverage of it by media sources outside of the tech world is, and is very welcome.

Domain Names • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

Of all the blogs and feeds I subscribe to, one of my favorites is one I do not read at all. Photos from northern Norway: A photo blog is pretty a self-explanatory title, and it offers some amazing photos taken in the Scandinavian country.

Take a look, subscribe and hopefully it will give you a few moments of peace in your busy day.

The thumbnail is of a photo titled Photo of Norwegian winter landscape in January from the blog.

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PSFK recently reported on Velib, a new bike sharing program coming to Paris. The gist of the service is you pay an annual fee, roughly US$75, and you can use a special card to unlock access to a bike for 30-minutes of use, with longer periods available. The Web site is entirely in French, but if you don’t know the language you can see details of the bikes and special stations where the 451 bikes will be available. The service appears to borrow from car sharing services like Zipcar and I-GO.

This is a great idea! Though many people in cities around the world own bikes, they don’t tend to be in the best condition due to heavy usage on the mean streets, and the potential for theft. This service could allow for the casual bike rider to have access on-demand, or encourage others to use one. Not to mention it could free up a little storage space in an inner-city apartment.

Maybe Chicago could be its first US city?

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This morning was the likemind coffee meetup in dozens of cities around the world. It marks one year of these coffee mornings, started by 2 gents who finally met for coffee themselves and decided to invite others.

This is the picture from the Chicago likemind, with Raza, Clay and myself. It was taken outside of Intelligentsia Coffee on Randolph at Wabash, and in the background is the Randolph L station.

By the way, Raza heard about likemind on WindyBits. Hope to see more people next month. And did I mention there is free coffee compliments of Anamoly?

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After the end of my recent trip to the Twin Cities, my lovely wife and I headed back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport for our flight back to the Windy City. Being the adventurous souls we are and supporters of public transportation, we decided to take the light rail train from downtown Minneapolis to the airport. After boarding the train and checking out the uniqueness of it over other cities’ service, we saw signs that the train would not take us directly to our terminal, rather we would have to get off at the first terminal and take a bus. Little did we know that in the name of honoring local patriots, we would get lost and have a lesson in usability presented to us.

Recently the airport code-named MSP added a new terminal and named it after former US senator from Minnesota, Hubert H. Humphrey. The other and original terminal is named for aviator Charles Lindbergh. Our flight was out of Humphrey, but the light rail only stopped at Lindbergh. When we got off at Lindbergh and headed to the bus to Humphrey, the signs did not completely connect the dots and we were left wandering.

When I asked people for directions, I kept saying Lindbergh instead of Humphrey, and people would tell me that I was there already. Why the confusion? Usually airport terminals are named things like A, B and C. Sometimes letters skip, like in Atlanta, Boston and Chicago O’Hare, but they are simple letters. As L comes after H, but Lindbergh was the original terminal, this did not help. It wasn’t until I recalled the chronological order of fame by each namesake (Lindbergh before Humphrey, or at least that's how I recall learning history) I realized the new terminal was Humphrey. We finally found the signs, and made the connection in time to fly home.

To add insult to injury, the recorded announcements coming over the PA system were in a British accent. In Minnesota? Now this is not a dig on Midwesterners who are still sore over the accents in the movie Fargo, but a British accent – anywhere in the US? Sure, many international tourists come to the airport to go to the Mall of America, or connect through it, but a British accent?

Build as beautiful of a terminal as the taxpayers will allow you, put up a bronze plaque or statue to a famous person, but keep it simple for those who actually have to use it.

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