• Solarized is an attempt to optimize screen display colors for high contrast regardless of situation (and using either light or dark backgrounds). The site itself uses the sixteen-color palette.
• To my disappointment, I didn’t hear about Chicago’s robot opera performance until it was too late. Even after reading a review, I’m unclear what exactly transpired, but it sounds cool—though I’m doubtful it “proved Chicago the next stage in the future of opera.”
• A wikipedia list of fictional books from television and movies. See The Royal Tenenbaums; The Simpsons; and lists from other media.

A photo of Chicago and the southern tip of Lake Michigan taken onboard the ISS (you can see it in the foreground). The photo comes from an In Focus photo collection covering the recent changing of the guard at the ISS. NASA loves documentation, and this video shows the hugs and handshakes when they opened the hatch in February on Discovery’s last trip.

• They don’t make biographies like this anymore: Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas George Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
• A map of Europe, every one-hundred years, from the year 1 to the year 2000.
• The Ladies’ and Gentleman’s Model Letter-Writer: A Complete Guide to Correspondence On All Subjects with Household and Commercial Forms
• How disco became house: this documentary traces Chicago’s founding role in the music (house music is named after an old Chicago club, the Warehouse).

• I really enjoyed this video on how a quartz watch works.
• The Reader published its annual photo issue (with not one but two photos from Brian Bonenberger).
• A good story will involve George S. Kaufman or Groucho Marx. A great story will feature both.

Cook County and the Ohio State University are researching the coyote population in the Chicago area. Among their findings:

Coyotes are common throughout most of the Chicago region, and our radio-tracking data demonstrate that people and coyotes coexist on a daily basis, with people usually unaware of interactions.

That is, until one trots down State Street. The research site even has territory maps and graphs of pet attacks.

• “During the 1860s, several photographers based in Moscow and St. Petersburg produced a series of cartes-de-visite showing Russian ‘types.’ These remarkable portraits provide a fascinating record of working-class townspeople, artisans, street vendors and peasants, some staged performing an activity, such as drinking tea or gaming, and some photographed in the performance of their occupation.”
• Chicago’s Adler Planetarium could get a Space Shuttle when they are retired next year, but competition is fierce from Texas, Florida, and New York.
• I knew Groupon was doing well, but I didn’t think they were doing THAT well: according to Forbes, it is one of the fastest companies to reach a $1B valuation (YouTube being the fastest, but it has yet to see profit).
• Finally, a particularly depressing list from Wikipedia: list of last occurrences.

Illustrations by Lilli Carré in Chicago Magazine this month:

In 1855, the city embarked on a far-fetched scheme to hoist itself out of the mud and gunk. On the 155th anniversary of the project’s launch, we take a lively illustrated look back.

Michael Bay and co. are filming Transformers 3 around downtown Chicago, which explains the moving piles of rubble and cars.

The picture above is from the Tribune and there’s more coverage (and flying people?!) at Chicagoist.

I wanted to see some Jai Alai in Chicago, but it looks like I’m about 80 years too late. Nevertheless, the Chicago Fronton did live at Lawrence and Clark, in the old Rainbo Gardens. Time Magazine covered it in 1930:

In Chicago’s Fronton are signs “No betting allowed.” Near them is where bets (called “contributions”‘ to make them legal) are placed. Alarmed by the rumor that 27 penniless bettors had committed suicide in one week in Havana, the State’s Attorney of Cook County once tried with no success to have jai alai banned.

Usual odds-on favorite for individual bets is Domingo Ugalde, called “The Fox” because of the sly cuts, curves, angles, backspins he knows how to use. He began playing when he was nine in Marianao, Cuba. He speaks broken, almost unintelligible English. Asked what makes him so good, he points to his head. He is temperamental, histrionic: after losing a close match he has been known to put his fist through a windowpane.

Aramendi, Vincente, Garate, Teodoro are other able players, can make Ugalde hump himself. In some Latin countries there are no nets in front of the stands because the spectators feel it would be unsportsmanlike not to risk injury by the ball which can break noses, fracture bones. The Chicago stands are protected.

Sometimes the players, running for a hard get and unable to stop, climb up the wire nets like monkeys. Sometimes a fast-running foot goes through a net, annoys box-holding spectators. Unlike players in Havana. those in Chicago are all young: the oldest is 23, the youngest 17. Besides sleeping all in one room, they eat together, go to the theatre together twice a week, jabber constantly in their native tongues, seldom consort with other than their fellow jai alai players.

Read more about Rainbo Gardens, one of Chicago’s most interesting old venues, at Jazz Age Chicago.

Chicago’s had some heavy storms in the past week. Here’s some amazing footage of lightning striking three of the tallest buildings at the same time. There’s an HD version on Vimeo.