{"id":3300,"date":"2009-03-03T11:37:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-03T19:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=3300"},"modified":"2009-03-03T11:37:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-03T19:37:00","slug":"chum-for-square-root-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=3300","title":{"rendered":"Chum for Square Root Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although it&#8217;s not a prime as it could be, here&#8217;s some choice news chum I selected for you over lunch for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciam.com\/blog\/60-second-science\/post.cfm?id=square-root-day-3309-is-upon-us-2009-03-03\" target=\"_blank\">Square Root Day<\/a>, 3\/3\/9:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>When Times are Hard, Rebrand<\/b>\u201d Department:<\/i> There have been a number of articles recently about how groups are coping with hard times by rebranding themselves. For example, the Girl Scouts are rebranding by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/03\/01\/AR2009030102281.html?hpid=topnews\" target=\"_blank\">deemphasizing badges and emphasizing the Internet and Blogging<\/a>.  The cookies will remain, but <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/shopping_blog\/2009\/01\/girl-scout-cook.html\" target=\"_blank\">they too are being downsized<\/a>. Other things are rebranding as well: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/la-fi-neil3-2009mar03,0,4614913.story\" target=\"_blank\">Pepsi is changing its logo<\/a>, and that doesn\u2019t sit well with some.\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>But Some Change Can Be Good<\/b>\u201d Department: <\/i> Yesterday, while driving the van to work, I noticed that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.insidesocal.com\/bargain\/2009\/01\/use-bakers-square-gift-certs-n.html\" target=\"_blank\">the Granada Hills Bakers Square had changed names<\/a>: it was now a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.du-pars.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Du-pars<\/a>. I did some further investigation, and found that the same thing had happened to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rimag.com\/articleXML\/LN934263122.html?nid=3458&#038;rid=2049893797\" target=\"_blank\">the Bakers Square in Oxnard<\/a>. In fact, I learned that almost all <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bakerssquarerestaurants.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Bakers Squares<\/a> in California <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Baker's_Square\" target=\"_blank\">had been closed<\/a>. The NoCal ones are becoming <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sharis.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Shari\u2019s<\/a>; the SoCal ones are either <a href=\"http:\/\/www.du-pars.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Du-Pars<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pollyspies.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pollys<\/a>. This actually is good news: Du-Pars is a local chain, recently brought back under control of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jennifernaylor.com\/about3.html\" target=\"_blank\">the Naylor family<\/a>, who used to operate the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigkidcollectables.com\/servlet\/Detail?no=235\" target=\"_blank\">Tiny Naylors chain<\/a>, which I remember quite fondly. I shall have to go try the new Du-Pars.\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>Are You Feeling Secure Yet?<\/b>\u201d Department:<\/i> Slashdot is reporting that <a href=\"http:\/\/news.slashdot.org\/article.pl?sid=09\/03\/02\/1518234\" target=\"_blank\">the stimulus package is pouring boku bucks into Cybersecurity<\/a>, which is a good thing. But on the other side of the ledger, there are more breaches: USA Today is reporting that there has been <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.usatoday.com\/technologylive\/2009\/03\/visa-and-master.html\" target=\"_blank\">a third major breach in MasterCard and Visa accounts<\/a>, although no details are provided.\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>Good Things Come In Threes<\/b>\u201d Department:<\/i> I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard by now of the <a href=\"http:\/\/spidermanonbroadway.marvel.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Spiderman musical<\/a> coming to Broadway in 2010, as well as the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playbill.com\/news\/article\/126748.html\" target=\"_blank\">Addams Family Musical<\/a>. Here\u2019s a third: \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.variety.com\/article\/VR1118000732.html?categoryid=15&#038;cs=1\" target=\"_blank\">Sleepless in Seattle: The Musical<\/a>\u201d&#8230; with music by Leslie Bricusse. I\u2019m not encouraged. This is not a good time for the performing arts. Companies are closing left and right, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/life\/theater\/2009-03-01-artseconomy_N.htm\" target=\"_blank\">the money has gotten even tighter<\/a>. The public views the arts as a frivolity in hard times, forgetting that the arts creates jobs just as any manufacturing business, and the people in these jobs use their paycheck to pay their mortgage, their credit card bills, their grocery bills, and to take care of their families just as any other worker. We\u2019ve decimated our schools by cutting back on arts education; let\u2019s not decimate our lives and culture as well.\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>Won\u2019t You Be My Friend?<\/b>\u201d Department:<\/i> It seems Facebook is really in the news these days. There\u2019s a good article in the NY Times about how to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/external\/readwriteweb\/2009\/01\/30\/30readwriteweb-how_to_friend_mom_dad_and_the.html?em\" target=\"_blank\">deal with friending co-workers and family safely on Facebook<\/a>.  Specifically, it talks about how to use friends groups to provide more fine-grained controls on who can see that Facebook picture where you\u2019re tagged in a drunken bacchanal. Well worth reading.<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although it&#8217;s not a prime as it could be, here&#8217;s some choice news chum I selected for you over lunch for Square Root Day, 3\/3\/9: From the \u201cWhen Times are Hard, Rebrand\u201d Department: There have been a number of articles recently about how groups are coping with hard times by rebranding themselves. For example, the <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=3300\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,98,15,28,1],"tags":[83,73,301],"class_list":["post-3300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","category-security","category-social-networking","category-theatre","category-lj-xfer","tag-corporate-america","tag-restaurants","tag-theatre-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}