What’s Your Favorite Treat?

Halloween, what a fun time of year. Especially if, like me, you love candy. And nothing says Halloween quite like candy corn. You can eat it, of course but you can also wear them. You can get that hoodie at the top HERE. Or those socks HERE (gotta get me a pair of those).  And a plush candy corn to hug (or let your dog play with) HERE. Check out your favorites. And if you have a few minutes check out these oddly wonderful candy commercials: Sour Patch Kids HERE and HERE. Skittles HERE. And Jolly Ranchers HERE.

It’s that time of year when we venture off to the store to pick our favorite Halloween candy.  Some of us go for a specific item/brand, while others default to the “mixed grab bag” approach.  What seems like a simple task, becomes a PIA (Pain in the @%$) Job! to solve.  I can remember as a kid, with my brothers and sisters, running from house to house, trying to see who got the most goodies. Part of our tradition was to walk very, very, very fast to each home, wait for the stragglers to catch up then yell “TRICK OR TREAT” as loud as we could. Our neighbors came to expect and look forward to our arrival!  We’d come home and sort out our bounty into piles – my favorite was of course (Snickers, followed by Reeses Peanut Butter Cups).  If my siblings were game, we’d horse trade, so I got more of the things I loved.  Mom and Dad made us, or at least tried to keep it fair. I happen to be good at trading!  Jackie and I of course carried on the tradition of yelling “TRICK OR TREAT” with our girls.  I was always amazed that the girls would have to stop back home to empty their pillow cases before continuing on!  We would then just sit back and watch them sort and trade, unfortunately I often was given the leftovers – Taffy (Not my favorite!)

A very good friend of mine sent me this cool map link, showing the candy sales by state – the map for Ohio says M&M’s but newer data says it might be Blow Pops.  Of course, I’m hit with questions … what flavor gum inside, how big, peanut or regular, big or little, ugh.  For all of my goblins out there, I hit the internet, and captured some fun tips about Halloween candy – thx History Channel, People, and CandyStore.comand all the candy sites for the info.  Enjoy, and don’t open those bags until it’s time!!

  • For most American kids, it wouldn’t be Halloween without trick-or-treating for candy; however, that wasn’t always the case. When the custom of trick-or-treating started in the 1930s and early 1940s, children were given everything from homemade cookies and pieces of cake to fruit, nuts, coins and toys.
  • The earliest known reference to “trick or treats”, printed in the November 4, 1927 edition of the Blackie, Alberta Canada Herald, talks of this, “Hallowe’en provided an opportunity for real strenuous fun. No real damage was done except to the temper of some who had to hunt for wagon wheels, gates, wagons, barrels, etc., much of which decorated the front street. The youthful tormentors were at back door and front demanding edible plunder by the word “trick or treat” to which the inmates gladly responded and sent the robbers away rejoicing.”
  • The first Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar was produced in 1900 and Hershey’s Kisses made their debut in 1907. Company founder Milton Hershey was a pioneer in the mass-production of milk chocolate and turned what previously had been a luxury item for the well-to-do into something affordable for average Americans. In the early 1900s, he also built an entire town, Hershey, Pennsylvania, around his chocolate factory.
  • In the 1950s, candy manufacturers began to get in on the act and promote their products for Halloween, and as trick-or-treating became more popular, candy was increasingly regarded as an affordable, convenient offering.
  • The Kit Kat bar was first sold in England in 1935 as a Rowntree’s Chocolate Crisp and in 1937 was rechristened the Kit Kat Chocolate Crisp. The name is said to be derived from a London literary and political group, the Kit-Cat (or Kit Kat) club, established in the late 17th century. The group’s moniker is thought to be an abbreviation of the name of the man who owned the shop where the group originally gathered. Since 1988, the brand has been owned by Nestle, maker of another perennial trick-or-treat favorite, the Nestle Crunch bar, which debuted in the late 1930s.
  • In 1917, Harry Burnett Reese moved to Hershey, where he was employed as a dairyman for the chocolate company and later worked at its factory. Inspired by Milton Hershey’s success, Reese, who eventually had 16 children, began making candies in his basement. In the mid-1920s, he built a factory of his own and produced an assortment of candies, including peanut butter cups, which he invented in 1928 and made with Hershey’s chocolate. During World War II, a shortage of ingredients led Reese to pull the plug on his other candies and focus on his most popular product, peanut butter cups. In 1963, Hershey acquired the H.B Reese Candy Company.
  • Today, America spends about $2.7 billion dollars on candy.  When it comes to Halloween candy, a number of the most popular brands are enduring classics. Here is a link to a fun interactive map with detailed listings by state.
  • In 1923, a struggling, Minnesota-born candy maker, Frank Mars, launched the Milky Way bar, which became a best-seller. In 1930, he introduced the Snickers bar, reportedly named for his favorite horse, followed in 1932 by the 3 Musketeers bar. Frank’s son Forrest eventually joined the company, only to leave after a falling out with his father. Forrest Mars relocated to England, where he created the Mars bar in the early 1930s. In 1941, he launched M&Ms. Mars anticipated that World War II would produce a cocoa shortage, so he partnered with Bruce Murrie, son of a Hershey executive, in order to have access to a sufficient supply of ingredients; the candy’s name stands for Mars and Murrie.
  • No Halloween would be complete without candy corn, which was invented in the 1880s by George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company of Philadelphia. Other companies went on to produce their own versions of the tricolor treat, none longer than the Goelitz Confectionery Company (now the Jelly Belly Candy Co.), which has been doing so since 1898.

Here is a “top selling” candy list by State and links to their history:

  1. Candy Corn:  Alabama, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Rhode Island, South Carolina
  2. Twix:  Alaska
  3. Snickers:  Arizona, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Virginia
  4. Jolly Ranchers:  Arkansas
  5. M&Ms: California, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia
  6. Milky Way:  Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, Vermont
  7. Almond Joy:  Connecticut
  8. Life Savers:  Delaware
  9. Skittles:  Florida, Hawaii, New Jersey
  10. Swedish Fish:  Georgia
  11. Sour Patch Kids:  Illinois, Maine, Nebraska, New York, Massachusetts
  12. Hot Tamales:  Indiana, North Dakota
  13. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups:  Iowa, Kansas, Oregon, Wyoming
  14. Tootsie Pops:  Kentucky, Minnesota, Tennessee, Washington
  15. Lemonheads:  Louisiana
  16. 3 Musketeers:  Mississippi
  17. Double Bubble Gum:  Montana
  18. Hershey Kisses:  Nevada
  19. Blow Pops:  Ohio, West Virginia
  20. Starburst:  South Dakota, Texas, Wisconsin
  21. Jolly Ranchers:  Utah

 

 


 

A Foraging We Will Go

Fungi. Beautiful fungi. Search them out in the woods or in the grocery store and make some incredible dishes. A few starter recipes below.

 

The other day I was out for one of my morning runs and was taken by the soft breath of Fall – quiet, dew covered grounds, leaves slowly changing, animals foraging for food and the colors of summer hanging on.  As I passed a favorite turn, a deer ran by and then stopped in the woods.  I stopped as well, and we had a stare off (remember those in grade school – I did my best, but the deer won!).  All around the deer I noticed a huge patch of brightly colored mushrooms glistening on the forest floor.  Of course, when I got back to the office, I just had to google fall mushrooms, and wow, a great article came up from Mother Earth News.  Here are segments I thought you’d enjoy.  My suggestion – lace up your boots and take a hike this weekend and take pictures of any of these amazing mushrooms you may find. I also included some fun recipes – can’t wait to try them.  Thx Mother Earth News for the info.

Autumn is a time of change in the woodlands when the vivid green hues of summer fade into the auburn shades of fall as plant life in the great outdoors prepares for a long winter’s sleep.

During this period of transition, many who enjoy harvesting Mother Nature’s abundant vintages miss one of nature’s finest bounties — the fall mushrooms.  Understanding the dos and don’ts of fall mushroom foraging is key to enjoying the rewards of harvesting the mushrooms.

The first and foremost rule when mushroom foraging is to get to know just a few species — and get to know them well. To achieve this, purchase a field guide to North American mushrooms. Most bookstores stock one or can quickly order it. Though local libraries typically stock several, buying your own copy is a wise investment. Pocket-size editions with color photos are easily carried and help assure positive identification. A quality guide should contain the following species subheadings: description, edibility, season, habitat, range and look-alikes.

Fall mushrooms have many different flavors and textures. The majority of edible varieties have nicknames that mimic their characteristics, much like the spring morel, which is dubbed the “sponge” mushroom. Its colors can blend with the drab shades of dead bark or stand out like the colors of Christmas. Harvesting mushrooms for the dinner table while hiking the woodlands enhances the appreciation of forest ecology. See how many you can find:

Pear-Shaped and Giant Puffball (Puffball Family)
Puffball mushrooms are among the most recognizable of fall fungi. They are round in appearance and range in size from the pear-shaped puffball (Lycoperdon pyriforme), of approximately one inch, to the giant puffball (Calvatia gigantea), which may reach diameters larger than a basketball. Most are rated “choice” for eating. The few that are not won’t affect your health and can easily be distinguished by their rank odor. The fruiting body of a puffball grows directly from its root system. If you find one with a stalk or stem, discard it; it’s not a puffball and may very well be an unsuitable look-alike, again characterized by a rank odor.
Members of the puffball family grow from July through November in most North American softwood and hardwood forests. Their outer coloration is typically white to olive brown, and should always be white inside for use at the dinner table. As puffballs age, their centers turn yellowish-brown and eventually dry, producing spores (microscopic seeds). A single giant puffball produces up to 7 trillion spores. To understand how the puffball got its name, step on the dried shell after a puffball is spent, and watch it “puff” smoke — in the form of millions of dried spores.  Pear-shaped puffballs grow in scattered-to-dense clusters on decaying logs and debris. The giants grow in open timber, pastured ground and even some urban areas. During prime conditions, giant puffballs decorate the forest like a woodland volleyball court.

RECIPE: To prepare a giant puffball, cut or peel the outer shell. For a pear-shaped puffball, just wash the outer core. Do not wash or soak the meat unless insects have laid first claim. The sweet smell and savory flavor of the puffball makes an excellent addition to a saute of onions, bell peppers and other favorite garden vegetables. The most popular method of preparation, however, is frying. Fry the pear-shaped puffball whole, but slice its big brother thin like a fish fillet. Coat with a chicken or fish batter before frying. Use your fresh puffballs promptly, though, as they can’t be feasibly canned, frozen or dried for long-term storage.

Hen of the Woods (Polypore Family)
Catch a glimpse of this fungi in the fall and you may easily mistake it for a hen pheasant or prairie chicken pruning its plumage.  The hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa) has a grayish brown cap growing from a white stalk, which branches from a compound base.  This handsome mushroom appears in wet Septembers through mild, moist Novembers. It can be found from Canada to Louisiana, throughout the Midwest and in coastal woodlands. Hunt for the hen near deciduous trees and stumps. They’re also known to grow around some coniferous trees. Hens often appear in the same location year after year. They blend well with fallen leaves, but their size gives them away. A single mushroom of this variety can reach 20 inches in diameter and weigh 100 pounds. Hunt them with a big bag, or take along a friend with a strong back.

RECIPE: The firm texture of the hen lends itself to a variety of cooking techniques. Slice it thin and roast it, cut into steaks or coat in a batter and fry. You can’t ruin it. Diced bits used in stir-fry recipes give chicken and bean sprouts a taste that captures the attention of even picky eaters. Unlike puffballs, minimal flavor is lost by canning or freezing.

Chicken Mushroom (Polypore Family)
In autumn, chicken mushrooms (Laetiporus sulphureus) decorate the stumps, trunks and logs of deciduous and coniferous trees in blazing orange-red or orange-yellow colors. Pay careful attention here, as the chicken mushroom bears a close resemblance to many nonedible types.
Be careful not to succumb to the addictive smell. It’s tempting to eat them raw — but don’t. Uncooked, this variety causes indigestion. Among veteran hunters, the chicken is one of the most prized mushrooms. The reasons are simple: It’s anything but plentiful, and when fried, a tasty chicken dinner is the finder’s reward. Mushroom hunters can search for these great-eating members of the polypore family from May through November. Although scarce, their range extends from Canada to Florida and into some coastal regions. If the humidity is right and daytime temperatures are moderate, the chicken may be nestled somewhere in your favorite fall haunt.

Fried-Chicken Mushroom (Tricholoma Family) 
While similar in name to the chicken mushroom, the fried-chicken mushroom (Lyophyllum decastes) is very different. Its cap is gray- to yellow-brown with white gills and a stalk. Growths are typically found in dense clusters on the ground near decaying deciduous trees or in grassy areas throughout most of North America. Their numbers dominate June through October — and even later if the weather is mild. Edibility is rated “good, with caution.” The “with caution” part is meant to give respect to the poisonous sulfur tuft, a close look-alike. Novice hunters can’t tell these two apart until they smell the tuft’s flat odor or partake of its bitter tang. Digesting the tuft invokes mild to severe gastric distress, and in rare cases has caused death. The odds of death from mushroom poisoning are about as likely as being hit by lightning — but odds mean little if you’re the unlucky soul.

RECIPE: Quite a few people are quick to disagree with the fried chicken’s “good” rating. This author concurs that its flavor might better be described as “delicious.” After a thorough washing, tear these mushrooms along the gill lines into bite-size strips. Fry them like chicken or saute them for a spaghetti dish. They are also wonderful in casseroles.

Oyster Mushroom (Tricholoma Family) 
Don’t head for the woods just yet, seafood mavens. “Oyster” (Pleurotus ostreatus) refers to the mushroom’s shape, not taste. The cap of the Oyster can be white, gray or brown. The gills are whitish or yellow-tinged and are usually attached to the wood of deciduous trees. Occasionally the oyster grows from a stublike stalk. It is widely dispersed throughout North America. Dry river and creek bottoms with willow or other softwood trees are prime places to search for the oyster fungi.  This mushroom is prolific in the fall, but under favorable conditions can appear year-round. The hearty oysters that grow in mild winter weather and freeze before aging can even be chopped free from dead wood and thawed.

RECIPE: The oyster’s pleasant smell distinguishes it from nonedible look-alikes that either lack odor or smell like tree bark. Check aging oysters for white grubs; then wash and tear into smaller strips. Roll the damp pieces in a dry mixture of pancake batter and seasoning salt and fry in peanut oil.

Honey Mushroom (Tricholoma Family) 
The honey mushroom (Armillariella mellea), also nicknamed “button mushroom,” has a one- to four-inch yellow-brown cap and stalk with a whitish ring directly under the cap. It’s similar in shape and taste to many commercially raised mushrooms.  Like the spring morel, it’s hunted by many who believe dangerous look-alikes don’t exist. Unfortunately, the honey mushroom has more fearsome twins than Minnesota has — the Omphalotus olearius, Gymnopilus spectabilis and Galerina autmnalis are just a few. All have either a rank odor, nonwhite gill colors or other recognizable features pinpointed in field guides.  Honey mushrooms appear in hardwood forests August through November: Logged-out timbers are the best places to find these delectable fungi by the bushel basket.

RECIPE: Honey mushrooms are exceptional when prepared using morel recipes. Their distinctive taste comes through best when deep-fried in egg-and-cracker batter or sauteed in butter.

_______________________________
Safety First
Follow this list of precautions and your mushrooming days will be memorable events:

  • If on-the-spot identification of a harvested mushroom is not possible, separate it from the rest of your find. After the hunt, enlist the services of a resident expert or field guide to verify the edibility of the suspect fungi.
  • Do not consume wild mushrooms raw. They are indigestible when uncooked.
  • Soak and rinse your mushrooms thoroughly to remove any residue that may have drifted from agricultural spraying.
  • It’s always best to have a veteran mushroomer inspect the find of a novice hunter before allowing preparation.
  • If health problems follow the consumption of mushrooms, contact a doctor immediately. Don’t wait until complications set in.
  • When hunting alone, tell someone when you’re going out and when you plan to return.
  • Those susceptible to poison ivy, oak, or sumac should pay special attention to its presence and, if applicable, use preventive medication. Wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a hat to prevent scratched legs and discourage ticks.
  • Don’t push your luck by walking through heavily wooded terrain after dark.

________________________________
Preserving Your Bounty

Fortunate hunters who find more mushrooms than can be eaten fresh or given away have three options for preserving the excess. Each has pros and cons. You be the judge.

  • To freeze mushrooms, cut them into bite-size chunks and soak in water for a minimum of one hour. This will remove any insects from the meat. Rinse thoroughly and place the mushrooms in a Ziplock freezer bag, seal tightly and freeze. Though this is the most common practice for long-term storage, it causes appreciable loss of flavor and texture.
  •  Drying mushrooms (which is not possible with all varieties) first entails cutting them into large chunks and thoroughly rinsing them. Then sew the pieces together with string and allow to dry in an attic or other warm, dry area. Soaking the dried pieces in water will bring them back to a state of use. The texture is not as rigid as when fresh, but most of the flavor is restored.
  • The least used is canning mushrooms, The U.S. Department of Agriculture suggests this method in their Home and Gardening Bulletin. To can mushrooms: Trim stems and the discolored parts of the mushrooms. Soak mushrooms in cold water for 10 minutes to remove adhering soil. Wash in clean water. Leave small mushrooms whole; cut larger ones in halves or quarters. Steam four minutes or beat gently for 15 minutes in a covered saucepan without added liquid.  Pack hot mushrooms in glass jars, to within a half inch of the top. Add ¼ teaspoon salt to half-pints; ½ teaspoon to pints. For better color, add crystalline ascorbic acid: 1/16 teaspoon to half-pints; 1/8 teaspoon to pints. Add boiling-hot cooking liquid or boiling water to cover mushrooms, leaving a ½-inch space at the top of the jar. Adjust jar lids. Process in pressure canner at 10 pounds of pressure (240°F) for 30 minutes.  Before use, check the seals to ensure a vacuum — and protection from bacterial growth. Canning makes a midwinter meal of mushrooms worth the added effort.

 

 


 

Searching for Answers

It used to be that finding answers meant going to the library. No more, my friend! Even a seven year old at can find the answers to anything.  A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. For better or worse, we can all find answers to our questions in an instant. (bottom two rows)  There are the kids, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, at their garage office in Palo Alto where they moved the company from their Stanford dorm room. The boys today. Google headquarters sign in Mountain View, CA.

 

Over the weekend I was on the laptop, digging around for some information to help me on a project. It’s was so easy to type in my questions, or just words to “search”, and BOOM, tons of options appear instantly on the screen.  It got me to thinking about search and the history of Google, and I found out that Google is celebrating twenty years in existence (how can that be??).  Google of course was an outcome of great research and experimentation by scientists and programmers who came before them.  For fun, “google” the term “inventor of search” and the world’s most popular search engine will, unexpectedly, fail you. Nowhere among the algorithmically organized results will you find the names of the two men who, in the fall of 1963, sent the first known long-distance computer query (six years before Arpanet) and long before the launch of the world-changing Google.  Here’s some fun facts, surprising trivia and a bit of history.  Thanks Smithsonian, Wikipedia and Google for your amazing products.  Enjoy!

 

Here’s a fun site Goggle has set up where you can venture back in time and see the most popular search topics by year (and more).

  1. The story starts when Doug Engelbart began the Augmented Human Intellect Program at Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California. In June 1962 Charlie Bourne, who had been a student of Engelbart’s at the University of California Berkeley in 1957, joined the AHI team. In 1963 Bourne started work on a project funded by US Air Force Electronic Systems Division to investigate remote online computer access to databases. The total funding was $39,000, which was quite a sizeable project in 1963.
  2. Charles Bourne (a research engineer) and Leonard Chaitlin (a computer programmer) built the first online search engine, then referred to as automated information retrieval. At the time, retrieval was physical, capturing data stored on punch cards.  Bourne’s vision was a user could search for any word in the files, much the same way Google works today, using a Q-32 computer developed by Systems Development Corporation. The Q-32 was one of the first computers to support online remote access and computer-to-computer communication.
  3. The database consisted of seven memos typed onto punched paper tapes and then converted to magnetic tape.  Chaitlin drove to Santa Monica, some 350 miles away, and input the files onto a massive military computer.  From a bulky computer terminal with a screen just 32 characters wide, they sent a “search” query (the precise question is lost to history).  The data lurched over a telephone line and after some time, the answer popped up, proving that online search was possible.
  4. Despite the success, the project was shut down.  The inventors later said, “We just didn’t know what it would become. You really couldn’t imagine, at that time, doing a lot of things with a computer.”
  5. Google, worth hundreds of billions, took two men with a big dream to turn a small idea into a reality and has made a significant contribution to how the world uses the internet. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were both PhD candidates when they met in 1996 at Stanford and came up with the concept for a search engine that they named BackRub.  One year later, in 1997, they renamed it Google.com and officially registered as a domain name. A man named Milton Sirotta was responsible for coming up with the term from which Google was derived (googol – refers to the number 1 with 100 zeros following it).
  6. The main aim of both men was to organize all of the information that could possibly be gathered around the world and present it in the form of an index.  When the team received its first $100,000 check, Page and Brin moved the operation to a garage in Palo Alto.
  7. Over the years millions of webmasters have tried their best to obtain a high PageRank, which is one of many indicators of the ‘authority’ and ‘link weight’ of any given website, however the term itself was only patented in September 2001 by the Google team. PageRank was an integral part of the core algorithm upon which the Google search engine operated, enabling it to ‘rank’ sites according to authority. It was in the same year that Larry Page, the namesake of PageRank, stepped down as CEO and Eric Schmidt took his place.
  8. The web-based email service that is now commonplace to Gmail fans was launched in 2004 and it quickly began to outrank the services being offered by companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. The storage capabilities were set at 1 GB – a storage capacity that was unheard of at the time. 2004 was also the year that Google Earth was launched which allowed the earth to be mapped to the desktop using satellite imagery.
  9. In 2005, Google joined up with NASA to produce Google Moon and Google Mars in which two applications allowed individuals to navigate both entities from the comfort of their own computers. The project was brought to fruition after a 1 million sq ft development center was built within the Ames Research Centre.
  10. In 2006, Google Video was introduced to the public, and users were able to search for videos, rather than be restricted to content, through the search engine. This is the same year that the company acquired YouTube, which has in a very real sense become a massively popular ‘alternative’ search engine in its own right. In addition, the very popular Google Docs service was launched.
  11. Today, Google is estimated to have around well over 50% of the market share for search engines with Yahoo! as its closest rival. The search engine gets more than 1 billion search requests each day, and with the incorporation of Google Ads, every click makes the company money. The business is now a household name, and there is no telling where or how they plan on expanding in the future; after all, for Google, the sky is no longer the limit.

 


 

TEST YOUR USER EXPERIENCE AND MEMORY

Before Google, came a host of web crawling “engines” – see how many you remember.

WebCrawler (1994). Of all still-surviving search engines, WebCrawler is the oldest. Today, it aggregates results from Google and Yahoo.
Lycos (1994). Born out of Carnegie Mellon University and still alive today. Also owns several other nostalgic Internet brands, including Angelfire, Tripod, and Gamesville.
AltaVista (1995). This was one of the most popular search engines in the 1990s, but was acquired by Yahoo in 2003 and subsequently shut down in 2013.
Excite (1995). One of the most recognizable brands back in the 1990s, but has since fallen out of the spotlight.
Yahoo (1995). Definitely one of the strongest pre-Google brands to still exist today. In fact, according to Alexa, Yahoo was the 4th most globally-visited website in June 2015. Impressive!
Dogpile (1996). It has a terrible brand name, but maybe that’s what made it memorable. Today, Dogpile aggregates results from Google, Yahoo, and the Russian search engine, Yandex (which is also older than Google!).
Ask Jeeves (1996). This engine was unique due to its question-and-answer format, plus it had a memorable mascot in Jeeves the Butler. Sadly, Jeeves was eventually phased out and the site rebranded to Ask.com. (Not to be confused with AskBoth.)

 


SEARCH ENGINE EVOLUTION TIMELINE

1990
Pre-web search engine           
The Archie search engine, created by Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan and J. Peter Deutsch, computer science students at McGill University in Montreal, goes live. The program downloads the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creates a searchable database of a lot of file names.

1991
Pre-web search engine         

The rise of Gopher (created in 1991 by Mark McCahill at the University of Minnesota) leads to two new search programs, Veronica and Jughead. Like Archie, they search the file names and titles stored in Gopher index systems. Veronica (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives) provides a keyword search of most Gopher menu titles in the entire Gopher listings. Jughead (Jonzy’s Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display) is a tool for obtaining menu information from specific Gopher servers.

1992
Virtual library of the web     
Tim Berners-Lee sets up the Virtual Library (VLib), a loose confederation of topical experts maintaining relevant topical link lists.

1993
June
First web robot                       
Matthew Gray produces the first known web robot, the Perl-based World Wide Web Wanderer, and uses it to generate an index of the web called the Wandex.  However, the World Wide Web Wanderer is intended only to measure the size of the web rather than to facilitate search.

1993
Sept.
First web search engine          
W3Catalog, written by Oscar Nierstrasz at the University of Geneva, is released to the world. It is the world’s first web search engine. It does not rely on a crawler and indexer but rather on already existing high-quality lists of websites. One of its main drawbacks is that the bot accesses each page hundreds of times each day, causing performance degradation.

1993
Oct.
Second web search engine     
Aliweb, a web search engine created by Martijn Koster, is announced. It does not use a web robot, but instead depends on being notified by website administrators of the existence at each site of an index file in a particular format. The absence of a bot means that less bandwidth is used; however, most website administrators are not aware of the need to submit their data.

1993
Dec.
First crawler and indexer 
JumpStation, created by Jonathon Fletcher, is released. It is the first WWW resource-discovery tool to combine the three essential features of a web search engine (crawling, indexing, and searching).

1994
Jan.
New web search engine 
Infoseek is launched.

1994
Mar.
New web search engine
The World-Wide Web Worm is released. It is claimed to have been created in September 1993, at which time there did not exist any crawler-based search engine, but it is not the earliest at the time of its actual release. It supports Perl-based regular expressions.

1994
April
New web search engine         
The WebCrawler search engine, created by Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington, is released. Unlike its predecessors, it allows users to search for any word in any webpage, which has become the standard for all major search engines since.

1994
April
New web directory                 
Yahoo! launches its web directory.  Yahoo! would not build its own web search engine until 2002, relying until then on outsourcing the search function to other companies.

1994
July
New web search engine         
Lycos, a web search engine, is released. It began as a research project by Michael Loren Mauldin of Carnegie Mellon University’s main Pittsburgh campus.

1995
New web directory                
LookSmart is released. It competes with Yahoo! as a web directory, and the competition makes both directories more inclusive.

1995
Dec.
Natural language queries       
Altavista is launched. This is a first among web search engines in many ways: it has unlimited bandwidth, allows natural language queries, has search tips, and allows people to add or delete their domains in 24 hours.

1996    
Jan.
New web search engine      
Larry Page and Sergey Brin begin working on BackRub, the predecessor to Google Search. The crawler begins activity in March.

1996
May
New web search engine         
Inktomi releases its HotBot search engine.

1996    
Oct.
New web search engine         
Gary Culliss and Steven Yang begin work at MIT on the popularity engine, a version of the Direct Hit Technologies search engine that ranks results across users according to the selections made during previous searches.

1997
April
Natural language search         
Ask Jeeves, a natural language web search engine, that aims to rank links by popularity, is released. It would later become Ask.com.

1997
Sept
New web search                     
The domain Google.com is registered. Soon, Google Search is available to the public from this domain (around 1998).

1997
Sept
New search(non-English)        
Arkady Volozh and Ilya Segalovich launch their Russian web search engine yandex.ru and publicly present it at the Softool exhibition in Moscow. The initial development is by Comptek; Yandex would become a separate company in 2000.

1998
June
New web directory                 
Gnuhoo, a web directory project by Rich Skrenta and Bob Truel, both employees of Sun Microsystems, launches.  It would later be renamed the Open Directory Project.

1998    
July
New web search portal          
MSN launches a search portal called MSN Search, using search results from Inktomi. After many changes to the backend search engine, MSN would start developing in-house search technology in 2005, and later change its name to Bing in June 2009.

1998
Aug.
New web search engine         
Direct Hit Technologies releases their popularity search engine in partnership with HotBot, providing more relevant results based on prior user search activity.

1999
May
New web search engine         
AlltheWeb, based on the Ph.D. thesis of Tor Egge at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, titled FTP Search, launches. The engine is launched by Egge’s company Fast Search & Transfer, established on July 16, 1997.

2000
Jan.
New web search portal          
Baidu, a Chinese company that would grow to provide many search-related services, launches.

2002-2003             
Web search consolidation      
Yahoo! buys Inktomi (2002) and then Overture Services Inc. (2003) which has already bought AlltheWeb and Altavista. Starting 2003, Yahoo! starts using its own Yahoo Slurp web crawler to power Yahoo! Search. Yahoo! Search combines the technologies of all Yahoo!’s acquisitions (until 2002, Yahoo! had been using Google to power its search).

2004
Nov
Backend providers                  
Microsoft starts using its own indexer and crawler for MSN Search rather than using blended results from LookSmart and Inktomi.

2004
Dec.
New User experience            
Google Suggest is introduced as a Google Labs feature.

2005
Jan.
Webmaster tools                    
To combat link spam, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft collectively introduce the nofollow attribute.

2005
Oct.
New web search engine         
Overture Services Inc. owner Bill Gross launches the Snap search engine, with many features such as display of search volumes and other information, as well as sophisticated auto-completion and related terms display. It is unable to get traction and soon goes out of business.

2006-2009      
New human-curated search   
Wikia launches Wikia Search, a search engine based on human curation, but then shuts it down.

2008
Jan.
New web search engine         
Cuil, a web search engine created by ex-Googlers that uses picture thumbnails to display search results, launches.  It would later shut down on September 17, 2010.

2009
July
Search consolidation              
Microsoft and Yahoo! announce that they have made a ten-year deal in which the Yahoo! search engine would be replaced by Bing. Yahoo! will get to keep 88% of the revenue from all search ad sales on its site for the first five years of the deal, and have the right to sell adverts on some Microsoft sites. Yahoo! Search will still maintain its own user interface, but will eventually feature “Powered by Bing™” branding.  All Yahoo! Search global customers and partners are expected to be transitioned by early 2012.

2009
Aug.
Search algorithm update        
Named Caffeine, this update is announced on August 10, 2009. It promises faster crawling, expansion of the index, and a near-real-time integration of indexing and ranking. The rollout is made live on June 8, 2010.

2010
Sept.
New User experience            
Google launches Google Instant, described as a search-before-you-type feature: as users are typing, Google predicts the user’s whole search query (using the same technology as in Google Suggest, later called the autocomplete feature) and instantaneously shows results for the top prediction.  Google claims that this is estimated to save 2–5 seconds per search query.  SEO commentators initially believe that this will have a major effect on search engine optimization, but soon revise downward their estimate of the impact.

2010
Nov
New web search engine         
Blekko, a search engine that uses slashtags to allow people to search in more targeted categories, launches.

2011
June
Webmaster tools                    
Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft announce Schema.org, a joint initiative that supports a richer range of tags that websites can use to convey better information.

2011
Feb.
Search algorithm update        
Google launches Google Panda, a major update affecting 12% of search queries. The update continues with the earlier work of cracking down on spam, content farms, scrapers, and websites with a high ad-to-content ratio. The rollout is gradual over several months, and Panda will see many further updates.

2012
Jan.
Search algorithm update        
Google launches Search Plus Your World, a deep integration of one’s social data into search.  SEO commentators are critical of how the search results favor Google+ and push it to users, compared to more widely used social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

2012
April
Search algorithm update        
Google launches its “Webspam update” which would soon become known as Google Penguin.

2012
May
Sidebar User experience         
Microsoft announces a redesign of its Bing search engine that includes “Sidebar”, a social feature that searches users’ social networks for information relevant to the search query.

2012
May
Search algorithm update        
Google starts rolling out Knowledge Graph, used by Google internally to store semantic relationships between objects. Google now begins displaying supplemental information about objects related to search queries on the side.

2013
Aug.
Search algorithm update        
Google releases Google Hummingbird, a core algorithm update that may enable more semantic search and more effective use of the Knowledge Graph in the future.

 

 

 


 

Beginnings

(top) From the documentary “Elvis Presley: The Searcher” (2018). Watch the trailer HERE  (row two)Presley performing live at the Mississippi-Alabama Fairgrounds in Tupelo, September 26, 1956. (row three) Presley’s birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi; Elvis, about three years old, posed with mom Gladys and dad Vernon; Ten-year-old Elvis, second from right and wearing glasses, with talent show winners. Elvis came in fifth. (row four) Promo photos for “Jail House Rock” (row five) Young man Elvis. (Row six)some of his many album covers. (row seven) Signing autographs. (bottom) And this famous photo. Elvis, 21, and his mystery blonde caught in “The Kiss”—one of 48 shots taken by freelance photographer Alfred Wertheimer (assigned by RCA Records to follow Elvis on his first tour) in a stairwell at the Mosque Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, minutes before a concert, June 1956. 

Check out these videos with the sound as high as you can possibly crank it:
WATCH Elvis at his peak. This is GREAT!!!!!!
Goofing around having fun. Elvis Presley Heartbreak Hotel (1968)
WATCH Elvis Presley – Return To Sender [Video]
WATCH Elvis Presley – Hound Dog 1956 LIVE
WATCH Elvis Presley – Blue Suede Shoes 1956 (COLOR and STEREO)
Most of us remember our “firsts”.  Our first time playing a sport and scoring a goal/run/basket, our first friendships, our first kiss, our first breakup, our first time away from home, and our first job. My first job outside of KHT was “THE BAGEL SHOP” in Oxford, Ohio.  Imagine,  me and food! Don’t worry this will be for another post!  Getting back to my first job,  I was 13 with my brothers and sisters helping Dad as he started KHT. I can still remember my first day of work here at KHT. Growing up in a family business I was lucky to be “allowed” to do all sorts of jobs – welding, driving forklifts (lots of fun when you’re little!), packaging parts, although I was always in trouble because I would read the newspaper that we used to wrap parts in, which slowed things down! I even helped Dad with the processing.  . Something clicked for me, and I knew then I was destined to be a “heat treating” man. At the time, little did I know that one day  I’d be sitting on top of the organization, running five thermal processing divisions, supervising 6 plants and dozens of employees, juggling millions of investment dollars into new technology and infrastructure, solving thousands of PIA (Pain in the @%$) Jobs! and forever looking to the future with my team  for better ways to delight our customers. In celebration of my “firsts” I looked to an American icon.  Over 70 years ago this week, in his “first” known public musical performance Elvis Presley appeared in a talent show in Tupelo, Mississippi on October 3, 1945. He was just ten years old. Here’s a little history on how he got started, some “random” trivia, and fun links to video and songs.  Crank up the sound and shake it!  And thanks to Wikipedia, You Tube and onthisday.com.

  1. As the story goes, standing on a chair at a microphone, Elvis first public appearance was when he sang “Old Shep” at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. The show was broadcast over WELO Radio, though no recording of it now exists. Some reports say that he came in second and won a prize of five dollars in fair-ride tickets. Interviewed years later, however, Elvis recalled that he actually came in fifth and his most vivid memory of the day was receiving “a whipping from my Mama” for misbehaving.  (A photograph taken of some of the contestants seems to bear out his recollection of the result. Wearing glasses, Elvis is standing empty-handed next to two other youngsters, both proudly clutching a trophy).
  2. Elvis purchased his first guitar when he was just 11 years old. He wanted a rifle, but his mama convinced him to get a guitar instead.  At age 12, a local radio show offered a young Elvis a chance to sing live on air, but he was too shy to go on.
  3. His next known public performance was on November 6, 1948 when he played guitar and sang “Leaf On A Tree” as a farewell to his fellow students at Milam Junior School in Tupelo. The poverty-stricken Presleys then packed their belongings into a trunk, strapped it to the roof of their 1939 Plymouth car, and headed for Memphis, Tennessee, in search of a better life.
  4. Notoriously shy, Elvis could still be persuaded to perform and in 1953 he nervously sang in a student talent show at Humes High School in Memphis – his next step on the educational ladder. Much to his own amazement, he received more applause than anyone else and won.  Pleased, he then performed an encore.
  5. Soon after, wanting to hear what his voice sounded like on a record, he called the Memphis Recording Service, home of the Sun label and made a private demo acetate of “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin” at a cost of about four dollars. Excited, he took the acetate home and gave it to his mother as a birthday present.
  6. When Sam Phillips, owner of the studio, heard the recording, he called the boy in to hear more. And the rest, as they say, is a part of our history.
  7. One of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, Elvis helped establish the emerging Rock and Roll sound, incorporating blues and gospel influences. He was also a leader in popularizing both the rockabilly sound and the four-man band line-up which would later dominate the music industry.
  8. His first single, “Heartbreak Hotel” (1956), a song inspired by a newspaper article about a local suicide, began a string of number-ones that radically reshaped American music and put Presley at the forefront of rock and roll.
  9. When performing on TV in 1956, host Milton Berle advised Elvis to perform without his guitar, reportedly saying, “Let ’em see you, son.”  Elvis’ gyrating hips caused outrage across the U.S. and within days he was nicknamed Elvis the Pelvis.  A Florida judge called Elvis “a savage” that same year because he said that his music was “undermining the youth.”  He was subsequently forbidden from shaking his body at a gig, so he waggled his finger instead in protest.
  10. In 1958, he was drafted into the army and served in West Germany, earning $78 per month, unable to access his musical fortune back home. Following this he began a much-derided acting career and did not perform live for seven years.  In 1968 he returned to the stage with the acclaimed “Elvis” special, and then took up an extended Las Vegas residency which became iconic in its own right.
  11. In 1959, while serving overseas in Germany, Elvis (then 24 years old) met his future wife, 14 year-old Priscilla Beaulieu.  They were married 8 years later.
  12. Elvis’ 1960 hit “It’s Now or Never” so inspired a prisoner who heard it in jail that he vowed to pursue a career in music upon his release.  The artist, Barry White, was then serving a 4-month sentence for stealing tires.
  13. A series of successful concert tours followed, as did the 1973 live concert special “Aloha from Hawaii”, which was a technological first.
  14. Elvis and Priscilla’s only daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, was born in 1968.  Lisa Marie later married Michael Jackson and actor (and Elvis obsessive) Nicholas Cage.  Mr. Cage is reportedly the only person outside of Presley’s immediate family to have ever seen Elvis’ Graceland bedroom.
  15. Elvis’ popularity faded in the 1960’s with the rise of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and others.  He successfully relaunched his career with a 1968 television special that came about because Elvis had walked down a busy Los Angeles street and had no one recognize or approach him.
  16. Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977 of a heart attack at his Graceland estate in Memphis, often considered to be the result of an accidental prescription drug overdose. He is buried in the Meditation Garden at Graceland mansion at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis, Tennessee. It receives more than 600,000 visitors from around the world each year, making it one of the top attractions in the city and one of the most-visited private homes in the world.
  17. Presley is one of the best-selling artists in music history, recording over 600 songs (none of which he wrote) and sales of over 600 million units.