• Backbone.js is a model-view-controller JavaScript library in just 4KB (via Boris Smus )
• SparkFun intros IOIO, which allows Android phones to control DIY electronics. (Engadget)
• Everyone in Google Doodle for Charlie Chaplin’s birthday are part of Doodle team, and like many of Chaplin’s films, it was filmed in the Niles District of Fremont, California. More from CNN.
• IBM launches Maqetta, an HTML 5 tool as an open-source answer to Flash and Silverlight. (eWeek via Jeff Pierce )
• The White House launches a personalized tax receipt (Macon Phillips of the White House, via Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post )
• I’ve often had this very same thought: Tim Pawlenty wants members of Congress to do their own taxes without help. New York Times article
• Mister Rogers defends PBS in front of the US Senate in 1969. (via @Noetic_Hatter )
• The Story of Linux: a 4-minute video commemorating 20 years of the Linux operating system (via Mario Fusco )
• Jen Mankoff, a Carnegie Mellon computer science professor with Lyme disease, tries to make sense of Lyme info online (via James Landay )
• Barack Obama: “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending $1 trillion on tax cuts for millionaires & billionaires.”

When I moved to the Bay Area from New England, I noticed that KGO 7, the ABC station in San Francisco, used the same theme song and logo as WABC 7 in New York. Here’s a KGO “open” from 1989:

To my surprise, the theme song is from the movie Cool Hand Luke starring Paul Newman. It’s amazing how a 10-second clip became the basis for newscasts around the world.

Most TV stations now use themes only reminiscent of the original, after the composer of the soundtrack, Lalo Schifrin, demanded higher royalties. (Schifrin also composed the theme song to Mission: Impossible.)

Through some random web surfing, I came across the opening credits for the newscast of WTNH 8, the ABC affililate in Connecticut, in 1985, which brought back a lot of memories:

The theme song, used by TV stations across the country, is called Move Closer to Your World, and it’s still used by WPVI 6, the ABC affiliate in Philadelphia: