We’re on Boone for the Odyssey of the Mind state competition. Tucker’s team from Smith Middle School finished second in their division. As a result, they not only got medals and a trophy, but they will be going on to the World Competition in Ames, Iowa.
The teams has been wearing their very large medals around like, well, bling.
Category: Amusements (Page 9 of 31)
Things that are amusing
The Bling tag additional to HTML has already had an effect on me (see ibiblio home page for today). Yes, I too was surprized. I wondered how long I had lived a life without BLING.
BLING Team members, Joey, Jonathan and Dan say:
Much has been said in recent years regarding the imperative to separate the concerns of presentation and content. Mechanisms of presentation are subject to radical change, whether merely stylistic or mandated by technological progression. The Hyper-Text Markup Language that fulled the early days of the web revolution has been reincarnated as XHTML. It is joined by its newborn cousin, RSS, in heralding a new revolution that some have called Web 2.0.
Here at ibiblio, we take a more philosophical view regarding the separation of presentation and content. We cannot dismiss the importance of presentation as “mere style.” The aesthetic perception of an utterance is inextricably tied up with its semantics as well as its rhetorical impact. As Marshal McLuhan famously said: the medium is the message.
On BBC with the Baghdad blogger, Salam Pax, and one of the Africa Fresh contributors, Gaynor Paynter, we talk about what makes a good blook and a good blog and their experience in blogging and blooking. Both have great things to say. Should run on Monday along with revealing the Blooker winners.
lulu’s Stephen Fraser is delighed to let us know that the Blooker gets a mention in today’s NYTimes Arts, Briefly column just after the section heading Da Vinci and the unstoppable Harry Potter:
Blogs, including the diary of a prostitute and a guide to Britain’s best greasy-spoon cafes, are on the short list of 16 for the inaugural Lulu Blooker Prize, to be announced on Monday, the BBC reported. Sponsored by the self-publishing site Lulu, the Blooker Prize honors blooks, or books from blogs, published in English anywhere in the world.
I note that the NYTimes remains a provincial paper, not doing original Blooker reporting but merely disgesting the news from the motherland (via BBC). The result is that great American finalists don’t get a mention but blooks on bad British habits get the bang.
Tor and his buddies at Yep Roc have released a free mp3 download with Billy Bragg. The Bush War Blues
As soon as I got in the cab here in Philly, my cell sang the unknown caller song. It was a reporter for USA Today (she’s in SFO) wanting a Blooker interview. She drove around SFO and I rode into Philly doing a tape. Lord
knows what was said, but be assured that the winners were not announced — that’s for Monday afterwhich all this Blookerness may subside.
Many folks are expecting a Blooker Prize Ceremony, but if there is one no one invited me. My tux hangs alone.
BBC Radio tomorrow early on the same subject (this one will run on Monday and may mention the winners).
Open Source and Developing Nations tomorrow at 9 am.
Dinner with the smart folks from University of Pennsylvania and the other speakers.
Joey Carr’s favorite Onion article — You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once By Sting
Will be live taping an interview with Peter Shevlin of BBC (Radio) Outlook before my talk at U of Penn law which requires shifting gears between blooks and Open Source and Law. The BBC show will run on Monday — when the Blooker Prize winners are announced.
Also just finished an email interview with Lee Sze Yong of the Straits Times in Singapore — blooker of course. Should show in the Life! and LifeStyle section.
Ruby alerts us via the OrangePolitics crowd to the Billy Sugarfix and Brian Risk Custom Serenade — It’s Carrboro!
You love it you know you do. And it’s under Creative Commons license (as befits Carrboroness).
And only one slash. In an interview with Brian Runciman of the British Computer Society, the person hereafter known as Lee-Berners Tim Sir opines on the state of the Net including a note that he wishes he had done a few things differently. Dropping one slash (who cares most browers will add http:// anyhow) and that he had used the British name notation going from the more general to the more specific instead of the European/American model which goes like a mail address from specific to general and which by the way LBT Sir was very widely sided before you created the Web. Not complaining about your contributions but clarifying that the Net was well along and much established before the first http was typed. Pretty good interview overall.
At least one surprise, he wishes he had not included SGML folks:
Looking back on 15 years or so of development of the Web is there anything you would do differently given the chance?
I would have skipped on the double slash – there’s no need for it. Also I would have put the domain name in the reverse order – in order of size so, for example, the BCS address would read: http:/uk.org.bcs/members. The last two terms of this example could both be servers if necessary.
Later
Going back to the idea of anything I would change, I remember Dan Connolly – who really understood SGML – asking me if HTML was SGML. I really wanted the SGML people on board so I said yes.
I should have said no – and we would have developed XML a lot sooner. This all happened at the beginning of the Web, in a pub in Edinburgh. This May there’ll be discussions in pubs in Edinburgh again, where we can talk about what we’ll need to change now – it’ll be a blast.
Thanks to Sayan for the initial pointer.
This morning on page C7 or online. In fact, a lot of news is covering Justin on this one.
The current NewsWeek, with cover story “Putting the We in WEb,” has a “How Geeky Are You? Quiz.” The quiz doesn’t show on the second most geeky of all combinations, Mac OSX and FireFox, and it tries to send you a pop-up advert!
This is sad.
Note: Newsweek is hosted by MSNBC.
UPDATE: Doesn’t work with Safari either.
UPDATE 2: Doesn’t work on Windoz with FireFox (Thanks Sayan for the Windoz testing)
UPDATE 3: Does work with Internet Exploiter on Windoz after sending a bunch of pop-up adverts.
UPDATE 4: Selffulfilling question:
19. Which Web browser do you use most at home? Explorer
Firefox
Safari
Opera
I wrote my own
What’s a Web browser?
UPDATE 5: Doesn’t render the quiz on Firefox 1.5 over Linux. (thanks DLS)
UPDATE 5.1a: the round-robin advert under what would have been the quiz depicts a very non-geeky Triceritops in a suit inviting us to explore the absolutely-devoid-of-geekdom Microsoft Office calendar.
UPDATE 6: Doesn’t work with Moz or FF in Linux (Thank Roblimo).
BOTTOM LINE: If you can take the quiz, you are not a geek.
UPDATE XXX: MCNBC just added a one line, “Click here to start the quiz”
As if the Blooker Prize weren’t enough (it’s plenty but there’s room for more), a blook by an anonymous Iraqi blogger is on the BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Baghdad Burning by Riverbend is in the final 19 for the 3000 pound purse. (BBC reports on itself).
I note that the Johnson judges are less distinguished than the Blooker judges ;->
Wayne Marshall‘s talk on Friday afternoon was partially (but not wholely) based on this paper he paper presented at Caribbean Soundscapes, New Orleans called “Mad Mad” Migration: Caribbean Circulation and the Movement of Jamaican Rhythm. There’s also a bit showing up on his blog.
Roger McGuinn’s CDs on Amazon are all Safe, but the Byrds and Stones get a Warning that they are issued by RIAA members according to RIAA Radar.
Black Sweater, White Cat gives details on how to use FireFox, GreaseMonkey and RIAA Radar to give you an icon that indicates whether the CDs you are purchasing on Amazon are from RIAA members or not. Only takes a few seconds to install and works great.
Be amused and be an informed consumer. (Thanks Fred).
The Wall Street Journal article on the Blooker Prize is out (and will be out in print tomorrow). Great coverage informed I think somewhat by the long phone call to Buenos Aires that I had with the author, Ian Mount, on Wednesday. Cory and I aren’t directly quoted or mentioned (only indirectly) which is okay.
I love that the Executive Editor of Little Brown says first what a hit “Julie and Julia” turned out to be, but then warns other editors and publishers away from blogs (the better to keep that resource to herself?):
Little, Brown Executive Editor Judy Clain, who acquired “Julie and Julia,” says she was amazed by the boost the book got from fans of the blog. “What we underestimated was how huge the audience was,” she says.
Still, not every blogger is a born author. “I don’t think a blog is a great place to look for new writers,” says Ms. Clain, “because there are so many, and so many aren’t very good.”
Me. From the Minutes of the UNC Faculty Council:
3. Strategic thoughts on IT.
Professor Wegner reported the results of the IT survey sent to faculty, but so far only 13 faculty had responded. Carol Jenkins spoke briefly about strategic planning for IT, but there was no formal presentation as designated on the agenda.
Washington Irving was there in the 1820s; I’ll be in Granada at the Alhambra at the end of April for the Louis Round Wilson Knowledge Academy meetings. All kinds of good folks have recommended Irving’s book to me (thanks Terry and Ismael). I’m about 100 pages into the 1851 facsimile edition and am enjoying Irving’s adventures and storytelling immensely. What a treat it will be to be see the Alhambra now over 150 years after Irving’s visit.
Fred through a pointer to Smoking Gun notices that among the requirements for our traveling VP is the demand that “All Televisions to be tuned to FOX News” [VP’s staff’s caps]. Among the note’s handwritten additions to the requirements are these print sources: New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and “local newspaper” then almost as an afterthought “Wash Post.”
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