Blogging backwards?

For my Day Job we're going to do some things to celebrate and document the 50th anniversary of digital computing at Michigan State University. One of the basic things we need to do is create a historical timeline.

I was trying to think of what software to use for this, and then it occurred to me that a blog might be the perfect tool, since you can set the date of publiction for an article. As long as the calendar logic is correct for 50 plus years, of course.

Then it occurred to me you could use it as not just a scratch pad, you could write the articles in present tense as if they had been blogged for a contemporaneous audience....

Tie it into a graphical timeline and you've got a neat way of telling the story.

Then it occurred to me that anyone -- a family, a business, a city, a public library, a society -- could use backwards blogging. As you encounter historical tidbits you just file them under the historical date.

Now for the wackiest idea: a backwards blog as a form of fiction. You write a story set in say the old West. Maybe rewrite Little House on the Prairie in the form of a blog?

Does anyone know of any examples of blogging backwards?

Exceeding the greater good

Wow, it's nice to be recognized for your achievements, but to achieve beyond the greater good is especially humbling.

The bit about being a gelding is a little unsettling, however....

Posted on Sat, May. 27, 2006

Wiggins wiggles past Greater Good

ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOUISVILLE - Wiggins grabbed the lead at the top of the stretch and cruised to a 21/2-length victory in the $58,900 featured allowance race for 3-year-olds and up at Churchill Downs yesterday.

The 6-year-old gelding, with Rafael Bejarano aboard, covered the 11/16 miles on a fast track in 1:42.41 to beat Greater Good for the 14th time in 31 career starts.

Trainer Dale Romans said Wiggins will most likely run in the $750,000-added Stephen Foster Handicap on June 17.

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/sports/horse_racing/14680240.htm

Google Maps thinks Pizeria Uno serves Mexican food

We're looking for a pizza place close to our hotel in Chicago, and of course I turn to Google Maps. They list multiple Pizzeria Uno locations. To my surprise, the closest one serves ... Mexican food!

Click for full-size screen shot

And a mariachi band! Ahh, those wacky Google robots.

Thinking outside the linear drive-up window box

So I went to Wendy's to get an iced tea, and found myself behind folks with most bizarre idea of how drive-up service works. Two cars were side by side at the ordering window. The car next to the window seemed to have finished ordering. Both cars sat adjacent, yakking through open windows, until I honked for them to go up to the pick-up window.



They pulled up next to each other at the pick-up window. The Wendy's server handed a bunch of drink cups and bags of food to the car at his window. In turn, about half of these cups and bags were passed over from the passenger side of the one car to the driver of the next.



It took forever.

When they finally left, I pulled up and asked what the heck that was all about. The cashier said it was the dumbest thing he'd ever seen. Not only did they do totally goofy two-car ordering, relaying orders from the car on the right through the car on the left; they also asked to have everything repacked into separate bags to match the two cars.

You know, for 99.9% of us, our drive-up window thinking is just so linear.

Clever font adjuster at ESPN.com

I stumbled upon a little control panel at ESPN.com that lets you change the font size for the article you're reading. This is a common complaint from the presbyopic: those hip sites with crisp graphics and tiny fonts can't be read by folks with bad close-up vision.



This is really cool! It seems to adjust the site's CSS on the fly, so you don't have to screw with your browser's font settings or use zoom controls.

Here's my question: shouldn't the text "Adjust font size" be in a larger font?

Oh, and the article was interesting, too.

Google announces Google Coop - sounds cool, but it's Error 404

Today Google announced yet another cool tool, Google Coop. The press release says:

Google Co-op beta is a community where users can contribute their knowledge and expertise to improve Google search for everyone. Organizations, businesses, or individuals can label web pages relevant to their areas of expertise or create specialized links to which userscan subscribe.

Hmm, sounds promising. And they offer a link to this cool new thing. Google says:

Google Co-op is available today on all English language Google domains including Australia, Canada, NewZealand, and the United Kingdom.

Does that mean they left out the United States deliberately? Because this is what you happens when you click on www.google.com/coop/:










nnn

Save the wireless!

How can a country that landed men on the moon, a country of such affluence, allow this coffee shop to suffer through wirelessness?

William Sloane Coffin

Rest in peace.

Star Trek 2.0: great riff on Web 2.0

Tim O'Reilly and pals are making a big deal of "Web 2.0" to the point where everyone talks about it although no one knows exactly what it means. The folks at the G4 television network -- the cable TV channel that swallowed TechTV -- are having some fun with Star Trek 2.0.

I especially like the Spock Market.

Witches Parking

Spied on a bumper in East Lansing:

01 02 03 04 05 06

OK, enough people have sent this factoid to me so as to make it incumbent to note this in my blog before the amazing event transpires:

On Wednesday, at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. That won't happen again for 1000 years.

The Official 2006 Google April Fool's Joke: Google Romance

Google has launched its annual April Fool's joke: Google Romance. Google's home page declares:

New! Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance.

It's pretty darn funny - worth taking the Tour. I especially like this feature: Post multiple profiles witha bulk upload file, you sleaze

Nobody beats Google at crafting a great April Fool's Joke. If only Google would pay as much attention to making Google News a trustworthy news aggregator.

See http://www.google.com/romance/