Category: Web/Tech

I’ve noticed that fewer folks are calling me "James" these days. Even some of the holdouts are finally switching over.

So on a whim I decided to see whether this is true of the Internet (where a lotta folks encounter my name) by going to GoogleFight.Com and squaring off "Jimmy Akin" vs. "James Akin" (putting the terms in quotes so that the names are single search terms).

And the winner is . . .

Jimmy Akin! By a landslide!

YEE-HAW!!!

Things are as they should be!

In case you may not be familiar with GoogleFight, it’s a service that lets you square off two search terms against each other and see which is indexed more times by Google.

For example, when George W. Bush fights Bin Laden on GoogleFight, he whips his butt with 23 million hits to the terrorist rat’s 7 million hits.

Similarly, God whips Satan. Burger King whips McDonalds. America whips Iraq. The United States whips France. The pen is mightier than the sword. And all is right in the world. (Mostly. Darth Vader does whip Luke Skywalker.)

Report your own Googlefights in the combox!

STAGE A GOOGLEFIGHT!

Well, the New Oxford Review has been online for quite a while now, but the site has not had much of interest.  Now it does.  Back issues are online, with the promise of more to come.  Check it out!

Well, the New Oxford Review has been online for quite a while now, but the site has not had much of interest.  Now it does.  Back issues are online, with the promise of more to come.  Check it out!

Ignatius Insight has another in its series of weekly articles on Catholic bloggers. This time they print responses to the question of what value there is in Catholic blogs.

Technically, the question they posed (though they don’t print it in the article) was "What can a Catholic blog do that others can’t?"

Your humble blogger has the lead answer this week.

GET THE STORY.

What I’ll be interested to see is if they print the opening of my answer to next week’s question ("What criticisms of blogs are most valid?"). It was distinctly off-the-wall.

A piece back I provided a link to Amazon.Com to get books by B16, using the keyword "Ratzinger." Unfortunately, I accidentally linked the apparel section of Amazon.Com instead of the books section.

A reader pointed out in the combox that (1) I had linked to the apparel section and (2) that there was no Ratzinger apparel. 🙁

WELL, NOW THERE IS!

Not at Amazon.Com, mind you, but at the Deo Gratias web store, run by a frequent blog visitor.

There you can get B16 T-shirts, sweats, mugs, mousepads, baseball caps, and, of course, the B16 bumper sticker y’all have seen here before:

YEE-HAW! GETCHA SOME GREAT B16 STUFF!

(That’s Tagalog for "Howdy, Bishop!")

It turns out that several bishops in the Philippines (where they speak Tagalog) have started . . . (wait for it) . . . blogs!

Three bishops are linked on the Philippine national conference’s site as having blogs. The three are:

• Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan (ovc.blogspot.com)
• Bishop Leonardo Medroso of Borongan (medroso.blogspot.com)
• Bishop Jose Manguiran of Dipolong (bpmanguiran.blogspot.com)

GET THE STORY.

(CHT to the reader who e-mailed!)

GET THE STORY.

(CHT: Southern Appeal.)

What’s this?

Okay, it’s a sattelite picture of a Florida neighborhood that you can view over yonder on Google’s new satellite map service.

HERE.

But what’s the circular thing in the middle of the picture?

Nobody knows!

BUT FOLKS OVER AT THE GOOGLE SIGHTSEEING BOARD ARE HAVING FUN TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT.

Incidentally, in case you’re not familiar with this Google service, you can access it by going to

MAPS.GOOGLE.COM

typing in an address, say your house, and then clicking the "Satellite" link up to the right and get a sattelite view of your house! (Or whatever other address you typed in.)

These images ain’t realtime (othwise the whole service would go dark every night) but folks have been finding all kind of interesting things in them (e.g., airplanes in flight).

Happy hunting!

A new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project has found that Blogs are no big deal.

Charting the discussion of issues during the 2004 presidential campaign, the study found political blogs — online opinion and information sites — played a similar, but not greater role, as the mainstream media in "creating buzz" around the candidates’ campaigns.

The study dispels the notion that blogs are replacing traditional media as the public’s primary source of information, said Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at Pew.

The headline of the article trumpeted "Study: Blogs haven’t totally displaced media yet" (okay, words in red are mine). Only in the funhouse-mirror world of the MSM would the admission that your influence has been cut effectively in half be a cause for celebration.

Remember in the first Rocky movie, how Rocky and Apollo Creed fought to a split decision? Afterward, do you remember Apollo jumping up and down in relief and shouting "Yay! I fought a totally inexperienced newcomer to a near-draw!! Who da man?" – No, you do not. Because he was too busy trying to decide whether he should feel more "stunned" or "humiliated".

The spin, just in the headline, is dizzying. I don’t know much about the Pew Internet & American Life Project, except that the Pew Charitable Trusts are a big supporter of NPR. The story came from CNN.com via Reuters.

Over yonder at Ignatius Insight they’re running a series of pieces on Catholic bloggers, and yours truly is one of many excellent bloggers being featured.

In this installment, they ask us "Why do you blog?"

My answer:

I was put under a Gypsy curse when I was seven years old.

Seriously: I blog because it’s fun. In enjoy interacting with people, writing up kooky or informative pieces, throwing them out on the ‘Net, and then seeing what the reaction is.

Despite the obvious problems with our world today (I’m still waiting for the upgrade), I find the world we live in a terribly interesting place, and my blog is a way that I can share with others my own experience of exploring the world.

I enjoy answering folks’ questions, as well as typing up things that I find interesting for amusing, and I enjoy seeing folks get into the spirit of it. On my blog we have a number of running jokes, and folks send in links of things they’ve found that they think other blog readers might want to know about. The more, the merrier!

GET THE STORY.

(CHT: Feddie of Southern Appeal for e-mailing.)