Score
Cameron 65
Neil 30
Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label labels. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
End of the blog-off
There are less than 14 minutes left in the blog-off, which means the blog-off is at least 2799 2800ths done with the competition this year. Cameron hasn't posted much this evening and only has a few minutes to correct the tagging of previous entries to regain 30 or so points. After this post, I'm within striking distance; it feels like a trap. Oh wait... Cameron has posted a new post with a high score for himself. It looks like he has perhaps corrected his labelling mistakes. Looks like that just about does it for me. I'm confident I don't have another 7 posts in me.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Attack of the fine print
About a week ago we decided to have a few friends over for dinner on Saturday. Given our weekly Ultimate commitments I suggested that we have turkey as it would allow me to begin the cooking process before we left the apartment. Then, when we returned, there wouldn’t be that much left to do before dinner.
So on Tuesday, a day strategically chosen to take advantage of a 10% student discount at one of the local grocery stores, I purchased a turkey. It turns out that as we are not near a major turkey holiday the selection is some what limited, and appeared to be rather picked over. After a few minutes, and some confusion about what I was looking at, I eventually settled on a 5.5 kg bird. Once I returned home I placed it in the fridge to thaw for Saturday.
On Wednesday I baked a batch of bread to use in the stuffing. A various points throughout the week I made sure that we had the other ingredients that I would require for stuffing.
Early on Saturday afternoon I pulled the carcass out of the fridge to examine it and try to figure out how long the cooking process would take.
While I was looking at the packaging and cooking instructions something seemed amiss. The suggested times were much longer than I expected, and they were seeming to suggest that the bird should be cooked from frozen.
After a few minutes of pondering and examination I finally accepted that I had mistakenly purchased a stuffed turkey. Not only was my well planned thawing unnecessary (and possibly dangerous), my stuffing preparations were also superfluous. It was as though I had given myself a punch in the gut (as there was no one to blame but myself).
Though I guess I am willing to assign a little blame to the designers of the turkey packaging. Instead of including the fact that the turkey was stuffed with the description of the turkey (grain fed, butter-basted, etc.) they included in a small, differently coloured box below the large main box. Only very close inspection of the packaging would have allowed one to see this key piece of information.
What I found rather surprising about this whole thing is that the fact that turkey was stuffed wasn’t more prominent. I would think that the marketers would want to make people aware of one of the key features of the turkey, namely that it was pre-stuffed. If I missed when looking for an empty turkey it seems quite likely that there may be others who missed that it was a stuffed turkey.
As much as I wasn’t a fan of the pre-stuffed turkey (which was likely drier than it should have been because of a mangled cooking process) I am glad to know that I am not fan of pre-stuffed turkey stuffing and that I need to be on the lookout for pre-stuffed turkeys posing as the unstuffed variety.
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 2
So on Tuesday, a day strategically chosen to take advantage of a 10% student discount at one of the local grocery stores, I purchased a turkey. It turns out that as we are not near a major turkey holiday the selection is some what limited, and appeared to be rather picked over. After a few minutes, and some confusion about what I was looking at, I eventually settled on a 5.5 kg bird. Once I returned home I placed it in the fridge to thaw for Saturday.
On Wednesday I baked a batch of bread to use in the stuffing. A various points throughout the week I made sure that we had the other ingredients that I would require for stuffing.
Early on Saturday afternoon I pulled the carcass out of the fridge to examine it and try to figure out how long the cooking process would take.
While I was looking at the packaging and cooking instructions something seemed amiss. The suggested times were much longer than I expected, and they were seeming to suggest that the bird should be cooked from frozen.
After a few minutes of pondering and examination I finally accepted that I had mistakenly purchased a stuffed turkey. Not only was my well planned thawing unnecessary (and possibly dangerous), my stuffing preparations were also superfluous. It was as though I had given myself a punch in the gut (as there was no one to blame but myself).
Though I guess I am willing to assign a little blame to the designers of the turkey packaging. Instead of including the fact that the turkey was stuffed with the description of the turkey (grain fed, butter-basted, etc.) they included in a small, differently coloured box below the large main box. Only very close inspection of the packaging would have allowed one to see this key piece of information.
What I found rather surprising about this whole thing is that the fact that turkey was stuffed wasn’t more prominent. I would think that the marketers would want to make people aware of one of the key features of the turkey, namely that it was pre-stuffed. If I missed when looking for an empty turkey it seems quite likely that there may be others who missed that it was a stuffed turkey.
As much as I wasn’t a fan of the pre-stuffed turkey (which was likely drier than it should have been because of a mangled cooking process) I am glad to know that I am not fan of pre-stuffed turkey stuffing and that I need to be on the lookout for pre-stuffed turkeys posing as the unstuffed variety.
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 2
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Comments on Blog functionality
While many of the new features provided by Blogger make the upkeep and arrangement of a blog much easier it would be nice if a few complementary elements were also added.
I guess in particular I am thinking about the ability to add cross references (x-refs) in the label section, though this may just be a library student bias.
X-refs allow two things, referral to additional, possibly relevant, information or to the location where the location where the desired information is actually stored. The first type of x-ref is call a ‘see also’ reference while the second type is called a ‘see’ reference. In the days of the card catalogue these were quite common, and in some ways are still quite common in the world of indexes.
A ‘see also’ reference would be good when related information would be filed under two or more distinct terms. One example might be that a items relating to George Bush would be filed headings related to his position as President, as well as his position as Governor, and as a private citizen.
A ‘see’ reference might indicate that instead of information being filed under ‘Dubya’ it is instead filed under ‘Bush, George W.’ In other words, it directs the user to the authorized form of the heading.
With our current level of programming skill these references can typically be made available to the use in a very easy fashion. ‘See also’ references might be made available as a note with the label, while a ‘see’ reference might even be done automatically.
Some form of controlled vocabulary, or list of available labels, might be nice. Unfortunately, given the circumstances of the blogging world I don’t think that this is yet possible, though Neil and I could work on one for ourselves, though this would be aided by the ability to use the x-refs that I mentioned above.
I guess in particular I am thinking about the ability to add cross references (x-refs) in the label section, though this may just be a library student bias.
X-refs allow two things, referral to additional, possibly relevant, information or to the location where the location where the desired information is actually stored. The first type of x-ref is call a ‘see also’ reference while the second type is called a ‘see’ reference. In the days of the card catalogue these were quite common, and in some ways are still quite common in the world of indexes.
A ‘see also’ reference would be good when related information would be filed under two or more distinct terms. One example might be that a items relating to George Bush would be filed headings related to his position as President, as well as his position as Governor, and as a private citizen.
A ‘see’ reference might indicate that instead of information being filed under ‘Dubya’ it is instead filed under ‘Bush, George W.’ In other words, it directs the user to the authorized form of the heading.
With our current level of programming skill these references can typically be made available to the use in a very easy fashion. ‘See also’ references might be made available as a note with the label, while a ‘see’ reference might even be done automatically.
Some form of controlled vocabulary, or list of available labels, might be nice. Unfortunately, given the circumstances of the blogging world I don’t think that this is yet possible, though Neil and I could work on one for ourselves, though this would be aided by the ability to use the x-refs that I mentioned above.
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