Random – Ashley http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley Just another blogs.elsweb.org weblog Sun, 22 Jul 2007 13:04:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 CNN-YouTube Debate http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/07/22/cnn-youtube-debate/ Sun, 22 Jul 2007 13:03:45 +0000 http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/07/22/cnn-youtube-debate/ Continue reading ]]> For the Democratic presidential debate on Monday night, the candidates will be asked questions sent in via YouTube. The Republican candidates will also participate in the same CNN-YouTube debate on September 17. I think this is a really interesting idea – anyone can film themselves asking a question, send it in, and have the chance to see their issues brought up in this important debate. I think it is great that the people who have valid questions and issues for the candidates to answer can submit them in such a personal way. The article points out that it will make the debates more personal to the public than the journalists can. The only problems brought up is that since YouTube content is completely user generated, it might not be right to have an editor decide what is a good or bad question. Some think that it would be better for the users of YouTube to decide on the issues that will be brought up at the debates. What do you think?

If you are interested, here is the article

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New 7 Wonders of the World http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/07/09/new-7-wonders-of-the-world/ Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:17:35 +0000 http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/07/09/new-7-wonders-of-the-world/ Continue reading ]]> The new seven wonders of the world were recently voted on in its first ever global election. I thought it was a really cool idea to have a global election – it is another form of communication in real time. People all around the world could go to the website and click on their two favorite world wonders of the finalists. Anyone with access to the internet could vote, see that their results were cast, and then find out who won at the end of the election. Also, if you were a registered user at the website, you could watch the webcast of the live announcement in Lisbon, Portugal of the new 7 wonders. If you are interested in what the new 7 wonders of the world are, check it out!

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Ancient Runes http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/06/25/ancient-runes/ Tue, 26 Jun 2007 03:20:57 +0000 http://blogs.elsweb.org/ashley/2007/06/25/ancient-runes/ Continue reading ]]> Last week I had to turn in a paper for my Writing Systems of the World linguistics class, and my topic was ancient runes. In the Oxford dictionary, a rune is defined as 1) a letter of an ancient Germanic alphabet; 2) a symbol with mysterious or magical significance. So from 200 BC to about the 8th century, runes were a writing system that had a strong magical connotation. Well, today I was reading Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince for the 468256 time, and one of the subjects at Hogwarts is Ancient Runes! I thought this was kinda cool because there is a strong sense of magic associated with ancient runes, and it is also a subject offered at the magical school.

Random, I know, but I find things like this interesting. 🙂

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