The Web is a web

Call me persnickety. In trying to figure out the right way to spell "Web" and "web" and "Web site," and whether to capitalize "internet" I've come across this little ditty from the Internet. It is odd that these spellings would garner so much attention from me because I can't spell “receive” or any of the i-before-e words (as soon as I learned there were exceptions like "neighbor" and "whey" I decided not to learn it.) Yes I know whey is speled wrong.

In truth, I should focus on the i-before-e words or how to spell "license" or "misspell" because they aren't going to change anytime soon. How we spell Web site, probably will.

So here is what Bob Wyman said.

‘Internet’ vs. ‘internet’ and ‘Web’ vs. ‘web’: Wisdom from Net guru Bob Wyman based on IETF usage

By Bob Wyman

Moderator: You should cap “Internet” and “Web,” at least in a “the” context. Below, excerpted with permission from a post to the online-news list, is wisdom from Bob Wyman, a Google tech staffer and long-time Net expert. - D.R.

"In the technical community that created and named the Internet, the convention is to capitalize when one is writing about the specific “internet” that we call the Internet and not to capitalize when referring to generic internets. In this case, the technical community is essentially acting as their own lexicographers and using the capitalization to add disambiguating information to the text. Think of it as a case of case-sensitive encoding.

Those who doubt the value of this distinction need only scan any of the thousands of documents on the site of the Internet Engineering Task Force. The IETF is responsible for the internet standards that make the Internet work. They should know how to spell the name of what they build.

If you “never capitalize internet and web,” you are simply indicating that you don’t understand the technical distinction between the Internet and an internet. Also, you don’t understand the difference between the Web and a web. (For instance, Tim Berners-Lee clearly wrote the first Web browser. However, I may have written the first, or at least one of the first, web browsers.) The difference in capitalization is exceptionally significant.

The Internet is an internet.

The Web is a web."

Source:
http://www.teleread.org/2008/03/27/internet-vs-internet-and-web-vs-web-wisdom-from-bob-wyman-based-on-ietf-usage/

When Grandma Goes To Court

Moral of the Story

[Don't know the author; got this via email.]

A Teacher gave her fifth grade class an assignment: Get their parents to tell them a story with a moral at the end of it.

The next day the kids came back and one by one began to tell their stories. There were all the regular type stuff, spilled milk and pennies saved.

But then teacher realized, much to her dismay, that only Ernie was left. 'Ernie, do you have a story to share?'

'Yes ma'am. My daddy told a story about my Aunt Karen. She was a pilot in Desert Storm and her plane got hit. She had to bail out over enemy territory and all she had was a flask of whiskey, a pistol and a survival knife. She drank the whiskey on the way down so the bottle wouldn't break and then her parachute landed right in the middle of twenty enemy troops. She shot fifteen of them with the gun until she ran out of bullets, killed four more with the knife, till the blade broke, and then she killed the last enemy with her bare hands.'

'Good Heavens' said the horrified teacher. 'What kind of moral did your daddy tell you from this horrible story?'

'Stay the hell away from Aunt Karen when she's drinking.'

New Line on the Horizon

U2
New Line on the Horizon

Worth the wait!

Now to see them again in concert!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes Thanksgiving, that little sliver of a holiday we used to celebrate in the fall. It once symbolized the harvest season, now it’s Black Friday eve. How odd that the Halloween pumpkins are still freshly smashed, and the elevators and doctor’s offices are cranking up the Christmas music. Quick--unbox the Christmas tree and spray the pine scent around. St. Visa will soon be here with ruby red-nose Rudolph.

But wait. What about Thanksgiving? What about over the river and through the woods? What about eating yourself sleepy at Grandma’s house and hiding Grandpa’s teeth? If Thanksgiving were in a favorite holiday pageant, and asked how it stacks up to Christmas What would it say?

Perhaps that Thanksgiving is less produced. At least less produced than Christmas or Independence Day, for example. Any holiday that keeps you out of the Mall or Wal-Mart is indeed a holiday.

While retailers lustfully wait for the day after Thanksgiving to absorb our credit and deposit our dollars, maybe we could put them off for a bit. (The notable exceptions, of course, are Best Buy and Home Depot, in which we need to share our coin during all the seasons.)

How about not just a day of Thanksgiving, a day off from Frosty and the Workshop Elves, but a season of Thanksgiving that begins the day after Halloween when we are thankful we are less compelled to eat everything in the pillowcase, and extend that until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving day.

How do you beat a holiday dedicated to giving thanks? No one ever got arrested for being too thankful. It doesn’t cost anything and you don’t have to wait until it goes on sale. All it takes is a little pause. Look up at the night sparklers, take a walk like it was the first time with your eyes open, watch a baby smile, feed a duck (preferably to a falcon :) ) play hopscotch, rake a neighbors leaves, buy a stranger a Coke, remember well a friend before their funeral, thank God you don’t have a headache.

Thanksgiving like many holidays began with a feast, a little meal shared between neighbors signifying their gratitude for not killing each other. Still not a bad idea. And it can be done simply without committees and crowd control or frazzled worriers sure that someone will be misplaced from their name tagged plate.

One of my best Thanksgiving memories was set in New England. We lived in Ridgefield, Connecticut, just a state away from the first harvest feast between pilgrims and their native neighbors. My sister and her husband came from Utah to visit and a second sister living in nearby New York also joined us. My parents were in South Africa, while the rest of our families were spread out in the West. The meal was a simple meal, with the rich patchwork textures of Connecticut as a backdrop.

John Greenleaf Whittier penned a Thanksgiving verse and symbolized the New England gathering of "pilgrim and guest" by calling his poem, The Pumpkin.

What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?

As my own past is called up, rich as pumpkin pie, the pie is ever pumpkin with hand whipped cream heaped with extra sugar when Mom turned her head. Along with family in easy chatter, what also calls the past is the autumn leaf. Especially the New England treelets. I see piles and shades of gold and red, huge Crayola snow flakes (the big box kind with the built-in sharper) gathering on lawns and stony fences and meandering down wandering roads.

And as a car whisks down the path, the leaves like color fairies are set in orbit and spin to new destinies. And I think of myself, whisking down a path toward the Thanksgiving day and meal. Whether simple or complex I will soak in the kitchen smells, thank the floured aprons, the pleasant table display, the chairs filled with loved ones.

I hope my thanks includes my help before, after or during, but know I will be trusted mostly during the after phase. I washed dishes professionally once, so will I draw on those skills. And then I will look for a soft chair, a good book and someone to catch up with. In all, I give thanks, and hopefully will make a season of it.

© Shayne Clarke 2008

Halloween Dance

At what turned out to be the second-to-last house for trick or treating, I noticed that my son Danaan, age six at the time, was doing a light dance as he waited for the candy to be disbursed. Seeing the choreography was similar to steps he does in the middle of the night while trying to remember which room contains a toilet, I yelled at him to dance straight to the car. I knew time was short. And while I calculated the chance of making it home before his bladder exploded, he turned and walked straight through the valley of the shadow of tooth decay to the next door.

And yes this house proved to be his last chance for free candy. By now the dance at the door rivaled the rhythm of an early morning aerobics class. He could barely hold his bag open. He had the focus of a cat waiting for the mouse to peek out. The focus had been the anticipated candy--was it a real Snickers or the “fun” size? (And don’t we all agree that a real fun size would be a foot long?) But the focus changed. Now it was like the vulture eating in the middle of the road, who thinks to himself, “Can I take one more bite before the on-coming truck hits me?”

Or sure he could have said, “Excuse me Ma’am, thanks again for the Smarties, but I was wondering if I could use your bathroom before I pee my pants?” But of course, this doesn’t happen. And I would have bet a Big Hunk, on that one. I was six once. I peed my pants right there in the lunch room because I was afraid to ask someone where the little boy’s room was. And then I had to sit there all during lunch hoping it would dry before I had to go back to class. It didn’t.

I knew Danaan wouldn’t ask. I knew it really was the last door as he scampered down the steps and raced to the car. I also knew we were in trouble as his steps moved quickly from the high-energy, high-stepping stride of a bathroom seeker, to the slow, wide-walking waltz of a shower seeker. His face morphed from a candy thrill-seeker to the Pillsbury doughboy who just met a rolling pin.

The appropriate response to his state was unclear. There is just something funny about the walk of a kid who has just peed his pants, and as much I as wanted to bust out laughing, I had to restrain. He wasn’t sure how to respond either. This was the first time his bladder almost exploded on Candy Night.

His face was a menu of embarrassed laughter and suppressed tears. When he got to the car, I had to make a mature decision. Where do you seat a soiled kid? Do I have him waddle along the side of the car the remaining blocks home? Do I have him ride on the hood? Putting him in the trunk on Halloween was probably not a good idea. Do I go home and get the truck? Call a tow truck? And then I remember he has enough candy in his bag to keep us most saturated in calories until next October. “Hop in bud!” I say warmly. “Let me hold your bag for you.”

My 9/11

Writing a blog entry on 9/11 is I’m sure a common event today. As it should be. The events of September 11, 2001 are indelibly etched in our memories and in our hearts.

At the moment, I am out of town, as I was on September 11, 2001. Then I was in Atlanta, Georgia attending a trade show across the street from the CNN Center. There was speculation that the communication giant was a potential target. The Nation was on high alert generally and individually. My colleagues and I were for the most part trapped in the city. Airplanes were grounded. Many people from my company jumped on a bus and began a long ride back to Utah. They had no confidence in the airlines.

My bet was, that once we were allowed to fly, we would be safer than every before. I flew with confidence once we could several days later.

Reflections: I remember gathering for prayer in an old red brick church in downtown Atlanta. It may have been a Baptist, or Methodists, it didn’t matter. We didn’t gather as registered parishioners, we prayed as brothers and sisters who knew less about the world than we did a few days before. What we knew for sure was there is a God and that we were his children. How the prayers were offered or how the church was decorated mattered little.

I remember public prayers offered in groups outside office buildings. People dressed in suits or jeans circled in prayer, calling upon the almighty to understand and heal the might event unfolding before us. As groups huddled in prayer or stood trying to make sense of the events, it reminded me of terrible events and serious reflection from Nephite survivors as they listen to a still voice in the dark. Perhaps those days in Atlanta was a preview to scenes we’ll see when the still voice sounds a second time.

I remember looking for my expression of the Red, White and Blue. Suddenly pins, and hats and t-shirts were in high demand and worn be all who could. I finally found my version, a Red, White, and Blue New York Yankees hat with the N and Y spangled with stars. I wore it proudly on the plane home, and for many days after that.

New York is a sweet spot for me. I worked in Manhattan for four years, had business meeting in the twin towers, took scouts to a high rise office to watch 4th of July fireworks in the New York Harbor. I spent many days in many of the surrounding buildings also damaged on 9/11 that day. It was hard to imagine that these two giants were down, their neighbors shook too hard and so many people went with them. I don’t have the capacity to comprehend what really happened that day. The individual stories of heroism and hell. It is too big. Too many lives ruined, too many futures disrupted.

But I admire the great spirit of New York. The spirit of rebuilding the beautiful out of the smoldering ashes. The spirit of not letting despair break them forever. The spirit to fight back. It is more than just ignoring the past, of just putting it out of mind as though it had not happened. It is taking what happened and making that experience meaningful by not being enfeebled by it, but somehow being empowered by it.
© Shayne Clarke 2008