Monthly Archives: October 2005

Google doesn’t know us! What do I do?

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My sister goes to a school called King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls and she’s been having a bit of problem making sure that the search engines around know where they are. If you look for her school with terms like ‘King Edwards Camp Hill’ or ‘Camp Hill School for Girls’ you get lots of information, much of it out of date, about the school. It’s a fantastic school and has great qualities but self-publicity is not high on the list of their priorities. Some official government education bodies, like the National Grid for Learning even link to the out of date site, though others are more helpful on statistics and general information about the school, like the DfEE. See the Department’s page for Camp Hill Girls. This is what the school says about itself:

As a voluntary aided selective grammar school – part of the nationally renowned Birmingham-based Foundation of the Schools of King Edward VI – we offer a genuinely first rate education to girls 11 – 18.

The school consistently achieves top positions in national league tables of examination results and our most recent inspection rated the school as excellent. There are around 850 girls on our school roll from all parts of Birmingham and the West Midlands.

When they say that they achieve top positions they really mean it. The school has developed an art for the understatement. As indicated in the BBC 2005 GCSE League Tables, the measurement of success in exams at the 15/16 year old age group, Camp Hill Girls came second in the country. That’s quite sad because my former school, King Edwards School Birmingham, came 27th. Old rivals, my sister and me but she doesn’t hold it over me, despite her superior brain.
Whatever the measure, when you look at the BBC’s results assessment, or any other really, a 100 percent rating for exams is pretty darn good.
So she’s had a problem getting recognised because everyone is linking to either the boys school next-door, or they’re thinking of the old website. The only way to get yourself online is to be interactive with everyone else online, to constantly add new content and information, to update news on school plays and activities. People only link to you, if you link to them.

King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls

Popularity: 1% [?]

Why are you a soldier son? Well, I watched Band of Brothers and…

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Patrick Byrne, the 42-year-old president of Overstock.com, a seller of excess retail inventory, apologized to investors yesterday for a $14.2 million third-quarter loss thusly, and we quote: “My bad.”

Later in his conference call, he warned of a potential hostile takeover of his company being orchestrated by a “Sith lord,” forcing the poor Bloomberg writer to explain what a Sith lord is. Perhaps investors can look forward to the company’s Q4 earnings being dramatized with the aid of scale models and action figures. “Okay. Here’s the Ewoks. That’s us . . .”

Wa Po: Is There a Grown-Up Here? Anywhere?

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No need be bored on the plane: get fixed up!

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Trendwatching firm iconoculture.com points me in the direction of a startup networking company called AirTroductions. The premise of this firm is that since ‘we’re’ in the air travelling between jobs and vacations so much, we ought to leverage that time flying to find interesting people to talk to, to handpick our travelling partners. There’s nothing worse than overzealous conversationalists when you’re flying but the flipside is that when you’re bored it can be great to talk to someone fascinating. I’ve met plenty of interesting people on flights and enough dull ones to see the value of planning who one might sit next to.
First you input your details and photo into a database of members, listing interests and things you’re most comfortable with: Vodka Martini, Paris at night, Sneakers, The W Hotel and so forth. When you’re taking a flight you tell the site which flight you’re taking and it will show you the details of any other users who’re taking the same flight and for $5 would offer to put you in touch.

So whether you’re looking for a date in Los Angeles, a business networking partner in Tokyo, or just someone to share a cab from Kennedy to Midtown, look no further. You’ve found AirTroductions. If you’ve got any ideas on how to make AirTroductions even better, then we want to hear from you!

-Peter Shankman,

Founder AirTroductions

The simple advantage of this is in using the downtime that flights create to either network or make friends or develop romances. The system can clearly be used as whatever the user wants it to be, which is the strength of other networking sites such as LinkedIn and Ecademy, but with the advantage of the fact that you don’t have to actively go to AirTroductions events because you’re already there and simply making your flying time more efficient and enjoyable.

Iconoculture: AirTroductions online match service helps jetsetters find flight partners
AirTroductions

Popularity: 1% [?]

Resembling A Medical Condition

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In one of our lectures this evening, preparing for the freak weather conditions that will no doubt accompany the ‘agressive camping’ that we’ll be doing over the weekend, we discussed extremes of temperature. First aid teaches us that when someone exhibits the following signs, they’re likely to be suffering from Hyperthermia:

  • Headaches
  • Thirst
  • Clammy skin
  • Weak and rapid pulse
  • Increased respiratory rate
  • Dizzy and confused

These are, funnily enough, many of the signs that I’m ‘exhibiting’ everyday at the moment. Seriously man… too much work. It’s not fun.

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