So, as some of you might remember, we set up a little side contest on Free Day:
As Mentioned on IRC, since we didn't get around to coming up with anything for users of text-only browsers like Lynx, w3m, elinks, et al., IT will be running a side contest with a handful of prizes. If you snailmail us a screenshot, photograph, printout, or related proof of today's SparkFun home page loaded on your terminal of choice, postmarked before the 20th, we'll choose one on the basis of creativity and draw a couple more at random. Prizes to be determined.
We got a nice little pile of submissions - 14 in total - and I've been telling people I would announce winners approximately twice a day since the deadline.
Most recently, I told Emcee Grady I'd put something on the blog around 9am on Wednesday. I'm only running a couple of hours late on that one.
Anyhow, I narrowed things down to half a dozen finalists and coerced everybody in IT plus a few Customer Service reps to vote. The final winner was Harford Hackerspace's snapshot of a dude named Miles grimacing at an ADM-3A with the Free Day home page clearly visible.
The two winners picked at random from the whole pool of entrants (ok, so at pseudorandom):
- Isaac from Oklahoma, using elinks.
- Jasmine from California, who didn't quite follow instructions, but who wrote a very nice letter and does have a terminal visible in the screenshot, so I guess we'll let it slide.
I'm gonna post this before I disappoint our copywriter any more than I already have - the man's got a regular schedule to uphold here - and update it in a bit with some photos of the more interesting submissions. Thanks to everyone who sent us mail - it was a lot of fun opening all those envelopes.
Winners: I'll be in touch with a promo code. We're just gonna call this equivalent to a Free Day win because I'm way short of the energy to do anything more creative.
nice pi day logo!
Dear SFE,
What is up with the late posts? Some days it's 9AM, others its 11AM! IT FEELS LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!
Thank you for reading.
Imagine an Internet with the technology to post things on web pages at any random time of the day.
The mind boggles a little.
Ah, PI lovers unite! Love the subtle change.
TAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAUTAU
Next time you'd better use random.org, a true random number generator. You can even use an HTTP API to incorporate in php scripts if you do want to script something yourself. They're using normalised cosmic background radiation from a radio receiver, much like the idea of Freeday with your Geiger counter :)
We felt it was way more fun to use our own way rather than somebody else's, though. Sometimes there are easier ways, but part of growing as a hobbyist/programmer/whatever is to do things your own way.
I wasn't talking about Freeday, please do that your own way! I was talking about using php's random function for the selection of these winners, vs. using truly random numbers for that. (Since it was even mentioned in the news post that you used a pseudorandom number.)
Hey, it is actually possible to use the sparkfun website with links :). Props to IT for that. Submitted from links on a 25Mhz i486 laptop :P
Finally those ascii product images go to good use!
I don't understand the point. All people, even the one that use a text browser have access to a normal browser...
So, If don't want to use internet, I want a voice version of the contest to be able to participate by phone!
Text-only browsers are wonderful, beautiful, and should be used by more people.
There are people like me that absolutely despise the 'singing and dancing chipmunks' syndrome that has taken over most web pages. The words do not dance around when reading a book, nor should they. Since the Internet is still mostly a reading medium, it should not try to mix in the animation of television. Singing and dancing chipmunks are like that 'Shakesphere' a few days ago. Cute for about 10 seconds, and then you just want to shoot the dang thing. Now excuse me while I attempt to delete Flash player, again.
Try getting Firefox and adding the add-on 'Ad Block Plus' and the 'Element hiding helper for Ad Block Plus' - I can't believe how much more 'peaceful' it is to be on some sites now. :)
It leaves 'still' ads alone if you like and can easily be disabled for a particular site. You can easily select any annoying ad to have it blocked from then on. I've found it so much nicer since having it.
Some of us hate seeing 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Flash objects slowing down the page loading process while TRYING to check our stupid email because there might be something there without 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Flash objects.
Oh yay, the Harford Hackerspace won! Miles will be really happy to hear about this. His fingers looked sore that night. Any chance we can see the other participant's photos? :)
Yeah, I'll get a Flickr set up (or something) once I scrounge up a camera.
Hopefully that won't be as hard as scrounging up a floppy drive.
I can't tell you how irritated I was when I discovered that they don't even put floppy connectors on motherboards any more.
Once upon a time, I had this digital camera which wrote directly to a built in floppy drive. I gave it to a friend of mine, who promptly hitchhiked to New Mexico and had it stolen along with his guitar and most of his clothes. I kind of miss it.
they do however make usb floppy drives, as I just discovered
Yes, I have one at work. You can get them for under $20 at retail stores around here.
Aww, that's sad.
Though, you know... SFE does sell camera parts... and you've found a working floppy drive... and I could even sell you umm... 6 more disks (or 4 if you insist on working ones) to go with it!
Disks? No probs, tons floating around, even have a few boxes full of 8"!
Cool! Harford Hackerspace won. Contact us directly if you want a digital copy of the image we sent in. We will post it on our website tonight as well.
awesome! glad to see even more ingenuity.