Wikipedia is spending $600,000 to create a five-year strategic plan. Demographics of Wikipedia contributors: 80% male, 65% single, 85% without children, 70% under the age of 30. Japanese Wikipedia is dominated by articles about pop culture: 80% of content! http://bit.ly/1dQ8iG
"It may take days, or weeks (or never) for the idea to crystallize enough to deserve a blog post." http://bit.ly/23WZDh Good luck with that... :)
Google CEO: "Five years ago, we never really had a strategy." Sergey Brin: "Google job is to do things that matter to the world at scale & it should just boom, boom, boom like that" http://bit.ly/2NN48 -- Why Google won't create the next Twitter or Facebook, Twitter or Posterous http://bit.ly/hbodY
Academic search committees' encounters with genius: Unsuitable candidates http://bit.ly/G23Bn - Must read :)
As Mark Twain said, "Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." via @kingsthings
Beware of Top 50 “Great Tools to Double Check your Doctor” or whatever Lists. http://bit.ly/n5PII
Use of Social Media for Alumni Relations and University Development (McGill) http://bit.ly/6a5gb
"How To Find The Best Free Image/Photo/Graphics Downloads For Your Blog Posts" http://bit.ly/iq1hh
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This review is a part of the Bran Hambric Book Blog Tour.
Summary: Bran Hambric was found locked in a bank vault at six years old in a city where magic is banned, with no memory of his past. For years, he has lived with one of the bankers, wondering why he was left behind -- until one night, when he is fourteen, he is suddenly confronted by a maddened creature, speaking of Bran’s true past and trying to kidnap him.
Bran finds that he is at the center of a plot that started years before he was even born: the plot of a deadly curse his mother created…and one that her former masters are hunting for him to complete.
Here's the book trailer:
I decided I wanted to read this book because I like books about magic and it sounded interesting. I read the first chapter for free online and was hooked so I asked for a copy. I must say it wasn't as good as I was expecting. I think my problem with it was the names of some of the characters were just ridiculous (ie. Balder and Baldretta) and there is even a sentence that include "balder dashed".
Also the beginning of the book seems a lot like Harry Potter (the first one.) A magic boy lives with non magic folk, (in BH, they know of magic but it's illegal and don't speak of it while in HP they don't know of magic at all,) and is treated poorly. The people he is living with are not his blood relatives and he doesn't remember his mother. The boy doesn't know he's magical until he's older (age 14 in BH and 11 in HP.) Doesn't this all sound familiar? I'm not saying the ideas were copied. I don't know if Kaleb Nation has ever read or seen Harry Potter but it is similar. Shortly after Bran finds out he's magical though the book becomes very different from Harry Potter. As mentioned above, magic is illegal in the city of Dunce, no mages allowed.
I liked the second half of the book the best. After the first few chapters, before the second half of the book, I found it a bit slow going, with too much of annoying Sewey and his family and not enough Bran. It's nice to see a different take on a fantasy book for kids that includes magic though. In this one, magic is still all around but it can't be shown freely around either.
From my Twitter account:
