EBlogger

I just noticed that mmChronic over at new-links.info has added Britannica to his “on this day” blogger script.

Thanks chronic.

392 years ago today, the Globe Theatre was destroyed by fire.

1613: London’s Globe Theatre destroyed by fire: During a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII on this day, the thatch of the Globe Theatre was accidentally alighted by a cannon set off to mark the king’s entrance onstage. The theatre […] was destroyed within the hour. [I]t was rebuilt within a year of its destruction and continued to operate until 1642.

[via Britannica’s This Day in History: June 29]

Britannica.com has a number of 3-d renderings of the Globe Theatre, a map of London’s Theatre district circa 1600 and more at Shakespeare and the Globe: Then and Now.

Over at here’s my byline, Irina blogs about Roger Schank’s talk at iLaw. Wish I could find more about Schank’s talk.

Sadly, I noticed via EB’s This Day in History that today is the 210th anniversary of William Smellie’s death. Back in 1768, in his late 20s, Smellie compiled the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. No specific month or day is listed, but he was born in Edinburgh in 1740.

Another Friday, another chance to blog about cats.

Most people can probably guess that cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt. Ever wonder when or why?

Q: When were cats first domesticated?

A: According to the Britannica article on domestic cats, there is hard evidence that they were domesticated at least 3,500 years ago (around 1,500 BCE), although some speculate they were domesticated before that.

Q: Why were cats first domesticated?

A: “It is probable that the Egyptians domesticated the cat because they realized its value in protecting granaries from rodents. Their affection and respect for this predator led to the development of religious cat cults and temple worship of cats.” [Origin and history of cats: Domestication from cat, domestic from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service. Accessed June 24, 2005.]

The picture, by the way, is a sculpture of the ancient Egyptian goddess Bastet, apparently thanking the academy. Note the four little cats sitting by her feet. Cute, no?

YubNub takes the notion of search-form-as-command-line to a remarkable extreme, allowing quick access to an impressive set of commands by typing something like “mw augment” to the see Merriam-Webster definition for “augment” or random 100” to get a list of random numbers between 1 and 100.

YubNub has an eb command, which searches the Encyclopedia Britannica. For example, typing “eb sir raymond firth” will search Britannica for “sir raymond firth”.

del.icio.us tags linked to http://www.britannica.com/:

academic dictionary econsultant education en_anglais enciclopædia general learning lexicons_general lexika narang ref reference references.encyclopedia research resources sanjeev search subscription tools web writing

Since this is a slow day, and this blog didn’t exist at the time, allow me to take this opportunity to note that Britannica won not one but two prestigious CODiE awards at this year’s SIIA CODiE Awards Gala in May.

Best Online Consumer Information Service: Britannica Online (http://www.britannica.com/)

Best Online Reference Service: Britannica Online School Edition(http://school.eb.com/)

It’s Friday, and here in the world of blogs (I just can’t bring myself to call it the “blogosphere”) that means it’s time for pictures of cats. Here’s the Himalayan, a lovely cross between the short haired Siamese and the long haired Persian.

Britannica’s Ultimate Reference Suite DVD is currently Amazon’s Top Selling Software Product.

This probably has something to do with the massive discount mentioned yesterday.