CNET: Google Reveals Finalists for 2022 Doodle for Google Contest. “Five young, talented artists are a step closer Thursday to having their artwork showcased on Google’s homepage for a day and taking home a chunk of change for themselves and gear for their school.”
CNET: Google Announces State Winners of Its Doodle for Google Contest. “Google on Thursday announced the state and territory winners of its annual Doodle for Google contest, which invites schoolkids from kindergarten through the 12th grade to design their own variation of the company’s famous logo.”
Washington Post: One woman dominated a local fair’s food contest. The internet went looking for her.. “The competition at the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair began innocently enough when a woman named Linda Skeens entered her many baked treats, canned goods and other items for the judged contest. Then she won — and she won huge. The fair posted a list of winners on Facebook showing that Skeens dominated the June 13 competition, winning more than 25 of 80 contest categories. That’s when things took on a life of their own. Her online fans wanted to find her.”
Creative Commons: Announcing the winners of CC Open Culture Remix Art Contest 2022 #CCSharesCulture. “In honor of the 20th anniversary of Creative Commons licenses, we launched our first ever Open Culture Remix Art Contest #CCSharesCulture in February 2022 to celebrate a better sharing of cultural heritage around the world. Participants were tasked with creating original artworks in line with this year’s theme of ‘Love Culture? Share Culture!’ by remixing public domain or CC BY-licensed images, paintings, photographs, drawings, etc., digitized in open collections.”
New York Times: Catalan Pop? Corsican Rock? It’s Europe’s Other Song Contest.. “Around 200 million people will tune into the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday to hear music from around the continent. The 25 pop stars who will compete in the final include those performing in Italian, Spanish and Ukrainian. Yet the millions of people in Europe who speak one of its many regional and minority languages are unlikely to find themselves represented on the Eurovision stage, let alone in their country’s pop charts. Since 2002, Liet International has been offering a platform to musicians from these communities — though it is a world away from the showy spectacle of a Eurovision final.”
Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn!. “There were quite a few entries this year that did ambitious things with their visuals — always a bold challenge to undertake in a 30-day game jam. That’s just not enough time to make something graphically polished, but it’s plenty of time to do something graphically creative, and that’s just what Josh from Dirtbug Games did with Mr. Top Hat Doesn’t Give A Damn! The game mines what is increasingly one of the richest veins of visual assets and inspiration that can be found amidst the material entering the public domain right now: American animation.”
Google Blog: Sign up today for Code Jam’s 2022 competitions. “Google’s longest-running coding competition, Code Jam, is back for its 19th season. Code Jam to I/O for Women is also returning for a ninth year, bringing together women programmers from around the world. In both competitions, developers tackle algorithmic challenges designed by Google engineers — all while building their network, sharpening their coding skills and even winning some prizes.”
Sandusky Register: State agency lists fishing tournaments on website. “Anglers have a new way to find out about fishing tournaments taking place in Ohio. And with fishing an important part of the Sandusky area’s tourist scene, local hosts for fishing tournaments have a new way to publicize their events. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has announced a new website to publicize and schedule fishing tournaments.”
Techdirt: Game Jam Winner Spotlight: The Obstruction Method. “Best Deep Cut is probably our favorite of all the six categories, highlighting games that make use of 1926 works that are obscure, unexpected, or just plain unusual. For the second time in these jams, the winner mined a particularly big but easily-ignored source of material: scientific studies. The Obstruction Method is based on a behaviorist experiment by Frances Holden, entitled A Study of the Effect of Starvation upon Behavior by Means of the Obstruction Method, in which 803 albino rats were variously starved and put through an electrified maze. You can probably already see the potential for a game based on this study, but Jason Morningstar got even more creative than you might expect.”
Techdirt: There’s Still Plenty Of Time To Join The Public Domain Game Jam!. “We’re approaching the halfway point of the jam, so there’s still plenty of time to sign up on itch.io and start working on an entry! You don’t need to be an experienced game designer to get involved — entries can be as simple as a page of instructions for a roleplaying game or rules that require a normal deck of playing cards. If you want to try your hand at making a digital game, there are easy-to-use tools out there like Story Synth, created by our partner in running these jams, Randy Lubin.”
Techdirt: Gaming Like It’s 1926: Join The Fourth Annual Public Domain Game Jam. “Happy new year everyone — and happy public domain day! That’s right: as of today, works from 1926 are now officially in the public domain in the US, and that means it’s time for the latest public domain game jam: Gaming Like It’s 1926, presented by Techdirt and Randy Lubin of Diegetic Games. Just like in past years, we’re calling on game designers of all stripes and levels of experience to create games that make use of, or are based on, material from newly-public-domain works.”
Techdirt: Gaming Like It’s 1926: Get Ready For Our Next Public Domain Game Jam!. “It’s that time of the year again! Four years ago, the US finally started adding older works back into the public domain after a decades-long period of time in which those cultural works were kept from the public (under dubious legal theories). It still remains somewhat ridiculous that we’re waiting 95 years for works to enter the public domain, but at least some things are coming into the public domain! For the past four years we’ve been celebrating newly public domain works each year by hosting a public domain game jam — and this year, it’s Gaming Like It’s 1926!”
PC World: Top Excel experts will battle it out in an esports-like competition this weekend. “No, this isn’t a joke. The Financial Modeling World Cup will be held this weekend entirely in Microsoft Excel. And the finals (the quarterfinals, semifinals, and the final match) will all be broadcast live as they happen at 9 AM PT. Everyone’s playing for a total prize of $10,000 — funded by Microsoft, of course.”
Flickr Blog: NOW OPEN – Your Best Shot 2021. “It’s that time of year again! We’ve just opened the Your Best Shot 2021 group to submissions and will be accepting submissions through January 4. Submit your single best shot of the year for a chance to win one of seven prizes.”
CNET: Comedy Wildlife Photography Award winners highlight animals’ lighter side. “If these photos are any proof, animals have their best and worst days too. Raccoons share secrets, fish are awed by their companion’s ability to jump, a pigeon is defeated by a fallen leaf and a prairie dog faces down a bald eagle. There’s a smile for every mood in this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards winners.”
