Blog Action Day 2011: Food

This article is also available in Macedonian
- на македонски на Блогерај: Ден за блогерска акција: Храна
- на македонски на Блогспот: Ден за блогерска акција: Храна

As previously announced via Global Voices, today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the world are invited to join in and discuss about a topic with worldwide importance. This year the topic is food, in concert with World Food Day. On Twitter: @BlogActionDay and #BAD11.

It's not too late to write up a post about any aspect of food, from hunger to recepies. I volunteer to report for Global Voices about the participation of Macedonian bloggers. So far, according to the list of participants, three have signed up, and one has published a post:

• Colorful Portal: .среќен Blog Action Day & World Food Day [#bad11]

More posts are appearing world over, for instance

• from Madagascar: Blog Action Day 2011 #BAD11- About Food (also available in Malagasy)
• to Germany/Morocco: Friday is Coucous-Day – Dialogue through Food  (also available in German)

For my part, here are some random photos taken today on the green market in Skopje, Macedonia, named Bunjakovec.

USA: Computer Scientist Dennis Ritchie Dies

Computer science legend Dennis Ritchie died, leaving a lasting legacy of enormous possitive impetus to the global development in the last decades of the XX century.

According to Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing, the news was first made public by Rob Pike via Google+. She wrote:

He was the designer and original developer of the C programming language, and a central figure in the development of Unix. He spent much of his career at Bell Labs. He was awarded the Turing Award in 1983, and the National Medal of Technology in 1999.

“Ritchie's influence rivals Jobs's; it's just less visible,” James Grimmelman observed on Twitter. “His pointer has been cast to void *; his process has terminated with exit code 0.”

One of the few public photos of Dennis Ritchie (1941-2011). Source: Wikipedia (Public Domain)

Taxgedo used the words from Ritchie's seminal textbook The C Programming language to create a word cloud as a tribute, and wrote:

We lost a tech giant today. Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie, co-creator of Unix and the C programming language with Ken Thompson, has passed away at the age of 70. Ritchie has made a tremendous amount of contribution to the computer industry, directly and indirectly affecting (improving) the lives of most people in the world, whether you know it or not.

Andygoyap's comparison was even more explicit:

[Isaac Newton] once said he stood on the shoulders of giants. Dennis Ritchie was a giant on whose shoulders people like Steve Jobs stood on.
….
You don't know him? He is the Father of C, without him Operating Systems (Windows, Apple) wouldn't be here; Games, Programs, Apps on your Apple, Android, wouldn't exist. Many say he is the Father of Computer Science, He has so many achievements…

Readers who haven't had Programming 101 with some derivation of C as their first object-oriented programming language during their undergraduate studies might find it hard to grasp the influence of such a modest and private person, who did not flaunt his many achievments nor served as a business icon. For instance, most most modern operating systems such as GNU/Linux and Apple's Mac OS directly descend from UNIX, or that computers running UNIX or GNU/Linux basically provide the infrastructure for the Internet, either as servers or routers, or platforms for running applications like Google search.

Macedonia: Comics Workshops with Jamal Igle from DC Comics

This article is also available in Macedonian
- на македонски на Блогерај: Стрип-работилници со Џамал Игл во Скопје, Битола и Велес
- на македонски на Блогспот: Стрип-работилници со Џамал Игл во Скопје, Битола и Велес


American Corner network is organizing workshops with DC comics author Jamal Igle (@JamalIgle) in several places in Macedonia. This looks like a great opportunity to learn more about this art form. The first workshop was supposed to be in Skopje, and then  Makstripovi [mk] (forum/NGO dedicated to advancement of comics art) informed that there will be a workshop in Bitola, too.

So far, from what I've gathered the schedual is:

• October 13, 5-6 pm. Mladinski kulturen centar, Skopje [mk] (Facebook event)
• October 14, 12-1 pm. Dom na kultura, Bitola [mk]
• October 14-16, probably Veles (according to Igle's blog)

More info: Dnevnik daily published an interview with Igle [mk], and the links above contain his illustrations and frontpages, like this one with Teen Titans.

PS
A Facebook event has been set up for the Veles activities (via Google+)

Greece: Baroque In Vogue Again – Literally

This article is also available in Macedonian
- на македонски на Блогерај: Грција: Барокот повторно во мода - буквално
- на македонски на Блогспот: Грција: Барокот повторно во мода - буквално

This blog's correspondents discovered rising interest about baroque in Macedonia's Southen Neighbor. The August edition of the Greek Vogue features an article entitled "Modern Baroque" about sunglasses in quasi-baroque style.

So far we could not determine whether this fashion trend owns its origin in the criteria of Macedonian government's tenders from Skopje 2014 project. The calls specifically included use of baroque style for the look and feel and the ornaments of the future ministry buildings, refurbished facades of existing buildings, and even garages [mk]. As confirmed by Anastas Vangeli in his study "Antique Present" [my unofficial translation of the title], if Macedonian leaders could learn and apply the antiquisation model for creation of new nationalism from the practice of the Greek state, maybe their fashion gurus could have acquired appreciation of baroque due to our influence.