I’ve had a lot of fun with this Infoquake Gimmicky Promotional Giveaway thing. (See this entry for a recap of the rules.) I received a lot more limericks than I had anticipated, and a lot fewer science fiction convention sexual experiences than I had anticipated.
So here now, I present the five winners of signed copies of Infoquake. Winners are being notified by e-mail.
1. The poet: Liz Burgess.
There were lots of good limerick entries, and I had a tough time deciding on a winner. But in the end I had to award one copy of the book to Liz (last name pending her e-mail response) Burgess, whose entry made me laugh out loud for its skillful use of Beyond Linux from Scratch:
There once was a young man named Natch
Who read “Beyond Linux from Scratch”
Pushed code to production
Had poor QA function
And jonesed for a nicotine patch.
Honorable Mention goes to Thom Stanley, who certainly wins on tying in the limerick to the plot of the book:
There once was a young man named Natch
Whose program was more than a patch.
It is called MultiReal,
Which allows you to seal
A fate even God cannot match.
Honorable Mention, but Disqualified for Reasons of Nepotism: Cindy Blank-Edelman, who managed to squeeze three glossary terms into her entry:
There once was a young man named Natch
Whose enemies sent him a batch
Of code very black —
Programs Natch couldn’t hack,
Not even with Doc Plugenpatch!
And the “I Like the Way This Guy Thinks/Somebody Please Lock This Guy Up” Honorable Mention Award goes to Izyk Stewart:
There once was a young man named Natch
Who had quite the problem with Flatch-
ulence in his car
He never got far
But he never ran out of gas
2. The detail-oriented reader: Andrew Albert J. Ty.
I received several correct entries (and a few wrong entries) for question #2, which was to name the city that is the seat of centralized government in Infoquake. The answer is Melbourne, which is evident to anyone who’s read through to chapter 5 of the excerpt on the website. I used the Random.org True Random Number Generator to determine a winner among the correct entries.