How many times does something have to happen for it to be an annual event? In September 2006 I wrote about the first SciFoo camp.  It's just happened again (which makes it a tradition in contemporary time scales) and Timo Hannay has blogged about it. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about just follow the link and be (a bit) enlightened and here is a para from Timo's blog with some more direct links:

'SciFoo '07 was wonderfully intense, mind-expanding and surreal. Organisationally, it was a bit less stressful than last year's inaugural event (at least for me), mainly because we knew it was going to work to some degree. Indeed, the success of SciFoo '06 lead to a fair amount of anticipation this year, best described in words by Jonathan Eisen and in pictures by Pierre Lindenbaum. (See also Pierre's cartoons from the event itself.)

Such is the variety and (relative) anarchy of the event that there's no such thing as one SciFoo experience, only 200+ personal experiences. To give a feel of the occasion, read Henry Gee's opening post and have a look at Bora's photos, photos, and more photos.'

On the other side of the world, everyone at Macmillan has been delighted for the Pan Macmillan team in South Africa who have just been voted International Publisher of the Year at the awards evening in spite of being one of the smaller operations. In particular, our team was commended for its commitment to children's books, excellent service and good pricing structures. I would offer an additional personal accolade. Pan Macmillan are the crew everyone wants to succeed because they are so professional and so pleasant too. Here they are, small in numbers, showing but perfect in performance, showing off their Oscars.

A propos of absolutely nothing, I am ashamed to admit that I have only just discovered (pointed to by a friend) Uncyclopedia, the content-free competitor to the ultra-serious reference websites. I particularly liked their definition of wiki: