What is a Friday Factoid?

Meta Discussion
1

There was discussion on the ask.CI zoom meeting about the Friday Factoid. What is the concept and how can I contribute?

2

A Friday Factoid is a little bit of knowledge (a small fact --> factoid) that could range from a historical fact to something interesting learned this week. While the criteria isn’t set in stone, generally Friday Factoids:

  • Elicit a response like “Oh wow I didn’t know that!”
  • Are a historical fact about a piece of technology or a person that is not well known. A news item that has already appeared all over social media is not a good candidate.
  • Can be unexpected and fun!
  • Could also be presented as a story, a poem, or a quote

Examples

A few quick examples of “good” Friday Factoids include:

  • Talking about the first computer mouse (it was made of wood!)
  • a comparison between two kinds of supercomputers that haven’t been thought about before
  • An anniversary of a historical event that isn’t hugely talked about (but cool)
  • Finding a data center in an unexpected place
  • Comparing technology of the past to today
  • An interesting (and somewhat unknown) scientist / researcher / computer scientist

How do I contribute?

Friday Factoids are hard to come by, and this is usually because you find them in unexpected places. You might be reading wikipedia, or come across an old shared item on reddit or other social media, or just be having a conversation with a friend or expert in the field and learn something interest. If you want to contribute, come talk to us on the #askci channel on the Campus Champions Slack. https://campuschampions.slack.com/. You can tweet to us at @askcyberinfra, post a question on here, or email the Campus Champions list. Anyway that you are comfortable to reach out, go for it! We can’t wait to hear from you!

3

Thanks! How do Friday Factoids get communicated and is there an archive?

4

Right now you have to look for them on the AskCI Twitter: https://twitter.com/askcyberinfra, however soon we will have (some) place for them on the site. Today a Twitter integration was enabled to allow for nice embedding, so the admins just need to decide how/when to use it.