IT Insights Blog — certification

The number of followers that a person has on Twitter is widely seen as being a measure of the number of followers that a person has on Twitter. It's true that people impute value of varying degrees and types to the number of mostly anonymous, largely faceless people who are represented by that 101M (if you're Barack Obama), or 4.84M (if you're Stephen King), or 11K (if you're some rando who goes by "@TestOutCE" — weird, huh?), or whatever it is.

If you flip open a current dictionary, you'll find two primary definitions of the word "server." The first refers to people and objects: A server is a thing or individual who "provides a service or commodity, in particular." In the United States and Canada, "server" also is used more specifically for a waiter or waitress in a restaurant. A server assists with the Eucharist in Christian religious practice, and a sideboard or stand where food is placed is also a server.

Once upon a time in 2014, a Gulfstream III private jet, one of 202 built between 1979 and 1986, ran off the runway at a general aviation airport in London. No serious injuries resulted, but when your private jet can't navigate well enough to roll down a runway, well, it's probably time to consider an alternative mode of transportation. The jet's owner did what most of us would do and approached his friends with a business proposition: How about you guys buy me a new jet?

Many years ago, Oscar-winning actor Alec Guinness told a famous story about meeting a young Star Wars fan in San Francisco. The eager youngster, a "sweet-faced boy of 12" accompanied by his mother, claimed to have seen the original 1977 film more than 100 times. The tweedily British Guinness, on the record even before appearing in Star Wars as harboring great reluctance to embrace what he termed "fairy tale rubbish," was taken aback.

The IT Insights blog is taking the day off, in honor of the U.S. observance of Independence Day. We will be back on Friday, July 6. Until then, why not check out the holiday-themed Thomas Jefferson quiz at GoCertify?