The 2024 Headline of the Year Nominees

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2024 Headline of the Year nominee (September)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (March)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (October)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (January)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (June)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (August)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (January)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (October)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (September)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (November)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (April)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (September)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (January)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (November)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (January)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (November)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (February)
2024 Headline of the Year nominee (December)

STANDINGS UPDATE

The top 16 seeds move on to a knock-out style tournament, starting December 27.

Seeding system: 1 repost or 1 like = 1 point (from here, and elsewhere!).

15% of points from Mastodon so far.

Current standings:

STANDINGS UPDATE

Strong performance by the top contender, with a close battle between Alarming Poetry Sales and Pole Vaulter Penis Drama for the second spot.

The Orca Salmon Hats are making a strong push for the critical #8 spot.

Mastodon now providing the second most number of points for the seeding (behind Bluesky, but now ahead of X).

STANDINGS UPDATE

Top contenders continue to separate themselves from the rest, with the non-existent Crypto CEO making a strong push to make it through to the Round of 16.

Across platforms, rankings becoming broadly similar now. Number of votes cast on Mastodon almost matching last year's final total.

STANDINGS UPDATE

Final 16 moving on to the round of 16 taking shape. Last hours of the seeding round, announcement of end will occur at least 1 hour before close of seeding round. (I need to figure out my schedule for the next few days to figure out when to best time the rounds!)

Voting for the round of 16 will begin around 7pm Calgary time this evening. (Polls will be open for approximately 24 hours.)

FINAL STANDINGS

The Final 16 have been set! Self-Driving Cars and Alarming Poetry Sales take the top two spots, with some hot battles set for the Round of 16.

Voting starts shortly! Each round will last approximately a day, finishing some time on New Year's Eve (Calgary time).

@paulisci
I’m rooting for the punching octopuses

@paulisci Nigel Richards also won the French-language title in 2015, (without speaking french)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Richards_(Scrabble_player)

Nigel Richards (Scrabble player) - Wikipedia

@joshix @paulisci This guy is incredible:

> _ In 2015, despite not speaking French,[2] Richards won the French World Scrabble Championships, after reportedly spending nine weeks studying the French dictionary.[3] He won it again in 2018, and multiple duplicate titles from 2016.[4]_

@eliaschao @joshix @paulisci He's autistic and his special interest is Scrabble, right?
@eliaschao @joshix @paulisci most people never find out what their superpower is but this guy has and fair play to him.

Headline of the year nominee: “Man who doesn’t speak Spanish won Spanish Scrabble championships.”

Nigel Richards also won the French-language title in 2015 (without speaking french)

@paulisci that’s right, and I heard this is fairly common. There are non-English speakers who do very well in the English Scrabble championships as well. It seems obvious when you think about it: the skills necessary to memorize word spellings and place them on a grid are completely different from the skills necessary to speak a language. I have heard that people who have a good understanding of computer programming languages and linguistics do better at scrabble regardless of their native language.

@joshix

@joshix @paulisci ah yes. This man could win Scrabble tournaments in Martian.
@paulisci @blogdiva Honestly, this one is impressive!
Dallas Seavey penalized for Rule 34 infraction regarding dispatch of moose

Iditarod
@paulisci this is my personal number 1 headline of the year
@paulisci I love The Economist
@paulisci Talk to your children about poetry.
@paulisci Why is it "alarming", I wonder?

@paulisci

Some people think my poems are charming
But there are those who find them alarming
Even though I try to make them disarming
And the only word left that rhymes is “farming”

@paulisci I believe @brianbilston is directly responsible for this 👍 !

@paulisci

“An alarming rise of poetry sales”
The Economist wails
Alarming nobody but the implied anti-poetry forces…
No doubt they have sources.

But could they be correct in their fear?
Should there appear
Some super-poet who can concentrate a manifesto into a slogan of power
And a revolution flower?

Or is poetry the harbinger of peasant unrest?
Of masses oppressed?
Will your mass media company’s CEO swing
When you hear the people sing?

Or perhaps the economy of outrage and alarm
Gets no clicks for charm
While feeding humanity on stories of hell
Makes poetry sell.

#Poetry

@paulisci I read that as “feral emos”

@paulisci

Much like the leaders of one-issue political groups in Australia.

@paulisci Seems like someone should have checked on that before it collapsed. 🤔
@paulisci Cephalopods are aliens. I believe it because I want to.