To win, you needed an RSS Feed!

What is that, you ask? I wanted to know how the first-prize winner of the surpise gift offered in my March 24 post did it. It took only about an hour for him to respond and win the really fantastic prize of a $15 on-line gift certificate to Amazon. com. He did it with an RSS feed. Those three little letters have always been a mystery to me, so I'm doing some research to explain it first to myself and then to you. (Will write a post in a few days that will hopefully be in human language enough to let you decide whether it's worth it.) Right now I'm going to tell you about the winners.
First prize went to Ben, in Texas of all places. I've never met Ben, but I do know his father, who must have sent him a blog post early on. Ben is very tech saavy, having started more companies in his first thirty years than I will ever do in my lifetime. Right now, he's head of XOXCO.com, a "Clickable Research and Development Company." Their site is geared for people with web sites and blogs, I think, so I should like it, if I ever get up to speed. Getting back to Ben, he did ask me if the the "fun prize" was getting to punch Larry Summers. The answer is ONLY in a virtual sense! That is, Ben could develop a little "clickable" application for me that would allow anyone reading one of my Summers posts to click on the "Give a sock to Larry" button as a way of expressing our disdain. On the other hand, I wouldn't pay him to do this, so my sense of outrage at Larry S's failure to apologize for his role in creating our current debacle is obviously limited by my own pecuniary concerns.
Second prize ($10 Amazon gift card) followed a few hours later, with a response from Julie O, from Minnesota (no, not Rochester!). Now, Julie is someone I know, who is doing important work on our country's behalf (that's all I'll say about that!), so I'm happy she won. Not sure how she did it, but I assure you I gave her no hints! And, she's not a relative.
There were a number of other entries in the 24 hours following the post, more than 5 but less than ten (that's all I'll say about that!). I feel bad about not having enough money to give everyone who answered a prize, but them's the rules. So, I'll save my pennies and run another contest in about 6 months.