The Next Big Google

Tech

It’s not quite a search engine in the “Google” sense, but WolframAlpha will answer questions in a much more interesting way. It’s a “computational knowledge engine” (their tag line) so when you ask it a question, it’s not necessarily going to barf back links to websites (it does, but mostly to other reference sites) but it will respond with relative comparison results of what you ask. Think of it as a big old Mr-Know-It-All that responds with pure knowledge to your query, and not with ads or retail site links. You may not find a good chocolate chili recipe but you will find how long it will take to kill you if that’s all you ate.

Confused? Here’s a wicked cool webcast of how WolftramAlpha is going to work (in a geeky way, of course). I especially like the part at about 9:17 where punching in “2 oz OJ” fires back it’s nutritional value, daily intake, and all sorts of minutiae that will make people’s eyes glaze over when you repeat them back at parties, boardrooms, Starbucks line ups…

We’ve all Googled our name, but with WolframAlpha you will know exactly how many people have your name, when they were born, when most of them died and what the frigging weather was like when they kicked it. Seriously. It will tell you that. If searching for trivial facts at work is your acceptable work-porn, expect to get a chubbie.

WolframAlpha is scheduled to launch Monday May 18th.

My Blood Sugars Are Way Cooler Than Yours

Personal Bits

My last doctor appointment revealed that if I didn’t get the weight down, I’d be taking metamorphin or melaminemorphine or Metformin to block the sugars in my blood. Before I go any further, I’ll just say that was nearly 30lbs ago and I’m doing fine, according to my diligent monitoring. However, I’ve been using the old glucose monitor I got from the Woman’s College a few years back. A week ago, I ran out of test strips – the little plastic blood drinking strips that suck up blood into the vampyric monitor. No problem! I’ll just go to my pharmacist and order some – which come 100 in a box. At nearly $1/per strip. Holy what the foosh mother fooshing what?

After some choppy communication, I got it covered by my insurance electronically, via my doctor and some faxes back and forth. After the paperwork, my pharmacist brings over a huge bag with not only the test strips I need, but a huge, ugly, “new” monitor – basically the old one with more colours on the faceplate.

“Uhm. If I have to get a new monitor, can I get that one?” (Warning: loud Flash site, but you need to experience it to be cool). It’s a smooth, pebble like black puck with only three buttons and a huge backlit display. Apple design sensibility trickles down into the field of healthcare. Actually it’s more like a Sony MP3 player but you get the picture: it’s so sexy you want to pour baby oil all over it and do things to it.

“Oh that one?” my pharmacist says, “Yeah, it’s kinda cool, eh?”

SharkBoy perks up. “Why the hell do you need to have the coolest gadgets all the time?”

“Dude, if I have to do this shit daily, I’m going to fucking rock it!”

Two Tickets to Paradise

Travel, Work

Just got an email from the Management Board of the company I work for:

Hi Ted, we sent a request to all managers asking them to nominate staff that they felt had done something exceptional or gone beyond the call of duty during these tough times and in response to this, Emma nominated you. In recognition of this we are pleased to award you 2 tickets for travel on Air New Zealand from Vancouver or Los Angeles to New Zealand, Australia, Cooks or Fiji.

The tickets are available for travel between now and September 30th – all travel must be complete by that date.

Holy Crap! Where do I go?

What Dreams May Not Come

Distractions, Personal Bits

Usually, a few weeks before a big vacation that involves an airport, I start having nightmares about flying. I can calm myself enough to get on a plane sober (or Gravol-ed out) but I can’t seem to shut off my sub-conscious fears, and they burble up from my inner id pit.

We’re 17 days away from vacation, less than three weeks. As of yet, nothing, thankfully. But last night was pretty close:

I’m walking through the halls of the Battlestar called Galactia and it’s festooned with images from the movie The Watchmen. I’m getting more upset because I know I’ve missed half the Battlestar series and the new, updated “Trekkie Toddlers”, Star Trek (joke supplied by CB). What this had to do with Dr Manhattan, I have no clue.

Suddenly the ship lurches and I know we’re going down. Now, I know that “down” is pretty relative to a near by astral body, would probably take a long time to actually happen depending on the angle of re-entry and the Battlestar is a massive ship, but in my dream, instantly the ship was replaced with an aluminum skinned death tube. Hey… it’s a dream.

I woke before anything else can happen. I’m hoping that the lateness in my nightmares will not be concentrated as we get closer to our departure.

Buy My Crap, Pt 2: The Quickening!

Distractions, Gaming

xboxHeads up people! I’m selling off my Xbox360 and a twackload of games (with controllers!). I can’t begin to calculate the savings you’ll experience if you were to buy all this stuff at regular prices, compared to what I’m shilling it off for:

Console
20G Hard Drive; 2 wireless controllers (one white one black); all cords (HDMI ready!); wired-to-controller headset for online chat.

Games:
Beautiful Katamari
Scene It? With 4 wireless controllers and console dongle
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
GTA IV
Orange Box: Portal, Half Life2, Team Fortress 2
Halo 3
Guitar Hero 3 With Wireless Guitar (no face sticker)
Burnout Paradise
Burnout Revenge
Bioshock

All parts are in excellent condition, disks have no scratches. I’m selling because I’m using my other game consoles more. No Red Ring of Death in the year++ we’ve been using it. Console has current operating system updates.

Selling for $425 – Price is negotiable.

Hey! Where you going? It’s such a bargain, the bargain police are after me!

Cynical Futurists

Distractions, You Stupid Dick

Nice piece in the Star today about Eric Yam’s NASA winning, Utopian space station design: where prescreening out all the violent types, providing free health care and vat grown meat are the societal building blocks! “designed .. to be close to the Canadian society that I live in!” You go, Ayn Rand!

He backed up his design with lengthy explanations of how the operational systems would be feasible now, not speculating on future science. When I was a kid I use to draw huge images of spaceships, spanning several pages in my woefully underused math note books (oh the irony) and Eric’s story hit a personal note. Of course mine weren’t as detailed, just cross sections of rooms inside cool looking post-Star Wars ship knock offs. His belief in a better future was as refreshing as removing a fart-filled spacesuit. After reading the article I ventured into the comments and the first one out of the gate is this fun-killing, steaming pile of bitterness:

Good for him. Lots of thought there. Too bad it’s wasted on space station nonsense. Many people will die in space for man’s vanity while the earth is destroyed. Where’s the mortuary? Will their corpses become more space junk? I don’t see a cemetery.

Dude! Holy shit, it’s a 17 year old kid’s dream of a clean, safe future! I bet you run along side the Santa Claus parade and shout “HE’S NOT REAL!!”

I’m always shocked when I come across this kind of thought that man does not belong in space. The exploration of space is far from “vain”. It stimulates discovery and has made us realize our beginnings more deeply, giving humanity a stronger, humbling identity, instead of relying on a fictitious sky god that smites non-like minded individuals. Yes, we have some cleaning here to do at home but maybe if all of us got to look at the earth from space, we’d have a better appreciation of home. Yuri Gragarin’s first (pragmatic) words in space were: “The Earth is blue. How wonderful. It is amazing.” And later the often quoted/parodied “No words to describe it. Poetry! They should’ve sent a poet. So beautiful. So beautiful…”

And by the way, to answer Mr Bitter McBitterbum: out in space, we’d eat the dead.