Friday 8 May 2009

Wolfram Alpha. The tricky future of search engines.



Wolfram Alpha is an intuitive internet search engine created by Dr Stephen Wolfram. When you ask it a query, it offers you a variety of information, such as graphs, charts, technical data etc. A knowledge engine if you will. Will it work? Will it kill google? Or will it be the Seqway of search engines?

You can sign up for release news here

Make your own Ball 'O' Snot!!



Instructions, here

Deliver us from temptation. And psychology. Amen



Mind hacks found this fascinating aside in a 1969 article on 'Psychiatric Illness in the Clergy' about a group of monks who underwent psychoanalysis, causing two thirds of them to realise they were "called to married life".

Check it out here

Thursday 7 May 2009

Dark Bubbles - Webcam directed music video



Music video that you control using your head movements and webcam. Super cool, though it could be little more responsive.

Check it out here

Malcolm Gladwell - How David beats Goliath






More goodness from the Curly Haired Oracle of New York, Malcolm Gladwell. Another solid essay on uncommon thinking, this time, how underdogs change the rules. And win.

Check it out here

Tuesday 5 May 2009

McDonald's Billboard



Niceness.

Fun Spider Facts: After drowning for 36 hours, some spiders come back to life.



It's scary and it's true. 36 hours after drowning, wolf spiders were able to revive themselves and suffered no ill effects, scientists discovered recently.

In a study at the University of Rennes in France found that wolf spiders died after 24 to 36 hours of being immersed in water. But when the scientists came back to weigh the dead spiders, they found them alive again. Apparently wolf spiders can put themselves into comas and shut down the metabolic processes that do not require air.