Wolfram Alpha: A new kind of search engine

May 6, 2009 David Gerard 2 Comments

Guest post by Stephen Wolfram

Some might say that Mathematica, the source of my fortune, and A New Kind Of Science: A Brief History Of My Stupendous Intellect were ambitious projects. But in recent years I’ve been hard at work on a still more ambitious project: Wolfram Alpha.

Fifty years ago, people assumed that computers would quickly be able to handle all kinds of question. It didn’t work out that way. But a few years ago, I realized that I was finally in a position to do it myself. As I’d always expected I’d have to, of course.

I had the crucial ingredients: Mathematica and A New Kind Of Science. And my truly massive intellect. With these, I had a language to compute anything and a paradigm for complexity from simple rules. And my spectacular brain, which is much more spectacular than anyone else’s, as proven by me being rich as well as smart. Which is smarter: to be a professor, or to be the professor all the other professors pay tribute to? I think my net worth makes the answer clear.

But what about all the actual knowledge that we as humans have accumulated? I realized we needed to make all data computable as knowledge. Of course, natural language is incredibly difficult for computers. So we added the secret ingredient: my jaw-droppingly spectacular brain, undoubtedly the largest on Earth.

I’m happy to say that with a mixture of clever algorithms and heuristics, linguistic discovery and curation, and some casual Nobel-worthy theoretical breakthroughs in my spare moments, we’ve made it work. It’s going to be a website with one simple input field that gives direct access to my superlative brain, in its planet-sized glory.

Our pre-launch testers have been at work as well, and I’m dealing with all manner of queries in spare thought cycles while I jetset around the world, wowing the pitiful minds of gorgeous international supermodels before impregnating them with my superior genetic material. Let’s just have a look at the query stream: "tits" "goatse" "mary whitehouse naked" "4chan" "tubgirl" "2girls1cup" "ITS OVER 9000 LOL" "desu desu desu desu"
ERROR ERROR ERROR
&&#("^^(856"^*#**"#&*##&##^^^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@
NO CARRIER_

Technology, United States

“Save Vista” campaign gathers momentum

May 5, 2009 David Gerard 2 Comments

LONGHORN RANCH, Glue Factory, Monday (NNGadget) — With the release of Windows 7 set for October 23rd, Microsoft marketing marketer Richard Francis has said computer manufacturers may not be able to ship Vista once Windows 7 is available.

Outrage at the news was rapid. Microsoft quickly backtracked, claiming Vista would remain available until at least 2011 (“we kept 98 support up for 18 months when XP was out”), but customers were not mollified by promises that Windows 7 buyers would be allowed to downgrade (“we call it an upgrade”) to Vista.

A “Save Vista” campaign has been organised by InfoWorld. “We detected a deep anxiety over Vista among technologists and consumers alike,” said editor Galen Gruman. “We decided to do something about it, launching a petition drive to ask Microsoft to keep selling Vista after the planned October 23 end-of-sales date.” The petition has already gathered over ten signatures. “‘Seven’ is just sucking up to latté sippers. Like Hummer, like Chrysler, like Edsel, Vista is a great American name that shows the might of full-sized American industrial production. It’s a monument to everything that makes us the country we are.”

“Save Vista” latest signatories
• L. Torvalds Portland
• S. Jobs Cupertino
• M. Shuttleworth London
SIGN UP IN COMMENTS TO SAVE VISTA!

“My computer business employs 200 people,” said M. Shuttleworth of London. “The best possible thing for it is to make sure Vista continues and goes forward.”

“Just how long was extended support for Microsoft’s greatest success ever, Windows ME?” said Gruman. “Microsoft talks about Windows 98 as being succeeded by XP — just as if ME never existed! ME’s many, many fans will be outraged at such an omission, and we’re afraid they’ll treat Vista, Microsoft’s second-greatest success ever, the same way.

“And how about extended support for Microsoft’s third-greatest success ever, Microsoft Bob? By the wife of the founder, no less! I think we should be told.”

Media, United States

Newspapers to go behind paywall

May 4, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

HOLD THE PRESSES, Daily Asteroid, After The News (NNN) — Hearst newspapers will be holding back content from their papers’ free websites, instead charging for some digital news and information. “We are fully confident that both readers and Google will come to the party and give us money,” said Hearst president Steven Swartz, “and not just laugh and ignore us henceforth.”

Newspapers plan to fight back against the avaricious parasitism of Google in telling people where to find content the newspapers had put up on the Web for free with a new e-book reader, a variant on the Amazon Kindle. “For only $300, readers can read DRM-locked down versions of our content that they’re paying a subscription for on top. We can’t see how this could possibly fail to work.”

Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has been notably successful in selling valuable original financial reporting that cannot be obtained anywhere else. “So there’s no reason people won’t pay for recycled Associated Press feeds, the latest on Britney and Paris, corporate-backed op-eds, funny cat stories and pretence at holding the government’s feet to the fire.”

Hearst also advocates new advertising and revenue models. “The technical press on the Web shows the way forward: blatant and obvious gutter-slut crack-whoredom. Subtlety doesn’t pay the bills any more — we must enthusiastically welcome the corporate cock into our throats and rectums. Also, I’d like to mention that everyone should use the Windows 7 beta. HLAGH HLAGH HLAGH,” added Mr Swartz, wiping off his chin.

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Technology, United Kingdom, United States

Twitter twavels twemendous twaumas to “twubs”

May 1, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

666 FOLLOWING, 0 Followers, Thursday (NNGadget) — Users of the inane antisocial networking, bodily function documentation and terrorist tool Twitter can now index their spurious 140-character babbling with “twubs,” Wikipedia-style “hub” pages for Twitter “hashtags.” The “hashtags” are made from a Class C controlled substance and induce lethargy, overeating and carpentry.

Twitter “hacktivist” Ravenwoo Granola commended the advent of “twubs.” “Hash in tags is a fantastically effective way to keep track of swine flu, airport demonstrations and police brutality. I can get activists, or ‘tweeple,’ into action at a moment’s notice. In an hour or two,” she said, picking up a bong made from an at-sign. “I’m pretty mellow here.”

Users can exchange cool Twitter user names on “Twee Exchange.” I wish I were making this up.

“Trapped in a lift again,” said Stephen Fry. “Scottish ‘food’ vendors find way to deep-fry swine flu snot, Scots expected to be extinct in six weeks,” said Warren Ellis.

Other popular indexing tools for Twitter posts are “twonks,” “twats” and “turds.” The Twitter posting software includes “Tweep,” “Twinkle,” “Twiddle,” “Twidiocy,” “Twurgid” and “Twasturbator.” Twitter users now gather in “twibes.” Regular Twitter users are known as “twunts.”

Asia, Defence, Politics

North Korea demands UN apology

April 29, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

KIM’S HAPPY PLACE, Pyongyang, Wednesday (NNN) — North Korea has threatened to carry out nuclear missile tests unless the UN Security Council apologises for its “unseemly snickering” at their recent rocket launch falling into the sea.

“The communications satellite was successfully launched and is fulfilling its mission, sending transmissions from Pacific Ocean life in deep space,” a Pyongyang communiqué said today. “If the UN does not take back its grievous slanders, we will be forced to retaliate with the full force of our mighty nuclear arsenal. Our dad will beat up your dad too.”

North Korea conducted its first and only nuclear test in 2006, described as “completely successful” and “revealing new dimensions in gunpowder science.”

North Korea’s foreign ministry also said “the UN should apologise for infringing our sovereignty, retract all its resolutions and decisions against us and stop being big meanies. It’s so unfair!”

It also announced plans to build a light-water nuclear reactor, a domestic robot, a flying car and a “really cool thing we haven’t finished drawing yet, but expect to have ready soon as our great nation continues to make tremendous advances in crayon science.”

Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il announced a glorious 30% increase in industrial output and a 35% increase in food production as the cardboard ran out and the factories started shaping raw contaminated mud into loaves. South Korea sighed at the news and looked forward to a peace dividend similar to that reaped by Germany in 1990 when the North finally collapses and they have to clean up the mess.

Media, Technology, United Kingdom

Phorm phights phoul phreedom phighters

April 28, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

W 40th STREET, New York 10018, Tuesday (NNN) — Beleaguered Internet advertising phirm Phorm is hitting back at critics with StopPhoulPlay.com, in an attempt to lure Internet activists into herniating from laughter.

“It is clear that the campaign against Phorm originates in the sinister manipulations of Alex Hanff and Marcus Williamson,” said Kent Ertegun, CEO of Phorm, “who have used mind control lasers and the killer robot armies of the Open Rights Group and FIPR to deceive millions of Britons into a Communistic fervor of hatred against the engines of the free market and customer demand, the salesmen and marketers, the true creators and enablers of objective value.”

The website, designed in Microsoft Word, uses the infallible public relations format so successfully put into play by the ReligiousFreedomWatch.org site of the Church of Scientology, an upstanding community institution of similarly flawless repute. StopPhoulPlay.com reveals how:

At the age of five, Hanff REFUSED to share his crayons with the little girl next to him, saying she was “poopy” and would only draw a picture to be used against him.
At age twelve, Williamson accepted MONEY from his mother to buy sweets, but not to tell schoolmates in case they wanted some.
Hanff and Williamson may have attempted to access POTENTIALLY ILLEGAL images blocked by the Internet Watch Foundation.
Hanff and Williamson have used WIKIPEDIA at least once in their lives.
Hanff and Williamson INVADED POLAND in 1939.

“Given the persistence with which they propagate incorrect information, we cannot rule out the possibility that a competitor is involved,” he said. “The competitor goes under the name ‘reality.’ Needless to say, we have no tolerance for an entity of such limited possibilities.

“These people are privacy pirates — people who steal privacy online, off the coast of Somalia. With Internet guns! And drugs! And child pornography!”

Mr Hanff and Mr Williamson said they were unsure whether to sue Phorm into atomic dust for gross defamation or just to let them continue with their infallible public relations work. Phorm shares have dropped from 405p to being rated a “serious infection risk” by the World Health Organization.

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Politics, United Kingdom

Home Office dismisses asylum children report

April 27, 2009 David Gerard 1 Comment

HAPPY FIELDS, Langeweile Macht Frei, Monday (NNN) — The Home Office has dismissed Sir Al Aynsley-Green’s report condemning the conditions for children of refugees seeking asylum in the UK.

Jacqui Smith stressed the importance of immigration services to national security. “It is vital that we remain the sort of country that sends a dozen police officers to haul sleeping children out of their beds, pushes them into stinking caged vans, drives them for hours while they wet themselves and locks them up for months with no medical care or prospect of release. We asked a Daily Mail reader survey.”

Phil Woolas dismissed reports that unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are selling sex to pay for legal representation due to restrictions to legal aid funding. “That’s ridiculous. We’d be monsters to let such a thing happen, so obviously it can’t be. But we’ve denied HIV-positive refugees AIDS medication on the NHS, which will discourage them from such lifestyle choices.”

Article 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that the detention of a child “shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.” “That would be 42 days,” said Ms Smith. “Then we let them out for a walk and lock them up for another 42 days. It’s for all our safety.”

Mr Woolas counseled caution. “We have reason to believe the children may be secret Gurkhas, trying to inveighle their way into the country in order to fight to the death for it. Trained killers!”

The UK will remain a thriving democracy whose citizens, residents and visitors can live “confident of their freedom in a just society,” said Ms Smith, except if they’re brown or use a camera in public.

Health, Technology, United Kingdom

Bacon: the viral killer

April 26, 2009 David Gerard 3 Comments

OVER 60 MILLION GOT SERVED, Mexico, Friday (NNN) — A new strain of swine flu, H1N1, has killed up to 60 people in Mexico.

The virus is a mixture of swine, bird, human and computer viruses. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, lack of appetite, popup ads, coughing, sore throat, a slow connection and an urge to throw one’s computer out of a high window. The disease is thought to have started as a Windows virus on 4chan, a CIA entrapment message board for online activists, and can spread using the current Windows 7 beta.

Center for Disease Control officials looked at their huge stockpiles of H5N1 bird flu vaccine and said, “… shit.”

Citizens have panicked at the prospect of bacon being put into quarantine and substituted with some soy-based garbage. “Damn that Conficker!” shouted R. McDonald of San Bernardino, California. “Damn it all to Hell!”

“This comment from me looks Photoshopped,” said Bruce Schneier, an American computer security expert safely employed over in the UK. “I can tell by the pixels and having seen a lot of ’shops in my time. I suspect this is the work of a viral botnet spider agent replicating Trojan comments across news services until their functionality is completely destroyed. WHATEVER YOU DO, DON’T LOAD OR READ MY COMMENT. p.s.: I love you.”

Insufferably smug Macintosh user Arty Phagge was sanguine. “We know how to use condoms. And I’m a vegetarian.” The Free Software Foundation announced the launch of OpenSwine, a disease generation and detection kit available for all to use and develop in perpetuity.

Britain will be protected from the swine flu virus by comprehensive filtering of the British internet, shutting it down entirely as needed. “Would you want your husbands, your servants, accessing the Internet?” asked Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. “I put it to you that you would not.”

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Entertainment, United Kingdom

Senior thugs reduce cinema to rubble

April 25, 2009 David Gerard 2 Comments

INCOMING!, Chelt ‘Nam, Saturday (N! News) — The Odeon in Leicester has been forced to issue warning letters to the elderly customers of its cheap Wednesday morning sessions following claims that they have been displaying “juvenile” behaviour.

Patrons were reprimanded for threatening, pushing, poking, bullying, harassing and intimidating staff, dealing drugs, shooting each other and stealing mobile phones. They also played Vera Lynn on their mobile phones at earsplitting volume on the chartered coach to and from the cinema.

Some Senior Screen regulars were also known to “line multiple pockets of clothing and Tupperware boxes with biscuits” from the complimentary tea service, reselling them afterwards cut with rat poison at a street value, according to police, of twenty-two million billion zillion pounds.

Police blamed hooded cardigans. Retired nurse Brenda Busybody, 77 (IQ), shouted a string of obscenities, mashed her ice-cream into the seat, punched staff and vowed to boycott the cinema. However, the owner managed to grab and wrench back her hood, upon which the increased oxygen to her brain caused her to come to her senses.

“Hoodies” are a Class A drug, only available on doctor’s prescription to Olympic boxers and suicide bombers.

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Entertainment, Europe, United Kingdom

Sound copyright extended into perpetuity

April 23, 2009 David Gerard Leave a comment

TALKIN’ ABOUT, Degeneration, Thursday (NNME) — With the conviction of The Pirate Bay administrators having immediately abolished all filesharing, the EU has approved an extension of sound copyright to seventy years past the point of theoretical death, and death to seventy years past actual death.

The media industry sponsored move is intended to properly suppress the very notion of the production of unapproved works of art. The major record companies’ value proposition has changed from being the only people you can get music from to being the only people who will stop you getting music. “We own all the back catalogs we’ve been buying up,” said Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfmann, the luckiest sperm in the whole USA, “and YOU CAN’T HAVE THEM! And we’ll sue your grandmother’s ass if you try going around us!”

Without an extension of copyright, the dead might never record again. “If I’d known in 1958, when the copyright in ‘Move It’ was due to expire in 2008, that the copyright in ‘Move It’ would in fact expire in 2008, would I have bothered? I don’t bloody think so!” said Sir Cliff Richard (died 1961). “I can rest safe in the knowledge that my mouldering corpse will not feel ripped off by this turn of events, and that my many, many descendants can continue to live off ‘Summer Holiday’ for the term of their rather unnatural lives. Remember that I am a born-again Christian and non-drinker, so beer and hookers mean and meant nothing to me. Money, however, is next to Godliness.”

Feargal Sharkey of UK Music stressed the necessity of the move to his never having to write another song after “Teenage Kicks.” “I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

The government’s Cowell Report recommended that copyright should be reduced to one year, software patents made a hanging offence, Mickey Mouse declared an unperson and musicians told to stop whining and get a real bloody job like the rest of us. “It’s not like there’s some sort of national shortage of bad pop records,” said Sir Simon, “although a world in which Jive Bunny recordings irretrievably disintegrate into dust before they could possibly enter the public domain does have a certain appeal. Nevertheless, we desperately need to demotivate surplus pop star wannabes. I urge you to picture a world in which Girls Aloud and Jason Donovan have no motivation to record.”

Richard Dawkins spoke in favour of the perpetual unavailability of music, as per his new book The Art Delusion. “‘Music’ appears to be an entirely subjective phenomenon with little or no objective measurements possible — much like any other brand of snake oil or balderdash. Music seems to be a sort of virus on human consciousness, parasitically sapping the collective intelligence of the human race.” He defended his own attendance at his local church’s Christmas carols: “I’m only putting them at their ease so they let their guard down while I work on plans for mass re-education camps for the sufferers of musical appreciation.”

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a smashed keyboard full of hope and wonder