Bloom Boxes

The future of energy?  A stack of disks the size of a brink powering an average home, and running on SAND!?
Check it out.

Two Interesting New Search Engines

You may have heard of these two newcomers to Search, but they are worth noting and playing around with.

The first is Wolfram Alpha, and here is a nifty Youtube tutorial  Wolfram is an excellent research tool for gathering any kind of data, particularly comparative data.  For example, if you want to compare the demographics of two cities, type the city names into Wolfram along with the word demographics.  If you want to limit this to a certain date, or time frame, enter that as well.  Comparisons, such as nutritional values of foods, is a breeze with this tool.

The Second is less of a search engine per se and more of a Web navigation tool.  It's called HyperWord and a instructional video is here.  By highlighting a word in a web document, you are offered a number of choices, such as search, reference, convert, shop, share, copy, and translate.  Definitely worth the free download.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog

Palin is the Essence of 2012

In Michael Tomasky's blog in The Guardian today he traced a possible path for Sara Palin to win both Iowa and New Hampshire, feats which would give her a good shot at the Republican nomination. And while all things Palin have great comedic and interest value, one of the comments to Tomasky's post deserves serious (:) consideration. PhillipD wrote, and I quote "I thought she'd be a shoe-in for New Hampshire. If I lived there and I was a Dem I'd round up everyone I knew to vote for her, purely for the entertainment value." While Sara has the Tea Party vote fairly wrapped up, the Entertainment vote (which could include the likes of Colbert) is not being widely discussed, yet it is exactly this vote which may squeak her into the nomination. Many wonder how incredibly weird it would really be. Really.

Literature that Gets Under Your Skin

This is the last line of Tobias Wolff's short story Bullet in the Brain, courtesy of Karl Yaeger, a true fan. More literary tats at contrariwise

The Spuggies are Fledged

So goes the line from Basil Bunting's poem Briggflats, and it's Spring & All with the first crocuses out, and the flowering plum not far behind.