Debuting late this afternoon, a new search engine, Teoma, was launched with an eye towards displacing Google as the most popular search engine. Technically, Teoma differs from Google by clustering the web before searching, and then presents cluster labels to allow search refinement as well as ranked links. I tried it out on a couple of queries, and I can't approve of it, if only because Google lists me as the first result for a search on "Screenshot" whereas Teoma doesn't include my weblog in the results for "Screenshot" or even "Screenshot Weblog" ... the bastards.

More seriously, the page loads are slow and sometimes come up blank and require a reload. For the few queries I tried, such as "ham leftover recipes", Google consistently came back with more useful results. On "asperagus growing tips", Google suggested that I spell asparagus correctly, whereas Teoma threw up its hands and didn't know what to return. Their clustering also gives odd suggestions to narrow your search. On "escher prints", the list of links was a reasonable collection of links to poster sites, much like what Google returned. However, the refinement suggestions were "Greater Pittsburgh Region", "Art Prints" and "New Kensington" (a town outside Pittsburgh) - the first and third refinements were listed because the same design company created many poster/print sites and sites about the Pittsburgh area. So, while the clustering does let you veer away from the Pittsburgh-related links, it wasn't until I was over 90 links deep in the Google results before any links about Pittsburgh came up. For those cases where there's a true ambiguity, it might help, but the query "repairing windows" only suggests "troubleshooting windows" and "windows PCs" as refinements, even though links about repairing glass windows and doors do appear in the link list, so the clustering doesn't seem to be catching that distinction. Overall, I'd suggest sticking with Google.

It's a good thing I don't clear the dead links out of my portal too often, because Ad Critic will be coming back. I hope they return to not requiring a subscription. [Thanks JRE!]

After years of resistance, my curiosity got the better of me and I downloaded the latest version of NetHack. I can't explain how such a simple little game is so addictive - I'm not a role-playing, adventure game freak at all, but it's so tiny and well done. But why do the kittens keep killing me? Damn it!

I don't understand who is using the LEGO builder java applet. It's all of the fun of building with LEGO, except with a difficult interface, and you don't get a cool toy to play with at the end. The kits are pretty expensive, but if you're looking to explore and build, you can usually find tubs of plain pieces for pretty good prices. If you're looking for building inspiration, definitely go check out their gallery of submitted models. [via PCJM]

A recent study out in the UK shows that even New York's recent law requiring that anyone using a telephone while driving must use a hand-free set may not significantly decrease accidents caused by phone usage. Drivers response times were measured while using various phones, as well as while under the influence of alcohol, and compared to normal response times. The response times of individuals using even a hand-free phone were worse than of those with blood alcohol levels over the legal limit (80mg of alcohol in every 100ml of blood, which my poor brain is being unable to convert to an American-style blood alcohol percentage). I was unable to find any of the study details at the Transport Research Laboratory website, but they do list the report as available for purchase through their site (titled The use of mobile phones while driving, Report No. TRL318). I was curious whether "normal" reaction times included people driving while talking to someone in the car with them. The BBC article quotes someone from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (*giggle*) as saying: "The person on the end of the phone doesn't know the driving conditions around you. If someone's in the car talking to you they can stop talking if a dangerous situation arises". They did find a significant difference in reaction times between using a hand-held and a handless telephone, though, so if you are going to use a telephone while driving, it seems to still be safer to keep your hands free. [via RRE]

Find out what books used to be hot with theBestseller Lists, 1900-1995. The top ten hardcover sellers in fiction for each of those years, and in non-fiction for most of them (particularly once you get past the first couple of decades). I checked out the list from the year I was born, but the year I graduated from high school evoked more memories. I found going through the very old lists even more interesting, particularly in the context of major historical events of the times. I was surprised I recognized so few titles. I've only read one book from any of the lists from the 1910's (The Education of Henry Adams, by Henry Adams) and two from the 1900's (The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle), though considering that three of the top ten non-fiction bestsellers from 1994 are Magic Eye books, I'm convinced being a bestseller is not a sign of quality, but a sign of the times. [via BookPeople]

Like a kid's rainy-day craft project gone wrong, the Ketchup Packet Bear is not to be missed. Upon discovering that ketchup packets explode with a realistic blood-spatter effect when shot with a BB gun, this guy built an amazingly skillful wiremesh bear (in requisite attack position) and covered it with ketchup packets, with plans of shooting it and aweing onlookers. Unfortunately, the packets didn't explode correctly, and the onlookers grew restless and destructive. To make up for it, he made flamable cats the next year. This guy is a paper mache maniac - check out his full Incredible Stuff I Made site for his other gems. [via PCJM]

While the site the reference is unfortunately down due to the Slashdot effect, I'm planning to go back later to visit the site collecting mathematics references in the Simpsons discussed in this LATimes article. I've somehow never seen the episode where Homer visits the third dimension, and now I really want to see it. And using pieces of the show to motivate a reluctant math class sounds really fun, and way less cheesy than the "Donald Duck in Mathemagic-Land" cartoon we had to watch when I was in school.

I'm assuming anyone who has found my weblog has found Television Without Pity (nee "Mighty Big TV") and its often snarky recaps of popular tv shows. I tend to read the recaps for West Wing, X-Files, 24, and Survivor, but the best recaps are the ones for CSI. The recapper, Sobell, doesn't digress into her personal life unless absolutely relevant, bothers to research the forensics and any obscure terminology used and explains it clearly and succinctly, and is willing to gloss entire plotlines in a paragraph if that's all they deserve. A good recap should be more than just a blow-by-blow of every scene, and Sobell adds enough explanation, insight, and reminders of references to previous episodes to enhance, rather than rehash, the viewing experience.

With the Oscar's coming up there's a little too much movie-analysis going on, but you can temper it with some more unusual movie ratings from this typography expert who reviews the accuracy of typefaces in period films. It's a nice essay, also touching on the history of fonts. I imagine his reaction is akin to a computer expert watching the use of computers in many modern films; it's fun to see the types of things he notices. If you like the article, also check out The Scourge of Arial, liked in his sidebar. [via BradLands]

Tales from a College Town
Scene: two female undergrads totter up the middle of my street

UG1: I was so drunk last night, I remember I licked someone's ear, but when I woke up this morning, I couldn't remember whose.
UG2: Oh, I hate that.
UG1: Yeah - I got up and I asked John, "Did I lick your ear last night?" 'Cause I know I licked someone's, and I hoped it was his.
UG2: Yeah?
UG1: Yeah, and John said "No, but Steve was saying last night that someone just licked his ear, but he couldn't tell who."
UG2: Oh no - you licked Steve's ear?!?!
UG1: Yeah. I was so drunk.

I've gotten hooked on the shockwave.com daily jigsaw. I'm a big jigsaw fan, and at the hard level, these are enough of a challenge make a nice afternoon coffee break. A decent interface and pretty choices of pictures too.

For a faster moving web-game, try this "two pop icons that taste great together" treat: Hello Kitty Tetris. I dare you not to find a screen inexorably filling up Hello Kitty heads unnerving. [via PCJM]

And if that isn't enough mindless fun, read the Brunching Shuttlecocks Keyboard Symbols Ratings. One of the more amusing recent collections.

Clearly, if you are going to buy a Star Wars electic guitar, you have to buy the Darth Vader Retrorocket. [via Windowseat]

How can I not like "not martha"'s crayon pressings craft project - besides looking fun, in a rainy-day kid's project sort of way, her description starts with the sentence "Tragically, we have naked neighbors." You have to love a craft project that eliminates naked neighbors...

I'm sure most everyone has heard about the woman who hit a man with her car and then drove home with him sticking out of her windshield, leaving him to bleed to death over the course of two days in her garage. Obviously, I'm repulsed too. There's some intelligent discussion going on over at The Usual Suspects about what legal charges might or might not apply, given that the defense attorney is claiming simple failure to stop and render aid.

Another story of computer insecurity, again pointing out that no matter how tight your electronic surveillance is, if you ignore the human/physical factors you'll fail: watching LEDs flash to read network traffic, using optical sensor equipment, from over 20 yards away. I love this type of hack - breaking in by finding the place nobody would think to break in through. [via Robot Wisdom]

It appears that there is a serious resurgance in the "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare's plays" controversy, pinning the authorship on Marlowe, according to this Salon article and a recent documentary called "Much Ado About Something". I started reading it intending to disbelieve, but the pattern of evidence it lays out feels compelling, at least to one who doesn't have the background knowledge to determine its veracity. Even if it isn't true, the story suggested is as fantastic as many of the plays in question - espionage, faked deaths, secret messages from beyond the grave, and other intrigue. [via Arts & Letters Daily]

Of course, I'm left to wonder what types of statistical analyses have been performed on the plays, and on Marlowe's works, and if they lend any support to this theory. From the fact that no such analysis was mentioned in the article I'd like to assume that it wasn't done, but I suppose that not everyone would find a scientific approach to the problem compelling or even appropriate. Whereas, while I will concede that the results may not be conclusive, when it appears that the only solid evidence left is the writings in question, an investigation based on those writings seems in order.

Now I have to go find the counterargument. I have a slight fear that I have been sucked in my a series of plausible coincidences which would be explained as meaningless by any literature scholar, just as any mathematician can explain away the apparently miraculous coincidences cited in numerology. Ah, here we go: The Shakespeare Authorship Page has many, many articles about this issue; if you want just one article to read, I'd suggest How We Know that Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare: The Historical Facts for well referenced background. It doesn't really disprove the possibility that Shakespeare was secretly sent the plays but didn't do the actual writing, but elsewhere on the site they link explanations for "inconsistencies" such as the claim that Shakespeare couldn't have known as much about Italy and court workings as the plays imply. Oh, and The Shakespeare Clinic has done some of the statistical analysis I was wondering about and still think Shakespeare wrote his attributed works.

While this list of letter grades assigned to national flags is amusing enough to skim, the description of the methodology used is even funnier. And there really are some awful copy-cats among the flag designers of the world. [via PCJM]

In futher research expansion on the "Kevin Bacon game" and other social network patterns, a recent paper, "Marvel Universe looks almost like a real social network" shows that superheros appear in each others' comic books in the same patterns as scientific collaboration networks. A fun little paper that, from a brief skim, also seems to offer an easy introduction to the area, if you're interested. [via Sigma Xi: In The News]

If you have cable, and get TLC, you should be watching Junkyard Wars and Trading Spaces - reality TV done right. I wish I'd had Junkyard Wars when I was a kid, though it isn't a kid's show - teams compete to build impressively complex machines out of junkyard trash. Last night featured a cannon competition in which the winning team broke the most cinder blocks in a wall over 100 yards away. You learn some physics and engineering along the way, thanks to the expert judges they bring in. Fun and intelligent - I'm suprised it got picked up.

In contrast, Trading Spaces, in which pairs of neighbors renovate a room in each others' houses under the direction of a designer, is wimpy, but the key is that it's all about the people - you get fun design ideas while watching mini-drama unfold. Will the homeowners like what is done to their house? Will the designers totally ignore the one thing they were asked not to do (if it's Laurie, yes)? Will the neighbors refuse to do what the designer tells them? Will the carpenter ever get it all built (Amy, yes - Ty, no)? And every once in a while, the designer loses all grip on reality and, say, gives someone stadium seating in their living room. It's perfect knitting-television.

And, of course, if you already watch Trading Spaces, you should go take the Which Trading Spaces Cast Member Are You? quiz. I am utterly dismayed to be Laurie, I so wanted to be Amy Wyn.