Magic!

PROGRESS REPORT

Click here to see the impact of the President’s economic policies on your state. None of this is free; but a depression would have cost more.

SKIP THIS IF YOU WANT TO BELIEVE IN MAGIC

It turns out, it’s a trick!

THIS, HOWEVER, IS MAGIC

There can be no other explanation. Watch.

(Thanks, Alan!)

AND THIS IS MAGIC YOU WILL CONTROL

As explained here (thanks Gary):

The biggest internet revolution for a generation will be unveiled this month with the launch of software that will understand questions and give specific, tailored answers in a way that the web has never managed before.

The new system, Wolfram Alpha, showcased at Harvard University in the US last week, takes the first step towards what many consider to be the internet’s Holy Grail – a global store of information that understands and responds to ordinary language in the same way a person does. . . .

Wolfram Alpha will not only give a straight answer to questions such as “how high is Mount Everest?”, but it will also produce a neat page of related information – all properly sourced – such as geographical location and nearby towns, and other mountains, complete with graphs and charts.

The real innovation, however, is in its ability to work things out “on the fly”, according to its British inventor, Dr Stephen Wolfram. If you ask it to compare the height of Mount Everest to the length of the Golden Gate Bridge, it will tell you. Or ask what the weather was like in London on the day John F Kennedy was assassinated, it will cross-check and provide the answer. Ask it about D sharp major, it will play the scale. Type in “10 flips for four heads” and it will guess that you need to know the probability of coin-tossing. If you want to know when the next solar eclipse over Chicago is, or the exact current location of the International Space Station, it can work it out. . . .

☞ I am old enough to remember The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature*. How far we have come.