Written by howtogeek

You may have heard of Wolfram Alpha, which is a “computational knowledge engine.” That makes it sound a bit scary, but it’s a great tool once you can wrap your head around it.

Apple’s Siri uses Wolfram Alpha for 25% of its searches. You can leverage that magic and put Wolfram Alpha to work for you — the empty search box on its homepage holds endless possibilities.

Comparisons

Enter two terms with a vs in between them and you’ll get a comparison. For example, you could compare websites to see the differences in traffic between them.

You can compare cities, books, foods and almost anything else you can think of.

Nutrition Information

Enter a type of food and Wolfram Alpha will provide you with its nutrition information. You don’t have to stop at one — enter multiple types of food and Wolfram Alpha will compare them for you.

Complicated Math

Wolfram Alpha is ideal for the sort of math that Google’s calculator and most other calculator websites will choke on. It even provides graphs.

Where Am I?

Ask where you are and Wolfram will use your IP address to track you down. You can also enter an IP address into the box and Wolfram will track that IP address down and tell you where it is.

Days Until Something

Want to know how many days are left until your birthday, favorite holiday or any other date? Just ask for the days until a certain date.

Generate a Password

Wolfram Alpha can come up with a random password and estimate how long it will take to crack. You can even tweak the rules used to generate the password.

Am I Drunk?

Have you been drinking? Wolfram Alpha can estimate whether you can legally drive home. Ask it if you’re drunk and you’ll get a form asking for more information.

Provide the information and Wolfram will estimate whether you should drive home, call a cab or wait. You can even consult the little graph to see when you’ll be within the legal blood-alcohol limit.

How Common is Your Name?

Enter a name and you can see how common it is, complete with a graph showing you how popular the name has been over time. Enter multiple names and Wolfram will compare how common they are.

Body Mass Index

Type body mass index and Wolfram will present you with another form. After you provide your weight and height, Wolfram Alpha will calculate your BMI and tell you whether you’re within the normal range.

Word Trivia

Want to find words that begin with a certain letter, end with a certain combination of letters — or both? Just ask Wolfram Alpha in plain English.

This is just scratching the surface of what Wolfram Alpha can do. Plug in anything you’re curious about and see what happens.

Do you have a favorite use for Wolfram Alpha? Leave a comment and let us know.

From barackobama.com

Why do you support President Obama? Here’s one supporter’s list:

Written by Michelle Marie

I’m sure the thought has crossed your mind before, “I’m addicted to the Internet”. Stop! You are no more addicted to the Internet than a crackhead is addicted to a crack pipe! The Internet is the tool not the drug. It’s the information highway to our interests, our desires, our hopes, and our dreams. The Internet gives us pleasure; it feeds our imagination, strengthens our knowledge, and connects us to people we share commonalities with all across the world with whom we would not otherwise be able to connect with.

The evolution of socialization.

Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology for the Arts and Sciences at Washington University states that animals and humans benefit from being social and believes supporting evidence exists to back up his claim. According to Dr. Sussman there are two areas of the primate and human brain that are stimulated when we cooperate (socialize) with each other. Dr. Sussman believes we’ve evolved to gain pleasure form socialization through the release of hormones such as serotonin and oxytocin which play a large role in social recognition and trust.

We must stop and ask ourselves an important question; are we becoming less social or are we becoming more social? I think most of us can agree that we’re defiantly becoming more connected through emerging technologies resulting in new ways we humans interact with each other. Can the expansion of connections between people occur with a decrease in socialization?

Many people will agree that the growth of technology in the last couple decades has lead us to be a lot less social. We’re texting instead of talking, joining Hangouts instead meeting in person, and socializing on virtual networks instead of our local coffee shop with our real world friends and neighbors. But socializing doesn’t have to occur in face to face, person to person, and voice to voice situations for us to continue being social, it’s just become a lot more convenient since the rise of all the wonderful technology gadgets and social media sites that bring us together.

Humans are not retreating away from our nature of being social creatures we’re moving forward evolving into something much bigger and more complex, a place where we feel more socially connected right from the comfort of our own homes, offices, libraries, and smartphones that can be taken just about anywhere and still receive Internet access. The world itself evolved through the process of making things more convenient and efficient. It’s nature finding its way.

Yesterday I rode in the elevator with someone who was fixated on his cell phone just as I was. He looked up at me and said “what would we do without our cell phones?” I thought for a second, “I have no idea”. But later on it dawned on me that we could question the same for just about everything that has become a depending part in our lives. What would we do with out cars, air conditioning, refrigeration, or indoor plumbing if it they were taken away? The only difference now is that we’re from a generation where we didn’t always have cell phones or the Internet. We can look back in a time where things were done in a less convenient and efficient way, but back then it was the most efficient and convenient way of doing things. To take away our cell phones and Internet access would be just the same as taking away the light bulb two decades after Edison invented it.

Change isn’t always viewed as a good thing. Change is often scary when no one knows the direction their heading and every step taken is taken blindly. But to condemn a direction that’s happening naturally would be no different than condemning the evolution of mankind.

Are we addicted to the Internet? Or are we something else – genetically hardwired with pleasure releasing hormones pushing us to invent ways in which we can socially connect in the most convenient and efficient ways possible? It seems to me we’re in the midst of a social paradigm shift rather than an Internet addiction epidemic.

Bonus: 2 and a half minutes of Pixar’s new movie: Brave

watch on youtube

College Senior [Update]

Collected by egotvonline

There’s nothing quite like a perfectly timed photo. There’s something about seeing something funny about to happen that’s just so much better than seeing something funny happen. Check out these 25 perfectly timed photosand see for yourself: