Wolfram Alpha

“Today's WolframAlpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. You enter your question or calculation, and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer. Based on a new kind of knowledge-based computing…”

This is more significant than just a new search engine; this is the first computation engine widely and freely available. You submit queries and computation requests and WolframAlpha returns an answer. Unlike search engines you may be used to WolframAlpha does not return web pages matching your keywords but instead offers discrete answers and supplementary data. You input "$250 + 15%" Wolfram anwsers $287.50. You ask Wolfram “How old was Queen Elizabeth II in 1974?" it simply tells you 47 years old.

For better or worse we are entering into a new phase of internet use.

Try the following queries in Wolfram for fun:
* Flux Capacitor
* How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
* How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
* What is the meaning of life?
Here are some more fun queries to try.

Main Site: http://www.wolframalpha.com/
See Also: Example Searches
See Also: Overview Video
See Also: Wikipedia Entry

Keep Searching,
Librarian Carl

PS – Keep your eye out for Google’s answer to WolframAlpha called Google Squared which should be launching by the end of the month.
See Also: Tech Crunch, What is Google Squared?
See Also: Wikipedia Entry

GATEWAY TO SUMMER

Earlier this week we marked the observance of Memorial Day. Customarily a solemn remembrance in honor of the many armed servicemen and –women who valiantly made the supreme sacrifice for our nation, Memorial Day is also considered the unofficial gateway to the summer season.

In celebration of the arrival of summer, I’ve collected a few titles on subjects pertinent to the season most people anticipate with glee:

The American Amusement Park by Dale Samuelson (with Wendy Yegoiants), 2001
791.068 Sam

A visit to an amusement park is a vital part of enjoying the summertime in America. Pennsylvania has a healthy number of such fun and frolicsome venues: Hersheypark, Dorney Park, and Dutch Wonderland are all geographically close to Reading. My personal favorite is Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, PA, if for no other reason than parking and admission are both free. Knoebels has a special place in my family as well. My grandparents met at the roller skating rink there in the 1930s. As a matter of fact, if Pap-Pap were still with us, he and Mam-Mam would be celebrating their 73rd wedding anniversary this very day. My mother and her siblings have their memories of youthful merriment at Knoebels, as do my sister, our numerous cousins, and myself. Now the fourth generation of our clan are making their own happy recollections of having visited there. I recommend a visit to Knoebels to anyone who’s never been there, it’s well worth the drive!

American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn by Ted Steinberg,

2006
635.9647 Ste

Author Steinberg takes on a singularly unique American phenomenon: the relentless pursuit of a flawless greensward. I read this text when it first arrived on our library’s shelves and was flabbergasted at the financial statistics the author reported as to how much many Americans lay out annually on things such as weed killer, lawn feed, watering, and maintenance. I felt the message (which was rather heavy handed at points) that yard turf shouldn’t be quite such a monumental national priority was fully justified. American Green is a verdant gem of a book on a topic most people wouldn’t imagine could take up two hundred and ninety five pages.



Contested Waters: A Social History of Swimming Pools in America by Jeff Wiltse,
2007
306.481 Wil

When the canicular days of soaring temperatures and oppressive humidity descend, nothing beats a cool dip in the pool. Wiltse details the history of the swimming pool in American society, focusing much of the book on the roles of the municipal natatorium (to be honest, a natatorium is an enclosed, indoor pool, but it’s pleasant to use a synonym and that’s close enough) in community life. The emphasis on children’s physical fitness, which was born in part due to the frightening polio outbreaks of the years before Salk’s vaccine, played a key role in the pool becoming a mainstay of many cities and towns. The author also addresses the injustice of racial segregation and its affect on access to such pools.

Iced Tea : 50 Recipes for Refreshing Tisanes, Infusions, Coolers, and Spiked Teas
by Fred Thompson, 2002
641.6372 Tho

I am always happy when a book title brings a new vocabulary word into my personal lexicon. Before landing upon this book about iced tea, if someone had asked me to identify tisane I would likely have answered, “Isn’t that the capitol of some nation in Africa?” Apparently a tisane is a beverage, hot or cold, made by infusing parts of any plant except that of the tea bush. “Tisane” and “herbal tea” are not interchangeable because a tisane is not really a tea…fascinating! In any event, I am partial to iced tea, and this book provides many curious and delightful twists on an old summertime favorite.

Whether your estival pastimes include mowing a lawn, taking a swim, visiting an amusement park, or sipping an iced tea: Happy Summer!

SCRIPT AND SCRIBBLE

When I was in kindergarten I remember wandering up to the desk of my teacher, Miss Cindy (we never knew her last name), and beholding her rapidly jotting down a note in cryptic, connected shapes. “Why are you writing sloppy?”, I asked confusedly, mystified at what may as well have been Egyptian hieroglyphics from my childish vantage point.

Miss Cindy raised her eyes and indulgently replied: “It’s not sloppy, it’s cursive writing”. Unconvinced, I told my mother that afternoon how Miss Cindy couldn’t make her letters and instead slashed strange scrawlies all over her paper. Mom smiled and told me it was real writing for grownups. I promptly forgot all about it as I prepared to play with my toys, secretly convinced yet again that adults were more then slightly bonkers.

Then it was my turn to learn cursive. It was third grade and Sister Regina Eileen patiently watched twenty-some students laboriously drawing circles on practice pads. Up, down, up down--the monotony, I recall, was stupefying. The Palmer Method was rigorously applied, and while I could barely move past basic arithmetic in the afternoon, penmanship class in the morning found me a most willing and capable student. And I felt so very sophisticated: I was writing like grown-ups while block letters remained the province of little kids like my sister. I won a Palmer Method Award for the best penmanship when I was in fifth grade and am still proud of it; mostly because my overachieving sibling, who won veritably every other academic honor in both grade- and high school, never had one bestowed on her (tee hee--love ya, Heather!)

Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting by Kitty Burns Florey details the history of how the art and craft of penmanship came about and its current status of rapid decline. Burns Florey was a parochial schoolchild herself, having been instructed in Palmer ways by Sister Victorine. However, Palmer Method was the most utilized instructional tool for cursive script across America’s educational frontiers for decades. The volume does more than detail Palmer Method. The very history of writing tools, from cuneiform and hieroglyphics to quills and ink are thoroughly yet engagingly addressed. Graphology, the pseudo-science of examining personal script and learning about the psyche of the writer therein, is also covered. Palmer’s immediate predecessor, Spencerian script, was something I could not have identified before reading Script and Scribble. For an example of it, consult any can of a certain soft drink—the Coca-Cola trademark is written in Spencerian script.

Not much is made of the Zaner-Bloser school of handwriting, which I’d only heard of recently. A direct descendant of Palmer, it's more truncated and, frankly, much less appealing visually (even if it supposedly easier to learn). I scoff at it. Palmer is the only way to go.

Along with Ms. Burns-Florey, I decry the inattention penmanship receives in our day, particularly where pupils of elementary school are concerned. Penmanship is the most personal tool anyone possesses as a means of communication. Our hand is as unique and special as our voice. I personally enjoy calligraphy (the art of formal script) and am thankful my parents gave me a Sheaffer fountain pen set for my birthday when I was thirteen. Keyboarding is a wonderful tool; I am typing this entry up on a computer keyboard this very moment. I can scarcely imagine not having access to word processors or email. I receive dozens of handwritten requests for genealogy every year which I strain to decipher while silently pleading with the writers of said missives to discover the wonders of Microsoft Word.

However, there’s an incomparable grace and elegance to a carefully scripted greeting, and I hope more of us pause to reflect on our handwriting habits (or lack thereof) upon considering Script and Scribble. The Main Library's copy of this delightful tome is at NEW 652.1 Flo; our collection also boasts several volumes on how to practice calligraphy as well as three actual textbooks on the Palmer Method. Austin Norman Palmer (December 22, 1860– November 16, 1927), R.I.P.

FAMILY REDEMPTION

French films are a peculiar breed of cinema and I have a hit-and-miss record as to my reaction to them. Some I've found to be utterly useless: such as Amelie, the 2001 Audrey Tautou fluff piece about a young woman possessed of a relentlessly saccharine need to be cheerful and helpful (I know, I sound harsh, but watch it and most readers will agree with me). Innocence (2004) is another Franco-flop in my estimation, about a surreal school for young ladies where they are forced to learn dance (it's really much stranger than it sounds).

There have been some French triumphs, though, to offset the offal. The Chorus (2004), a historical drama reminiscent of Mr. Holland's Opus, is exceptionally moving and features an incredible soundtrack featuring a superb boys' choir. When the Sea Rises (2005) is an archetypal foreign film in that it features a very quirky duo--Irene, a peripatetic puppeteer, and Dries, a loveable vagabond--and their offbeat adventures throughout northern Gallic vistas. Incidentally, all four of these films are available at the Main Library on DVD.

My review concerns the movie I've Loved You So Long, which was released in 2008, written and directed by Philippe Claudel. Juliette Fontaine (Kristin Scott Thomas, whose admirable command of French was a facet of her talent about which I'd been ignorant before this project) has been imprisoned for a decade and a half and is being released on parole. Her crime is something I will keep to myself, because it constitutes the best part of what makes the film memorable.

Her younger sister, Lea (Elsa Zylberstein), collects her from the penitentiary; Lea is much younger then Juliette, who had been a physician before her incarceration. Lea is married to Luc; the couple have two very young adopted daughters. It is clear Luc is displeased with Juliette's arrival into their household and treats his newly-met sister-in-law with overt distrust.

Juliette gradually moves from wooden, barely-registering presence to human, engaging interaction as Luc overcomes his reservations and she is introduced to a colleague of her sister's (who is, like Lea herself, a university professor) whose kindness and gentle nature eventually disgorge Juliette from her shell.

Scott Thomas' command of this character and the carefully measured means by which the audience learns of the circumstances which brought about her imprisonment (and how she adapts to life outside prison walls) are nothing short of brilliant. The film moves slowly but the inexorably mysterious backstory of the protagonist helped retain interest.

When we finally learn the full history of Dr. Fontaine, the entire plot is turned on its head. Juliette seems to have found a path, with the redemptive power of her family (she develops a touching materteral relationship with her elder niece, Petit-Lys) and a cautious sense of hope, to inner peace. And if I can say that sincerely, it's my opinion that I've Loved So Long is worthy of viewing. (I've Loved You So Long is available on DVD from the Main Library.)

RHYME and REASON

Nursery rhymes are such an indelible ingredient of childhood most people do not pause to consider their origins. Who would have imagined that "Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub" was describing "the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker" taking part in a seamy peepshow at a county fair? Or that the "three blind mice" represent a triumverate of Protestant bishops who were blinded and executed by the devoutly Roman Catholic Queen Mary Tudor of England? Or that Jack and Jill's seemingly innocuous trip up a small incline was hardly about procuring H20, but was rather an analogy for both of them succumbing to carnal desire for the first time? (seriously!)

Chris Roberts, a London-based librarian, took on the sometimes eye-popping subject of the histories of English-language nursery rhymes in his 2005 book Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme--The Seamy and Quirky Stories Behind Favorite Nursery Rhymes. I presented my brother-in-law with this title several years ago as a Christmas present and he has commented more than once how he has enjoyed the explanations and explications of childhood verses. While I'd known that "Ring Around the Rosey" referred to victims dropping dead from the Bubonic Plague, I'd never heard that "Baa Baa Black Sheep" was a denunciation of the tax laws of thirteenth century England.

The entire subject of rhyme came up today when my sister telephoned me and said that my elder nephew, Alexander, was continuing his fascination with rhyming words. He recently claimed that "flower" and "mother" were words that rhymed, which my sister declaimed as incorrect. Her husband, however, averred the tot was in the right. He said that since the last syllable of both words was the same, it is a type of rhyme. My sister was hoping her brother (who has his bachelor's degree in English literature) would validate her argument.

Sorry, sis.

In fact, the entire world of English rhyme is incredibly rich and varied. Alliteration (the first consonants sound the same), assonance (the vowel sounds are the same, within a single line of poetry), and slant rhymes (imperfect but similar sounds) are all legitimate species of rhyme. Half-rhyme, syllabic rhyme, and imperfect rhyme are other means of having words connect.
I am deeply pleased that young Alex is being instructed about them from such a young age. Expounding on his knoweldge of all things literate and linguistic has been a source of pride and joy for me; this is the same little guy who now knows the proper name for the telephone's pound key [#] (octothorpe) and this symbol: & (ampersand). Not too shabby for having just turned four!