Long odds
Placing a long bet involves a considerable amount of thought, and at least $1,000. The bets are actually predictions supported by arguments, and the public "gamblers" include some of the better known names in technology. The first bet, backed by Ray Kurzweil, is that a computer or "machine intelligence" will pass the Turing Test by 2029. He is in for $20,000, but since this isn't really a gambling site, all the money goes to charity.
Sing along
Corporate anthems - the jolly salesmen from IBM singing Ever Onward, and so on - have been a source of embarrassment for decades. Now you can cringe in the comfort of your own home by downloading the best of the worst from Ziff UK's website. The management consultancies make a good showing in the top 20 chart, but nothing will ever come close to the IBM Songbook.
Search here
It has nothing to do with Apple, and it doesn't have any content, but iTools is well worth bookmarking. It offers a simple front end to a collection of the internet's best sources of information, including Google, Yahoo, Whatis, Xrefer and Encarta. The site's copyright notice suggests it started in 1995. In fact, it's an upgraded and retitled version of what were the Research-It! and Find-It! Pages.
Child's play
The hunt for Lemony Snicket has just started. The author of the children's book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, has to be tracked down, but there are Flash games and other diversions on the way. Kids have to register to play, because of the need to save high scores.
1911
Much of Encyclopedia Britannica's historical reputation rests on the 1911 edition, which was authoritative, comprehensive and very readable. Unfortunately, the web version is not searchable, does not pull up each entry by its heading, and when I tried it, pages often ended in mid-sentence. The site also lacks historical context, but you can get that from ClassicEB.com, which also sells copies of the 1911 edition on CD.
Kylie fever
What is your favourite Kylie Minogue pose? If this is the kind of thing you care about, you should be reading a different sort of tabloid. However, with Flash 6 you can take part in the five-week Kylie Minogue Tournament of Poses and vote for your favourite picture while there is still time. More good news for Kylie fans is that the Kylie Sim, for use in The Sims game, has been fixed. It can be downloaded from the Totally Kylie fan site.
Ask Teoma
Teoma is another useful site that has been redesigned and upgraded, with the brave or perhaps foolhardy idea of taking on Google. Teoma - it's Gaelic for expert - was taken over by Ask Jeeves last year and now provides that site's search engine. As mentioned here previously, it groups results to let you refine your search, and also provides links to expert resources. The new version, launched this month, produces results that are often interesting but somewhat variable, and highlight the huge value of Google's caches. It is not yet good enough to be a first choice search engine, but it is worth a try.
Search Britain
British users who want to search British search engines can now hit six at once with by using a meta-search site, AllSearchEngines. It covers Overture and Mirago plus UK versions of US services such as MSN and AltaVista, but the results can be decidedly odd. Still, that is also true when you select UK for the search set at Turbo 10. For example, search for Microsoft and the first hit on ASE is for ITS-Feda Ltd, while on Turbo 10, it is for an obscure Danish company called Add-On Products.
