Stolen Golem » web tools

It’s a translation party!

Alastair — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:48:04 +0000

Translationparty.com is a great little site that takes the standard translation services you can find on the web and takes it as far as it can go in the search of perfection. By translating your phrase first into Japanese it then translates that translation back into English, then again back to Japanese, then English and so on until a perfect translation equilibruim is found.

I’ve had the most fun feeding it some of my favourite jokes (and managed to break it with this one which made me happy) you should have a go too. Interested in sharing a link to a translation of the comments?

via BoingBoing

What the hell is Hunch?

Alastair — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:55:00 +0000

That’s what I was asking myself this morning when I got out of bed and found everyone had gotten excited overnight about the recent launch, without being particularly descriptive in their excitement I might add. So a quick google and play around later and I’m quite enjoying hunch now too!

Essentially Hunch is a web tool that takes the decision making process out of your hands and suggests answers that it reckons you’ll like based on questions about your personality it asks you and your previous decisions. When you land it’ll try to get a rough idea of who you are and what you might like by asking 20 simple questions about your preferences, once you’re done with that you’re free to ask it anything you want. Admittedly it’s only got a limited number of questions right now, it didn’t for instance allow me to ask what to do today, but I can only imagine that as more people get to using it the database will expand and soon nobody will ever have to make a choice of their own ever again.

I’m going to give it more of a try as personally, and I don’t think I’m alone on this one, I think online personality tests are great fun and this looks to be one of the most interesting out there.

Supper in peril! Hunger roaming free! Quick, call for SUPERCOOK!

Alastair — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:44:27 +0000

Supercook is a website I’ve been waiting for all my life. The idea is great although not new to any of us who have had to cook for ourselves and the execution is fantastic. Most of us know the scenario, you come home, you’ve not had time to go out and do any shopping so you end up staring miserably into the fridge at a solemn potato, something that looks a bit like an obergene and a half eaten packet of noodles, wondering what the hell you are going to do with that….

Well now it’s time for Supercook to come to the rescue! Browse to the site, input the ingredients you have in your kitchen and presto, supercook provides you with a recipe! It searches its database and matches what you have with what’s possible, it will also suggest things you could make were you to somehow aquire additional ingredients, providing you with a recipe that might just be tempting enough to get you off that sofa and round to the corner shop. Being able to sort your results into courses and sweets is also a useful feature and I think it even includes spices (I for one have no idea what to do with coriander).

Best of all is that you don’t have to register to have Supercook help you out, but if you do take the time to create an account you can choose for it to remember what you’ve got in stock for the next time you have an emergency. Definitely worth going to have a look at.

Spotted first over at LifeHacker