Quests and Culinary Insights

There is news this week that the quest for a natural language search engine is heating up. IT World reported that startup Powerset recently received funding from Xerox. While the article stated that natural language search will compete head to head with Google’s keyword based searches, the story also points to two other companies working to perfect the technology behind natural language search: Answers.com and Haika.

The numbers using Wikipedia make it obvious that it is adored by many, but it also seems to be a favorite among journalists … to take potshots at, that is. Exhibit 2,397: the recent article in Yale Daily News that snickers about a fake entry for “emysphilia” left on Wikipedia for several days. The result was that Answers.com and other sites picking up Wikipedia content propagated the false entry (the topic has since been removed from Answers.com).

Editorial Rant: Although Wikipedia is vulnerable to vandalism, the spirit of the site is to illuminate and enlighten people on a broad array of topics. Shame on Yale professors for 1) disseminating lies 2) bashing a site whose goal complements and correlates with their profession and 3) stooping to plain old graffiti.

Here are some things you might not know about Martin Beirne: He is a managing partner with Beirne Maynard & Parsons in Texas; His airline of choice is Continental; He recently visited Rome; His favorite website is Answers.com. Profiled in Law.com, Beirne shared these details and a few more.

Perhaps the Star Bulletin is feeding ideas to cooks looking for a romantic stay-at-home recipe for Valentine’s Day … nevertheless, there was a feature in the paper on how to cook the perfect roast. The secret: warm the rump to room temperature before cooking. Not exactly sure what room temperature is? Answers.com, the go-to culinary expert, stated it’s anywhere between 68 to 77 degrees — depending on how much one wants to pay for heat.

The Cynical Vegetarian also utilized Answers.com food knowledge in an article ranting about common (and nauseating) ingredients in food. While many of us don’t feast on mammal tissue, stomach lining and pig bristles, Answers.com shows proof that these ingredients do wind up regularly in our food … Bon Appetit!