Found a few interesting Websites this morning that I thought would be worth point out.

The first is ChaCha. It’s sort of like Twitter — but completely different at the same time. Instead of using ChaCha to microblog about yourself, ChaCha is there to answer questions. The similarity? Well, I guess it’s that you use your phone to send an SMS message and then something magical and mysterious happens somewhere in the vast expanses of the Interwebs.

ChaCha, incidentally, is the number you text in order to ask a question: 242242. It could be a bot, but when one user asked the question, ‘What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?’ The answer perceived was a direct quote from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

My initial question was: ‘Who are the Knights who say Ni!’? Not too original, I know, but I was in a Pythonesque state of mind. The response I received was:

“Welcome to ChaCha. Your phone just got smarter. Ask away. Your first answer will come shortly. Std txt charges may apply.”

A few minutes later, as promised, I got my answer: “Knights Who Say Ni! Are a band of knights from the comedy film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

Not too witty, but to the point nonetheless.

The other website I found this morning is called The Jargon Database. It looks like a site designed to compete with Urban Dictionary. The latest copywrite on Jargon Database is 2004, so maybe they didn’t compete too well. But, on the upside, I found out what a ‘Groove Digger‘ was this morning. Did you know?

All the basics are there — F.A.Q., contact, and submission. The purpose of the site, as Steve points out, is to provide an alternative for strictly technical or business related jargon sites. And, he hopes, it’ll provide a resource to the blog community looking for a place to link to strange and witty words.

As you might imagine, Jargon Database has nowhere near the number of entries and submissions that UD has, but, if nothing else, it’s an alternative. After all, when I get a daily update from Urban Dictionary defining the word ‘Irregardless,’ I think it might be time to move to a new, different, less mind numbing and soul crushing social dictionary.

I know, I know. Irregardless isn’t a word and neither is a lot of stuff that gets posted on UD. But, honestly, doesn’t that site have editors with brains? Isn’t irregardless quite possibly the stupidest word in existence? If you say “Irregardless of the fact that…” what you are saying is that you are basing an argument on things that are simply made up or don’t exist.

Oh, a quick check proves that the Urban Dictionary community has spoken out on irregardless. Maybe there is still hope for this crazy, online world in which my brain lives.

Still, I’m a little angsty about it.

]]> http://tinfoiltriangles.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/chacha-for-jargon/feed/ 0 Brian http://tinfoiltriangles.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/the-dramatic-chipmunk/ http://tinfoiltriangles.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/the-dramatic-chipmunk/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2007 18:59:32 +0000 Brian http://tinfoiltriangles.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/the-dramatic-chipmunk/ ]]>

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should. The funniest clip I’ve seen in a long, long time.

Enjoy the Dramatic Chipmunk

Five seconds long. You’ll thank me later.

My Dearest Google Reader,

I’m sorry I haven’t been using you much lately. You know that you’re still my source for news, blogs and music updates from around the world.

I realize I’ve been neglecting you, but my boss is riding me hard. I’ve got a big project at work that needs to get finished this week.

I swear I haven’t been using Digg or Bloglines or even the RSS functionality in Firefox. Baby, you’re my one and only. Your XML feed aggregation is still just as sexy to me as it was the day I first subscribed to Google news. Your filters and – ahem – easy functionality keep me coming back for more.

How else am I going to read the BBC news? Or get snarky comments about technology from Gizmodo? You introduced me to Gizmodo. I couldn’t read it anywhere else without thinking about the good times we had.

You remember the day you brought me a video of a man having his head swallowed up by the butt of an elephant. We laughed for hours about it. I couldn’t do that with just any old RSS feed – you make it special.

So just let me finish this project – it should be done soon. Then it’ll just be you and I basking in the soft glow of the computer screen, smoking cigarettes and reading about archeologists with funny names again.

It won’t be long now. So just enjoy your downtime and I’ll be back before you know it.