Slightly Askew

The last time I heard the word tessellate, I was about nine.

Before me lay a piece of dotted paper with the same shape repeated over and over again. And to be fair, I’ve had very little reason to use the word since then. I always thought it was a good word, though.

Thankfully, those clever chaps collectively named Tokyo Police Club have put it to brilliant use. This is the acoustic version; the electric one is equally superb.

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Perhaps you’ve heard of Wolfram Alpha (or WolframAlpha or Wolfram|Alpha or however it’s bloody written.) Perhaps you haven’t.

Early hype suggested it would make Google look as relevant as a Soda Stream. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case.

You see, it’s not really a search engine; more an engine that’s on the web. Indeed, the boffs at Wolfram Alpha call it a “computational knowledge engine”. It’s not about returning the most relevant page in relation to your search, more about giving you answers to questions.

I used it to work out that I’m 10,000 days old on 30 August, 2009. Which is cool and petrifying all at the same time.

You can also use it to calculate mortgages.

Powerful, clever stuff. Read more about it here.

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Nope. I’m not dead.

I nearly died this morning though. Went spinning with the wife-to-be. If you’re not familiar with spinning, allow me put you in the picture: You get on an exercise bike in a dark room. Someone puts on bad, loud music. Someone shouts “sprint” every now and then. Lactic acid kicks in after about twenty seconds and never goes away. After half an hour, they give you your freedom back.

Suffice to say it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had.

But I can see why people, my missus included, get a buzz out of it. There’s a sense of achievement when you walk out of the room. And I guess it’s that sense of achievement which is the addictive thing about exercise. (My feelings were mostly dehydration and dizziness, but that’s more to do with my pathetic fitness level.)

The addiction of achievement is something that Nike ad execs worked out a long time ago. But achievement rarely comes without difficulty. Effort, perspiration and knock-backs. Good old fashioned blood, sweat and tears. Without them, the big slice of achievement pie doesn’t taste so good.

And you can’t really cheat exercise. It’s you and you alone that has to put in the hours. But when you win, the achievement’s all yours too.

Nike manages to squeeze this notion into every ad. And in terms of concept and delivery, I don’t think it gets much better than this.

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