Better Living Through Introspection

Freebase is the next big database. At least, I hope. While it has the ability to include data from other web-based data sources, such as Wikipedia, I think it has the potential to eventually eclipse Wikipedia. And more importantly, it was built with developers in mind. Not only is there a powerful API, but there are plenty of helpful tutorials to help get you started.

What is Freebase?
Freebase.com is home to a global knowledge base: a structured, searchable, writeable and editable database built by a community of contributors, and open to everyone. It could be described as a data commons. Freebase.com is enabled by the technology of Metaweb, which is described at www.metaweb.com.

(I have five invites available if you’re interested in becoming part of Freebase alpha [hee, hee...like Moonbase Alpha!] before it enters the public beta phase.)

Today is the Army’s birthday.

Also, it’s Flag Day.

I’m just glad it wasn’t me.

Last night’s luke-warm two-hour premiere of NBC’s “hit” Last Comic Standing was overall a waste of time (though, yes, there were a couple of strong comedians — and yes, I understand the concept is to see just how many people [ala American Idol] are completely unaware of how talentless they are). Spread throughout the two hours, though, were three jokes shown on screen, with a pay-per-text number that you could ping for the punchline. A clever way to get some easy cash — at least from those of us who aren’t hooked up to the ever-present Interwebs. Two of the jokes were funny — hey, I appreciate clean, third-grade level puns — and their punchlines were easily found within seconds.

What’s orange and sounds like a parrot?
(A carrot.)

What does a pirate pay for ear piercings?
(A buccaneer.)

But one was just bad…I couldn’t find its punchline ANYWHERE.

So, after a few minutes of frantic searching, I let it rest. (Because, no, it never occurred to me to actually pay for the punchline. That would be ridiculous!) Then, this morning, I took up the quest once again…Google was still a disappoint so I turned instead to a blog-specific search engine. Thank you, Sphere! It turns out, I was (not surprisingly) not alone in my quest. One result from Sphere revealed the answer immediately. I’ll give you the joke first, then you can follow the link to find the answer and read an entertaining blog post from someone else while you’re at it. So:

What did the tortilla say after it walked across the tightrope?

Answer.