Google translate has added latin as an alpha language. [more inside]
posted by Ahab on Oct 3, 2010 - 48 comments

Ye cannae change the laws of physics. Or can you? (Single link Economist article)
posted by bearwife on Sep 1, 2010 - 91 comments

A couple decades after the first appearance of Steam Men in the 19th century, and a few years after the word "robot" was coined, one Professor Harry May from London toured around the US with Alpha the robot. The one ton mechanical man was built from a combination of modern inventions that granted Alpha certain skills, from product model and vocal promoter of the automatic electric toaster, to gunslinger. The problem with giving Alpha a gun was that the robot revolted (PDF, via), shooting his master and creator in 1932. After this incident, Alpha became Mary Ann (via), complete with new hair, a dress, and a soprano voice.
posted by filthy light thief on Aug 12, 2010 - 16 comments

The Alpha Course has been a widely popular - and controversial - initiative by the Church of England to get people more interested in the Church. In 2000, the Jewish journalist Jon Ronson attended a course to see what was going on.
posted by mippy on Jul 7, 2009 - 197 comments

Last night Joss Whedon received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard, taking the opportunity to talk about religion and education (somewhat rough video), as well as taking questions about Dollhouse, his probably-soon-to-be-cancelled not-all-to-be-shown show. I wonder how these guys are doing.
posted by Artw on Apr 11, 2009 - 107 comments

mySQLgame. Naturally, it's an alpha build. [via]
posted by Smart Dalek on Aug 28, 2008 - 33 comments

Yahoo! Australia introduces a new search engine that uses OpenSearch and pretty little AJAX tricks to integrate results from Flickr, Wikpedia, YouTube (and so on). You can customize the layout, and even add your own search sources. It’s called Alpha, it’s currently in Beta, and aims to get through the rest of the Greek alphabet by June. (Via podlob.)
posted by Milkman Dan on Apr 10, 2007 - 13 comments

Earth Album is primarily a Google Maps/Flickr mashup with lots of lovely photos. They also offer a YouTube mashup (focused on local music). Both are somewhat hard to use, because it's difficult to see where you're clicking. Fortunately, they also have Earth Album USA and Earth Album Japan.
posted by owhydididoit on Mar 20, 2007 - 8 comments

"Who's afraid of evolutionary biology?" (I've linked Bede before, but this piece bears a much more important message to Christians who feel it their biblical duty to get hot and bothered over evolution and origin-of-life issues.) Also see a Christian response to "Young Earth" apologetics, and the Young Earth Argument Index, both from "Old Earth" Creationists who disagree with 6-Day biblical literalism. (Note that Old Earthers may still be Intelligent Design advocates. Heaping spoonsful of salt all around.) If that's still too "Christian" for you, Talk.Origins has a summary of other Genesis interpretations.
posted by brownpau on Jan 29, 2006 - 49 comments

ALPHA and ATRAP are two collaborations of physicists racing to trap and study antihydrogen. To the winner most likely goes a Nobel Prize. The proposed comparison of hydrogen to antihydrogen promises to give an extremely senstive test of CPT invarience. Why do we care? Thats a whole Noether matter...
posted by ozomatli on Dec 7, 2005 - 10 comments