One of the best things to come out of the Internet is the complicated algorithms on a variety of sites that give you recommendations based on information you give about yourself. We have Amazon’s for shopping, and Audioscrobbler for music you’ve played recently (although I believe that’s just been eaten up by Last.fm), for example.

Write the name of a band, actor, director or movie into the LivePlasma search box, and hit the button. It will display a pretty brainstorm-style Flash map with your selection in the middle, and related people or things around it in little bubbles. It can be interesting to see if a favourite band of yours, for example, has any similar bands you might not have even heard of.

I tried Muse for the band - Interpol, Coldplay, Travis, Radiohead, The Doves, Elbow, The Flaming Lips and Pulp. Not bad - I either like or don’t mind all of those. For the movie, one of my all time favourites, Fight Club. Donnie Darko and American History X are the nearest. Finding Nemo is worryingly close, but we’ll cast that off as a mere momentary fault..