| Opinion | Come on, http://www.wolframalpha.com - we want to query you to death! – BorgClown, 2009-05-08 at 03:31:42 (21 comments) |
 | On 2009-05-08 at 03:32:56, BorgClown wrote... Launching this month, it's supposedly a new trend of searching, with the site actually answering questions instead of just providing links. I want to see how much over-hyped it is. |
 | On 2009-05-08 at 11:35:46, Thelevellers wrote... well it's broken atm! lol... I think it's what 'askjeeves' was meant to do, but failed fairly monumentally, didn't help that jeeves is full of ads either... If it's an improvement on that I might like it... :) |
| On 2009-05-09 at 06:37:40, BorgClown wrote... Sorry, gave the wrong link: http://www.wolframalpha.com It should work any day now, it's may 2009 already. |
| On 2009-05-09 at 06:52:58, BorgClown wrote... Interesting tidbits here. Google is not sleeping: http://www.technologyreview.com/web/22585/page1 |
 | On 2009-05-09 at 15:50:42, Lee J Haywood wrote... There are lots of Google killers out there, and they all fall by the wayside for one of three reasons - either they have a tiny database, they don't have Google's clean interface and results pages, or worse they put poor results at the top whereas Google often succeeds on putting the most relevant first. |
 | On 2009-05-09 at 23:28:02, BorgClown wrote... WolframAlpha is not hyped as a Google killer, but as a new way of researching. It supposedly will try to infer what you need and give you processed data, not links. |
| On 2009-05-09 at 23:29:31, BorgClown wrote... So Google for webpages, and Wolfram for facts (and their corresponding links for corroboration). |
| On 2009-05-10 at 08:54:27, Lee J Haywood wrote... Right, like using Wikipedia when you know it will have an article/answer for something specific. That could work for w*a but it doesn't have a memorable name, so it'll be tough for it to become popular. |
| On 2009-05-10 at 23:11:56, BorgClown wrote... The name is cumbersome, yeas. I suspect it will be shortened to just Wolfram. |
| On 2009-05-11 at 22:03:21, Thelevellers wrote... I have already been calling it Wolfram myself... It does look very cool for research though... :) Might need it next year at college! :) |
 | On 2009-05-18 at 20:30:10, BorgClown wrote... It's online now. It is interesting, and very different from Google indeed. I asked for "sun betelgeuse" and it gives a ream of comparisons, including a star chart as seen from my hometown. Nice. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sun+betelgeuse |
| On 2009-05-18 at 20:46:43, BorgClown wrote... It's supposed to learn what words mean, so I can't blame it if it chokes on "penis size", or even "hand size". It interpreted "world size" as "world area", so I tried "penis length" just for kicks. No good. Well, I gotta go back to work, let's see what can I get out of it later. |
 | On 2009-06-13 at 05:08:25, BorgClown wrote... OK, slightly funny: http://www29.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=where%27s+my+car |
| On 2009-06-13 at 10:45:16, Thelevellers wrote... Huh, made me giggle anyways... :) |
| On 2009-06-13 at 23:57:26, BorgClown wrote... The examples are interesting, even if I have no clue about what an n-gram is http://www29.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=n-grams+%22it+was+the+best+of+times+it+was+the+worst+of+times%22 |
| On 2009-06-14 at 07:39:24, BorgClown wrote... Hooray, my first practical use of Wolfram! I was corroborating the solar power per area we get on Earth. It took a couple of tries, but it was fun: http://www32.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=solar+irradiance+at+the+earth |
 | On 2009-06-18 at 17:49:37, Baslisks wrote... http://www21.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=penis+length |
| On 2009-06-18 at 18:03:00, Thelevellers wrote... Heheheh, nice... |
| On 2009-06-19 at 02:29:07, Baslisks wrote... best part.. they give you length in 3 a batteries. |
 | On 2009-06-19 at 20:08:31, BorgClown wrote... Impressive. I tried the same query on comment #12, and it didn't know what to do. WA is supposedly a learning system, although the improvement might come from the popularity of this particular query. |
| On 2009-06-19 at 20:11:18, BorgClown wrote... LOL, Turkish are in bad shape: 12.7 cm |