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Wolfram Alpha - Impressions On Launch

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raybeere:
It is late, and I'm tired, with a nasty developing headache, but I'm sure some DC readers are aware of Wolfram Alpha and are curious. I had the page loaded, with the nonworking "Launching in May" announcement, and when the announced they'd activated it, I refreshed and got in as soon as the page reloaded. It took a few seconds. Rather than rewriting all my thoughts, I'll link to what I posted on my blog, if that's okay. The post is here.

Yes, I was pretty harsh on them, but my perspective was that of a user / researcher. This is supposed to be something new, something special, and except for math problems (and how many days, weeks, years, etc. since a particular date is just a specialised math problem) it doesn't seem ready to do anything at all. If anyone is really curious, I do have screen shots of the searches I mention, although not the ones I just summarise. (I tried "What happened in 1666?", for example, and "What happened in London in 1666?")

mouser:
I have a long standing dislike of wolfram after reading "A New Kind of Science" and questioning him at a talk he gave.. Another self-deluded egomaniac if you ask me.

Now that's not to say that "Wolfram Alpha" is not going to be a great thing -- only that i have little respect for him.

superboyac:
I have a long standing dislike of wolfram after reading "A New Kind of Science" and questioning him at a talk he gave..
-mouser (May 15, 2009, 11:30 PM)
--- End quote ---
Care to give details?  I also sensed that somewhat from what little I know about him.  PM me if you don't want to be public.

rgdot:
Atomic weight of Chlorine...worked
Biggest town in Germany...failed

Just two random tries that, on google, either work directly (answer on top of search results) or provide a good link with the answer.

cyberdiva:
Rather than rewriting all my thoughts, I'll link to what I posted on my blog, if that's okay. The post is here.
-raybeere (May 15, 2009, 11:05 PM)
--- End quote ---
FWIW, I thought your blog entry was terrific!  It was interesting, informative, and--in spite of what you claimed--well written.  It also prompted me to try Wolfram Alpha.  I spent much less time than you did, but Wolfram Alpha struck out on all my queries.  They were simple queries--"who is _______?" for example.  I tried my husband's name, my name, and my brother-in-law's name.  Google had no problem returning information on all of us, but W.A. didn't know what to do with any of the queries.  :(  I tried several more queries of a different sort, and ended with "What is Donation Coder?"  All I can say for W.A. is that it's consistent--it consistently didn't know what to do.  By contrast, when I then put "what is Donation Coder?" into Google, its first three hits were to the web site, the forums, and Wikipedia's coverage of DC.  Guess I'll stick with Google.  :Thmbsup:

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