Blaster of Secrets: Wolfram Alpha


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The link above goes to a free search engine (like Google), but one that will probably set a landmark in mankind's history similar to the invention of the personal computer or the Internet. It is not yet active for the general public, but will be later this month (May 2009—I don't know the exact day).

This is basically a super-intelligent search engine that not only answers questions, it automatically makes calculations, makes intelligent guesses as to what your problems are (related to your question, location, etc.) and proposes further material, automatically outputs a variety of comparison charts, and does just about everything but serve you coffee if you are looking for some specific information.

Even if you only ask it "What does 237 mean?", it will give you a variety of possibilities, including information on populations, government, health issues, finance, maps, restaurants, sports (I imagine, although I did not see this field listed in the reports I skimmed), history, and practically anything it can find where the number 237 is important. What's more, the information has been screened by filters drawn up by experts, so it will not suffer accuracy problems in the degree that Wikipedia often does (I am not trying to denigrate Wikipedia. It is already a fantastic quick introductory resource, but I predict it will be impacted greatly in a positive manner with this new search engine).

Wolfram Alpha is a secret blaster. A BS blaster.

And it's a relief.

Now if you need information, it is possible to get it without having to figure out which part is information and which is a pet theory (or agenda, or advertising) of the person providing it. I see this blasting certain politicians to pieces. Also certain scientists. And certain reporters. And almost anyone trying to promote false information in order to gain a public advantage.

The Big Lie will still be around since people will still be people, but I predict it will have a lot of its teeth pulled by Wolfram Alpha. Here are some recent articles I skimmed this morning:

(Here's a quote from this article:
"I watched the full demo, live, last week and I was honestly blown away. It doesn't replace Google but it does fill a much desired need in the search business. Wolfram can answer your questions with hard cold facts... You can search for very specific things in the realm of science, math, geography, demographics, and so on and get not just the answer, but detailed information from real sources. There is really nothing like this out there at this scale."
)

The question in the last article above about killing Google is just media hype. It's like asking if the Internet will kill TV. Wolfram Alpha is something that will strengthen traditional search engines, not kill them. This should play out much in the same manner that the Internet strengthened TV and TV strengthened Hollywood and so forth.

As an aside, the facility of using the Internet, allied to a super-instant information resource like Wolfram Alpha, might kill off print news since companies like the NYT are under great financial strain right now. But when I look at the proliferation of new magazines, etc., on the market, I think this is simply a market adjustment. The nature of newspapers might change, but I don't see people giving up reading from paper just because they can read from a computer screen or something like Amazon's Kindle.

Here is a video (slightly under 2 hours) of the inventor, Stephen Wolfram, telling people at The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University about his new brainchild (posted on YouTube on April 28, 2009):

I have only seen about 20 minutes of this video so far, but I got so excited I had to stop and write this post. This thing—Wolfram Alpha—is awesome in the purest meaning of the term. What a wonderful time to be alive to witness this!

Michael

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  • 2 weeks later...

Stephen Wolfram is wonderful.

But the damn search engine isn't up yet!

He is also a bit of a nutter. His -A New Kind of Science- is utter nonsense.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Stephen Wolfram is wonderful.

But the damn search engine isn't up yet!

He is also a bit of a nutter. His -A New Kind of Science- is utter nonsense.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's a broad brush you paint with. If he's a nutter, Kurzweil's a psychopath.

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Stephen Wolfram is wonderful.

But the damn search engine isn't up yet!

He is also a bit of a nutter. His -A New Kind of Science- is utter nonsense.

Ba'al Chatzaf

That's a broad brush you paint with. If he's a nutter, Kurzweil's a psychopath.

Close. I have met Ray a few times. He is Way Out.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Thank goodness these nutter scientists are not philosophers.

According to one speculation I have read around here, science is the One True Way.

So when will we ever have something other than nutters in science to look to for guidance?

:)

btw - I have read that Mathematica, Wolfram's computation program, is the No. 1 used in the scientific community. That's an awful lot of achievement to diss...

Apparently, all you need in order to be a nutter in science is to achive something important.

Michael

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Thank goodness these nutter scientists are not philosophers.

According to one speculation I have read around here, science is the One True Way.

So when will we ever have something other than nutters in science to look to for guidance?

:)

btw - I have read that Mathematica, Wolfram's computation program, is the No. 1 used in the scientific community. That's an awful lot of achievement to diss...

Apparently, all you need in order to be a nutter in science is to achive something important.

Michael

Wolfram's math software is first rate. His proposal for a "new kind of science" i.e. one based on discrete mathmetics is totally intractable. Model the universe as an iterated automata array has no basis in experimental fact and as a theoretical proposal it is literally impractical.

The moral of the story is this: just because some one is a computer science prodigy , it does not mean he is a first rate physicist.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Thank goodness these nutter scientists are not philosophers.

According to one speculation I have read around here, science is the One True Way.

So when will we ever have something other than nutters in science to look to for guidance?

:)

btw - I have read that Mathematica, Wolfram's computation program, is the No. 1 used in the scientific community. That's an awful lot of achievement to diss...

Apparently, all you need in order to be a nutter in science is to achive something important.

Michael

Wolfram's math software is first rate. His proposal for a "new kind of science" i.e. one based on discrete mathmetics is totally intractable. Model the universe as an iterated automata array has no basis in experimental fact and as a theoretical proposal it is literally impractical.

The moral of the story is this: just because some one is a computer science prodigy , it does not mean he is a first rate physicist.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The problem is not that his basic idea is wrong or that he put it up but his utter presumptiousness as to declare himself king of the scientific hill displacing and subordinating all scientists regardless of specialty or competence. I knew they would bury him and his ideas even if they were true if only out of spite to his gross rudeness.

--Brant

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The problem is not that his basic idea is wrong or that he put it up but his utter presumptiousness as to declare himself king of the scientific hill displacing and subordinating all scientists regardless of specialty or competence. I knew they would bury him and his ideas even if they were true if only out of spite to his gross rudeness.

--Brant

More substantially, his proposed model, a discrete model is intractable. With the most powerful computers his model would not produce usable results.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Well, the site is up and running. It suggests you put in your hometown. I got population and elevation data for every place I have lived, except that the system could not recognize "bronx, ny" nor "san juan, pr" and when I mispelled tuckerton as tucketon it asked me if I meant carleton. Interesting, but needs a hell of a lot of work.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Ahh the queef of reality

Now here is a test what about "quiff" "... as in what a quiff that guy is..."

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

Weird. My whole family grew up in the west and we've always known the meaning of the word.

EDIT: HAHA, you're right. It isn't in my dictionary.

Edited by Michelle R
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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

Weird. My whole family grew up in the west and we've always known the meaning of the word.

Depends on ancestry, chance and local variation. An earlier epsiode of South Park has the kids meet kids from New York who know the word. The boys from Colorado have no idea what it is. I asked around at that time. All the people I knew who grew up in the NE knew the word. People from California and Florida did not. I haven't been able to find anything scientific about it on the web. I'm sure it's just like whether you call it soda or pop, a faucet or a spigot, a hoagie or a hero or a sub or a grinder.

The Pop vs Soda Map

popvssodamap.gif

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

Weird. My whole family grew up in the west and we've always known the meaning of the word.

Depends on ancestry, chance and local variation. An earlier epsiode of South Park has the kids meet kids from New York who know the word. The boys from Colorado have no idea what it is. I asked around at that time. All the people I knew who grew up in the NE knew the word. People from California and Florida did not. I haven't been able to find anything scientific about it on the web. I'm sure it's just like whether you call it soda or pop, a faucet or a spigot, a hoagie or a hero or a sub or a grinder.

The Pop vs Soda Map

popvssodamap.gif

Haha. I lived in Colorado from age six until... well, a few months ago, really.

Not technically native, but native enough.

Scientific information? There's not much to explain. If the expelled air has a nasty odor to it, it might be a sign of rectovaginal fistula, but otherwise...

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

Weird. My whole family grew up in the west and we've always known the meaning of the word.

Depends on ancestry, chance and local variation. An earlier epsiode of South Park has the kids meet kids from New York who know the word. The boys from Colorado have no idea what it is. I asked around at that time. All the people I knew who grew up in the NE knew the word. People from California and Florida did not. I haven't been able to find anything scientific about it on the web. I'm sure it's just like whether you call it soda or pop, a faucet or a spigot, a hoagie or a hero or a sub or a grinder.

The Pop vs Soda Map

popvssodamap.gif

Haha. I lived in Colorado from age six until... well, a few months ago, really.

Not technically native, but native enough.

Scientific information? There's not much to explain. If the expelled air has a nasty odor to it, it might be a sign of rectovaginal fistula, but otherwise...

No, no. Scientific data (as oppsed to anecdotal) on the dialectal spread of the word. I am quite aware of the physiology from personal experience, and I do not thank you for that last bit of imagery, although I suppose I deserved it.

Oh, and notice my deft use of the split infinitive "to really test it" in the original post.

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Ha Ha Ha!!!

I was checking Wolfram Alpha to see how it's working. It now knows tha Bronx, NY is a real place, instead of returning an error message. But it suggests that Ponce, PR refers to the British slang word for dandy or fopp rather than the city in the Carribean. Since it returned a definition for "ponce" I decided to really test it and put in a more obscure word, "queef."

I dare you to put the word queef in at Wolfram Alpha. Just do it. You'll love to see what it suggests the word may be referring to. Nothing vulgar, just do it. Click here and it will do it for you directly.

ROTFLMAO!!!

Queef is an obscure word?

Yes, it's relatively obscure and unknown in many areas of the South and West. It does come from Old English. It is cognate with quaver. But you will not find it in many dictionaries, and it mostly survives dialectally, being passed on from child to child as a dirty word. Not all dialects use this word. It is native to my own American East Coast Midlands dialect. It's also native to the NYC dialect area. See Eat, Pray, Queef at South Park.

AmDialMap.gif

Weird. My whole family grew up in the west and we've always known the meaning of the word.

Depends on ancestry, chance and local variation. An earlier epsiode of South Park has the kids meet kids from New York who know the word. The boys from Colorado have no idea what it is. I asked around at that time. All the people I knew who grew up in the NE knew the word. People from California and Florida did not. I haven't been able to find anything scientific about it on the web. I'm sure it's just like whether you call it soda or pop, a faucet or a spigot, a hoagie or a hero or a sub or a grinder.

The Pop vs Soda Map

popvssodamap.gif

Haha. I lived in Colorado from age six until... well, a few months ago, really.

Not technically native, but native enough.

Scientific information? There's not much to explain. If the expelled air has a nasty odor to it, it might be a sign of rectovaginal fistula, but otherwise...

No, no. Scientific data (as oppsed to anecdotal) on the dialectal spread of the word. I am quite aware of the physiology from personal experience, and I do not thank you for that last bit of imagery, although I suppose I deserved it.

Oh, and notice my deft use of the split infinitive "to really test it" in the original post.

:lol:

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