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Image search is probably not the best way to learn who the president of a country is. Wolfram Alpha seems the best approach to this sort of thing:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=who+is+the+president+of+the+USA

Am I alone thinking that if this company wins their suit maybe Microsoft would actually rename their search engine to something not as cringeworthy?

You're both alone and wrong. It's just a buggy, ad-ridden front end for the WolframAlpha search engine and serves as a distraction from what Microsoft Activist Icahn and his attack dogs started doing to Yahoo.

After re-branding Live Search as "Bing", to leave the baggage associated with the old name, they also struck a deal so that Bing is a front-end for Wolfram Alpha plus whatever Live Search might have had. So to get those results unmodified, you don't have to go through M$ filter, you can go straight to WolframAlpha skipping the middle man. Not at all difficult.

There are even meta-search engines that can cross-search both Google and Wolfram Alpha for you. For Firefox there is the Goofram add-on which lets you search both at the same time. If you're on Opera, Safari or Chromium, there are also search customization options there, too

Am I alone thinking that if this company wins their suit maybe Microsoft would actually rename their search engine to something not as cringeworthy?

You're both alone and wrong. It's just a buggy, ad-ridden front end for the WolframAlpha search engine and serves as a distraction from what Microsoft Activist Icahn and his attack dogs started doing to Yahoo.

After re-branding Live Search as "Bing", to leave the baggage associated with the old name, they also struck a deal so that Bing is a front-end for Wolfram Alpha plus whatever Live Search might have had. So to get those results unmodified, you don't have to go through M$ filter, you can go straight to WolframAlpha skipping the middle man. Not at all difficult.

There are even meta-search engines that can cross-search both Google and Wolfram Alpha for you. For Firefox there is the Goofram add-on which lets you search both at the same time. If you're on Opera, Safari or Chromium, there are also search customization options there, too

$174.80.

There is no Bing, only a front-end to Wolfram Alpha. Use it directly and speed up your searches. Deal with one privacy policy instead of two, by using it directly.

More like 300! I'd say.

Thats pretty damn close.

So it's only 3000.00 USD per person per year BFD

Norways oil-revenue does jack-shit for Finland, Denmark or Sweden. Or do you think that other Nordic countries get dibs on Norways oil for the sole reason that they happen to be near Norway?

Hell, compared to most other countries, Finland has no natural-resources to speak of. Most of the iron ore is in Sweden, Russians took most of our nickel-deposits after the war. Only thing we have is a bunch of trees.

$76.47 for the US for those who are too lazy to check the difference.

So it's only 3000.00 USD per person per year BFD

The fact that USA is a really big country doesn't really matter. Like USA, not all of Europe is heavy-density populated. Scandinavia for example has much smaller population density than USA, but in cities people get 100mbit/s to home, even 1gbit/s. If you're living off a city, 24mbit/s is common place. And no such bullshit than usage fees.

Yeah something tells me that if the US had almost 10,000 USD a year per person in oil revenues we'd be able to solve just about all of our social problems.citation

You're getting the Brits mixed in with the rest of Europe, and forgetting another Billion plus people.

Here is a better comparison.

1939M >> 591M, so stuff it you continental pansy.

The number of pieces in the Eiffel tower is in the same order of magnitude as the number of human genes (the bolts can be compared to base pairs).

There are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome. The number of bolts in the Eiffel tower is not in the same order of magnitude. I understand your point, but your example is flawed.

In matters of custom, the more universally recognized method is the right one.

OK then - here you go. I await the US and Britain's change to the 'universal' standard with interest.

It looks like you missed a few, e.g. India and China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

In matters of custom, the more universally recognized method is the right one.

OK then - here you go. I await the US and Britain's change to the 'universal' standard with interest.

If you want to implement a new worldwide custom then that's fine but I suspect you will need a very good justification and not simply the desire to do something new.

New? Err...no, no this isn't new. It's centuries old. What's happened here is some US-centric programmer has forgotten to do a locale conversion. Happened to me too about ten years back when I unwisely sent .csv to Switzerland.

Cheers,
Ian

After the search is where it gets better.

Not really. After re-branding Live Search as "Bing", to leave the baggage associated with the old name, they also struck a deal so that Bing is a front-end for Wolfram Alpha plus whatever Live Search might have had. So to get those results unmodified, you don't have to go through M$ filter, you can go straight to Wolfram Alpha skipping the middle man. Not difficult.

There are even meta-search engines that can cross-search both Google and Wolfram Alpha for you. For Firefox there is the Goofram add-on which lets you search both at the same time. If you're on Opera, Safari or Chromium, there are also search customization options there, too.

Remember, backup tape still has a large bytes/cent advantage over HDDs.

Not for most reasonably double-digit values of "quantity of backup tapes".

A 1TB HDD is around $80.

With a $1,140 drive and a $60 controller ($1,200 total), it would take roughly two hundred and forty 400GB tapes @ $27/ea just to match the $80/TB price point, let alone to significantly reduce it.

I mean, sure, you could just buy the tape without the drive I guess, and then you can legitimately claim you paid $67.50/TB, saving you all of $13, and maybe you can find a friend with a tape drive to perform the actual read/write operations.

According to Wolfram|Alpha, it only has 18,432 times as much RAM as my main machine.

The problem as I see it is that the Earth is going around the sun carrying a bunch of space junk with it. This space junk make it miserable for people who want to shoot more stuff into space. Therefore, all we have to do is get all our buddies together ( the moon and other satellites we want to keep), then just stop orbitting the sun for about 4 hours (distance to the moon/helocentric velocity). Then we should be in a nice clean portion of the orbit. Usually, it is heck of alot easier to litter and walk away than it is to pick it up and put it in the trash bin. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=distance+to+moon+%2F+speed+of+earth+orbit

TFA is just speculating a linear scale down to handheld and shark-mounted lasers as a joke. Pretty funny too.

The goal weapon is 150kW which will put out the .50s 17kJ in about .11 seconds.

Nothing mentions the diameter or frequency of the beam used, but as another person alluded exposed human parts would explosively vaporize, metal would melt, and clothing would ignite(sufficient to stop combatant) pretty quickly.

36.6C, 40kg body water raised to boiling 63.4 degrees.

40kg * 63.4C * 4.18kJ/(kg * C) / 150 kW = 70.7 seconds to boil a 40kg person.

But that isn't how it works, it's focused on say 20 cc of water. .02kg * 63.4C * 4.18kJ/(kg * C) / 150 kW = .035 seconds. So 20cc * 1700 = 34000cc BOOM!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=.02kg+*+63.4C+*+4.18kJ%2F(kg+*+C)+%2F+150+kW

So (according to wolfram alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=.035+s) between .4 to .7 of a "blink of an eye" 20cc of water turns to 34000cc of steam with what was a part of your body...and nobody said they turn the beam of here.

That probably over-simplifies how the energy would be converted and propagate through tissue, but who knows the frequency or diameter of the beam?

TFA is just speculating a linear scale down to handheld and shark-mounted lasers as a joke. Pretty funny too.

The goal weapon is 150kW which will put out the .50s 17kJ in about .11 seconds.

Nothing mentions the diameter or frequency of the beam used, but as another person alluded exposed human parts would explosively vaporize, metal would melt, and clothing would ignite(sufficient to stop combatant) pretty quickly.

36.6C, 40kg body water raised to boiling 63.4 degrees.

40kg * 63.4C * 4.18kJ/(kg * C) / 150 kW = 70.7 seconds to boil a 40kg person.

But that isn't how it works, it's focused on say 20 cc of water. .02kg * 63.4C * 4.18kJ/(kg * C) / 150 kW = .035 seconds. So 20cc * 1700 = 34000cc BOOM!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=.02kg+*+63.4C+*+4.18kJ%2F(kg+*+C)+%2F+150+kW

So (according to wolfram alpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=.035+s) between .4 to .7 of a "blink of an eye" 20cc of water turns to 34000cc of steam with what was a part of your body...and nobody said they turn the beam of here.

That probably over-simplifies how the energy would be converted and propagate through tissue, but who knows the frequency or diameter of the beam?

No one get's a soda, they get a coke, even when that 'coke' is a Pepsi.

It appears as though Pepsi and Coke are pretty close...

Doesn't change your point, but still...

Apple seems to be doing quite well, in fact better than any other competitor in their market sector. Apple is an OEM computer and consumer electronics company.

For example, Apple's market cap is greater than the next two competitors combined (hp + dell). Apple vs. HP vs. Dell Market Cap

It really needs to be drilled home that Apple is a hardware OEM, not a pure software company. They should be compared to other hardware oem's that provide similar services and have have similar user support and manufacturing infrastructures. They are not even anti-competitive with Microsoft besides on the marketing hype front. They've put decent engineering effort into support Microsoft operating systems out of the box. . . unlike the "oops there goes your mbr" method of MS installs if you dared to install your alternative OS's first.

Supposing someone finished work at 5pm, by the time they've got home, had a shower and some tea, it's 6pm. They then watch TV until 2am?

Probably they count weekends, so that the TV on Sat/Sun is assumed to be on from 9am to midnight. That gives 15 hours daily; and if we assume that on weekdays the TV is on from 6pm to 11pm (5 hours) then the average would be (5*5 + 2*15)/7 = 7.9 hours, very close to the claimed time.

Interesting, because in this blog entry, Gates was questioning the results of the query "2^2^2^2^2".

Highlighting examples of Wolfram|Alpha to the most senior executives at Microsoft, Stephen Wolfram entered the query “2^2^2^2^2”. Upon seeing the result, Bill Gates interrupted to say, “What, is that right?”

A profound silence fell over the entire room.

Stephen replied, “We do mathematics!”

http://blog.wolframalpha.com/

most importantly,
Query: Which is better, vim or emacs?
Answer: "Vim"

Unfortunately it does not answer another important question

Maybe Google doesn't feel like burning huge piles of cash on the wolfram API? Have you seen how much they charge for it?

It starts at a minimum commitment of $2,000/mo at $0.10 per query. At the high end it's $220,000/mo at $0.023 per query. I wonder how much google makes off each search? Can't be much more than that.

try asking for something useful like the population density of an arbitrary city. And by arbitrary I mean New York City

How can they claim to have a significant store of data if it can't even answer basic statistical questions like that? Using Eiffel Towers as a unit of measurement is a parlor trick, not a useful tool.

That's great and all, but I was very disappointed with the result I got:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=is+bing+worth+using%3F

That's a question I really want an answer for.

How many roads must a man go down before he becomes a man?

Still, it failed to pass the Voigt-Kampff test.

I hit up Wolfram a few minutes ago to test out the search with such queries as "what is the temperature in beijing?" and "how far is it between earth and mars?" which it handled nicely with lots of relative graphs and links.

However, I was very pleased to see this search turn up a result:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=is+there+an+easter+egg%3F

Lets try what is the temperature in melbourne

• google
• bing
• wolfram

Wolfram gives me the best result IMHO, and google the worst. Bing is close to wolfram but using a different source of data. For the average luser out there a nice chart or graphic is better than a link which you have to follow.

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

Why are you so hard on W|A? Wolfram Alpha answers LOTS of extremely important questions!

Query: What is the speed of an unladen swallow?
Answer: "there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)"

Query: What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
Answer: 42

Query: Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
Answer: Not sure, but wherever she is, it isn't here.

Query: When is judgement day?
Answer: "2:14 am EDT | Friday, August 29, 1997"

Query: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound??
Answer: "No. Sound is vibration, transmitted to our senses through the mechanism of the ear, and recognized as sound only at our nerve centers. The falling of the tree or any other disturbance will produce vibration of the air. If there be no ears to hear, there will be no sound."

Query: Can entropy be reversed?
Answer: "THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER."

Query: who would win in a fight: pirates or ninjas?
Answer: "The answer remains an ongoing debate which Wolfram|Alpha is not in a position to arbitrate."

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=air+speed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow

Assuming estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen African swallow | Use estimated average cruising airspeed of an unladen European swallow instead

"there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant) (asked, but not answered, about a general swallow in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail)"

At this point in time Google don't need to give rat's ass. They may need to should Rupert convince a significant number of news organisations to follow his lead. Will they? Would they? NewsCorpse is not as powerful as it once was.

This is interesting. Have Newscorpse bitten off more than they can chew?

So it's not what the bird was but when it was that determines whether it is European or African,

Yes, but what's its unladen airspeed velocity?

11 meters per second

Unit conversions:
590 miles per day
25 mph (miles per hour)
0.41 mi/min (miles per minute)
36 ft/s (feet per second)
130000 ft/h (feet per hour)
0.66 km/min (kilometers per minute)
40 km/h (kilometers per hour)
950 km/day (kilometers per day)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=airspeed+of+an+unladen+european+swallow

Uhm, the size of the universe is 93 billion light years, while the age of the universe is about 14 billion years. Not the same thing.

A better analogy would be:

If a single atom were expanded to the size of the observable universe, the Planck length would be about as long as a football field. (Thank you WolframAlpha.)

To put this into perspective:

36,000 acres = 7.5 x 7.5 miles = 12.5 x 12.5 kilometers = the size of Walt Disney World

Source:
Convert 36000 acres to square miles

4.64 seconds

And if we assume a density greater than one spammer per 314.2 sq. km., we get more bang for the buck...

I've finally found the use for wolfram alpha - to refute people on the internet.

Google can do it, too.

I've finally found the use for wolfram alpha - to refute people on the internet.

(You did the subtraction wrong, GP screwed up... err, something else. But if you average out the power of ten of the two numbers I guess you get the right answer?)

This says otherwise. The Mathematician should know better.