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Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.

Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.

Dude, Alpha is so old school... these days we "bing" things... get with the times!

Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.

Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.

Dude, Alpha is so old school... these days we "bing" things... get with the times!

I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says [google.com] a keyboard is worth.

Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.

Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.

I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says [google.com] a keyboard is worth.

Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.

Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.

I'll pay $5, as that's what Google says [google.com] a keyboard is worth.

Google is old hat - everyone who is anyone uses Wolfram Alpha. Alpha-ing "cost of keyboard" gives a price of $47.87 - although if it has a "market cap" (is that anything like caps lock?) the price skyrockets to $21.2 billion.

Just be glad you're looking at the cost of a keyboard instead of the actual value - according to Wolfram Alpha, the value of a keyboard is U+2328. Although I'm not sure what that is in US dollars, because "convert U+2328 to US dollars" doesn't seem to give anything helpful.

As pointed out above, not all solid state storage is 'flash'. Other technologies such as phase-change memory may have lifetime write cycles in the hundreds of millions per cell. Whether that's a viable technology... well, that's not the point. :)

Every transistor in single cell flash (Flash-based HDD replacements) can be written to hundreds of thousands of times. Firmware logic makes certain to distribute writes evenly across the device.

I'm sure there will be plenty of fallacy in my bad math and short-sighted reasoning, but let's pretend we have a flash SSD that is 64 gigabytes in size. That's about 512,000,000,000 bits (cells/transistors) total.

Also, let's say our flash has a pretty speedy 100MB/sec sustained throughput... And let's make this a perfect world where our transfer rate is always at its sustained peak. That's about 640 seconds to completely use every single transistor on our flash device.

Now, we have to consider that each sector can handle 100,000 writes. 640 seconds x 100,000 times = About 2 years of constant writing at maximum write throughput .

I'd say that sounds just fine for consumer use, considering how extreme the situation is... I wouldn't even expect your average prosumer to have issues with their flash drive for at least the first decade.

As pointed out above, not all solid state storage is 'flash'. Other technologies such as phase-change memory may have lifetime write cycles in the hundreds of millions per cell. Whether that's a viable technology... well, that's not the point. :)

Every transistor in single cell flash (Flash-based HDD replacements) can be written to hundreds of thousands of times. Firmware logic makes certain to distribute writes evenly across the device.

I'm sure there will be plenty of fallacy in my bad math and short-sighted reasoning, but let's pretend we have a flash SSD that is 64 gigabytes in size. That's about 512,000,000,000 bits (cells/transistors) total.

Also, let's say our flash has a pretty speedy 100MB/sec sustained throughput... And let's make this a perfect world where our transfer rate is always at its sustained peak. That's about 640 seconds to completely use every single transistor on our flash device.

Now, we have to consider that each sector can handle 100,000 writes. 640 seconds x 100,000 times = About 2 years of constant writing at maximum write throughput .

I'd say that sounds just fine for consumer use, considering how extreme the situation is... I wouldn't even expect your average prosumer to have issues with their flash drive for at least the first decade.

Except that we need to compare with Europe as a whole, not just the states within the community.

According to Wolfram (this seems the sort of question it works well with), GDP for USA is $13.78T and Europe is $17.95T

That is a terrible metric because Europe has almost twice the population of the US. You might as well compare the GDP of the US to Asia. It would be far more useful to compare the GDP per population of the two and fortunately Wolfram will also graph that.

Now the graph gets much more interesting. You can see that the production per citizen in the US has been steadily improving since at least 1970 relative to Europe. According to the graph, in 1970 Europeans produced about six times as much as US citizens, but now produce about 67% as much. Changing the graph to the European Union specifically has relatively little change.

I'm a little doubtful those numbers are correct though. The 1970 numbers just seem insane, and the steady improvement in our economy doesn't seem to match what everyone is saying. It's possible the source data is bad, or the numbers don't accurately reflect population due to how corporations shift money around.

Except that we need to compare with Europe as a whole, not just the states within the community.

According to Wolfram (this seems the sort of question it works well with), GDP for USA is $13.78T and Europe is $17.95T

That is a terrible metric because Europe has almost twice the population of the US. You might as well compare the GDP of the US to Asia. It would be far more useful to compare the GDP per population of the two and fortunately Wolfram will also graph that.

Now the graph gets much more interesting. You can see that the production per citizen in the US has been steadily improving since at least 1970 relative to Europe. According to the graph, in 1970 Europeans produced about six times as much as US citizens, but now produce about 67% as much. Changing the graph to the European Union specifically has relatively little change.

I'm a little doubtful those numbers are correct though. The 1970 numbers just seem insane, and the steady improvement in our economy doesn't seem to match what everyone is saying. It's possible the source data is bad, or the numbers don't accurately reflect population due to how corporations shift money around.

Huh?

http://www30.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=25+horsepower+to+watts

WTF are you on about?

http://www30.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=25%20horsepower%20to%20newtons

They aren't compatible, different powers on different units.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_reforms_in_India#Reforms

Also, feel free to read the "Impact" section. So fire up the super ego:

India GDP

Crazy! Correlation is there, it's impossible to prove causation, of course, but HUH.

Wow. Thanks! http://www79.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=((randomint%5B6%5D+%2B+randomint%5B6%5D)+mod+8)+%2B+1

Germany, France and Britain are all lovely countries with economies just as strong (though obviously not as large) as the US.

Except that we need to compare with Europe as a whole, not just the states within the community.

According to Wolfram (this seems the sort of question it works well with), GDP for USA is $13.78T and Europe is $17.95T

In second year university physics in the late 80's I had to do an experiment observing positron annihilation by counting gamma ray energies around 511 keV. We used some tiny radioactive source which emitted positrons (which one it was I can't remember positron emitters, but Wolfram Alpha is cool). The source was stored in a lead-lined safe and we were given radioactive tabs to watch our dosage. The workbench was surrounded on 3 sides by lead-walls so we were safe in the lab. Just behind the bench was a concrete brick wall and behind that a major staircase in the physics department. So out I went with the Geiger Counter and found the highest readings were naturally outside on the stairs. When I came into the lab the next day, my gamma-ray counter was gone. I found it in a chem lab watching a bucket of water with hydrogen bubbling through it. Fleischmann and Ponns had just made their famous announcement.

Well then it's increasing by a factor of 8-4/(1-n) which is only 4 when n=0. In fact, as n grows the number of "connections" increases by a factor of 8 when n doubles. I think.

The average american income is only $45,421.68 according to Wolfram. At $100,000 a year, 6 million would last 60 years. As long as you take up a normal life, and don't blow your money, you shouldn't have to ever work again. I would probably want to invest some, or get a decent job to pay for other stuff so that I wouldn't have to go over my $100,000 a year limit though.

Have a nice day -> tits

But it does have the results for an unladen European swallow

apple/day

Hand in your geek card, you are not geeky enough to ask the question correctly.

http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+answer+to+life%2C+the+universe%2C+and+everything%3F

Now look, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle. *Even*...and I want to make this absolutely clear...*even* if they *do* hot link wolfram|alpha

Wow, you sure asked the wrong question:
http://www26.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=What+is+the+airspeed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow%3F

Of course, I should have anticipated the result:
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)

I prefer tits in pairs:
http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(sinc+(x)+*+sinc+(abs(y-2)))

(move the image off the axises, then mirror the other side)

Many results it produces are immutable

No they are not.
Assume that I would really use the caffeine result in a paper and there is an error in the Wolfram Alpha page.
There is no guarantee that versions retrieved later would show the same error, which could be actually important to follow the reasoning my (imaginary) paper.
Opposite to that would be citing a journal paper or a book. One can always retrieve the very same version which was used for doing the research.

Many results it produces are immutable

No they are not.
Assume that I would really use the caffeine result in a paper and there is an error in the Wolfram Alpha page.
There is no guarantee that versions retrieved later would show the same error, which could be actually important to follow the reasoning my (imaginary) paper.
Opposite to that would be citing a journal paper or a book. One can always retrieve the very same version which was used for doing the research.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(sinc+(x)+*+sinc+(y))+

I'm sure you could do better if you had more time.

Which is shame, because their natural language backed computational engine does not really work as expected

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tell+me+amount+of+monkeys+in+europe

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+lsd+with+thc

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+iron+atoms+are+in+eart

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=18%3A00+GMT%2B1+in+PST :-/

Only that got answered was random trivia from pop culture like http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+african+swallow :(

Which is shame, because their natural language backed computational engine does not really work as expected

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tell+me+amount+of+monkeys+in+europe

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+lsd+with+thc

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+iron+atoms+are+in+eart

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=18%3A00+GMT%2B1+in+PST :-/

Only that got answered was random trivia from pop culture like http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+african+swallow :(

Which is shame, because their natural language backed computational engine does not really work as expected

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tell+me+amount+of+monkeys+in+europe

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+lsd+with+thc

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+iron+atoms+are+in+eart

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=18%3A00+GMT%2B1+in+PST :-/

Only that got answered was random trivia from pop culture like http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+african+swallow :(

Which is shame, because their natural language backed computational engine does not really work as expected

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tell+me+amount+of+monkeys+in+europe

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+lsd+with+thc

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+iron+atoms+are+in+eart

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=18%3A00+GMT%2B1+in+PST :-/

Only that got answered was random trivia from pop culture like http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+african+swallow :(

Which is shame, because their natural language backed computational engine does not really work as expected

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=tell+me+amount+of+monkeys+in+europe

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=compare+lsd+with+thc

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+many+iron+atoms+are+in+eart

http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=18%3A00+GMT%2B1+in+PST :-/

Only that got answered was random trivia from pop culture like http://www51.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+african+swallow :(

http://www26.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+much+wood+would+a+woodchuck+chuck

I was satisfied with that result.
Finally, I can sleep again.

Query: faggots in a butt Result: 18 faggots http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=faggots+in+a+butt Top google result is WOLFRAM ALPHA!!

Try easier next time:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time

Well it claims to make information computable. I accept it's not meant to find results like Google but the issue with it is it doesn't even seem to gather basic data in a computable form.

I mean, you try things like "On what date did the Falklands war commence?", "How many species of Melocactus are there?", "On what date was Adolf Hitler born" and it outright fails.

It has the data for two of those questions. It's just having trouble with the (somewhat odd and verbose) way that you asked them.

When did the Falklands war begin?

When was Hitler born?

It doesn't seem to know what to do with "on what date." That phrasing requires an understanding of the preposition 'on' in the abstract sense (instead of the 'physically on top of' sense) and knowledge that the phrase "what X" is meant to constrain the answer to the type X without otherwise modifying the question. Or specific knowledge that asking "what date" is the same as asking when.

Without understanding "what X" form it may have processed Hitler's birth into a date, then interpreted your question as "what date was the following date" (asking for the date of the date) instead of "what was the following date" (asking for the date directly). For example, it understands "what was January 1" and "when was January 1" but not "what date was January 1".

Also, it didn't understand the word "commence" as referring to the start of a war.

Okay, so I figured maybe I'm asking questions that are out of the intended realm of knowledge it supports and the assumption is that you'd never want to compute with this information. So I tried something Mathematical - I mean, that is Wolfram's speciality right?

"How many non-isomorphic labelled trees are there with 4 vertices"

Fail.

I've tried a few other relevant, factual questions and it just falls flat over, not even able to try and answer them.

I'm sure it does do a great job of making information computable, the problem is it's unable to gather the information in the first place.

It doesn't seem to know about trees or labels, but it knows about graphs:

How many graphs with four vertices are there?

It also won't do exhaustive searches through entire categories of knowledge to compute a result. It has to know how to figure it out directly. I think its main limitation is its intelligence, not how much data it has.

Well it claims to make information computable. I accept it's not meant to find results like Google but the issue with it is it doesn't even seem to gather basic data in a computable form.

I mean, you try things like "On what date did the Falklands war commence?", "How many species of Melocactus are there?", "On what date was Adolf Hitler born" and it outright fails.

It has the data for two of those questions. It's just having trouble with the (somewhat odd and verbose) way that you asked them.

When did the Falklands war begin?

When was Hitler born?

It doesn't seem to know what to do with "on what date." That phrasing requires an understanding of the preposition 'on' in the abstract sense (instead of the 'physically on top of' sense) and knowledge that the phrase "what X" is meant to constrain the answer to the type X without otherwise modifying the question. Or specific knowledge that asking "what date" is the same as asking when.

Without understanding "what X" form it may have processed Hitler's birth into a date, then interpreted your question as "what date was the following date" (asking for the date of the date) instead of "what was the following date" (asking for the date directly). For example, it understands "what was January 1" and "when was January 1" but not "what date was January 1".

Also, it didn't understand the word "commence" as referring to the start of a war.

Okay, so I figured maybe I'm asking questions that are out of the intended realm of knowledge it supports and the assumption is that you'd never want to compute with this information. So I tried something Mathematical - I mean, that is Wolfram's speciality right?

"How many non-isomorphic labelled trees are there with 4 vertices"

Fail.

I've tried a few other relevant, factual questions and it just falls flat over, not even able to try and answer them.

I'm sure it does do a great job of making information computable, the problem is it's unable to gather the information in the first place.

It doesn't seem to know about trees or labels, but it knows about graphs:

How many graphs with four vertices are there?

It also won't do exhaustive searches through entire categories of knowledge to compute a result. It has to know how to figure it out directly. I think its main limitation is its intelligence, not how much data it has.

Well it claims to make information computable. I accept it's not meant to find results like Google but the issue with it is it doesn't even seem to gather basic data in a computable form.

I mean, you try things like "On what date did the Falklands war commence?", "How many species of Melocactus are there?", "On what date was Adolf Hitler born" and it outright fails.

It has the data for two of those questions. It's just having trouble with the (somewhat odd and verbose) way that you asked them.

When did the Falklands war begin?

When was Hitler born?

It doesn't seem to know what to do with "on what date." That phrasing requires an understanding of the preposition 'on' in the abstract sense (instead of the 'physically on top of' sense) and knowledge that the phrase "what X" is meant to constrain the answer to the type X without otherwise modifying the question. Or specific knowledge that asking "what date" is the same as asking when.

Without understanding "what X" form it may have processed Hitler's birth into a date, then interpreted your question as "what date was the following date" (asking for the date of the date) instead of "what was the following date" (asking for the date directly). For example, it understands "what was January 1" and "when was January 1" but not "what date was January 1".

Also, it didn't understand the word "commence" as referring to the start of a war.

Okay, so I figured maybe I'm asking questions that are out of the intended realm of knowledge it supports and the assumption is that you'd never want to compute with this information. So I tried something Mathematical - I mean, that is Wolfram's speciality right?

"How many non-isomorphic labelled trees are there with 4 vertices"

Fail.

I've tried a few other relevant, factual questions and it just falls flat over, not even able to try and answer them.

I'm sure it does do a great job of making information computable, the problem is it's unable to gather the information in the first place.

It doesn't seem to know about trees or labels, but it knows about graphs:

How many graphs with four vertices are there?

It also won't do exhaustive searches through entire categories of knowledge to compute a result. It has to know how to figure it out directly. I think its main limitation is its intelligence, not how much data it has.

Where are you?

"I live on the Internet."

I guess they have a little bit of humor :)

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=where+are+you

do a search for any website (here is slashdot for the click impaired)

Congratulations, but "deep linking", you've violated their terms of service.

Hmm, I guess I did too.

I wonder how they're gonna prosecute us, seeing as neither one of us was presented by so much as a "click-through" agreement.

Maybe someone needs to tell them that just saying something doesn't make it so.

More importantly, it completely fails at this question: http://www26.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=historical+popularity+trends+of+shaved+genitalia+in+pornography

I was looking forward to the graph too :-\

Have you even tried it? It's not a search engine.

Many results it produces are immutable

Data like the population of cities will of course vary over time, but there's quite a lot of stuff in there that's set in stone.

Have you even tried it? It's not a search engine.

Many results it produces are immutable

Data like the population of cities will of course vary over time, but there's quite a lot of stuff in there that's set in stone.

For wolfram alpha to be successful they will need to develop their natural language parsing abilities, it's not easy to do, each question may require individual interpretation. At this point using google is better for understanding more abstract concepts.

I've used wolfram alpha to help with my linear algebra homework for the past few days. Good info for checking my work. Matrix example

The best part is using it on a phone, it's made my G1 a more powerful calculator than my good ol TI-92.

Nothing quite so exciting, it just tries to figure out your location from your IP address:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=where+am+i

A nice plot of the number of cases / deaths made by swine flu. http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+swine+flu

Strangely, the "Totals as of May 14, 2009" table it presents there matches, in number of cases, the information shown on "Tuesday, May 19, 2009" row of the "Daily new reports for the world" table, rather than "Thursday, May 14, 2009" row as one would expect. It does, true, provide some pretty graphs, but its obviously doing something wrong with the data in at least one of the two tables. Nice presentation isn't worth anything if the system is mishandling or mislabelling data.

And, of course, since it doesn't identify the sources of the data actually used in the result, you can't even do what you would do normally with an inaccurate non-primary source, and go to the original sources (note that the "source information" link describes itself as a "guide to sources of further information", and specifically disclaims any necessary connection between the listed sources and the specific result.)

I did the same search. It asked me if I wanted to try the same search for a European swallow instead, with a result of 25mph, with conversions to many other units of measure. Now we know.

A nice plot of the number of cases / deaths made by swine flu. http://www55.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+swine+flu Alpha could be useful for getting plots like these, that are hard to find in newspapers (where they usually only mention the current amount, not how it evolves)

They also own pi to 2000 digits.