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Where I'm going, the law doesn't really apply...
http://www44.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ecstasy+synthesis

Wolfram is located a few blocks from me in Champaign Illinois

Or just do what I did and "wolfram Alpha it"* (well, that doesn't quite have the same ring too it).

* © 2009 Wolfram Alpha LLCâ"A Wolfram Research Company

Answer: not enough information

Another cool thing, do a search for any website (here is slashdot for the click impaired). It comes up with an element hierarchy for the page. I'm not sure how useful it is, but it's pretty.

The answer to 2+2 might not surprise you, but that it's copyrighted by Wolfram may!

http://www97.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=6*9+in+base+13

you just got shown.

Come on man, you could at least feed it a useless and disgusting expression. That's its purpose ya?

http://www94.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=zeta(sin(atan(x^i)))

I'm not sure how revolutionary Wolfram Alpha really is. But, if you've tried it, you'll have discovered that it's not a google alternative - It's not even trying to be. It's a completely different tool. It's kind of fun to tinker with, but I haven't decided yet how useful it will be.

And, just so that I can blatantly violate their TOS (which I've yet to read except for in TFS and I've not agreed to), here are the results for 2+2:

Input:
2+2
Result:
4
Number name:
four
Visual representation:
* * * *

I installed a Joomla site for a latino non-profit in Baltimore who's previous site was a mess. It was a mess because my "predecessor" threw a bunch of random things together (directory using a database and articles in plain html only) and those who run the charity don't know anything about web design at all. I came in and installed Joomla and designed a few things to work in that installation because it is easy for someone to use AFTER I step away.

If your argument is that Joomla and Drupal have no place because web apps will outpace their development then why is the Joomla extension repository so extensive and growing? For every new app or site that comes along someone will develop a module or plugin for the CMS's because a CMS is easier to handle for a business that doesn't conduct even 50% of it's business online and so there will be a market for easy to use plugins.

If your main argument is your other one: freelancers who install a CMS and call themselves programmers are frauds then I can't really argue with you. For someone to call themselves a developer or programmer simply because they've installed a CMS is silly, but there are plenty of us who are programmers of one type or another that still use a CMS because there is no need to completely redesign the wheel every year. I'm all for people learning to write code, but if everyone wrote code then my abilities would be worthless...

All I'm saying is that the capability threshold of any CMS is irrelevant in terms of web applications because anything can be branded obsolete by anything else at any time (see Wolfram|Alpha vs. Google); and while installing or administrating a CMS doesn't make you a developer on its own, plenty of us developers give a CMS it's value and that's what this book is pointing out!

How many stones is that?

Funny no one mentioned it... Go see it flop here - http://wolframalpha.com/

A 3rd cousin is a little further afield that you may think.

Yes, this post was just an excuse to link to Wolfram|Alpha.

Maybe, but it's not sure yet.

wolfram alpha

If by totally useless you mean freaking amazing, I concur; they have some neat easter eggs:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+air+speed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow

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

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.21+gigawatts

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=88+mph

If by totally useless you mean freaking amazing, I concur; they have some neat easter eggs:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+air+speed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow

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

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.21+gigawatts

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=88+mph

If by totally useless you mean freaking amazing, I concur; they have some neat easter eggs:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+air+speed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow

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

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.21+gigawatts

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=88+mph

If by totally useless you mean freaking amazing, I concur; they have some neat easter eggs:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+air+speed+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow

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

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1.21+gigawatts

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=88+mph

What you get from Google is a list of resources of various degrees of accuracy, ranked questionably by relevance. What you get from Wolfram|Alpha is the result of the actual query, compiled from various sources, the list of which is also provided for your reference.

            http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+Austin+Texas+versus+population+of+Dallas+Texas

Wolfram|Alpha is definitely not Google, but that is arguably its strong point.

        -dZ.

Totally useless:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+average+wingspeed+of+an+unladen+swallow%3F

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=shall+we+play+a+game :(

42.

hmmm mixed results for the speed of an unladen swallow (african/european) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=speed+of+unladen+swallow

And accurate:
      http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Is+Wolfram+Alpha+sure+about+what+to+do+with+my+input%3F

        -dZ.

Funny, your's seems to be qualified with "According to the HHGTG...". When I posed the same question in a slightly different way, it just answered "42", which seems to be more authoritative.

          "What is the answer to the ultimate question to life, the universe, and everything?"
          http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+answer+to+the+ultimate+question+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything%3F

          -dZ.

Then you should try asking more "difficult" questions:

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

        -dZ.

Yeah, it seems to work OK:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+answer+to+the+ultimate+question+to+life%2C+the+universe+and+everything%3F

          -dZ.

you should try again, then http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=the+answer+to+life%2C+the+universe%2C+and+everything

Its clever though.

Hey, this thing's good. It just gave me the correct answer without breaking a sweat--now, I just have to find the question...

oh crap.

These guys are really good.. I thought I could crash them.

Hmm, for some reason the query "prime factors of 2^142154695-1" is timing out...

Two simple links are necessary.

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

and

http://www.google.com/search?q=boobs

Point proven.

one of the things it suggested was to put in your hometown. I can't get it to recognize that my hometown of Napoleon, Indiana exists. It keeps trying to compare Napoleon, Ohio to the state of Indiana. I know it isn't a google killer or anything but google does recognize my hometown exists.

You just have to type in http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/ to get to a usable input screen.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Steven Wolfram's screencast that's been up for the past few days used rather cherry-picked examples, as the underlying datasets do not seem to be as comprehensive as one might have been led to believe. Beyond the fairly basic things you might find in the CIA fact book or other source of basic data, it just doesn't yet have the breadth of underlying data that would make it an indispensable tool. For example, after playing around with W|A finance queries, I was left completely unimpressed with the paltry datasets and feel that any market/stock questions I have would be better served by hitting up finance.yahoo.com. They have some basic data about professional sports teams, but NHL hockey is nowhere to found, and you can't find anything in the way of current player stats for any sport, let alone historical data. Birthdays of notable sports figures are there though...

Gotta admit, it's quite an ambitious undertaking, I just think they're somewhere between 3 and 5 orders of magnitude away from having enough data and detail to make it the kind of thing I would consider using regularly. Stay tuned, might be interesting in a year... or five.

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

Looks like Google results are still more useful than WolframAlhpa:

My question: How long does it take for the solar system to make 1 orbit around the milky way galaxy?

WolframAlpha doesn't compute: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=how+long+does+it+take+for+the+solar+system+to+make+1+orbit+around+the+milky+way+galaxy%3F&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit

Google win: http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=how+long+does+it+take+for+the+solar+system+to+make+1+orbit+around+the+milky+way+galaxy%3F&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=undefined&fp=Q5rYJf3FIq4

Looks like Wolfram has a long way to go before it can consider itself useful.

This is not going to help them, but here is how you can query right now.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=canadian+dollard

Valtor

The main page's search input area is still unusable for me and if it is for you, try http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/ instead. The "i" GET parameter is your search. For example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population

The main page's search input area is still unusable for me and if it is for you, try http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/ instead. The "i" GET parameter is your search. For example: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=world+population

Psst, check this out. Do not comment http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+brazil&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit

...from all the commenters on Wolfram's blog. It is actually rather amusing to read through the long list of overwhelmingly positive comments.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

Ugh, YouTube? There is a much higher quality version available on the main site...
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html

According to this, Wolfram Alpha is set to launch May 18th.

So we should finally be able to see what it does or doesn't do for ourselves!

Until I can actual use it, I have exactly zero interest in this thing. Is there really any reason to propagate the marketing drivel?

The article got me interested, but when I wanted to try it out I got this page. It says "Launching May 2009," so I'll reserve my judgment.

It's not the calculations that make this interesting, it's the breadth of data available. Google is wildly popular because you can find information about nearly every obscure fact imaginable. If Wolfram can do the same with quantitative information it will also be wildly popular (albeit to a smaller audience.) If the search results are limited or irrelevant, I'll stick with Google and do the calculations myself.

They just don't get it, we don't want to subscribe to a hundred channels. What we do want is watch what we want when we want and not have to subscribe to half a dozen services on top of our ISP fees.

If the telecoms want to make real money out of IPTV they need to stop subscribing to rights to channels and instead buy up their own material and repackage it for their own subscribers, else all they are doing is relaying terrestrial TV to an audience that can already get on .. Television. I mean, for me, why pay extra to watch television on the Internet ?

If may come as a surprise to the telecoms that IPTV is a bandwidth hog, but not the rest of us. What they need to do is provide a high definition broadcast grid for live video, the rest to be provided in a peering arraignment to the local ISP switching center. The consumer then selects from a list of older tv progs and movies and they are delivered overnight to a DVR or set-top-box.

You pay for what you watch when you watch. Latest movie, ok top dollar, old movie, $1:00 a time. You also pay for online game subscriptions, video telephone, research and reference like the Wolfram|Alpha project.

Of course even 'passive viewing' is old century for the current wired generation, they're more into making and being in their own personal movie .. :) It depresses me as to all the innovators can see as to the future of the Internet, television and adverts. Back to the sixties I guess :)

See also:

Regular columnist Bill Thompson wants it all. And he wants it now.