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Wolfram Alpha sucks

posted by [personal profile] benlehman at 11:39am on 17/05/2009
Twice in the last day I've thought "oh, I have a question that's perfect for Wolfram Alpha, 'cause it's all analytical." Twice, it has totally failed me.

The first question was about net-grain exporting nations. It not only failed to answer my question, it didn't understand net, grain, export, or nation. Google answered my question with link #3.

The second question was about converting US print sizes to international print size. Again, nothing. Again, google answered my question relatively quickly.

This is the google killer? Altavista would be better.
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There are 16 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] opticalbinary.livejournal.com at 09:39pm on 17/05/2009
I gave up on it as a google-killer when I found that it will tell me all of the nutritional info for an average tomato, but nothing when I ask for the nutritional info for an average human arm.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] benlehman.livejournal.com at 09:59pm on 17/05/2009
See! This.

Still, at least you got something out of it. I literally could not get any answer at all.

yrs--
--Ben
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] opticalbinary.livejournal.com at 01:19am on 18/05/2009
I also asked it if the TV show Bones was canceled, and no dice, which was why I decided to try a question which was more scientific.
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W|A

posted by (anonymous) at 01:14am on 19/05/2009
I too was unimpressed. W.A. failed to provide ANY information on even the most basic inputs.
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(no subject)

posted by (anonymous) at 03:19am on 18/05/2009
I agree. I asked a very simple question: How many no hitters does Nolan Ryan have.

Answer: Wolfram Alpha doesn't know what to do with your question.

It can only tell you that Nolan Ryan is a baseball player, when he was born, what his full name is etc.
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I agree!

posted by (anonymous) at 05:07am on 18/05/2009
I too asked it a simple question:

WHY ARE YOU SUCH A FUCKING RETARD?!

And it didn't know!
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Re: I agree!

posted by [identity profile] benlehman.livejournal.com at 05:40am on 18/05/2009
Anonymous people, you are excellent.
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Re: I agree!

posted by (anonymous) at 10:41pm on 18/05/2009
Wolfram Alpha is in it's infancy right now, why did the release it? This is almost as bad as releasing Vista, except the operation of your computer isn't dependent on using W|A. My suggestion? Stay away from it for now, it's annoying, slow, and doesn't do much.

But it has a lot of room for potential, and once it is seen I think it will turn the tide against google.
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(no subject)

posted by (anonymous) at 12:20am on 19/05/2009
It is described as "...answers to questions based on established facts.", yet it uses Wikipedia as a source.

No thanks.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] yeloson.livejournal.com at 01:29am on 19/05/2009
I preferred Ms. Dewey - not much of a search engine, but the replies were always hilarious and the actress was attractive:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms._Dewey
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sucks ballsack

posted by (anonymous) at 10:36am on 23/07/2009
I totally agree. Even when you use their suggestions like "enter any city" or "enter any date", Wikipedia returns 100 times more information.
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Re: sucks ballsack

posted by (anonymous) at 08:39pm on 31/08/2009
at least it knows what crap is, but it doesnt include its self in its answer
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sucksass

posted by (anonymous) at 09:22pm on 23/04/2010
it would have been useful for handhelds, only if it didn't take so much time to load. its existence makes me realize why google is so important to humanity.
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(no subject)

posted by (anonymous) at 12:22pm on 30/07/2010
Google remains Google, but it will have to move its business entirely out of the USA, as they are about to collapse...
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(no subject)

posted by (anonymous) at 05:54pm on 11/01/2011
that's cool, does wikipedia show the imaginary part of the graph of f(x) = x^(-x)?

your ability to understand something (or lack thereof) does not define its value.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] benlehman.livejournal.com at 07:35pm on 11/01/2011
Uh, anonymous dude? How come you are google-searching "wolfram alpha sucks" to post flame-y comments on two year old livejournal posts? I seriously hope you are getting paid for this.

P.S If I wanted to know the imaginary part of x^(-x), I would graph it myself using any number of mathematical tools. Given that Wolfram Alpha was supposed to finish off Google (at the time of writing), its new goal of "somewhat shitty graphing calculator" is a big step down.
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