Thursday, May 28, 2009
Unbelievably cool
If you haven't seen or heard about this website you have to check out Wolfram Alpha. It is bad ass!
It's ambition is an astonishing long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone. They have gone a long way toward that goal already. It is the brainchild of one Stephen Wolfram. Type any number, any series, any equation, any calculation, type virtually anything you want into the search box of Wolfram Alpha and it will come back with amazing information.
For example we typed Durham, North Carolina into Wolfram Alpha and it told us among other things: the approximate elevation 404 feet above sea level, city population 204,845 people, metro area population 440,990 folks, location 35.99deg North, 78.91deg West, along with the local time, the local weather, other nearby large cities and so on.
Type pi in Wolfram Alpha, type a stock or any two stocks into Wolfram Alpha. Type a series of musical notes! The results will blow your mind.
Type your first name into Wolfram Alpha it will tell you how many people are estimated to be alive with that name right now, total and as a percentage of United States residents. It will tell you where your name ranked in popularity among names given to newborns from the 1880 to last year, and more.
Wolfram Alpha rubbing out the line between bad ass and unbelievably cool. Nerds everywhere rejoice!
Labels: interesting links, science, technology
Comments:
i think this thing has the potential to be cool, but right now it's too new - i managed to stump it 7 or 8 times within the first minute of using it, generating the automated response - "Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input." i even tried the name thing - success with beth, but failure with recently popular girls names such as madison or taylor. boo. also - it didn't recognize my hometown of parsippany.
Song-
Wow, fascinating results!
Me thinks you have discovered a distinctly anti-New Jersey bias in Wolfram Alpha. It recognized a much smaller town than Parsippany, New Jersey in North Carolina, Butner.
And when I searched for Montville, I got Montville, Maine and Montville, France. No love for Jersey.
And perhaps there is a patriarchal tilt to ol' Wolfram's project as well. Both Madison and Taylor come up as male given names and/or surnames, but not as female given names.
Hmmm, seems like they need to hire some ladies from Jersey to help'em improve the site...
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Wow, fascinating results!
Me thinks you have discovered a distinctly anti-New Jersey bias in Wolfram Alpha. It recognized a much smaller town than Parsippany, New Jersey in North Carolina, Butner.
And when I searched for Montville, I got Montville, Maine and Montville, France. No love for Jersey.
And perhaps there is a patriarchal tilt to ol' Wolfram's project as well. Both Madison and Taylor come up as male given names and/or surnames, but not as female given names.
Hmmm, seems like they need to hire some ladies from Jersey to help'em improve the site...
