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Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

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Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#151

Post by delecti »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #126
wheels wrote: post #68

I use it semi-regularly; once a week or so. It's a genuinely useful tool that was just greatly oversold on launch. Things I use it for: - Converting units while cooking. I prefer to cook by weight, and for most ingredients, you can do something like "2 cups of flour in g" - Stuff I'd have used a scientific calculator in an earlier era: simple systems of equations, plots, etc. - Comparing stats on countries, e.g. GDP…

The issue with recipe weight unit conversions might be that the author literally had a cup or spoon or whatever with a specific capacity which would not equal the standard units, therefore you are converting one inaccurate amount to an other one.

It's safe to assume any recipe written in the last 50 years is using the standardized units. It isn't literally 100% true, but close enough that it's not worth worrying about.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#154

Post by m0zg »

huhtenberg wrote: post #138
gadrev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't beleive this works.

I don't think it's accurate though. It says I'd be at around half of the DUI limit after 2 glasses of wine in one hour. That's certainly not right.

And it can't ever be accurate. Thing is, how drunk you're going to get within some time frame depends on what (and how much) you're eating, and whether your stomach had some food in it before you started drinking. If there's stuff in your stomach, its sphincter is closed while it's digesting it. Stomach itself absorbs alcohol (and nutrients) much slower than the intestine.

TL;DR: don't rely on this calculator to determine if you're too hammered to drive. If there's any doubt whatsoever, call an Uber or use public transportation.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#155

Post by utopcell »

dylan604 wrote: post #122
stevage wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not certain but in this context * may be a wildcard.

So what you're saying is that google sucks at context clues

It clearly understands enough to trigger displaying the calculator.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#156

Post by thro1 »

LordOfWolves wrote: post #150
thro1 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just asked a friend about this: > 1 egg, two slices whole wheat bread, one slice of cheddar, two.. leaves of lettuce .. and he said it's wrong and useless (!) - giving me examples and numbers as: protein assimilability from bread is 40% etc. Is there a way to get correct answers from Wolfram regarding this ? ( assimilability of doesn't work) Edit: Excuse me, what's wrong with you downvoters - it's a legit question. O…

It might help to explain what your friend says is “wrong and useless” so others could provide feedback. It also might help to avoid insinuating things about strangers online in order to promote discussion and not stifle it.

Downvotes start to happen before my excuse. I've payed with karma and got an answer. Thanks for your human feedback.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#157

Post by acjohnson55 »

neltnerb wrote: post #98
mananaysiempre wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A reminder that GNU Units still exists, e.g. $ units Currency exchange rates from FloatRates (USD base) on 2021-01-17 3677 units, 109 prefixes, 114 nonlinear units You have: 4 amu * (1000 nm/s)^2 You want: joules * 6.6421563e-39 / 1.5055352e+38 You have: ^D It’s slightly less DWIMish (you have to say “atomicmassunits”, “atomicmassunit”, “amu”, or “u”, not “atomic mass units”) and somewhat awkward as a separate tool,…

Thanks for the reminder =) Alas, I often have to do these kinds of calculations on a random publicish computer or my phone and Google's converter is platform-independent. But not using Google services when feasible is certainly net good. And of course my TI-89 had equally good unit conversion for practical purposes (since you can define your own units) so somehow the world is still playing catchup to a calculator fro…

The TI-89 was/is an amazing device.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#158

Post by voldacar »

yummypaint wrote: post #135

I used to use it extensively during my early PhD work for back of the envelope calculations. Unfortunately it became steadily harder to enter queries and have them understood. About half a decade ago they broke about 70% of what i used it for by refusing to show results for modestly complex calculations and instead throwing up nag messages for the paid version. The paid version last i saw was not available through an…

> The paid version last i saw was not available through an institutional license.

Does your institution have mathematica? In mathematica you can query WA directly, and it gives you as much (or possibly more, from how it seems to behave for me) computing time as people with WA pro subscriptions. I use it all the time for stuff like graphing complicated implicit 3d surfaces or doing multiple integrals, stuff where I know the relevant mathematica command but I would rather not type it out fully

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#159

Post by _fizz_buzz_ »

vortico wrote: post #35

1. It's slow, even for simple microsecond computations like log(2). Takes about 5-20 seconds to load a page on my 1Gb fiber connection. Opening Python/SymPy Gamma is much faster for most things. https://gamma.sympy.org/input/?i=log%282%29 2. Every time I use it, a box saying NEW: Use textbook math notation to enter your math. TRY IT pops up over the result, and clicking the X doesn't hide it the next time I search. T…

I usually use python for math stuff also, however I think the log(2) example is maybe the wrong example. I basically got an instant result for that (just recorded this): https://imgur.com/a/g5slHsR

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#160

Post by chihuahua »

thro1 wrote: post #94
onedognight wrote: post #4

I use it regularly. Sometimes it’s broken, and maybe nobody notices but me? :) Their natural language queries for things that I know they know about are amazing. Here are some that I have used recently. You really need to see these results to appreciate them. I wanted to know how tall my daughter might be. 8 year old female 55 lbs http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=8%20year%20old%20female... I wanted to know the nu…

Just asked a friend about this: > 1 egg, two slices whole wheat bread, one slice of cheddar, two.. leaves of lettuce .. and he said it's wrong and useless (!) - giving me examples and numbers as: protein assimilability from bread is 40% etc. Is there a way to get correct answers from Wolfram regarding this ? ( assimilability of doesn't work) Edit: Excuse me, what's wrong with you downvoters - it's a legit question. O…

It seems that Wolfram Alpha also has some difficulty figuring out whether I'm talking about raw oats or cooked oats, even when I use the word raw in my query. As a result, it can be off by a factor of 3. I agree that it's not useful if you have to carefully check the output every time.
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