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Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

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Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#201

Post by tshaddox »

Ros2 wrote: post #143
tshaddox wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might like this little toy website I made a couple of years ago: https://interesting-anniversaries.com/ From my readme: “Have you ever wanted to know when you turn 2 billion seconds old? How about 33,333,333 minutes old? When do you get to celebrate your 555,555th hour of life? As it turns out, all three of those milestones occur in the same 24-hour period!”

Wow Hackernews never ceases to amaze me, I enjoyed this. TIL I missed my 1 billionth second. You should also make a programmer mode, one that shows you powers of 2 (like 1024 days old)

That’s a good idea, and would probably help fill out the calendar a bit more!

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#202

Post by m0zg »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #181
m0zg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dete…

Oh wow, so there is a reason for the old "Don't drink on an empty stomach"

This is something people from countries where people drink primarily hard liquor (Russia, Finland, much of Eastern Europe) know pretty well even if they don't know how to explain it. Another trick is to watch _what_ you eat. Meat and fat stay in the stomach for much longer, so if you focus on that, alcohol won't hit your liver all at once.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#204

Post by tadfisher »

canadaduane wrote: post #55
herpderperator wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your Internet bandwidth is not relevant when talking about a compute-heavy backend like this. Wolfram|Alpha is not going to load any faster on a 1Gbps connection than it will on a 20Mbps connection, other than some static assets, but even that isn't going to be hugely noticeable if we're talking about 2ms RTT on fibre vs 8-20ms RTT on cable/DSL. If you're downloading a giant file off a nearby CDN, then sure, 1Gbps fi…

I think that's the point. "My internet speed is fast enough that it is not the cause of slowness, so any delay is all on Wolfram|Alpha."

Throughput is not latency, though. 1gbps on a dedicated line is not the same as 1gbps on an oversubscribed residential node.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#205

Post by still_grokking »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #196
still_grokking wrote: post #186

The pricing seems random to me. (Even it seems cheaper than last time I've checked). It's ~20% more expensive in Euro than in Dollar. (And Poland, which I checked for curiosity as it's in the EU but does not use Euro, has a price in Pound with is even higher; Poland is not a rich country). Also I don't think charging for example people in countries in Africa as much as for example US people makes any sense. The servi…

>It's ~20% more expensive in Euro than in Dollar. Keep in mind US prices don't include sales tax (VAT).

My fault. I thought digital services like that fall into the reduced VAT category. But it seems not the case.

So ~20% more makes actually sense.

Thanks for pointing this out!

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#206

Post by Wowfunhappy »

moron4hire wrote: post #187
marcinzm wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is something that actually annoys me immensely when people say "you eat too much!" to fat people. Two people can have the exact same diet and the exact same exercise regime, and if one assimilates particular foods more effectively they'll be getting more calories, and put on weight. Food intake is far more complex than many people believe. I don't see why that statement is inaccurate. It's not "you eat more tha…

The problem is that it is usually presented as a "simple" solution. "Just eat less. Reduce your food intake until you're at a calorie deficit". For some people, that can mean eating three small, but satisfying meals a day. For others, it can mean eating extremely strict rations for only two meals a day, leaving the person constantly hungry and cranky. Then it becomes a will power issue, which as we all know is a func…

I mean, I could say the same thing about quitting cigarettes. I absolutely realize it’s hard to do, and that’s why so many people still smoke. But my advice would be the same...

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#208

Post by EdwardDiego »

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…

I really struggled with the "natural" language queries for this: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=+new+south+wales+covid...

Any advice on rephrasing it to work would be welcomed. Downside to allegedly natural language query systems - there's no concise explanation of syntax it recognises.

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#209

Post by chadcmulligan »

m0zg wrote: post #202
chadcmulligan wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, so there is a reason for the old "Don't drink on an empty stomach"

This is something people from countries where people drink primarily hard liquor (Russia, Finland, much of Eastern Europe) know pretty well even if they don't know how to explain it. Another trick is to watch _what_ you eat. Meat and fat stay in the stomach for much longer, so if you focus on that, alcohol won't hit your liver all at once.

Some experiments to be performed :-)

Re: Ask HN: Whatever happened to Wolfram Alpha?

#210

Post by kgermino »

mejutoco wrote: post #118
maneesh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Google for those pretty often.

I do the same for basic calculations. I was surprised things like 9:00 EST in CET don‘t work in google search, but do in WA.

Ohh does WA respect time zones in searches?

A regular complaint I have with google is (simplified example) converting EDT to MST. Google will “helpfully” correct me and convert EDT to MDT instead, which is explicitly not what I asked for. It’s stupid (I can usually figure it out on my own) but that would be a huge win for me.

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