Wolfram|Alpha

may-21

... And hopefully a similarly large number of days ahead.

On a related note, I decided to give Wolfram|Alpha a go at figuring out how many days since I was born.  So, I plugged in "may 21, 1969" to see what it would come up with.  Besides the "no known notable events" notice -- thanks, you're lifting my spirits -- it also told me my date of birth was both 39 years, 11 months and 31 days ago as well as 40 years ago.

Perhaps it's rounding off?  At least it got the number of days right.

I haven't had time to more than twiddle a few buttons but I sure was hyping it earlier, so I hope it lives up to expectations.  I did try a few queries, such as "Drupal", an open-source content management framework I've been doing a ton of work with recently.  Instead I got information about "Rukai," I dialect spoken in Taiwan by 10,543 people.  Very precise yet exactly wrong.

Stephan Wolfram recent announced his latest endeavor: Wolfram|Alpha.  Where Google will search the Internet to answer your queries, Wolfram|Alpha will calculate the answer.  Where Google gives you 287,000 results for "what is the longest straight road in America," Wolfram|Alpha will give you one: the answer.

At least, that's the plan.  We won't really know until May.