Wolfram Alpha Claims Oscars 2010 Mastery

by Truemorist | March 5, 2010 at 11:23 am
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Wolfram Alpha Claims to Answer Any Oscar Question... But Gets Pwned

Wolfram Alpha, that thing that's kind of like a search engine, claims to answer any Oscar nomination or award question. However, my very first enquiry, [Roger Corman Oscar], came back with 0 results. Pwned. Roger Corman got a lifetime achievement award in November. My neighbor knew that. Any fan of B-movies knows that. Jeez.

My second query, [Roger Corman Lifetime Achievement], literally showed me Roger Corman's lifetime (so far), but nothing else.

The problem with Wolfram Alpha

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Wolfram Alpha Chokes on Roger Corman Search

Wolfram Alpha Chokes on Roger Corman Search

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uploaded by Truemorist

The problem with Wolfram Alpha, and it is a problem, is that people aren't computers. They don't ask questions like computers. Let's face it: most people think that a smart little hamster lives on the other side of that search field, which is why they type in stuff like "when is daylight savings time" instead of just "daylight savings time". People still use IE6. Wolfram Alpha, on the other hand, is like that guy at the help desk who knows he's smarter than you, and never lets you forget it, and never actually answers any of your frikkin' questions.

Sure enough, when I searched for [Lifetime Achievement Academy Award], I got 0 results, and a link to... Google search results. Which were relevant, by the way.

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