brin_bellway: forget-me-not flowers (Default)
Brin ([personal profile] brin_bellway) wrote2019-01-23 10:12 am

My favourite thing about WolframAlpha (so far)

is the way it gives exactly zero fucks about mixed units. As an MSL (metric as a second language) bilingual, it's so nice to be able to just code-switch at it.

Me: "Hey, if gasoline costs 95.3 cents per litre and my car gets 22 miles per gallon, how much does it cost to drive 42 kilometres?"

WolframAlpha, not batting an eye: "$4.28."

Me: "Thank you!"

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Anyone else have any favourite things about WolframAlpha they want to talk about? I haven't used it for all that many different things, so there's probably lots of great bits I haven't discovered or appreciated.

[personal profile] contrarianarchon 2019-01-24 08:10 am (UTC)(link)
Honestly, I remember having a bunch of trouble getting it to do this? It was something stupid like rock densities or something, but all the unit shenanigans just utterly failed to parse. When it does work, it's sublime, but I apparently don't ask it questions in ways it can parse.