Of course if you try the query with spheres you see Wolfram Alpha's typical catatrophic failure.

I love WA and use it all the time, but it's so hard to know when a query will work and when it won't. When it fails it fails hilariously.

Here's some of my favorite queries:

- https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2.2+bagels%2Fday+*+ave...

- https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=time+dilation+given+v+...

- https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=400+miles+%2F+20mpg+*+...

- https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=US+unemployment+rate+v...

- https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=warp+speed+6+in+deep+s...

For most of these, Wolfram Vertical Line Alpha seems to give reasonable results. However, for the third one, because I'm in Argentina, it helpfully converts US$79.80 into Argentine pesos, getting an answer that's off by about a factor of 2: AR$7969.44. As https://preciodolarblue.com.ar/ explains, the current bid and ask prices for the dollar are AR$195 and AR$199. Wolfram Vertical Line Alpha is apparently using the "official" rate of AR$99.45 or so; this is the rate at which the government converts your dollars into pesos if you are an exporter, but you cannot convert your pesos into dollars at this rate without special permission, granted, for example, if you are going on vacation to Disney World.

You're severely underselling Google's incapability, e.g. https://i.imgur.com/UoIZSU2.png

WTactualF? When has * ever been anything other than multiplication? Why would the resulting links all be discussing division?

I think Google search doesn't include the special symbols, so it's like searching "48 6".

I don't know, I was looking for "how to configure cors for specific vhost in nginx" and all I got was Apache SO links. Had to use -apache.

I get increasingly frustrated by the spammy SO mirroring spam sites getting into the top 3 results.

Oh yeah there's that too and now I also get them in other languages than English but they are just Google translate version of SO.

I recently noticed that a number of SO questions have even been turned into Youtube videos containing a slide-show of the answers, now :-(

I absolutely hate this. Scanning a video is so much more difficult than just scanning a written explanation. If these videos are being monetized, I think that's a problem. If they are, someone could just create a channel by converting SO questions into videos.

The question I have is what kind of keywords are people using on these videos that Google feel is more worthwhile than the actual text of a written version of the content? Or is the algo so heavily weighted to pick a youtube link?

Having worked a stint in social media for 4 years there was this huge guideline from Facebook to push publishers to churn out videos. I suppose Google ranking algorithm favors Youtube but i don't get Google's reasoning behind that. Engagement because of embedded ads ?

Use verbatim search too. All words must exist without aliasing.

(google aliases ubuntu and debian, john/jon/Johnathan for example)

Sometimes even this doesn't work. I used verbatim search and got back results which didn't contain the word I looked for.

I then just sadly wonder how the heck this could be possible and resignedly slowly shake my head.

I could wish for a feature where I double-double quote the word to empathically indicate that this word must exist in the result and not left out under any circumstances. But then again I am sure that the search quality will continue to decline and even double-double, triple-quote, quadruple-quote words &c won't help anymore. Sort of a quote inflation.

The + symbol used to mean this, then some lunatic woman from google explained to everyone it had been removed, but it was OK as quotes were the same.

She was either a highly incompetent buffoon, or a liar for PR purposes, as quotes are not the same.

Why the change? Because it caused issues with Google+ searches from their new fancy pants Facebook clone.

Soon after, due to protest, verbatim was introduced.

It was fine for at least 5 years, but someone keeps reducing its effectiveness.

Clowns. All I hear is clown music, when I Google search.

I mean, who rolls out a product so disjointed that the very search for its users is broken, then like a year later, rolls out a broken fix?!

Google, that's who. The product failure king.

>google aliases ubuntu and debian,

WHAT the FUCK. Is there a more convenient way to bypass this than "quoting" "every" "word?"

Yes verbatim search , under search tools after an initial search.

Google takes quotes as just stronger suggestions, fyi, but verbatim is supposed to prevent this.

click tools -> show all results -> verbatim

i just tried this for: 48 * 6

the results after choosing verbatim are even worse

Verbatim gives no aliasing, interpretation. 48 means 48, not forty eight.

This is correct. In this query, the '*' is being disregarded. Then, I assume, more people on the internet discuss 48 and 6 in the context of long division than in the context of multiplication.

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

It is. Try searching for 16*9 for the good reason it shows both the calculator, and then links to 16:9 and 16x9 aspect ratio content.

It's reasonable to think that the calculator already answered the question, and I'm not looking for pages on the simple multiplication once I've already seen the answer.

Imagine the uproar if those results didn't come up because a bunch of children's math quizzes were found instead.

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

It clearly understands enough to trigger displaying the calculator.

What we'll discover is there is a team dedicated to determining when to display the calculator. Then there will be another team entirely that picks how to interpret the query for website results. The two teams will never have met, spoken, exchanged information between the two. The team searching websites will mysteriously have never thought that someone might search a webpage for a math equation.

I don’t understand the problem. You are asking what is 48*6, and the correct answer is right at the top.

This is amazing! The rest of this thread completely buried the lead. Delightful.

Hope I'm not sounding like a grammar nazi but its "buried the lede" I only recently discovered - the reason is really interesting - https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/bury-the-lede-...

As a non-native speaker I would welcome more "grammar nazis" in places where well educated native speakers can be found.

One of the reasons children learn new languages quite rapidly is because they get corrected the whole time.

Not correcting people hinders actually their progress in language learning… Even if it might seem impolite it's the one thing that helps a lot, if not even most, in mastering a foreign language!

So thanks for being a "grammar nazi". We need people like you.

(No, that doesn't apply to the causal typo. But I guess most people can differentiate such a thing form true grammar and spelling mistakes; especially if that are "typical" mistakes).

The link says it can still be lead. Lede seemingly came about fo random reasons. I learned the opposite today. That I can still write lead instead of lede. M

No it isn't. "Lede" is a neologism arising from people convincing themselves they had inside information. It's been "burying the lead" as long as the phrase has existed. Your own link explains that.

Curiously it can't calculate it if you change 15mm circle to 15mm square.