> And if they do, they already have ways to do that. Disseparate ways that take awhile, with results from multiple sources that need to be manually combined to

> And if they do, they already have ways to do that. Disseparate ways that take awhile, with results from multiple sources that need to be manually combined to figure out what information is worthwhile. Some of the random queries I've tossed into WA: "If the average mailbox size is 57MB, and I've only processed 65% of one in the past half hour, how long is it going to take to proce ss all 80GB?" Q: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=30+min+%2F+%2857MB+*+0.65%29+%3D+x+month%2F+80GB http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=30+min+%2F+%2857MB+*+0.... A: ~1.5 months, better come up with an alternative "How big is a gigasecond?" Q: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+gigasecond http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+gigasecond A: ~1/3rd of a century "Just how fast are my 5m/s Kerbal Space Program landings?" Q: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5m%2Fs+to+mph http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=5m%2Fs+to+mph A: "I've been rear ended at that speed" "How much precision will a double give me at the radius of pluto?" Q: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=orbit+radius+of+pluto+%2F+%282+**+53%29 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=orbit+radius+of+pluto+%... A: "millimeter, perfect" Or work related; "I'm having trouble visualizing these 3d points, please plot them so I can get a better mental picture for why this right angle assertion is triggering" "Divide by b squared? That can't be right..." when canceling out terms in math code for efficiency, rearriving at one of the equations of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_projection#Vector_projection_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_projection#Vector_projec... . "I can't intuit the behavior of this math without graphing it out, lets see... bounds... period... yeah that makes sense!" I also use it for simpler calculations: "How do the prices of gold and platinum stack up against each other?" "How long until sunset? Thanksgiving?" "When is 18 KST in my timezone?" "How much is that in dollars?" "How big is an acre?" "What does the compound interest on that look like?" Some of these could be found through google... probably followed by trolling the results for a specific calculator. Others I could calculate myself. But most would be inconvenient enough without WA I wouldn't ask them. Some of these are idle curiosity, but others have saved me significant time doing my job. It's not a daily sort of thing, but it's a consistent way to answer these oddball questions for myself. Google was a tool I had to learn to turn to with my problems. It didn't used to be my primary interface to all documentation, for example... slowly but surely I turned to it more and more frequently. And so it is so far with me and Wolfram Alpha.