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Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg100044] Re: Wolfram|Alpha Lookup Tool for Mathematica
• From: dbreiss at gmail.com
• Date: Fri, 22 May 2009 01:47:05 -0400 (EDT)
• References: <gum0br$q3a$1@smc.vnet.net> <gv0gra$a6f$1@smc.vnet.net>

On May 20, 11:59 pm, AES <sieg... at stanford.edu> wrote:
> In article <gv0gra$a6... at smc.vnet.net>,
>  mark mcclure <mcmcc... at unca.edu> wrote:
>
> > On May 16, 5:17 am, David Reiss <dbre... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > With the release of Wolfram|Alpha I have created a small tool that
> > > allows you to send a query to Wolfram|Alpha directly from
> > > Mathematica.
>
> > Unfortunately, this is clearly against the terms of use:
> >http://www.wolframalpha.com/termsofuse.html
>
> Wolfram|Alpha may or may not be one of the greatest computer tools to
> emerge in our time (to be quite honest, I'm frankly hoping it's not).
>
> But this "Terms of Us" document, circa 3000 words long and containing I
> believe it's nine links leading to God knows how many additional words
> of similar legalese, has to be among the nuttiest, or looniest,
> documents appearing on the web in some time.
>
> And it's this general looniness, also exhibited in other recent Terms of
> Use on Wolfram websites, not to mention in other broader policies, that
> makes me express the unfriendly hope I did above.

...actually, the links are mostly to the other sections of the (yes,
long) document itself...  but it is a daunting text; and probably an
interesting one for lawyers.

This is an interesting discussion:

http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/19/1846258&art_pos=1

and it is a bit less reactive and adolescent than many of the ones on
SlashDot...

and it is based on this discussion:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story090518204959409

--Daivd