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We’re in the final stages of our “countdown” to be able to launch Wolfram|Alpha. It is an exciting time here in the control room. The team here is gearing up to finally go live, and the energy in the room is palpable.
As you’d fully expect, our teams are full-court-press resolving network, infrastructure, database, and all sorts of other challenges, made particularly interesting by the sheer scale and complexity of launching two supercomputer-class clusters along with three other locations.
One of the biggest challenges we’re navigating today is effectively linking our supercomputers together. We’ve been switching on more and more compute capacity, with the expectation of having full capacity available on Monday.
Tonight, we’re looking to begin to test the system on a larger scale, get a sense of how it will behave, and continue performance tuning.
We’re also looking forward to seeing you this evening live on justin.tv.
Oh… and we’re in Illinois, and we just heard that we’re under a tornado watch.
It will be an interesting evening!
omfg I’ve been wating forever for this site and you still cant use it. Whats going on here am I missing something??? you go to the homepage rite?
wow what a feeling, can’t wait…
best wishes from germany to you guys…
well done team.excellent concept and great thinking.real service to humankind.congratulations.
what the worlds leading govts could not even think of you have done it.
We are all so excited, too.
Wishing you all the best for the launch!
The first 24 hours will be the most complex hours for the website, so hope that everything goes well as I’m expected!
Good luck!
Nice, hope everything goes smoothly. Looking forward to the launch!
It’s almost 01:00 here in Sweden, so I hope you will be successfull. I’m staying up just to try this out. 🙂
Break a leg! Signed, John Connor
Seriously good luck!
Yey! Looking forward to it. Only 57-minutes left now …may watch a TV show.
All the very best with the launch…really looking forward to it!!!! BREAK A LEG!
woah!!!
im thrilled… but waiting patiently… painstaking effort is followed by great succcess …
waiting to compute and not search…
i have questions(not keywords) lined up for almost a week, 24/7 … waiting for answers and not results …
All the best!!!
🙂
looking forward to this amazing service!
will there eventually be an api to query?
-seltar
Good luck to all of you from Bermuda! Looking forward to my first query,
Tim
Awesome. I’m excited to finally be able to use this awesome tool soon!!
I am thinking what our children will think about this extraordinary leap forward.
In fact it is brain booster which is going to be launched tonight.
Hope the unknowns of human being will become less while such a powerful tool is under fingertips of those who appreciate it.
God bless you all.
As a veteran of many datacenter and massive platform launches, I know the sorts of feelings folks are going through over there… some of which aren’t pretty.
Best of luck on a smooth launch!
Every single piece of the WA Project is amazing, even the fact that you are going to go live for the launch … you are an impressive team, Big Time!
I’m extremely excited! Hope all goes well, best of luck
Good Morning from Germany
It’s almost 2 o’ clock in the morning now, I am really tired, but I can’t hardly wait to test Wolfram Alpha myself. Keeping the fingers crossed, Viel Glück!
Ok, guys… I remember when I used to calculate my Fourier transforms with my TI. Nice Job… Thx a lot…
so, how about offering real news update? i know now, you are stil not online. thans ok too, but howabout some info why?
we are all waiting. lets avoid a CUIL desaster. go live and document it for all the idiots, who are not live now. the people online now are your fans. win them for your cause, despite the delay. lose them, and SEO’s wrath will join your path unfortunatelly.
Greetings from Germany !
Shouldn´t the site be up now ?
I still cant use it 🙁 is stayed up so long :/
Its nearly 30 years since I shocked my tutor by producing 15 lines of basic that would take any english comment and deduce whether yes or no was meant – last year I learnt it was in fact an application of Wolframs theories! So now I want more…
Everything OK guys, we are kind of waiting with baited breath here…
Hello, I’m waiting to see what you’ve done here….I just found out about Wolfram TODAY! And it has me very excited. I hope it doesn’t go down with the enormous quantity of visitors…good luck! It’s 9.27 pm here in Argentina, and I’m constantly trying to use it.
Again, good luck with this and greetins from Argentina 😀
Hope things are going ok. Site seems a bit slammed. When will video start?
It would be nice if you could explain why the launch has been delayed.
G’day everyone at WA from here in Tasmania, Australia!! Can’t get the link yet but will keep trying. Good luck on this fantastic project!!! Cheers!
Launch asap…
why so much delay..
fix the problem asap.
visit http://www.myshortcut.net for just in websites
Wanted my first search to be “probability and timeframe when the WA site will launch,” but wouldn’t you know, the site isn’t up yet for me to run the search.
You are aware your servers have been slashdotted, yes?
Launch asap.
visit http://www.myshortcut.net for just in websites
So….. anticipation for nothing. Is it available only in some spots, but worldwide on the 18th i’m confused?
Another ‘small’ step! Best to all the team.
Regards,
Myke
It’s past 8pm Eastern time and I still can’t ask it any questions 🙁
What gives? What did you mean by “Friday, May 15, beginning at 7pm CST”? I’m watching the video but I just want to try it!
Good luck! You’ll sure make history on the web! Thanks for the great idea!
Waow, it works!
It could have been otherwise:
Crashes are common, but some get protection by guv’mint..
Tony Collins and David Bicknell,:’ Crash – Ten easy ways to avoid a computer disaster” , Simon & Schuster, 1997
p. 13
Success breads success, as the cliché goes. by the same logic does disaster bread disaster? If so, this might explain why computer failures are so common.
p. 343
Disaster avoidance is not a science. It is the elimination of error through trial […] Computerization is still an art form that is best practiced by those who have learned from their own painful mistakes.
George Soros, “The Crash of 2008 and what it means – The New Paradigm for Financial Markets”, New York, Public Affairs, 2009
back cover
On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers wall allowed to go into bankruptcy without proper preparation. Within days, the entire financial system suffered what amounted to cardiac arrest and had to be put on artificial life support.
p. 220
Central to Soros’ world view is the idea thar
human affairs – events with thinking participants have a fundamentally different structure from natural phenomena
==>
p. 146
paraphrase: fractional-reserve banking must be protected, or made crash-proof, at all cost
text; the institutions, engaged in credit creation, must accept the fact that they are being protected by the authorities
UK time +1:10 hour past launch (02:10 local). Not up yet.
I guess that the site is a victim of over popularity. That HAS to be an indication in the expectations of the entire planet – too many people can’t wait to try it.
The back room geeks are probably tearing their hair out right now trying to figure out how to get it up. I hope that they also realise what a success this is going to be once things quieten down to a ‘normal’ load. If the intro video is anything to go by, I can’t wait.
Very disappointing – looks like its populated for pure sciences, but not social sciences
Very bold move to go live with the site launch!
I know you will fix the problem and admire your courage. Best of luck.
OK, google never had this problem (or they hid it well). Get this stupid thing running, you bunch of eggheads (or hire someone with social skills to placate the ones that do). WAITING…. forget a decimal point somewhere?
my first query will be “how many impatient internet users are there?”
Unless there’s something I’m missing, the program has been up for well over 45 minutes now.
It is really bad form to announce a launch and not even test your systems beforehand and then have everyone log in to see a video stream that stutters and goes out completely.
What a waste of everyone’s time.
watch the video at http://www.wolfram.com/broadcast/wolframalpha/ and you will see what is going on… it will happen… just be patient…
bummed. facesbooked it, twittered it never got to see it work. hope it can scale someday.
this will help heaps with my chemistry assignments…..
and also my very ridiculosly hard maths.
Just go with the launch – knowledge to be computed will always be in advance of the computer!?
Sincere Congratulations! Thanks to the Internet, thanks to your great idea and your efficient efforts as well as unselfish contributions, we can enjoy human knowledge better and faster with your website , to be sure. Looking forward eagerly to your launching now.
All the best to you and your staff from China !
WOW ! SHIFT HAPPENS! THIS IS THE REVOLUTION I WAS WAITING 4. MATH BOOKS WRITERS … AND MATH TEACHERS … FINALLY SOMETHING WILL CHALLENGE THE SYSTEM! HOPEFULLY PROBLEM SOLVING WILL BE THOUGHT IN MATH CLASSES … NOT PARROT(MONKEY) MATHEMATICS. FINALLY MATH TEACHERS WILL START THINKING ABOUT CREATING RELEVANT MATH PROBLEMS THAT CAN’T BE SOLVED USING WOLFRAMALPHA! I’M HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY. I’M IN ECSTASY! SO… EXCITING! Congratulations!
This system is going to crash and crash under the weight of expectation.
Great job guys! This is really an amazing idea. Keep up the good work!
pair back on the philosophical expectations and launch/post the pragmatic search engine
Thanks tfitz. That link worked for me for about 5 minutes, but now it seems to not be working. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
It is past 9pm CST, and still not working from here in CANADIA 😛
Hmm, non event this is! Was advertised in our local paper as being bigger than Google!!
Guuuys…. HEY! You have to update the INDEX file for the search engine! People are STUCK waiting for the input to start working.
I just discovered i have to add /input/ at the end of the address for it to work…
It’s 11:20PM here in Brazil and i thought i’d have to wait to see this tomorrow!
It will come in time…..in the mean time i’m poping bubble wrap from Desktop Bubble Wrap – http://www.desktopbubblewrap.com ….but i’m still hanging out for it….and googles version being launched later this year.
It is 7:22 P. M. PDT. The live broadcast makes it sound like the system is up but there does not seem to be a way to enter a query. Am I missing something?
I know what you guys are trying to pull off is very tough. I applaud your boldness for attempting such a feat live. Certainly not typical of most scientists and engineers and especially IT folk. Don’t listen to the impatient and rude pricks. I for one am very excited but am willing to wait. You guys are heroes!
Thanks for launching Wolfram|Alpha.
Tried a few questions and didn’t get much useful info. And then I tried the Wired article “How many Nobel Prize winners were born under a full moon?” and caught Alpha crashing
“Sorry, Wolfram Alpha is temporarily unavailable. Please try again.”
Well, it is a rough start. I am looking forward to see it working well. I will give it some time.
In the mean time, I am enjoying Stephen’s talk at Berkman center
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TIOH80Qg7Q
P.S. The talk is cool, but I still need to see Alpha running and answering users’ questions. Good luck.
The main wesite http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html is not accepting input…
I’m watching your webcast of the launch. Stephen is wondering why you are not seeing more traffic. Well, one reason could be that your basic input page at http://www.wolframalpha.com/index.html is not accepting input!!!! I keeping getting the ‘Launching May 2009’ in the input box.
Was using backdoor and query performance was good. The moment you went live, everything slowed right now. It would take 1 min to get 2+2. Around the time that you mentioned logging got disconnect, queries sped right back up.
I think a lot of people are misunderstanding what this experience is about. It is about trying something new. New doesn’t always work the first time. Let’s see what happens over the next 24 hours.
Hey NV, you’ve got baited breath? Must smell like fish. The expression is “waiting with bated breath.” as in bate — to restrain. Too funny.
Manhattan booted off. That’s okay, glad to see it working at all. Look forward to seeing it become more robust–in every way.
Almost entirely I’m getting that WA doesn’t know what to do with my input.
Working most of the time near Boston MA!
I’m quite impressed. Granted, it doesn’t work as flexibly as I expected, but this is still a powerful proof of concept and an extremely useful tool.
I wouldn’t call it a “google killer”, simply because that’s not what it’s trying to do.
Can’t wait to see what gets added!
I got on briefly before WA failed to respond again…but what I saw in that 1 minute was amazing. The pure density of relevant information for a gene query (eg, APOE) was remarkable! Looking forward to learning more with WA.
Working in Northern VA.
This is amazing! It can be picky about queries, but other than that it’s stunning. I’m excited to see how this will develop further.
Please Dr Wolfram throw some more compute cycles at her, getting a “Sorry Dave, can’t do that beyond capacity” message.
What i saw was flippin brilliant!
Sydney NSW Australia.
Best wished from city of Wuhan, China! I am waiting for it!
Thanks for developing a great research tool for the Internet. Good Luck!
What is going on with the launch? I know you have problems. Why not tell us about them?
The only explanation I found on the net was that the problem was the failure of two systems to work together as expected. How about running initially on one system?
Works oh-so-beautifully here in Australia.
What a concept. I’m blown. It even has accurate data on my tiny home town of Byron Bay…