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Unladen Swallow

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  • P PIEBALDconsult

    Oh good, a thread to highjack. :-D For the last few evenings, the wife and I have seen a swallow-like bird swooping and catching insects, but we don't see a bird like it in our book on birds of the western U.S. It's primarily black (or dark anyway) with pointy wings. I forgot to get a good look at the tail, but I don't recall it being notched. The most unique feature is that each wing has a white circle, kinda like a fighter plane (makes me think of "Long Dark Teatime of the Soul"). Anyone know of such a bird?

    R Offline
    R Offline
    Roger Wright
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    Those are kamikaze bats. We have them here, too, but ours are so dumb they chase helicopters instead of flies. They rarely win. The most common bird here is the pigeon, but my pellet gun and I are working to change the ratios a bit. The second most common is what I've tentatively identified as a grackle. They're dark colored, active at all hours, and are not attracted to seed feeders. That leads me to believe that they are insect eaters, exclusively. They make a wide range of sounds, too - quite interesting, actually. Check this[^] for identification, though I have to admit that the critter I see here all the time isn't nearly as attractive as those shown on this site. I made my initial identification using an Audobon Society book, along with some interpolation based on known ranges of habitat.

    "A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

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    • R Roger Wright

      Those are kamikaze bats. We have them here, too, but ours are so dumb they chase helicopters instead of flies. They rarely win. The most common bird here is the pigeon, but my pellet gun and I are working to change the ratios a bit. The second most common is what I've tentatively identified as a grackle. They're dark colored, active at all hours, and are not attracted to seed feeders. That leads me to believe that they are insect eaters, exclusively. They make a wide range of sounds, too - quite interesting, actually. Check this[^] for identification, though I have to admit that the critter I see here all the time isn't nearly as attractive as those shown on this site. I made my initial identification using an Audobon Society book, along with some interpolation based on known ranges of habitat.

      "A Journey of a Thousand Rest Stops Begins with a Single Movement"

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      P Offline
      PIEBALDconsult
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      It doesn't quite look or move like a bat. We have seen it near a bat.

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      • L Lost User

        It knows its speed http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+air+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit[^] You can actually submit these queries before it's officially open :laugh:

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        0x3c0
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        It's not that impressive[^]. I put two queries to it. Neither of them were right, and it took absolutely ages. I'll stick to Google

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        • L Lost User

          It knows its speed http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+air+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit[^] You can actually submit these queries before it's officially open :laugh:

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          L Offline
          Luc Pattyn
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          Nah. They only discuss African unladen swallows. What with the European ones? :)

          Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]


          The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.


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          • 0 0x3c0

            It's not that impressive[^]. I put two queries to it. Neither of them were right, and it took absolutely ages. I'll stick to Google

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            N Offline
            NetDave
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            Computafreak wrote:

            I'll stick to Google

            They're not trying to be another Google. This is about information analysis, not a simple search engine.

            QRZ? de WAØTTN

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            0
            • L Lost User

              It knows its speed http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+air+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit[^] You can actually submit these queries before it's officially open :laugh:

              D Offline
              D Offline
              Dave Kreskowiak
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              I don't trust it. You really have to double-check and understand how to interpret the result you get. It's interpreter will break the question down into multiple, unrelated, questions if you're not careful.

              A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
              Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
                   2006, 2007, 2008

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              • N NetDave

                Computafreak wrote:

                I'll stick to Google

                They're not trying to be another Google. This is about information analysis, not a simple search engine.

                QRZ? de WAØTTN

                0 Offline
                0 Offline
                0x3c0
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                In my opinion, they should still be able to search properly. The analysis of zero results is nothing, and they appear to lack the base infrastructure to build their 'speciality' upon. I gave it the equation 4x^2+3x-45=0 about four minutes ago. As I type, it hasn't been solved (x=3 and x=-3.75, FWIW). Since it's about information analysis, then surely the creator of Mathematica could make one of his projects notice the standard quadratic form and solve the equation? Praise where it's due though; I searched for Wikipedia and got the WHOIS information and web statistics fairly quickly. Now if they could just make it quicker everywhere else, I'd happily use it for the more abstract queries which Google can't find as easily

                P 1 Reply Last reply
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                • L Lost User

                  It knows its speed http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+air+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit[^] You can actually submit these queries before it's officially open :laugh:

                  C Offline
                  C Offline
                  Christopher Duncan
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  When you ask what its favorite color is, what does it reply?

                  Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com

                  D 1 Reply Last reply
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                  • C Christopher Duncan

                    When you ask what its favorite color is, what does it reply?

                    Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com

                    D Offline
                    D Offline
                    Douglas Troy
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    Blue. No yel-- Auuuuuuuugh!


                    :..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
                    Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL

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                    • L Luc Pattyn

                      Nah. They only discuss African unladen swallows. What with the European ones? :)

                      Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]


                      The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.


                      B Offline
                      B Offline
                      Bob X
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      Estimating the Airspeed Velocity of an Unladen Swallow[^] It's a question of weight ratios.

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • 0 0x3c0

                        In my opinion, they should still be able to search properly. The analysis of zero results is nothing, and they appear to lack the base infrastructure to build their 'speciality' upon. I gave it the equation 4x^2+3x-45=0 about four minutes ago. As I type, it hasn't been solved (x=3 and x=-3.75, FWIW). Since it's about information analysis, then surely the creator of Mathematica could make one of his projects notice the standard quadratic form and solve the equation? Praise where it's due though; I searched for Wikipedia and got the WHOIS information and web statistics fairly quickly. Now if they could just make it quicker everywhere else, I'd happily use it for the more abstract queries which Google can't find as easily

                        P Offline
                        P Offline
                        Phil Martin
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #15

                        I typed the same equation in to Alpha, and it came back with the answer within a couple of seconds, with a graph, actual results. Pretty impressive from where I'm sitting. Sounds like a load issue to me, rather than an implementation one. Every man and his dog would have been trying it out in the first few days, and when trying to manage that kind of load - it would be more than a little challenging. And it got the C# query exactly right if you ask me.

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                        • L Lost User

                          It knows its speed http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=what+is+the+air+velocity+of+an+unladen+swallow&asynchronous=false&equal=Submit[^] You can actually submit these queries before it's officially open :laugh:

                          L Offline
                          L Offline
                          Lost User
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #16

                          Sorry, Wolfram Alpha is temporarily unavailable. Please try again. Error: DataPacletFilter: Unable to get Connection Too many connections

                          ___________________________________________ .\\axxx (That's an 'M')

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