Hello. I have been spending some time trying to answer a new question (mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/45996) but I don't think it is possible. It appears neither Wolfram|Alpha nor Mathematica have complete enough TimeZone data. Is it acceptable to answer, "No, this is not possible?"

@hftf Define "complete enough". W|A has more data that Mathematica, but I don't know the largest city that W|A is missing. You can start requesting the data from W|A starting with the largest cities like this.

# -> WolframAlpha[
    CityData[#, "Name"] <> " timezone", {{"Result", 1},
     "ComputableData"}] & /@
 SortBy[CityData[], -CityData[#, "Population"] &][[;; 10]]

That just gets 10, but you could fill in the gaps with the largest cities from CityData that have missing timezones pretty well with that approach I think.

That gives the name of the time zones, but then you can manually map those to UTC offsets or get that info from W|A as well.

Should change "Name" to "FullName"

From Wolfram|Alpha, LA is the only city in PST: wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cities+in+PST and there are only 10 in EST: wolframalpha.com/input/?i=cities+in+EST Similar situation for most other timezones I have been able to get W|A to understand at all.

Right. W|A isn't currently designed for returning large lists so you need to query the large cities one at a time in advance.

Or you can just download a big list in advance.

Sure

download.geonames.org/export/dump

Though the question asked, "Is there any way to get Mathematica V9 or Wolfram|Alpha…"

:)

Right, so I'd say yes, but if they want a lot of cities expect to do a bit more typing.

Ok

WordData "PartTerms" explorer

community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/236453

I'm somewhat puzzled to see wolfram.com adding new Mathematica 9 -advertising material practically daily (mostly in non-English pages though). Is 10 coming or not?

arxiv.org/pdf/1404.1499v2.pdf

"To our knowledge, no prior attempt at estimating pi using ballistic-assisted random sampling methods has ever been made."

lol

@MichaelHale I was also just reading the conclusions... :)

@MichaelHale But how would the survivors access the arxiv?

True, or where would they find the time and ammunition to count 30,000 data points while fighting off the zombies?

It's entertaining though. I just read a summary of Pirates of Venus from 1934, where the protagonist accidentally arrives at Venus instead of Mars because he forgot to include gravity from the Moon when computing his trajectory. Very imaginative.

@MichaelHale One lucky protagonist, then. You'd have thought he'd have just shot off to interstellar space!

Indeed. And then his information that Venus was inhospitable turned out to be completely wrong and he could breathe just fine. I guess you can apply the anthropic principle to fantastic stories though. The stories where expected luck occurs are too boring to write about.

Are we still planning to get Mr. Wizard the newest version of M to say thanks?