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Inside UC Berkeley's High Tech Joke Recommender
alphadogg writes "Every day is something like April Fools' Day at the University of California, Berkeley joke recommendation site, dubbed Jester. Now on Version 4.0, the site tosses visitors a handful of jokes to rate on a scale of "less funny" to "more funny." It then recommends jokes based on the user's taste (or lack thereof), dynamically making recommendations based on the user's most recent ratings.
Jester's more than a joke jukebox though. Underlying it is a Berkeley-patented "collaborative filtering algorithm" dubbed Eigentaste , now on Version 5.0. The more people who use the system and rate jokes, the more data Berkeley researchers have to advance their understanding of recommendation systems, like those used by Amazon.com and other Web sites."
These are funny once, Mike, not funny always.
"I don't understand, Man."
It'd be really interesting to use a site like this to try and determine how people's sense of humor (and response to jokes, which isn't the same thing) clusters.
It's hard in this case though because the jokes are so old and tend to fit closely to five or six templates. Because this means they have very little impact, I tried rating them based on how funny I thought they would be if they were new to me and expressed a bit more concisely, which I found a complicated exercise.
If this thing could be loaded with new jokes, or at least varied jokes, it'd be very interesting to observe the results. for example, would we find that people who like gender-stereotype jokes also like lawyer jokes? Would we find that people who like engineering jokes also like pun-based jokes?
Alas, without a system for users to submit their own jokes I don't think there's enough data in the system to get useful results out of it.
P.S. Shakespeare walks into a pub. And the barman says, "Sorry, you're bard."
P.P.S. So this bear walks into a bar, and the bear says "I'd like a......... beer, please." And the barman says "What's with the big pause?"
P.P.P.S. So this woman walks into a bar, and asks for a double entendre. So the barman gives her one.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Yes, of course I want to give Berkeley researchers my time for free, so they can add that to the public subsidies that pay for their research, so they can patent the technology and charge me to use it later.
I'm the punchline!
--
make install -not war
Q- How many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
A- THAT'S NOT FUNNY ASSHOLE! I'LL CUT YOUR DICK OFF YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!!!
Darnn slashdot's lameness filter. Darn it to heck! Bad filter, bad bad bad (hits lameness filter on nose with rolled up newspaper). Yes you stupid humorless algorythm, caps is like yelling. That was the point, you stupid bot.
Speaking of funny, yesterday's Dilbert was one that you have to be a nerd to appreciate.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Do you really need a warning that a link labeled "[emergencyporn.com]" is not work safe?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
If this story had been posted tomorrow, April 1, I would have dismissed it out of hand as some sort of hoax. April Fool's Day is the worst day of the year at /. One of my New Years' resolutions was to not visit /. at all tomorrow. It's just not worth it and, unlike some of those Jester jokes, the stories aren't even that funny.
Q: Why is a fish like a laser?
A: Because neither one can whistle.
Great book. Time for a re-read.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!