I found the TiVo recommendation service quite underwhelming.
It looks to me as if they simply look at the genre of the program you rate high and then take that to be your preference.
I found out that the hard way, one day I went home and I found the tivo filled with idiotic shows like: "Price is right" and "Spend $1000 in 1 minute", "Blind date" etc... upon investigating I realized that I've have rated "Junkyard Wars" (a competition of building things from junk) and "BattleBots" (remote controlled robot fight show) high the previous day, this triggered the game-show category to be recorded.
As Larry David would say: pretty-pretty-pretty dumb.
What do you expect if all you give it is two data points? Use the frickin' thumbs down button for the suggestions you don't like, and the heuristic will improve its predictions over time. If it was able to predict what you wanted to watch with no input from you, I'd be a little bit spooked. Wouldn't you? Or maybe you thought "TV psychic" meant something else?
Unfortunately for companies where the accountants are in charge of all hiring, including tech supprt, switching from automation to live human beings will result in a significant *decrease* in the quality of service.
Such a random number generator might not give the type of distribution curve you want. In other words, it may be random in the sense that no one can predict what the next number generated will be, but it may be biased to produce a non-uniformly distributed group of numbers.
093:31:32 Parker: Apollo 15, Houston. (Long pause)
093:32:06 Irwin: Houston, 15.
093:32:07 Parker: Good morning, Jim. We're waking up you a little early to tell you a few things before you go around the corner because you only have four minutes in the old Flight Plan. So, if you guys are awake and ready to listen, I'll give you a few words.
093:32:23 Irwin: Okay, Bob. Go ahead.
093:32:25 Parker: Okay. At the moment - Okay, one short one. We'd like you to go High Gain Antenna to Auto so we don't lose you just before you go around the corner there. Okay...
093:32:49 Irwin: We're in Auto.
093:32:50 Parker: Jim - we seem to have atransmission problem on the High Gain Antenna - we want you to perform a systems check on your end...
093:32:55 (Sound of Irwin smacking co-pilot who is busy downloading the latests pics of Britney Spears fakes) Houston, I think we have isolated the problem, we are now clear for transmission...
In other words, using cars as bait for criminals does not lead to the logical conclusion that the police will engage in entrapment using high cash payments as bait.
Everyone who keeps calling their computer the "hard drive"
I once had someone hold up a 3.5" floppy, point to it and say "there's something wrong with my disk drive."
Used judiciously it could look great.
on
Mood Home
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· Score: 1
Rather than paint the whole house so that it was black in winter, someone who understands thermal management of buildings and is good at graphic design could make this look sharp. Architects do things similar to this all the time. The good ones can make beautiful exteriors even when they are forced to use cheap materials. I'm sure there are houses where it would be hard to make this look good, but in many cases it would just be a matter of choosing the right colors for trim and shutters, and using enough brick or stucco to break up the solid black.
There is no need to split hairs about the definition of intuition.
Find two people who have never seen a computer. Sit each down to learn how to use a computer on their own, without outside instruction (not an unusual situation). Give one of them a Mac. Give the other one a VT-100 terminal with a telnet connection to a VMS environment.
Now, who will be the first to print a letter? *Clearly* the Mac user. Who will be the first to launch a web browser? Again, the Mac user. The first to send e-mail? An extremely quick (and lucky) VMS user *might* win this one, but the odds are low.
The Mac interface is *more intuitive* than the VMS interface. It requires *less learning* than the VMS system. It is also more commercially successful. VMS is great for many things, but it requires more learning.
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Haven't these loons ever heard of Kudzu?
Next question?
I thought Mendeleev was the creator of the periodic table?
The adjective google seems to have been in use for some time before search engines came into existence:
http://whatevernot.com/house/2001-01-13/google-eye s.html
What do you expect if all you give it is two data points? Use the frickin' thumbs down button for the suggestions you don't like, and the heuristic will improve its predictions over time. If it was able to predict what you wanted to watch with no input from you, I'd be a little bit spooked. Wouldn't you? Or maybe you thought "TV psychic" meant something else?
So.. what comes after Generation X?
Duh!
Generation Y, of course.
Unfortunately for companies where the accountants are in charge of all hiring, including tech supprt, switching from automation to live human beings will result in a significant *decrease* in the quality of service.
Such a random number generator might not give the type of distribution curve you want. In other words, it may be random in the sense that no one can predict what the next number generated will be, but it may be biased to produce a non-uniformly distributed group of numbers.
Great! Now if I can just get it to work under Windows 98....
Check out the sodazoo while you are there - look for models by dryguy!
The perfect place to settle down and enjoy the movie JAWS on DVD.
093:31:32 Parker: Apollo 15, Houston. (Long pause)
093:32:06 Irwin: Houston, 15.
093:32:07 Parker: Good morning, Jim. We're waking up you a little early to tell you a few things before you go around the corner because you only have four minutes in the old Flight Plan. So, if you guys are awake and ready to listen, I'll give you a few words.
093:32:23 Irwin: Okay, Bob. Go ahead.
093:32:25 Parker: Okay. At the moment - Okay, one short one. We'd like you to go High Gain Antenna to Auto so we don't lose you just before you go around the corner there. Okay...
093:32:49 Irwin: We're in Auto.
093:32:50 Parker: Jim - we seem to have atransmission problem on the High Gain Antenna - we want you to perform a systems check on your end...
093:32:55 (Sound of Irwin smacking co-pilot who is busy downloading the latests pics of Britney Spears fakes) Houston, I think we have isolated the problem, we are now clear for transmission...
You can get the "Alienware" style cases from other places:
http://www.brokenpixel.com/reviews/bamk33331.shtml
This argument basically relies on the slippery slope fallacy:
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/slippery- slope.html
In other words, using cars as bait for criminals does not lead to the logical conclusion that the police will engage in entrapment using high cash payments as bait.
I can't remember the last time I had ten free hours in a row for anything.
seeequels!! Soylent Green is made out of Seeeeeeequels!!!!
Many research groups are starting to make baby steps in this area. Here is one recent example published in Nature (requires registration):
here
I once had someone hold up a 3.5" floppy, point to it and say "there's something wrong with my disk drive."
Rather than paint the whole house so that it was black in winter, someone who understands thermal management of buildings and is good at graphic design could make this look sharp. Architects do things similar to this all the time. The good ones can make beautiful exteriors even when they are forced to use cheap materials. I'm sure there are houses where it would be hard to make this look good, but in many cases it would just be a matter of choosing the right colors for trim and shutters, and using enough brick or stucco to break up the solid black.
There is no need to split hairs about the definition of intuition.
Find two people who have never seen a computer. Sit each down to learn how to use a computer on their own, without outside instruction (not an unusual situation). Give one of them a Mac. Give the other one a VT-100 terminal with a telnet connection to a VMS environment.
Now, who will be the first to print a letter? *Clearly* the Mac user. Who will be the first to launch a web browser? Again, the Mac user. The first to send e-mail? An extremely quick (and lucky) VMS user *might* win this one, but the odds are low.
The Mac interface is *more intuitive* than the VMS interface. It requires *less learning* than the VMS system. It is also more commercially successful. VMS is great for many things, but it requires more learning.