All of imonroe's Comments + Replies

Thanks for the tips! I've been playing with the Alchemy API for NLP (http://www.alchemyapi.com/) and an API called DayLife (http://developer.daylife.com/) for news sources, etc.

I'm trying to do my best to make it as un-spammy as possible, but how far I can get with that remains to be seen. I have a plan to take advantage of the inverted pyramid story structure so common in news reporting, along with entity extraction on the paragraph level, to get something out of it that's more or less readable. I'll post an example when my prototype works.

I've started working on a project to see if I can make a computer program which can generate a reasonably readable article on a given subject automatically. It's all a big mashup of various news and natural language processing APIs.

I've also discovered that there's a whole bunch of public domain motion graphics assets on the web designed for use in christian churches, so I've been making a series of "Inspiring Quotations" youtube videos out of them. Stuff like Nietzsche, Anton LaVey, horrifying bible verses, and so on. So far I've finished s... (read more)

3keefe
I would start with something like reuters API, http://wordnet.princeton.edu/ and some research on these guys http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ this is a fairly well studied problem by spammers, so I'd also work there

I agree with this point as well, and I think it bears emphasizing.

Awhile ago, I had a series of conversations with a friend who was having problems with people in her workplace. She would complain along the lines of, "I just can't believe that X would just shuffle a problem over to my desk. It was X's responsibility to solve the problem; X must be trying to get me in trouble with the boss."

Or similar formulations.

It gradually became clear that her go-to modality was to think that if other people aggravated her, it was because they were doin... (read more)

2CronoDAS
Well, sometimes people really are out to get you. My brother's immediately senior co-worker at Goldman Sachs once admitted to deliberately trying to sabotage his work. The co-worker was indeed behaving quite game-theoretic-rationally, though; the way Goldman Sachs works, it was likely that exactly one of them would soon lose their job.

Alas, I can't make it to this one. Hope everyone has a good time!

I couldn't agree more. I find it moderately offensive when someone says, "Bless you," when I sneeze. First, because of the religious implications, second, because they certainly haven't thought before speaking, and third, because it's never crossed their minds that I COULD be offended by unthinking, religious invocations.

0Emily
It doesn't offend me when other people say it. It's true that they aren't thinking -- it's just a social pleasantry, people don't often think about those! -- but it's meant in a nice way. Also, perhaps this is a cultural difference (I'm in the relatively irreligious UK), but I think most people who say it here don't mean it as a religious invocation in the slightest. I just don't particularly like expressing that connotation myself.

This is an interesting thread.

Here's a difference between the British-salmon and Muslim-Mohammed scenarios.

In the British scenario, you've postulated that the British politely ask the rest of the world to refrain from waving photos of salmon in their faces.

In the Muslim scenario, the ultra-religious are DEMANDING that the rest of the world obey their edicts on what is appropriate to draw.

I personally feel a very visceral reaction when I'm told that I'm not allowed to draw/write about/think about something. "Who are you," I think, "to presum... (read more)

6brianm
Is that justified though? Suppose a subset of British go about demanding restriction on salmon image production. Would that justify you going out of your way to promote the production of such images, making them more likely to be seen by the subset not making such demands?

I concur. In my opinion, men are best served by a proper barber, not by a "hair stylist" at a strip mall Fantastic Sam's.

A good barber knows not only what kind of haircuts look fashionable for men, but the also how to cut the hair so it's easy to maintain. You know you've found a decent barber when you get a hot lather and straight-razor shave for your neckline at the end of the cut.

Further, a good barber won't charge more than $20 for a haircut. $15 is average. I pay $18, but I really like the place.

This from a fellow who averaged one haircut a year for 15 years, and now keeps it cut rather short.

7HughRistik
Barbers can help you look like a fashionable normal guy, but what's most likely to happen with a barber is that you come out looking like an average normal guy. Here are a bunch of haircuts that your barber probably can't help you with. All these guys are very popular, and most of them are sex symbols. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 To everyone who's day this comment makes: you're welcome.

Regarding "whether WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange is a journalist, or can be prosecuted for espionage..."

Turns out there are different kinds of legal protections for journalists -- shield laws, for instance, which protect a journalist from having to reveal an anonymous source -- which don't apply to "non-journalists", whatever that might be in a world with twitter, blogs, etc. A private citizen emailing secret documents to someone without proper clearance can be prosecuted for it; a journalist publishing classified documents that were... (read more)

2Douglas_Knight
No, shield laws, both existing and proposed, are only about sources and offer no protection for publishing classified information. They might offer protection from admitting that you have classified information. Also, most classified information is at the federal level and there isn't a federal shield law, so this is all hypothetical.

This meetup was a good time. It was nice to meet everyone, and I'll certainly make it to the next one.

-Ian

3doctorlogic
Yes, great conversation. Great meeting everyone.

While the math is a little outside my current capabilities, I really appreciate this thread, because I've been working on the very beginning stages of a project that requires computational categorization algorithms, and you've given me a lot of good information, and perhaps more importantly, some new things to go and study.

Thanks!

I'm in the Chicago area -- I'm a journalist, programmer, and media creator (video/audio, etc.) I'd be happy to volunteer/pass on those skills.

0MichaelVassar
Thanks. If you would like to help in editing video after the next Singularity Summit that might be helpful. Also, what news organizations do you work with?

An experiment which would disprove my hypothesis regarding more bidding increments would be something like:

Run at least three auctions for the same or similar items with the same or similar bidders, one using normal estimates and bidding increments for a control, one where the low estimate was lowered to allow more increments, and one with the same estimates, but more granular increments. IF the price paid in each auction was roughly equivalent, THEN the hypothesis is disproven.

The problem with that is the nature of the property we auction -- there's only... (read more)

0RobinZ
Do you have a large body of data? It's possible a statistician would be capable of devising appropriate measures to test your hypothesis.

I wrote up a post yesterday, but I found I was unable to post it, except as a draft, since I lack the necessary karma. I thought it might be an interesting thing to discuss, however, since lots of folks here have deeper knowledge than I do about markets and game theory

I've been working recently for an auction house that deals in things like fine art, etc. I've noticed, by observing many auctions, that certain behaviors are pretty reliable, and I wonder if the system isn't "game-able" to produce more desirable outcomes for the different parties ... (read more)

5thomblake
Make sure you're asking yourself, "what experiment would disprove my hypothesis?" You have several hypotheses in there which might not be optimal.
4gwern
If we assume that the appraisals are disconnected from the winning bids*, then couldn't one just see whether the ratio of sale:appraisal is increasing? If the appraisals are honest, then any jiggery-pokery should alter the ratio - eg. a successful manipulation will lead to people paying an average 93%, where they used to pay 90%. * that is, there is no feedback - the appraisers don't look at recent sales and say, oh, I've been lowballing all my estimates! I'd better start raising them.

I would be interested in attending this gathering. Is there a loop I can be kept in?

Hello. Been lurking on OB and LW for ages. I actually end up forwarding quite a few posts along to a friend of mine that thinks everyone here are robots or soulless automatons because of the lack of respect for intuition. I keep telling her to come here and post her opinions herself, but alas, no bites.

This is me signalling that I'm smart: B.S. computer science, M.S. journalism, currently employed in the fine art auction world.

3JGWeissman
Your friend may be interested in When (Not) To Use Probabilities, which does in fact explain why in some situations, humans should rely on intuition, rather than try to use probabilities we can't compute.

thinks everyone here are robots or soulless automatons because of the lack of respect for intuition.

A coworker was telling me that the law of conservation of energy means that the energy in our soul cannot disappear, only move.

I explained that the law includes that energy can transform, and that when we die, the "energy in our soul" serves to warm the panels of our coffin.

We haven't talked about it since.