Friday, July 30, 2010
Recorded Future goes beyond Search
"The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.”
Thursday, July 29, 2010
MIT vs. Harvard Case Competition 2010
We have several System Design and Management fellows participating in the MIT vs. Harvard Case competition in different MIT teams. As far as I know they are Leyla Abdimomunova SDM09, Donny Holaschutz SDM10 and Daniel Wallance SDM10. Please come to support them tomorrow July 30, between 2:00am–6:00pm at Wong Auditorium (E51).
MIT Events Calendar - Friday, July 30, 2010 - MIT vs. Harvard Case Competition 2010.
The case that teams will have to crack is on Boston based car-sharing start up called RelayRides.
MIT Events Calendar - Friday, July 30, 2010 - MIT vs. Harvard Case Competition 2010.
The case that teams will have to crack is on Boston based car-sharing start up called RelayRides.
Friday, July 16, 2010
"I Write Like" filter-like algorithm compares and categorizes your writing style
Have you heard about "I Write Like"? Go to http://iwl.me and insert couple of paragraphs of your writing. In few seconds the algorithm will tell you "which famous writer you write like by analyzing your word choice and writing style and comparing them with those of the famous writers".
The idea belongs to Dmitry Chestnykh, a 27-year-old Russian software programmer. "Chestnykh modeled the site on software for e-mail spam filters. This means that the site's text analysis is largely keyword based. Even if you write in short, declarative, Hemingwayesque sentences, its your word choice that may determine your comparison" (NPR: http://alturl.com/8qurx).
The Russian blog-sphere is surprisingly quiet about both the author, Dmitry Chestnykh, and the site. As for Dmitry himself, he twitted "I write like Douglas Adams. Proof:" on July 8. One week later he is Internet's newest superstart, busy giving away interviews. Here is one of them from THEAWL.COM (http://alturl.com/4h8tx):
"...How many authors are currently in the database? How did you decide which authors to include?
The current version includes 50 writers. First versions included authors from the bestsellers list on Wikipedia, top downloaded books from The Gutenberg Project (a public library of out-of-copyright books), and the ones I could remember. Later versions included authors suggested by users.
When are you going to add explanations for the algorithm for each author? Why haven't you included this already — why keep it secret?
I wanted to write a blog post about it, and to open-source the code, but haven't had time for it yet, because I've been busy updating the program and handling all the traffic, emails and comments I received. Also, it's really interesting to read how people try to explain the results they got.
Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It's a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the "Mark as spam" button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how "I Write Like" works on my side: I feed it with "Frankenstein" and tell it, "This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley." Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation..."
Well, I inserted three sample essays from my blog. Twice it came out as David Foster Wallace (http://alturl.com/w2quj) and once as Arthur C. Clarke (http://alturl.com/rmixh).
The idea belongs to Dmitry Chestnykh, a 27-year-old Russian software programmer. "Chestnykh modeled the site on software for e-mail spam filters. This means that the site's text analysis is largely keyword based. Even if you write in short, declarative, Hemingwayesque sentences, its your word choice that may determine your comparison" (NPR: http://alturl.com/8qurx).
The Russian blog-sphere is surprisingly quiet about both the author, Dmitry Chestnykh, and the site. As for Dmitry himself, he twitted "I write like Douglas Adams. Proof:" on July 8. One week later he is Internet's newest superstart, busy giving away interviews. Here is one of them from THEAWL.COM (http://alturl.com/4h8tx):
"...How many authors are currently in the database? How did you decide which authors to include?
The current version includes 50 writers. First versions included authors from the bestsellers list on Wikipedia, top downloaded books from The Gutenberg Project (a public library of out-of-copyright books), and the ones I could remember. Later versions included authors suggested by users.
When are you going to add explanations for the algorithm for each author? Why haven't you included this already — why keep it secret?
I wanted to write a blog post about it, and to open-source the code, but haven't had time for it yet, because I've been busy updating the program and handling all the traffic, emails and comments I received. Also, it's really interesting to read how people try to explain the results they got.
Actually, the algorithm is not a rocket science, and you can find it on every computer today. It's a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet. Take for example the "Mark as spam" button in Gmail or Outlook. When you receive a message that you think is spam, you click this button, and the internal database gets trained to recognize future messages similar to this one as spam. This is basically how "I Write Like" works on my side: I feed it with "Frankenstein" and tell it, "This is Mary Shelley. Recognize works similar to this as Mary Shelley." Of course, the algorithm is slightly different from the one used to detect spam, because it takes into account more stylistic features of the text, such as the number of words in sentences, the number of commas, semicolons, and whether the sentence is a direct speech or a quotation..."
Well, I inserted three sample essays from my blog. Twice it came out as David Foster Wallace (http://alturl.com/w2quj) and once as Arthur C. Clarke (http://alturl.com/rmixh).
Thursday, July 15, 2010
"Ask an Engineer" is MIT's Cool Way of Explaining Ideas and Research
Can helicopters fly upside down?
Why does traffic bottleneck on freeways for no apparent reason?
Can traditional gasoline-powered cars be converted to run on hydrogen fuel cells?
You can get answers to these and many other questions via MIT's most recent webtheme called "Ask an engineer", which leads you to MIT Engineering Website.
The site streams questions about science and engineering frequently asked by visitors who either come to MIT or browse its webpages. Most interesting part of this stream is the fact that questions are answered by MIT Engineering faculty. Streaming answers in simple and informal way helps explain "day to day" applicability of cutting edge research conducted at MIT. For each of the questions you can get "one-sentence" answer, an expanded explanation and credible references if you choose to explore such topic further. Each answer also helps you understand who among MIT faculty conducts research in the given field.
"Ask an Engineer" is a simple and effective communication tool that helps bridge people's interest in science, technology and everyday life with wide spectrum of state of the art research at MIT. Some of these research topics pioneered decades ago and we just do not realize these connections, for other topics it may take a decade before actual results can become part of our everyday life.
If you would like to submit your own question, you may do so at http://engineering.mit.edu/ask/submit_question.php .
Why does traffic bottleneck on freeways for no apparent reason?
Can traditional gasoline-powered cars be converted to run on hydrogen fuel cells?
You can get answers to these and many other questions via MIT's most recent webtheme called "Ask an engineer", which leads you to MIT Engineering Website.
The site streams questions about science and engineering frequently asked by visitors who either come to MIT or browse its webpages. Most interesting part of this stream is the fact that questions are answered by MIT Engineering faculty. Streaming answers in simple and informal way helps explain "day to day" applicability of cutting edge research conducted at MIT. For each of the questions you can get "one-sentence" answer, an expanded explanation and credible references if you choose to explore such topic further. Each answer also helps you understand who among MIT faculty conducts research in the given field.
"Ask an Engineer" is a simple and effective communication tool that helps bridge people's interest in science, technology and everyday life with wide spectrum of state of the art research at MIT. Some of these research topics pioneered decades ago and we just do not realize these connections, for other topics it may take a decade before actual results can become part of our everyday life.
If you would like to submit your own question, you may do so at http://engineering.mit.edu/ask/submit_question.php .
Friday, July 9, 2010
What is value-related operand of a glider?
Those of us who took System Architecture recognize this question. Is it air or human? What is being changed in the process of gliding? Last weekend we decided to check for ourselves. Well, the answer is definitely - human.
On the side of runway at Bar Harbor Airport (Maine), which is 12 miles from Acadia National Park.
Here is 1963 Cessna 182F that pulls us into the air.
It takes less than 45 seconds to take off. The glider is very light and fast.
July 4 weekend is the busiest time at the county airport. The airport's "parking lot" is full with private jets that bring wealthy summer house and island owners.
As we reach 4,000 ft (1,220 m), Cessna detaches the cable and leaves back to the airport.
Bar Harbor at morning low tide.
The same land bridge that connects the Bar Island during the low tide.
This is how the glider looks from the ground.
A bird's-eye view of Acadia National Park.
The same theme from the top of Cadillac mountain.
... and the shore.
Landing the glider.
... glider survival rate 0.5 :(
On the side of runway at Bar Harbor Airport (Maine), which is 12 miles from Acadia National Park.
Here is 1963 Cessna 182F that pulls us into the air.
It takes less than 45 seconds to take off. The glider is very light and fast.
July 4 weekend is the busiest time at the county airport. The airport's "parking lot" is full with private jets that bring wealthy summer house and island owners.
As we reach 4,000 ft (1,220 m), Cessna detaches the cable and leaves back to the airport.
Bar Harbor at morning low tide.
The same land bridge that connects the Bar Island during the low tide.
This is how the glider looks from the ground.A bird's-eye view of Acadia National Park.The same theme from the top of Cadillac mountain.
... and the shore.Landing the glider.... glider survival rate 0.5 :(
Friday, July 2, 2010
Top five FIFA World Cup teams on MITRE's prediction market
Brazil is out. I am glad because it adds more uncertainty to the game. As of July 3, 2010 the top five teams to win the cup are:
1. Spain with 28.82%
2. Germany with 20.59%
3. Argentina with 19.39%
4. Netherlands with 18.64%
5. Uruguay 5.65%
1. Spain with 28.82%
2. Germany with 20.59%
3. Argentina with 19.39%
4. Netherlands with 18.64%
5. Uruguay 5.65%
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