Peter & I 2
myclob
mind if I put his e-mails on my blog, our discusioin group, so we could
finish it up there. So I'm copying and pasting from our e-mails, for
all of your enjoyment.
I wrote:
The ideas with the most points go to the top of the page.
+ 1 for each reason to agree with an idea.
- 1 for each reason to disagree with an idea.
+ gr*wa for each website that is submitted as a reason to agree with an
idea (where gr = Google page rank on a scale from 1 to 10, and wa = the
statistical confidence interval, which represents how confident the
website actually supports the original idea. This confidence interval
would be a weighted average representing the percentage of people who
agree that the website actually supports the idea. The confidence
interval is a statistical device which tells us that if 80% of the
people agree that the website actually agrees with the original idea,
this means more if it is 80% of 300 people, instead of if your sample
is of only 10 people. So as an example, if 50% of the people thought
that a website with a google page rank of 4, supported the belief that
"George Bush is an idiot" that would be like to votes for that idea
(4*.5=2).
* A similar scheme could be used with books sold, where the number of
books sold, would take the place of Google rank. So if billions of
books have been sold, which gives this book a perfect rank of 10, and
80% of people agree that the book actually supports the main idea, then
the book would cast 8 votes for that idea.
* A modification on this scheme would be to allow for a book to do
damage to your argument, if others don't agree that the book actually
supports the argument that you are in favor of. This could be done by
using the same formula of br*wa=score(br= book rank, wa=weighted
average) but the br would equal 1 if 50% of people agreed, 2, if 60%
agreed, and negative two if only 40% agreed. You have to read some of
my other ideas for this to make sense, but suffice it for me to say
here, I want to create a system where people will submit reasons to
agree or disagree with a belief to separate columns. One column would
be for reasons to agree, and there would be a separate column for
reasons to disagree.
As stated above, each reason to agree would give the idea more points,
and each reason to disagree would take away points from the idea.
This gets kind of complicated, but it is very cool. So imagine, if you
will, the system I just described. So you click on one of the reasons
to agree with an idea, and then you are able to submit reasons to agree
or disagree with it. Now, each reason to agree with a reason to agree,
would give the original idea more points. And each reason to disagree
with the reason to agree would take away points from the main idea.
This is just the beginning of the rabbit whole, but I'll stop for now,
because no one ever responds to my long posts.
To wich peter responded:
Wow.
And I like the typo in the heading. ;-)
That was quite a long suggestion - and not a single reply. I guess no
one uses Usenet these days. Actually, this is the first time I've
actually used Google Groups (that'd be Usenet for me) since I was an
undergrad 13 years ago and browsers didn't even exist. I'm so surprised
how few posters there are on some of the groups. Anyway, I found myself
on http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.programming-contest
because I was wondering why you couldn't shift-click instead of using
the mouse to hit the lucky button. (Here's my post on it:
http://tinyurl.com/8a9mo). After posting I thought it might be a fixed
limitation in HTML or XML or whateverthe____. But it was fun to post
even though I did it in the wrong group.
Then I read some of the scant other posts. Some are pretty interesting
actually. Why don't more people muse on Google I wonder. Strange.
So whty do I type so much to you, a stranger. I just think your idea is
pretty neat and not absurd. Have you heard of collaborative filtering?
When I was backpacking in India I met two young guys from Vancouver
with mony to burn thanks to the dot-com bubble. They told me all about
how CF was the next big thing. It fizzled sort of. But not really.
I think what you are talking about falls under the general category of
CF. Firefly.com was one of the first notable users of it. I suppose
Amazon and so on still make use of it. The guys I met, and they were
experts, described it as spooky. The algorhtyhm :-D learns your
personal tastes really fast. Have you been introduced to
stumbleupon.com? It must also be CF. It's bloody orgasmic. I hardly
dare touch it now, since it sends me to Web pages that drain my free
time like a vampiric demon.
But I like your idea even though I need to reread your logic (only
because I'm drinking) again. If you want to discuss it a bit by email,
I wouldn't mind. I think you surely underestimate the databasing
difficulties or something, but nevertheless, your concept would have
far-reaching implications in my opinion.
> This is just the beginning of the rabbit whole, but I'll stop for now,
> because no one ever responds to my long posts.
Snicker. I know how you feel. I usually kill threads with my toosane
comments on the only BBS I ever post to. I never do this sort of thing.
Well.... lately I've been feeling that it just might be worth it to
take potshots at the seemingly interesting people out there who aren't
totally hiding. It works I think. But it eats time, so I suppose one
must be selective, as I am not being right now. (You see why I don't
really blog.)
And your post is too old to respond to I think. So you get this email.
And I have some interesting ideas as to why your idea could be so
special.
-Peter
And then I wrote:
And I like the typo in the heading. ;-)
Yeah, I'm not very good at details. I like the big picture. So I end up
being slopy, I'm a terrible speller, I asume people know what I am
talking about, and 1/2 the time they probably have no clue.
That was quite a long suggestion - and not a single reply. I guess no
one uses Usenet these days. Actually, this is the first time I've
actually used Google Groups (that'd be Usenet for me) since I was an
undergrad 13 years ago and browsers didn't even exist. I'm so surprised
how few posters there are on some of the groups. Anyway, I found myself
on http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.programming-contest
because I was wondering why you couldn't shift-click instead of using
the mouse to hit the lucky button. (Here's my post on it:
http://tinyurl.com/8a9mo). After posting I thought it might be a fixed
limitation in HTML or XML or whateverthe____. But it was fun to post
even though I did it in the wrong group.
Yeah, short cuts are awsome. Using the mouse is so much slower. I use
AutoCAD most of my work day, and some of the best time I ever spent was
learning the short cuts.
Then I read some of the scant other posts. Some are pretty interesting
actually. Why don't more people muse on Google I wonder. Strange.
I think the contest isn't going anymore or something... I don't know if
anyone at google reads it, but I hope they do. I day dream of Google or
Microsoft calling me and paying me a whole bunch of money to go work
for them.
So whty do I type so much to you, a stranger. I just think your idea is
pretty neat and not absurd.
Thanks!
Have you heard of collaborative filtering?
Not really. I was more exposed to new technology, when I was in school.
I got my degree in Electrical Engineering, and we hang out some times
with programers, but I work in the construction industry now, and it's
not too cutting edge. My only exposure to cutting edge technology now,
is my Monthy read of Wired Magazine.
When I was backpacking in India
Cool
I met two young guys from Vancouver
with mony to burn thanks to the dot-com bubble. They told me all about
how CF was the next big thing. It fizzled sort of. But not really.
I think what you are talking about falls under the general category of
CF. Firefly.com was one of the first notable users of it.
I'm trying to get firefly.com to work. It probably doesn't help that
they just made a movie based on the TV show, but I can't find anything
about it.
I suppose
Amazon and so on still make use of it. The guys I met, and they were
experts, described it as spooky. The algorhtyhm :-D learns your
personal tastes really fast. Have you been introduced to
stumbleupon.com? It must also be CF. It's bloody orgasmic. I hardly
dare touch it now, since it sends me to Web pages that drain my free
time like a vampiric demon.
I might have read something in wired about it, because when you told me
about it, I went to their web page, and it looked I I had been there
before.
But I like your idea even though I need to reread your logic (only
because I'm drinking) again. If you want to discuss it a bit by email,
I wouldn't mind.
Cool. I added you to instant messenger also...
I think you surely underestimate the databasing
difficulties or something, but nevertheless, your concept would have
far-reaching implications in my opinion.
Yeah, I don't know much about the requirments. I tested out of
Microsoft access, took C++, but don't really know much about databases.
I figured it must be harder than I think, because it seems like such an
obvious thing to do, I don't know why someone else hasn't done it
already. It must be hard. Maybe google base will make it possible. I
here that it is going to be a database that will allow structured
information... Which is basically my idea. Orginized debate. Classified
post.
> This is just the beginning of the rabbit whole, but I'll stop for now,
> because no one ever responds to my long posts.
Snicker. I know how you feel. I usually kill threads with my toosane
comments on the only BBS I ever post to. I never do this sort of thing.
Well.... lately I've been feeling that it just might be worth it to
take potshots at the seemingly interesting people out there who aren't
totally hiding. It works I think. But it eats time, so I suppose one
must be selective, as I am not being right now. (You see why I don't
really blog.)
And your post is too old to respond to I think. So you get this email.
And I have some interesting ideas as to why your idea could be so
special.
-Peter
Well, thanks again for the message!
m> That's cool how you make your short link, go to the long one...
tinyurl.com is awesome too.
So is this: www.furl.com
And recently, I found this really cool site: www.askquestions.org I
contacted the woman who runs it. She was one of the founders of PC
Magazine and MacWorld. You should find this site interesting too.
m> You seem to be an interesting fellow. Are you Mormon? I'm sure you
m> won't mind my asking (and I'm not assuming you to be Mormon
m> necessarily), what is your mission?
m>
m> How did you know?! :)
Well, only Mormons, in my experience speak freely about their
'missions.' Some pretty good friends of mine in the past have been
Mormons. Although I'm not Christian or anything in particular, I have
a lot of respect for the Mormon church, even though I think some of
the fundamental bases of that church are a bit weird. I always thought
the 'everybody chill out and love each other' TV commercials were
cool. Our tax dollars should be used for stuff like that too.
I'm not a programmer or anything either. But I am an idea fanatic who
is very concerned about big issues, such as the world going haywire
and such.
I'll go check your links now. Here's my home page:
pfd.eflmagic.com
Hello Mike,
I browsed your blogs a bit. I will do some more thinking about your
idea.
You don't have any prototype yet do you? It's just email your
agree/dis comments to you, right?
After you get your idea mapped out better (and I'll try to help) I
think you could present it as a challenge to the PHP (or something
else) coding community. I also think you should go learn PHP yourself
(probably ain't too hard) so you can stay involved deeply.
Everything is just a script in the end, right? Blogs, CraigsList,
etc. There are surely lots of possible helpers out there. You just
need to get your request polished I suspect.
If you can get a working script happening, you can then see if the
format attracts a following. Note how low, but how focused,the
participation on askquestions.org is. They get 600 hits a day. They
don't do much promotion at all (although they surely know how if they
wanted to.)
I really enjoy using askquestions and stumbleupon. I like the fact
that my actions definitely affect others. It is also a different
flavor of satisfaction than that given by publishing your thoughts on
the Web, as in a blog, BBS, home page or whatever. I dig knowing that
my opinion is being filtered thru an algorithm and will affect how the
same algorithm deals with future users.
BTW, you can repost to your blog or wherever, anything I type in email
to you. (any email, not just this one) And if you want to direct me to
any active discussions going on regarding your idea, send me the links.