February 2011
29 posts
What euphemisms for "stoned" are critics using to...
“Heavy-lidded and smirky” (The Washington Post); “A tad bewildered” (Moviefone); “Mellow” (Entertainment Weekly); “Distant [and] uninterested” (The Hollywood Reporter); “Distracted” (Los Angeles Times); “Bored” (BBC); “[In] a haze” (Time); “Preparing for a remake of Dazed and Confused” (USA Today).
via...
Why Watson Thought Toronto was a US City →
In an interview over at The Browser, Stephen Baker, who has a new book on IBM’s Watson and computer intelligence, explains how the computer could have possibly thought Toronto was a US city:
Let’s review this. TheJeopardy! category was U.S. Cities, and the clue was, ‘This city’s largest airport is named after a World War II hero, and its second largest airport after a...
Melo? →
This is a bit different than the normal fare around here, but thought it was worth sharing. The big news around NYC today is that Carmelo Anthony is coming to town as part of a giant trade. But before everyone gets too excited, my favorite basketball statisticians rain on the parade a bit:
That being said, should the Knicks fans expect this team to become a title contender? Although members of...
“Indeed, playing against Watson turned out to be a lot like any other Jeopardy!...”
– Watson Jeopardy! computer: Ken Jennings describes what it’s like to play against a machine. - By Ken Jennings - Slate Magazine
Google's Anti-Competitive Behavior →
When I started this New York Times story about black hat SEO I was hoping that it would finally be the story I was hoping for that questioned whether Google’s practice of stomping down paid links…
Reactions →
I remember when I first saw the reactions bar on Buzzfeed I thought it was brilliant.
It’s such a simple idea, but it reflected something I had noticed in my own blogging for quite some time: People are often unsure of what to say in a comment and therefore chose to leave nothing at all. I’ve found over the years that the posts I find most interesting tend to have the fewest...
Dealing with Wikileaks (aka How Newspapers Work) →
Just got around to reading Bill Keller’s (editor of the New York Times) story on dealing with Wikileaks and it’s great. It’s a procedural story that really helps understand how a large organization like the Times deals with these sorts of things. I’ve always thought there was an opportunity for news organizations to write more of these kinds of stories and, while I might be...
“i’m wondering now what on earth could be less effective and more of a...”
– fuck you, scalpers. terminal 5 shows added. « lcd soundsystem
The Ad Game →
I have a lot of conversations about how most of the startup world doesn’t have a good enough understanding of the idiosyncrasies of the advertising industry. Nick Denton clearly doesn’t have the same problem. These two comments from an interview with Daily Front Row do a great job at summing up why things don’t work the way most people think they should.
First, on media...
Nothing's New →
Just go read Adam Gopnik’s New Yorker piece about the current commentary around the internet. He breaks the field of study into three buckets: Never-betters, better-nevers and ever-wassers.
The Never-Betters believe that we’re on the brink of a new utopia, where information will be free and democratic, news will be made from the bottom up, love will reign, and cookies will bake...
Era of White Noise →
Yesterday I went to a Social Media Week panel hosted by Barbarian Group on “Technologists as Publishers.” The whole thing was good, but what especially stuck out was a quote from Paul Berry, CTO of the Huffington Post (at least I think he’s the one who made this point). Anyway, he said we’re in an era of white noise content. I think it’s a super interesting thought....
The Social Network →
I’ve been having a lot of conversations about movies lately. Mostly I’m unimpressed by this year’s Oscar nominated films (though I haven’t seen all of them yet). The one I seem to disagree with the most people on is Social Network, which I essentially thought sounded more like a movie full of characters speaking like they’re written by Aaron Sorkin than speaking like...
Big White Box Problem →
I like this explanation of the value of new services like Quora:
As a blogger, you get good at this: finding inspiration from the things you observe elsewhere in the world and turning that into a unique and captivating blog post. Like getting good at anything, however, this takes time, effort and patience. Three things most people have very little of to dedicate to a pursuit like blogging. This...
