Why Not to Respond to Spam.

Am I evil because I laughed at this article on why not to respond to spam?

An Old and Favorite Poem.

I thought I had posted this once before, sometime, but I didn't see it when I looked. So, here's one of my favorite poems:

The Song of Quoodle

They haven't got no noses, The fallen sons of Eve; Even the smell of roses Is not what they supposes; But more than mind discloses And more than men believe. They haven't got no noses, They cannot even tell When door and darkness closes The park a Jew encloses, Where even the law of Moses Will let you steal a smell. The brilliant smell of water, The brave smell of a stone, The smell of dew and thunder, The old bones buried under, Are things in which they blunder And err, if left alone. The wind from winter forests, The scent of scentless flowers, The breath of brides' adorning, The smell of snare and warning, The smell of Sunday morning, God gave to us for ours * And Quoodle here discloses All things that Quoodle can, They haven't got no noses, They haven't got no noses, And goodness only knowses The Noselessness of Man. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

State of the Art: Collaborative Filtering and Recommendation Systems.

I am including verbatim an article from The New York Times that I think is interesting. I'm not just linking because a) Evil registration System and b) I'll want to be able to re-read this in a couple of months, after its been archived at NYT.

( Recommendation Systems )

The thing that I note is that Netflix is the only company pointed out as doing it at a reasonable competence level, and much of that is because they actively solicit feedback on how much someone enjoyed a purchase. They don't assume they must like that sort of thing because they bought it. Clearly, most companies are trying to get away with ultra-simplistic solutions to a complex problem, and it shows.

Scarey New US Legislation.

If someone wanted to publish a blog that just talked about Scary New US Legislation, one would have plenty of subject matter to write about, but this one in particular seems pernicious and evil on a number of levels. To put it simply, some Senator has (with RIAA backing, no doubt) tabled a bill that would make it illegal to use old technology or information in new ways. They keep noticing that there are new ways to use digital versions of analogue data, and they want to make that illegal.

Article is here.

Animal Personality

Here's a fascinating article from the New York Times about the new field of Animal Personality. This one I won't include in full because its WAAAY long.