August 2005 – Screenshot

A Star Is Biased

In another example of being late to the game, I started playing around with iTunes over the summer, and finally started rating some songs to improve my use of iTunes Party Shuffle. Just in time, Slashdot points to this neat statistical analysis of using rated Party Shuffle versus random Party Shuffle. Besides doing a nice experiment to measure the bias that rated shuffle has towards each star level, there’s also a nice mathematical justification for why you may hear fewer 5-stars than 3-stars and even the occasional repeated song. I was surprised that unrated songs, on rated shuffle, only come … Continue reading A Star Is Biased

Joining the 21st Century

By AMH

I’ve decided at long last that this whole weblog-publishing software thing probably isn’t a fad and got myself a software tool to manage Screenshot. I decided to go with Moveable Type, because if I can’t use vi anymore to write my entries, at least I can have crazy CSS style sheets and perl scripts to wrangle on my own server. For now, only the past three months worth of archives are imported, but I’ll be continuing to suck them in over the coming days and weeks (or months, depending on how quickly the semester catches up with me and how … Continue reading Joining the 21st Century

Eggcorns

By AMH

The Eggcorn Database is a really fun resource – I’d particularly recommend it to students trying to improve their writing or writing instructors, but I suspect that everyone is guilty of one of the confusions on the list. In a nutshell, an eggcorn is a word which is frequently used in place of the correct word, usually in the context of a set phrase, for example: “veil of tears” instead of “vale of tears” or “do to the fact” instead of “due to the fact”. I agree with Bitch Ph.D. (where I found the link) that these confusions could probably … Continue reading Eggcorns

Lego Lawyers

By AMH

I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes from laughing at the Hearsay Exception video, spoofing the Schoolhouse Rock video about interjections, and filmed using Lego characters. It’s seriously the funniest thing I’ve seen on the internet in a long time.

2005 Turing Lecture

By AMH

Mark your calendars and warm up the cable modem, the ACM Turing Award Lecture will be webcast live from 6:00 – 7:30 PM EDT. The 2004 recipients of the award, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, will be speaking on Assessing the Internet: Lessons Learned, Strategies for Evolution, and Future Possibilities. I know it’s just what I’ll be looking for after an all-day faculty meeting and less than 48 hours until my first class of the semester!

Magnetic Mischief

By AMH

To all appearances, the “credit card” to the left might appear to be your run of the mill fake card that companies put in their mailings all the time. But American Express has reached new lows – what you are seeing there is not just a phony card, but it is in fact a magnet designed to look like a credit card. One wonders what marketing genius decided to promote their product with exactly the item that destroys their product. Or perhaps they’re hoping for a little industrial sabotage against their competitors already in your wallet….