Screenshot: A Weblog

Feeding America is a collection of historic American cookbooks, a section of the Michigan State University's wider collection of historic cookbooks. Their website includes images of the page scans as well as text versions and downloadable pdf reproductions of the cookbooks. While the collection is of cookbooks, the content of these books is more than just recipes. There is also content about the knowledge of that time about how to prevent or treat illnesses, and on homemaking topics in general. For an example, check out The Frugal Housewife published in 1830. Also interesting is Hotel Keepers, Head Waiters, and Housekeepers' Guide, which is described as the "second major Black-authored culinary work in America". I'd highly recommend even just browsing the introductions written to accompany each text, highlighting its historical significance, or watch their video tour of the collection.

Posted by Amanda at 12:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I am in awe of this LEGO Technic Difference Engine, a scaled down but fully functional version of Babbage's Difference Engine built entirely out of LEGO. Besides being an amazing feat of LEGO engineering, the web page itself has a great description of the Difference Engine and how it computes. Absolutely wonderful!

Posted by Amanda at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A faithful reader mailed me the photo below last night, demonstrating the perfect merging of Pittsburgh's fanaticism about the Steelers and Pittsburgh's utter lack of interest in helping people get around the city who do not already know what they are doing. Be assured, this is not an off-duty bus, and the over-door route number signs have been replaced with the same message. I'm not sure if this exceeds the insanity of Washington, er, that is, Steeler, PA (damn - was I supposed to change my business cards?). Flipping channels last night, an advertisement showing that a local channel's entire news team has relocated to Detriot for the week was followed by a story opening with the solumn statement "Ben Rothlesberger likes milk." Frankly, it seems that the entire region has shut down for the weekend; I'm a bit frightened to see what my class turnout looks like Monday morning....

Posted by Amanda at 4:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have been using the personalized on-line radio service Pandora for the past few weeks and enjoying it, but only heard about Last.fm while reading this wonderful weblog post contrasting the recommendation algorithms behind the two systems. The post as a whole is a great read, but I particularly like its discussion of how context is relevant to selecting the superior technology. I would love to see a study that actually considered whether a collaborative filter or an attribute analysis approach was more effective in the context of music. Anecdotally, I'm going to try Last.fm out for a week or two and see what seems to work better for me. Krause found that for him, Last.fm was better, but suggested that Pandora holds more promise for incorporating some of the advantages of Last.fm and continuing to improve.

Of course, Krause makes the key point early in his post: "better algorithms are nice, but better data is nicer". For music recommendations, the system that heppens to know more about the music you happen to like will probably be the best system for you.

Posted by Amanda at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)