Comments on Monologue of a Connoisseur of Superfluous Verbiage: Help me decorate my office and apartment

Bruce, re: camera. I guess you're just a bit toug...

2009-04-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Bruce, re: camera. I guess you're just a bit tougher on your cameras than I am. Maybe you should have gotten the one the pushy salesman at Fry's was trying to get you to buy. :)

I'm interested in whatever your final choice is.

Hyrum, I took the camera to China, wasn't thrilled...

2009-04-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hyrum, I took the camera to China, wasn't thrilled with its picture quality or build quality, so I returned it when I got home. I'm currently using a hand-me-down camera from my sister, but I need to get a real one before I climb Hood next month. I still haven't found one I love.

Jonathan, the reason I don't blog anymore is becau...

2009-04-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Jonathan, the reason I don't blog anymore is because my life is boring. Here's an update: I go to work, then I come home. Every day.

OK, it's slightly more exciting than that, but work and living in this area make it harder to go on crazy outdoor adventures.

Mr. Patater and Hyrum, I'll be posting a followup ...

2009-04-13T08:53:00.000-07:00

Mr. Patater and Hyrum, I'll be posting a followup blog entry in the future with the technical details of this thing—once the ranking algorithm is implemented.

I've implemented a trivial ranking algorithm already (using the metric of (times preferred / times shown), but there are several more sophisticated algorithms discussed in the literature. I'm going to implemented one that attempts to transitively order votes, while still being robust to noise and intransitivity in the data set. I wanted to get the data collection going in parallel to that implementation.

And yes, I'll be open sourcing it—or rather, them. I actually wrote two versions: the initial one that ran on pure Django on my web server, and a later version that ran on Google App Engine. Turns out my wimpy VPS couldn't take the stress of running a "big" Python app.

Two questions:
1) Did you write the software, a...

2009-04-13T07:03:00.000-07:00

Two questions:
1) Did you write the software, and if so 1a) are you open sourcing it?

2) How'd the camera you got last summer working out for you?

This is some pretty nifty software. I'm interested...

2009-04-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

This is some pretty nifty software. I'm interested in learning how this works technically. If I were to implement something like this, my first attempt would be to use bubble sort as the pairwise ranking algorithm. This is probably not the best algorithm for the job; I wonder where bubble sort's shortcomings are and what would make a better algorithm.

You have taken way cool pictures. They will look g...

2009-04-10T14:24:00.000-07:00

You have taken way cool pictures. They will look great! Do you realize how little you blog now? Is it because everything about your life is top secret now?

I added some logging so that next time something b...

2009-04-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

I added some logging so that next time something breaks, I'll get an email and be able to fix it.

I went through about ten photos before it said, "o...

2009-04-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

I went through about ten photos before it said, "oops, something broke." I had to vote for the picture of Erik with a berry or something on his thumb.