sanspeak - Slashdot User

Submission + - Metrics Mania & the countless counting problem (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

mobkarma

on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @05:21AM

mobkarma writes: "Einstein said once “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” This NYTimes article titled 'Metric Mania' suggests that unless we know how things are counted, we don't know if it's wise to count on the numbers. The problem isn(TM)t with statistical tests themselves but with what we do before and after we run them. If a person starts drinking day in and day out after a cancer diagnosis and dies from acute cirrhosis, did he kill himself? The answers to such questions significantly affect the count."

Submission + - On Social Networks You Are 'Who You know'

Submitted by

santosh maharshi

on Friday March 12, 2010 @04:21AM

santosh maharshi writes: "On social networks like Facebook even if you have kept your profile very very private, people can just look at your friends list and get lots of vital information about you. Most of the social networks like Facebook & LinkedIn allow people to see your pic and friends list as part of the open access for visitors. In a study "You Are Who You Know:Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks" [PDF], conducted by Alan Mislove of Northeastern University and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems an algorithm was tested that could accurately infer the personal attributes of Facebook users by simply looking at their friend lists. The results show that certain user attributes can be inferred with high accuracy when given information on as little as 20% of the users."

Submission + - It's time take internet seriously, says David G (edge.org)

Submitted by

santosh maharshi

on Sunday March 07, 2010 @11:11AM

santosh maharshi writes: "David Gelernter recommends on Edge.org that it's "Time to start taking the Internet Seriously". It's an introduction to the concept of algorithmic culture. To get it, you need to be part of it, you need to come out of it. Otherwise, you spend the rest of your life dancing to the tune of other people's code. Just look at Europe where the idea of competition in the Internet space appears to focus on litigation, legislation, regulation, and criminalization. You might want to take David seriously as David had previously predicted the Web, and who first presented the idea of "the cloud". He is also the professor of computer science at Yale and chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies (New Haven)"

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