tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-113692672011-11-27T16:11:46.231-08:00andu's fundae. The views expressed herein are entirely my own, and my employer is not responsible for them in any way.fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.comBlogger441100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-80541786756778285782009-12-24T10:44:00.001-08:002009-12-31T12:19:41.366-08:00

I looked for literature for computing the shortest snippet of a matched document for a search result containing multiple terms, but didn't find anything pedagogical. The closest I came was the getBestFrament method in the Highlighter class of the Lucene source distribution.So I set about trying to come up with a way to compute it. This is what I got (so far):If we have three sorted inverted

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-22631762120099550452009-10-07T14:33:00.001-07:002009-10-07T14:33:57.307-07:00

I just realized that I've read Google literature on storing and searching web pages, but not on storing and searching (or otherwise analyzing) searches (user search phrases)?What do they do here? Do they use the same technologies as for pages? Store it in BigTable? Analyze it using MapReduce? Do they compute a "SearchRank", i.e. the rank of a page based on how often it is clicked when

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-23927785016724893172009-05-19T11:04:00.000-07:002009-05-19T11:04:30.217-07:00

I wanted to dispatch calls to other functions within my script, but couldn't figure out what object to pass as argument to getattr. Turns out __name__ is the name of my module, and I can look up a reference in sys.modules.Handy!REF: getattr on a function - comp.lang.python | Google Groups

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-8141907188322565482009-02-01T14:40:00.000-08:002009-02-01T14:40:07.728-08:00

Nvidia Nabs a Top Scientist From Stanford - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com:"Since 2005, Mr. Dally has served as the chairman of Stanford’s vaunted computer science department. More crucially for Nvidia’s immediate aims, Mr. Dally has done extensive research into “stream processing,” which is a form of computing gaining momentum with both scientists and businesses.The stream processing model helps spread

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-14833863929790634792009-01-28T19:44:00.000-08:002009-01-28T19:44:28.899-08:00

What Red Ink? Wall St. Paid Fat Bonuses - NYTimes.com"Despite crippling losses, multibillion-dollar bailouts and the passing of some of the most prominent names in the business, employees at financial companies in New York, the now-diminished world capital of capital, collected an estimated $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year.That was the sixth-largest haul on record, according to a report

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-69715293818431060732009-01-22T18:04:00.000-08:002009-01-22T18:05:33.430-08:00

The Famous Fingers Were Live, but Their Sound Was Recorded at the Inauguration - NYTimes.com: "“It’s not something we would announce, but it’s not something we would try to hide,” Ms. Florman said. “Frankly, it would never have occurred to me to announce it. The fact they were forced to perform to tape because of the weather did not seem relevant, nor would we want to draw attention away from

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-60616808239467160482009-01-22T12:53:00.000-08:002009-01-22T12:54:10.282-08:00

Bush Approves Bill Reducing Secretary of State’s Pay - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Bush signed a bill reducing by several thousand dollars the salary of the secretary of state. It was a crucial step in Mrs. Clinton’s confirmation process because of a clause in the Constitution that forbids a member of Congress from being appointed to a government position which was either created or given

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-89674272618223306922009-01-17T13:37:00.000-08:002009-01-17T13:37:57.725-08:00

An Online Farmers Market - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com: "The local food movement has been all about buying seasonal food from nearby farmers. Now, thanks to the Web, it is expanding to include far-away farmers too."Not really. They don't sell produce. Mostly preserved stuff.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-23415630508060823692009-01-07T13:13:00.000-08:002009-01-07T23:02:53.808-08:00

Fraud Rocks Satyam as Chairman Resigns - WSJ.com: "B. Ramalinga Raju, founder and chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd. -- 'satyam' means truth in Sanskrit -- said in a letter of resignation that he also overstated profits for the past several years, overstated the amount of debt owed to the company and understated its liabilities. Eventually, he said, the scheme reached 'simply unmanageable

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-47054622518131671152008-12-27T08:56:00.000-08:002008-12-27T08:56:55.100-08:00

Professional Sports Is Very Interesting | The Onion - America's Finest News Source: "Whenever a ball is hit, put into a hoop, or carried to a particular point of significance, my mind instantly races to consider all of the action's possible ramifications: 'How will this affect future hittings, throwings, and carryings of other, different balls?' I wonder to myself. What a joy it is to closely

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-53159639672216433772008-12-26T16:04:00.000-08:002008-12-26T16:04:02.986-08:00

YouTube - Johnny Lee: Wii Remote hacks: "Johnny Lee demos his amazing Wii Remote hacks, which transform the $40 game piece into a digital whiteboard, a touchscreen and a head-mounted 3-D viewer. A multi-ovation demo from TED2008."

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-4217400502151375142008-12-25T23:56:00.000-08:002008-12-25T23:56:52.389-08:00

Op-Ed Columnist - Time to Reboot America - NYTimes.com: "These rocket scientists and engineers were designing complex financial instruments to make money out of money — rather than designing cars, phones, computers, teaching tools, Internet programs and medical equipment that could improve the lives and productivity of millions."

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-60963821748972325082008-12-10T21:40:00.000-08:002008-12-10T21:40:18.701-08:00

Another great article: Annals of Culture: Late Bloomers: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell.Really liked the democratization of genius in the premise that a large class of them has to slog as hard and long as the rest of us.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-61192134060091242802008-12-10T21:22:00.000-08:002008-12-10T21:32:59.843-08:00

Just finished reading this article: Annals of Innovation: In the Air: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker .My two takeaways are:1. Malcolm Gladwell is a great writer. This is the first piece of his that I've read, and I like many things about it. I particularly liked the subject, the distinction between invention in art and science/technology, that the former is a unique, one-time thing while the

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-58538241898316445062008-06-01T23:55:00.000-07:002008-06-02T00:13:27.883-07:00

Discovering Philip Wadler and his work has piqued my interest in functional programming languages. I was surprised I hadn't heard about him given his hand in XQuery and Java generics.His latest project, Links seems very interesting with its promise of write-once, run-in-all-three-tiers.Given that its implemented in Objective Caml, I thought that would be a good way to start learning about

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-14188626315882643492007-12-27T21:32:00.000-08:002007-12-28T10:26:12.992-08:00

I'd heard about Guice being a Dependency Injection framework, and was curious to see how it differed from Spring.One big difference seems to be that Guice, being Java code (plus annotations) is strongly typed. It can check dependencies at compile-time.Bob Lee also mentions that ease of testing is a big motivator for Guice. I wonder how that limits Guice vs. Spring, for example.The talk also

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-63142412629845112382007-12-16T09:53:00.000-08:002007-12-16T09:59:41.794-08:00

I don't read book reviews a whole lot before buying them. I check to see if the book made it on a decent list, like a NYT or WSJ review, and whether I care about the subject.But, I happened to read this review today. I don't think I care about the book, but I've discovered P.J. O'Rourke. One choice gem:Clark talks a lot about the determination, drive and persistence of the Starbucks Corporation.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-63571806491926312882007-12-13T10:28:00.000-08:002007-12-15T15:02:59.512-08:00

For the past few years, wireless networking came with the promise of being untethered by wires. You could sit in a cafe and work on your LAN. Wireless sensor motes could be scattered in a forest or on the ocean, and would faithfully transmit data. Intel even ran some ads a few years back, where a user would be working on a Centrino-equipped laptop in the middle of a nice, green lawn.And I would

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-30089791733277066142007-08-29T15:38:00.000-07:002007-08-29T15:38:01.833-07:00

This is one of the most accessible explanations of closures (in Javascript, specifically) that I've read.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-54763533001772961252007-02-13T12:05:00.000-08:002007-02-14T09:51:25.329-08:00

I used to think of web service orchestration as (UNIX-like) pipes for the web, where the output of one operation can be fed as the input to the next one. So I was surprised to stumble across Yahoo Pipes. It's an RSS data (for now) processing and transformation service. It would be more interesting to able to wire together arbitrary web services (they do mention that's coming), but this might be

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-44785592218290108652007-01-21T22:06:00.000-08:002007-01-21T22:21:30.811-08:00

I just joined the OpenInfoCard project; quite excited about it. It's a CardSpace selector plug-in for Firefox. Once Vista starts rolling out and people start playing with CardSpace on IE7, maybe they'll playing with CardSpace selectors on the other browser, and the other other browser.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-76276774255666701522006-11-14T16:52:00.000-08:002006-11-15T07:51:22.776-08:00

While playing with Backpack, I came across this posting on caching RSS feeds on Backpack. It turns out that Squeet serves up items from your RSS feeds into your in-box at a pre-designated time. It also gives you the ability to pause and resume feed delivery.Squeet also lets you import your favorite RSS subscriptions as an OPML file. Stoked at this discovery, I exported my Google Reader feeds as

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-75387156652864974632006-11-10T15:23:00.001-08:002006-11-10T16:32:56.469-08:00

I spent some time looking at the .Mac last night, and was pondering the value of a move from Google's multi-machine Desktop Search, Calendar, and possibly, even Reader to a combination of Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack from 37Signals' suite and, iDisk, Sync and Backup from the iMac suite. So it's funny that I came across this posting today, which discusses the mechanics of the reverse move.If we

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1163031262465430542006-11-08T16:14:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:42.489-08:00

I don't understand how Google makes so much money from ads.I've spent at least 10-12 hrs a day, connected to the web, for work and play, say for the past 10 years, and I must've clicked on a sponsored ad, a handful of times..that's less than 10 ads in the past 10 years. Of course, this obviously also includes previous incarnations of relevant ads like DoubleClick's and Overture's.So where are all

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1163030376359319062006-11-08T15:59:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:42.416-08:00

It struck me the other day that certain Google products I use reminded me of some other products out there, except that the Google ones were just a tad off, either in features or look-and-feel. OS X's Dashboard widgets look more polished than Google Desktop Gadgets, and 37Signal's Backpack looks better and does more than Google Calendar. Given that both Blogger and Google Maps (or YouTube, for

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1163026416353582062006-11-08T14:53:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:51:04.931-08:00

A little while after Apple announced the first MacBook Pro Duos , an inventory of pre-configured MacBooks arrived on Amazon, and was cleared up in double-quick time. Just as that happened, upgrades to the new MacBook Pros were announced .Lucky for me that I procrastinated on the previous lot, because a new lot showed up on Amazon. I did go ahead and order one last night, which should get to me

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158863337177793832006-09-21T11:28:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:42.270-08:00

I've been reading this lately: Amazon.com: When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management: Books: Roger Lowenstein. As impressive as the actual story, is how Roger Lowenstein managed to put together the entire book in a year or two, and write such a compelling narrative about it, capturing both the technical (at least to me) and the emotional aspects of it. Fascinating..

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158749556281210122006-09-20T03:52:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:42.194-08:00

Came across this: Authenticated and private feed, the other day. Building authentication, authorization and security into the feed reader is one way to go. But, this effort would have to be replicated across all the feed platforms out there.A better way would be to leave these platforms to do one thing well, and push the aforementioned functionality into a web services intermediary, like SOA

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158589232956645432006-09-18T07:20:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:42.129-08:00

Technology News: Portals & Search: Google Founders Start For-Profit PhilanthropyAlways thought "for-profit philanthropy" was an oxymoron before this.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158556892701869342006-09-17T22:21:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:42.062-08:00

BEA, HP tout SOA capabilities with repository, services | InfoWorld | News | 2006-09-17 | By Paul KrillInteresting news! Hadn't heard of XPDL before this. Was wondering how it compared to BPEL, when I came across this

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158492980926758412006-09-17T04:36:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.968-08:00

YouTube - Lost Apple iPod IntroductionThis is a great video. Hadn't seen it earlier.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158467909234923812006-09-16T21:38:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.883-08:00

Who Is Jonathan Ive?Interesting article on the man behind Apple design.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158261622105005672006-09-14T12:20:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.777-08:00

Google Book Search: Celebrate Your Freedom to ReadAh!.. illicit books. One gets the feeling that they can't be that bad for you. More like "free speech" than "free beer".Some of the books on this list surprise me, probably because I'm unaware of the context under which they were banned. Race and war seem to be a couple of them, on a cursory glance.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158186035037969882006-09-13T15:05:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.649-08:00

Been playing with Apache's XMLBeans lately. It's a impressive tool. Beats having to traverse the schema document tree.SchemaType and SchemaParticle are well thought out, and simple enough to use once you get the hang of them. XmlOptions, on the other hand, are a bit more mysterious, especially regarding how they deal with external schema references, and imported schemata.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158116272615190582006-09-12T19:57:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.541-08:00

This Microsoft Open Specification Promise looks very generous on first glance, but isn't this kind of the point of a specification, that a common interface has been decided upon, in order to encourage all the interested parties to talk a common vocabulary?

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1158108802952702072006-09-12T17:53:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.413-08:00

Harvard Ends Early Admission - New York TimesThis is bound to make prep schools unhappy, If other Ivy League schools follow Harvard's lead, wonder if that'll make prep schools and other elite private schools less exclusive, given that building and maintaing a robust early admissions pipeline is one of the core competencies of such schools.

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1145564077887008022006-04-20T13:14:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.268-08:00

This is insane!WITHOUT YOU LIMIT 1 - BY ZUBI - PARKOUR AND TRICKS - Google Video

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1145555922711775202006-04-20T10:58:00.000-07:002006-11-10T10:46:41.199-08:00

Super size this!David Weiss: A Tour of Microsoft's Mac Lab

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1142871667056976042006-03-20T08:21:00.001-08:002006-11-10T10:46:41.114-08:00

Need to get into this .NET thingy! Writing a file transfer (and backup) utility seems a fun way to get into it.BITS: Write Auto-Updating Apps with .NET and the Background Intelligent Transfer Service API -- MSDN Magazine, February 2003

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1142287368732721142006-03-13T14:02:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:40.953-08:00

Guardian Unlimited Sport | Cricket | Cricket: India to become new powerhouse"...Superpowers have a habit of demanding their own way and Indian cricket is a superpower, responsible for about two-thirds of the game's revenue...""... But does India recognise the social responsibility that comes with its burgeoning economic power?"Beg your pardon, Mr. Hopps! We do quite recall the sterling example

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1141619790806148182006-03-05T20:36:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:40.850-08:00

How Harvard lost RussiaCan't believe this story flew under my radar!

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1141061723170982112006-02-27T09:25:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:40.760-08:00

If Bode Miller just wanted to rock in Turin, why didn't he do it on his own time and money, or is this an excuse for choking under pressure?http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/torino2006/alpine_skiing/news?slug=ap-ski-jimlitke&prov=ap&type=lgns

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1141060083913071692006-02-27T09:04:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:40.693-08:00

I wonder if the Google Page Creator is a wrapper around blogger.com? If so, why not combine the two? What is the rationale for having a separate home page namespace (and infrastructure)?

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11369267.post-1137436250424992882006-01-16T10:27:00.000-08:002006-11-10T10:46:40.632-08:00

MIT OpenCourseWare has videos of Prof. Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra class (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematics/18-06Spring-2005/VideoLectures/index.htm). That just rocks!

fundouhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00034522420527031480noreply@blogger.com1