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Friday, February 21, 2003

And now for a short rant on filters...


Six or so months ago, a lot of attention was given to using Bayesian networks for filtering spam after Paul Graham posted this article, [A Plan For Spam] and it was linked to from slashdot. Inevitably, within hours or days there were dozens of new sourceforge projects devoted to Bayesian spam filters in different languages, APIs, etc., some with implementations and some with only daydreams.



I guess some of those guys don't get that this is statistical text classification. The idea here is that as you read mail, you have a "This is Junk" button that you hit when you see spam, over time the system collects information that helps it identify spam messages and it gets better and better at keeping you from seeing them in the first place.



Hi! I don't know about you, but I get mail other than spam too. Why aren't they using it for more than spam? Why don't they use it to identify flames from usenet, or receipts from online purchases, or work vs. personal email?
It's not a big step to take. It's no giant leap from IDing spam to IDing email that requires immediate attention. You would think someone but me had made it by now.
Geez. I guess that's why I make the big bucks.


2/21/2003 10:34:22 PM ] [  ]
      

                                                                     
      

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Billions and Billions served


I guess a few billion assault rifles just wasn't enough. Now there will be [Kalashnikov snowboards and energy drinks].

2/19/2003 03:34:07 PM ] [  ]
      

                                                                     
      

Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Since Chelle thinks I post only computer stuff...
Yes, I've been working on the Mailroom stuff.... the past few days coding like crazy to get Objective-C to talk to my Java classes. Since this is really poorly documented, I learned a lot and will post some notes and maybe a tutorial on how to do it soon.

Using Java in your Cocoa apps is spiffy. Suddenly a lot of useful stuff is at your fingertips, like JavaMail, etc. It does take some cleverness to do well though, and hopefully I'll be able to put up some notes to get people started on the right foot.

2/18/2003 12:50:17 AM ] [  ]
      

                                                                     
      

Monday, February 17, 2003

No box that fits...


Valentine's Day was pretty good.... Chelle and I went out to have Teppanyaki, reservations made in advance, thought we still had to wait over an hour once we got there. It was good stuff - the Chef, Jose, made it quite the experience, and we had a good time laughing at the sake-drunk people at our table.
And yes, I do like green tea ice cream.... mmmm...
Chelle tried lobster for the first time, and unlike the girl sitting next to us, knew that there wasn't a particular "side" to eat. She seemed to like it :)



After 2 days in a hotel it was nice to come home and see the ocean, even if I had to walk by someone peeing on the sidewalk on the way. She got me some cool stuff - Big Daddy and Ace Ventura on DVD, and plenty of Snickers Crunch and other assorted yummies.
She does continue to amaze me. sigh
I think it's safe to say that anything in life that you can easily fit into a category, genre, or put on your "action items list" probably isn't worth your attention in the first place, people and relationships included. Thankfully, what we have together is something that just doesn't fit in a nice neat little box like that.
And we like it that way.


2/17/2003 07:01:58 PM ] [  ]
      

    
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