Search Poobahs and Numerical Analysis
June 24, 2013
I read a fascinating article called “Plants ‘Do Maths’ to Control Overnight Food Supplies.” Now I used to think the BBC was a “real” journalism outfit. I have some anecdotal evidence that the outfit has wandered a bit, but I don’t know what journalism is, and I can’t tell the difference between a Jimmy Savile and Savile Row. The article asserted:
Plants have a built-in capacity to do maths, which helps them regulate food reserves at night, research suggests. UK scientists say they were “amazed” to find an example of such a sophisticated arithmetic calculation in biology.
Let’s assume that a Rhododendron or an upscale orchid can calculate. What about humans and “real” journalists?
I noted this interesting write up: “Duck Duck Go’s Post-PRISM Growth Actually Proves No One Cares About “Private” Search.” The main point in my view is that traffic increases have nothing to do with the privacy concerns zooming around like migrating geese.
Here’s a passage I noted:
Over the past few weeks, I’ve done several press interviews about Duck Duck Go, where the the issue of whether it can beat Google by being more “private” has come up. My answer has consistently been “no,” because that’s been the experience of search engines before that have tried this. I can imagine some on Reddit or Hacker News or elsewhere arguing about how this time, it’s different. This time, with all the NSA allegations, privacy is front and center. This is the right time for a private search engine to emerge. I doubt it. Having covered the search engine space for 17 years now, having seen the privacy flare-ups come-and-go, I’d be very surprised if this time, it’s somehow going to cause more change than in the past.
My question, “What would a daffodil or sweet pea make of the data analysis?”
Why not Google it? Seed pod closed. Bees dead. Move on.
Stephen E Arnold
Visual Search Presents a Challenge for People and Computers
June 24, 2013
We found a recent Science Daily article, “Visual Search Function: Where Scene Context Happens in Our Brain,“ to be pretty fascinating. We might write a lot about how search works as far as computers process search but another interesting perspective lies in the investigation of how search happens through our eyes and with the power of our brain behind it.
The brain, since the beginnings of human evolution, has developed a framework for search based mostly on context such as the surrounding environment and scene context.
According to the article, scene context creates a strong bias in search. In one study discussed, many people that were shown images of something that looked like a computer mouse on a desk automatically interpreted the object as a mouse.
Computers are only recently being taught such a skill set found in the area of our brains known as the lateral occipital complex:
‘So, if you’re looking for a computer mouse on a cluttered desk, a machine would be looking for things shaped like a mouse. It might find it, but it might see other objects of similar shape, and classify that as a mouse,’ [Miguel Eckstein, professor in UC Santa Barbara’s Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences] said. Computer vision systems might also not associate their target with specific locations or other objects. So, to a machine, the floor is just as likely a place for a mouse as a desk.
Sure, text search remains a work in progress. But why not go ahead and take on a challenge with visual search?
Megan Feil, June 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Google Sheds Light on Need for UK Tax Reform
June 24, 2013
Whether or not Google is avoiding taxes, there are not many media sources that are avoiding coverage of this story. The Mirror article, “Google Boss Goes to Ground as Whistleblower Makes New Tax Avoidance Claims,” reveals more information.
British MP’s branded Google as “devious, unethical and evil” and then ex-Google executive Barney Jones claimed that the firm had “cheated” taxpayers out of millions of dollars over the past ten years.
The Telegraph reports the words of Google’s Eric Schmidt as he wrote in a Sunday newspaper in “Google Chief Eric Schmidt Criticises Politicians Over Tax Row”:
“Given the intensity of the debate, not just in the UK but also in America and elsewhere, international tax law could almost certainly benefit from reform. The UK government has the perfect opportunity to take the lead in shaping this complex debate at the G8 summit next month. We hope George Osborne seizes the initiative and makes meaningful tax reform one of the top items on the agenda.”
If everyone agrees that the laws need to undergo tax reform (which appears to be the case) let’s see some more action towards making that happen.
Megan Feil, June 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
HP Still Facing Troubled Times
June 24, 2013
The TV show The Office appears as a motif for being constantly plagued in Yahoo Finance’s recent article on Hewlett-Packard. Appropriately, the article is titled “’The Office’ of CEO: HP’s Revolving Door.” The focus of the article lies on what the author of this piece calls the historic waste and dysfunction. Needless to say, this is an area where comparisons to the popular NBC sitcom are brought up.
HP has has six CEOs since 2005, and that is not counting interim CEOs. However, the article credits the current CEO, Meg Whitman, as bringing more stability to the company.
The Autonomy acquisition did not escape the wrath of this commentary:
“Most recently the company was embarrassed to reveal an estimated $8.8 billion write-down for a botched acquisition for British software company Autonomy, a deal that took place in 2011. Unlike any other company over the past decade, Hewlett-Packard has not been able to get out of its own way. Accordingly, the office of the CEO has had a revolving door. “
While it seems like just yesterday that many in the media were “Making Sense of HP’s Autonomy Acquisition,” the jury seems to have called it now and “HP’s Autonomy Blunder Might Be One for the Record Books.”
Megan Feil, June 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
LucidWorks Sponsors Hadoop Summit
June 24, 2013
LucidWorks continues their round of open source developer support and training during this conference season. Their next appearance is at the Hadoop Summit to take place in San Jose on June 26th and 27th.
Read about LucidWorks and their relationship with Hadoop on the Hadoop Summit Sponsors page:
“LucidWorks, the trusted name in Search, Discovery and Analytics, transforms the way people access information to enable data-driven decisions. Leveraging technology built on Apache Lucene/Solr open source search, LucidWorks delivers unmatched stability, scalability, and time-to-delivery for search applications. LucidWorks Search provides ease of use development to access documents with sub-second query and faceting response time. LucidWorks Big Data tightly integrates Apache projects to build and deploy applications providing ubiquitous access to data trapped inside Hadoop.”
LucidWorks is a longstanding supporter of the open source developer community. Their architecture is built on Apache Lucene Solr, but as Big Data continues to expand, partnerships are of growing importance. The massive storage capability of Hadoop pairs well with LucidWorks’ master of Solr search. It is a proven winning combination for customers of either LucidWorks solution.
Emily Rae Aldridge, June 24, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Beyond Search
Search and Content Processing Vendors: Me Too, Me Too
June 23, 2013
We just finished updating a broken Twitter function on the core Overflight system. We will add the fix to the text mining and taxonomy services early next week. Ah, we love Twitter.
In the course of working through the list of companies in Overflight, one of the goslings (pictured below) shared several observations with me. Here they are, and I present them for your intellectual stimulation. Remember. Verify observations, a step which is wise whether the big gosling (me) or a smaller gosling (programmers) generate.
An ArnoldIT-Xenky gosling at rest.
1. Webinars, Webinars, Webinars
According to the coding gosling, most search and content processing vendors are doing webinars. These come in several varieties, like roses I suppose. There is the “sign up and watch” version. There is the “catch us on YouTube or other video hosting service” type. There is the “audio only” either on an existing podcast show like Software Engineering Radio or the company’s tie up with a for fee out.
Is there webinar fatigue? On the part of the company trying to sell software licenses, webinars are apparently an adrenaline-charged sales opportunity. On the attendee side, I know I have webinar fatigue. But webinars won’t be going away any time soon. The cost of in person sales calls, traditional trade shows, and more deep thinking type of marketing are just not compatible with today’s go-go management time allocation calculus. Heck, shooting the breeze with PowerPoints or Keynote slides as visual hooks is a pretty low cost way to get the word out.
Do webinars sell? We have only anecdotal information, but we definitely have first hand experience with sign ups beginning at a good sized number and then after 15 minutes dwindling down to a hearty few nectar sippers.
2. Blogs
Most search and content processing companies have blogs. The problem, according to the goslings, is that most of these blogs are updated on an infrequent and/or irregular basis. The idea of a blog is so easy to conceptualize. Publishing content every day in a consistent, high-value manner. Well, that’s just not something whizzy high technology search and content processing firms embrace.
Use Rapportive Mailtester and Connect to Track Down Any Email Address
June 23, 2013
The article titled The Art of Finding Anyone’s Email Address on Life After Cubes direct all would be spammers to several helpful tools. Three sites mentioned are Rapportive.com, Mailtester.com and Connect.Data.com, which are used to track down social media profiles, test e-mail addresses for legitimacy and search through a massive online directory, respectively. The article explains the early steps, beginning with finding the contact,
“For this example, let’s say I find Raymond Stuoper, who is the Senior Director of Technology Partnerships (real title, fake person)… Rapportive integrates directly into Gmail and not only gives you social media information about people who email you, but it also tells you social media information about people you’re emailing. You can type in any email address and Rapportive will look for social media accounts associated with that address. If it finds one, you know the email address is correct.”
It goes on with mailtester, checking different versions to see if they work. If neither of these options is successful, Connect is available. There you can “buy” the contact’s business card (with the name, phone number and email address) with their points system. We hope all PR honchettes are perking up their ears at these tips for adding to their already sagging address books.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 23, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
VCs Vs Entrepeneurs: From Both Sides of the Phone Call
June 22, 2013
Two sparring articles were written on the subject of the relationship between entrepreneurs and Venture Capitalists (VCs), the first of which cajoles VCs and portrays them as lazy and overweening, titled Dear Dumb VC on Andy Dunn. Dunn claims that VC’s fail to recognize the necessity for the autonomy of entrepreneurs, offering advice and taking too long to decide whether to invest. The article As Populist as it May Feel, 98% of VCs Aren’t Dumb on Both Sides of The Table responds thoughtfully to the previous post. The author states,
“My view … it is my job to be a sparring partner. I want to challenge the founders view. Why? Because being an entrepreneur is a lonely job. You have to make tough decisions with few inputs and little history from which to base your decisions. CEOs can rarely express their uncertainty and doubt to others. So the VC’s job is to challenge. Cajole. Debate. Offer contrasting views. Play Devil’s Advocate. And then step back.”
Obviously, on some issues the two come to agreement, like the subject of using the product at hand. Not experiencing what you are investing in is, both articles find, foolish. But one point that wasn’t touched on was cleverness of investors who pump millions upon millions into companies with aging technology. Real sharp.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 22, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
Search System Tutorial Simplifies Deep Learning
June 21, 2013
In the Wikipedia UFLDL Tutorial, you can learn the basics of Unsupervised Feature Learning and Deep Learning. Of course the tutorial is meant for those who already have some understanding of machine learning (if you need and even more basic approach, you can visit the Machine Learning Course to catch up on supervised learning, logistics regression and gradient descent). The tutorial covers Sparse Autoencoder, Vectorized implementation, Preprocessing: PCA and Whitening as well as Softmax Regression and Building Deep Networks. One exercise for Self-Taught Learning states,
“In this exercise, we will use the self-taught learning paradigm with the sparse autoencoder and softmax classifier to build a classifier for handwritten digits.You will be building upon your code from the earlier exercises. First, you will train your sparse autoencoder on an “unlabeled” training dataset of handwritten digits. This produces feature that are pen stroke-like…These features will then be used as inputs to the softmax classifier that you wrote in the previous exercise.”
The tutorial walks you through each step with a number of examples and exercises, turning what might be fairly expected to be a complicated process into a veritable textbook- streamlined, straightforward and easy to understand. It turns out search systems can be very simple when automated and partially automated learning are implemented.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
As Different Types of Thinkers Emerge Collaboration Is Key
June 21, 2013
The article titled How an Entirely New, Autistic Way of Thinking Powers Silicon Valley on Wired discusses the possibility of a new way of thinking. “Pattern thinkers”, those who think in patterns, whether consciously or unconsciously, are separated from “picture thinkers”, who are more aware of aesthetics. The article cites such famous examples from history as Van Gogh, whose paintings of the stormy night sky matches the formula later discovered for turbulence in liquid and Jackson Pollock, whose abstract painting style involved flinging streaks of paint onto massive canvases which were later found to be coherent fractal patterns. The article explains,
“Michael Shermer, a psychologist, historian of science, and professional skeptic – he founded Skepticmagazine — called this property of the human mind patternicity. He defined patternicity as “the tendency to find meaningful patterns in both meaningful and meaningless data.” …The three kinds of minds — visual, verbal, pattern thinkers — naturally complement one another. When I recall collaborations in which I’ve successfully participated, I can see how different kinds of thinkers worked together to create a product that was greater than the sum of its parts.”
The article argues that it is finding the balance of these three types that has made for the great innovations, such as Pixar– and the lack of balance that has spelled out disaster for other projects, (the article cites the IPhone 4 antennae). We are not sure if this is a positive or a negative approach.
Chelsea Kerwin, June 21, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext.
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