There are only a small number of sites in the world that require truly tremendous scale. Usually, this is referred to as “web scale”, and describes a site where the data is user-generated and highly dynamic. Among the first that come to mind are Facebook, Digg, MySpace and the like. ..
I’ve come to really enjoy using the “var” keyword in C#. Although it’s been written about many times, I want to clarify what it is. ..
Oh right…bollocks. This report seems to be circulating that “Braidwood”, Intel’s inexpensive flash-memory-disk-cache-helper-outer, will somehow negate demand for full-blown SSDs (solid-state drives). ..
I am one of the many people who have fallen in love with jQuery over the past year or two. I haven’t seen it articulated why this might be, so here’s my stab at it. ..
Alright, today’s geek question relates to branding: Which company trademarked the brand name “Heroin”? ..
Chris Dixon points out that the challenge in “artificial intelligence” — which in a mainstream definition would be “making computers learn like humans” — is not so much the cleverness of the algorithm but in finding useful data. He cites the Google example where the breakthrough was realizing that links are a good (and previously untapped) source of data on what people think is a relevant web page. Modern AI algorithms are very powerful, but the reality is there are thousands of programmers/researchers who can implement them with about the same level of success. The Netflix Challenge demonstrated that a massive, world-wide effort only improves on an in-house algorithm by approximately 10%. […] It’s relatively easy to build systems that are right 80% of the time, but very hard to go beyond that. ..
Tech blogging shall resume shortly. So, it was 90+ degrees in NY and I went for a run. I’ve never perspired that much in my life. On the walk back to where I was staying, I stopped in a barber shop and said “how much to take it off”? ..
OK, I might or might not give out a prize like last time. Times are tight, y’know. Impress me and we’ll see. The question is: ..
In a few years this will seem quaint, but I am posting this from 30,000 feet. Gogo wi-fi on Virgin America, it actually seems to work. ..
Microsoft announced pricing for its upcoming Zune HD today, coming around 25% below the prices of equivalent iPod Touches. I wondered if Microsoft is making any money at such prices — after all, it’s based on a fancy new chip and has other nice specs. ..