Anybody notice that if you are logged into Google, you have an option to permanently remove results from search?
February 26, 2006
Blogsnow
I noticed blogsnow.com was indexing my site. It’s a real-time tracker that indexes blogs, much like blogdex.com. Although it has a few nice other features for example:
- Backlinks
- Most clicked
- Most linked Flash
- Most linked flickr
- Most linked to Google Maps
- Most linked to IMDB entries
- Most linked to Quicktime Videos
- Most linked to Wikipedia Entries
- Most linked to Windows Media Files
And it’s truly real-time. Every time you reload, the links change a litte. Very nice.
February 25, 2006
Compulsory Licensing
Compulsory licensing refers to a situation where a party is legally required to grant license over (intellectual) property to another party. While this notion is generally absent from United States Patent Law, it does exist in other countries. For example, the Patently-O blow points to the compulsory license clauses in French and German Patent Law.
Patently Silly
This humorous site, Patently Silly, offers perspectives on some of the more frivolou patents that have been granted. Some of them aren’t actually that silly, like this method for detecting pornographic images. I’ve read the research on it, it uses a probabalistic model of skin tones in an image to make the determination. Some of them are merely impractical, like this ergomonic notebook. Some are kind of stupid, like this apparatus which assists drinking and smoking in front of an audience.
Patent Economics
The Patent Prospector blog has an excellent overview of the economics of the patent system. Chief among these are the notion of monopoly power. Patents essentially grant inventors a limited monopoly on intellectual property.
Rich Data, Poor Data
John T. Reed has an extensive analysis of the claims made by the Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert T. Kiyosaki. Reed is a real-estate investor himself and has numerous problems with the book. It’s not surprising that an experienced investor would take issue with the book, what is surprising is how many things he takes issue with.
February 24, 2006
More on Benford’s Law
Essentially, Benford’s law predicts a certain distribution of numbers – violations of that distribution indicate fabricated data. Turns out Boing Boing had a post on this just a few weeks ago. The best treatment of it is on Wolfram’s Mathworld pages, which also has an extensive bibliography (always a plus.) I’m interested in studying applications of it. Fraud detection in accounting seem to be the a use, but I don’t know how commonly used it is. Another application described in the following article as a way to detect whether random numbers are truly random (or if they are merely faked.)
February 22, 2006
Benford’s Law
Kottke.org has an interesting piece on using Benford’s law to catch cheaters.
The Cartoons, explained
The Washinton Post has a piece by the editor of Jyllands-Posten printed those ‘inflammatory’ cartoons.
Bulldada
I never thought that a person would be persecuted for being a member of the Church of the SubGenius, but alas it has happened. A woman has lost custody of her child allegedly based on her membership in the Church. Astounding.