devmorgan.com

Recently I wrote a few new algorithms for a college blogging site that I am apart of called The College Blog Network. I went to lunch and had a few beers with Dan (the lead developer), and basically discussed with him the good and the bad of TCBN. The site is a great idea, and has a lot of potential, but we both agreed the scoring algorithms needed some work.

So, with a little discussion, I had come up with a couple algorithms. One of which has been implemented already, and one that will be implemented in the near future. I have outlined the general workings of these algorithms, but left out some of the details to prevent unforeseen exploitation.

Hot Topics Algorithm

The main goal of this algorithm is to score a blog entry based on how “hot” it is. Hotness is essentially popularity and freshness. Even if a posting was one of the most popular, 3 months later, it is no longer considered hot. At the same time, a post that has been popular for the last week should still be considered hot, even if it has been around for a few days.

The solution was simple, apply a weighting system to the score that is used to calculate “hotness”. The main factor is time or “freshness value”, which is an adjustable value that can be changed to accommodate TCBN as it grows.

As shown in the graph, full weighting will be applied to newer posts, but over time, the weight a post has will begin to degrade. Lets say your initial weighted score on your post is 10 initially. After X time, it will degrade to 5. To maintain a weighted score of 10, you will need a unweighted score of 20. This will allow for consistently popular posts to remain hot, but only initially popular posts to fade away quickly. Thus maintaining an accurate “hot list”.

Overall Blog Scoring Algorithm

The second algorithm I worked on is much more complex. The goal of this algorithm is to try to calculate the “goodness” of a blog. Currently the overall blog score is calculated by adding all blog “bumps” together, then removing the blog “dumps”. In the case of a tie, the blog “views” are used. While providing an decent ballpark estimate, this score is not easily changeable (you must specifically go out of your way to bump a blog), does not account for postings, and can be exploited positively and negatively if a group of people bump or dump all at once.

The main goal of this algorithm is provide accurate ratings for blogs. The requirements were that a visible score would still need to be generated, it would still be primarily based on user feedback (bumps/dumps), and would be less susceptible to exploitation.

Simply put, the new algorithm breaks down to this:

Base “Goodness” + Posting “Goodness” + Viewability

I can’t reveal all the details of how each value is calculated, but here is the gist of it:

Base Goodness is essentially the current rating system, with some minor changes to make it a little more robust.

Posting Goodness takes consideration of posts scores (which will be more apparent when post bumping and dumping is added in the next TCBN revision). This value considers all posts. If one post in a great while is “good”, your score will not be as high as if most posts are considered “good”.

Viewability is a non-user controlled value that takes unique post views into account. A post that never gets bumped, but is viewed a lot will contribute a small amount to the overall score of the blog.

Overall these algorithms were a fun little side project for me, and hopefully will come in great use for TCBN. Tweaking might occur once we start to see how the scores turn out, but these are the basic principles behind them.

So. In an attempt to keep myself occupied today during layovers and waiting in the airport, I’ll write about my graduation.

Why not, right?

So, I graduated… again. Of course, in true style, I still am not actually done with my grad degree. I still have a couple independent studies ahead of me and my capstone project. Alas this is nothing new, as I also “graduated” my undergrad degree early as well.

Anyway, I hate graduations. Why? Let me count the ways:

1. You have to say goodbye to friends.
2. You (usually) have to move.
3. You have to start thinking about the future.

Saying goodbye is never fun. A friend of mine wrote a note in facebook, asking the question: “Who would willingly spend several years of their life building a new group of friends and family in a place far away from home, and then at the end of those years, leave?” It’s a good question. I know the chances of seeing a lot of the people I saw every day ever again is quite low. Now it’s easier than ever to keep in touch, but like my old roommate, sometimes communication completely breaks down. It’s a damn shame, but it’s apart of life.

Moving sucks. Lets put that out there right now. In the past 2 years, I’ve moved six times. Six. Friggin. Times. Moving gives you some time to be nostalgic, going through the stuff in your life as you pack it all up. This time while packing up, I was remembering the parties and fun that had happened at the apartment… something that will not likely occur again to the same scope or scale. Oh well.

Now, I know we are supposed to think about our futures before we are walking across the stage for graduation, but once you shake the hands - its official (almost), you have to get a real job. I know in the fall I will be going back to StormFrog, but it’s always scary thinking about where you want to end up. Do I really want to be a code monkey all my life? Do I want to become more ‘business-y’ even if it means more money? Do I still want to end up in Boston? Who knows.

Well. Flight is about ready to board. Maybe I’ll write more or draw a comic on a layover.

So, I guess I will preface this by saying it may offend some people. I apologize now, but this is something that I really didn’t think I would have to deal with in this day and age.

I guess I should be giving some grounding to all of this, I am an Agnostic. I was raised Roman Catholic, but moved away from that faith when I was in high school, much to the initial dismay of my parents. I believe the word my mother used to describe me was “Satanist” (which, I am not, nor ever will be a worshiper of Satan. In fact, contrary to popular belief, not believing in Christ does NOT make you a Satanist). My religious belief change was not really much of a factor on the people a hung out with. In fact, few of my girlfriends minded, and most of my friends didn’t seem to mind either. In fact, they usually asked me why I became Agnostic… to which I promptly replied “I learned about other religions”.

Now, I should probably clear something up right now. A person’s beliefs are different then a person’s religion. You can believe that Jesus or Mohammad were good people, and their teachings were (in general) good for human kind, and not be Christian of Muslim. Religion is the social structure that is built around particular beliefs. This structure is almost never necessary, but it allows people to be able to unite and say “I am Hindu”, and be able to make certain assumptions about their lifestyle and beliefs because they become standardized in this social structure.

This is why I can say I am an Agnostic (while Agnosticism is not a religion, the word can be used in similar contexts). With that term, you learn some things about me. You can make the assumption that I believe it is impossible to know if there is a God, or if there isn’t. You can also determine that I believe that there is no earthly way for us to ever know if a God exists. You also learn that this flips both ways, because this also means there is no way to prove there is not a God either. If Agnosticism were a religion, you would also be able to derive some inherent moral code from my belief, but it’s not.… anyway, enough about Agnosticism, I could go on for hours.

So, why am I even bringing up religion? When I first got to college, religion wasn’t even an issue for me. It just never really played a role. Well, over the past 6-8 months, several people I have hung out with, met, and socialized with have been religious, and with that, there has come some issues. The girl that I am dating now identifies herself as a Christian. To me, and to her, our religious differences is not a big deal. Unfortunately, this is not always shared by people around her. Yesterday, I had met a friend of hers that she was staying with for the week. After I had left, and Jess had come back from the trip we took yesterday, her friend asked her if I was a Christian. Jess replied that I was an Agnostic. The response (which Jess later revealed) was appalling to me:

Oh Jess, don’t worry. We’ll find you a nice, Christian boy one of these days.

I almost threw up in my mouth after hearing this. I was mad, upset and angry. It is appalling to hear something like this, but it doesn’t surprise me. The problem with religious people, is they don’t understand differences. I have asked people who are very religious about what other religions they have studied. I am usually amused when a Lutheran replies “Oh, I’ve studied lots of religions. Catholicism, Baptism, and Orthodox Christianity”. Right. Lots of religions. For those of you who didn’t notice, those are all essentially the same belief system, just different social structure around each of them. If you want to get mad because I just called Catholics essentially the same as Lutherans, go for it, but only after you study Judaism, Islam (edited for clarity: the Abrahmaic religions), Hinduism (edited for clarity: a non-Abrahamic religion), and a few other non-Abrahamic religions.

It’s so troubling for me to believe that even in America, people don’t understand that difference is good. We see it all the time though, families getting upset if a child marries inter-racially, or outside of their class. Religion is just another social element that is around to for people to become bias against. I firmly believe that if people were to actually study the beliefs and religion of others, they would become more tolerant to other belief systems. Religious tolerance does not mean that you believe that other religions are total truth, but that you can accept that other religions can have legitimate belief systems, even though they are different then your own.

It makes me sad, that people can dismiss others as insignificant based on a difference of religious belief. Religion brings to the table certain elements that some people want, and others don’t. This is how someone can choose a religion (which I highly recommend, over inheriting a religion from your family). The worst thing that someone can do is merely accept the religion they have as total truth without at least understanding that there are differences out there, and they aren’t evil.

So, at last I will get to my point: Religious intolerance is dumb. People that perpetrate the intolerance are usually uninformed about what they are being intolerant towards. There is absolutely no more evidence that your religion is better then their religion. So please, go out, and learn about other religions. Understand why people believe what they believe. What makes their religion attractive? What are parallels you can draw between the religions you study and your own? Knowledge is power.

After spending a few days in Boston - and more importantly, spending a few minutes at home resting after the long ride back - it’s time to write about the trip! Overall it was an excellent experience… it was nice to see a few of my friends that are living out in Boston, and it was also nice to bring a few of my friends out there with me to experience First Night!

(more…)

Boston was pretty awesome today - except for when I fucked up plans with Jay (which got fixed)…

I was able to hang out with Morgan! We went to a bar and grill for lunch and saw the new National Treasure movie (overall, the movie was alright).

I also got to see Jay - after a serious snafu that I feel really bad about! Next time I will be sure to do a better job of communication with everyone when we try to meet up!

Again - I’ll write more about the whole Boston trip - but not until I get back to Rochester (Jan 1st).

Tomorrow will be a blast I hope… First Night in Boston!