Info 202 Fall 2011

In the Intro to IR & NLP lecture, Bob mentioned Microsoft Office's old friend Clippy--which reminded me of this clip from NPR's
Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me. The best part is the last minute.

http://thatinterweb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/08/clippy-must-die-nprs-wait-wait-dont-tell-me-goes-medieval-on-microsoft-gsdm-clippy-microsoft.html

Last year, a group of computer scientists from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem developed an algorithm that detects online sarcasm. The “semi-supervised sarcasm identification algorithm," or SASI, achieved 77% precision in recognizing sarcasm in Tweets and Amazon product reviews--a discovery which has positive implications for the semantic web.

http://www.geekosystem.com/sarcasm-detecting-algorithm-online/

Digital badges are icons that individuals can display on their website, blog, or social media profile to get recognition for informal and formal learning outside of school. Mozilla's Open Badges Project, in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation, seeks to develop a common standard or protocol for the badges so they will work across the Web in various platforms. In addition, MacArthur has started a “Badges for Lifelong Learning” competition to develop sets of badges.

This episode of Radiolab, entitled "Words," relates to our discussion of the Whorfian Hypothesis that "language shapes thoughts" from lecture 9--particularly the first chapter of the episode. http://www.radiolab.org/2010/aug/09/

"In this hour of Radiolab...We meet a woman who taught a 27-year-old man the first words of his life, hear a firsthand account of what it feels like to have the language center of your brain wiped out by a stroke, and retrace the birth of a brand new language 30 years ago."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/magazine/09Immortality-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

"The problem isn't putting it all in. The proble is getting it out," says Bell. "When I started, I couldn't find anything!" (1)