Sporkworld

“One More Parade” (Phil Ochs, 1964) performed by...

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:27:00 -0400

“One More Parade” (Phil Ochs, 1964) performed by They Might Be Giants

"Patriotism is … a sense of national responsibility."

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:46:40 -0400

“Patriotism is … a sense of national responsibility.”

- Adlai Stevenson (1952)

Sporkworld Desaturated for the Fourth of July

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 23:44:45 -0400

Sporkworld Desaturated for the Fourth of July: In recognition of Independence Day, Sporkworld’s home page has assumed a temporarily grayer appearance.

A Reflection for Independence Day

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:20:52 -0400

A Reflection for Independence Day: Commentary by Daniel Schorr

"Patriots may be a good name for a football team, or a jeep, or a wiretapping law. But I will submit..."

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:17:00 -0400

“Patriots may be a good name for a football team, or a jeep, or a wiretapping law. But I will submit that in politics it has become a word corrupted by misuse in I-am-more-patriotic-than-thou epithets.
…
My suggestion for this Independence Day is that our warring politicians and their surrogates declare a moratorium on references to patriotism.”

- Daniel Schorr (All Things Considered, National Public Radio, July 3, 2008)

Did I say “No deer in the yard this year”?

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:19:05 -0400

Did I say “No deer in the yard this year”?

It was a dark and rainy afternoon. What is this keeping company...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:47:16 -0400

It was a dark and rainy afternoon. What is this keeping company with a mourning dove (left)? A large sparrow? A female something-or-other not seen before?

The photograph, zoomed in closer than the eye could see, gives it all away. We see evidence of down. A baby then.

Whose?

That is the question.

This is a time of year with fledglings testing their skills all over the yard when thinking a bird is rare or unusual is particularly hazardous.

Answer: A baby cowbird, according to the Spork uncle/brother...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:42:00 -0400

Answer: A baby cowbird, according to the Spork uncle/brother who is a student of ornithology, carrying on a family tradition.

He points out that this “baby” — large as it is — is too young to be on its own yet. But — being much larger than its victim foster parents — it may have been tossed out of the nest prematurely to ensure the survival of some of the smaller babies.

The hatchling is probably doomed. 97% of cowbird eggs and nestlings fail to reach adulthood (Stokes Field Guide to Birds, p. 446).

The hatchling cowbird did not decide to be an interloper. So, is the hatchling a victim, too, of its birth mother’s invasions? Is the mother cowbird, her behavior driven by instinct, also a victim?

Are there human metaphors to be explored?

Moomin

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 06:19:00 -0400

Somewhat surreal graphic novel, both melancholic and innocent.

Waiting for monarch butterflies. We’ve seen a few in the...

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:47:00 -0400

Waiting for monarch butterflies. We’ve seen a few in the yard. They are just beginning to arrive from their winter home in Mexico and points south. This year, we have milkweed, a plant we have been trying to grow for several years. Because of the winter storms, the trees and large branches that have fallen, the milkweed has more sun, and with more sun, the plants have begun to multiply. This year, there will be enough of them to attract the butterflies. Look for butterfly photographs to join the bird and animal and flower images on this microblog.

Patience.

Once upon a time (seven years ago), a Spork was talking to S.M....

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:45:39 -0400

Once upon a time (seven years ago), a Spork was talking to S.M. on the phone. “I just found a new flower, a beautiful purple one. Wait until you see it. You will be very happy.”

At that moment, three deer cruised through the yard, approached the aforementioned purple flowers, and ate every one of them.

“Never mind,” the Spork said. “Forget I ever mentioned it.”

The flowers were not seen again until this week. Perhaps some roots survived and lay dormant until this Spring. More likely, the deer have been eating this plant down to the soil level at the first sign of a seedling.

This year, fewer deer. More flowers.

"It’s a Campanula Glomerata (Superba)"

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:40:51 -0400

“It’s a Campanula Glomerata (Superba)”

- Surly Man who is happy with his photograph

Four coasters made from a Photoshopped photo of ice(I used...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:29:52 -0400

Four coasters made from a Photoshopped photo of ice

(I used www.shutterfly.com to get these printed.)

Cardinal fledglings. Sometimes you just get lucky. Observing...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:39:00 -0400

Cardinal fledglings. Sometimes you just get lucky. Observing the yard is interesting, because it is unpredictable. Weather, changes in gardens, and even more sunlight because so many trees came down in Winter storms all contribute to an everchanging scene.

On the other hand, when we are working with technology, predictability is our goal.

Technical note: When photographing small objects with the optical zoom, it is better to use the remote rather than the shutter on the camera itself.

Collaborative Filtering and Collective Intelligence

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 14:43:00 -0400

Spork has been critical of Web 2.0 services which try to predict users’ tastes based on analyses of other “similar” users, although she is also impressed with these recommendation systems when they work. The above book gives algorithms, theory, and practical programming advice on how to implement recommendations and other uses of large-scale data on one’s own website. The programming language used in the examples is Python, but the book explains the code so that a programmer unfamilar with Python could rewrite it in their favorite language or learn Python while reading the book. The book is fun to read and it gave me many ideas for possible projects.

Unfortunately, at least for this Spork, the difficulty of acquiring a suitable dataset for a real application and the gap between the toy examples shown in the book and the complexity of creating a web project that is actually useful and interesting has so far made it too daunting to attempt a project of my own. But the book nonetheless provides insight into how these “smart” websites work and makes it easier to understand how they go wrong.

The wide range in quality of recommendation systems among established websites illustrates the inherent difficulty. For example, Amazon’s book recommendations are quite excellent, but for other products their algorithms fail in almost comical ways: After I bought a hand-held mini-vacuum a few years ago, Amazon repeatedly suggested vacuum cleaners of all types. This is silly because once someone owns a vacuum cleaner, they no longer want to buy vacuum cleaners. Clearly, Amazon was using the book algorithm where it doesn’t apply. While a lover of postmodern poetry may want to acquire a large collection of poetry books by similar poets, few people want a vacuum cleaner collection.

Some other sites have truly awful recommendation systems: Audible.com’s is so bad (“People who like Anna Karenina also like the Da Vinci Code”) that it makes using the site more annoying. And last.fm, while it does an excellent job of finding music similar to other music, makes the user work far too hard and wait too long to get usable results, an unforgivable sin in the instant-gratifcation culture of the Internet. Then there are systems which make too many assumptions about our tastes, such as the famous “My TiVo thinks I’m gay” problem, in which TiVo supposedly recommends tons of gay-themed programs if a user chooses to watch a single show with a gay character.

Failed morning inspection after the Sporks went to bed before...

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:02:00 -0400

Failed morning inspection after the Sporks went to bed before Surly Man.

Spork’s Swollen Eyeclick image for larger view

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:42:20 -0400

Spork’s Swollen Eye

click image for larger view

Spork's last.fm station

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:09:18 -0400

Supposedly, this widget plays music I like. I think it does, but not very creatively, since it eventually runs out of songs once it runs out of the songs it has already played for me that I approved of. It is supposed to be able to extrapolate and suggest songs I might like based on who else likes the same music. It promises to do more “in a couple of weeks” which is odd since I thought computers were supposed to be fast…

A beautifully-constructed stone wall is lovely to see when it is...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:57:00 -0400

A beautifully-constructed stone wall is lovely to see when it is finished, reminding one of New England and Robert Frost, but this is not a case where “getting there is half the fun.”

This was supposed to be a lumière. The quiet flowers, the grass,...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:55:00 -0400

This was supposed to be a lumière. The quiet flowers, the grass, the plumes of smoke. But then there is the sound… If we eliminate the sound, do we lose the story?