Digg Cheating

I suggested essentially the same algorithm for how an open-source search engine could work without being vulnerable to gaming even by those who understood all of its inner workings. The main difference, of course, is that Digg and reddit actually exist now. Digg declined to comment on the possible merits of such an algorithm; reddit's Steve Huffman said that the idea sounded interesting, although even if the idea got full buy-in, naturally any proposed change would take a long time to bring to fruition.But it seems that an algorithm similar to this one would be the only way to prevent cheating on sites like Digg that sort content based on user votes. So it's ironic that HotOrNot, the only site I know of that is using a variation of this algorithm and hence is probably the most secure against cheating, is also the one where cheating is least likely to be a problem. Getting a high placement on Digg might enable you to make some money, but getting a highly rated picture on HotOrNot isn't going to make you rich (unless it helps you meet a millionaire who is using the site to find his third wife). Also, making HotOrNot meritocratic doesn't give people an incentive to improve the "content" that they submit, because up to the limits of what can be done with hair and wardrobe, you can't make yourself that much more attractive. With Digg and reddit, on the other hand, I might work harder at submitting a good story, if I knew that it worked in a perfectly meritocratic fashion that pushed good stories right to the top.

Slashdot | How to Stop Digg-cheating, Forever

I don't know about using any type of algorithm to stop digg cheating.  It seems somewhat impossible to do.  If you implemented this type of algorithm, how would you allow affiliate sites to have a "Digg This" button on them?  The users would be in essence voting on a single story by going directly to the URL.  It is impossible to come up with any type of algorithm, no matter how clever to stop people from cheating on popular sites.  Someone out there with way more time, and sometimes more money than you will always defeat it. 

I think that Digg has done a good job in that their users can bury a story.  So the fact that the story was quickly buried is an example of this.  And as the linked to wired story indicates, the story was quickly buried once it got to the front page.  So what if she got a ton of traffic, 100,000 hits is nothing, probably less than 1% of the total traffic that Digg forwards each day.  Saying that it is a valuable way of gaming adsense is clear.

As I have said before, I don't know what the answer is, but technical solutions such as clever algorithms won't work, there is just too much money at stake, so someone will always reverse engineer it. 

Perhaps a genetic algorithm would work, but having tons of clones that all needed to learn and sync would hurt performance and initial efficacy.  You'd have to install genetic an genetic algorithm, train it for years, and then deploy it to make it effective, and do the syncs when search traffic were at a minimum.  Its tough.

technorati tags:digg, gaming, search, gaming, pay-for-clicks, scam

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I-880 I-80 Bay Area Tanker Explosion

A tanker truck explosion caused the connector to Interstate 580 from the Bay Bridge to collapse onto the roadway connecting I-80 to I-880 and downtown Oakland. One piece has completely fallen down and another piece is hanging loosely and may fall today, Caltrans workers said.From Berkeley on the eastshore freeway heading toward the Bay Bridge there is no problem aside from traffic delays. But drivers hoping to go through the maze and continue on southbound on I-880 are being diverted onto I-580 and then onto I-980 and back onto I-880 because the only other route around the collapsed section would be on city streets.

Transit officials trying to find work-arounds

Well, several things come to mind.  First, the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to cut 1.1 Billion dollars from the budget for public transportation.  Without acceptable mass transit options, an event such as this puts the San Francisco Bay-Area's transit situation in jeopardy.

If everyone decides to jump on trains during rush hour, the transit authorities have no ability to add additional capacity to support them.  The trains would be jammed, and someone such as myself who wants to bring my bike on board would be out of luck.  If we fully funded our mass transit options, there would be multiple methods of getting to work, ensuring that California's economy keeps right on humming.  I'm worried about outsourcing infrastructure, and diminishing public transportation as it greatly enhances the impact of disasters on the system.

Secondly, it exposes part of the problem of carrying hazardous materials around our highways.  Gasoline is hazardous.  Its another reason for using 100% electric vehicles and beefing up our nuclear energy program with more reactors.

technorati tags:explosion, San, Francisco, Bay, Area, I-880, I-80

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So Maybe when we screw up Earth, we can go to Gliese 581c

It appears that we have found at least one planet close enough to Earth in size and temperature at least to possibly support liquid water, and if it can support liquid water, the possibility of life on that planet is much higher.

"European Southern Observatory in La Silla, Chile, have hit pay dirt: the most Earth-like planet ever detected beyond the solar system. The discovery immediately boosted the odds that humans are not alone in the universe. London bookies duly took note, lowering the odds on extraterrestrial life from 1,000-to-1 to 100-to-1."

We'll just have to wait to see how this planet is put together, but I'd bet the Bush administration is already busy trying to figure out how to drill for oil on it.

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How Search Engines Treat No Follow : No Follow Doesn't Mean No Index

Google, Yahoo and Ask.com sound off on their treatment of the No Follow attribute and clear webmaster confusion that links from sites such as Wikipedia using this attribute have no value.

I'm not sure about how Yahoo! is treating the rel="nofollow" attribute. I think they should not index the resulting link. I understand why they would, but indirectly it will give attribution to the page, giving spam commenters a reason to spam a new site on the unsuspecting blog. Indirectly, they are encouraging spammers, and black hat SEOs to keep doing the same thing that is breaking the web. Google's approach is the right one.I personally hate all the SEO stuff. People are all url keyword stuffing, even Digg. The problem is that since everyone else is doing it, I have to do it, you have to do it, it makes ranking sites error prone, except for sites like Digg. Crawlers have become almost useless since the advent of blogs. There is no way a crawler can keep up with the pace of blogging, so everyone has to ping someone when their site is updated.Something has to give here. I'm just not sure what its going to be.



read more | digg story

New Amigas on the Way

For us aging geeks, this is the best news to come along in quite some time--new Amigas, minus the Commodore!

For those of you who don't remember them, look at this as an opportunity to take one more step away from the mainstream: "You still use LINUX? Humph!"The amiga used to be awesome for sound and graphics. I think the Amiga OS is now linux based, but if they can capture any of the coolness of the old one, I'm in!



read more | digg story

The Evolving Web

Semantic Web. Web 3.0. The Intelligent Web. Whichever terminology you want to use, it's a vision for the Web in which information is given explicit meaning, making it easier for machines to automatically process and integrate said information.

read more | digg story

I have been giving the semantic web a lot of thought. Ever since I added the Y!Q to my owensperformance blog site I have wondered if this technology could really do anything cool. The Y!Q is fairly cool, but it is the service behind it that is cooler. Still, the Y!Q service is pretty dumb, in fact currently all semantic services are pretty dumb. The hard part is to try to make them smarter without creating a bunch of work for the users. For example, tag clouds are cool, but having to enter a bunch of tags is too hard. Similarly, tagging a URL and providing a description and tags for each thing I find is too much work. I would want a service that does that for me, and also digests the resulting service.

The problem is that for this to work, the service has to know who I am, and know an awful lot about me. I don't really want anything to have that level of understanding of me, or do I. I guess that is our dilemma.

12-year old Nigerian becomes Sun certified Java Programmer

One less Nigerian spammer, who knows? Maybe just learning the tools to deliver more spam faster! In any case, a 12 year old Nigerian kid has earned professional recognition from Sun as a certified Java programmer. - Digg

I'm really surprised by the responses from people on Digg. So what if the kid says he thinks blacks are more intelligent than whites. First of all, the title of black and white don't mean anything. The kid is 12. He is clearly misguided. That doesn't mean that he is not smart, or that this is not an accomplishment. All Nigerians are not spammers. A lot of spam comes from China, but no one is saying that all Chinese people are spammers. I can't believe how racist, both this kid, and the people on Digg who responded to that are. Check it out for yourself....

Bottom Bracket 68mm x 118mm Specialized Allez Sport

Well, I guess my bike finally got to the point where it needed some serious maintenance. The bike is a Specialized Allez Sport from I guess about 2001. The bottom bracket was making a clicking sound on each revolution when I bought it from my friend. Once my 5'11" 240lb frame started abusing it daily for 26 miles, it finally started making a grinding noise and needed to be replaced.

One of the biggest problems was finding a square taper bottom bracket. It seems that they switched to Octalink a while ago, and now they are all about the two piece crank with external bearings. I don't actually know what the real benefit is to that, except possibly more strength from the BB.

Anyway, changing the bracket was really easy. I'd read Sheldon Brown's Articles on Bottom Brackets first because it is critically important to figure out what your bottom bracket's size is. It will affect your shifting and pedaling performance if you don't.

Next, take the cranks off, use a crank puller, don't try to remove it any other way, I did and it wasn't fun. Then use the bottom bracket tool to take it out. I'd clean up inside your frame while you've got it out. Finally, just put it back in the way it came out. Always unscrew the plastic side first. Sometimes it is a cheap chrome, usually it will be on the opposite side of the crank's cogs.

Anyway, if you have an old Allez from 2001, the bottom bracket you need is going to be 68mm x 118mm. The other thing to look at is the type. Probably the best you will be able to find will be the Shimano UN-73 Square Taper Bottom Bracket. I ended up going with the UN-52 because it was the only one I could find. Actually it was an upgrade from whatever was already in there. My bike is a fair amount lighter, and having a new bottom bracket is like riding on butter.