Wikipedia is ripe for AI Exploitation

Researchers have already begun using Google to help with AI tasks. For instance, if you search Google for two words, you can get a sense of their relatedness by comparing the relative number of links returned (e.g., "cat and dog" vs. "cat and politics"

Wikipedia is an even greater …

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C# & VB: Peer Pressure vs. Random Walk

Programming language popularity is a fascination of mine and has been since (at least) I joined "Computer Language" magazine "back in the day." Note that this is a different fascination than programming language capability, which goes all the way back to the time I read my Dad's copy of "Computer …

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Smalltalkers sneer at my LINQ-thusiasm

James Robertson thinks that I'm too breathless about LINQ in my recent article about C#'s popularity on the CLR. For some reason, I can't post to his comment section, so I'll just respond here and shoot him a trackback:

What got through the asbestos was the comment that I …

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Origami: Textbook viral marketing

Apparently, "it's been pretty much established as fact that Origami is a new "ultramobile lifestyle PC" from Microsoft."

This fits a couple other data points, but we'll just have to see. One way or the other, though, whoever organized this "mystery" sure earned their pay. I suspect that 90% of …

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The myth of better programming languages

I like Andy Hunt, and I like Ruby, but his post at perpetuates a myth that I think is harmful. He says of Ruby, "First, more than any other language I've used, it stays out of your way. You don't have to spend any effort 'satisfying the compiler'.... I can …

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MyHeritage: Inspiring Leader

Oh, you have to try My Heritage. It diagnosed my temperament perfectly:

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Refactoring vs. Procedural Code: Would you refactor this?

When my application starts, it sets in motion a process by which an event is received back at the main form. It's an event that's common enough (let's say, "Maximize Window") but the first time I receive it, I have to process it in a special manner. So, I have …

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Cheney. Dick Cheney.

What's troubling about this is that the press, in reporting this incident, jeopardizes the plan by which Cheney poses as a geriatric heart patient, lures terrorists into range, and then blasts them to hell.

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Take That, Options Scalper!

It's always nice to make a blogroll cut.

But then, optionsScalper gloats about coming in "above" me, so of course I check to see how out-ranked I am.

You'd think that a guy who makes his business in derivatives trading would recognize alphabetical ordering.

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