smritiweb.com

The dullest blog in the world

This blog is the dullest blog in the world. You should check it out:

Tidying some pencils (dull, March 16)
Some pencils were scattered around on my desk. I picked them up one by one. I placed the pencils in the drawer which I use to store pencils.

Opening a cupboard door (dull, October 17)
There was a cupboard in the corner of the room. I reached out my hand and gripped the door handle. I pulled the door towards me, thereby opening the cupboard.

Found: here. See full article.

Bloggers are happier – feel bloggers

ABCnews is reporting on a study which says that after a couple of months of regular blogging bloggers feel they have a better social life than non-bloggers. Excerpt:

The research, from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who did not blog.

[...]

Bloggers reported a greater sense of belonging to a group of like-minded people and feeling more confident they could rely on others for help.

All respondents, whether or not they blogged, reported feeling less anxious, depressed and stressed after two months of online social networking.

Blogging is good for your (perceived?) social life. And online social networks are good for your mental health. Cool. (Looks like the bloggers in question hadn’t started receiving comments from users yet!)

See full article (via techcrunch)

Komli offers Rs. 2,00,000 for your algorithm

Pune based startup Komli (which recently introduced the very intriguing service PubMatic) has just announced an algorithm contest, with 2 Lakh Rupees as the prize. It’s certainly a very innovative way to get a solution to your business problems, and potential recruits too.

Details:

Komli lives in the world of online advertising, and online advertising is rife with opportunity with complex algorithms based on cutting edge topics such as machine learning, data mining, graph theory, etc. Online advertising is growing at a very fast pace, and the number of variables affecting the performance of an online ad has been growing at an even faster pace. Komli is devising methods for maximizing the yield of online advertising using advanced statistical machine learning methods over large-scale systems. This is a very interesting and complex algorithm problem.

Komli is currently using a set of algorithms for maximizing the yield of online ads, collectively called ‘Yin-Yang’. There are a lot of interesting alternative approaches to Yin-Yang that have yet to be tried. Komli is interested in determining if any of these alternative approaches can beat Yin-Yang by making better predictions.

Komli will provide participants with anonymous ad impression data and a prediction accuracy bar that is 50% better than what Yin-Yang can do on the same training data set. Participants’ solutions will be judged by ‘Time complexity’ and ‘Space complexity’ criteria. The participant whose solution works best will receive Rs. 2,00,000, bragging rights and an opportunity to work with Komli. Of course, participants have to share their method and code with Komli. Eager participants can signup for the contest by filling the form on the left.

See full article. Mukul who runs engineering for Komli is a friend of mine, and I had recently talked to him about their technology. I found it to be extremely interesting and it sounded quite challenging.