Month: August 2007

Wikipedia disambiguation

In addition to pages describing different entities where contextual clues can be extracted (example), Wikipedia contains redirects for different surface forms of the same entity, list pages that categorize names, and disambiguation pages that show many of the different entities for a surface form. Wikipedia contains much more than unstructured text. Exploiting the semi-structured data — the redirect, list, and disambiguation pages — gives this work its power.

wikipedia for entity extraction. awesome what crowdsourcing can do.

MTA at fault

It is safe to assume that hearings will be held, studies will be conducted and recommendations will be made in the wake of the extensive transit disruptions in today’s morning commute. “3 years ago we had a rainstorm in September and the same thing happened, but nothing like today, so it’s obviously gotten worse than from just 3 years ago. And apparently, nothing was done to ameliorate or upgrade the system. The nerve of the MTA asking for a fare hike while this is going on.”

MTA = unionized assholes

Ads as Entertainment

The site will “celebrate advertising as entertainment” and feature “a free online archive of current and classic television commercials, movie trailers and other brand-related content”. The name, Didja, is short for “did you see that”, the apparent reaction they’re hoping to get from viewers. The site will be cross promoted on NBC’s television channel and will eventually on all divisions of NBC Universal. It’s set to launch the beginning of next year, sometime after the still-unnamed joint venture with News Corp., dubbed “Clown Co.” by Google execs.

this reminds me of the walmart social networking site.

Commuting after a Storm

“To get to Wall Street today, I took the Q from the 9th Avenue D-M stop in Brooklyn to Canal Street with the plan of taking the downtown M1 bus. In the end, I overtook 8 M1s walking from Canal to Wall Street, to the constant sound of car horns and yelling drivers. Mmm, dulcet.”

where is spitzer for the union busting when we need him?