Disqus - Latest Comments for alexleavitt

Re: The Monty Hall Problem

Alex Leavitt — Mon, 19 Oct 2015 17:08:11 -0000

Low sample size. Try increasing the speed so you get a lot of results. You'll see it shifts toward the 66/33.

Re: Understanding Personal Data

Alex Leavitt — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:07:04 -0000

In terms of practical frameworks, you should read http://www.amazon.com/Priva... if you haven't.

Re: Python 2.7 on Bluehost

Alex Leavitt — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:10:08 -0000

There's only one step that totally failed; any idea how to fix it?

---user@domain [~/src]# python ez_setup.py --prefix=$HOME/opt/python27 Downloading http://pypi.python.org/pack... FAILED: /home1/user/opt/python27/lib/python2.7/site-packages does NOT support .pth fileserror: bad install directory or PYTHONPATHYou are attempting to install a package to a directory that is noton PYTHONPATH and which Python does not read ".pth" files from. Theinstallation directory you specified (via --install-dir, --prefix, orthe distutils default setting) was: /home1/user/opt/python27/lib/python2.7/site-packagesand your PYTHONPATH environment variable currently contains: ''Here are some of your options for correcting the problem:* You can choose a different installation directory, i.e., one that is on PYTHONPATH or supports .pth files* You can add the installation directory to the PYTHONPATH environment variable. (It must then also be on PYTHONPATH whenever you run Python and want to use the package(s) you are installing.)* You can set up the installation directory to support ".pth" files by using one of the approaches described here: http://peak.telecommunity.c... make the appropriate changes for your system and try again.

Re: http://sarainchina.tumblr.com/post/20519034444

Alex Leavitt — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 01:20:19 -0000

You should go read Fenollosa & Pound's "The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry."

Re: http://culturalbyt.es/post/8136634503

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:54:25 -0000

"So with the example that Slavin gave in his talk of algorithms going rogue - my initial thoughts are that it’s not the algorithms themselves that are bad, but it’s the cultural assumptions that programmers make when creating algorithms to carry out a design or function that turns out to be bad. And even more so, it’s the actual culture in which the programmers are embedded in that allows such assumptions to be made in the first place."

I think one of the issues that he's suggesting -- and that is a reality -- is that in the development of algorithms, especially within large corporations, it evolves to such a degree that the human influence over the algorithm is lost as you add more humans. For instance, I've heard that no one person actually knows the entire Google search algorithm anymore, because so many people have contributed to it.

Re: Archiving Internet Subculture: Encyclopedia Dramatica

Alex Leavitt — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:33:50 -0000

We didn't scrape for pictures. This is the job of the community: find the pictures based on the articles and the image file names in the archive. Check the various IRC groups for their efforts.

Re: Archiving Internet Subculture: Encyclopedia Dramatica

Alex Leavitt — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:21:39 -0000

Did you count the first file, #0, like we explained in the read me file?

Re: Game-like Mechanics: The Tutorial

Alex Leavitt — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 12:00:34 -0000

I wonder what the rate of use is for these "tutorials," versus users who just enter into a system and explore. Especially because Facebook really implemented that tutorial system when older users entered the fray: when we were on Facebook as college students, you had no hand to walk you through. And the tutorial makes sense for a platform like OKCupid, where they need users familiar with the maximum amount of the site to increase participation and engagement.

Not that you would call this a game mechanic, though. Which is one reason I like Jesse Schell's talk on the gamepocalypse, since he's arguing that game designers are NOT making these socially-networked "games" and thus nobody's implementing /good/ game mechanics. In other words, this is my response to "game-like mechanics," which is just wrong, man, just wrong.

Re: Five Books

Alex Leavitt — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:37:07 -0000

Guns, Germs, and Steel was pretty good.

Did you ever create a full reading list for the summer? I'm just about to finish Clay Shirky's new book, and I have a bunch of other Internet-y ones coming up.

Re: Mozilla Drumbeat is…

Alex Leavitt — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:43:24 -0000

So is this your description or someone else's? I'm confused.

Re: http://johnnywon.com/post/553751521

Alex Leavitt — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:19:31 -0000

I'm not sure if you're posting this as a good or a bad thing... :(

Re: ChatRoulette

Alex Leavitt — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:47:50 -0000

Will do! Send me a message when you have your response written up!

Re: ChatRoulette

Alex Leavitt — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:15:57 -0000

Ron, please continue to help spread our work! A convenient way to keep track of us is to follow us on Twitter: @webecology.

Re: ChatRoulette

Alex Leavitt — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 14:07:33 -0000

Please feel free!

Re: ChatRoulette

Alex Leavitt — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 11:58:57 -0000

To Alan and others: We had a blip occur for about 30 min., but the paper should be available again. Sorry; I reuploaded after a typo correction, but I didn't change to the new URL.

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:18:41 -0000

Mataliandy, we're actually interested in this as well. As we said at the end of the report, we only studied ten days, which is fairly limited (especially when most people are on vacation during August!).

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:49:45 -0000

Linda, thanks for reading. Glad to see that the report has made its way around!

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:48:49 -0000

Ian, thanks for the comment. Coincidentally, we're considering FriendFeed as a potential target for future reports. Stay tuned!

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:35:00 -0000

Frank, thanks for your encouraging comment! We are actually looking into developing more models of influence for various social networks, and business/monetary concerns are certainly one part of the equation we are trying to investigate.

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 23:33:39 -0000

Heather,

Thanks for reading our report. As for direct messages, personally, I don't see a direct correlation with tweets and DMs, unless the DM is a private message in reaction to a tweet (which all DMs do not have to be). However, I think it would be fascinating study to categorize user types based on amounts of DMs received (eg., are users utilizing Twitter for business purposes, rather than, say, email?). Of course, there's always the limitations of research when faced with privacy, but I'll see if anyone on the project is interested in pursuing your idea!

Re: The Influentials

Alex Leavitt — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:41:38 -0000

Amber, thanks for the kind words. Glad to hear that you enjoyed the report.

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

Alex Leavitt — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:33:14 -0000

I swear I was trying to move beyond food in that post. I guess I failed at bringing out the relation of "consume" to a user's presumed role as customer. I wonder though if we'll have to invent new words in an attempt to reduce inadvertent visceral, natural, (what have you-al) metaphors as we try to describe these shifts.

BTW, if you don't feel like learning any more on Wikipedia, have you tried Wikiracing?

Re: The U.S. Bureau of Fabulous Bitches

Alex Leavitt — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:35:37 -0000

To answer the last question, no, because Republicans don't believe in prom or Santa.

Anyway, I think the stereotypical geek v. jock high school reunion results in the jock as the balding, broke, beer-belly, while the geek arrived as the in-tune, sharp science teacher. I'll agree that anyone having experienced a clique will filter friends through a socially-specific lens; it's how cliques originally form.