MeFi post: Amazon implements searching for words in books

For the record, the algorithm bit of this isn't actually very hard. You turn each document into a keyed database of words (and pointers into the actual document so you can find the excerpt) and store it in some intelligent database-y way so that searches are fast, and then you put that on enough hardware that it is reasonably fast. The algorithms have been around for a long time --

--What I am astonished by is the effort to get electronic copies of 120K books in the... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 7:18 AM on October 23, 2003

MeFi post: Kunstbar by The Petrie Lounge

Re: big orange head. Magritte, I think? Can't find a link, though, so that's just a hunch based on a vague memory of a Magritte involving a man in a suit with a giant orange head. (magritte.com used to have an online "museum" of all of Rene Magritte's work, but apparently they don't anymore.)
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 5:05 AM on November 18, 2002

MeFi post: include Elvis Costello, The Police, AC/DC, The...

Ahem.

I'm pretty pleased with all the new inductees. There's room for the Police and the Clash in my life, it turns out. (And the Righteous Brothers, yes.)

But just talking about influence: Sabbath didn't get in? Kraftwerk isn't in? The past nominees aren't my favorite bands, but it just seems silly that some of them aren't in, given some of the other folks who are. Is there a pattern to who makes it and who... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 3:46 PM on November 7, 2002

MeFi post: Turning immigrants into cyborgs. A small video...

You know, I was all set to defend this as the first halting step towards something better, we can't do real-time translation yet, blah blah blah, but then I saw:

In today's migration era, the wearer of the Porte-parole appears as a prophetic story-teller and a poetic interrupter of the continuity of established life in public space and dominant culture.

Uh-huh. Does he now.

And I like... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 4:15 AM on November 7, 2002

Actually, I'm a little confused by this -- Krzyszctof is in the Architecture dept, and a prof of Visual Arts. There don't appear to be any, say, robotics engineers, or computer scientists, having anything to do with this.

So what's behind the Mouthpiece (or Alien Stick)? Does it actually exist? Has a working one been built? Will a working one ever be built? Has anyone even thought about what would be involved in building it? Or is this just about throwing a technological... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 5:20 AM on November 7, 2002

MeFi post: Subject of books, movies and songs, mix tapes are...

Along those lines, Boltman, I've been playing around of late with GJay, a nifty little Linux tool that lets you organize your MP3s (Oggs, .wavs, whatever) by a variety of attributes, and then generates playlists for you that should flow smoothly from song to song.

I don't think you'd want to generate a mix CD directly from it, but it's been interesting to see what sort of interesting juxtapositions it comes up with -- there are some pairings I've found that'll definitely... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Trombone Borges at 9:05 PM on November 6, 2002