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hmason

188 karma · joined November 6, 2008

http://www.hilarymason.com
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hmason··on Hidden Door is an AI storytelling game that makes sense
The platform lets you create stories in familiar universes, but you can’t just write your way to an instant win. Now in early access!
hmason··on For ‘Big Data’ Scientists, Hurdle to Insights Is ‘Janitor Work’
yes.
hmason··on Random Tweet: See one random tweet at a time
It's actually because Twitter rate limits the oembed endpoint by IP, so the app caches the oembed codes and uses those if it gets limited. I've been meaning to flip that bit to the client but haven't gotten around to it yet.
hmason··on The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee
+1
hmason··on Prominent GitHub Engineer Quits, Alleging Gender-Based Harassment
Only women have to prove that they are engineers enough to matter to HN. Men get that for free.
hmason··on Speaking up
This isn't a problem with guys or with developers in general.

The vast majority of people who participate in conference are good people. However, it only takes one person (out of thousands!) who has this kind of personality dysfunction to lead an attack, and women are much much more likely to be the target of their dysfunction.

hmason··on Browse Amazon, Randomly
Thanks. I just deployed this update. Have fun!
hmason··on Browse Amazon, Randomly
It's a play on "duck duck goose", the children's game. The similarity to duckduckgo was unintentional, but I like it. I actually wanted to call it "bookroulette", but all permutations of that domain were taken.
hmason··on Browse Amazon, Randomly
Yes! This was really just to establish the base case -- is randomly 'walking' through all books available interesting?
hmason··on Browse Amazon, Randomly
Both, actually. The API is too slow to use live for this app.
hmason··on Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
To be clear, I'm not knowledgeable about online advertising. I do understand that the incentives of the advertisers and the users are often opposed, but I was highlighting this as an example of poor product design likely due to optimizing click-throughs, not product experience. :)
hmason··on Everything you need to know about Machine Learning in 30 minutes or less
In most data analysis work, we assume that the data resides in some database and that you have the luxury of iterating over that data as many times as you like to get to a final result.

The challenge with stream analysis is that you are dealing with a continuous stream of data where you can see each element of the stream only one time and must still be able to cluster/classify/analyze it. There are still few algorithms and tools designed explicitly for that purpose.

hmason··on Everything you need to know about Machine Learning in 30 minutes or less
Don't read too much into that example -- I chose it as a humorous metaphor, not a mathematical argument, and I messed up the delivery in the talk, anyway.

I'll refine the example for the next time!

hmason··on Hilary Mason (Chief Scientist, Bitly) Uses This
I started this job before "data scientist" was in common usage. My title was scientist. Then we hired more scientists, so I got a promotion. :)

We build systems on top of the bitly data. This involves things like algorithms for identifying spam and malware, real-time content recommendations (which you can see in http://news.me), categorical analysis, etc.

We also do a few pure research studies, like this one: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_your_device_change...

hmason··on Video by Hilary Mason: An Introduction to Machine Learning with Web Data
The video is on sale for $14.99 today w/code DDMAS.

And let me know if you have any questions!

hmason··on Machine Learning: A Love Story
I'm happy to e-mail the PPT with notes and image attribution URLs, too. Ping me at h@bit.ly!
hmason··on Gitmarks: a peer-to-peer bookmarking system
Yes. I didn't know about the Chrome extension when I created this project or I would have chosen another name.
hmason··on So nice we're doing it twice: bit.ly hackathon this Wednesday
This is at bit.ly world headquarters in NYC.

I'm looking forward to seeing you there!

hmason··on Hilary Mason: How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script
Thanks!

I'm trying to use the model of the unix command line -- each script is useful and simple on its own, but in combination they become incredibly powerful.

hmason··on Hilary Mason: How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script
I agree. For example, why do we look at email ranked chronologically? I'd much rather rank it by relevance or importance (or my likelihood to actually answer it).

The feature set includes sender, recipients, whether I'm the only recipient, time of day, words in the subject, words in the body, and whether I've exchanged messages with the sender recently.

hmason··on Hilary Mason: How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script
Initially it did, but that went wrong a few too many times. :-)
hmason··on Hilary Mason: How to Replace Yourself with a Very Small Shell Script
I put all of the auto-generated e-mails in my drafts folder, so I can edit, modify, or delete before I send on a case by case basis.

There's also a whitelist.

I'll release the code as soon as I disentangle my personal data from it. Patches welcome. :-)

hmason··on Women in tech - Stop talking, start coding
Girls are perhaps less likely to try programming when they're younger, which means they come into undergraduate programs less well-prepared, which overall may contribute to fewer women pursuing CS as a major.

(I don't have the data to back that up - yet - so it's worded vaguely).

Anecdotally, I know several adult women who are learning to program and kicking ass at it.

hmason··on Women in tech - Stop talking, start coding
I didn't intend the title to reference anything in particular, thanks for the comment.

I'm sorry that you've found our field to be so inhospitable. That hasn't been my experience at all, though I appreciate your point about making technology hospitable to everyone.

hmason··on What does an idea person without software skills or business education do?
She should learn to write well and share her ideas. Then she has well-articulated ideas that people may pay attention to.