This app recommends across a variety of mediums such movies, books, and podcasts.
I am not sure how good its algorithm is, but I do wonder how it competes with individual platforms such as Netflix, Amazon, and Apple/Android podcasts with both the content and the recommendation in place, which are much more convenient to provide preferences and reviews.
The notion recommendations from people you trust can also be achieved from existing social networks such as Facebook and Nextdoor.
2021-07-02
Likewise
2021-06-25
Geoengineering is not the solution for climate change
Some thoughts I have after reading this article a while back.
Without a sufficiently accurate model for the entire planet earth, whatever solution we come up with may have unintended/unanticipated side effects.
And even if we can, the solution can carry moral hazard, encouraging people to continue with (or even increase) pollution and carbon production, causing reduced/negated effectiveness.
2021-06-18
Social streaming
2021-03-22
NFT art
Some information that I have found helpful in understanding the recent NFT art phenomena.
A good NPR podcast introducing NFT.
NFT is obviously not the first asset bubble.
Beeple’s 69-million NFT, and why the buyer thought it is worth the price.
Aaron Hertzmann’s article about the similarities and differences between traditional and NFT arts.
An NFT is essentially a URL and the block-chain does not store the artwork itself.
As expected, one of the major NFT art exchanges may have security issues, even though their system does not seem to be compromised.
The auction process may be off the blockchain but with reduced computation and energy consumption.
2021-02-14
Bumble
This video of an interview with the Bumble founder reminds me that the service/mission is often much more important than the technology for starting up a company.
2021-02-12
The takeout economy
Ordering stuff online with a click of button can be convenient, but there are potential consequences to our society (e.g., restaurants and gig workers) and environment (e.g., packaging and shipping).
After learning about the charge from a food delivery (tech ?) company during a restaurant takeout, I now try to directly order from local restaurants to build direct connections and bypass these middlemen who can better help the discovery of new restaurants and these dark kitchens that do not want to bother with services and deliveries.
2020-12-31
Install IPA file on iOS devices
After hours experimenting with macOS VM I found that I can install .ipa files on an iPad from a Windows machine (e.g., AnyTrans).
2020-10-21
What can be quantified can also be automated
If the productivity of certain types of works can be quantified, it can also be optimized and thus automated.
Instead of performance evaluation, such measures are better used for identifying repetitive tasks potential for automation.
To achieve human-level intelligence, we probably need an AI framework very different from existing rule-based (e.g., Minsky) and data-driven (e.g., current ML) approaches.
2020-04-15
Electric power flow
After installing Tesla solar panel and power-wall last month, I have been watching the daily power flows among the grid, solar, home, and battery with intrigue.
With weather forecast, I can imagine programming the electric system to optimize the schedules of home appliance usage (e.g., laundry when the sun is bright) and charging from the grid (e.g., backup for an incoming power outage).