Recommendation systems are popping up everywhere due to the abundance of their practical applications. However, most recommendation methods are "hard-wired" into the system and they support only predefined and fixed recommendations, which may not always capture the real-time user information needs. In this paper, we propose FlexRecs, a framework for flexible recommendations over relational data. With FlexRecs, a given recommendation approach can be expressed as a high-level workflow. The workflow may contain traditional relational operators such as select, project and join, but in addition, it may contain new recommendation operators that generate or combine recommendations. The workflows can easily represent both content-based and collaborative recommendation approaches, as well as new types of recommendations. Furthermore, we describe a prototype system for processing FlexRecs workflows on top of a relational database, which is used as part of a course planning tool. Finally, we present experimental results from a preliminary performance evaluation of the working system. They show that it is easy to create novel workflows with FlexRecs and that system performance is reasonable even for complex workflows.

FlexRecs: Expressing and Combining Flexible Recommendations

Microsoft discovers MemeStreams.

This paper proposes a new method for computing page importance, referred to as BrowseRank. The conventional approach to compute page importance is to exploit the link graph of the web and to build a model based on that graph. For instance, PageRank is such an algorithm, which employs a discrete-time Markov process as the model. Unfortunately, the link graph might be incomplete and inaccurate with respect to data for determining page importance, because links can be easily added and deleted by web content creators. In this paper, we propose computing page importance by using a ’user browsing graph’ created from user behavior data. In this graph, vertices represent pages and directed edges represent transitions between pages in the users’ web browsing history. Furthermore, the lengths of staying time spent on the pages by users are also included. The user browsing graph is more reliable than the link graph for inferring page importance. This paper further proposes using the continuous-time Markov process on the user browsing graph as a model and computing the stationary probability distribution of the process as page importance. An efficient algorithm for this computation has also been devised. In this way, we can leverage hundreds of millions of users’ implicit voting on page importance. Experimental results show that BrowseRank indeed outperforms the baseline methods such as PageRank and TrustRank in several tasks.

BrowseRank: Letting Web Users Vote for Page Importance

As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing literacy, wrecking attention spans and destroying a precious common culture that exists only through the reading of books.

But others say the Internet has created a new kind of reading, one that schools and society should not discount.

Online, R U Really Reading?

In full automatic mode, the 2009 Nissan GT-R shifts as if it had been programmed by Ed Begley Jr.

The Arrival of the Fittest

Objectified is a documentary about industrial design; it’s about the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them.

The term objectified has two meanings. One is ‘to be treated with the status of a mere object.’ But the other is ‘something abstract expressed in a concrete form,’ as in the way a sculpture objectifies an artist’s thoughts. It’s the act of transforming creative thought into a tangible object, which is what designers in this film do every day. But maybe there’s a third meaning to this title, regarding the ways these objects are affecting us and our environment. Have we all become objectified?

Objectified: A Documentary Film by Gary Hustwit

It's 1975 And This Man Is About To Show You The Future

(Scenes From An IBM Slide Presentation)

A selection from Square America, a gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography.

It's The Future ...

Maybe what it takes to make a sentence great is a kind of spare universality.

In the beginning ...

Welcome to the new Korean craze of "well-dying". In a country infatuated with "well-being" - living and eating healthily, even to the point where tobacco-makers offer vitamin-enriched "well-being cigarettes" - training companies are now offering courses on dying a good death.

From the archive:

In the 21st century, we "shy away from death," and we tend to think of a good death as a sudden one.

Not so in the 19th century.

Dying well meant having time to assess your spiritual state and say goodbye -- which is difficult to do if you're killed in battle.

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

See also:

Kronomy is the place where the collective global memory lives. It allows you to create events and memories on a life path that can be easily explored and linked with others.

Unlike standard social networking websites, which offer only static profiles that focus on the present, Kronomy's simple navigation tools and advanced graphic interface let you travel effortlessly along entire life paths and explore events in depth.

Now you can travel through time, reviewing your own and others' lives, crossing paths with people who share identical or similar experiences and discovering interesting people who are ready to share their life events.

We know that your past experiences are as important to you as what's happening now, which is why we created this dynamic collective memory for everyone to participate in, use and enjoy.

The more life paths that are added and linked, the more powerful and complete the world's memory becomes - a fascinating and invaluable resource for all time.

When death is a reminder to live

Jack: (changing the subject) Is it erotic?

Jane: Not at all, really. In fact, most of the time it's anti-erotic. It's about the things you were thinking about when you should have been paying attention. Personally, I would think that at least one of these couples might be portrayed as actually communicating and enjoying themselves. But that's not the point he's making.

Jack: How can you call it Intercourse if it's not erotic?

Jane: I suppose he means that other sort of intercourse: conversation.

Jack: (losing interest) Oh.

From the archive, a selection:

The perceived lack of time becomes real: We are not stressed because we have no time, but rather, we have no time because we are stressed.

In the 1920's and 30's, before the age of air-conditioning, my father once told me that New Yorkers used to leave their apartments to sleep in the park on summer nights. Was America any safer then, or did people take more care of one another during those days?

Lisa: Uh, are you sure that's safe?
Kearny: Well it ain't gettin' any safer.

On Friday, a deeply divided House rebuffed President Bush's demand for retroactive immunity, then defiantly left Washington for a two-week spring break.

Republicans said the secret session proved to be deflating, not because of the quality of the evidence, but because of Democrats' unwillingness to listen.

This book earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly.

Intercourse: Stories by Robert Olen Butler

Not sure how to explain the internet to your young ones? Presenting a series of nursery rhymes to teach children how to comport themselves on the online.

Baby’s First Internet