The Bridge

tzenes

15:15

I have returned

god damnit, even when I'm not thinking about starcraft I'm thinking about starcraft

Ivo Flipse

@welcome back

tzenes

hey @Ivo, how was the night shift?

Ivo Flipse

well had to take my GF to the hospital to get some teeth removed

other than that, very inproductive

though I finally reinstalled a feed notifier for all SE sites I like

and yet another shameless plug:

18

Q: Suggest "Questions you may have an answer to"

Based on user's previous answer history and, especially, reputation gains assotiated with each tag, provide an automatic selection of recently asked questions which "you may have an answer for". Of course the method would be heuristic, but it would help users to discover interesting questions. T...

tzenes

let me take a look

ooo, I like

tags are good, but I think we could algorithmically improve on that

Ivo Flipse

well I believe the tags are just too simplistic for recommendations, but you as an amazon/machine learning type of guy should know that

> Oh and I would love a Netflix-like challenge to come up with the best suggestions!

just added that :P

tzenes

15:27

oooo

sorry I just drooled

Ivo Flipse

funnily enough, this could actually be used to aggregate ads too

tzenes

look at this: quora.com/about Its exactly what @Mechko wants SE to be

Ivo Flipse

and possibly even be used for game-rec's :P

tzenes

I think to have a good game-rec site, we need people to vote on games

The focus would have to be the game-graph, not the information-graph

Ivo Flipse

in a sense you do, by voting on questions/answers with tags that relate to games

tzenes

15:30

That's an evaluation of what's being said

for example, there could be a bad question about a good game

Ivo Flipse

yeah but you don't look at things you don't care about

tzenes

I think most of my downvotes are on answers to starcraft questions, but I still like starcraft

Arda Xi

Funnily enough I wrote a Naive Bayes implementation in .NET a couple weeks ago, I could try throwing it at the SE API

Ivo Flipse

the fact that you vote on those question/answers shows you have interest

more based on activity, than what it is you do

tzenes

maybe

If I voted in a lot of WoW questions that would also be a red herring

I know a lot about WoW but I hate that game to death

Ivo Flipse

15:31

well the API doesn't give you access to voting patterns @ArdaXi :(

Arda Xi

oh, right

tzenes

does it give you access to your personal voting pattern?

Arda Xi

data dumps don't either do they?

@tzenes there's no way to prove you are you, so no

Ivo Flipse

yeah, but you might like games related to wow, or from the same makers

uhhh OpenID @ArdaXi?

tzenes

I actually dislike games like wow, however I do like games by Blizzard

Ivo Flipse

15:32

but I would simply want the team to implement something like this

tzenes

sadly WoW and Starcraft aren't tagged as Blizzard games

Arda Xi

@IvoFlipse doesn't work with a 3rd party

the API would have to implement oAuth

Ivo Flipse

no but if your app let's me log in and get a private stream from the API, your algorithm could use that info

Arda Xi

but it's not possible

tzenes

This gets back to the problem that the graph is information centric, not game centric

Ivo Flipse

15:33

but again: SO should implement it and then come up with an API for it

tzenes

haha

well having oAuth in the api would be nice too

put that in meta.so

Arda Xi

OpenID isn't meant to allow access to data, although Valve really misunderstood that

@tzenes wouldn't that fit better on SA?

Ivo Flipse

you do it, I'm just babbling and have no idea about what I'm talking about

probably yeah @ArdaXi

tzenes

maybe, I don't know how the structure works

OpenID is meant to act as an augment to the public key system

Arda Xi

OpenID client-server goes: "this user claims to be that person, is that true"

oAuth client-server goes: "this user claims to have access to that data, give me it please"

tzenes

15:35

instead of using my public key to verify my authenticity, I'm using a trusted partner

Instead of "here is how you'll know its me" its "Johnny knows me real well, you can trust Johny when he says its me"

Arda Xi

exactly

Ivo Flipse

but @tzenes just because you don't like wow, doesn't mean you dislike every element about the game

tzenes

No, just the core elements

but then how would you know what the elements are? they aren't tagged

Arda Xi

that's why a bayes classifier works well here, it auto-corrects for differences

tzenes

again, information graph vs game graph

Arda Xi

15:37

for example, one upvote for a wow question and a downvote for a wow question (well, more refined than that) cancel each other out

Ivo Flipse

I didn't say it was easy :P

tzenes

I downvote Stracraft more than anything else

and I love that game

Arda Xi

it's pretty easy actually

Ivo Flipse

no to me that just says you have an interest in wow, positive or negative

Arda Xi

you have two piles, interesting and uninteresting

you add tags to one, you add tags to the other, in whatever way (downvotes, views, whatever)

tzenes

15:38

interested doesn't mean good recommendation

I'm interested in MMOs

I never want to play one

Arda Xi

then, the classifier decides whether a question goes into one pile or the other

I said, interesting tags, which means interesting questions

so questions you're interested in answering

tzenes

I vote on questions I'm not interested in answering

Ivo Flipse

but now your just using one sample to try and haul down a whole theory :P

tzenes

like every nethack question

Ivo Flipse

perhaps WoW is the Napoleon Dynamite of gaming

tzenes

15:39

No, I'm picking it apart piece by piece

Arda Xi

@tzenes you're not listening to what I'm saying

tzenes

I know enough about Machine Learning to know you're pulling the wrong data

I am Arda

Arda Xi

you add tags to one, you add tags to the other, in whatever way (downvotes, views, whatever)

tzenes

I've heard this argument before

Ivo Flipse

I know you know way more than I do @tzenes, but wouldn't you agree it's more useful than not trying at all?

tzenes

15:40

though at the time it was the Stock Market

Arda Xi

it could be an extra link saying: "interested/not interested"

I have implemented a Bayes classifier for this thing before, it works

the best spam filters work on this principle

tzenes

I think there is information we could pull to find interesting questions, but not to find game recommendatiosn

we're just parsing the wrong graph

Arda Xi

what 'graph' are you talking about

tzenes

SE is built on top of spanning the information-graph

by comparison Facebook is spanning the social-graph

to have a good recommendation engine we'd need to span the game-graph

Arda Xi

again, I'm not quite sure what graph you mean

tzenes

15:42

in which example?

Ivo Flipse

ok, you got me @tzenes but I do think it could come up with nice suggestions

tzenes

for questions, I agree

Arda Xi

what kind of graph rather

tzenes

but not for recommendations

Arda Xi

what.. where did that come from

Ivo Flipse

15:42

well, we simply can't because the interface doesn't contain this information for the games-rec then

tzenes

that's what we've been talking about

Arda Xi

obviously we're not suggesting games for someone to play with this system

unless you're looking to make extra money through amazon referrals or something

tzenes

"funnily enough, this could actually be used to aggregate ads too
and possibly even be used for game-rec's"

that's what started this conversation

Arda Xi

ah, I didn't see that

tzenes

:78889 here

Arda Xi

15:44

that wouldn't work quite as well

tzenes

huh, it inserted a ping

Arda Xi

if we want the system to work it has to be based on tags, not games

tzenes

yes, I know

Arda Xi

has done that for about 24h now

tzenes

Thats what I've been saying

I'm glad we're all on the same page now

Ivo Flipse

15:44

haha how amusing :P

Arda Xi

I'm saying, if game-rec is high in the interesting pile a game-rec will sooner be interesting

tzenes

yes, I know how a NBC works

Arda Xi

but if mmo is higher on the noninteresting pile a game tagged [game-rec] [mmo] won't be suggested

then, as long as we have good metrics to set up the two piles I think this could work pretty well

if need be just set up a database somewhere, a greasemonkey script and a server-side implementation if the team won't do it

then it can be done without any API access except for pulling the tags

tzenes

I actually wouldn't do noninteresting

I'd consider all votes as interest

Arda Xi

you need non-interesting

Ivo Flipse

15:47

hotness @tzenes

Arda Xi

because of the way a NBC works

tzenes

if someone is going around to every mmo question and downvoting, clearly they're interested in it

I know you need a non-interesting, I meant not that way

Ivo Flipse

they'd wanted to see another mmo question to downvote ;)

Arda Xi

or they're just patrolling every question, like I do

tzenes

exactly

They clearly want to find these MMO questions so they can down vote them

Arda Xi

15:48

that doesn't give us enough information

Ivo Flipse

im gonna vote to delete every halo question I see :P

tzenes

here is what I'd do

I'd say everything is a possible interest, and then I'd classify what is a known interest out of the possible interests

I've now set up two partitions, known and unknown

Arda Xi

or just do everything score based, an upvote this many, a downvote this many, with a fav scoring much higher

you first need a way to get from unknown to known

tzenes

I'd establish the graph of this pattern

and start making cuts

a graph cutting algorithm works nicely here

I can make cuts based on my known information into my unknown

similar to how a smart cropping algorithm works

of course that's on the image graph

Arda Xi

but again, you'd first need some kind of algorithm to determine what kind of questions a user wants to see, as we've established up/downvotes don't mean much

not even the existence of them

I've voted on starcraft questions, but I wouldn't know anything about SC

tzenes

15:53

Well writing answers indicates that you know something about the topic

so that's a strong indicator

stronger if they're upvoted or selected as the answer

Ivo Flipse

you could further divide them later on into answerable and interesting questions @Arda, but you have to start somewhere

tzenes

Asking questions indicates that the user has enough interest in the game they want to know more about it

Arda Xi

true, but the average user doesn't have enough posts to do a good analysis with

tzenes

so that's strong data there

we have weaker data in voting

Ivo Flipse

if you look at our current sorting options, it's not just one sorting order

tzenes

15:54

I imagine there is some spline matching we could do on the edges of our graph

Arda Xi

@tzenes you have about 70 posts, I'm not sure if that's enough data to go on

and most people will have less

tzenes

oh its definately enough data

Ivo Flipse

out of the interesting questions, you could show him which he upvoted the most, has the most accepted answers

tzenes

you'd figure out almost immediately

but my data isn't really good data

as I clearly really like starcraft

Ivo Flipse

and there's enough data from the highly active users, if your stats correlate with them, you're likely to feel the same

tzenes

15:56

well, I wouldn't get into SVD just yet

we also have comments

I comment more often than I ask or answer

Arda Xi

alright, I think I'm going to return to this conversation when I've finished high school mathematics.

tzenes

haha

its ok, mathematics is actually a poor way to learn math

which is a strange thing to say

but consider this: I can construct a wavelet transform as just a high/low band filter

Arda Xi

I'm doing the most advanced course available in my country at my age, it should get me started

tzenes

which is a much easier way to learn wavelets

Arda Xi

:79133 I'm just gonna believe you can

tzenes

15:57

rather than starting from mother/father functions and learning that

Ivo Flipse

well it's more that just learning theory is a bad way of being able to use math in practice

tzenes

programming is the best way to learn math in my opinion

Arda Xi

of course it is, but you need to start with theory before you can put it in practice

Ivo Flipse

at least it's very visual @tzenes

Arda Xi

and high school is a better way than wikipedia, I noticed that when I got into sine/cosine etc

which I can never remember the english word for

tzenes

15:59

I've found just the opposite, its easier for me to start with the practice and learn the theory

:79144 trig

its short for trigonometry

Arda Xi

right, trigonometry

tzenes

the calculus of triangles

and it also turns out circles

Arda Xi

we call it goniometry, from the greek word for angle

tzenes

that could get confused with geometry

Ivo Flipse

they should give kids Labview in middle/high school

tzenes

16:00

then again, a lot of trig is geometry

ooo, I found the paper I wanted:

research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/cambridge/projects/…

he establishes his graph cutting algorithm by trilabling his image graph

Arda Xi

@IvoFlipse will probably understand me when I say that at least B and D should give me a proper starting ground to start practicing from

tzenes

but he can also do it by bilabling

simply having some as not and some as unkown

Ivo Flipse

D? is that a Math direction?

Arda Xi

yeah, there's A through D

Ivo Flipse

ah it used to be just A or B, perhaps it's B I and II

Arda Xi

16:04

I forgot they added C and D in 2007

Wiskunde (schoolvak in Nederland)

Het schoolvak wiskunde werd en wordt in Nederland onder verschillende vormen, dus volgens een verschillend leerplan aangeboden: Oude Tweede Fase Vóór 2007 werd wiskunde in de tweede fase onderverdeeld in Wiskunde A1, Wiskunde A1,2, Wiskunde B1 en Wiskunde B1,2. De verschillende soorten wiskunde hoorden bij de vier verschillende profielen in de Tweede Fase, al was het ook soms mogelijk om een hogere graad van wiskunde te krijgen door deze in het vrije deel te kiezen. Wiskunde A1 Dit was een vorm van wiskunde gedoceerd in de Tweede Fase van het voortgezet onderwijs in Nederland. Het eindcijf...

Ivo Flipse

I like that article @tzenes, I need to program something in Python that recognizes dog paws, when they walk over a pressure plate/matrix

this seems useful

tzenes

16:20

Honestly @IvoFlipse You can probably just get away with blob extraction at that point

Grabcuts is as high level as it gets

I'm out of votes for the next 7 hours

What's the vote cap? 20?

Ivo Flipse

sure, but recognizing the paws is the first step, then I need to find parts within the paw

tzenes

segmentation algorithms

fuck I've been rep capped every day this week

why do people keep upvoting me? what is wrong with them?

Ivo Flipse

life's a bitch

any good suggestions for segmentation algorithms? they should relate to anatomical regions though

@Juan will be proud of how off-topic I am :P

tzenes

Segmentation (image processing)

In computer vision, segmentation refers to the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple segments (sets of pixels, also known as superpixels). The goal of segmentation is to simplify and/or change the representation of an image into something that is more meaningful and easier to analyze. Image segmentation is typically used to locate objects and boundaries (lines, curves, etc.) in images. More precisely, image segmentation is the process of assigning a label to every pixel in an image such that pixels with the same label share certain visual characteristics. The result of i...

I've always been a fan of edge detection given how easy it is to implement, but that's just lazyness

I need to go to work, but when I get back I have an great idea

Video Game Blog to promote the site

Ivo Flipse

:O

well we need a blog anyway

alexanderpas

16:33

anyone need some closevotes?

C. Ross

16:45

let's see what we can find

1

Q: What are some good roguelikes for practice?

I like roguelikes, certainly, but I'm still a newb at them, and Nethack and Rogue routinely kill me quickly enough that I don't seem to learn much from them. What are some good games to ease myself into roguelikes?

game-rec roguelikes

1

Q: Are there any PC games like Jedi Power Battles?

There was a game I used to play on the DreamCast called something like Jedi Power Battles. Is there a version of that I could play on the PC not using an emulator? If not are there any other PC games that are like it? (Two player co-op with leveling characters.)

pc game-rec multiplayer star-wars

1

Q: Are there any PC games like Jedi Power Battles?

There was a game I used to play on the DreamCast called something like Jedi Power Battles. Is there a version of that I could play on the PC not using an emulator? If not are there any other PC games that are like it? (Two player co-op with leveling characters.)

pc game-rec multiplayer star-wars

alexanderpas

Voted, closed and added the dreaded tag; already voted.

C. Ross

oh this one

4

Q: PSN games like Geometry Wars

I'm looking for some games available on PSN that are like Geometry Wars. What are my options?

game-rec psn geometry-wars

alexanderpas

voted.

C. Ross

@IvoFlipse, @tzenes can you help?

Arda Xi

@CRoss closed

C. Ross

16:55

thanks Arda

Ivo Flipse

I already had @CRoss

C. Ross

oh well

alexanderpas

QuakeCon Sale on Steam!

McKay

What's on sale?

Ivo Flipse

@tzenes remember to ping that day[9] guy, see if he likes SE too

tzenes

17:03

I tried, I'm not sure if he got it

Also, voted

we need some sort of poster that's like: Vote to Close... Its your Duty!

alexanderpas

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition ( Deluxe or Standard ) or all current Bethesda Softworks & id Software Games ( QuakeCon 2010 Pack )

Ivo Flipse

Call of Duty: Vote to Close!

that's would be a cool banner :P

btw his latest daily is interesting @tzenes, it's two n00bs playing, which should be interesting, because they can make it very hard on each other

tzenes

I'll have to check it out

@alexanderpas QuakeCon Pack

Ivo Flipse

day9tv.blip.tv

alexanderpas

Quakecon Pack is like €300 in savings for only €70

McKay

17:09

I can't get to that link from here, what's in the quakecon pack?

alexanderpas

- Quake III Arena
- Wolfenstein 3D
- The Ultimate Doom
- Final DOOM
- DOOM II
- QUAKE
- QUAKE II
- QUAKE II Mission Pack: The Reckoning
- QUAKE II Mission Pack: Ground Zero
- QUAKE III: Team Arena
- HeXen: Beyond Heretic
- HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel
- Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders
- Spear of Destiny
- Return to Castle Wolfenstein
- QUAKE Mission Pack 2: Dissolution of Eternity
- QUAKE Mission Pack 1: Scourge of Armagon
- DOOM 3
- HeXen II
- DOOM 3 Resurrection of Evil
- Master Levels for Doom II

McKay

:79439 Thanks. Wow, that's quite a bit

alexanderpas

Individual price: 303,24€ - Package price: 69,99€ - You save: 233,25€

tzenes

what's the svn command to ignore changes to a certain file?

alexanderpas

.svnignore file AFAIK (or don't you mean that)

tzenes

17:21

svn propset svn:ignore -F

Ivo Flipse

too localized question coming in with the question feed

alexanderpas

ready for it.

voted.

McKay

Hmm, too localized? Because it's down to a particular replay?

Ivo Flipse

yeah

well he should edit it, such that it's no longer too localized

McKay

I think I disagree.

Ivo Flipse

17:36

I would also find it useful to find replays

McKay

I don't think that it's too localized for the worldwide audience of the internet. Other people might want to find that particular replay.

Sure, it might be a decent question to ask about how to find replays, but, then it becomes a list question, because some are on youtube, some on sc2replays.net ...

Ivo Flipse

too localized as it only looks for 1 replay

alexanderpas

I'm with Ivo.

Downvoter

I'm with McKay

Ivo Flipse

no, no, what is the best way to find replays? the best one, finds the most replays

Downvoter

17:37

what is the harm of leaving that question open?

Downvoter

what is the benefit of closing it?

Ivo Flipse

youtube might work, if google's seach finds them for you

the harm is that this question can be asked for every replay

alexanderpas

"can you find this replay for me... I know i've seen it somewhere"

Ivo Flipse

the latter would teach people how to find the next replay they want to watch

Downvoter

meh, ok

McKay

17:39

This was a replay mentioned in a popular "podcast", others might also want to find the same replay?

Downvoter

all I'll say is that we are too trigger happy with close votes for my taste

alexanderpas

I make individual assesment.

McKay

So, Ivo, what's the answer to "How do I find replays I'm looking for?"?

LMGTFY?

Downvoter

I think we are forgetting that this site is to help people get answers

Ivo Flipse

I have no idea @McKay, I don't look for specific ones, I just watch day[9]

Downvoter

17:40

and I think this person has a reasonable request

Ivo Flipse

I voted AND left a comment how I think he can change his scope

Downvoter

not all questions have to be general

Ivo Flipse

if he does so, people can forget about my vote

alexanderpas

how about this question: "Where to find the replays of this world tournament"

Ivo Flipse

it's already localized to starcraft 2 replays

so it's not 'general'

McKay

17:41

:79574 I think that's a good question.

alexanderpas

(was just an example, as not specific for a single replay, yet not a list question)

tzenes

I'm with @Juan as long as there aren't 8 million of these its ok

just like I wouldn't mind game-rec if there was 1 or 2

alexanderpas

ah well, that's why we need 5 close votes.

tzenes

I'm willing to let the occational one go if it means someone gets helped. But once its a trend, its too much

Downvoter

I mean, he has a question for which he wants an answer... we can't pretend everybody to think of a general case for their problems before we allow them to ask a question

Downvoter

17:44

we are here to help

Ivo Flipse

the only acceptable answer @JuanManuel is the one that answers his version of the question

I didn't say we shouldn't answer that portion of it

just that he should change his question, so that next time he'll be able to find it himself

McKay

His problem was mostly with spelling, he even thought that was the case, but he wasn't sure. I think it's hard to write a generic question for that.

alexanderpas

not giving a man a fish, but learning the man to fish.

4

McKay

He now knows how to spell those two players' names?

Ivo Flipse

well said @alexanderpas

McKay

17:47

Don't get me wrong, I think @alexanderpas is right, more generic questions are better, but I'm having a hard time thinking of how to make this question more generic for his case.

alexanderpas

:79612 now star it ;)

2

tzenes

Well a perfect answer would contain a link to a replay source (or maybe a youtube channel) with a bunch of replays on it.

Ivo Flipse

I did

Downvoter

:79619 first edit it and replace learning with teaching :)

tzenes

No I like it as learning

alexanderpas

17:48

oh yeah, those stars are located over there....

tzenes

its funnier

alexanderpas

Losing == Fun

2

tzenes

anyway, for one question I have no problem with this borderline question. If it starts to become a trend then I think we should nip it

alexanderpas

Still in the top 10..

McKay

Wow, I had a little deja'vu just now. I got to the same Wikipedia article looking up two different things that came up here.
QuakeCon pack 2010 contains a game called Spear of Destiny
the SC2 replay just mentioned was on a map called Longinus.
The Spear of Destiny was the weapon that Longinus used.
The Holy Lance is also known as the Spear of Destiny, or the Lance of Longinus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance
weird

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