Professor: So the Amazon.com auction is different. If an auction receives a bid within the last 10 minutes, the auction is extended for 10 minutes. So the auction ends when it is quiescent.
Student: How do you spell that?
Me: *Facepalm*
Archive for the 'School' Category
For my SI 508 Networks class last semester I did an analysis of one of my Facebook applications, Notecentric. Notecentric was a social network that I had written during the Summer of ‘06 and I had recently ported it to the Facebook Developer Platform in Summer ‘07 shortly after the platform had been launched.
The growth of Notecentric isn’t what I had hoped it would be. Not too many people use it, probably due to network effects of Facebook promoting a competing app (note to Facebook: if you want to promote a level playing field, don’t play favorites!) and other general performance issues (the application is pretty barebones and the RFacebook library I used to write it is pretty damn slow. It times out a lot!).
Anyway, I got some neat network data from it, which made the whole thing worthwhile. You can check out the original paper I wrote last semester here.
I’m going to be presenting my analysis during the School of Information’s annual expoSItion. It’s like a science fair except without the exploding volcanoes. During my Winter break, I developed another app, mainly for fun. It’s called Musical Instruments. Basically it lets you list which instruments you play and see which instruments your friends play. I had somewhat higher hopes for this application as a data gathering tool, and sure enough, it seems to be doing some cool stuff on first analysis. For expoSItion I figured I’d grab some data from this new app and compare the two.
I ran some initial analysis on the Musical Instruments app. I won’t go over a lot of the original metrics I used (number of peers with app installed, percentage of peers with app installed, etc) and I’ll just skip to the pictures.
This is an initial view of the Notecentric network:
Continue reading ‘A Tale of Two Facebook Apps: Viral Vs. Non-Viral Growth’
Student: So, log(x)… that’s like, x2, right?
Me: *headdesk*
So one of the things that has surprised me about grad school in comparison to my undergrad is the large amounts of free food being offered every day. I think it has to do with the fact that UNM was a pretty small school and Michigan is a behemoth of schools. I’m always getting emails just from my own school within the U (School of Information) about events with pizza and pop (soda!) included.
There’s almost always free food for me to eat on Thursdays. Fridays are good too. I actually end up spending quite a bit of time planning where my next free meal will come from. For example, there’s a Teach For America thing going on tomorrow at the Union that will have food from Zingerman’s. Thursday there’s a company info session and Friday there’s a panel/session, both of which will offer free food. That’s already like, $20 in food savings for me (if I had eaten out at some place near campus, which would be the most likely scenario)!
At one point I pondered whether I could run an experment: to eat only free food for the entire semester! I decided that I would probably end up starving or getting really weak while begging for food.
I found a site called “Hungry Hungry Coeds” that lists free food events at some select campuses. Luckily it seems that the creators of the site went to Michigan, or at least the main contributor goes here. I’ll be checking it routinely to see if I can maximize my free food intake. Maybe I should also keep a log of all the free food I eat per week. Could end up being another blog…
So I headed on down to the internship fair today happening at the Union.
First thing that I noticed was that everyone was wearing suits! My opinion on suits is that I hope I’ll never work anywhere that requires one, except for maybe at a company formal party or something. I guess it’s pretty standard attire for an internship fair, but I think distinguishing yourself is important too. Everyone looks the same in a suit. Luckily, I distinguished myself as the idiot who didn’t bring a suit.
Mostly I just wandered around looking all the companies. Quite a few had really long lines just to talk to a recruiter. The place was packed, too. There were probably a few hundred people in any given room.
I talked to some people from Liberty Mutual. The guy was laid back and pretty cool. He told me to check their website for any openings, and I got a pen and a weird bendy thing (it’s like, a blue bendy stick).
I also checked out this local web development company called Enlighten. They were laid back as well. I talked to them a bit about web development and they gave me some cool magnetic thinking putty. I played with it. It’s sorta magnetic, but not highly magnetic. Like you wouldn’t replace an industrial strength electromagnet with it or anything.
Most of my social interactions went pretty smoothly, I must say. There was one that I could probably call the worst of the year so far. I went up to the Macy’s corner and some guy said something and stuck out his hand. Now, I know when a person wants to shake my hand, I’m not an idiot. But I didn’t hear what he said, and I thought he said something like, “name?” So I was like, “Hung,” and I pointed to my name tag. Then he said something else I couldn’t hear, so I said it louder and pointed more furiously, “HUNG!” I thought he wanted to take something, instead of shaking my hand. Anyway, I finally shook his hand.
Then, I asked if there were any engineering type jobs at Macy’s. He said that no, there were only management type jobs. I guess our interaction could’ve just ended there. But then I noticed something.
Standing right behind the guy was a larger version of the guy. It was him, but bigger, and printed out on a large piece of paper.
“Is… that… you?” I slowly asked with furrowed brow. “THAT’S YOU!” And indeed, it was him on the promotional banner. He said it was taken a year or so ago. Without thinking, I said something like, “Could you stand next to it and do the same pose!?” I think he was starting to get tired of my shenanigans. He actually contemplated it before not doing it. Then he suggested I leave by saying something like, “well, good luck in your internship search!” I took the hint, but not before asking for a bouncy Macy’s ball.
It glows when you bounce it.
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