Comments on: “Catalist” for Change: Q& A with Vijay Ravindran

By: StewartIII

StewartIII — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 02:12:45 +0000

Washington Post Hired Left-Wing Obama Enabler as Its 'Chief Digital Officer' http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2009/07/03/washington-post-hires-left-wing-obama-enabler-its-chief-digital-officer

By: Priya

Priya — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 23:55:04 +0000

shaila, an amusing (digressionary perhaps)anecdote from the above book related to your comment

“….The US Supreme court recently made the preposterous ruling that the chemical processes of your body are laws of nature…First it ruled that that laws of nature cannot be patented. Then it ruled that gene sequences can be patented. The inescapable conclusion is that gene sequences are not laws of nature. Here’s another. The court first ruled that algorithms or mathematical formulae, like laws of nature cannot be patented. Then it ruled that software can be patented. Thus it ruled that software doesn’t consist of algorithms or mathematical formula !!…”

By: Priya

Priya — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:02:10 +0000

7 Â· shaila said

@neale, they probably don't want to give away all their techniques.

Because of [ Crime of Reason ]

By: Priya

Priya — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:39:35 +0000

The other day I was reading somewhere about future complications related to confirmation hearings and vettings processes for official positions for the next generation with so much of individual's private life on cyberspace. As recent events suggest [After the Crash: How Software Models Doomed the Markets ] the net will begin to influence real life. With "Second life" already becoming a craze, neuroscientists are conjecturing that the Brain is now in evolution mode. Vijay's work if extended will actually be a useful tool for scientific data analysis where there is a data overload due to increasing computational power.

By: SM Intern

SM Intern — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 10:41:21 +0000

On topic, people. And the topic is not who got hacked.

By: shaila

shaila — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:20:35 +0000

@neale, they probably don’t want to give away all their techniques.

By: Neale

Neale — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:29:58 +0000

Not to detract from Catalist’s efforts – but that list above is so much about how much data was collected. What would really be interesting is to see how they sliced and diced the data – was it classic dimesnioning , like major retailers have been doing for years? Probably not. It would be fascinating to read if there was actual heuristic analysis built around subjective data points*. That’s an oxymoron, i know. Maybe not in a 2.0 world – amybe Catalist could tell us more.

*Just my aging mind trying to dredge up decades old comp.sci. mumbo-jumbo.

By: Amit

Amit — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 15:22:16 +0000

I’ve known Vijay for roughly 15 years (even lived with him for a few) and I can say his success is no accident or fluke. He comes from a brilliant family, is hard working, and has an open mind. I know he’ll do great things at WaPo and beyond. Congrats!

By: Zack

Zack — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:18:23 +0000

His involvement at the Washington Post will definitely be something to watch. Who knows to what end exactly Obama’s success could be attributed to this interesting mix of technology, information and marketing, but Obama nevertheless won – so I suppose my hope is that this kind of approach, this kind of thinking, will have continued success elsewhere (i.e. a newspaper). American journalism is in crisis and every once in a while appears some new fad that is supposed to save the industry. People continue to bandy about catch-phrases without really understanding them; not only that, they pour money into research and training, but the results are often time-wasters that audiences aren’t receptive to. I’ll look later, but has there been anything about Ravindran in AJR or CJR? Or would it be too early?

By: Uma Thurman

Uma Thurman — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:58:44 +0000

Vijay's work on data crunching continues to fascinate me for some strange reason (maybe because of all this election fever, Obama-mania and media hype). Right now I am reading a related interesting article (subscription required) - Why Rich States ArenÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t Republican which is kind of a book review of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State: Why Americans Vote the Way They Do that delves into Vijay's field