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Originally posted by trancaholic @Andrew: Don't believe it for a second. As I may have mentioned before, my job is research within computer science, with the focus area being - yes - probabilistic AI and decision theory. I took a look at the professors website, and was instantly alarmed by him being a professor of sociology. Now researchers in the humanities rarely come up with ideas within computer science that takes the entire field years into the future. Just as computer scientists don't come up with theories on human behaviour that blows all current theories in the social sciences out of the water. And believe you me, we are very far from having methods that can grade a text automatically. Hell, we cannot even recognize spam automatically too a satisfying degree. Now the professor is *also* an adjunct in computer science, so not wishing to make a too rash judgement I tried to get a peek at the actual reasoning behind the computer programs. This was not available (that is sooo not scientific to keep that secret), but the professor is from a department of "applied expert systems". In science, the "applied" bit usually means that the people there don't have a clue what they're working with, but considers it a black box. This suspicion of mine ties in nicely with the fact that "expert systems" themselves have been abandoned by the AI community for years, as they are incapable of generalizing beyond the examples they have been constructed to recognize, and are computationally speaking highly inefficient. My guess is that the described computer program searches for some sequences of words in the text and increases a grade counter whenever it finds one such sequence. If the student chooses to answer in an unusual way, the program will output a low grade. Simple as that. Oh, btw. all the programs the professor has constructed has a ™ added to their name ("Data Collection Selection™", "Measurement & Scaling Strategist™", etc.). How cheesy and unscientific is that!

What type of research do you do exactly in decision theory?

Duck Cheney '08!!!

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...gton050411.html

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Originally posted by Epicurus What type of research do you do exactly in decision theory?

Work basically falls into one of three categories: Thinking up new analysis tools (e.g. "Ok, DT tells us that given Y=y to do X. How much can we mess with the value y before that conclusion is invalidated", "If we want a specific bound on the uncertainty of this and that conclusion, how much data would we need to ensure that"), rendering the existing ones (some of which are very old) computationally efficient, and constructing frameworks and work methods that make it easier for experts in DT to elicit the essential knowledge from domain experts. Makes sense?

Oh, you are probably right about that Tranceaholic, just thought, without making any deeper research about, that it sounded like som pretty fancy computer technology =)

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Originally posted by occrider Duck Cheney '08!!! http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/natio...gton050411.html

Ok so it appears President Bush enjoys listening to his ipod, anyone any ideas on what he should be listening to.....heres a few i thought of.......

John Lennon - Give peace a chance

Bob Dylan - God on our side

Tears For Fears - Everybody wants to rule the world

Dead Kennedys - Kill the poor

Black Sabbath - War pigs

Black eyed peas - Where is the love

Blur - Charmless man

The Pixies - This monkeys going to heaven

Radiohead - 2+2=5

R.E.M - Its the end of the world as we know it

I could go on, lyrics allowed as well....maybe he should just play the last verse of Bob Dylans Blowing in the Wind over and over...

How many deaths will it take till he knows
That to many people have died
The answer my friend
Is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

^^^ I'm shocked that you know so much non-electronica.

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Originally posted by trancaholic Work basically falls into one of three categories: Thinking up new analysis tools (e.g. "Ok, DT tells us that given Y=y to do X. How much can we mess with the value y before that conclusion is invalidated", "If we want a specific bound on the uncertainty of this and that conclusion, how much data would we need to ensure that"), rendering the existing ones (some of which are very old) computationally efficient, and constructing frameworks and work methods that make it easier for experts in DT to elicit the essential knowledge from domain experts. Makes sense?

Alright, so I assume you work more from the CS perspective, and not from the OR perspective. Do you do any mathematical programming or constraint programming research at all, or is it mostly data structures and such?

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Originally posted by trancaholic ^^^ I'm shocked that you know so much non-electronica.

Impressive huh....

Ok my electronica list....this one was harder for some reason

Dj Energy - Peace to the world

16 Bit Lolitas - Take my life

Matthew Dekay & Proluctors - Behind secret boarders

Plastikman - Spastik (ok this one might get me flamed..what the hell)

Oliver Prime - Mind games

Casino & Laben - Leaveing panic behind

Faithless - Mass destruction

Segment - We sold our souls

Nikola Gala - Dark side of the east

Mark Sherry - Vengence

Yes, it's a very CS perspective environment. I've used mathematical programming only once. I used it as a part of an algorithm for doing sensitivity analysis of utility conversion parameters in decision problems modelled in a specific framework (ie. "how much and little can I value human lives compared to dollars, if I act as I do"). A problem which could be mapped to a constraint satisfaction problem. A somewhat time-consuming mapping, due to the framework, but it seems to be the best that can be done.

What's your own field of study?
And why are you so on and off in this forum? (I can ask - this is the COR-thread)

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Originally posted by zig Ok so it appears President Bush enjoys listening to his ipod, anyone any ideas on what he should be listening to.....heres a few i thought of.......

Well his playlist was actually published. Apparentely it included a lot of songs by artists who campaigned against him.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifes...bushipod12.html

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So this is where everyone ran off to! I thought you were all off having ritualistic sex, but I see it is far worse. You have given a more attractive outlet for people in this forum to dumb themselves down to sub-100 IQ levels. I see it as a stunt to separate the champs from the chumps! Just kidding. But seriously...

I just noticed this sticky thread a few minutes ago because I rarely, if ever, looked at Occrider's economic updates. If I were a betting man, I'd say he was bored at work at the time and felt like unloading all of the data he was observing during the workday. But I digress.

It will be interesting to see where this thing goes and if it will outnumber the posts in that god awful Israeli/Palestinian threat. At this rate, it will happen in a matter of weeks.


So...a rambling from me. So I went to the Masters on Saturday, as some of you may know. Aside from driving to Augusta at 6AM, and walking around in mud for 7 hours, it was fucking awesome. I have never seen a more flawless piece of real estate. It was amazing to see so many top-tier, legendary players in one place. It was like being fully immersed in greatness on all sides. I can understand why some compare it to a slice of heaven on Earth.

eg um anyway since this is like the chillout thread or something, i'd just like to say ithat today i've passed two exams and i'm totally lliek fuckin drunk now hehehehe lalala plink polnnko polkn k pa skplink plink plonk....

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