yariang

At the risk of being meta; I think you should vote up when someone contributes to a discussion in a meaningful way, regardless of server you agree or not.

From the article: "We already have contracts with NASA, some private companies, and even a few private individuals."

Why did you stop there though?

"...in the startup world..."

In fact, I am surprised to see a lot of non-startup companies like Nokia listed quite highly.

I don't, but I can intuitively grasp that a 5-star item with 2 reviews is not reliable. Since I understand how the sorting works, I know I have to jump to the 4.5 star items in order and check how many reviews that item has and if it also has a small number then I will jump to the 4 star items.

The point is, I understand the sorting order and can manipulate them if I am not satisfied with what is presented to me. Having a very esoteric algorithm is a risk. Maybe you'll present just what the user really wanted. But if you get it wrong they will be lost to do anything about it. I tend to dislike systems that leave users helpless when something goes wrong.

While it is good to look at these sorts of mathematically rigorous algorithms, I think I would be frustrated if it was used everywhere. Or, well, maybe not me perhaps, but a non technical user.

The beauty of the second algorithm for rating products is that it is straightforward. Having never seen it before I can deduce that 5 stars come before 4 stars and more reviews come before fewer. If I want to skip ahead to the 4 stars I know what to do. I can internalize the sorting algorithm easily. And as a user, understanding the order items are presented to me is important.

If Amazon were to use the last algorithm and present items in that order (assuming we accounted for the 5 star vs positive/negative issue), it would like a random order to most users and would be frustrating.

So I guess what I am saying is that this algorithm is very clever, but in some cases, it may be too clever. Sometimes you just want to keep it Simple Stupid.

Not to detract from your main point, but I don't think Siesta is very common in Mexico and most other Latin American countries. I was born in Cuba, lived there for five years and lived in Mexico for about three or four. I don't know of a single person who regularly slept after noon.

In fact, I had an opportunity to live in Barcelona for three months and while a lot of businesses do close down from noon to three, I got the impression that people were not using that time to sleep, and that the idea of siesta in Catalunya is on the decline.

I couldn't help but notice a resemblance between what you are describing and a lot of machine learning algorithms.

It seems like the most successful ML algorithms are self-correcting ones, rather than ones that attempt to calculate the exact correct answer in one go.

Coincidence?

The 25% he alludes to is your recurring mortgage payment, which also happens annually--monthly, actually. What he means here is that a discount of 5% in your mortgage negotiations is much less than an increase of 5% in your salary. So he is right, for the right reason.