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    <title>dekstop weblog : Update on SearchFox&#39;s &quot;Topics I Like&quot;</title>
    <link>http://dekstop.de/weblog/2005/11/update_on_searchfox_topics_i_like/</link>
    <description>I don&apos;t get it. Around the time I wrote about SearchFox RSS&apos;s &quot;Topics I Like&quot; feature I adjusted some of my reading habits (notably minimizing the consumption of web two-point-oh hype, and subscribing to more non-tech-oriented feeds), and the list of &quot;topics I like&quot; hasn&apos;t really adjusted to that. Maybe ...</description>
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    <dc:rights>Copyright 2005 Martin Dittus</dc:rights>
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      <title>Update on SearchFox&apos;s &quot;Topics I Like&quot;</title>
      <link>http://dekstop.de/weblog/2005/11/update_on_searchfox_topics_i_like/</link> 
      <description><![CDATA[<p>I don't get it. Around the time I wrote about <a href="http://dekstop.de/weblog/2005/10/searchfox_topics_i_like/">SearchFox RSS's "Topics I Like" feature</a> I adjusted some of my reading habits (notably minimizing the consumption of web two-point-oh hype, and subscribing to more non-tech-oriented feeds), and the list of "topics I like" hasn't really adjusted to that. Maybe I'm too impatient, but I was presented with about 1.200 articles since last Wednesday and the list of "topics I like" seems rarely changed.</p>

<p>I've included a screenshot of my current dataset below; I've also appended the words to the <a href="http://dekstop.de/weblog/2005/10/searchfox_topics_i_like/">original data set</a>. Note how e.g. "Ning" and "Quake" are both still on the list. Note how most of the other words aren't really pointing to a specific topic or technology, which I take to be an indicator for a diversified variety of topics (resulting in a situation where buzzwords/product names/technologies etc. don't appear frequently enough to make it on the list).</p>

<table class="imagetable" border="0" width="400">
<tr>
	<td valign="top" align="center">
		<img alt="topics_i_like.png" src="http://dekstop.de/weblog/2005/11/update_on_searchfox_topics_i_like/topics_i_like.png" width="186" height="220" border="0" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
	<td align="center"><p>My current list of "topics I like" in the <a href="http://rss.searchfox.com/">SearchFox RSS reader</a>.</p></td>
</tr>
</table>


<p>But here's the kicker: "10.4.3" has made it on the list, and there have only been <i>five</i> articles about this OS X update since last week, all of them published during the last couple of hours (believe me, I counted).</p>

<p>And I also found that there were only 17 articles mentioning Ning, 6 of which I didn't even read; and only 15 articles containing the German word "Oktober", which for a long time now has been number one on the list (and which, incidentally, comes from articles of the great German blog <a href="http://www.fscklog.com/">fscklog</a>, which is also number one on my list of "Feeds I Like", as can be seen in the screenshot). Contrast this with a stunning total of 1945 articles mentioning Ruby and 2952 mentioning Rails, and both aren't even on the list!</p>

<p>Either I'm completely misjudging my reading&amp;clicking-habits, or there is something going on in SearchFox land. I obviously don't get their mechanism that determines "interesting" topics. Maybe they have switched to a more conservative (change-adverse) analysis? But this still doesn't explain the 10.4.3/Ning/Ruby phenomenon.</p>

<p>Maybe this is simply a result of my change from a rather narrow list of topics (i.e., paying a lot of attention towards a small amount of topics) to a wider topical range, which means less attention to an individual topic, which means the "old" topics are still regarded as more important.</p>

<p>Anyone have an idea about what's going on?</p>

<p><b>Disclaimer:</b> As you may guess from reading this I have absolutely no clue about the algorithms involved behind such a statistical word analysis. So don't take this as a critique, but as an effort to understand the underlying process. Any pointers welcome.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator>Martin Dittus</dc:creator>
      <category>data mining</category>
      <category>recommendation engines</category>
      <category>tools</category>
      
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