Peony poems. A feast of verbosity. I took a photo. |
Sunday, June 08, 2014
Serendipity 25 years after
Unexpected Relevance: An Empirical Study of Serendipity in Retweets
Tao Sun, Ming Zhang, Qiaozhu Mei
Last modified: 2013-06-28
Abstract
Serendipity is a beneficial discovery that happens in an unexpected way. It has been found spectacularly valuable in various contexts, including scientific discoveries, acquisition of business, and recommender systems. Although never formally proved with large-scale behavioral analysis, it is believed by scientists and practitioners that serendipity is an important factor of positive user experience and increased user engagement. In this paper, we take the initiative to study the ubiquitous occurrence of serendipitious information diffusion and its effect in the context of microblogging communities. We refer to serendipity as unexpected relevance, then propose a principled statistical method to test the unexpectedness and the relevance of information received by a microblogging user, which identifies a serendipitous diffusion of information to the user. Our findings based on large-scale behavioral analysis reveal that there is a surprisingly strong presence of serendipitous information diffusion in retweeting, which accounts for more than 25% of retweets in both Twitter and Weibo. Upon the identification of serendipity, we are able to conduct observational analysis that reveals the benefit of serendipity to microblogging users. Results show that both the discovery and provision of serendipity increase the level of user activities and social interactions, while the provision of serendipitous information also increases the influence of Twitter users.
In case you wish to read more: Here's the pdf.
Labels:
Ming Zhang,
Qiaozhu Mei,
science,
serendipity,
Tao Sun
Thursday, June 05, 2014
Two kinds of idealists
The day after the Tiananmen massacre. There does exist a video of the so-called tankman. Some years ago I embedded it. But then certain people calling themselves Educational Foundation claimed copyright. Now I wonder if those idealists * will ask me to pay them 300 billion dollar for showing the photo they did not take.
* ha ha ha
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Labels:
China,
resistance,
tankman,
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Wednesday, June 04, 2014
Bowing in front of the Brave
Tonight I am bowing to those people who 25 years ago in China – and not only on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing – peacefully demonstrated against suppression and corruption and for freedom and democracy and became victim of a ruthless bunch of criminal bastards in power.
And I am bowing to those who would not give up.
Very probably I'd be not such brave.
The peace of the night.
And I am bowing to those who would not give up.
Very probably I'd be not such brave.
The peace of the night.
Labels:
China,
China's Charter 08,
Tiananmen Square Massacre
Monday, June 02, 2014
Sunday, June 01, 2014
Seven
Don't know how many people
got murdered since,
got tortured since,
got raped since;
don't know how often when opening their mouths
certain politicians and business(wo)men did not deliberately tell lies.
I do know, though, that in the past seven years I met a few interesting and nice people.
Thankfully raising my glass: Sláinte.
got murdered since,
got tortured since,
got raped since;
don't know how often when opening their mouths
certain politicians and business(wo)men did not deliberately tell lies.
I do know, though, that in the past seven years I met a few interesting and nice people.
Thankfully raising my glass: Sláinte.
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
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