TechLuver.com

Nov 16, ‘07 — Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people.

Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point. It’s time to fight back. Says StupidFilter Project.

What is StupidFilter Project

The solution we’re creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian or similar analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we’re collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like. Additionally, we plan to develop a fully implemented Firefox plugin and a Wordpress plugin.

Project Status

This project is currently in the design and analysis phase. We’ve gathered a fairly large (225K+ comments) database of comments, primarily from Youtube, that ever-inspiring font of stupidity. We’ve implemented a web-based comment ranking system to seed our stupidity corpus and that’s proceeding nicely.

Moderator applications are now open and we’re going through them as quickly as possible. We’re testing CRM114 as a classification platform, initial tests with the bit entropy and correlative classifiers are pretty promising. Additionally, we’ve moved to a new dedicated server better suited to the heavy database work we’re doing. We’re still on track for a late December alpha code release date. StupidFilter.

Victorville, CA –Nov 03, ‘07 — Cars sprouting whirling lasers on top, moving cameras on the sides, and banks of computers inside sped through the streets of a California desert ghost town on Saturday in a robot race — no drivers needed.

Spectators gasped as cars with empty driver’s seats pulled out of the starting blocks, steering wheels turning on their own, and headed into the neighborhood streets of a deserted air force base.

Stanford University’s “Junior” was the first to pass the finish line, followed by cars outfitted by Carnegie Mellon University and Virginia Tech within the six-hour time limit.

The joint University of Pennsylvania-Lehigh University vehicle arrived close to the limit, while cars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University were the last of the 11 finalists to get through the course, both arriving about seven and a half hours after the start.

The winner of the $2 million prize, scheduled to be named on Sunday, will be determined based on safety as well as speed through the 60-mile (100-km) course.

“We could not be more pleased with our finish in this tough competition,” said Dr. Burkhard Huhnke, executive director, Electronics
Research Laboratory, Volkswagen of America, Inc. “Junior performed exceptionally and has helped provide Volkswagen with valuable information as we continue to work on advancing passenger safety technologies and help to bring these technologies to future drivers.

“This research is an important step for Volkswagen Research towards the next generation of vehicle electronics, and vehicle safety features that will ultimately benefit our customers,” Huhnke continued.

“Junior” is one of only 11 vehicles that advanced to the final round of the DARPA Urban Challenge, an autonomous driving challenge where vehicles traverse an urban environment for 60 miles — merging with moving traffic, navigating traffic circles and busy intersections, avoiding obstacles and finding parking spots. Out of 167 teams who participated in the DARPA “Site Visit” in June and July 2007, 35 were chosen to advance to the National Qualifying Event, held October 26-31. More at PRNewsWire, DARPA Urban Challenge.