How can you trust Amazon rankings? network20q lecture 5

These are just some thoughts or comments on the non-math parts of the lecture. They are not notes!

Would I pick 2 reviews or 1000? I might if someone whose review I knew and respected was one of the two.

I wonder if Rotten Tomatoes is the same as Amazon? Or Yelp? I actually don't trust Yelp reviews although I do sometimes consult them. Yelp definitely has a gatekeeper problem. The YouTube comments are also completely useless.

Not sure I agree that electronics reviews are objective unless there's a match to specific requirements and objective test measures (no hotter than 98.5, battery lasts 10 hours).

Independence is interesting. On VRBO I felt social pressure to not say anything bad as almost all of the reviews are positive. People are on vacation and only want to say something positive about their fun time.

 The look over time charts seem like stock market charts.

It would be helpful in answering the questions if we could easily page back to the lecture. Or is that the point?

Of course, Reddit got IMDb to give top billing to an extra in a movie with Tom Cruise.

View from 120 Kearney, San Francisco

Google Earth

Interesting that Google has loaded pre-Katrina pictures for New Orleans. It's funny to see the Katrina images marked (rescue helicopter) and the image is no longer there. Still, I wonder why they did it?

New Fone Phinally

I'd been checking my cell phone company fairly often for new phones and they just started selling the Samsung Blackjack. It seems to have all of the features I need (although it looks like I might want a bigger screen) so I ordered it. Will update this when the phone arrives.

Update: Well, the phone arrived last night. It's very small, I almost feel like I might lose it. It's not hooked up to my service yet and I'll be calling today on my old phone. It's got a nice feel and I like the keyboard layout very much. I'm not so sure that I like that it doesn't have a touch screen. I wasn't sure if I would miss it, but touch screen is an easier interface. I added some dog mobiles to the calendar. So far so good.

Mystery of the Yellow Flower

This was growing widely in the gravel near the American River in Goethe Park. It's definitely a spiny, prolific weed. I did a GIS for it, but couldn't find anything quite like it.

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