Jul

Spelled the Same, but Opposite?

I just had my mind blown by the English language, yet again. There’s actually a word whose opposite (or close to it) is the same word, spelled the same, but pronounced differently. That word is: resigned. “Jon resigned his position on the basketball team.” vs. “Jon resigned his contract with the team for one more season.” As in, that BP CEO who resigned and got an $18 million bonus.

Not knowing if I was using resigned incorrectly, I had to look it up. Merriam Webster and Dictionary.com demonstrate the disparity on the front page of Google. Pretty cool – I feel like I just won the word nerd lottery.

1059 days ago Short URL 5 Comments

Personal Stuff

google/word nerd

Apr

How Google is advancing the state of image search

If you’re interested in the state of the art of large domain (internet) image search, then undoubtedly Google comes up over and over again.

Google Image Search, with its simple interface and reasonable results, is the de-facto consumer-grade image search engine. Offerings from competitors are actually a little more feature rich, especially the MSN Live Image Search, but don’t resonate as loudly in academia or popular usage.

As an example, compare search results for “red corvette” from the big three: Google, MSN, Yahoo. MSN nails the exploratory task: no-refresh scrolling, quick access to filters such as “photos”, “black and white”, and image size options that feel a little more usable and natural than Googles. Yahoo! attempts some categorising and support for ontologies in their interface; while not perfect, it’s a direction highly praised in cutting-edge research.

Continue reading →

1876 days ago Short URL Comments

User Experience