http://paulhaahr.com An intermittent blog of unconnected snippets Sat, 03 May 2008 19:49:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I don’t usually talk in public about the technical side of what I do at work, but I co-wrote a post for the company blog a few weeks ago on how we build and use language models which I should have linked to earlier. http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2008-05-03-language-models During my commute yesterday, I listened to Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia on race and religion. It was amazing and inspiring, but not in the usual way one expects to use the words. The oratory was rarely soaring and it didn’t build to huge crescendos. Instead, what made the ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2008-03-20-the-speech “Tell me what you know, then tell me what you don’t know, and only then can you tell me what you think. Always keep those three separated.” – Colin Powell to Mike McConnell, summer 1990, as reported in Lawrence Wright, A Reporter at Large: The Spymaster, The New Yorker, January 21, ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2008-02-02-how-to-deliver-information I am an independent and looking for a president with integrity. Should I vote for John McCain or Barack Obama? Didn’t we all swear to stop picking the candidate who would be most fun to go on a picnic with? You’re torn between the guy who’s been against the war from ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2008-02-02-the-folly-of-independents Adolph S. Ochs, New-York, Aug. 18, 1896: To undertake the management of The New-York Times, with its great history for right doing, and to attempt to keep bright the lustre which Henry J. Raymond and George Jones have given it is an extraordinary task. But if a sincere desire to conduct ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2008-01-05-an-editorial-voice Roy Amara was apparently the person who said “We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.” It’s a great observation, but my friend Charles Martin gave me an even better twist on it: “Change happens exponentially ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2007-10-05-amaras-law-and-martins-corollary Barack Obama appears to be a once in a generation candidate: he’s smart, he’s appealing, he speaks well, and he seems to be viewed more positively across the political spectrum than negatively. In addition, his policy positions are closer to mine than I could reasonably hope from a ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2007-10-01-why-im-supporting-barack-obama In theory, at least, I like to blog. I’ve tried to do it for at least five years. And I’ve never averaged more than one post per month. I’ve come to realize that there are two things which I consider important in my life: my family and my ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2007-09-22-why-i-dont-blog-more We watched Who is Cletis Tout? tonight. We’d held off on watching it, even though we’d had the disc at home for a while, because, given the title, we just weren’t looking forward to it. But it turns out to be a really fun caper movie. A ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2007-09-20-terrible-title-but-a-surprisingly-good-movie First of all, congrats over to the team at Mint.com for going live and winning the Techcrunch40 prize. As a die hard Quicken user, I think it’s great that companies are pushing in this space. I can’t say I save money or time by using Quicken, but it ... http://paulhaahr.com/blog/2007-09-20-coulda-woulda-shoulda-but-not-really