Cascading Riots
Riots are an interesting example of large crowds acting in unison. It seems logical to assume that this synchronized behavior has some network based driving force behind it; given that these riots often occur in absence of strong communication, it is worth considering whether individuals are being driven by personal information or by information cascade […]
The Rise and Fall of Social Media
We all know Facebook, a now social media powerhouse has quickly risen to power in its few years of operation. Originally a small social networking company started by Harvard students for Harvard students, Facebook has grown into a multi-billion dollar company with over 152 million users in the US and Canada and 1.35 Billion worldwide. […]
Spam-Resilient SourceRank
The dominant PageRank system brings with it certain weaknesses. The primary weakness of PageRank is that, as explored within class, it is highly susceptible to spamming. For example, when creating a single new legitimate site, spammers may create extra dummy sites to pool their resources and manipulate their mutual authority and therefore hub rank to […]
Dangerous Curves
Dangerous Curves by Zack Budryk: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/12/students-boycott-final-challenge-professors-grading-policy-and-get Zack Budryk’s article Dangerous Curves appearing in the online journal “Higher Ed” is the extraordinary story of how John Hopkins University students unanimously boycotted their final exam in order to all get A’s. The grading curve at John Hopkins functions by giving the highest score on any final exam […]
Using Information Cascading Principle on YouTube vidoes
As a part of the generation immersed in a generation that’s defined by the number of votes you get on social networking sites, be it ‘likes’ on Facebook, ‘upvotes’ on YouTube, ‘retweets’ on Twitter or ‘followers’ on Instagram, I have always wondered how certain celebrities manage to rake up millions upon millions of followers and […]
Apple – First Trillion Dollar Company?
Wall Street has never had a company break the trillion dollar mark before, but Apple seems to be on track to becoming the first company to do so. Shares of the company have reached an all time high of $117.57, and the company is currently capitalized at $680 billion (greater than the combined capitalizations of […]
Hipsters Rejoice: Pop music is in fact getting louder and less diverse
A few musical purists argue that all the popular music of the past decade sounds the same, and as it turns out, they’re right. Researchers at the Spanish National Research Council determined through the use of algorithms that the variety of chord progressions, melodies, and instruments used in popular music has significantly diminished throughout the […]
The Growth of Soccer Interest in the US
Before this summer, I had only watched a handful of soccer games. Never had I watched from start to finish. But after the 2014 FIFA World Cup, I had watched a part of nearly every game, and watched the entirety of several. I was a part of a new wave of soccer interest in the […]
Panem et Circenses
There have been many phrases used to describe this phenomenon in our current society. Some of the origins comes from a free rider problem of a large empire; some of it comes from a culture in decadence; yet some of it comes from the base nature of government itself. Panem et Circenses was first used […]
Why Dota 2 becomes most popular online video game with its highest prize pool in history
Since Dota 2 comes out as beta testing phase in 2011, it attracts millions of players in a short amount of time. The game is mostly played by 10 players in 5 vs 5 position where players need to have both skills and strategies to win. In steam, dota 2 has been ranked the most […]
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