Internet: Manipulate Ratings for a Good Cause

I was listening to Scientific America’s 60 Second Science Podcast and it was about a contest that the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island is sponsoring. Here is the information from the website.

Welcome to the ETAN Rating Challenge!

The ETAN Rating Challenge seeks smart and powerful attacks against on-line rating systems. If you can mislead the rating system more than other participating teams, you win the cash prizes and Winner Certificate, issued by the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rhode Island.

The attacking data provided by you will be used to evaluate existing algorithms, and help us to do research on more reliable on-line rating systems in the future. This grant challenge will not be used for any profitable or
commercial purpose.

Why participate? Cash, Fame, Good Cause, and Having Fun!

Please read the rules to see what is required to win the prize. If you are interested, you can register a team. You can also check how other teams are doing on the leaderboad.

Good Luck and thank you for helping!

The experiment sounds very interesting and looks to be right up the alley of the SEO folks who seem to have great luck in working the Search Engine ratings. I wonder if anyone who is doing that online now would like to compete in this competition. It should be interesting and Challenging to say the least.

He Said: Lost 05/02/07

Last night’s episode of Lost was explosive. We learn so many things to make us keep guessing. This episode focused on Locke’s time with The Others. Sawyer played a major role in the episode as well. We learn why Nadia (Sanjaya) is on the Island and also that Jack and Juliette are keeping secrets.

So much happened in the episode. I loved it. We are down to the last three of the season now and things are heating up.

Sawyer and Kate are still having a tryst but Kate still pines for Jack, you know she does. Kate up and leaves in the middle of the night and Sawyer heads off to attend to nature’s call. He is startled by John Locke. Locke has come back to get Sawyer. He tells Sawyer that he has captured Ben and needs Sawyer to kill him.

You really felt for Sawyer in this episode. He ends up finding out that Locke knows all about his past and ultimately he gets to confront the man he swore he would kill. This man was the one who seduced his mother and swindled her out of their life savings. This enraged Sawyer’s father and he killed Sawyer’s mother and then himself. Young Sawyer was under the bed when his father pulled the trigger. Sawyer wrote a letter to the man called Sawyer who conned his family. Sawyer (James) then became a con man of his own but all the while he kept that letter to give to the man who conned his family and robbed him of his parents.

as luck would have it the original (Tom) Sawyer happens to be Locke’s father who happens to be on the island. while Locke was at the Other’s camp Ben tried to get Locke to kill his father in front of everyone in the camp. He did this to embarrass and humiliate Locke. (Lock is told this later by Richard). We are still left wondering why Ben did this to Locke.

So eventually the Other’s Camp is on the move but John must stay and he cannot follow them unless he has the dead body of his father on his back. Locke takes his father to the Black rock slave ship and locks him in the brig. He goes off in search of Sawyer.

Locke has left his father in the brig with a bag over his head. He urges Sawyer to go in, then locks the door behind him. He takes off the bag over Locke’s father’s head. Sawyer is confused. Shortly thereafter Sawyer learns that this is the man he has been searching for. Sawyer gives Locke’s father the letter and commands him to read it. Locke’s father read the letter a little ways and then taunts Sawyer. He makes Sawyer so angry by ripping up the letter that Sawyer chokes him with his (Locke’s Father) chains.

While this was such a brutal death in the show it was something that Locke’s Father had coming to him. Rage and years of revenge poured out of Sawyer as he choked the life from this con man who ruined his family. And immediately afterwards Sawyer throws up and is racked with emotion just like he was when he killed the man whom he thought was the real Sawyer.

I have really started to feel for Sawyer, here is a person who we can see has the potential for redemption. He can show remorse and has deep emotion. Sawyer has even started trying to do things for the good of the group. He is becoming my favorite character on the show.

I fear that John Locke is trading one evil manipulator in his life or another. Locke’s life s marked by the evil that his father visited on him. But that the same time Locke still wanted to reconcile with his father, he thought it was possible. I fear that he is looking for that same sort of validation from Ben and Locke will once again be victimized. I hope I am wrong but I don’t think I will be in this.

Back on the beach Hurley, Jin, Desmond and Charlie are sneaking food and supplies to Nadia like she was a stray dog that they found and are hiding from their parents. Eventually they involve Sayid and Katie into this plot. They are hiding Nadia from Jack because they do not trust Jack anymore. Kate eventually spills the beans to Jack and Juliette and we learn that those two have been keeping a secret from everyone else.

It looks like next week we will learn what that secret is and we will learn what the original mission of the Dharma Initiative was. It looks to be a great episode.

If you are not listening to it yet, I suggest that you subscribe to The Official Lost Podcast on ABC.com. There is some good insight from the Producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof.