Filmtrust: Trust Based Film Recomendation Social Network

Right now I’m taking CMSC498N: Small Worlds, Social Networks, and Web Algorithms at UMD. In the class we basically study the structure and growth of various social networks, and what kind of information we can extract from them. Anyway, my professor Jennifer Golbeck is a PHD on the subject (shes hot too, a rarity in the CS department), and created this social networking website:

Filmtrust

The basic idea is that in traditional movie rating sites such as IMDB the rating of a movie is given as an average of every person that rates it. You might think this is a perfectly logical way of going about things, which it is, but what if the site could give you a rating personalized based on your specific tastes? Thats what this website does, based on trust relationships between you and your friends. This is basically how it works:

You rate a bunch of movies, and have a bunch of friends on the network that rate movies too.

To each friend you assign a “trust” value from 1 to 10 based on how much you trust their taste in movies.

When you look for the rating of a movie you haven’t seen, the site will give you a weighted average of the rating of the movie based on your friend’s ratings and how much you trust their opinion. So if 3 of your friends gave “Old School” 4 stars but you only trust them on a 2 level, and you have one friend who you trust a lot who gave it 0 stars, the rating will be very low. In addition, if you trust a friend, and they trust another person you don’t know, that persons rating will also be calculated into the average.

So as you can see, its a pretty accurate way of finding movies you are likely to like. The networks not very big yet, but if it caught on I think it could be a pretty awesome thing. Best of all, its for a research project and non-profit, so no annoying popups or ads of any kind! Anyway, you should join, so I have more friends on it. My username is mrmartini888, so add me. Heres the site again, in case you missed it:

Filmtrust

Amazing Beer Tricks

for some reason my friend Greg became obsessed recently with popping the bottom out of a beer bottle by hitting the mouth of it with your hand while it had water in it. he said he’d seen someone do it online. after all trying it for like a half hour we all thought it was impossible, but then Joey was finally able to break it. after seeing that, we all were eventually able to do it (except for Greg, ironically). it’ll be a fun party trick to use at some point, as long as the host doesnt care about shattered glass all over their living room. it got me thinking though, theres gotta be a ton of crazy beer tricks you can do, and they’re probably all chronicled on youTube. so, heres what I found:

(oh, and uh try these at your own peril)

Bad Batman, Bad!

Okay, I’m going to deviate from my usual posts to go off on a little rant- after all, thats what a man should be able to do on his own blog right?

I just got back to CP and was flipping through the ga-zillion comcast channels we get here to find a movie I vaguely remember from my childhood; Batman Forever. For some reason I had the damaged recollection that this was actually an enjoyable and creatively done movie, so turned it on for a watch,

Damn, that movie is fucked.

Between Jim Carrey prancing around in a sequined catsuit jabbering like a meth-fiend transexual alien and Val Kilmer spouting endless monotone one dimensional crap dialogue, I was ready to kill whoever had sullied Batman’s good name. You see, I actually like Batman as a superhero, especially in the comics. Those comics were dark twisted murder mysterys and Batman himself was just as fucked up and brutal as any of his enemies. That was art.

And this movie was the complete opposite, an almost-knowingly mocking caricature of a once great icon with the lighting, production, and acting skills of a high school musical. It seems like the first four Batman movies got progressively bigger budgets and flashier actors and progressively worse screenplay, directing, and acting. Why is this? Ah, the classic Hollywood crap-generating machine I suppose, we all know about that.

Batman Begins was pretty sick though.

So stay away from it, or if you like watching the shitiest of movies sometimes like I do then go for it. In conclusion, I present my favorite quote of the movie:

“Joygasm!”

–Jim Carrey, Batman Forever