Don't forget the TQFRs

As you'll see on HW7, it's really important to me that you guys take the time to fill out the TQFR reports.  I really benefit from the feedback you give on the course and certainly will take it into account when I update the course next year.  So, please fill them out ... and please do more than just give ratings, also write comments (since those are the most informative things).

If you manage to beat the percentage of surveys filled out by last year's class, everyone will get 5 points, and if you manage to get 100% completion percentage I'll give everyone 10 extra credit points!

Homework 7

The last HW is now posted.  At this point, I've lectured about everything you'll need for all the problems except for problem 4, which focuses on MapReduce.  We'll cover MapReduce in class on Monday...  Good luck!

Clickmaniac results

As you know, clickmaniac ended yesterday. Here's the final standings for posterity! There were lots of changes in the final days and here's how it ended up...

Reach:
1) Tobias, Gustaf, Shiyu 910,760
2) Hari, Micheal B. 823,841
3) Kevin, Nathan, Mikhail, Stasja 668,576

Connections
1) Robert, Brock 1304
2) Kevin, Nathan, Mikhail, Stasja 1192
3) Brian M, Lucia, Tuling, Timothy 189

Clicks
1) Kevin, Nathan, Mikhail, Stasja 1660
2) Robert, Brock 1128
3) Hari, Michael B. 1082

End of clickmaniac

Clickmaniac is quickly winding down....  Remember that we'll start class today with a viewing & discussion of the results.  So, please make sure someone from your teams is present to be able to comment on what worked and what didn't...

Clickmaniac Deadline TONIGHT!

Class, please remember that the deadline to create your ads is midnight tonight (you've had a whole week to work on creating your ads, so we hope you have done enough!)

The homework has exact details on what edits you can/can't do to your ads after tonight, but to summarize, you can change your targeting, and bid type and bids, but nothing in "Section 1" can be changed! Note that changing targeting could still require re-approval by Facebook.

Of course, these rules apply to us TAs as well.

Homework 6

Homework 6 is now available on the course website. This will be a 2-week long homework, but please start the theory part early, it relies on the game theoretic concepts that were introduced in my lecture and (hopefully) reinforced through HW5.

We have a competition on this homework - Clickmaniac! You will advertise the Facebook fan page for this course using the advertising framework provided by Facebook. In the next couple of days, we will pick a random member from each Rankmaniac team and grant them administrator access to both the fan page that is being advertised, and the ads account that your team will use to create and manage your ads campaign. You will receive notification emails from Facebook once we do this. Contact Changhong (czhao@caltech.edu) if you feel more than one member of your team needs access, or if you are forming a different team for this assignment.

Your campaigns should run from next Wednesday, so make sure you read and understand what is being asked of you, and start creating your ads before Wednesday. As usual, if you have any questions about the homework, or just want to point out typos, please post them as comments on this post and then the TAs/prof will respond ASAP.

Rankmaniac results

...and here're the results!

For google:
1) Michael Burd, Michael Hirshleifer, Ramya Vinayak
2) Kevin Lo, Nathan Watson, Michael Sushkov, Ernest Lee, Stasja Stanisic
3) Shayan Doroudi, Henry Li, Haoyang Ren, Joe Wang

For bing:
1) Shayan Doroudi, Henry Li, Haoyang Ren, Joe Wang
2) Laura Conwill, Chris Dudiak, Riley Patterson, Ben Weitz
...and no others got listed!

Project proposals -- extension!

Talking to some students after class I was convinced to give an extension on the project proposals so that it's easier to manage time between the HW and the proposals.

So, now the project proposals are due Wednesday Feb 22.  I hope this means that I'll get even better proposals. 

The end of rankmaniac

As you all know, rankmaniac comes to an end on Wed at 12:30.  We'll be doing the "final search" in ARMS 151 (just across the hall from the normal room) at 12:30 on Wed.  We'll have pizza to keep it fun...  Please make sure that at least 1 person from your team is there so that we can be sure to find each groups images quickly. 

It's almost time for the final push!  I see that many of you in the top 5 are bouncing up and down daily...

Homework 5

Homework 5 is now posted.  Sorry for the delay, I had meant to put it up on Friday but I was traveling and forgot.  Hopefully you got Raga's email with a link to the pdf in the meantime.  The homework is a short refresher/intro to game theory.  So, hopefully it's easy, but if not, talk to the TAs about it so that you can learn what's confusing you.

Important note regarding Rankmaniac

I've gotten a couple emails from folks at wikipedia about spam being added to pages there for the rankmaniac projects.  While I encourage everyone to think creatively, please do so with respect for the policies of the sites you are interacting with.  In the case of wikipedia, there is an assumption that added links are meant to improve the project.  If you add links in that manner it is acceptable, but adding spam is not.  Also, as I hope you've figured out, links at wikipedia are not even helpful for pagerank!  Wikipedia specifically prevents our
external links to be counted in computing page ranks via the rel=nofollow attribute!

So, I've seen a lot of great ideas being implemented for the project so far, but be careful to distinguish what you're doing from "spamming"...

Homework 4

Homework 4 was released today and is now available on the course web page.  So begins Rankmaniac 2012...  I look forward to seeing all the crazy things you do.  (Remember not to get me, or Caltech, in too much trouble though!)

I will be willing to post links to peoples pages from the course website if so desired.  There is a limit of 1 page per group that I will link to though. Post the link as a comment here if you'd like me to add it to the main page.

Good luck!

Homework 3

Homework 3 is now posted to the course website. It is due next Friday at 1:30pm.  Good luck!


Of the four questions on the HW, the 1,2, and 4 you should be able to attack now.  The third one is probably best done after Monday's lecture.  (4 is related to what we'll do in class on Wed, but doesn't require anything that I'll teach on Wed, so you should be able to do it now.)



As always, if you have any questions about the HW, or just want to point out typos, please post them as comments on this post and then the TAs/prof will respond ASAP.

Homework 2

Homework 2 is now posted to the course website. It is due next Friday at 1:30pm.  Good luck!

If you have any questions about the HW, or just want to point out typos, please post them as comments on this post and then the TAs/prof will respond ASAP.

Don't forget to start early!

Homework 1

Homework 1 is now posted to the course website. It is due next Friday at 1:30pm. 

To turn in the HW, you can either drop a paper copy off at Adam's office (I will soon have a box outside my door for submissions), or by email to the homework guru (in this case Raga).

If you have any questions about the HW, or just want to point out typos, please post them as comments on this post and then the TAs/prof will respond ASAP. 

Don't forget to start early!