[Foundation-l] Possible solution for image filter

[Robert Rohde]

On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 5:00 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> The board resolution specifies a magical flying unicorn pony that
> shits rainbows. A wide-ranging survey has been conducted on the
> precise flight patterns and the importance of which way round the
> rainbow spectrum goes. These tiresome people who keep calling this
> "impossible" just do not understand that the high-level decision for a
> magical flying unicorn pony that shits rainbows has been set in stone.
>

I don't have any unicorns, but there are lots of ponies.  I'd be happy
to stick a horn on one and call her sparkles if that would help?

User rating / categorization systems are like ponies.  They are a
familiar and commonplace way of organizing things.  They can be used
to filter some things and reduce the degree of surprise; however they
will always have both a large false positive rate and a large false
negative rate.  No filter is going to fly or shit rainbows.

The question is not where to find mythical beasts, but whether
dressing up a horse so that it looks a little like a unicorn would
actually be useful.  And that depends on whether there is actual
demand for such filters, and whether having a filter that is
sort-of-okay some of the time would be helpful to the people who want
filtering.

-Robert Rohde