A quick sketch of a spell checker

I was just poking around in some dusty corners of my hard drive, and I found this little gem. It's part of a writeup for a lab I had to do last semester in Data Structures and Algorithms. Haha, we had 2 hours to implement this in C++... yuck

Norvig's spelling checker makes use of two probability models. The first model describes how likely a particular word is in a given language. For example, in English, "the" is more likely than"theraputic." The other model describes how likely a given mistake is when typing some word (ie. "tha" is more likely than "thm" when trying to type "the").

So the first step in implementing this is to build up a hash table k which maps correctly spelled words to their probability. This is our language model. Next we need to generate the error model. We do this by finding the set of all correctly spelled words which are one or two "edits" away from the word w that we are given to check. If w is in k, then we're done. Otherwise, if the set of words one edit away from w is not empty, take the one with the highest probability. If that set is empty, check the set of words two edits away, and again return the word with highest probability. Finally, if all else fails, return w.

Wow, that was fun. (Note: sarchasm) If we weren't forced to do this in C++ it really would have been fun... I love lisp.

Judge orders DNS records of wikileaks.org removed

Recently a story was published on wikileaks.org detailing money laundering schemes and other devious banking practices at the Cayman Island branch of Julius Baer, a Swiss bank. There are reports DDoS attacks and fires at the wikileaks co-location hosting provider, and perhaps more seriously a California judge, named Jeffery White, has ordered the wikileak DNS entry taken offline.

According to the law department at UC Berkely, Judge White was appointed by President Bush to the federal bench in 2002. Here are details from uscourts.gov.

Here is a list of alternate DNS names which, reportedly, can reach wikilinks. Please go read this post before following the https links. Make sure you read the bottom few paragraphs (they appear after the url list)

http://wikileaks.la/
https://secure.wikileaks.la/

http://home.e.co.za/

https://secure.home.e.co.za/

http://joburg.e.co.za/

https://secure.joburg.e.co.za/

http://new.alain.co.za/

https://secure.new.alain.co.za/

http://wikileaks.be/

https://secure.wikileaks.be/

http://stockholm.divx.se/

https://secure.stockholm.divx.se/

http://jwdc.org/

https://secure.jwdc.org/

http://ljsf.org/

https://secure.ljsf.org/

http://freedomsbell.org/

https://secure.freedomsbell.org/




http://freedomspen.org/

https://secure.freedomspen.org/

http://libertypen.org/

https://secure.libertypen.org/

http://sunshinepress.org/

https://secure.sunshinepress.org/

http://new.1.vg/

https://secure.new.1.vg/

http://zurich.base-v.ch/

https://secure.zurich.base-v.ch/

http://bratislava.iypt.sk/

https://secure.bratislava.iypt.sk/

http://new.iypt.sk/

https://secure.new.iypt.sk/

http://wikileaks.org.uk/

https://secure.wikileaks.org.uk/

http://new.ilex.cl/

https://secure.new.ilex.cl/

http://wikileaks.tl/

https://secure.wikileaks.tl/

http://freedomsbell.com/

https://secure.freedomsbell.com/

http://wikileaks.in/

https://secure.wikileaks.in/

http://bucharest.roxi.ro/

https://secure.bucharest.roxi.ro/

http://wikileaks.es/

https://secure.wikileaks.es/

http://wikileaks.ws/

https://secure.wikileaks.ws/

http://riga.ax.lt/

https://secure.riga.ax.lt/

http://special.k.vu/

https://secure.special.k.vu/

http://wikileaks.cx/

https://secure.wikileaks.cx/

http://new.it.cx/

https://secure.new.it.cx

I love Paul Graham

Paul Graham has made yet another quotable quote:

Graffiti happens at the intersection of ambition and incompetence:
people want to make their mark on the world, but have no other way
to do it than literally making a mark on the world.

That is from his essay on trolls.

I didn't find that essay as interesting as his average essay, but I did like his discussion of the Six Principles for Making New Things.

Common Lisp Tutorial

Oh, by the way, if you happen to be looking for a great Common Lisp tutorial, Practical Common Lisp is the best you can get.

Hey there!

Yeah, so I've had a couple of blogs before. They both stalled and died. I'm going to try to keep this one alive. So that means it's going to be a mix of random links that I wish to share with the world, but I'm going to try to make some longer posts that actually have a bit of content. "Try" being the operative word there.

So, I come across many interesting web articles/posts/stories what-have-you. Usually I spam my friends with the links to these interesting tid bits, but I think I should post them here an let my friends (and you) choose when and what to see.

Hopefully you enjoy!