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Serendipity, or Applied Intelligence?

June 1, 2010 •

To help you get more value from my post­ings, I added the LinkWithin wid­get to my blogs today. This wid­get can auto­mat­i­cally sug­gest, for any new post, related sto­ries found else­where within the blog. I’m still get­ting a feel for what it con­sid­ers to be “related” — and am already chuck­ling at some of its whim­si­cal results.

What You See

At the bot­tom of each post, the LinkWithin wid­get dis­plays links and thumb­nails for up to 3 related sto­ries within my blog.

You’ll see the ben­e­fits of its “intel­li­gence” at the end of this and all other posts in this blog.

How It Works

LinkWithin chooses related sto­ries based on their title, tags and con­tent, accord­ing to the developer’s FAQ.

Hav­ing said that, I’ve found some of the choices to be quite amus­ing: it sees link­ages that a human edi­tor would never con­sider. Take a look at the post “Indi­ca­tors of Waste Heat” as an exam­ple (LinkWithin’s results appear at the bot­tom).

How did LinkWithin “see” the con­nec­tion between our cats’ heat-seek­ing behav­ior and a yoga retreat in Provence?

Well, it turns out the yoga retreat took place dur­ing a heat wave in south­ern France. There was no A/C in the yoga stu­dio or in the 16th cen­tury hotel where we stayed. Tem­per­a­tures hov­ered in the high 90s and above for more than a week.

LinkWithin must have detected words relat­ing to heat in both posts, even if their sub­ject mat­ter is largely unre­lated. Both posts were writ­ten with a some­what wry tone, although I doubt LinkWithin could detect that sub­tle aspect to the con­tent.

See what you think…

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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