Blog 7 - Making Meaning: 9 Algorithms that Changed the World
The book 9 Algorithms that Changed the World: The ingenious Ideas that Drive Today’s Computers by John MacCormick was a pretty interesting read. However it was less interesting than others. Some of it was pretty cool like how Chapter 1: Introduction: What are the Extraordinary Ideas Computers use Every Day . However there were many parts that I found really complicated and confusing like in chapter 3: PageRank: The technology that Launched Google . I will elaborate as I go through and review each one individually bellow.
In chapter 1: Introduction: What are the Extraordinary Ideas Computers use Every Day, John MacCormick talked about how computers do some tasks through the use of algorithms as well as a little bit of computer history. These algorithms are described to anything from simple addition, to complex mathematical models among other things. It also described the “Great algorithm” which was described to do many many things. Overall I think that this chapter was quite entertaining to read. It was a great way to ease into the rest of the book and fit quite nicely.
In chapter 2: Search Engine Indexing: Finding Needles in the Worlds Biggest Haystack, he goes in-depth on how search engines work and find the pages you want. This includes things like how search engines rank pages, the indexing of words, and the meta word trick. All of these together form the basics of any search engine algorithm and are immensely useful when applied fully. Overall, this chapter was pretty interesting because of the little bit of insight that it shared on how search engines. However it was fairly complicated in its explanations and relied quite heavily on its illustrations to give meaning to them.
In chapter 3: PageRank: The technology that Launched Google, John talked about all of the little tricks the worlds largest search engine does. This would be a pretty good follow up to the previous chapter, however it is dreadfully complicated and very hard to follow. Even with the pictures and diagrams parts of the chapter like “why all incoming links should be treated equally”(pg 27) or just the random surfer trick in general.
In chapter 4: Public key Cryptography: Sending Secrets on a postcard, he talked about basic encryption methods and some of their practical applications. These applications could include things in the real world such as work in the CIA. This chapter was pretty interesting. The inner child in me thought “ oooooo secret messages” so it had to be good.
In chapter 5: Error-Correcting Codes: Mistakes that Fix themselves, John talked about very complex codes that do some pretty wild stuff. To be honest this chapter was another one that i couldn’t follow easily and was really confusing and difficult to get through.
In chapter 6: Pattern Recognition: Learning From Experience, he talks about how computers and their algorithms and getting better and better at recognizing patterns more and more quickly. This type of development can also be called machine learning if the algorithm is self improving. This Chapter was pretty interesting overall and wasn’t too hard to get through.
In chapter 7: Data Compression: Something for Nothing, was all about the simplification of data to make it easier to store and/or transmit. This is just about everywhere in today’s society like in YouTube videos, pictures and even some numbers. This chapter was a pretty cool one and was interesting to see what all goes into compressing an image or other forms of data.
In chapter 8: Databases: The Quest for Consistency, John talks about the storing of data and the long journey these databases had to go through to have all of their data formatted in a similar fashion. In fact this journey is still going on today. This chapter was pretty easy one to get through and was intriguing because of how it described how different each database can be.
In chapter 9: Data Signatures: Who Really Wrote this Software, He talked about how there are so many programs and softwares out on the internet and in real life that it can be hard to tell who made it. That’s why certain programmers developed their own sort of “signature” to distinguish things that they’d written from others. Overall this chapter was kind of a “meh” since it wasn’t too interesting but it wasn’t hard to follow.
In Chapter 10: What is Computable?, He goes over what all can be reasonably put into a computer as well as things like whether something is true or analyzing another program. Overall this chapter was another “meh” being easy to follow but not too engaging as a whole.
Chapter 11 is just a conclusion over the whole book and talks about the more potential you can go with these algorithms.
Overall, this book was pretty good and decently interesting to read even though some chapters are kind of hard to follow or were a bit on the dull side.