Sith Happens

After the success of the Subservient Chicken, Burger King's latest meme is the Sith Sense, wherein a reasonable facsimile of Darth Vader talks trash ("Who's your father?") while attempting to determine which common object you've got in your mind. This thing is pretty remarkable. It guessed "guitar" and "lava lamp" within about ten questions (the data must be seeded by college students), and gave up on "blister" only after getting reaaally close. Once, it seemed to be pretty far off the trail, when it busted out with "Macaroni and Cheese" and nailed it.

Sure it's fun and addictive, but what really has me thinking is what the database behind this thing must look like. The database expands by use, so the application "learns" the more that it's used. Not only does it have to have a ton of data, but a ton of metadata that determines which questions lead which path to which results, and account for deviation within those paths. I wonder what kind of backend is behind it - whether it's using Flash Remoting or something else.

And yes, I've seen Revenge of the Sith, and it comes damn close to atoning for the other prequels.

Comments

[Shane Hill]

The Force is with you young Skywalker.........but you are not a Jedi yet!