Over 500,000,000 assertions extracted from 100 million Web pages | Hacker News Reader

Over 500,000,000 assertions extracted from 100 million Web pages

cs.washington.edu

91 pointscoderdude28 comments

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Predicate = Invented has some scary results for "reliable" sites:

Al Gore invented global warming (33)

Jews invented the Catholics (7), Christianity (5), the legend of the Holocaust (5)

Staples invented the office superstore concept (6)

Well, didn't Jews invent Christianity?

My first attempt was "Who shot JFK?" The first answer I got was "President Kennedy shot dead JFK", which is at least a novel theory.

On the other hand it kind of correctly fingers Kristin as "Who shot JR" (although it considers the JR of "Secretary of Balloon Doggies" fame to be the more relevant).

Video is correctly tagged as killing the radio star, I'm mostly impressed.

It also correctly identifies the shooters of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Mr Burns.

In unsolved mystery news, it told me that Jimmy Hoffa is buried under Giants Stadium (I thought Mythbusters busted that one...) and John Karr did not kill JonBenet Ramsey. In answer to "Who was Jack the Ripper?" I was simply told "the fictional world is Jack the Ripper", which seems a little too abstract to be useful.

Why query open extraction data when there are billions of triples available via the semantic web?

Movie queries: http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2008/11/sparql-at-the-movies.... Geographical queries: http://geosparql.appspot.com/ Misc queries: http://sparql.me/queries.php

Because noone gives a shit about the semantic web except its core suporters?

Whatever else it does, the site makes me immediately start thinking of prolog projects (not that I'll actually pursue them).

The results for 'what causes promiscuity' are both amusing and slightly worrisome.

  objectification of the self (2), Spring break parties (2) can lead to unintended promiscuity
  vaccine (2) will cause promiscuity
  sex education (2) causes promiscuity

Pondering the concept of "unintended promiscuity".

A nicer way of saying "gang rape"?

Does anyone have a query with an impressive answer? The ones I thought up have no results.

I did "What causes ulcers?" The results match what I would expect: stress being number 1 (if incorrect), H Pylori being number 3 (most common cause).

What was invented in 1853? The potato chip.

Perhaps not coincidentally,

Toilet paper was invented in 1857 (4)

That's a pretty good set of search queries, even though I am personally doubting that steel was invented in 1856 and scheme was invented in 1854.

  TextRunner took 2 seconds. 

  Retrieved 1 result for what stops entropy?

  Grouping results by argument 1. Group by: predicate | argument 2

  laws of physics - 1 result

  laws of physics could n't stop entropy (2)

Argument 1: Paul Graham

Predicate: is