0937: "TornadoGuard"

[webgrunt]

Really, what we need to be able to do, is have a star voting system on each user's comment.

But then, in case that is flawed, we'll need to rate those star ratings. Once this has been done for, oh... say... 10 or so recursions, we can average out all the star ratings for each original comment and have something else that doesn't tell us exactly what we need to know.

Simple

Like

[mtu]

But then, in case that is flawed, we'll need to rate those star ratings. Once this has been done for, oh... say... 10 or so recursions, we can average out all the star ratings for each original comment and have something else that doesn't tell us exactly what we need to know.

“Please take the time to comment on your rating of sharky588's rating of JanChen's comment on her rating of GWAHAHA's rating of this toaster.”

HELL yeah!

[brdavis]

And yet the irony continues. Checking the iTunes App Store, there is indeed an app like this... and it does indeed have reviews like this. Sigh...

[RogueCynic]

I live in Boston, so I thought it was a comment on a useless app, like volcano insurance. We did have a tornado in Worcester recently though. As to the rating systems, they can be skewed. I remember reading a story about someone who was so miffed by the service she got from a used car dealer she wrote a bad review. The dealer countered by creating a bogus account and wrote a better review to bring his rating up, but got caught and had to remove it.

[enricofosaveo]

Of course, sometimes it goes the other way. A one star average with comments like: "Need to add a feature to change skins", "App should predict tornadoes at least 3 days in advance", "I live in California. Please add EarthquakeGuard functionality", "Flaky menu behavior on my android device running cupcake"...

I never pay attention to stars, but I often read the comments to see if there is an issue I might actually care about...

[mind404]

I live somewhere where we get the occasional tornado and I want this app with one important feature.

Map guidance to the nearest tornado in a 50 mile radius that I might have a chance of catching. Maybe even with GPS route assist to position me at the right spot to be on the side/back of the tornado at my current traveling speed.

Yes I know they can be horrible and cause a lot of grief, but I still want to see one. Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/611/ (not storm chaser)

[kensey]

When I look at stuff on NewEgg, I filter the reviews like this:

Anything with < 60% 4-egg + 5-egg reviews: don't buy (this number is flexible but usually around that threshold)
Anything with double-digit-percent one-egg reviews: don't buy (most are DOAs and infant mortality, but even if no real damage is done they are still indicative of overall quality)
Anything with less than 20 reviews: extra scrutiny before buying

Then I do a comparison of the one-egg and five-egg reviews on likely purchases -- if most of them have one-egg percentages of say, 3 or 4% but some are more like 8%, the high ones go out. Then I use the five-egg reviews to compare the remainder with the 2-4 egg ones as tiebreakers.

One a couple of occasions I have laid out a spreadsheet to do a Mann-Whitney U test on products with similar-looking review profiles but large differences in review quantities to see if they are actually similar. (That was before I bought a hard drive for a non-RAID desktop system.)

[sasDC]

I didn't get this after staring at for a minute. I kept thinking it was the 1-star rating that was somehow bogus. Then I realized it was the 5-stars that were silly. This is evidence that I need to reorganize my own priorities when it comes to technology.

I did the same thing! After the second read I realized I had it backwards. I supposed I'm used to reading silly negative reviews instead of silly positive reviews. Perhaps instead of stars there could be a short feedback with five or six yes or no questions and then a space for comments. I prefer solid yes or no answers.

[addams]

I live somewhere where we get the occasional tornado and I want this app with one important feature.

Map guidance to the nearest tornado in a 50 mile radius that I might have a chance of catching. Maybe even with GPS route assist to position me at the right spot to be on the side/back of the tornado at my current traveling speed.

Yes I know they can be horrible and cause a lot of grief, but I still want to see one. Relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/611/ (not storm chaser)

Thank you. You did it. You made me laugh.

I am in no mood to laugh and you made me laugh. We can not turn against our nature. Something as interesting as a storm will always make us look.

That little essay he wrote on Urban Gorilla Tactics was... ummm. Well; Human!!

We can think it. Doing it is an entirely different thing.

Weather? Sure. I root for the weather, too. Earthquakes are a kind of weather, here. We, very seldom, get an earthquake that is over a 5 on the Richter Scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

[Patrisimo]

Registered to post this.

http://xkcd.com/583/

[cjmcjmcjmcjm]

I really think some like/dislike review is what really works when dealing with non-professional reviewers. There's a good reason why YouTube switched from star reviews to like/dislike. Yes, a neutral review would be silly because if you were neutral, why would you bother to write a review?

[Iranon]

Because other reviewers might be wrong on the internet.

"functionality is decent, but [they're sloppy with your data if you use the advanced functions / it requires buggy and annoying software to interact with your pc / if you disregard the controversy-causing gimmick, it's very vanilla"

[Beardhammer]

Maybe this is just me being silly again, but I live in tornado alley. If there's a tornado coming, it's pretty fucking obvious.

[Beardhammer]

I really think some like/dislike review is what really works when dealing with non-professional reviewers. There's a good reason why YouTube switched from star reviews to like/dislike. Yes, a neutral review would be silly because if you were neutral, why would you bother to write a review?

Three stars doesn't necessarily mean neutral. I interpret it to mean average. If a movie gets three out of five stars, that means it was presumably still worth watching, but still had several flaws that kept it out of the higher ranks.

[Cake]

99% of the people who use the app get alerts. It's the ones who don't hit save when specifying their alert email address or the ones that do not hit the refresh button when looking at the alerts map who tend to make the bad comments. Instead of reading a 1 sentence summary of how to view alerts, they choose to bash the app. The app has a help page, video tutorials and has an interface similar to google maps.

[SirWhy]

Its things like this that have driven me to read full reviews for everything, apart from things like movies. Also, when you hear the alert, isn't it already too late?

[BrianB]

Anyone else notice that this app is listed on the App Store (iPhone specific, right?), but the developer's name is DroidCoder2187? Obviously that means this is a WP7 app

I think the Amazon App Store distributes Android applications. The term "App Store" isn't specifically Apple, at least it looks like the court case will go that way.

[Felstaff]

I live in tornado county, I want this app. someone make it please.

You wanted it, I made it
It's android-only right now, I'm working on an iPhone version (honestly, could use some help if anyone knows Objective-C).
But this works really well, and we're starting to get quite a few users in Tornado Alley (I live in Arkansas, myself):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.silverwraith.tornadowatch

So, get it, install it, give me feedback, I'll make it better
The app is completely community-driven. It'll alert you when other people report seeing a tornado within 20 miles of you.

Here's a little blog post about why it's important (please, somebody think of the children!):
http://silverwraith.com/blog/2012/03/tornado-alert-app/

[Red Hal]

Oh well played avleenvig! I live in the country with the second-highest density of tornadoes in the world (after the Netherlands), so will be giving this a go. I'll let you know how it works out.

[avleenvig]

Oh well played avleenvig! I live in the country with the second-highest density of tornadoes in the world (after the Netherlands), so will be giving this a go. I'll let you know how it works out.

England! The country of my childhood. London born and raised
I don't have any source of tornado warning data in the UK, so you're on your own!
That is to say, I won't be able to warn anyone about tornadoes, but what I can do is tweak the algorithms so that outside the US the thresholds for verifying there is a tornado are lower.

I've also just enabled the app to appear in Android markets globally rather than just in the US. By the time you get this in the morning it should be available. Do let me know how it works out. Feedback is always welcome!

And to all you people in the US who can already get the app: Install it, already! Or are you waiting for the iPhone version?

[Me321]

I live in tornado county, I want this app. someone make it please.

You wanted it, I made it
It's android-only right now, I'm working on an iPhone version (honestly, could use some help if anyone knows Objective-C).
But this works really well, and we're starting to get quite a few users in Tornado Alley (I live in Arkansas, myself):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... rnadowatch

So, get it, install it, give me feedback, I'll make it better
The app is completely community-driven. It'll alert you when other people report seeing a tornado within 20 miles of you.

Here's a little blog post about why it's important (please, somebody think of the children!):
http://silverwraith.com/blog/2012/03/tornado-alert-app/

It looks great, but I have a iPhone, I look forward to testing it when you get it done (I'd help but I know nothing about programing), this year looks like I might need it.