Tech

“Hot Dog and a Not Hot Dog”: The Distinction Matters (Code Included)

by Govind Chandrasekhar

And why Periscope Should’ve Held Out for a Little Longer

Spoiler Alert: This article references a recent episode of the show Silicon Valley. It only refers to material already provided in HBO released previews, but if you’d like to stay completely out of the know, look away now.

In a recent episode of HBO’s “Silicon Valley”, one of the characters Mr. Jian-Yang builds an app called “Not Hotdog”. The app allows users to identify whether objects are or are not hot dogs. At face value, it seems to be of little use, but it turns out to have very interesting wider applicability (watch the episode to find out more).

One of the comedic quirks is that the character, Mr. Jian-Yang, insists that the app enables two different tasks:

    1. Identifies whether an object is a hot dog.
  1. Identifies whether an object is not a hot dog.