Episode #5: Abdel Saleh

In this episode I'm joined by Abdel Saleh of said.fm a Radio and Podcast recommendation and curation startup. Abdel has been involved in the London Ruby community for many years and we cover a lot of ground in this interview - from transitioning from Java to Ruby in Finance, through Machine Learning and computation on AWS clusters to the ins- and outs of getting a startup off the ground both here and in Silicon Valley.

Here's some links to things Abdel talked about during the interview:

• Research Papers
• On the uselessness of content for recommendations
• Recommendation algorithm wants to show you something new
• Latent Semantic Analysis In Ruby
• Non-negative Matrix Factorization for Ruby
• A Clear Signal Through the Noise
• Designing Happiness
• The Future of UX is Play: The 4 Keys to Fun, Emotion and User Engagement

Before the interview I mentioned that Malcolm Arnold of Ruby Nuby is looking for donated laptops to take to a program in Uganda and Kenya to teach Ruby, technology and entrepreneurial skills. If you have some equipment to donate contact Malcolm or find out more at the Ruby Nuby meetup.

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Posted by Chris Lowis on Feb 01, 2011