Monday, July 28, 2014

Star Sighting: Who's Bigger at Cafe Boulud?

My wife and I took advantage of a beautiful New York evening with kids away at camp to dine tonight  al fresco at Cafe Boulud, one of the nicest restaurants in the city.  We tried to take advantage of Restaurant Week prices to learn they apply only to lunch, but that is not the story I am trying to tell.

As we finished our entree, we were surprised to see television talk show host Charlie Rose sit down at the table next to us.  And then at the next table sat down William Goldman, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and countless other prominent films.  They chatted together like old friends, as perhaps they are.

This kind of thing doesn't happen to us much, but I couldn't help wondering: Who's Bigger?  Through the miracle of cell phone technology I looked it up.   They are amazingly similar.   Our algorithms rank Charlie Rose at 13,760, a bit ahead of William Goldman at 15,213.

I would like to report that I told them their rankings, which they found fascinating, and that I am now booked to appear on the next Charlie Rose Show.   The truth is, I behaved like a proper New Yorker and let them eat.

I guess I am better at network algorithms like PageRank than networking.  At least I hope so.


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