Comb your hair, permanently delete all your porn and all those DVDs of backups, comb your hair and shave the beard. Buy some new, clean, clothes without words or logos. Ask out pretty girls. Avoid the use of the words woot, pwnd, and 'leet' in any casual conversation. Do not admit to your unhealthy infatuation of a sci-fi or fantasy series of books or movies.
When I have a computer problem, I try one thing, then if that doesn't work I try another.
When I have a social problem, I try one thing. And then I keep trying it and trying it, and when people tell me to try something else I keep trying the same thing anyways. Because that's how it works in the movies.
...you might just win yourself a relationship so 'special' that 90% of all couples in America share. You'll buy her jewelry and allow her to spend your money on frivolous trifles, and she in turn will allow you to stick your penis in her vagina. When all else fails, resort to mediocrity!
I think this demonstrates how important "many eyeballs" are in problem solving. Intelligent people "who have been attacking the problem for 15 years" can still fail to see an "obvious" solution. I shudder at how many scientific fields probably have obvious solutions that aren't being found because only a small cadre of people have been exposed to the problem. I also shudder at people who artificially set up barriers to understanding their own fields, in order to protect their own egos. The attitude of "journal articles need to be cryptic or they must not be important" needs to go.
Sometimes one person with a different perspective on a problem can see something that a groups of "experts" had never thought of, or had discounted because they assumed it wouldn't work.
That's why a fresh perspective on a problem can be quite enlightening, and why I tend to go ask other programmers for their ideas/comments when I get stuck. I don't know everything, and I sometimes make stupid assumptions or forget to consider certain technquies. No group is immune from this.
I did work for the USDA horticulture lab around here awhile back. I didn't think security of the data was a huge deal, just as long as no one outside could get to it.
Boy was I wrong. Within the same building, it was a big deal to show other scientists your teams research. They wanted security to make sure other teams couldn't see any of their work. And from what I was told, that's the norm in the scientific community. It's all about keeping your teams funding.
I think this demonstrates how important "many eyeballs" are in problem solving.
I think it also demonstrates how the oft-used mantra of "if it needs to be done, it will be done" doesn't always work without some incentive. One of the hurdles of OSS is that the only things that get worked on are the things that people want to work on. The love of developing software can only get you so far (and wow, has it gotten us far). But for some things to advance, it will need financial backing. It's a prickly problem for the OSS community.
Is there any sort of bounties / bounty search site that lists most / all of the various development bounties out there? I've tried Googling but haven't come up with anything compelling so far. I think such a site would rock. You could end up with good developers just living off of bounties.
"I also shudder at people who artificially set up barriers to understanding their own fields, in order to protect their own egos."
"Like who?"
One that comes to mind are research organizations that patent huge swaths of minor discoveries in their field, so that it behooves any other inventors/researchers *not to look at their patent portfolio (and therefore learn more about the field) because they could be sued for infringement if they ever go near those topics.
Looking in the competition rules, I was surpised to see that:
Residents of the province of Quebec in Canada are ineligible to participate. Residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Sudan are also ineligible to participate.
Quebec outlaws most contests by requiring companies offering contests to have a head office or place of business in Quebec. No need to resort to conspiracy theories, it's just good business to make them ineligible due to their laws.
From the FAQ [netflixprize.com]:
"Most of those countries appear are on the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control's list of embargoed counties for which we cannot provide economic assistance. If this list changes, we'll post a change to the rules and let you know. Quebec has other reasons."
Here's why [about.com] Quebec is on the list.
iirc Quebec has very stringent rules [free-news-release.com] on contests and lotteries and is usually excluded from international contests because of the prohibitive effort required to comply.
The only comment I have is in response to the statement about how a prize helps "advance" something. Now, I can see how there might be some spin-off technologies from space travel that will help society in general cope with a changing world environment, but I can't for the life of me see how a system for recommending movies can really be all that much of a societal advance.
Sure, entertainment is great, and the general economic activity that is generated by entertainment may eventually bleed down to the mor
Well if you look at the underlying technique (essentially filtering algorithms) then one can extend it to a variety of areas which might be more useful than movie recomendations. An example area would be analysis of biology/chemistry literature to search for molecules with properties related to diseases. Image a 'drug recomendation' system (for the scientists who're looking for drugs, not for people to decide whether to take a Tylenol!)
then one can extend it to a variety of areas which might be more useful than movie recomendations
I'd say, the odds are that this is going the other way. They had an existing technique, and then they extended it to movie recomendations. You don't need to offer researchers in data mining a price to get them to advance the state of the art in data mining; that's what they're interested in, and what they're payed for anyway. The prize just got them to apply it to movie recomendations.
Quite a few teams have beaten the Cinematch engine, but not by the required 10% for the prize. The submission is in error. They also haven't won the 1% Progress prize yet, but they're very very close.
Only one team on the leaderboard has beaten Cinematch. They're close to qualifying for the Progress prize, but not necessarily winning it. The Progress prize is given away yearly, and not necessarily to the team with the best score.
Netflix was actually pretty smart about how they set up the contest. The $1 million prize is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attain, but for a mere $50K per year they have thousands of people making small improvements to their system.
although yes they have "beatten netflix", they haven't won the prize yet. they have about a 1% improvement on the netflix algorithm, but the prize is for 10%. they are the frontrunner for the progress prize, though, being the people who are the closest to the mark after a year (i think).
on top of that, netflix has been doing improvements on their own code in the meantime, and its been looking like around a 1% improvement, also.
Actually, I find that friends have a less than 60% chance of making a recomendation that I'll like. People like vastly different things, and for different reasons.
However, recommendations from multiple friends raises the accuracy to close to 100%.
The team is WXYZConsulting.com apparently registered by a data mining professor named Yi Zhang.
Maybe they should run a contest to come up with a better business name? Something that doesn't sound like a fly-by-night operation or a variation of something already in the phone book.
If they were going for the phone book, wouldn't they have at least looked at the HVAC installers and pawnbrokers and named the company AAAAConsulting.com?
I used to some work for a computer repair company called fly-by-night technologies. It was totally intentional. They eventually had to change it to something not quite so obvious. I forget what it was, something like StarAir Tech. I forget..
You know, I've never seen recommendation applications worth much of anything. Ringo was okay, until M$ turned it into Firefly, which died in 1999(?). It will be interesting if this turns out well, or if it turns out like TiVO, which in Patton Oswalt's words, is like "working with a retarded kid." "No, TiVo, NO! Westerns aren't cartoons! / But you like horsies! Liar!"
IMDB's recommendation system for movies is so bad it's funny in it's own right. You could look up a science fiction movie, and it would recommend a head cleaner cassette for a Betamax VCR.
This is pretty impressive given the previously quoted researcher who said: 'You're competing with 15 years of really smart people banging away at the problem.'
Oh please. It took them years before they figured out how to handle multi-disk sets correctly. Yes, their people must be smart (designing a orders database that scales up to a rapidly growing customer base is not easy), but none of their smarts has been directed at customer-facing technology.
The shortcomings of Netflix recommendation system really
I've been selling technology for almost two decades and one thing that I see over and over is that internal IT departments either a.) vastly overestimate their abilities b.) prevent introduction of outside techology providers for political reasons or c.) both.
There are several companies where the CIO told me "oh, we're already building that in-house. it will be live next quarter" and years later they still have not successfully implemented that technology.
Kudos to Netflix for acknowledging that somebody outside their company might be able to do it better. At most companies, the CIO would have never let this happen and/or the CEO wouldn't have the business sense to challenge internal assumptions.
At most companies, the CIO would not let it happen because of the political fall-out that woudl ensue, not because they wouldn't recognize that other people have good ideas as well. The fact that Netflix is allowing customer data out of their control (albiet sanitized data) is a major step that many company's would never take out of reasons not related to the technology at all.
And most CEO's don't challenge those internal assumptions not because of a lack of business sense, but again, because of political sa
The RMSE score (lower is better) currently posted by wxyzconsulting.com (0.9430) does indeed beat the CineMatch score (0.9514), which is almost good enough to qualify for the Progress Prize 2007 (0.9419 required), but not close to winning the Grand Prize (0.8563 required), so don't assume that this story means that the contest is over!
I'm tired of people not realizing that "Prizes" are really just Patronage in desguise. I'm not saying Patronage is a bad thing... far from it. But the idea that Prizes are somehow working shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone with knowledge of 15th century aristocracy.
Pay the people who do the work, don't get people to work for pay.
An AC already pointed this out, but I'm without mod points: This is not patronage. A patron supports the worker until the work is completed. These people are supporting themselves while they do the work, and collecting payment only if and when the work is done to the payer's satisfaction.
Upon further consideration... (Score:4, Funny)
the power of prizes to accelerate progress
Hmm...In that case, I'm offering $1000 USD to the person or group that can find me the perfect girlfriend!
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Send me my check thanks.
Re:Upon further consideration... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
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Re:Upon further consideration... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Upon further consideration... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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When I have a social problem, I try one thing. And then I keep trying it and trying it, and when people tell me to try something else I keep trying the same thing anyways. Because that's how it works in the movies.
If you follow his advice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Assuming this isn't a hoax... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sometimes one person with a different perspective (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why a fresh perspective on a problem can be quite enlightening, and why I tend to go ask other programmers for their ideas/comments when I get stuck. I don't know everything, and I sometimes make stupid assumptions or forget to consider certain technquies. No group is immune from this.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Boy was I wrong. Within the same building, it was a big deal to show other scientists your teams research. They wanted security to make sure other teams couldn't see any of their work. And from what I was told, that's the norm in the scientific community. It's all about keeping your teams funding.
I always grew up thinking the scientific c
Hmm, it also demonstrates... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it also demonstrates how the oft-used mantra of "if it needs to be done, it will be done" doesn't always work without some incentive. One of the hurdles of OSS is that the only things that get worked on are the things that people want to work on. The love of developing software can only get you so far (and wow, has it gotten us far). But for some things to advance, it will need financial backing. It's a prickly problem for the OSS community.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
"Like who?"
One that comes to mind are research organizations that patent huge swaths of minor discoveries in their field, so that it behooves any other inventors/researchers *not to look at their patent portfolio (and therefore learn more about the field) because they could be sued for infringement if they ever go near those topics.
banned in Quebec (Score:5, Funny)
Residents of the province of Quebec in Canada are ineligible to participate. Residents of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Sudan are also ineligible to participate.
Is Quebec the next target for regime change?
Re:banned in Quebec (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:banned in Quebec (Score:5, Informative)
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Shows the power of Greed (Score:2, Insightful)
That is all I have to say, anyone else have anything to add?
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The only comment I have is in response to the statement about how a prize helps "advance" something. Now, I can see how there might be some spin-off technologies from space travel that will help society in general cope with a changing world environment, but I can't for the life of me see how a system for recommending movies can really be all that much of a societal advance.
Sure, entertainment is great, and the general economic activity that is generated by entertainment may eventually bleed down to the mor
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
then one can extend it to a variety of areas which might be more useful than movie recomendations
I'd say, the odds are that this is going the other way. They had an existing technique, and then they extended it to movie recomendations. You don't need to offer researchers in data mining a price to get them to advance the state of the art in data mining; that's what they're interested in, and what they're payed for anyway. The prize just got them to apply it to movie recomendations.
The only thing to se
Umm... Duh (Score:4, Informative)
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Netflix was actually pretty smart about how they set up the contest. The $1 million prize is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attain, but for a mere $50K per year they have thousands of people making small improvements to their system.
to note -- (Score:5, Informative)
they have about a 1% improvement on the netflix algorithm, but the prize is for 10%. they are the frontrunner for the progress prize, though, being the people who are the closest to the mark after a year (i think).
on top of that, netflix has been doing improvements on their own code in the meantime, and its been looking like around a 1% improvement, also.
I'll do you one better. (Score:4, Funny)
I hold a patent on the idea, and I've copyrighted the statement "hey, I saw this movie you'd like."
Re:I'll do you one better. (Score:4, Insightful)
However, recommendations from multiple friends raises the accuracy to close to 100%.
Parent
Interesting business name... (Score:2)
Maybe they should run a contest to come up with a better business name? Something that doesn't sound like a fly-by-night operation or a variation of something already in the phone book.
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well, all the good names like were taken.
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It was totally intentional. They eventually had to change it to something not quite so obvious. I forget what it was, something like StarAir Tech. I forget..
Is the algorithm available? (Score:2)
Re:Is the algorithm available? (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Recommendation Software (Score:4, Funny)
IMDB (Score:5, Funny)
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After me now... (Score:2)
Progress!
Congratulations (Score:5, Funny)
Other problems..... (Score:2)
I think solving one of them (especially under computer science) would lead to significant employment opportunities.
Really Smart People? (Score:2)
Oh please. It took them years before they figured out how to handle multi-disk sets correctly. Yes, their people must be smart (designing a orders database that scales up to a rapidly growing customer base is not easy), but none of their smarts has been directed at customer-facing technology.
The shortcomings of Netflix recommendation system really
Is that why all my movie recommendations are ... (Score:2)
Just another proof that IT depts aren't that smart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just another proof that IT depts aren't that sm (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that Netflix is allowing customer data out of their control (albiet sanitized data) is a major step that many company's would never take out of reasons not related to the technology at all.
And most CEO's don't challenge those internal assumptions not because of a lack of business sense, but again, because of political sa
wxyz... (Score:3, Funny)
WXYZConsulting.com registered to a Yi Zhang, eh? Probably co-founded it with Wilfred Xylem. Sounds fishy to me...
The contest isn't over yet! (Score:3)
It's not called Prizes. It's Patronage. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pay the people who do the work, don't get people to work for pay.
Re:It's not called Prizes. It's Patronage. (Score:5, Informative)
It's a pretty clear distinction. This is a prize.
Parent
the contest is over (Score:3)
And I just finished downloading the dataset... jesus.
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