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Netflix Prize Competitor Already Beats Netflix
Baldrson writes "Within the first week of the announcement of The Netflix Prize a team has already beaten Netflix's own movie recommendation algorithm. 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.' The team is WXYZConsulting.com apparently registered by a data mining professor named Yi Zhang. Congratulations are in order for Netflix and Prof. Zhang's team who are demonstrating, yet again, the power of prizes to accelerate progress."
This shows that greed can be used in a positive way.
That is all I have to say, anyone else have anything to add?
what is the actual prize they will receive? You'd think within 30 seconds of looking at a site about a prize I'd know what the prize was.
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.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
Maybe he is the YZ in WXYZ.
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%.
All the technology in the world won't hide your lack of vision, talent, or understanding.
Nymphomaniac Supermodel with no vocal chords?
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.
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
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.
So your advice is to be somebody else entirely in an attempt to please someone? That's the foundation of a healthy relationship if I ever saw one.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
...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!
Best. Webhost. Ever. Dreamhost.
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.