Psychologist Beating Math Nerds in Race to Netflix Prize

s1d writes "An almost-anonymous British psychologist named Gavin Potter has suddenly risen to the top of the Netflix prize charts. With his very first attempt, he got a score which took the BellKor team seven months to reach. Currently at a score of 8.07, he has only five teams ahead of him now in the race for the ultimate Netflix algorithm. 'Potter says his anonymity is mostly accidental. He started that way and didn't come out into the open until after Wired found him. "I guess I didn't think it was worth putting up a link until I had got somewhere," he says, adding that he'd been seriously posting under the name of his venture capital and consulting firm, Mathematical Capital, for two months before launching "Just a guy." When he started competing, he posted to his blog: "Decided to take the Netflix Prize seriously. Looks kind of fun. Not sure where I will get to as I am not an academic or a mathematician. However, being an unemployed psychologist I do have a bit of time."'"

Comments

Beating everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

5th place is not winning. Are you guys Ron Paul supporters too?

Re:Beating everyone?

[rcw-home]

Welcome to your therapy session.

Well, before everyone gets all in a tizzy,

Surely not everyone?

let me just say that I'm already on the case to return the favor.

Can you elaborate on that?

As a mathematician and computer scientist, I'm working on a computer program using some pretty heavy-lifting math to allow people to psychoanalyze themselves.

Why do you mention computers?

I call it the ELIte analyZing mAchine, or ELIZA for short.

Why do you mention computers?

How does that make you feel, Mr. Psychologist Person?

Does that question interest you?

Re:Beating everyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

My copy of emacs doesn't give any of those responses.

Re:Beating everyone?

[Zarf]

Doctor Sbaitso!? He's the one that's in love with the math co-processor, right?

Re:Psychologist?

[palegray.net]

You can't just come barging in here with your fancy facts and logical arguments. You'll ruin the whole conversation that way! And we don't take kindly to strangers in these parts...

Re:Psychologist?

[QuantumG]

Alternatively: It's a bit hard to argue with you when you keep making sense.

Re:Domain Knowledge

[wasted]

There's a strong social obligation to love sex, just like there's a strong social obligation to hate work. A lot of people love their work and couldn't be bothered wasting their time on mating rituals.. then all the brainless breeders call them "losers" because they've made two choices that fly in the face of social pressure.

Like they really had a choice...

Poor math nerds...

[Gorimek]

Being beaten up is normal for any nerd, but by a Psychologist - that's gotta hurt...

Re:Poor math nerds...

[Kingrames]

How does that make you feel?

Re:Psychologist?

[poena.dare]

I knew user 3799, and let me tell you, user 3800 is no user 3799.

Re:What's the point?

[0123456789]

Right. Unless it's your brother that was robbed, your mother's house that burned.

If you don't find out about those until you read about them in the newspaper, your family qualifies as dysfunctional. Really dysfunctional.

WWLD? (What would leonardo do?)

[TiggertheMad]

Could the emergence interdisciplinary experts lead to another 'renaissance' of sorts?

Oh, I don't know. If only we had a art history & statistics dual major to figure it out...

Re:What's the point?

[besalope]

Right. Unless it's your brother that was robbed, your mother's house that burned, your life savings tied up in the boat that sank, your cow that was run down, or your new neighbor's rabid dog that needs killing. Meh, that just sounds like the making of a country music hit.

Re:Psychologist?

[Chris Johnson]

Ah, those were the days.

You kids get offa my lawn!

Re:Domain Knowledge

[nametaken]

Wow dude, thanks for speaking for me. I was too busy not getting laid to be bothered to type it myself.

Almost anonymous?

[robhiller]

Am I the only one that finds the phrase 'An almost-anonymous British psychologist named Gavin Potter' faintly ridiculous?

Re:All of 18th century science? Really?

[JohnFluxx]

> Or calibrate a thermometer?

Set the room temperature to 20 degrees, wait, mark off that level on the thermometer. Set the room temperature to 21 degrees....

What would a psychologist know about anything?

[ASM65816]

I lost a job because of a bad psychologist report, some lies from workmates who hate me, a 3 page multiple choice test, and 10 minutes talking about my father, and he thinks hes got the right to ruin my career.

Psychologist: Oh, so the problem with your video delivery service is that it has bipolar disorder, gender-orientation issues, and a reverse oedipal complex with a double backflip and extra chocolate sprinkles. Throw it on the scrap-heap and write a new system from scratch.

Re:Misleading summary

[Red Flayer]

This is very much an OR problem.

I'm not so sure about that. Seems to me like the Netflix algorithm probably needs some ANDs and NOTs, and maybe even some IF...THENs.

Not to mention that it likely can't be reduced to Boolean logic.

/Sorry

Re:All of 18th century science? Really?

[JohnFluxx]

Just set the thermostat on the central heating system to 20 degrees..