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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."'"

1 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Uh, no... by mha · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Are the moderators insane, stupid or both? WHy did the parent of the parent get "5-insightful" when his post is so disrespectful of enormous achievements that it can rightly be labeled "stupid", while the parent gets "-1"? Stupidity (of moderators) knows no limits these days.

    Related and strange and funny (or not!), why, when I have to meta-moderate, don't ever get any of these idiots? So much trivia gets a "+5 insightful", so much "modding by opinion", statistically it is impossible I didn't get a chance to meta-punch one of those guys...