As opposed to your National Insurance Number, which you only need when applying for a passport, a bank account, a job, hospital treatment and to pay your taxes. Did I miss anything ?
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Each year, the winner of the Progress Prize WERE obliged to publish details of their algorithms to date... and it was very clear that all the other competitors jumped on these details.
The contest was very clearly defined by these periods (sometimes of 11 months) where no real progress was made except by 1 or 2 top teams, and then 1 month right after publication of the latest ideas and algos, which caused everyone to catch up significantly by clearly copying and tweaking those published ideas.
Now of course this is a kdawson edited article, so the bit about "the scores on the leaderboard being published by the teams themselves" is complete nonsense.
However, the set on which the algos are evaluated is split into two subsets, the results of one IS published on the leaderboard, but the ultimate winner will be determined by their results on the unpublished half.
It seems that Belkor et al HAVE done better on this unpublished half, and personally I feel they SHOULD be the winners as the Ensemble was johnny-come-lately collection of groups of mergers of individuals, and there is some debate over hundreds of dummy accounts that were created in the last days (possibly by members of the Ensemble, possibly not) to game the system and basically train against the Oracle (at least the half that results are published for).
This is why I suspect Ensemble's result is overtrained on the published half, but hasn't done as well on the unpublished half.
Bellkor deserve this for the simple fact they've been at the top of the leaderboard for about 98% of the whole three years the competition has been running, and for also having won both yearly Progress Prizes.
And I also think Brandyn Webb deserves some credit for his SVD (singular value decomposition)work, which really helped everyone and spurred a massive leap in machine learning ideas and the general interest in the competition. I believe he does have a patent pending for his algorithms, might be interesting to see how this affects Netflix in future, as I think every competitor has implemented and used SVD in some form as part of their final results.
Perhaps they could also teach them to correctly pronounce the letter "H" in "Herb" ? Then maybe they wouldn't need to use "an" in front of it, in an attempt to sound less foolish.
All those wonderful new rights simply mean you can't tell coloreds, females or gays that they are fat lazy good-for-nothings who need to get off their ass and do some work, for fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
Mars landers... well okay, that IS impressive... 40 years after you put 2 guys on the surface of the moon, now you can put a LEGO kit with solar panels on Mars, and it might even talk to you if it's a "good day". And only for like 100 billion more than in 1969.
Global communication ? Last time I checked, "Global" > USA. And considering you've got just about the worst broadband and are falling behind most of the world, and your only solution is to gripe about "how big the country is"...
I'd not be too proud of your recent "achievements"... seems you've been resting too much on your laurels in the last 4 decades.
In fact I feel that it is just as arrogant to say there IS NO god as it is to say there IS a god.
This is the bit I don't understand... why is it "arrogant" to apply common sense to a situation ?
If you ask me "do I believe in little pink fairies at the bottom of the garden", I can simply answer "no", on the basis of not one scrap of physical evidence seen in the last 2000 years. That's not arrogance, it's just an application of drawing a conclusion from observational evidence (or lack of observational evidence in this case).
But when you substitute "little pink fairies" with "deity-of-your-choice", all of a sudden I am being arrogant in applying the exact same method to my reasoning ? What would YOUR reaction be to people who really believe, with all their hearts, (and solely on the basis of "faith") in little pink fairies ?
You'd call them [expletive] nutters, and rightly so !
So every possible bit combination in 2^8388608 ???
Can't you see that your counter to tell it when it's got the right one has to be at least 1MB ?
UNless of course you are going for the classic vids like "black horse in a coal mine" or "white horse in a snowstorm", which of course could in principle be represented by just 1 bit of counter information ?
I think he meant that the Government is like a Windows O/S. Even after a reformat and reinstall (say for example upgrading from Bush 2000 to the new Obama 7), it's basically the same underlying shit from eight years ago with a different front-end colour.
Ah, you obviously haven't considered the Bergholt Stuttley (Bloody Stupid) Johnson's Patented 12-Gang Jury Launcher, with Optional Side Mounted Judge and Stenotypist Trebuchets.
Fair Use = Having a crapload of MP3s ripped from CDs you already own, and sticking them on your iPod.
Not Fair Use = Downloading a crapload of MP3s ripped from CD's *other* people own, and sticking them on your iPod.
Unfortunately, the RIAA et al would like to consider BOTH of the above as "Not Fair To Their Profit Margins", and in pursuing this goal, they are simply alienating their REAL potential customers in their quest to eliminate the pirates (arghh, Jim-Lad, shiver me timbers). I mean really, who the fuck in Somalia even *has* an PC ?
Is it any wonder that people more and more resort to piratebay, when they are told that the Fair Use provisions somehow don't apply when it comes to audio and video products they have already bought and paid for.
Please understand, I'm not particularly waving a flag for the torrent leeches who would *never* have paid for shit anyway, but neither can the RIAA consider them as "potential lost sales"... they are simply the product of todays society and the availability of technology to all.
Some people would sell their own grandmother (or indeed someone else's grandmother) if they could get a decent price for her... I suppose nowadays the analogy should be "some people would make exact digital copies of their grandmothers, and share them with the world for free", but here's the point.
It's not only the technology that has changed, but peoples' ideas of what is morally right and wrong has changed. It's no longer a physical product that is changing hands, but a stream of bits on the inter-tube-thingy. But RIAA still want to treat this as if it *was* a physical product, and for some reason, most people seem to disagree with that at a fundamental level, overriding any guilt attached with having a copy of those bits that they didn't actually pay for.
Now regardless of the morality or otherwise, the recent punishments dished out in Jammie Thomas etc stretch the bounds of credibility. If I quote "to be or not to be, that is the question", it's fair use. If I quote "whoops, I did it again, I played with your heart", it's a capital offence, and hanging is too good for me, do not pass go, pay 1.6 million dollars for a get-out-of-jail-free card. Where did we lose our sense of perspective ?
And I'll leave you with this gem...
You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't kill a policeman. Then steal his helmet. And then go to the toilet in the helmet. And then send it to his grieving widow. And the steal it again.
As I saw, it was more for generic window control and settings. True there's the F*, CTRL-F*, ALT-F* for activating the High, Med and Lot slot items, but where are the shortcuts for say:-
Lock Target Unlock Target Select A Target (from your already locked ones) Fire All Guns
Even those four would make the game so much more playable... there's so much action happening with 20 odd rats flying around you that the ability to click a rat, press L (for lock), press F (for fire all guns) would improve the battle handling immensely.
You will note I'm a little bit jaded right now, as I just got the skills to buy a Ferox last night, and lost it exactly two hours later on a tough level 2 mission;-) C'est la vie.
Slashdot Mirror
As opposed to your National Insurance Number, which you only need when applying for a passport, a bank account, a job, hospital treatment and to pay your taxes. Did I miss anything ?
At what part of the process were these people *not* told that "the value of shares and investments can go DOWN as well as up" ?
I'm sorry and all, but they knew the risks ...
I'd settle for a link to an article you didn't have to pay through the nose to read ... ever heard of Citeseer ?
I was with you right up until you used the word "boxen" ... after that my brain exploded in disbelief. Please, don't use it again.
David Icke, is that you ?
Depends if you're stuck in 1999, or here in 2009 with the rest of us ?
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Each year, the winner of the Progress Prize WERE obliged to publish details of their algorithms to date ... and it was very clear that all the other competitors jumped on these details.
The contest was very clearly defined by these periods (sometimes of 11 months) where no real progress was made except by 1 or 2 top teams, and then 1 month right after publication of the latest ideas and algos, which caused everyone to catch up significantly by clearly copying and tweaking those published ideas.
Now of course this is a kdawson edited article, so the bit about "the scores on the leaderboard being published by the teams themselves" is complete nonsense.
However, the set on which the algos are evaluated is split into two subsets, the results of one IS published on the leaderboard, but the ultimate winner will be determined by their results on the unpublished half.
It seems that Belkor et al HAVE done better on this unpublished half, and personally I feel they SHOULD be the winners as the Ensemble was johnny-come-lately collection of groups of mergers of individuals, and there is some debate over hundreds of dummy accounts that were created in the last days (possibly by members of the Ensemble, possibly not) to game the system and basically train against the Oracle (at least the half that results are published for).
This is why I suspect Ensemble's result is overtrained on the published half, but hasn't done as well on the unpublished half.
Bellkor deserve this for the simple fact they've been at the top of the leaderboard for about 98% of the whole three years the competition has been running, and for also having won both yearly Progress Prizes.
And I also think Brandyn Webb deserves some credit for his SVD (singular value decomposition)work, which really helped everyone and spurred a massive leap in machine learning ideas and the general interest in the competition. I believe he does have a patent pending for his algorithms, might be interesting to see how this affects Netflix in future, as I think every competitor has implemented and used SVD in some form as part of their final results.
Anyway, go Bellkor (yes, I'm biased too) :-)
(Unless someone reaches the 10% goal *before* the end date).
Perhaps they could also teach them to correctly pronounce the letter "H" in "Herb" ? Then maybe they wouldn't need to use "an" in front of it, in an attempt to sound less foolish.
What the fuck is "anerb" ?
If you have nothing to hide, then there's no need to close your blinds.
Sound familiar ?
These *are* pirates we are talking about ... of course they'll be using stolen credit card numbers ... duh
All those wonderful new rights simply mean you can't tell coloreds, females or gays that they are fat lazy good-for-nothings who need to get off their ass and do some work, for fear of a discrimination lawsuit.
Mars landers ... well okay, that IS impressive ... 40 years after you put 2 guys on the surface of the moon, now you can put a LEGO kit with solar panels on Mars, and it might even talk to you if it's a "good day". And only for like 100 billion more than in 1969.
Global communication ? Last time I checked, "Global" > USA. And considering you've got just about the worst broadband and are falling behind most of the world, and your only solution is to gripe about "how big the country is" ...
I'd not be too proud of your recent "achievements" ... seems you've been resting too much on your laurels in the last 4 decades.
Perhaps if they wrapped the Space Shuttle in the same cardboard they insulate that 200 oC coffee with, they wouldn't keep exploding ?
God will allow us to do as we wish even to our own demise
And that doesn't worry you at all ? That the loving, caring shepherd who watches over all his flock ONLY watches, but never intervenes ?
Seems like a kind of uncaring God to me ?
In fact I feel that it is just as arrogant to say there IS NO god as it is to say there IS a god.
This is the bit I don't understand ... why is it "arrogant" to apply common sense to a situation ?
If you ask me "do I believe in little pink fairies at the bottom of the garden", I can simply answer "no", on the basis of not one scrap of physical evidence seen in the last 2000 years. That's not arrogance, it's just an application of drawing a conclusion from observational evidence (or lack of observational evidence in this case).
But when you substitute "little pink fairies" with "deity-of-your-choice", all of a sudden I am being arrogant in applying the exact same method to my reasoning ? What would YOUR reaction be to people who really believe, with all their hearts, (and solely on the basis of "faith") in little pink fairies ?
You'd call them [expletive] nutters, and rightly so !
And a tiny majority of people are nuclear physicists, while the vast majority of people are thick as pig shit ... your point is what exactly ?
Just because something is believed in by a majority doesn't make it true ...
And yet still requires a DirectX DLL to run ... damn those Microsoft people, they even lock you in at assembly level :-(
every possible 1MB long byte sequence
So every possible bit combination in 2^8388608 ???
Can't you see that your counter to tell it when it's got the right one has to be at least 1MB ?
UNless of course you are going for the classic vids like "black horse in a coal mine" or "white horse in a snowstorm", which of course could in principle be represented by just 1 bit of counter information ?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Apparently, this is no longer a problem ... puppies can now be cloned ...
I think he meant that the Government is like a Windows O/S. Even after a reformat and reinstall (say for example upgrading from Bush 2000 to the new Obama 7), it's basically the same underlying shit from eight years ago with a different front-end colour.
OT I know, but does your sig compensate for your profound inability to actually find the checkbox marked "Post Anonymously" ?
Ah, you obviously haven't considered the Bergholt Stuttley (Bloody Stupid) Johnson's Patented 12-Gang Jury Launcher, with Optional Side Mounted Judge and Stenotypist Trebuchets.
Fair Use = Having a crapload of MP3s ripped from CDs you already own, and sticking them on your iPod.
Not Fair Use = Downloading a crapload of MP3s ripped from CD's *other* people own, and sticking them on your iPod.
Unfortunately, the RIAA et al would like to consider BOTH of the above as "Not Fair To Their Profit Margins", and in pursuing this goal, they are simply alienating their REAL potential customers in their quest to eliminate the pirates (arghh, Jim-Lad, shiver me timbers). I mean really, who the fuck in Somalia even *has* an PC ?
Is it any wonder that people more and more resort to piratebay, when they are told that the Fair Use provisions somehow don't apply when it comes to audio and video products they have already bought and paid for.
Please understand, I'm not particularly waving a flag for the torrent leeches who would *never* have paid for shit anyway, but neither can the RIAA consider them as "potential lost sales" ... they are simply the product of todays society and the availability of technology to all.
Some people would sell their own grandmother (or indeed someone else's grandmother) if they could get a decent price for her ... I suppose nowadays the analogy should be "some people would make exact digital copies of their grandmothers, and share them with the world for free", but here's the point.
It's not only the technology that has changed, but peoples' ideas of what is morally right and wrong has changed. It's no longer a physical product that is changing hands, but a stream of bits on the inter-tube-thingy. But RIAA still want to treat this as if it *was* a physical product, and for some reason, most people seem to disagree with that at a fundamental level, overriding any guilt attached with having a copy of those bits that they didn't actually pay for.
Now regardless of the morality or otherwise, the recent punishments dished out in Jammie Thomas etc stretch the bounds of credibility. If I quote "to be or not to be, that is the question", it's fair use. If I quote "whoops, I did it again, I played with your heart", it's a capital offence, and hanging is too good for me, do not pass go, pay 1.6 million dollars for a get-out-of-jail-free card. Where did we lose our sense of perspective ?
And I'll leave you with this gem ...
You wouldn't steal a car. You wouldn't steal a baby. You wouldn't kill a policeman. Then steal his helmet. And then go to the toilet in the helmet. And then send it to his grieving widow. And the steal it again.
As I saw, it was more for generic window control and settings. True there's the F*, CTRL-F*, ALT-F* for activating the High, Med and Lot slot items, but where are the shortcuts for say :-
Lock Target
Unlock Target
Select A Target (from your already locked ones)
Fire All Guns
Even those four would make the game so much more playable ... there's so much action happening with 20 odd rats flying around you that the ability to click a rat, press L (for lock), press F (for fire all guns) would improve the battle handling immensely.
You will note I'm a little bit jaded right now, as I just got the skills to buy a Ferox last night, and lost it exactly two hours later on a tough level 2 mission ;-) C'est la vie.
"Completeness" by most definitions would include the ability to map keys to commonly used functions ... you know, shortcuts and all that.
The most irritating thing for me (after playing the 21 day free trial), is the fact *everything* useful needs to be clicked with the mouse.