Psychologist Beating Math Nerds in Race to Netflix Prize 205
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."'"
What's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
And yes, I have karma to burn. Yes I do.
Interdiscplinary approach (Score:5, Interesting)
Thinking about how people shop (Score:5, Interesting)
So, if I was to setup a movie viewing for them. I'd setup something along the lines of a Genre, rating(R,PG-13,G), Alphabet.
It's kind of a takeoff on my video game organization method that increases sales of video games by 30 percent. I called it ABSRG short for Alphabetize By Section(4 foot section), Rating(M on top T in the middle and E towards the bottom.), Genre(Sports, driving, shoot em up). Please note, this cannot be patented, I already let it go out for more than a year(Started in 1998)and I have the pictures and time notes to prove it.
That's true (Score:5, Interesting)
I've also found this to be true. Lol, I actually knew people in college that did nothing but program computers in their spare time, and took psych because it was easy, wouldn't distract them and gave them more time to do the programming they wanted. They didn't ever expect to practice psych.
Re:Interdiscplinary approach (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Interdiscplinary approach (Score:5, Interesting)
I work for a small company. My current job isn't stable, and doesn't pay well, so I'm taking an IT course so I can land a (hopefully) stable job/career.
However... in my current job I wear all kinds of hats. Server's down? I'll fix it. Marketing materials need to be designed? I'll do it. Proposal needs to be edited? I'm there. Computer needs more RAM? I'll install it. Photo of product needs to be masked-out? Done. Need to do some research? I'll get on it.
The kind of job I'm being trained for... I'll be stuck on the straight and narrow, handling one sort of task. When companies want an IT guy, they want an IT guy. I don't know how I'll be able to handle that. I LIKE having different responsibilities. I don't want to be one guy on an org chart with a specified duty.
Blah. I really went on a tangent there...
Free Idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, I'm not trying for this prize, but there's one thing about Netflix "recommendations" that bugs me so I'm throwing out this complete freebie of an idea. If it helps someone get a 0.001% improvement to add this ONE little additional check, great.
I am learning Japanese. I have been watching several hundred Japanese-language movies for the past couple years. I don't watch movies in Greek, Spanish, Turkish, Farsi, Italian, Russian, German, or Hebrew. I did watch Amelie four years ago but that doesn't mean I love French movies. Most of my recommendations are for foreign films, but only a small fraction of those recommendations are for Japanese movies.
Apparently, Netflix doesn't have a column in their database saying WHAT language a movie uses principally, it just has a flag saying it is not English. It's the only explanation I can see for not checking for such a strong correlation. I admit, I might not be sharing the experience of the most common movie-renting drone in the bunch, but I doubt I'm the only person who has such a lopsided taste in movies. If the language (or alternate soundtrack languages) ARE known in the database, please see if the renter has a bias for movies in a particular language.
Re:Thinking about how people shop (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Domain Knowledge (Score:1, Interesting)
Besides which, sex as described by the kind of people who think geeks really should be trying harder to get it is basically sport. Geeks have enough common sense to recognize that sport is no fun.
And? (Score:4, Interesting)
A Physicist goes to a Mathematician for advise on solving a Differential Equation. The Physicist explains this and writes the equation on a Blackboard. The Mathematician stares at the equation for more than half an hour. Finally, he says, "Yes, it has a solution."
Basically, the Maths (even applied) are about details and considering them *very* carefully. With this in mind, is it any surprise that they are somewhat "slow"? Especially when they are starting from scratch within the problem domain?
Re:Domain Knowledge (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Domain Knowledge (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Domain Knowledge (Score:2, Interesting)
In the case of great scientists, artists, politicians or inventors, it may simply be about pure fascination with their particular interest (eg. Darwin studying and classifying barnacles for 8 years - 1856 to 1864), an altruistic (read instinctive if you will) desire to make living conditions better for their counterparts (eg. Norman Borlaug, 1970 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, for his research in wheat agriculture leading to the Green Revolution), or some other reason.
In short, perhaps not everything is about f-cking, however f-cking certainly is everything to some.
On the back of giants (Score:3, Interesting)
There does not appear to be that many 'giant' scientific figures anymore despite the exponential scientific growth. Maybe it is just an appearance and there are more; but are there more proportionally to the number scientists?
How many big leaps in knowledge have been made in the old fields like physics for example? If the decline does not exist now, won't it exist at some point??
Re:Interdiscplinary approach (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think you need to read in any great cultural change to a cross-disciplinary approach here: the problem is one well-suited to this man's exact skills, an algorithmic computation of likely human behavior. Encouraging cross-disciplinary work because people focused too tightly on one field will miss available tools from other fields is helpful, and certainly helps keep me paid for work that ranges throughout computing and engineering fields.
Re:Domain Knowledge (Score:2, Interesting)