4 posts tagged “geek”

Looks like a team broke the 10% barrier...

http://www.netflixprize.com/leaderboard

(( More about the Netflix prize here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix_Prize ))

PS: The entrant "Just a guy in a garage" is still in the top 20...

At first, it seemed some geeked-out supercoder was going to make an easy million.

In October 2006, Netflix announced it would give a cool seven figures to whoever created a movie-recommending algorithm 10 percent better than its own. Within two weeks, the DVD rental company had received 169 submissions, including three that were slightly superior to Cinematch, Netflix's recommendation software. After a month, more than a thousand programs had been entered, and the top scorers were almost halfway to the goal.

...

"Just a guy in a garage" was the exception to all this openness. He didn't even have a link attached to his screen name, which kept creeping higher and higher on the leaderboard. By mid-January, there were just five teams, out of 25,000 entrants, ahead of him. And still, no one knew who he was or by what statistical magic he kept improving. "He's very mysterious," says Koren with unconcealed interest. "I hope you will at least be able to find out his name."

His name is Gavin Potter. He's a 48-year-old Englishman, a retired management consultant with an undergraduate degree in psychology and a master's in operations research. He has worked for Shell, PricewaterhouseCoopers, and IBM. In 2006, he left his job at IBM to explore the idea of starting a PhD in machine learning, a field in which he has no formal training. When he read about the Netflix Prize, he decided to give it a shot — what better way to find out just how serious about the topic he really was?

In 2001, Potter cowrote a book called Business in a Virtual World that described how companies could best take advantage of new technology. So he's well aware of the commercial value of improving recommender systems, which tend to perform poorly, sometimes comically so. (You liked The Squid and the Whale? Try this Jacques Cousteau documentary.) "The 20th century was about sorting out supply," Potter says. "The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand." The Internet makes everything available, but mere availability is meaningless if the products remain unknown to potential buyers.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-03/mf_netflix?currentPage=all

Without further ado...

Toy collectors gone wild
http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2007/08/13/the-top-five-toy-collectors-gone-wild/

Geek girlfriend test
http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2007/08/06/the-geek-girlfriend-litmus-test-in-cosmo-quiz-style/

Pathetic Geek Movie Remakes
http://www.greatwhitesnark.com/2007/08/22/the-seven-most-pathetic-upcoming-geek-movie-remakes/

Funny posts. I will have to bookmark this website.

I think they once mentioned August, never mind. Still waiting for this little ((cute, white, cheap)) subnotebook...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/03/asus-eee-pc-possibly-delayed/

Also, wanted to mention a funny test set-up of iPod docks by Gizmodo. I still like the Apple Hi-Fi dock best for its clean design...but its price/performance is dismal. Interesting to see the 'cheap' Gizmodo Amplifi in the final round...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/battlemodo/ipod-docks-the-sweet-16ish-bracket-265489.php

iPod Battlemodo :)

Finally, a funny new ad campaign from Axe for gadget lovers geeks, dweebs and nerds dorks...

http://www.ibelieveinadv.com/2007/08/axe-get-a-girlfriend/

I like the Egyptian LEGO guy and the pumped-up score video gamer best. The boy scout is too white and nerdy :)

Judge for yourself. If you like the Axe campaign, check out an older ad campaign called Game Killers...

http://www.gamekillers.com/

Also hilarious, especially the Kash Munny, Carl, The Mess and Sensitivo characters ((each one with funny intro movies, click on them several times ! ))

PS: Military service is over for me, back to work this weekend ((on a Mac)). ((rant starts here)) It's all Access, Word and Powerpoint in the Swiss Army...urgh. I HATE Powerpoint. Its org charts designer is the worst thing, especially working on huge auto formatted org charts. I use Apple Keynote quite a lot and it is cleaner, has better looking samples and is not feature-creeped ((yet)). Also, will Microsoft do something about PowerPoint file sizes ??????!!! Do they store it as an .avi movie or what :) But, wait, the sound is missing...((rant over and out))

Im Internet findet man zum Glück immer noch einen Verrückteren vom gleichen Hobby begeisteren Menschen.

Schön zu sehen, dass ich bei einigen im letzten Post erwähnten Lieblings-Beschäftigungen (Arcade, Kinofilme...) und dafür verwendeter Zeit doch ganz "normal" bin oder jedenfalls nicht ganz am äussersten rechten Rand der Gauss-Kurve Freakverteilung.

Jedenfalls wenn ich mich mit diesen Leuten vergleiche - und das ist jetzt nicht abwertend gemeint, sondern nur eine Feststellung :)

Die Namco Galaxian 3 ((wahrscheinlich der grösste Arcade-Automat aller Zeiten)) Rettungsaktion:
http://www.dragonslairfans.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=231&start=0

(( Und immer genug BiFi-Würste dabei haben, wie man auf den Bildern sieht, da bestehen doch Aehnlichkeiten * ))

Und ein paar Klicks weiter...

24-Stunden-YouTube-Marathon:
http://www.youtube.com/telemission

Nein danke, Jungs. ((Aber viel Spass trotzdem ;) )) Sogar für die komplette und spannende Fernseh-Serie "24" brauche ich jeweils pro Staffel ((wohl ca. 16 Stunden auf DVD ohne die Fernsehwerbung)) jeweils 48 Stunden bzw. ein ganzes Wochenende.

* BiFi ? Für sich gesund ernährende Leute und weibliche Personen, die sich auf dieser Seite verirrt haben, gibt es es hier mehr Infos zu BiFi: http://www.bifi.de/ ((die dort zugeschriebenen Bewertungen "herzhaft" und "lecker" sind subjektiver Natur, Rauchen ist wohl gesünder. Ich will jetzt keine Abmahnung vom BiFi-Anwalt. Nicht mehrheitsfähigen, zielgruppenkonformen Humor haben sie ja, die BiFi-Leute:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lur8SVPeUT8 ))

Lieber eine BiFi-Werbung auf YouTube als 24 Stunden YouTube :)

Ich gehe jetzt schlafen. Wobei, um Samstag 04:54 könnte ich jetzt auch gleich mit Staffel fünf von "24" beginnen, es ist Wochenende und die habe ich noch nicht gesehen...