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Since I like both movies and computers,
this
NYT article was pretty interesting.
It's about Netflix's contest to
improve their "recommendation engine", the software that analyzes
the ratings Netflix customers give to movies, and tries to predict
accurately what unseen movies they'd like. The prize for a 10%
improvement is a cool $1
million; as you can tell by that fact alone, it's a very tough problem.
"Quirky" movies are especially hard. For example, even given a lot of data about a customer's past preferences, it's very tough to predict whether they will like Napoleon Dynamite. (Via GeekPress.)
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The University Diarist marks up a recent
student newspaper article about classroom laptop use at a University
Near Here. It's not pretty.
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Here's a sentence I wish I'd written:
If I could change one thing about myself it's the way I'm the embodiment of all that is wrong with America and the human species more broadly.
Dec
2
2008
URLs du Jour
2008-12-02