What is Digg?164 Comments
- cpw2n5, on 11/30/2008, -28/+405They aren't hackers, they're programmers.
- Armor1901, on 11/30/2008, -12/+212"Basement hackers" ?
What the ***** is this *****, NY Times? Yeah, that's what we are: basement hackers: 26 year olds still living in the basement of our parent's house "hacking" away.
The damned old fashioned press never misses an opportunity to put computer literate people down, do they? - CarStan, on 11/30/2008, -7/+183hm, lets have try:
if user-gender='male' then
recommend Porn and/or Fight Club
else
recommend Titanic and Dirty Dancing
Now where is my money? - clickwir, on 11/30/2008, -15/+91When you consider the true definition of a hacker, a programmer is almost the same definition.
- inactive, on 11/30/2008, -5/+64But Hacker sound more daring! Don't you see?
- greggerm, on 11/30/2008, -1/+52I have NO desire to watch Mr. Babyman's favorite movies, though.
- karlw, on 11/30/2008, -2/+33Maybe Digg and Netflix should do a employee swap. Both are trying to improve their recommendation engines.
- ironeus, on 11/29/2008, -11/+40Gawsh, it's Napoleon Dynamite's fault.
- brainnovate, on 11/30/2008, -1/+28This is a really interesting read, although its a long article. If I wasn't so busy with other stuff, I might give it a shot myself. Watch the video clip if you get bored.
- inactive, on 11/30/2008, -2/+28Dugg for NY Times article, and not another "top 10 ways to suck your own *****" from cracked or other worthless publisher.
- lysdexic, on 11/30/2008, -5/+28http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(computing)
- S201, on 11/30/2008, -4/+25Please research the difference between 'hacker' and 'cracker'.
- Vladamir, on 11/30/2008, -2/+20I don't think they intended that "basement" be taken as "their parent's basement", I think what they meant is that they don't work for a firm at an office. They probably just put "hackers" in the title because it's a flag word for people that don't know what they're talking about, who would then read the article.
- CamperBob, on 11/30/2008, -0/+17They probably hire musicians for that, actually. Audiophiles would ignore the music while complaining about intermodulation distortion in the speaker cables.
- hurricane3, on 11/30/2008, -0/+16Heh - they mentioned that two "French-Canadian guys in Montreal" are at the No. 3 position, but residents of the Province of Quebec are ineligible to win... Sucks to be them!
http://www.netflixprize.com//rules - muleskinner, on 11/30/2008, -1/+17That was much, much more than I needed to know about you.
- s0krat3z, on 11/30/2008, -1/+17The real hackers are busy trying to get into the Netflix systems and change the scores.
- zwendkos, on 11/30/2008, -0/+14I'd like to apply the algorithm to my porn site.
- ElBeh, on 11/30/2008, -0/+13The Pandora recommendation engine is based on the music genome project, where a dedicated team of audiophiles listen to song and put labels on them depending on what type of music it is. The recommendation engine matches the most similar labels, and tells you the songs tagged with them. It's obviously a very tiresome method that requires a lot of manpower, and would be infeasible for a film collection, where the content is usually between an hour and two hours instead of just a few minutes.
- rollerboy, on 11/30/2008, -2/+15Recommendation does not work, at least for me. Whether it is Pandora or Digg, these algorithms assume that I am only interested in a handful of related things while in reality my interests lie in a vast quantity of unrelated things that no algorithm is able to predict..... yet.
- andrewlotta, on 11/30/2008, -1/+13IMDB also has a terrible movie recommendation list.
- simonowens, on 11/30/2008, -0/+12No, as the article explains, it's a lot more complicated than that.
- vade79, on 12/01/2008, -2/+13You can't be a hacker without being a programmer, but you can be a programmer without being a hacker.
- ohcoaster, on 11/30/2008, -2/+12imo, the five star rating system that viewers use to rate the movie is after the fact and mostly irrelevant. they need to look at what got the customer to rent it in the first place. for example, a customer might love renting teen comedies, but rate a high percent of them low. the recommendation engine may stop recommending them as a result, which is a mistake because the customer obviously rents them a lot.
also, if a movie rates low, sometimes it doesn't matter, if it has a customer's favorite actor in it they'll rent anyways.
to improve accuracy, improve the meta data tagged to movies and customers.
example: show me movies that match exactly to what I rent a lot of, REGARDLESS of whether they suck or not. that's what will increase my rentals. don't bother showing me popular movies because i've probably already heard of them. - vpotok, on 11/30/2008, -2/+12its cause we black, bro.
- kurough, on 11/30/2008, -3/+13So what's a "hacker" considered now days? Are they in the same boat as a website defacer/cracker/script kiddie/virus-writer?
I thought hacking was about combining programming skills and computer curiosity to explore and advanced knowledge of a computer system.
Hackers Manifesto never mentioned anything about Brutus or Anti Virus XP 2009. - simonowens, on 11/30/2008, -1/+11There was an interesting feature on the Netflix Prize in Wired Magazine about a year ago. It focused a lot more on the psychologist who uses the help of his daughter for the calculus.
- inactive, on 12/01/2008, -0/+10You used an assignment operator instead of a comparison operator. You just turned all the girls into guys. (shakes head)
- Dumbledorito, on 11/30/2008, -2/+11So do you get upset at the phrase "shadetree mechanic," too?
- Zoshu, on 11/30/2008, -0/+9I need a link please.
- super_spyder, on 11/30/2008, -0/+9I would like to see if the guys from Pandora could do it. Their music engine is pretty good, and I don't see why they couldn't use it for movies.
- spectre_25gt, on 11/30/2008, -1/+10It doesn't really have the same meaning. Do you picture a shadetree mechanic as a socially inept person still living with their parents at 30 years old?
- inactive, on 11/30/2008, -6/+15yup, they're hackers. there's plenty different types of hacking.
- davidswan89, on 12/01/2008, -0/+8Cracker (noun)
Originally the white slave driver because he would "crack" the whip, hence the noun cracker.
source: urbandictionary.com - fuzzmeister, on 11/30/2008, -0/+7Pandora has actually worked well on that front for me. I input an assortment of songs across the whole range of my library, from techno to blues to rock. At first, it didn't know what the hell was going on, but after a few days of listening and voting up and down, it's built a station with great diversity but minimal weird *****. Try it out.
- inactive, on 11/30/2008, -8/+15Despite what Wikipedia says, "hacker," to 99% of the population, refers to nefarious people who break into people's computers or create viruses to do it for them. When you call legitimate programmers "hackers," it usually has a negative connotation.
- iamausername, on 11/30/2008, -0/+7i thought that hackers were programmers that used quick "hacks" to get a programming problem solved
crackers being people that crack security systems. - tech42er, on 12/01/2008, -1/+8What's "emo"? What's "scene"? These have different definitions depending on who you talk to. It's the same thing with hacker. We techie diggers and /.ers know that when NBC is running some scare story on "hackers", they mean "black hats" or "crackers". We know what a true "hacker" is; hell, we know what the hacker manifesto is. Most people, though, don't and, sad as it is, we have to accept that.
- lysdexic, on 12/01/2008, -1/+7I've been a legitimate programmer since the mid-80's. It's never bothered me to be called a hacker. In fact, it's quite the compliment considering it used to be a big deal to come up with a clever hack. It bothers me when the negative stereotype is reinforced as "the definition." How about a different word then for people who break into computers, spread viruses, and generally cause digital mayhem. Criminals.
- phibit, on 12/01/2008, -0/+6For 1M dollars, I'd move to Toronto.
Actually, maybe it'd have to be 2M... - Vindexus, on 11/30/2008, -0/+5That's actually a really good idea.
- talkingwires, on 11/30/2008, -2/+7It's nice to see that literacy is alive and well in America.
- madk, on 12/01/2008, -1/+6How bout get a girlfriend?
- ran310, on 11/30/2008, -1/+6Basement Hackers ! That's ridiculous. The team which one the Progress prize at the end of the first year consisted of Ph.D working at AT&T Research. Hardly the kind of people who would care to live in a basement.
- Genma, on 11/30/2008, -0/+5this is really old news, wired published on this back in feb with less filler. stupid title imo, no one involved was profiled as "basement hackers". nytimes didn't even put this type of spin on it, no doubt there could be though since there are hundreds of entries.
nice one page link, might be a better read
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-03/ ... - talkingwires, on 11/30/2008, -0/+5I like horse carriage just the way it is, and I don't need no fancy radios and such!
- talkingwires, on 11/30/2008, -0/+5I remember reading the same article, and was hoping for an update on his progress. Instead, they've just gotten a quote of his take of the “Napoleon Dynamite” effect. Anyway, Wired's article is a really good read, too. It focuses more on the hows and whys of the competing teams:
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-03/ ... - byrdgang, on 11/30/2008, -2/+7That shouldn't be too difficult. My porn tastes are pretty straightforward: big *****, lots and lots of oil, some anal, and it's gotta be pretty fast paced for the most part (not so much "rough" as fast paced). That's just about it. Big ***** + oil (and more oil) + fast/a little rough = right on the mark.
Oil Overload's scene with Velicity Von, Angelina Valentine, and Savannah Gold is perfect. Any recommendations?
- Whackly, on 11/30/2008, -0/+4Or perhaps it's an attempt, by NYT, to use the word "hacker" in a context that doesn't make them seem like criminals.
- ciphun, on 12/01/2008, -2/+6please. You wish movielens was doing it better then netflix. They are never spot on like Netflix is. Period.
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