Hacker News Reader

datageekon How Jetpac Built a Photo Quality Algorithm for $5k in 3 Weeks

the algorithm needed to execute quickly. image analysis takes too long.

datageekon Ask HN: Who is Hiring? (February 2012)

Kaggle - San Francisco, CA

We're looking for:

* Data scientists

* Developers (REMOTE)

* Technical sales

More information at http://www.kaggle.com/pages/jobs

Kaggle has just closed a large Series A ($11.25m). Our early employees will help shape Kaggle's direction and grow along with the company. Regardless of the position, you should have a strong interest in data science and the intellectual curiosity to engage with competition clients from a wide variety of fields.

Kaggle is aiming to build a meritocratic marketplace that will change the way data science gets done. Read more at: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/kaggles-contests-crunch...

datageekon Competition Shines Light on Dark Matter

FWIW, Martin O'Leary doesn't sound like a Jewish name.

datageekon $10,000 algorithm competition: predict commute times on a Sydney freeway

Doesn't seem to be anything stopping ppl from including other data.

datageekon Ask HN: Ideas for weekend projects?

Build a better chess rating system and enter your system into the following competition: http://kaggle.com/chess.

You may want to use machine learning techniques, which you can learn using the Andrew Ng's Stanford lectures (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzxYlbK2c7E&feature=chann...).

datageekon Use brute force to find an available domain name for Web 2.0 projects

Bustaname.com has some neat functionality, whereas Bruteforcenaming.com is super simple.

datageekon Move over Elo - crowdsourcing a new chess rating system

at 50 years old - it's probably due for an upgrade!

datageekon Benford's Law (a neat fraud detection technique) applied to Wikileaks data

Benford's Law is really simple and neat. Worth reading about in isolation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law

datageekon Data Mining is a new weapon in the fight against Medicaid fraud

Possibly the start of an arms race between fraudsters and data miners?

datageekon Introducing Gruen Tenders - a simple way to induce an unbiased prognosis

I wonder if there's a business model in this?

datageekon Ask HN: machine learning success stories?

The best case study I've ever heard is Tescos. Apparently they were a downmarket British retailer in the early 1990s. They teamed up wit a statistical consultancy called dunnhumby and now they're the third biggest retailer in the world.

Apparently one per cent of marketing mail is opened, while 98 per cent of Tesco mailouts are opened (because they offer people targetted discounts). No surprise large retailers and grocery chains are rushing the adding significant ML capabilities.

datageekon 2010 INFORMS Data Mining Contest: participants predict stock price movements

I'm told the 2012 comp will involve predicting the predictions of predictions.

datageekon Chess rating system provides the best predictor of World Cup success

Cool site!

datageekon Chess rating system provides the best predictor of World Cup success

Good point on the 30 international games.

datageekon Chess rating system provides the best predictor of World Cup success

From what I gather, these people aren't using Elo rating alone - it's just an "ingredient" in their model.

Out of interest, did you enter the competition?