
Computing Your Skill - LiveTheDream
http://www.moserware.com/2010/03/computing-your-skill.html
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beza1e1
TrueSkill is nice because Microsoft published the math. The article is a nice
and colorful introduction.

From what i hear the Starcraft 2 matching algorithm is very impressive. What
system do they use?

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bigmac
My understanding is Blizzard plans to keep the details of the math secret
because they don't want the system to be gamed. Considering how seriously
people take SC2 I can hardly blame them for this decision.

This raises the question of what it would take to create a ranking system that
wasn't susceptible to active "attack" by people trying to game the system.

One aspect of SC2's ranking system that doesn't seem to exist is some sort of
skill decay. I used to be a Diamond level player but I haven't played
seriously in months. Yet, my rating is still high as if I was that good. It
seems like my only option is to log in and get destroyed for a few days to
have my rating drop, which is not really something I want to do.

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mquander
Long-term inactivity will probably be taken care of via ladder "seasons" --
when a new season starts, you lose your rank, and your rating will likely be
in some provisional state.

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mbm
Writing a 57-page math paper in something other than LaTex (appears to be Word
for God's sake) is nothing short of Herculean.

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moserware
I'm the guilty party, so I can provide some background :)

I used LaTeX in college for my math homework and it worked well for my needs
back then. However, it had been a few years since I used it and I thought I
would mainly use the accompanying paper to expand on a few things that I
thought were too detailed for the blog post.

So I thought "I'll just use Word and it'll make working with the images easy!"

It started off with just a few things but then it grew... and grew... and
grew. For example, I recently added a proof of the Gaussian convolution
formula that added 10 pages (but helped me better understand what was
happening). Over time, the gains I got from easy image support were counter-
balanced by the trickier time spent with Word 2007's equation editor. To its
credit though, Word 2007+'s equation editor is much better than the previous
one.

Regardless, the whole paper is sort of like a 57 page footnote to the blog
post to prove that I really did have to cut a lot of things out.

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tate87
It seems that describing yourself as a mathematician or calling something you
have written for a mathematical paper is becoming increasingly popular.

A math paper is something that has been published in a peer-reviewed math
journal. Calling a set of notes that could have been written by a high school
student for a math paper is just silly.

Three times in the last four months I have had conversations where someone
calling themselves for mathematicians turned out to think that having majored
in math and now doing stats, programming, or teaching calculus makes you a
mathematician.

Next time I apply for a position I think I'll consider adding "chef" to my CV.
After all, I have been cooking regularly for years !

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moserware
I didn't really give much thought to the name other than "it's a
paper/document with math in it." I honestly had no intentions (or even hopes)
of trying to deceptive anyone into thinking I was a mathematician.

I can see your point though and will be more explicit about just calling this
type of accompanying document as "notes" in the future since that term has
less formal meaning associated with it.

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n-ion
The 3d bell curve reminded me of a Bose–Einstein condensate. :)

