Software, Geekery and other miscellany
Here is another day to day situation where statistics can be very unintuitive.
Lets say we have a medical test that has 99 % accuracy. You take the test and it comes out positive. What is the chance that you are actually positive? Common sense would suggest that there is a …
I routinely come across day to day situations where statistics can be very unintuitive. Consider the case where we are designing an algorithm to identify some outlier - say credit card fraud as an example. Assume I design an algorithm and it is 99.99 % accurate.
Sounds impressive?
That is until …
Yesterday I wrote about common cause and special cause variation. Certain amount of randomness is always present in any system, and that causes fluctuations in the outcome. This is common cause variation. On the other hand, something unusual might happen from time to time which also affects the outcome. These …
Yesterday I mentioned about output vs outcome, and how I prefer to focus on output instead of outcome. The reason being that there are many factors that influence outcome.
Some of those factors are things that you can control. Many are things that you cannot.
Case in point: I recently …
There is a a lot of discussion these days on output vs outcome. Most take the position that we should focus on outcome instead of output.
The gist of the argument is that there is no value in measuring output because unless it impacts the outcome it is wasted. What …
While reading about note taking philosophies, I came across a sentence which can be paraphrased as follows:
Writing is a form of thinking. When you write, you clarify your thoughts and make it concrete
I can relate to this. I have often said that the best way to learn a …
Divide notes into 4 categories
Projects contain actionable things that you are working on, which have a clear end point. Example: "Hire a Python Developer"
Areas contain broad areas of responsibility and long term goals, but don't involve actionable tasks. Eg: Technical Hiring
Resources are content …
There are two ways of capturing information. I call them Essays and Notes.
Essays are long form articles, that cover a topic in enough detail that a person new to the topic can read from top to bottom to get an understanding of a topic.
Notes are short. A notes …
One critical skill that I have seen in great developers is double-loop learning.
What is double-loop learning?
Good developers are those who keep learning newer, better ways of solving problems. They upgrade their technical skills, learn the latest in the industry and solve problems in the smartest, most efficient way …
Every conference / unconference should have a rule like this.
The author of the rule, Eric Holscher, has a few more rules that unconference organisers will find helpful.