4 ms·

The hacking here refers to the approach of "just compute it" rather than using an analytical approach.

analognoise 11y ago
Then it's even worse than "not hacking" - it's not useful. Any idiot can run a simulation, or compute "something". "Something" is only useful in context. "If you can write a for loop, you can do statistics!" Ugh. Can nobody read anymore? It has to be a "slide deck"? Jesus, pick up a book and ask some goddamn questions if you're interested.
- lorg 11y ago
  Sometimes you can get a well-defined problem, but finding the "right" analytical solution will take you days of reading up on it, and the chance of getting it wrong is relatively high. Especially if you don't have someone with strong mathematical/statistical background to review your work. In those cases, finding a programmatic hack around it is a very good approach for giving you reasonable results in a shorter timeframe.
- rankam 11y ago
  Why are you so angry? He gave a talk and released the slides because he thought people may benefit from it - given Jake's (the speaker) background and skills, I would say he's doing everyone a favor by publicly releasing this. Calm down.
- whatok 11y ago
  This is a slide deck accompanying the author's presentation he gave here: http://www.meetup.com/Multithreaded-Data/events/225205209/ http://www.meetup.com/Multithreaded-Data/events/225205209/ I think you're taking things a bit too far here.
deleted 11y ago
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minimaxir 11y ago
It's actually the opposite: the "hacking" is used to provide better data and analysis using programmatic techniques (bootstrapping, cross-validation) than just by taking a spot average in Excel as gospel. I've seen many, many data scientists from startups write blog posts with skewed data without using such techniques and failing to identify the potential statistical problems.
rankam 11y ago
In my opinion, the "for hackers" title is in reference to multiple books that have been released with the "X for hackers" that targets people with hacking skills but do not have a formal background in X. Machine Learning for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Learning-Hackers-Drew-Conway/dp/1449303714 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Learning-Hackers-Drew-Conway... Design for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-B... Bayesian Methods for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bayesian-Methods-Hackers-Probabilistic-Addison-Wesley/dp/0133902838 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bayesian-Methods-Hackers-Probabilist... EDIT: I'm not the author, but you can find Bayesian Methods for Hackers (free, released by the author) at the link below. I think it's a great resource for anyone wanting to explore Bayesian methods using Python. https://github.com/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic-Programming-and-Bayesian-Methods-for-Hackers https://github.com/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic-Programmin...

Then it's even worse than "not hacking" - it's not useful. Any idiot can run a simulation, or compute "something". "Something" is only useful in context. "If you can write a for loop, you can do statistics!" Ugh. Can nobody read anymore? It has to be a "slide deck"? Jesus, pick up a book and ask some goddamn questions if you're interested.

lorg 11y ago
Sometimes you can get a well-defined problem, but finding the "right" analytical solution will take you days of reading up on it, and the chance of getting it wrong is relatively high. Especially if you don't have someone with strong mathematical/statistical background to review your work. In those cases, finding a programmatic hack around it is a very good approach for giving you reasonable results in a shorter timeframe.
rankam 11y ago
Why are you so angry? He gave a talk and released the slides because he thought people may benefit from it - given Jake's (the speaker) background and skills, I would say he's doing everyone a favor by publicly releasing this. Calm down.
whatok 11y ago
This is a slide deck accompanying the author's presentation he gave here: http://www.meetup.com/Multithreaded-Data/events/225205209/ http://www.meetup.com/Multithreaded-Data/events/225205209/ I think you're taking things a bit too far here.

deleted 11y ago

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minimaxir 11y ago

It's actually the opposite: the "hacking" is used to provide better data and analysis using programmatic techniques (bootstrapping, cross-validation) than just by taking a spot average in Excel as gospel. I've seen many, many data scientists from startups write blog posts with skewed data without using such techniques and failing to identify the potential statistical problems.

rankam 11y ago

In my opinion, the "for hackers" title is in reference to multiple books that have been released with the "X for hackers" that targets people with hacking skills but do not have a formal background in X. Machine Learning for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Learning-Hackers-Drew-Conway/dp/1449303714 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Learning-Hackers-Drew-Conway... Design for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-Beauty/dp/1119998956 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Design-Hackers-Reverse-Engineering-B... Bayesian Methods for Hackers http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bayesian-Methods-Hackers-Probabilistic-Addison-Wesley/dp/0133902838 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bayesian-Methods-Hackers-Probabilist... EDIT: I'm not the author, but you can find Bayesian Methods for Hackers (free, released by the author) at the link below. I think it's a great resource for anyone wanting to explore Bayesian methods using Python. https://github.com/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic-Programming-and-Bayesian-Methods-for-Hackers https://github.com/CamDavidsonPilon/Probabilistic-Programmin...