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Despite the text implying it's all an exponential curve forecast model, the wiggles seem to point to actual data being plotted too. I wish they differentiated
by dv_dt 7y ago
Despite the text implying it's all an exponential curve forecast model, the wiggles seem to point to actual data being plotted too.
I wish they differentiated data points from forecast points in the actual chart. Text says 1/29 update, but I think only the 1/28 point seems to match news reports.
- repiret 7y agoAnd cited sources for their data. And had error bars on the prediction. And gave you access to historical predictions.
- yorwba 7y agoIf you just want the historical data, try https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 Of course the labels and data sources are all in Chinese...
- mlyle 7y agoHistorical case counts don't really have error bars... and it's difficult to come up with meaningful error bars based on goodness of fit of a function.
- repiret 7y agoBut the graph is also looking three days into the future, presumably based on fitting some model to the historical data. The output of any worthwhile model is a probability distribution over possible future infection and death counts. As a consumer of that graph, I should be able to see not just the value just a model thinks is most likely, but at least some indication of how tight a bound the model is placing on those values.
- sramsay 7y agoThe lack of which suggests that the author (and who is that, exactly?) may not have given a moment's thought to any kind of responsibility they might have in the midst of a health crisis. Oh, what the hell. Let's write some Javascript! And slap a tweet button on it!
- GistNoesis 7y agoIt seems that actual are integer values while predictions are float numbers.
- mlyle 7y agoIt could be clearer, but, the way I read it was that it's the historical data plotted + 3 days of predictions.
- AznHisoka 7y agoWhich is 100% misleading, and strips all accountability from the predictor. Show us your prediction and the difference between the actual and predicted results to see how well you did. Stop moving the goalposts too. Make the prediction for all days in the future once, and don't change it based on the current numbers.
- dredmorbius 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22185174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22185174 Though near-term projection based on current trend is useful.
- mlyle 7y agoEventually more humans will die from it than have ever been born! ;)
- dredmorbius 7y agoIt's the Four Yorkshiremen Epidemic.
- mlyle 7y agoIt's just an exponential fit based on the current number. You can run that same fit for earlier days and eyeball the graph, but we have a fancier tool for that called a "correlation coefficient". > Stop moving the goalposts too. Make the prediction for all days in the future once, and don't change it based on the current numbers. So, don't ever improve the prediction based on new data. Mkay. Extrapolating out into the future is always errorprone. Exponents don't ever continue forever and they look like great models until they don't.
- vackosar 7y agoYes you are right. I moved the data one day forward as it seems more natural to call data that we received today as todays data and not yesterday's, but that was a bad idea. I fixed that. Also I tried to add as much info about the sources I had now. I will try to improve on that later. The site mentioned here https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 https://news.sina.cn/zt_d/yiqing0121 really looks like finally one good source of the data I was looking for. I need to get some sleep now.
- dv_dt 7y agoMostly I was hoping for a different color and/or symbol for data vs prediction points as a way to more quickly understand what the chart curve represented. Another interesting comparison would be to draw a model curve (or curves) further back - the difference vs data points might give you a visual indicator of how the virus is spreading vs effect of active/natural influences vs the model. Thanks for the update, don't be too hard on yourself, there are infinite ways to improve, but I appreciate the quick look data.
- vackosar 7y agoI colored the prediction points in blue.