These posts relate to broad principles of predictive modeling / data science.
There is a reason why statistical texts spill copious amounts of ink on data sampling and survey designs. Historically speaking, data was incredibly laborious to collect and to analyze with limited computational resources. This led to the development of mathematical modeling techniques that relied on small amounts of information. These models are simplistic and replete […]
This book and whole professions (e.g. predictive modelers, data scientists, economists, etc.) hinge on the assumption that the future can be predicted to some degree. But can it? The Newtonian revolution reinforced not only physical, but a causal determinism about our reality. The past and the future are inextricably linked. We can predict the motion […]
A model in the context of predictive modeling is simply some useful mathematical abstraction of reality. A model should be (a lot) less complex than the reality it is intended to represent. This might seem obvious, but with ever increasing computation at our finger tips we need to carefully assess the relative complexity of our […]
You may have heard the phrase ‘less is more‘. I believe it applies well to predictive modeling and programming in general. Perhaps it also applies to transmittal of information more generally. As Mark Twain once remarked: I did not have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead. Even in […]
Something exciting is happening in the world of computing. And the excitement couldn’t come soon enough for those grieving the demise of Moore’s Law. Gordon Moore, one of the founders of Intel, observed that the number of transistors in dense integrated circuit doubles every two years. For the last fifty years, advancements in computing have […]
My goal in this ebook is to get you most of the way towards creating powerful predictive models in a very short span of time, regardless of your prior experience! Features that make this book valuable There are many great resources, in print or on-line, for learning about Predictive Modeling. The following ideas make this […]
There is a revolution happening in analytics and Artificial Intelligence (Ai) is at its center. My goal with this post is to catch you up on the 80-year history of Ai by the time I finish my coffee. Fair warning, I do take longer than some! The idea of non-human intelligence has been around since […]
The concepts that I am referring to as blueprinting and prototype are hardly deserving of such fancy titles. And what I am about to write hardly deserves it’s own post. Yet these incredibly simple, yet powerful, concepts deserve any coder’s attention. Blueprinting Before you write any code, spend some time describing a blueprint of what you want […]