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Comment by GFK_of_xmaspast | Hacker News Reader

I only skimmed it (which is more than I like doing with gwern articles) but:

The base-rate predictor got 65% right by definition, the logistic managed to score 68% correct (bootstrap20 95% CI: 66-72%), and the random forest similarly got 68% (67-78%).

which doesn't really sound all that great.

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You're right that it's not that great, although it might be more or less impressive depending on how much one expects these things to be predictable at all.

But one useful way to look at it is to see this as indicating how good the base rate predictor is compared to random commenters or your gut feel - 65%? Did you know, in advance, before I spent like 3 months collecting the data, that the right rate was 65% rather than, say, 10% or 90% or 50%?

What's wrong with gwern articles?

I really dislike his (textual) voice, among other things.

Do you have a blog? Or one you like?

It can be kind of boring and overly detailed/analytical at times, but I don't really see anything wrong with his writing style.

I find it refreshing. In an age where everyone on the internet is trying to "tell a story" it's nice to just have some plain facts and information presented in plain old text once in awhile. Seriously, how many "why our startup failed/succeeded/grew/shrank/lobotomized" articles do we need? It's nice to have people doing actual analysis with numbers once in awhile.

It's not my style, but i'd be interested in any other sites like his, because as I said it's not my style, but I love reading in-depth things that are style rather personal in nature, kind of an odd spot to ask, but sites like that arn't easy to find. Thanks for the link, btw!

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