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mektrik

554 karma · joined June 3, 2019

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mektrik··on Political bias in AI: Where the AI models stand
Fair; have tried to combat this issue in a few ways.

Each model's position is scored against outside political-science data (Chapel Hill Expert Survey for party positions, World Values Survey for where populations sit).

The stance coding is done by a separate model with a published prompt + a second model from a different lab re-scores a sample and we publish where the two disagree.

So not perfect but (as far as I can tell) one of the more defensible approaches.

mektrik··on Chrome is dead for those who uses ad-blockers
Where does your 'right to access information' come from?
mektrik··on Apple to boost ads business as iPhone changes hurt Facebook
> For better or for worse Apple's steps are essentially screwing up facebooks business model

If you need an argument in support of why Apple's move is really targeted at publishers like Facebook, take a look at the ATT/app tracking transparency prompt that Apple have designed.

It doesn't call out any of the benefits of allowing tracking (healthy for the free app ecosystem, helps publishers), rather it's just:

"Allow {app} to track your activity across other companies' apps and websites?"

mektrik··on Facebook is pushing back on Apple’s new iPhone privacy rules
It does - it provides advertisers data on which users have downloaded their app after seeing specific adverts.
mektrik··on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums 2003 vs. 2012 vs. 2020
Interesting to see on the 'Sorted by Net Shift' tab that a lot of the big risers are hip-hop. Sorted by the rankings in earlier years, these were nowhere to be found.
mektrik··on Forecasting with uncertainty
I'm an advertiser, worked agency & in-house, and have used approaches like Causal's in the past.

As the other comments mention, simulations aren't going to let you answer these questions if you can't already answer them, but they can provide you with uncertainty ranges which are valuable in their own right.

Particularly if you're agency-side, being able to go to a client with an uncertainty range for some forecasted KPI is so much better than having to give a single number. Works for them because they can understand the risk, and works for you because you're not going to be held to a single number (which you're never likely to hit in practice).

mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
Thank you!
mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
Thanks!
mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
This is incredible, thank you!

Also thanks for flagging the issue on the submission form, I've just fixed it :)

mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
100% possible! There's still the question of whether you'd put them on the existing site, or make a new (more general) site to host all the links on. Definitely keen for thoughts as I'm torn between the two
mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
Thanks!

Yeah I've definitely been tempted with adding more ideas like these. The one question I've struggled with, and would be super keen for your thoughts on, is whether it'd look okay to have them on the virtualmuseums.io domain, or whether you think it's worth starting again and trying to capture all the best 'virtual attractions' on a single map?

mektrik··on Show HN: A map of the world's virtual museums
Hey folks, I’m the creator of virtualmuseums.io

I built it after seeing a bunch of articles listing virtual museums around the world. I felt like part of the point of touring these virtual museums was to capture just a tiny bit of the fun of travelling, but that this is lost when you just scroll through articles.

I thought that it’d be more fun to put all the museums on a map, and let you track your progress as you visit them, as this helps to recreate a tiny part of what’s fun about travelling.

Would love to hear your thoughts/suggestions :)

mektrik··on Mathematical marketing: a piece of calculus to change the way you advertise
Are you referring to the first graph in the post?

If so, great question. I haven't looked into this much but wouldn't expect it to be parabolic - that was just an approximation to illustrate the points raised.

mektrik··on Mathematical marketing: a piece of calculus to change the way you advertise
You're right that there's more than just last-click cost per conversion, but that doesn't mean this approach is incompatible with these extra complexities.

You might run conversion lift tests as a way to calculate the impact of increased brand awareness, and you could plug the data from these into the method outlined in the post. There you'd be looking for the optimal cost per incremental conversion rather than just optimal cost per conversion.

This is just one idea, hopefully shows that the post's method doesn't have to just use last-click conversion data.

mektrik··on Mathematical marketing: a piece of calculus to change the way you advertise
Hi folks, I'm the author of the post — I wrote it because I think a lot of brands tend to pluck numbers out of thin air when they're talking about marketing targets, without knowing how they're affecting their bottom line.

This might seem like econ 101 as zwaps mentioned, but there are a lot of brands who don't take anything like this approach still.

Keen to hear people's thoughts :)

mektrik··on Mathematical marketing: a piece of calculus to change the way you advertise
This is a good point, and you're right that some brands work this way.

I've worked agency and in-house, and most of time I've worked without budgets, just trying to maximise volume at a particular CPA. More brands are moving this way, but a few do still just stick to fixed budgets.