I’m probably more numerically inclined than you are but one thing I’ve found to be really helpful is that PredictionBook has given me much more of a feel for what things like “60%” or “95%” mean in the real world. How confident does that really translate into to be accurate? The effort involved is minimal and the payoff can be subtle but high.
But how does PredictionBook help with that over a little text file where I would write things like “60%: That fleebs are spruckled by 2012; that thus-and-such experiment confirms that glox is a form of spolk; that abritsens are publicly repudiated by Mr. Blafwem before such time as he resigns” or whatever things I might actually be disposed to register predictions about?
Graphing is pretty nice to have, as it fixes a rather more-than-trivial inconvenience; I’m not sure even I care enough to figure out how to munge a raw text file into a proper calibration graph (generated using… what, GraphViz? I don’t even know where to start) to look at and go ‘oh, I’m really underconfident in the 10/90% range, why is that?’
Although I think having the ability to see what other people have predicted helps prevent lies to oneself especially of the form “well, that was just a black swan”. When someone else predicted the other direction or simply had much reduced confidence one isn’t able to say that.
I’m probably more numerically inclined than you are but one thing I’ve found to be really helpful is that PredictionBook has given me much more of a feel for what things like “60%” or “95%” mean in the real world. How confident does that really translate into to be accurate? The effort involved is minimal and the payoff can be subtle but high.
But how does PredictionBook help with that over a little text file where I would write things like “60%: That fleebs are spruckled by 2012; that thus-and-such experiment confirms that glox is a form of spolk; that abritsens are publicly repudiated by Mr. Blafwem before such time as he resigns” or whatever things I might actually be disposed to register predictions about?
Graphing is pretty nice to have, as it fixes a rather more-than-trivial inconvenience; I’m not sure even I care enough to figure out how to munge a raw text file into a proper calibration graph (generated using… what, GraphViz? I don’t even know where to start) to look at and go ‘oh, I’m really underconfident in the 10/90% range, why is that?’
It doesn’t help that aspect that directly at all.
Although I think having the ability to see what other people have predicted helps prevent lies to oneself especially of the form “well, that was just a black swan”. When someone else predicted the other direction or simply had much reduced confidence one isn’t able to say that.