Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: … you got my attention

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Just yesterday, I shared about a popular science book about Bayes. Today I started a new one, called Trustworthy Online Controlled Experiments: A Practical Guide to A/B Testing. I picked it because I want to learn more about the industry standard way of doing controlled experiments, an area where I have some experience. This particular book started well.

Even the first chapters show that the authors do have experience I can relate to and can, hopefully, learn from.

This quote, for example, is included in their preface:

Any figure that looks interesting or different is usually wrong

— Twyman’s Law

It matches my experience with overly positive results or ambitious claims in analysis. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen into the trap of believing something wins big time while there was really just a mistake, or a bias of some kind, twisting the results. But I had no clue someone postulated a law on it and got a Wikipedia page about it. I can now cite it and gain mana points 😀

So, I have a good feeling about this book and I hope to be able to complete it much faster than the last one. It just starts well.

Unfortunately, my copy arrived with significant damage. It was improperly packaged and delivered poorly. However, it is a book I read with a pen, underlining what I think is important, and leaving notes inside, so it will not get any better anyway.

Everything Is Predictable: How Bayes’ Remarkable Theorem Explains the World, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

I’m interested in improving my understanding of experimentation. As a person, educated in frequentist statistics, I wanted to learn more about the Bayesian approach, so I got myself a bunch of related books with an increasing level of difficulty to read (more and more formulas).

This is the first one of the batch, which is popular science. It’s tells the story of Bayes and his approach to decision making based on updating probabilities. The amount of useful content inside is roughly comparable to 2-3 popular science Youtube videos of the type I like watching.

The book shared some useful stories and examples, the backstory, and some context about the theorem and its use. However, once I got some of that, it started repeating, nearing unreadability towards the end.

Do I regret reading it? No, I think it cracked some doors open for me and it will help me understand the matter better once I get into the textbooks. So, while I wouldn’t give it a 5*, I think it’s a solid 4*/5 and worth the time and money, as long as you dedicate time for it and read it in 2-3 days, not in 1+ months, which is what I did.

Pull-ups Update

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

One of my annual goals was to make one pull-up. The last meaningful update on that goal was in March, when I made 3 reps with a neutral grip. Since then, I struggled with injuries and gained a few kilograms of weight. So it didn’t look like I’ll make progress past three.

In order to address the pain while not giving up on the goal, I lowered the intensity of my exercises, increased the frequency, stopped making them from a full hang, and ditched the neutral grip in favor of the standard semi-false grip. I now do 1-4 series almost every day, depending on how I feel. I also introduced non-standard push ups with various difficulty.

After 4 months of that, my forearms no longer hurt as much as they did in March. They still do, I sense a bit of pain even as I type this, but it’s okay. Not something that would take the peace of my mind.

So, today, I showed my kids how to properly hang on a bar. And the bars in the school where we played have one that’s significantly higher than the one I regularly use. I can’t even try making a pull-up without fully hanging first. I tried doing pull-ups there, and made 4 clean reps.

Four is the new record for me. It took me roughly 4 months since the previous record of three, and it happened almost by accident. But at the same time, I exercised every day since we came back from Sozopoli, so maybe not that much of an accident after all.

Would I do 5 soon? Who knows. It can happen tomorrow, in another 4 months, or never. Doing this at 47 is tough and it hurts. Lots of things are pulling me down. Maybe the right way to get to a higher number of repetitions is to eat healthier food.