Finally!
Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
11–20 of 96 posts
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#12I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
Any plans to add different probability distributions? I do this kind of analysis by hand for things like project timelines and cost estimates, but I model each variable with a double triangular distribution ( http://www.mhnederlof.nl/doubletriangular.html ). You provide a best case, worst case, and then the most likely case. The distribution approximates the long tails on many kinds of distributions.
Definitely. I haven't yet had a request to do a double triangular distribution, that looks really interesting.
It will be a bit of a challenge to make it intuitive, but I'm sure I'll figure out something.
Just so you know, right now there is a second distribution, uniform. You can access it by clicking the 'normal' icon in a normal distribution, where a short list is shown below.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#13I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
Any plans to add different probability distributions? I do this kind of analysis by hand for things like project timelines and cost estimates, but I model each variable with a double triangular distribution ( http://www.mhnederlof.nl/doubletriangular.html ). You provide a best case, worst case, and then the most likely case. The distribution approximates the long tails on many kinds of distributions.
+1 for more distribution shapes, specifically power law, combinations of power and normal (Which you might want to consider for your soft-attack-long-tail variables over triangular, if the edge between triangles causes you artifacts), and distributions based on empirical collections.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any plans to add different probability distributions? I do this kind of analysis by hand for things like project timelines and cost estimates, but I model each variable with a double triangular distribution ( http://www.mhnederlof.nl/doubletriangular.html ). You provide a best case, worst case, and then the most likely case. The distribution approximates the long tails on many kinds of distributions.
Definitely. I haven't yet had a request to do a double triangular distribution, that looks really interesting. It will be a bit of a challenge to make it intuitive, but I'm sure I'll figure out something. Just so you know, right now there is a second distribution, uniform. You can access it by clicking the 'normal' icon in a normal distribution, where a short list is shown below.
I just made an issue on github, but the uniform distribution looks wonky at the right endpoint.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely. I haven't yet had a request to do a double triangular distribution, that looks really interesting. It will be a bit of a challenge to make it intuitive, but I'm sure I'll figure out something. Just so you know, right now there is a second distribution, uniform. You can access it by clicking the 'normal' icon in a normal distribution, where a short list is shown below.
I just made an issue on github, but the uniform distribution looks wonky at the right endpoint.
Much of that is because the react histogram library I used. There are a bunch of issues with it. I definitely intend to replace it with something much better. If any of you recommend tools or libraries for that, I'd be very appreciative.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#16I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
This is awesome! Have you heard of Augur? It's a decentalized prediction market: http://augur.net I wonder if the guys there would be interested in this.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#17Awesome!
I use Crystal Ball (http://www.oracle.com/us/products/applications/crystalball/o...) with triangular distributions and Monte Carlo for software project cost estimation. Crystal Ball costs thousands of dollars so I will be following this with interest.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#18I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
This is awesome! Have you heard of Augur? It's a decentalized prediction market: http://augur.net I wonder if the guys there would be interested in this.
Definitely, keeping a close eye. Have long been interested in prediction markets. It would be nice to tie data from them and the Good Judgement project into tools like Guesstimate so people could make forecasts using other strong forecasts.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#19It's not really related but it made me think of a friend's PhD thesis on uncertain data. If the subject interests you, be sure to checkout the summary of his (impressive) work: http://a3nm.net/blog/phd_summary.html.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#20This is really cool. Can anyone recommend any particularly good/cogent Simple Caveman explanations of how Bayesoan theory/Monte Carlo simulation work?
Honestly, my favorite resource for much of this is the book How to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard. He goes into detail in understanding the value of information and how and why to use Monte Carlo Simulations.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4fHGTsZZD8 Book: http://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Busin...