Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does the app include everything so it can run offline?
No. It needs to be online at this point.
Thanks for the prompt reply. Are you planning to open source all of it in the future or will it remain SaaS?
Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
41–50 of 96 posts
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
<3 this! Are there any plans for some type of export utility, e.g. some type of JSON serialization of a finished model?
That's definitely on the agenda. Curious, what are you interested in a JSON serialization for?
Oh, it wouldn't have to be that format in particular, I was just guessing how you might represent the worksheet in some useful, repurpose-able manner.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#43I'm convinced that an excel sort of lay-person's computing platform is where probabilistic programming will really take off. This seems really cool!
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#44A "Rumsfeldian" visualizer. Neat! http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/rumsfeld...
I always find it strange that people found that thing Rumsfeld said dumb, bizarre or (worse) his own invention [1]. Those are standard epistemological distinctions, known (and written about) since at least the times of Aristotle. [1] (I mean the philosophical essence of what he said -- not that he didn't tried to use it an an excuse for BS).
I also find it interesting that the aerospace/defense world (and co-influencing cultures in engineering and government) have sometimes used 'unk-unk' as shorthand for 'unknown unknowns'.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#45I 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.
I do the same thing as cpitman, try to figure project times and costs using the same best, worst, most likely. It would be nice to have it automated so when the PHB looks at the numbers they just don't pick the "best case" because we have the "best team". 50 nodes would be plenty, I can roll up tasks into a bigger task set.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#46I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
Hey, I tried to send you something through Intercom on the site, but something was broken and it wouldn't send. Here's what I tried to write:
Cool idea. Found this from a @worrydream tweet. Some comments after playing with it for a few minutes:
* A bit disappointing that I can only have uniform or Gaussian distributions. At minimum I'd like a binary distribution (coin flip, probably biased coin flip). A lot of things I would want to model need this (e.g., will we close this sale? will we close this investor? that kind of thing.)
* I'm really confused by the arbitrary two-letter codes assigned to things for formulas. Makes the formulas impossible to read. Why not just use the names I give to the cells, or something derived from the names?
Really nice start though! I'm co-founder & CEO of fieldbook.com, another spreadsheet-like tool, so I love information tools and anything that expands the mind's capacity. Best of luck and let me know how I can help!
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#47Nice, but I can't help thinking of spreadsheets as something of a crutch. Also check out: http://probcomp.csail.mit.edu/bayesdb/ https://github.com/taschini/pyinterval http://mavrinac.com/index.cgi?page=fuzzpy
In this case it looks like the spreadsheet is mostly for laying out the variables in a nice orderly table/grid.
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#48I was watching "Total time spent watching this video" video, and had a basic question.
How does one tell guesstimate that there's a hard lower bound on a quantity. ie. Video Length is at least 0, because negative watch times are unphysical? I know the specified distribution in this case is very narrow (the video lasting between -1 and 0 minutes has probability ~0.000032). But the answer does come out to be 26±32, which includes a substantial unphysical region.
And, if I give a hard lower bound on Video Length, can it propagate that knowledge into an asymmetric error on Total time?
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#49I wasn't expecting this to go on hnews yet, but happy to take any questions!
Hey, I tried to send you something through Intercom on the site, but something was broken and it wouldn't send. Here's what I tried to write: Cool idea. Found this from a @worrydream tweet. Some comments after playing with it for a few minutes: * A bit disappointing that I can only have uniform or Gaussian distributions. At minimum I'd like a binary distribution (coin flip, probably biased coin flip). A lot of things…
Sorry to hear about Intercom, will investigate shortly. I heard someone else had a similar issue.
In response to your points:
- Other distribution types are the #1 most requested feature at this time. Binary distributions are possible using functions instead of the built in distributions, though obviously not intuitive. It's built using math.js, which has several random functions of different kinds. (In this case, you could use '=randomInt(0,1)' to produce a coin flip.
http://getguesstimate.com/models/365
- The arbitrary two-letter codes were simply the easiest thing to begin with. I started with something derived from the names, but this presented problems with cells with empty names, especially ones that started empty and later become non-empty. Excel has a pretty sophisticated model for referencing cells. For the sake of getting something shipped, I started with a very simple one. Definitely an area to improve.
- I'd love to talk sometime. I'm also in SF, will send you an email. Thanks for the advice!
Re: Introducing Guesstimate, a Spreadsheet for Things That Aren’t Certain
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Pulling data from prediction markets into Guesstimate is an exciting idea. A few thoughts:
* Prediction markets are usually for binary outcomes. I imagine the most useful role of binary variables in Guesstimate would be to mix two different distributions. "If Clinton wins, student debt in 2018 will look like distribution A; if Sanders wins, student debt in 2018 will look like distribution B".
* I'm not sure how Augur (or any other market) reports likelihoods, but it's good to keep in mind that market prices do NOT generally reflect any sort of average belief. See https://www.aeaweb.org/assa/2006/0106_1015_0703.pdf.