Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Roll Your Own Analytics

pcmaffey.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 105 posts

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#91

Post by shermozle »

johntash wrote: post #87
cyrusmg wrote: post #25

I wish pages like this one had RSS feed. I would like to follow future articles, but I do not want it to end up in my email inbox.

OT, what do you use to follow RSS feeds with? I've tried a few different feed readers since google reader was shut down, but never settled on one for more than a couple days. I sadly rely on reddit/hn to get updates/news now.

I've used The Old Reader since Google Reader shut down and haven't been disappointed. Does exactly what it replaced used to do and nothing more. Totally worth the few bucks a year.

http://theoldreader.com/

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#92

Post by tomcatfish »

johntash wrote: post #87
cyrusmg wrote: post #25

I wish pages like this one had RSS feed. I would like to follow future articles, but I do not want it to end up in my email inbox.

OT, what do you use to follow RSS feeds with? I've tried a few different feed readers since google reader was shut down, but never settled on one for more than a couple days. I sadly rely on reddit/hn to get updates/news now.

Not the poster you were replying to, but I use Thunderbird's inbuilt rss reader. I get news and entertainment through it and have no complaints about the UI or experience (The interface is the same as the email interface, so it is easy to master).

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#93

Post by marcosdumay »

jayd16 wrote: post #35
dalbasal wrote: post #29

Working backwards, I start by defining what data I care about tracking. This is actually one of the biggest ancillary benefits of rolling your own analytics. I get to perfectly fit my analytics to my application. This could easily make the whole thing worthwhile. Ultimately, the number one ingredient for useful analytics is figuring out what you want to know, and how you are going to use that knowledge. It's usually…

Its not very scientific though. You're starting from a point of assuming you already know what you want instead of collecting data and analyzing it to see what correlates to what.

Yeah, you start with an hypothesis, and then go test it.

You can do science on both directions, but even most scientists can't reliably navigate all the gotchas of the data -> hypothesis direction, while nearly everybody can do hypothesis -> data.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#94

Post by dcbadacd »

laythea wrote: post #89
dcbadacd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First-party analytics is like blocking people in face masks entering a store, using security cameras or counting daily visitors. Your "cynicism" is more Luddide-ism. As with physical venues that employ analytics, you can easily just not visit those sites that want to know a bit more about how people consume content than seeing "GET /page.html" in HTTP logs. I'm writing this text to you as a huge free-software propone…

When any normal person visits a store they can see the security cameras watching, and they can likely image that they may be counted. It is not accurate to say that it is like that the average person who goes to a web site is even in the slightest aware of all the different ways in which they are being used.

Just like when entering a store visiting a webpage implies already that the thing your visiting does not belong to you, that the content there is not yours, the door might be counting visitors and to dissuade thieves from stealing there most likely are CCTV cameras. If you do not agree with that, don't enter the store or visit the web page, it's that simple. It is not accurate to say that someone else's ignorance is a reason alone not to do something that in the end will benefit both you and maybe other customers.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#95

Post by dcbadacd »

Tsubasachan wrote: post #84
dcbadacd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop being so hysteric, if you want to avoid first-party analytics then don't use the service , if someone reads my blog I have the full right to find out how long my articles are read. Protesting against first-party tracking is like protesting against visitor counters in shops and security cameras, luddism.

Actually there are a lot of things the law says about security cameras in my country... Thankfully analytics can be blocked if someone so desires.

There is quite a bit that EU laws say about analytics as well... What's your point?

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#96

Post by dcbadacd »

lostapathy wrote: post #86
dcbadacd wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop being so hysteric, if you want to avoid first-party analytics then don't use the service , if someone reads my blog I have the full right to find out how long my articles are read. Protesting against first-party tracking is like protesting against visitor counters in shops and security cameras, luddism.

I'm not being hysteric, I'm just pointing out that the parent poster was kind of offering a a false worldview. It's not that some of his users want to be tracked and some don't, it's more that some are aware of how to ask to not be tracked and some aren't aware.

But you're leaving out those people who actually do not care and those who find it okay to a certain extent, that was my point.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#97

Post by edmundsauto »

jayd16 wrote: post #39
dalbasal wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue it's more scientific (even though the goal generally isn't science). Hypothesize, design measurements, test, conclude. Modern science often has the opposite issue. Economists (for example) have a lot of data. They can automate regression analysis to find correlations, then fit the theory (in economics, this is often an intricate model of an economic system) to the "result." The problem is, 99% certainty…

More data does not make you a worse data scientist. You can run a bad study at any amount of data. The only difference is a new hypothesis will have historical data to look at. More data not require you create some over fitted model. More data is strictly better.

I disagree with "More data is strictly better". if you said that everything else equal, more data is better, I would be closer to agreement.

But when you have more data, biases become more of a problem. p-hacking becomes easier, and the easier something is to do, the more likely it is to happen.

I would frame it this way: the signal/noise ratio of data decreases as the size increases.* The overall value increases, but at a slower rate over time.

* The caveat - once you get above a certain volume of data, new processing techniques become available that aren't available at smaller volumes.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#98

Post by justinclift »

elbac wrote: post #77

It looks as if in the next several months Firefox will become all but invisible from most 3rd party trackers as Firefox ”will strip cookies and block storage access from third-party tracking content, based on lists of tracking domains by Disconnect.” [1] The full list of trackers that will be blocked by default is substantial. [2] 1 https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/02/20/enhanced-... 2 https://github.com/…

Hopefully this actually works.

I have a very limited set of domains (manually) allowed to save cookie data in Firefox pas when a session ends. With everything else supposed to be auto deleted after the session ends ("Keep until: 'I close Firefox'").

Invariably though, after a week or so there are quite a few cookies saved for other domains anyway, which Firefox has decided for some unknown reason it's going to keep regardless. Without any explanation of why it's done so. Grrrr.

While manually clearing those out works, it doesn't seem like the current code base is working as intended.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#99

Post by krageon »

dcbadacd wrote: post #74
lostapathy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm okay with this. If a user agent is attempting to block my tracking code (piwik.js), it's likely that the user doesn't want to be tracked. What users DO want to be tracked????

Stop being so hysteric, if you want to avoid first-party analytics then don't use the service , if someone reads my blog I have the full right to find out how long my articles are read. Protesting against first-party tracking is like protesting against visitor counters in shops and security cameras, luddism.

Calling someone who cares about his own privacy "hysteric" and rehashing the same tired old arguments (which inevitably boil down to "if you don't want me to do this, just make sure you don't touch my website even once!") doesn't do your position, whatever it is, a whole lot of justice.

Re: Roll Your Own Analytics

#100

Post by abdusco »

johntash wrote: post #87
cyrusmg wrote: post #25

I wish pages like this one had RSS feed. I would like to follow future articles, but I do not want it to end up in my email inbox.

OT, what do you use to follow RSS feeds with? I've tried a few different feed readers since google reader was shut down, but never settled on one for more than a couple days. I sadly rely on reddit/hn to get updates/news now.

I'm a fan of [InoReader][1]. It's the best replacement for Google Reader I've found. Using it for more than ~5 years now and couldn't be happier.

[1]: https://inoreader.com

Post reply on HN