I was inspired by the post “Why you should stop worrying about deep learning and deepen your understanding of causality instead” to write up some of the resources I’ve used over the past year as I myself have tried to learn more about causality.

The field of Causal Inference has become much more rich and interesting over the past 20 years as a number of new statistical tools were created to help improve the bias inherent in model dependent statistical inference. I find it’s best to start with understanding the split between prediction and causal inference that has been in the field for quite a while. Each of the following three references goes into much more detail about how many of the same tools are used between causal inference and prediction, but the meaning assigned to the model, and in particular how you evaluate the model for appropriateness is very different depending on what you’re trying to do.

Over the years I’ve generally avoided Excel. Being a programmer, I could just pick up python and write code to do what I needed, I didn’t need to hack something together in Excel. But I always ended up back there for the charting.

Then I learned R and have even more reason to avoid Excel.

Recently I needed to implement date based cohorts in SiteCatalyst. While there are a few blog posts on how to do this in Excel using Report Builder (http://adam.webanalyticsdemystified.com/2013/03/07/conducting-cohort-analysis-with-adobe-sitecatalyst/ , http://blogs.adobe.com/digitalmarketing/mobile/what-is-mobile-cohort-analysis-and-why-should-you-use-it/) they didn’t work for me. My team is all on MacOS, and Report Builder isn’t.

First off, my apologies to actual Decision Scientists. I have no formal training and just recently learned that the area I’m fascinated by actually has a name.

There are a lot of anecdotes out there about how wonderful all the different Lean Startup methodologies are. If you go and read the Amazon book reviews, you’ll see lots of comments about how it changed someones life. 

What you won’t see is any data showing they actually help.

I’m building my first new product in over a decade. I started my career back in 1993 as a black box tester on Media 100. I joined the team just as the first engineering prototypes were coming in from manufacturing, well prior to shipping v1.0. After that I helped create Adobe ImageStyler 1.0 in 1998, and then Adobe LiveMotion 1.0 in 2000.

On the suggestion of a coworker I picked up “The Lean Startup” by Eric Reis which lead to a whole lot of book reading (see my other post here).

Back in my original post about my electric bike conversion I mentioned that I had CFS, aka Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. CFS is a poorly defined health condition that in my opinion actually covers a number of very different health conditions. I’m glad I never really accepted it as a diagnosis from the rheumatologist that mentioned it to me, but instead kept scouring my life and health for anything that could impact my energy level.

Earlier this year I got involved with using Lean Startup techniques to help with a new business inside of Adobe. As is my normal style, I read a large number of books to help get my head around the techniques and build up a base of knowledge I could use in the future.  

As an entrepreneur/intrapreneur you have to be able to lie to yourself a little. Otherwise you would just stay at home and not pursue the new idea that you have. But lying to yourself until you ship your product to the marketplace can be expensive and emotionally devastating.

Yesterday I had a chance to fly the Cessna 162/Skycatcher. This isn’t a review, just some thoughts on the experience. We just had almost 75 days straight of rain in Seattle. My drive to renton looked like: Joy; Despair; Joy; Despair; Joy as I drove through alternating spots of fog and sun. Luckily for me KRNT ended up in a spot of very clear skies centered around the Lake Young area. Pretty much everyone else looked socked in.

I recently converted my mini-mill to CNC and watching it run full speed with aluminum is a little terrifying. I thought having some machinable wax to play with while I learn would save me a lot of anxiety.

After much searching on the interwebs I decided on a roughly 4:1 mixture of paraffin to LDPE. I decided to add some stearic acid and colorants so my final ratio was more like 4.5:1.

In preparation for short dark days, I decided to build a stand to mount my sunlamp in a better position.

And if you leave in Seattle without a sunlamp, ask your partner (or close friend) what your mood is like in December. I don’t notice my slide into being a crankypants, but my wife certainly does. 20 minutes a day under this puppy from the Indoor Sun Shoppe in Fremont and I’m good to go.

Hmm, just saw some discussion about a CNC router. I do have those CNC parts kicking around….

http://solsylva.com/cnc/25x25.shtml

http://www.machinistblog.com/solsylva-25x25-cnc-router-build/