Top all-time · #3994
Count Bayesie
Personal blog · countbayesie.com/blog · on HN as CountBayesiemathdata
Count Bayesie is a personal blog at countbayesie.com about math and data. Since 2015, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 61 times, most often “Kullback-Leibler Divergence Explained”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (10) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Count Bayesie for accessible explanations of Bayesian statistics and machine learning ideas, such as Bayes' theorem, Bayesian priors, cross-entropy, KL divergence and linear diffusion.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 10 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Intuitive and fun explorations of common problems in Probability
Most-linked posts?
- Kullback-Leibler Divergence Explained4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2017-05-10
- /blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bayesian-priors3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-06-06
- Linear Diffusion: Building a Diffusion Model from Linear Components3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-24
- Bayesian A/B Testing: A Hypothesis Test That Makes Sense3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-06-03
- A Guide to Bayesian Statistics2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-05-02
- The Toy Collector's Puzzle (2015)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-10-13
- Writing Finnegans Wake with a Recurrent Neural Net2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-05-26
- Han Solo and Bayesian Priors2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-17
What Hacker News says?
Or C3PO is just a stodgy old frequentist: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-ba...
Comment linking /blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bayesian-priors
on “An easter egg for one user: Luke Skywalker”Submitted Why Bayesian Stats Needs Monte-Carlo Methods as a story · 184 points
HN discussionThis is a far gentler introduction, and the rest of the blog is pretty good too: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2016/5/1/a-guide-to-bayesi... Edit: this is a different take on the subject but an enjoyable and accessible read too: http://mbmlbook.com/toc.html
Comment linking /blog/2016/5/1/a-guide-to-bayesian-statistics
on “A Gentle Introduction to Bayes’ Theorem for Machine Learning”Submitted Logistic Regression from Bayes’ Theorem as a story · 184 points
HN discussionI remember the frequentist approach taught in introductory stats classes never making sense to me. I didn't want to shove "stats" into the back of my brain and just focus on graduating. I genuinely wanted to understand the world a little better. I began to research alternative approaches to modeling and conducting inference a few years ago. Discovering Bayesian Inference has had a large impact on the way I think and…
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/25/bayesian-ab-testing
on “Bayes’ Theorem in the 21st Century (2013) [pdf]”Submitted Bayes' Theorem with Lego as a story · 140 points
HN discussionWorth a read https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-ba...
Comment linking /blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bayesian-priors
on “Psychology of Human Misjudgment”Submitted A Guide to Bayesian Statistics as a story · 125 points
HN discussionI have read the selection process that was described in Lost Moon (the book of appolo 13). The NASA were literally recruiting superhumans back then. The smartest, healthiest, toughest and on on ... So I am not at all surprised that he managed to pull it off. https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-ba...
Comment linking /blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bayesian-priors
on ““Houston, We've Had a Problem” (1975)”Submitted Understanding Variance, Co-Variance, and Correlation as a story · 106 points
HN discussionAs a big fan of entropy (see this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/8im9eb/d_c... and links there) I like this explanation: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2017/5/9/kullback-leibler-...
Comment linking /blog/2017/5/9/kullback-leibler-divergence-explained
on “A Friendly Introduction to Cross-Entropy Loss (2016)”Submitted Tricks with Monte Carlo Simulations as a story · 40 points
HN discussionOriginal source: http://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bay...
Comment linking /blog/2015/2/18/hans-solo-and-bayesian-priors
on “Han Solo and Bayesian Priors”Submitted Building a Voight-Kampff Test with Bayes Factor as a story · 25 points
HN discussionA much simpler exploration of this topic I always liked is the "Linear Diffusion" [0] example which implements a basic Diffusion model using only linear components. Given it's simplicity it gets surprisingly good results at generating digits. 0. https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2023/4/21/linear-diffusion
Comment linking /blog/2023/4/21/linear-diffusion
on “Diffusion Without Tears”Submitted Programming the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus as a story · 18 points
HN discussionThis statement is a misunderstanding of the Bayesian approach: "Take the proposition that the Earth goes round the Sun. It either does or it doesn’t, so it’s hard to see how we could pick a probability for this statement." Bayes Factor, the Bayesian alternative to a NHST, is quite a bit different than simply creating the Bayesian equivalent of a t-test. Bayes factor asks "How many times better is my Hypothesis at ex…
Comment linking /blog/2016/3/16/bayesian-reasoning-in-the-twilight-zone
on “The problem with p-values”Submitted Bayesian Priors for Parameter Estimation as a story · 11 points
HN discussionWrite a good LSTM to generate new chapters in it, would be a good way to start, like this one: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/5/24/writing-finnegan...
Comment linking /blog/2015/5/24/writing-finnegans-wake-with-a-recurrent-neural-net
on “What to Make of Finnegans Wake? (2012)”Submitted How to read the news like a Bayesian as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI'm still quite fond of the Lego example: https://www.countbayesie.com/blog/2015/2/18/bayes-theorem-wi...
Comment linking /blog/2015/2/18/bayes-theorem-with-lego
on “Visualizing Bayes’ theorem (2009)”Submitted Expectation and Variance from High School to Grad School as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI've long argued that the biggest problem with orthodox NHST for A/B testing is that you actually don't care about 'significance of effect' as much as you do 'magnitude of effect'. Furthermore, p-values tell you nothing about the range of possible improvements (or lack thereof) you're facing. Maybe you are willing to risk potential losses for potentially huge gains, or maybe you can't afford to lose a single custome…
Comment linking /blog/2015/4/25/bayesian-ab-testing
on “There’s a 5% chance that these results are total bullshit”Submitted Interrogating Probability Distributions as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Big Is the Difference Between Being 90% and 99% Certain? as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Han Solo and Bayesian Priors as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Technically Wrong: When Bayesian and Frequentist Methods Differ as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Kullback-Leibler Divergence Explained as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Probability and Statistics in 90 Minutes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bayesian A/B Testing: A Hypothesis Test That Makes Sense as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
