But before we dive in, you may be wondering “what is an AB test”. Good question! Put simply - it’s when we split a segment of data (like customers) into two groups, and give them two experiences to see which they respond better to. So - why do we AB test? You might initially think to improve something, and I’d say you’re partially correct. There may be many reasons why we test, but the main reason is to reduce uncertainty....
Recently I’ve found myself wanting to dig a bit deeper into PyTorch to really understand how it works and hopefully figure out how to expand on my skillset to try new things. To aid this, I’ve been following the Deep Learning with PyTorch book by Eli Stevens, Luca Antiga and Thomas Viehmann. The book itself has been great and highly useful. I recommend it to anyone. In my observations, one the hardest things for newer users of PyTorch to understand is how to train a model....
Recently with my consulting, I’ve been delving into Google Cloud, and the wide array of offering they have. Getting started with Deep Learning on the cloud is a cost-efficient method way to utilise GPUs. But there are a few gotchas with cloud providers. This post I wrote here, goes through how to set up a Google Compute instance for deep learning toolkits such as Tensorflow, PyTorch, etc. Read the full post here
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) Governor, Adrian Orr, signaled this week that the central bank may soon be looking at the prospect of re-introducing Loan to Value ratio (LVR) limits in New New Zealand. This is a reversal to the decision back in May when the central bank removed the limits on high loan to value ratio that had been in place since 2013. The removal of the LVRs were an attempt to keep spending high in very uncertain, COVID times....
There is a lot happening in New Zealand’s economy currently. New Zealand is officially in a recession with new GDP figures that came out yesterday, a monetary policy update is due next week and an election is taking place mid next month. Thursday’s numbers from Statistics New Zealand represented a -12.2% reduction in GDP for the June 2020 quarter - the largest quarterly fall in GDP on record. Which, unlike the previous quarter’s figures only captured a week or two of New Zealand’s nationwide 4-week lock down, June 2020 figures captures the lion’s share of the lock down....