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Comment by Colin Goldberg on October 19, 2016 at 7:15am

Congratulations on an article written with a clarity that I appreciate. As someone whose math is a bit rusty, I will need to reread it - probably a number of times - so I can truly understand it.

One thing that was missing that I would like to see is an example with real number calculations - these would serve to clarify specific points even more as there is a lot of material to go through. Ideally I would like to see the example in a language such as python that I could reproduce on my computer.

A question arises: "What is the relationship between predictability and similarity?". As a novice in the area of data science, nevertheless I believe exploration into this topic would facilitate my coming to grips with this subject. I ask this in the context of my looking at prediction models and algorithms (such as XGBoost) and wondering what is the overlap - if any - between them. My gut feeling is that similarity goes further than predictability - but this is only from my perspective as a novice. As a pragmatist, a python example or two would be very helpful.

I look forward to a greater understanding of this subject. Any pointers or links would be much appreciated.

Regards

Colin Goldberg