

The Math Behind Ticket Bargains - bjpless
http://seatgeek.com/blog/dev/the-math-behind-ticket-bargains

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Bartlet
What exactly is being shown in the animation/slideshow? You said its iterating
and maximizing the MLE, but doesn't that just mean you're maximizing a single
number? How can that iteration generate an entire heatmap?

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steverit
The likelihood itself is a single number, but the algorithm is maximizing the
likelihood based on a vector of 993 parameters representing the quality of a
seat. Each x,y coordinate represents a seat in the ballpark, and each seat is
mapped to one of those 993 values. The heatmap evolves as the vector
approaches maximum likelihood.

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copious
Cool stuff. Out of curiosity, what are you using to embed Latex in a blog post
like that?

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steverit
Thanks! We used a WordPress Plugin called LaTeX for WordPress. I believe it
uses MathJax under the hood. <http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/latex/>

