Programming Machine Learning

Where Linear Regression Fails

Our friend Roberto asked us to help him one last time. (He swears it’s the last time.) Roberto’s pizzeria is located in a hip Berlin neighborhood. On busy nights, it’s common for noisy customers to hang out in front of the pizzeria, until the neighbors eventually call the police. (If you ever lived in Berlin, then you’re likely to appreciate both the customers’ reasons, and those of the neighbors.)

Roberto suspects that the same input variables that impact the number of pizzas sold, such as temperature and tourists, also affect the number of loud customers by the entrance, and hence the likelihood of a police call. He wants to know in advance whether a police call is likely to happen, so that he can set up countermeasures—such ...