notes-misc-metrics

if you are scatterplotting cost/benefits of options, put the thing that you have to give up on the horizontal axis, and the thing that you want to get on the vertical.

If the utility of something doubles as the thing halves, then normalize the thing to vary between 0 and 1 and then take the negative of the log of that.

If you have a set number of something that you need to deal with, and you have a ratio of something that you pay per thing that you need to deal with, that's good; if you have the reciprocal of that (something that you need to deal with over something that you need to pay) then take the reciprocal. (e.g. gallons per mile is more informative than miles per gallon as a measure of vehicle fuel efficiency, because the amount of money you spend on fuel varies linearly with gallons per mile, if number of miles driven is constant).