one of the problems with symmetrical moving averages is that since the window spans into the future (which we can't predict, obviously) the endings trends are almost always artifacts. I used to pad the curve with the last value but this has the problem that overemphasizes a negative trend in case the last value is in progress (for example, in a cron job about requests/day, the count is always lower if accessed in the middle of the day). The perception is that all curves tend to present negative trends around the present and that really hurts perceptions. So, the solution I found is to pad with the previous average values, instead of the last value... this basically makes that we predict the future based on the past... sort of temporal locality, if you wish, and it produces much better results.
one of the problems with symmetrical moving averages is that since the window spans into the future (which we can't predict, obviously) the endings trends are almost always artifacts. I used to pad the curve with the last value but this has the problem that overemphasizes a negative trend in case the last value is in progress (for example, in a cron job about requests/day, the count is always lower if accessed in the middle of the day). The perception is that all curves tend to present negative trends around the present and that really hurts perceptions. So, the solution I found is to pad with the previous average values, instead of the last value... this basically makes that we predict the future based on the past... sort of temporal locality, if you wish, and it produces much better results.

zepheira/timeplot,zepheira/timeplot,zepheira/timeplot