M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All

Introduction to Neural Networks CS-449: Neural Networks Fall 99 Instructor: Genevieve Orr Willamette University Lecture Notes prepared by Genevieve Orr, Nici Schraudolph, and Fred Cummins [Content][Links] Course content Summary Our goal is to introduce students to a powerful class of model, the Neural Network. We then introduce one kind of network in detail: the feedforward network trained by backpropagation of error. Lecture 1: Introduction Lecture 2: Classification Lecture 3: Optimizing Linear Networks Lecture 4: The Backprop Toolbox Lecture 5: Unsupervised Learning Lecture 6: Reinforcement Learning Lecture 7: Advanced Topics [Top] Review for Midterm: Links Tutorials: The Nervous System - a very nice introduction, many pictures Neural Java - a neural network tutorial with Java applets Web Sim - A Java neural network simulator. a book chapter describing the Backpropagation Algorithm (Postscript) A short set of pages showing how a simple backprop net learns to recognize the digits 0-9, with C code Reinforcement Learning - A Tutorial

The Brilliant Way To Negotiate In Three Easy Lessons Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him @jaltucher. When I was reading Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs it suddenly brought back memories of the FBI repeatedly hitting the buzzer for my apartment rather forcefully ten years ago. The next thing I know, someone is ringing my buzzer, “The police! Uhhh. Let’s hold off on that for a second. A) First off, what a great name. B) Second, when Larry was running Google.org I had an idea for him and after all we went through (the FBI?) C) The most valuable thing I learned from Larry Brilliant was when we were taking a break in 1999 from looking at an ancient coin collection being held in the World Trade Center. The reason I asked is because I consider myself a good salesperson. But negotiation is almost as important as sales. How to Negotiate:

How To Charge Higher Prices And Thrive Harvey’s Hardware is a legend in my town of Needham, Mass. In business since 1953, Harvey’s sells what most people consider to be commodity items--nuts, bolts, lawnmowers, shovels, and so on. And yet, Harvey’s revenue per square foot is almost four times higher than the typical hardware store. This is shocking considering that even though they sell commodity products: Harvey’s never has the lowest prices. Why would people crowd into Harvey’s to buy something that they could get for less at Home Depot or another big box store? First proposed in the 1980s by Michael Lanning and Lynn Philips, benefit experiences are the sum of the specific and measurable events that happen in your customers' lives as a result of doing business with you. The concept of a benefit experience is something that few people talk about. Here is an example of a recent benefit experience that I enjoyed as a result of shopping at Harvey’s. On a recent Sunday, I was preparing to watch a 1 p.m.

9 Quirky Things Every 'Cool' Workplace Is Required to Have If you have any interest in games or animation or technology, you've probably watched a "look how fun and crazy our workplace is" video or photo tour of some company. They'll throw everything from scooters to Nerf guns at you to show you how their company is basically Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory if Willy Wonka made software. But if you watch enough of these tours you start to notice the same things coming up again and again. Exactly how "out of the box" is something when every single one of your competitors is doing the exact same thing? Take a look at these things and you decide: #9. Working At Popcap I know what they were thinking here. Short answer, lots of people. I'm just saying, it's not exactly Die Hard. Each person posts theirs as if people's minds are going to be boggled that Nerf guns would be used in a workplace. There is nothing more exciting than a guy standing in front of a company logo without a Nerf gun, talking about Nerf guns. But wait! #8. MashableHQ.com #7. #6. #5.

Laboratory Fundamentals of Synthetic Biology From OpenWetWare Syllabus Class Format The Class will meet twice a week, one 2 hour classroom session, and one 3 hour lab session. Problem sets will be assigned weekly for the first eight weeks. A midterm exam will cover the classroom material and the first several weeks of lab instruction. Grades The final grade will be as follows: 20% Problem Sets 30% Midterm Exam 20% Lab Evaluations 30% Final Project Schedule Introduction - Synthetic Biology: History, current applications and future directions Powerpoint (w/content from Drew Endy) Assignments: Endy Article and Comic Strip The Biology (4 sessions) Cells, DNA, RNA and Protein DNA - information encoding, structure, sequencing and synthesis RNA - encoding, structure, function (RNA Enzymes, RNA Aptamers) Proteins - Crystallography, functions, scaffolds Introductory packet about DNA, RNA, Protein. Create a biobrick out of a sequence (force them to re-optimize a coding region into e. coli and remove a biobrick incompatibility). Reading List

50,000 Health IT Jobs: HIMSS, HR Gurus Want You - Healthcare - Leadership Healthcare sees need for 50,000 more IT workers to support implementation of electronic health records and health information exchange. HIMSS and ASHHRA partner to get the word out. The largest health IT membership organization is joining with a healthcare human resources group to help promote health IT workforce development and find qualified candidates in a field with a serious labor shortage. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) have agreed to collaborate on efforts to attract job seekers to health IT. "Both organizations hit it at a different angle," Helen Figge, senior director for career services at HIMSS, told InformationWeek Healthcare. [Which healthcare organizations came out ahead in the IW500 competition? "We are zooming in on a very succinct population," namely people with technical skills who might not have considered health IT, Figge said. More Insights

Average Is Over. What's Your Extra? - Bill Taylor by Bill Taylor | 9:05 AM December 19, 2011 I approach a book by New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman with a mixture of wariness and anticipation. Wariness because Friedman’s books tend to go on for many pages longer than they need to, and many of those pages contain his trademark blend of Davos Man self-congratulation and cheesy metaphors. Yet I still have a sense of anticipation because in every one of Friedman’s books there are a handful of insights that are so clear, so sharp, so flat-out right that they frame how you look at the world going forward. That Used to Be Us, Friedman’s newest book (written with Johns Hopkins professor Michael Mandelbaum) has at least one such observation — a principle so clearly true, and so crisply expressed, that it should become a mantra of sorts for leaders everywhere who want to build something great and do something important. Most organizations don’t stand for anything special, of course. Talk about positive word of mouth.

MIT expands its free online courses While students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology pay thousands of dollars for courses, the university will shortly announce a new programme allowing anyone anywhere to take MIT courses online free of charge – and for the first time earn official certificates for demonstrating mastery of the subjects taught, writes Tamar Lewin for The New York Times . “There are many people who would love to augment their education by having access to MIT content, people who are very capable to earn a certificate from MIT,” said L Rafael Reif, the provost, in a conference call with reporters on Friday. MIT’s free OpenCourseWare now includes nearly 2,100 courses and has been used by more than 100 million people. But the new ‘MITx’ interactive online learning platform will go further, giving students access to online laboratories, self-assessments and student-to-student discussions. Full report on The New York Times site

Synbio 2007 From OpenWetWare General Info Spring 2007 Instructor: Jay Keasling (keasling@berkeley.edu) GSI: Jeffrey Dietrich (jadietrich@gmail.com) Logistics: Lecture/Discussion: 2 hours, 10-12 AM Friday Grading: Literature Review 30% Group Project 60% Class Participation 10% Office hours: contact Jeffrey Dietrich to arrange a meeting Announcements ASSIGNMENT (Due 2/16): email Jeff with your three top choices for topics to lead in literature review group discussion. Tentative Schedule 1/19 Introduction, Basis for Synthetic Biology - Jay Keasling 1/26 Modeling and Design of Synthetic Systems - Adam Arkin Genetic models, stochastic and continuous simulations, adaption of circuit methods to SB. 2/2 Drugs from Bugs-Jay Keasling 2/9 Design of Tumor-Killing Bacteria - J. Literature Review Assignment Every student will be required to lead one class discussion over selected readings/topics assigned for that week. Group Project Ideas Group projects from 2007 (Presentations and References) a. b. c. d. Policy Approach

Become a Millionaire on a Minimum-Wage Salary Who wants to be a millionaire? Who wouldn't want to be? But for those on the lower end of the pay scale, striving to achieve a seven-figure net worth probably seems futile. But it can be done. With the U.S. minimum wage paying $7.25 an hour -- that amounts to $14,500 over the course of a full-time 2,000 work-hour year -- becoming a millionaire on a minimum-wage salary wouldn't be easy to accomplish by any stretch of the imagination. Even in the cheapest parts of the country, housing, health, food, utilities, clothing, and transportation costs need to be covered before investing makes sense. But if you can live cheaply enough on it, and if you had long enough to go before retiring, it could be enough to let you retire a millionaire. How It's Possible Let's say you had that audacious goal of becoming a minimum-wage millionaire by the time you retired at age 70. Source: Author calculations. Three things should quickly jump out at you from that table: The Most Promising Path

Home | Commonwealth Connects Programme – Bridging the digital divide Are 2-Year Colleges the Path to Jobs? What's the Latest Development? Canada is finding that its system of community colleges is better at preparing students for employment than its traditional four-year universities. And students who are ready to enter the workforce prefer shorter, more specific degree programs over required courses in underwater basket weaving and philosophical systems of the 18th century. Community colleges are more nimble, able to respond faster to industry when it needs workers trained for specific tasks, such as video game design which has become big business in Toronto. What's the Big Idea? The American economic crisis is partly an education crisis in two main areas: cost and job preparedness. Photo credit: shutterstock.com

How To Build An Audience On The Internet: The Kevin Rose School Vs. The Fred Wilson School Editor’s note: This guest post is written by Tom Anderson, the former President, founder and first friend on MySpace. You can now find Tom on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ What kind of content creator are you? Blogging or “self-publishing” in any form was supposed to democratize and revolutionize the media industry. Three days ago, Kevin Rose posted this on Google+: “Decided to forward to my Google+. Kevin’s decision was made rapidly, and may well be reversed when it suits his needs. Where to host your content is a tricky issue. And again, this is not just an issue for bloggers. Phrasing the issue in a new way, and perhaps a better way is: Should a content creator go to his audience, or should he expect his audience to come to him? In the offline world, most writers would never think to publish their own magazine or newspaper. That model of posting everything on your own domain might have worked in the earlier days of the Internet.