Natural Language Processing Probabilistic Graphical Models About the Course What are Probabilistic Graphical Models? Uncertainty is unavoidable in real-world applications: we can almost never predict with certainty what will happen in the future, and even in the present and the past, many important aspects of the world are not observed with certainty. In this class, you will learn the basics of the PGM representation and how to construct them, using both human knowledge and machine learning techniques; you will also learn algorithms for using a PGM to reach conclusions about the world from limited and noisy evidence, and for making good decisions under uncertainty. Course Syllabus Topics covered include: There will be short weekly review quizzes and programming assignments (Octave/Matlab) focusing on case studies and applications of PGMs to real-world problems: To prepare for the class in advance, you may consider reading through the following sections of the textbook (discount code DKPGM12) by Daphne and Nir Friedman: Introduction and Overview.
Machine Learning: Genetic Algorithms Part 1 (Javascript) | Burak Kanber's Blog - Vimperator On September 4, 2012 The Introduction to “Machine Learning in Javascript” post provides a nice introduction and context for this post and the rest of the series. I like starting my machine learning classes with genetic algorithms (which we’ll abbreviate “GA” sometimes). Genetic algorithms are inspired by nature and evolution, which is seriously cool to me. One phrase I used above is profoundly important: “general-purpose”. One application that comes to mind is bipedal robot walking. Let’s build a GA in Javascript. The Problem Build a genetic algorithm in Javascript that reproduces the text “Hello, World!”. Naturally, everything starts with “Hello, World!” Genetic Algorithm Basics The basic approach to GAs is to generate a bunch of “answer candidates” and use some sort of feedback to figure out how close the candidate is to optimal. These “answer candidates” are called genes chromosomes. Chromosomes mate, produce offspring, and mutate. The Chromosome Gekmo+ xosmd! Cost Function Gekmo+ xosmd!
Makers unite - the revolution will be home-made 25 September 2012Last updated at 19:10 ET By Jane Wakefield Technology reporter What would Karl Marx have made of the Maker Movement? When Karl Marx predicted a revolution putting the means of production in the hands of the workers, he probably didn't imagine it to be fought by an army of DIYers. But increasingly tinkerers and hobbyists are proving they are more than equal to the corporate world, and their efforts are challenging the traditional methods of manufacturing. From the 15-year-old high school student who created a pancreatic cancer test using Google as a research tool, to people making money from home-made electronic devices, citizens are most definitely doing it for themselves. The availability of cheap components, from microcontrollers such as Arduino and Raspberry Pi, coupled with the plethora of crowdsourcing models to allow the sharing of everything from ideas to funding, means that production can move out of the factory and into the home. Garage band Laser cutters Cash creators
Free Icon Fonts for Web User Interfaces By Jacob Gube This roundup features 18 free icon fonts that can be used in your commercial projects. The icon fonts in this post are perfect for your app user interfaces (UIs). What are Icon Fonts? Icon fonts are font files that have symbols and glyphs (e.g. arrows, folders, magnifying glasses) instead of standard alphanumeric characters. Icon fonts are like dingbat fonts, but are designed specifically for UIs. And because they’re treated like web fonts, icon fonts: Have great cross-browser support (even IE6, for example, can render web fonts using the @font-face rule)Can be scaled on-the-fly if the user adjusts their web browser settingsCan be rendered with different colorsCan embody font- and text-related CSS properties (like text-shadow and gradient) See icon fonts in action by visiting my friend Chris Coyier’s icon fonts demo page. To learn how to use icon fonts, read this tutorial on CSS-Tricks: HTML for Icon Font Usage. Free Icon Fonts 1. Number of icons: 137. 2. Number of icons: 121. 3.
Design and Analysis of Algorithms I About the Course In this course you will learn several fundamental principles of algorithm design. You'll learn the divide-and-conquer design paradigm, with applications to fast sorting, searching, and multiplication. You'll learn several blazingly fast primitives for computing on graphs, such as how to compute connectivity information and shortest paths. Course Syllabus Week 1: Introduction. Week 2: Running time analysis of divide-and-conquer algorithms. Week 3: More on randomized algorithms and probability. Week 4: Graph primitives. Week 5: Dijkstra's shortest-path algorithm. Week 6: Further data structures. Recommended Background How to program in at least one programming language (like C, Java, or Python); and familiarity with proofs, including proofs by induction and by contradiction. Suggested Readings No specific textbook is required for the course. Course Format The class will consist of lecture videos, generally between 10 and 15 minutes in length.
Machine Learning Stevey's Blog Rants: The Universal Design Pattern - Vimperator Note: Today's entry is a technical article: it isn't funny. At least not intentionally. Update, Oct 20th 2008: I've added an Updates section, where I'll try to track significant responses, at least for a week or so. There are three entries so far. Contents Introduction Today I thought I'd talk about a neat design pattern that doesn't seem to get much love: the Properties Pattern. People use this pattern all over the place, and I'll give you a nice set of real-life examples in a little bit. But even though this pattern is near-universal, people don't talk about it very often. I hope to offer a different and richer perspective here. Three Great Schools of Software Modeling Before I tell you anything else about the Properties Pattern, let's review some of the most popular techniques we programmers have for modeling problems. I should point out that none of these techniques is tied to "static typing" or "dynamic typing" per se. Class Modeling You know all about this one. Relational Modeling Wyvern
15 sites web developers and designers should know Creating a good website isn't an easy task, but there's a few tools that can definitely make your developer or designer life easier. In this article, I have compiled 15 extremely useful website that any web developer or web designer should have bookmarked. ColorCombos When designing a website, one of the firsts (and most important) steps of the process is to choose a color scheme. Color Combos allow you to browse thousand of different colors combinations for getting inspired for your upcomming design. LIpsum Who doesn’t know the extremely popular Lorem Ipsum text? What the font? You just saw a logo or website using a particular font and you enjoyed it. ConvertIcon Favicons are a must have for any website, mostly because on modern browsers as such as Firefox, it is displayed along with the site name in tabs. BgPatterns background Patterns is definitely one of the current webdesign trends. HTML Encoder Do you display code on your website? Test Everything Sprite Generator Load Impact IconFinder
The Best Way to Learn Rails I come from a PHP background, but these days, I'm a full-time Rails developer. The difficulty for most people who make the switch lies in the learning curve that’s involved. Once you've become proficient in a language or framework, switching to a new one feels like an unnecessary (and time-consuming) challenge. However, learning Ruby and Rails is actually pretty easy! This article details a full lesson plan that will get you up and running in no time! You might think learning Ruby is the most important step, and this is probably the part where everyone stops learning and just sticks with their current framework. Work through the Try Ruby exercises. The most recommended tool for dipping into Ruby's syntax is the Try Ruby website. Once you’ve worked through these exercises a couple of times, you'll have a solid base. Run gem install rails to install Rails. If you want to learn Rails, you’ll of course need to install it on your machine. Next, you need to install Rails. Great!
Information Theory HTML5 & CSS3 Fundamentals: Development for Absolute Beginners | Channel 9 - Vimperator 10 minutes, 20 seconds 35 minutes, 14 seconds 29 minutes, 21 seconds 25 minutes, 25 seconds 48 minutes, 58 seconds 20 minutes, 18 seconds 6 minutes, 59 seconds 15 minutes, 30 seconds 13 minutes, 0 seconds 27 minutes, 27 seconds Tutorials Video Tutorials Links to videos that cover the Processing basics. Hello Processingby Daniel Shiffman et al.Short video lessons introduce coding exercises that lead to designing an interactive drawing program. Welcome to Processing 3by Daniel ShiffmanWhat's new in Processing 3? Dan walks through the new features and changes. Plethora Projectby Jose SanchezThese video tutorials cover issues of programming and computational design issues in Processing. Text Tutorials A collection of step-by-step lessons covering beginner, intermediate, and advanced topics.
Computer Science 101 UPDATE: we're doing a live, updated MOOC of this course at stanford-online July-2014 (not this Coursera version). See here: CS101 teaches the essential ideas of Computer Science for a zero-prior-experience audience. In CS101, students play and experiment with short bits of "computer code" to bring to life to the power and limitations of computers. Here is another video Nick created for this class.