Go Back   Freethought Forum > The Marketplace > Study Hall

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 02-07-2012, 12:55 AM
naturalist.atheist naturalist.atheist is offline
Reality Adventurer
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: VMMCXXX
Images: 7
Default Yet another free university....

Coursera ...
Quote:
We are committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it.
We envision people throughout the world, in both developed and developing countries, using our platform to get access to world-leading education that has so far been available only to a tiny few. We see them using this education to improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.
This one is headed up by Andrew Ng, the instructor of the machine learning class.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Fencesitter (02-07-2012)
  #2  
Old 02-23-2014, 09:10 PM
naturalist.atheist naturalist.atheist is offline
Reality Adventurer
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: VMMCXXX
Images: 7
Default Re: Yet another free university....

FYI, an updated version of the machine learning course.

Quote:
As a student in a previous session of my Coursera course on Machine Learning, I thought you might like to know that it will run again starting on March 3, 2014. You can enroll in the new session at Coursera.org.

This will be a slightly revised and updated version of the same course. You're welcome to sign up again if you didn't complete it last time, and I will be using largely the same materials. Please also let your friends and colleagues who might benefit from a Machine Learning class know, perhaps by forwarding this email to them. I hope to help you (and your friends) become experts in machine learning.

By the time you finish this class, you'll know how to apply the most advanced machine learning algorithms to such problems as anti-spam, image recognition, clustering, building recommender systems, and many other problems. You'll also know how to select the right algorithm for the right job, as well as become expert at "debugging" and figuring out how to improve a learning algorithm's performance. You’ll come away an expert in machine learning, and will have a deep understanding of how to powerfully use it to solve problems and build a myriad of applications.

To give you and your friends more time to get started, the first assignment deadline for the course will be March 23, but the first two weeks of lecture and assignment materials will be available as soon as the course starts on March 3. Thus, your friends can sign up anytime over the next two weeks, and still have ample time to complete assignment 1. You can sign up for the current session at Coursera.org.

In a few weeks, we will also announce a one-time pilot program which may help some students do well in the course---stay tuned!

I hope that you’ll consider joining us if you’d like to take the course again or review the materials. Please also let your friends know about the class by forwarding this email to them. Rather than going to the old session (via the button below this email), please to to Coursera.org to sign up for the new session.

This machine learning class is the class that started Coursera. I’m really excited to be teaching it again, and hope to see you in class!

Andrew Ng
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
ceptimus (02-23-2014), Ensign Steve (02-23-2014), SR71 (02-23-2014)
  #3  
Old 02-23-2014, 10:23 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I completed that course on a previous incarnation with 100% :pleased: Actually, I seem to remember that in one of the exercises you could score (and I did) over 100% - but I guess the total score for the whole course was clipped to 100%

The lectures are good, but the programming exercises are a little too easy. Most of the work is done for you and you normally just have to write a few lines of matrix manipulation code yourself. With well vectorized code you can get some of the exercises down to just filling in a single line of code.
__________________

Last edited by ceptimus; 02-23-2014 at 10:33 PM.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (02-23-2014), SR71 (02-23-2014)
  #4  
Old 02-23-2014, 10:38 PM
naturalist.atheist naturalist.atheist is offline
Reality Adventurer
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: VMMCXXX
Images: 7
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I agree. If you are looking for a course on coding linear algebra algorithms this is not your course. If you want a good basic introduction to applying machine learning algorithms with the student supplying the main manipulations, then this course is for you. It's a great intro. By the tone of the letter, the instructor is hyping it some. But he is probably corrected in his statements that students that successfully complete this course are far ahead of many so called machine learning consultants as they exist today in the industry.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 09-06-2014, 03:54 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I started a new free course at Coursera today: Algorithms, Part I

It's a fairly easy course about how to design efficient code and data structures for sorting and other common processing tasks. I already know a lot of this stuff, but it will be a good refresher, and I'm bound to pick up some new nuggets of useful stuff along the way.

The programming assignments and submissions are to be done in java - but they're not doing any fancy java so it's much the same as any other C-like language with classes. Plus, of course, java is a free install for nearly every operating system (and may be installed on your system already without you knowing). Linked to the course, there are some good tutorials on how to set up a java environment and begin the assignments - if you've ever programmed before, in any language, then there's no significant hurdle to starting this course.

There's no need to buy a textbook as all the relevant material from an actual textbook has been made available on a free 'booksite'. This is good news as the real textbook is expensive - both in dead-tree and Kindle format.

If anyone else fancies signing up, you should act within the next week or so, or if you're too busy right now you could wait till the next iteration of the course rolls around in a few months time.
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Crumb (09-06-2014), Ensign Steve (09-06-2014), Kael (09-06-2014)
  #6  
Old 09-06-2014, 05:33 PM
JoeP's Avatar
JoeP JoeP is offline
Solipsist
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Kolmannessa kerroksessa
Gender: Male
Posts: XXXVMMXI
Images: 18
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
Plus, of course, java is a free install for nearly every operating system (and may be installed on your system already without you knowing).
Just like a virus!
__________________

:roadrun:
Free thought! Please take one!

:unitedkingdom:   :southafrica:   :unitedkingdom::finland:   :finland:
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 09-06-2014, 06:52 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

The first programming exercise is fun. Imagine an N x N grid of squares with some squares filled in (blocked) and some not:

* * * * 
* * * * 
** * *
* **  
* *
* * *
*** *
** * *

Then you try to find a route from the top to the bottom - imagine that the grid represents a partially porous material and you want to find if water could percolate through from the top to the bottom.

If the grid starts out completely blocked (full of asterisks in my example) and then you randomly clear squares in the grid till it percolates, what percentage of squares would you need to clear before there is a 50% chance of percolation?

According to the course, mathematicians have not yet been able to solve this problem, but computer simulations have shown that the percentage is approximately 59.3%

The course uses the percolation problem as an example of applying the 'Union Find' algorithm and pretty much walks you through the simple code necessary to implement it before asking you to go ahead and run a model. Of course, they supply most of the code for you - but it's much more interesting than the usual 'hello world' type of exercise that such courses often begin with.
__________________

Last edited by ceptimus; 09-06-2014 at 10:01 PM. Reason: Changed a full stop to a comma.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ari (09-23-2014), Crumb (09-06-2014), Dragar (09-10-2014), Ensign Steve (09-06-2014), JoeP (09-06-2014), Kael (09-06-2014), SR71 (09-10-2014)
  #8  
Old 09-22-2014, 05:12 PM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I just registered for Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1, cuz it popped up in the "relevant to my interests" feed at work. Apparently it's not the same course, but they are listed as "related". It starts on Oct. 13.
__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
ceptimus (09-23-2014), Janet (09-23-2014)
  #9  
Old 09-22-2014, 11:33 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Some people were talking about that course in the discussion forum for the one I'm doing.

The two courses are complementary - both cover coding and theory but the course I'm doing is much more concentrated on writing efficient code to pass a battery of tests, whereas the one you've registered for focusses more on the analysis and mathematical proofs of Algorithm design.

I may register for the other course too, depending on how shattered I'm feeling after completing the one I'm currently doing.
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (09-23-2014)
  #10  
Old 09-23-2014, 06:53 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I found the thread. Here's the post by the guy who seems most knowledgable (he's a community teaching assistant on the course I'm doing). By accident my last post pretty much paraphrased what he wrote from memory, but I'll let him speak for himself:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno Lehouque
Both courses are complementary. This one is heavily focused on the coding part, using Java and very detailed assignments. The other one focuses on theory and proofs of correctness and pseudocode. Both are really interesting. My advice: take both of them!
I'm actually enjoying getting reacquainted with Java (which has improved drastically from what I remember the last time I used it, many years ago). I'm finding that more interesting than most of the algorithms!

Oh and there's also Algorithms, Part II which is the advanced course that builds on the one I'm taking. That starts October 31st.

The guy giving the lectures on my course (at least he's given all the lectures so far) is Robert Sedgewick computer science professor at Princeton, well known for his analysis and improvement of the famous quicksort algorithm.
__________________

Last edited by ceptimus; 09-23-2014 at 07:06 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 10-07-2014, 11:15 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....



You can also watch quicksort, mergesort,,, follow the YouTube links.
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ari (10-07-2014), Crumb (10-08-2014), Janet (10-07-2014)
  #12  
Old 10-07-2014, 11:24 PM
But's Avatar
But But is offline
This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts.
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Gender: Male
Posts: MVDCCCLXXIII
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 10-13-2014, 04:24 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign Steve View Post
I just registered for Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1, cuz it popped up in the "relevant to my interests" feed at work. Apparently it's not the same course, but they are listed as "related". It starts on Oct. 13.
The guy giving the lectures goes too fast for me. :headache: I have to watch the lectures with the more complicated maths at least twice before I understand what he's saying. :dunce:


:professor: (mirrored)
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (10-13-2014), Janet (10-14-2014)
  #14  
Old 10-15-2014, 10:55 PM
naturalist.atheist naturalist.atheist is offline
Reality Adventurer
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: VMMCXXX
Images: 7
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Yet a few more free universities...

World Science U

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
ceptimus (10-16-2014), Ensign Steve (10-15-2014)
  #15  
Old 10-15-2014, 11:36 PM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign Steve View Post
I just registered for Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1, cuz it popped up in the "relevant to my interests" feed at work. Apparently it's not the same course, but they are listed as "related". It starts on Oct. 13.
The guy giving the lectures goes too fast for me. :headache: I have to watch the lectures with the more complicated maths at least twice before I understand what he's saying. :dunce:


:professor: (mirrored)
I should probably get started, huh? :dunce:

Have you looked at the first homework yet?
__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old 10-16-2014, 03:31 PM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

I've done the programming homework and got a 5.00 / 5.00 first try. :pleased: It only took me about half-an-hour, but I have had some recent practice at coding up merge sort lookalikes in Java for the other course.

But I don't like the mathematics 'problem sets' on this course. I'm not very interested in (nor very good at) mathematical proofs - I prefer a more practical approach.

On the other algorithms course we did some basic big-O type stuff, but then we empirically proved our algorithms by measuring the running times - so you would measure running times for inputs of size 10000, 20000, 40000, 80000 (or whatever size was appropriate to give measurable running times) - if the running time roughly quadrupled every time the input size doubled then you knew your algorithm was roughly N^2 - and so on.

Also the programming exercises on that course were more challenging and interesting - and there was an element of competition with the other students - you're not allowed to share your code, but you can see whose solution is the fastest and/or uses the least memory - and then swap tips with them to see if you can improve your algorithm.

I'm thinking I may flunk this more theory-based course and save my energy for Part II of the more coding based course that starts on October 31st. I really enjoyed Part I of that course, and I prefer the lecturing style of Robert Sedgewick over that of Tim Roughgarden. Maybe I'll just do the coding exercises for this course and not bother with the theory questions. :shrug:
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Crumb (10-16-2014), Ensign Steve (10-16-2014)
  #17  
Old 10-21-2014, 02:53 AM
viscousmemories's Avatar
viscousmemories viscousmemories is offline
Admin
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Ypsilanti, Mi
Gender: Male
Posts: XXXDCCXLVI
Blog Entries: 1
Images: 9
Default Re: Yet another free university....

There's a course called Child Nutrition and Cooking 2.0.

:stunned:
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (10-21-2014), ceptimus (10-21-2014), Ensign Steve (10-21-2014), Janet (10-21-2014), livius drusus (10-21-2014), Pan Narrans (10-21-2014)
  #18  
Old 10-21-2014, 03:18 AM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

:meatcook:
__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 10-21-2014, 03:34 AM
livius drusus's Avatar
livius drusus livius drusus is offline
Admin of THIEVES and SLUGABEDS
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: LVCCCLXXII
Images: 5
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Angakuk (11-07-2014), BrotherMan (10-21-2014), ceptimus (10-21-2014), Crumb (10-21-2014), Ensign Steve (10-21-2014), Janet (10-21-2014), Pan Narrans (10-21-2014), Sock Puppet (10-21-2014), viscousmemories (10-21-2014)
  #20  
Old 10-21-2014, 06:29 AM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Angakuk (11-07-2014), BrotherMan (10-21-2014), ceptimus (10-21-2014), Janet (10-21-2014), Pan Narrans (10-21-2014), Sock Puppet (10-21-2014), viscousmemories (10-21-2014)
  #21  
Old 10-23-2014, 08:48 PM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Quote:
Originally Posted by ceptimus View Post
I've done the programming homework and got a 5.00 / 5.00 first try. :pleased: It only took me about half-an-hour, but I have had some recent practice at coding up merge sort lookalikes in Java for the other course.
Me too! :irwinnar: I coded it up and submitted my answer last night before bed, and then had stress dreams all night about trying to debug infinitely recursive calls and stack overflow errors. Gee, where could that have come from? :chin:

Quote:
But I don't like the mathematics 'problem sets' on this course. I'm not very interested in (nor very good at) mathematical proofs - I prefer a more practical approach.
I am not very good at these either, I never have been (all my B's in my CS career were in theory courses), but I'm interested in getting better which is why I'm taking this class.

I took all three tries on the homework and I got 20%, 60%, and 80% respectively. I even did their recommended cheat for the last question and just graphed all the functions in matlab. It led me to the right answer, but it didn't really help me with the why. Then again, this course isn't about multiplying logs and/or dividing exponents, so it's not really their fault that I'm still clueless about that shit.

I was raging out a bit that this is a freshman(?) course and I have a master's degree and I still suck at it! :shakefist:

I'm going to keep plugging along, though. I don't know if I'll take part 2 of this one next, or try the other two algo courses. I'm not strong in programming, but I'm getting better (heh), so maybe I will enjoy those more.
__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
ceptimus (10-24-2014), Crumb (10-23-2014), JoeP (10-24-2014)
  #22  
Old 10-24-2014, 10:51 AM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

One problem I have with the proofs is that I'm not really interested... If they tell me that some clever algorithm has running time O(n^1.333 log n) then I believe them: they don't need to prove it to me!

And my maths isn't good enough to spot a flaw in the proof anyway, so they could prove whatever they like and I'd not be able to tell... And the proofs are always riddled with caveats anyway: "We'll assume that there are no duplicates... don't worry about that: take my word for it that the proof comes out just the same if there are duplicates..." or "Summing this infinite series is beyond the scope of this course, but I can assure you that it sums to n * log log n"

I've given up on this course now. Roll on October 31st when Part II of the Sedgewick course begins. :eager:
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (10-24-2014)
  #23  
Old 10-24-2014, 11:09 AM
ceptimus's Avatar
ceptimus ceptimus is offline
puzzler
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: UK
Posts: XVMMDCCXC
Images: 28
Default Re: Yet another free university....

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ensign Steve View Post
Then again, this course isn't about multiplying logs and/or dividing exponents, so it's not really their fault that I'm still clueless about that shit.
Some people just have a gift for mathematics.

There was a famous puzzle going around in the 1920s:

Two bicyclists start out twenty miles apart and both cycle towards a meeting place, each at a steady ten miles per hour. A fly perched on the front of the front tyre of one bicycle takes off as the bike begins to move and proceeds to fly back and forth between the bicycles at a steady 15mph until it is eventually crushed when the two bicycles meet. How far does the fly fly?

Now there is a difficult way to solve this which involves calculating where the bicycles are whenever the fly reaches one of them and then adding together all the distances (there are actually an infinity of them - that poor fly makes a hell of a lot of about turns in the final fraction of a second).

And there is an easy way, which is to note that the bicycles will collide after exactly one hour - and as the fly is flying at 15mph then it will have travelled fifteen miles.

The famous polymath, John Von Neumann (who invented the merge sort!!) was asked the puzzle and provided the correct answer almost instantaneously. The disappointed person that posed the puzzle to him asked, "Had you heard it before, or did you work out the trick for yourself?"

"There's a trick?" replied Von Neumann, "all I did was sum the geometric series."
__________________
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (10-24-2014), JoeP (10-24-2014), naturalist.atheist (10-26-2014), slimshady2357 (10-28-2014)
  #24  
Old 10-28-2014, 12:32 AM
Ensign Steve's Avatar
Ensign Steve Ensign Steve is offline
California Sober
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Silicon Valley
Gender: Bender
Posts: XXXMMCXXI
Images: 66
Default Re: Yet another free university....

never mind :gildaradner:
__________________
:kiwf::smurf:
Reply With Quote
  #25  
Old 10-30-2014, 02:07 AM
naturalist.atheist naturalist.atheist is offline
Reality Adventurer
 
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: VMMCXXX
Images: 7
Default Re: Yet another free university....

The SaaS course is back. So if you want to learn Ruby on Rails from a fire hose, then this is your course.

https://www.edx.org/node/3811

This is to get ready. You have a week.

http://www.codecademy.com/tracks/ruby
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
ceptimus (10-31-2014), Ensign Steve (10-31-2014)
Reply

  Freethought Forum > The Marketplace > Study Hall


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

 

All times are GMT +1. The time now is 07:19 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Page generated in 1.27648 seconds with 18 queries