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Machine Learning Class Update

I am two weeks into Andrew Ng's Machine Learning class offered on Coursera. So far, I am really enjoying it. We have covered linear regression with one and multiple variables, gradient descent, a review of linear algebra and matrices, how to 'vectorize' gradient descent calculations for speed and simplicity, and how to use Octave for prototyping and visualization. Andrew Ng is a great teacher and the theory covered in the videos is supplemented by visual explanations and quizzes. So far the class is doing a great job of teaching Machine Learning concepts and providing a good opportunity to gain hands-on experience applying the concepts learned in class with practical programming exercises. I'm looking forward to learning more!

More Free Courses!

I enjoyed Stanford's free, online AI class offered last fall by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig so much that I decided to sign up for more courses this year. At the moment, I am enrolled in Chuck Eeasley's Technology Ventures class, as well as Machine Learning by Andrew Ng, and Computer Vision by Jitendra Malik (read more...)

Erlang Factory 2012

Last month I had the chance to attend the Erlang Factory Conference in San Francisco. It was a great event. Compared to other conferences I have been to, this one was fairly small and intimate. Many of the speakers (and several attendees) all seemed to know each other by name and it was pretty easy to approach the speakers after their talks to ask questions. I was exposed to a variety of new technologies which were all pretty exciting. (read more...)

Learning Erlang

Remember at the beginning of the year when I wrote that I wanted to learn Erlang? Well, for better or for worse, I now have an excellent excuse to learn it. (read more...)

BASE Meetup

I'm going to the "Bay Area Software Engineers" meetup tomorrow. The group is meeting at Microsoft in San Francisco for a few talks on Robotics, Machine Learning, AI, and Big Data - sounds like an exciting evening. More info here if you are interested.

Dynamics of Software Development

I just finished reading Dynamics of Software Development, by Jim McCarthy. It was written in 1995, but still very much relevant today in my opinion. There are many books out there that explain the practical side of how software can and should be developed, but this book is unique in that it provides valuable insights into the human and emotional factors that come into play when developing and shipping software. I highly recommend it to anyone managing software projects and development teams.

GDC 2012: AI Roundtable

GDC 2012 has come and gone in its usual mad rush. Crazy, hectic, and fun. I did not get to attend the full conference this year (my company shares a limited number of passes amongst the developers), but I did get to attend one of the Artificial Intelligence in Computer Games roundtable sessions. (read more...)

Debugging the Development Process

I am currently reading a book titled Debugging the Development Process by Steve Maguire (or as a boxed set with other highly recommended books). I picked it up because I found that that I am working with larger and more complex teams with each project and was hoping to find some good advice. In my opinion, this is a great book for any programmer, but especially good for those programmers who are either working as team leads right now or who are aspiring to become future team leaders. (read more...)

My First Investment Analysis Program

Several months ago I decided I should educate myself about investing (of which I knew nothing about at the time). After digging around online, reading several websites, books, etc. I stumbled across a book by Phil Town titled Rule #1, which provides a straightforward, seemingly simple introduction to value investing. The rest of this post outlines my experiences and lessons learned while writing program to automate the stock valuation techniques described in this book. (read more...)

ROS Installation Pains

I recently learned about ROS and decided I would like to learn more about it. Having found myself with a bit of free time during the holidays I thought I would try to install the latest version ("Electric Emys") and give it a go. Here's what happened... (read more...)