
Machine Learning Course by Tom Mitchell - sonabinu
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tom/10701_sp11/
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shostack
Can anyone recommend a good intro in machine learning that does teaches the
building blocks of the math side of things? It is fascinating as a topic, but
there is such a large prerequisite learning curve that it seems out of reach
for those not as strong in math.

That might just be the reality of it, but hoping there might be a better
introduction (even something super simple like a Codecademy equivalent).

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ilzmastr
I was in a similar situation a year ago. Two things fixed my problems:

I took a course on Linear Algebra (Bretscher's book up to chap 9) and a
Probability course (Ross' book up to chap 6) and did very many problems by
hand on paper. I just finished a ML course (Bishop's book, and Jordan's book),
mixed grad+undergrad, which was 80% problems w/ pen and paper and 20% code up
something algorithmically trivial but mathematically challenging, and don't
think I would've been able to pick up the _additional_ math along the way
without these two great books and their many exercise problems behind me.

I read layman's explanations of ML concepts a year ago, and got nowhere in
terms of my own implementation+debugging/improvement upon established
techniques. Now I can solve problems I saw a year ago and thought "no one can
do this."

My advice is to take the gateway drugs first, Probability (Ross <\- I love
this book!) and Lin Alg (I like Bretscher much better than Strang, but not
everyone agrees with me :) Take a course in real life (for a grade and a
transcript) at a competitive university if possible, nothing makes you study
thoroughly like a gun to your head.

~~~
avinassh
I would appreciate if you can give links to those books on Amazon or some
other site. Thanks!

~~~
craigching
I was interested so I looked them up:

A First Course in Probability: [http://www.amazon.com/First-Course-
Probability-9th/dp/032179...](http://www.amazon.com/First-Course-
Probability-9th/dp/032179477X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418999863&sr=8-1&keywords=probability+ross&pebp=1418999876886)

Linear Algebra with Applications:

[http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Applications-Otto-
Brets...](http://www.amazon.com/Linear-Algebra-Applications-Otto-
Bretscher/dp/0321796977/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418999936&sr=8-1&keywords=linear+algebra+bretscher&pebp=1418999943552)

Note that the Bretscher book has really terrible reviews, but I can't evaluate
if the reviews are correct or not.

~~~
Plough_Jogger
A First Course in Probability: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/A-First-Course-in-
Probability-EDN-9-...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/A-First-Course-in-Probability-
EDN-9-by-Sheldon-
Ross-/261607443332?pt=US_Texbook_Education&hash=item3ce904cb84)

Linear Algebra with Applications: [http://www.ebay.com/itm/Linear-Algebra-
with-Applications-5ed...](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Linear-Algebra-with-
Applications-5ed-by-Otto-
Bretscher-/251574886499?pt=US_Texbook_Education&hash=item3a93082063)

International editions of textbooks are immensely cheaper.

~~~
feefie
Besides the price is there anything different between the US and International
editions? There must be a trick here... ?

~~~
arghnoname
Sometimes the paper can be thinner. Sometimes it's in black and white and the
US edition is in color. The international edition is almost always softcover
and the cover may be in Chinese (for instance). The problem sets may be in
differing order.

Many of these things are described in the comments. I almost exclusively buy
international textbooks for home reference if available. The price difference
and the relatively small quality difference makes it a no-brainer. If you are
doing it for a class though, find a friend with the overpriced version for
homework.

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robert_tweed
Does anyone have the book? Having looked through the ToC on Amazon, there are
a few topics that interest me and it seems to be more in-depth than these
lectures. But as it is from 1997 (and doesn't appear to have been updated),
I'm concerned it will be a bit out of date.

~~~
akramhussein
I read this cover to cover for my ML course at Imperial College London in UK.
While not an easy read, reviewing the same topics a few times did make you
understand the fundamentals better. AbeBooks sometimes has it going for
£20(~$30). The exercises were a bit tricky as often the answers weren't
attainable by simply following the book and resulted in you needing to consult
other material.

~~~
avinassh
what are pre-requisites to start with the book? Requires heavy math
understanding of Linear Algebra etc?

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nicklaf
Does anybody have URLs for the videos? Clicking on the video link for a
lecture asks you to install Silverlight.

~~~
warrick
[http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=hbDV5iiS](http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=hbDV5iiS)

~~~
phlyingpenguin
Anybody got a mirror of lecture #6? It seems to be dead on the server.

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dalanmiller
I am registered for this course and I am quite excited!

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nitishmd
Good to see cmu opening up to open learning!

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aaronaaa
As a current student, unfortunately, this is a rare gem. CMU still fails to
make any attempts at free courseware.

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aroman
As another current student... you are very mistaken.

See: [http://oli.cmu.edu](http://oli.cmu.edu)

~~~
aaronaaa
However, with the exception of one or two of those courses, those are nothing
but introductory courses. And while this is great material to have access to,
grants almost no access to the wealth of knowledge at CMU.

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jokoon
I have a "pre-existing working knowledge of probability, linear algebra,
statistics and algorithms", but can't he be more precise ? I mean to what
difficulty are those math used ?

~~~
anhng
This is a Phd-level course at CMU. Pretty heavy on math. You can just take a
look at the material to know the difficulty. If you are not sure, you probably
should try easier ones such as Andrew Ng's on Coursera.

