
Practical Deep Learning for Coders 2018 - jph00
http://www.fast.ai/2018/01/26/v2-launch/
======
jph00
Jeremy from fast.ai here. Happy to answer any questions about the course,
fastai, or anything else relevant!

BTW the 2018 version of the course is being discussed in this forum, for those
interested:
[http://forums.fast.ai/c/part1-v2](http://forums.fast.ai/c/part1-v2)

~~~
neves
Do you have good references about how to setup the environment with a Nvidia
GPU in a Windows machine?

~~~
jph00
Yes, I've provided a step by step walk-through here:
[http://forums.fast.ai/t/howto-installation-on-
windows/10439](http://forums.fast.ai/t/howto-installation-on-windows/10439)

This includes setup of fastai, pytorch, cuda90, cudnn, opencv, bcolz, and much
more!

~~~
ultrasounder
Hi Jeremy, I just recently "upgraded" from a Macbook air to a Windoze Gaming
Laptop with the GTX1050 GPU just for the reason that one day I could hopefully
do all the Fast.ai assignments on my laptop. I think this announcement right
here will spur me in taking up this course and Finishing it. I have an actual
need for automating some of our IQC/OQC( Incoming and outgoing Quality
control) of sub-assemblies and parts that we purchase from our vendors and I
hope to leverage what I learn from this course. Thanks a Ton for democratizing
Deeplearning and ML for a large population. Ananth

~~~
jph00
My pleasure! You may need to reduce the batch size in a few lessons to fit on
that card, FYI.

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argc_argv
Time to shill my little tool to help with rewatching lecture videos. Search
the caption by keyword and jump to that timestamp of the video.
[https://github.com/mingrui/youtube_caption_search](https://github.com/mingrui/youtube_caption_search)

~~~
jph00
Thank you for creating that! :)

BTW I just had a thought. What if instead of a txt file like you have:

    
    
        hi everybody welcome to practical deep
        00:00:00.000
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPBSB1HLNLo#t=00h00m00s
    

...you instead created a markdown file that had:

    
    
        [hi everybody welcome to practical deep]
        (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPBSB1HLNLo#t=00h00m00s)
    

...then you'd have a readable transcript, where every phrase is hyperlinked!
For bonus points, run it through the bidir RNN punctuator to add punctuation:
[https://github.com/ottokart/punctuator2](https://github.com/ottokart/punctuator2)
. (I plan to do this for the transcripts in the future BTW).

~~~
argc_argv
Good idea on markdown, it should be a quick fix and quality of life
improvement.

Didn’t know punctuator existed, I’ll look into that!

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briandw
I just finished the "soft launch" version of this. It's a truly excellent way
to get started with deep learning. The course is very hands on and practical.
This version has been updated to use pytorch and a bunch of new techniques.
Highly recommended if you are looking to get started with deep learning.

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1024core
Is this course free? What's the catch? I can't seem to find pricing anywhere.

(this is a genuine question, and not a meta-comment)

~~~
jph00
It's free. We're a self-funded non-profit. We do this because we actually want
to help people!

~~~
1024core
Sweet! Thank you!

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ceyhunkazel
Hi Jeremy, recently google have free gpu with colab notebook product. Student
can use it when they need free gpu option.
[https://colab.research.google.com/notebook](https://colab.research.google.com/notebook)

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narvind
fast.ai international fellowship recipient here - The second iteration of the
fast.ai course is totally worth. If you can code in Python, you can master
deep learning. Join our fantastic community!

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zawerf
Did anyone do Andrew Ng's deeplearning.ai and know how it compares?

~~~
jph00
Yeah there's a discussion of this on
[http://forums.fast.ai](http://forums.fast.ai) if you want the details.
Basically, Andrew's course is bottom-up (i.e. start with the theory and math
and simple examples) and works up from there. Ours is top-down (start with
code to train world-class models and dig deeper and deeper in to how they
work). fast.ai also has more examples of more recent techniques, and covers a
wider variety of applications. Students who have done both tell us that they
found both helpful to their understanding of the field and practice.

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aphextron
Can anyone reccomend an "AI for Dummies"? Every resource I've yet to find
starts with assuming I have any idea what "Eigenvector" or "Gradient descent"
means.

~~~
jph00
That would be this course. It assumes neither of those things :)

(It's for dummies that are prepared to work hard over a 7 week period and that
have been coding for at least a year.)

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cchubitunes
Hi Jeremy, i have an computer running ubuntu 17.10 with 16gb ram and 4gb
nvidia gpu. Is it possible to setup my system to run the exercises locally
without having to use paperspace? Thank you.

~~~
jph00
Yup that should be fine. There's resources on
[http://forums.fast.ai](http://forums.fast.ai) to help you get set up.

(I'd still suggest doing the first few lessons on Paperspace so you can focus
on the deep learning, rather than the setup. It's only $0.45/hour and 20 hours
is plenty enough to get going. Sometimes getting your computer set up can be
distracting and frustrating at first!)

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brianmorton
What are the benefits of the in-person "Part 2" in SF? Would it be feasible to
fly in weekly for the course?

~~~
jph00
There are certainly folks that fly in weekly. One student flew in from
Australia for the duration! But if you're far away you'd probably be better
off applying to be an international fellow, which means you watch the lesson
live over Youtube Live and can ask questions and interact with me and the
class in real time: [http://www.fast.ai/2018/01/17/international-
spring-2018/](http://www.fast.ai/2018/01/17/international-spring-2018/)

If you're considering the investment of weekly flights, you should probably
first ask the students at [http://forums.fast.ai](http://forums.fast.ai)
whether they would recommend it.

~~~
nl
I had a good conversation with the student who flew in from Australia. She
said she got a lot out of it, and found the discussion groups very useful.

OTOH, I've done it remotely just watching the videos and I've found it great
too.

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tasuki
Can I run through this course on a no-GPU laptop or would that be too slow?

~~~
fellellor
You setup your environment in a cloud environment that gives you GPU access.
Details in the course and forums.

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adilmoujahid
Enjoyed the first iteration of the course, will definetly check this one!

