Hahahaha amazing stuff

Could maybe be turned into a copy+paste pedal for regular shmoes...actually I kind of want two of those now just to see if I could do stuff with them while working with keyboard+mouse...map some common commands (opening a terminal on peddal maybe or compile code on pedal)...mmmmm

For laptops it's an antirely different argument imo, I've bought an Apple laptop before. It's not as easy to get the specs you want as with a desktop but still if I can get the specs I want I have no problem settling for lesser build quality and just tossing the laptop and getting a new one sooner.
(obviously I have 0 need for OSX so if you really like that OS then Apple also becomes more interesting)

This is really cool:
http://research.google.com/pubs/pub38115.html

Neural networks was something I struggled with implementing back at Uni, but they are pretty amazing things when they get results like this.

This is the same way I feel about so many things. Maybe it is because I am currently working in IT contracting and I am used to looking at everything from a $/hr perspective, but most of my personal valuations in almost everything come from a combination of time and marketplace knowledge.

Before I make a purchase, I want to have an understanding of the competitive landscape so I make a good decision, but the amount of time I am going to spend on something directly relates to my willingness to go for the top quality item versus a cheaper one.

For a computer/laptop I think spending 1k+ more is a no-brainer.

I agree, Larry. When my time was less valuable, it made sense for me to spend hours researching, mail ordering components, putting together a computer, and then installing OS and everything else on it. All to save some cash while getting what I wanted.

Now? Fortunately, not so much.

Doesn't anyone enjoy researching, buying and building computers? I get a new one say every 1.5 years or so, and really enjoy specing it all out and putting it together!

This is my computer. There are many like it, but this one is mine

I enjoy a lot of things. I did enjoy that, but at some point I stopped enjoying having hassles being associated with something essential to my livelihood

I enjoyed being able to go to a store and just get what I wanted.

NN was one of my fav classes during university. Basically we just coded a bunch of NNs for silly problems.

I think at mine it wasn't taught very well, the whole class was "wtf" about them

Was kind of the same, here. I think I'll actually try to include a good chapter on NN next time I do the AI lecture. I have a chapter on learning where I mention them briefly and I'll just expand that

I'm interested in NN, what's something good to read about them which isn't too mathsy?

The thing I found most amazing about my course was genetic algorithms, I'm still yet to find a use for them in any work I do though!

I built out my desktop and I do love it the same way

The next machine I get is going to def be a laptop, I am just not quite sold on the MBP, but I have never owned a Mac so that makes me want one even more.

I map 'esc' to 'jj' in vim. There is no word in the english language which contains a double 'j' so you ever type it by mistake, and its always under your index finger. Its the single most useful line in my .vimrc

I guess if you never use jj as an indexing variable...

lol @ using arrow keys in vim

Don't really know a good book on NN (yet, will have to research). We checked out the two or so they had left at the library and they weren't good at all but taken together they covered enough stuff to get us going and code.

"Artificial Intelligence - a modern approach" by Russel/Norvig has chapters on NN (in the section on learning) and genetic algorithms (in the section on local search algorithms) that are pretty good but obviously not super deep.

My guess is that I'll prepare the stuff on NN sometime around xmas and I'll post if I found a couple of good books. I'm sure they exist

GA were indeed fun as well, that was actually the followup class to NN here. First was NN second was GA's and adaptive systems (also had a bit on cellular automatons). I still remember that I was pretty wow-ed by the fact that they actually produced good results for something we tried to brute force with no luck heh.

I recently bought Wolfram's "A new kind of science" it'll be on the backburner for quite a bit but looking forward to it (features cellular automatons of course)

Once you get those movement keys down, vim wins. Every time.

Well, it doesnt mean you can never use 'jj', just that you have to have a 1 second delay between the two.

It's out of print now, but a book called "Introducing Neural Networks by Alison Carling" is less mathsy.

Some are selling on amazon.co.uk for very little so worth getting:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-lis...condition=used

Juk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Neural-Adapt...0384268&sr=8-1

Is really good, and if you buy second hand quite cheap (seems bloody expensive new though!?).

Juk

EDIT: If you buy it second hand then make sure you message the seller(s) first to be sure the CD-ROM hasn't been lost or else the book will be pretty useless as nearly every section has a little interactive example.

I was never a hardware nerd, but I totally understand it.

I grew tired of trying to keep up with it all. Now I just try to time my PC upgrades with my younger brother and that way I can avoid most of the time consuming research...

Juk

To me falling behind was part of the joy. Then I'd get to spend hours researching and catching up.

Though I will grant that having the skills was useful, when I wanted to put together a cheap, quiet little FreeBSD box to take regular rsync backups of my servers. It meant I could go to Fry's, pick up the pieces with minimal effort, and just go.

This. I'd rather write code that does something awesome than make an computer that can handle the awesome things other people wrote.

goal, write scraping program that will gather scores and lines from all games of NCAAF played in recent years. let's see if i can get this out in the next three hours or so and see how far ive come. gogoogogogogog