|
"But things like AI and serious DNN based speech recognition, which I am very interested in, I've dug into enough to know that I won't be able to go there. They are already too 'mathematics doctoral thesis'-like for me to take on in the time I have left, at least without completely discarding any existing obligations which ain't too practical."
I think you might be selling yourself short there, unless by "time you have left" you mean "I only have 6-months to a year before I die" - even then, I'd still say to go for it.
Really, it isn't as difficult as you think. With today's tools and frameworks, while you do need some understanding of what is going on under the hood, it's not like you need to have deep level calculus knowledge (that would really only come into play for implementing such frameworks). It's kinda like making a 3D game - you can either spend the time writing an engine, or just grab one already made (with scenegraph, etc) - and get down to writing your game.
Personal anecdote:
In the fall of 2011 it was announced that Stanford was sponsoring a couple of online learning classes, being taught by three top-tier instructors. These classes were called "AI Class" and "ML Class". I managed to get myself enrolled into both.
It's been said that they didn't expect a huge amount of response from people to take these classes, but they were completely blown away by the number of people who eventually did enroll.
The "AI Class" was being taught by Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun. The "ML Class" was being taught by Andrew Ng. Do any of these names seem familiar? They should...
These online classes were not a new thing, but they did succeed in showing how to do it properly. Prior to this, online classes tended to be more ad-hoc affairs, cobbled together from pieces, or just courses uploaded for others to browse, but nothing structured properly, outside of a very few paid and expensive offerings. These two courses were really the pioneers of what we call MOOCs today.
Anyhow, I took them. It was a struggle. To make a long story short, I completed the ML Class, and got about halfway thru the AI Class before I had to quit due to some personal issues that I won't go into. But I was doing well at that course (though it was right at the edge of my skill and knowledge base).
As an example of what a student managed to accomplish via what they learned in the "ML Class":
How I built a self-driving (RC) car and you can too.[^]
In 2012, Thrun and Ng each founded their own online MOOC "schools" if you will - they are known as Udacity and Coursera (respectively).
Coursera initially offered (and continues to this day) the same course that was the "ML Class":
https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning[^]
Udacity, on the other hand, could not (for some reason, I suspect there was some kind of licensing or other issue with Norvig) release the "AI Class" as a course. Instead, a new course was developed, called (at the time) "How to Build Your Own Self Driving Vehicle" - and now known as "AI for Robotics":
Artificial Intelligence for Robotics | Udacity[^]
It's very slightly different from what I took in 2012 - mainly the "final project". It was very challenging, but I learned a ton from it.
Later on, in 2016, I took the first iteration of Udacity's "Self-Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree":
Self Driving Car Engineer Nanodegree | Udacity[^]
Now - would I classify any or all of these courses as the most challenging you could have when it comes to AI/ML?
Probably not - but they were all very challenging for myself - but also enjoyable (well, except that I b0rked my computer setting up CUDA for my GPU for the nanodegree - but that was on me); your mileage may vary.
But they should give you a good introduction.
If I had to pick any one of them to start with, it would be the Coursera Machine Learning course. It gave me an "aha!" moment about how neural networks actually worked, about how to look at problems better for parallel computation using matrices and vectors, and how neural networks related and used such technologies.
The first Udacity course gave me the basics on what and how to implement SLAM, what Kalman filters were for, and a number of other techniques and ideas to explore for self-driving vehicles and robotics.
The nanodegree took that information, and coupled it with learning how to utilize OpenCV for vision processing, object and lane tracking, plus a number of deep learning tasks. At one point we had to train a neural network to drive a virtual car around a track by building a training set of data from driving the car around the track as it captured snapshots of the track, plus data from the steering wheel (angle) and accelerator/brakes. Using these inputs, plus a custom neural network (I ended up basing mine on a very simplified version of NVidia's "End-to-End" CNN), you trained a model to drive the car around the track. Very fun and exciting (and super frustrating at the same time).
It also introduced me to TensorFlow, Keras, and ROS.
...and that was something in the middle of the entire course. There was a ton of new stuff I learned from that course, and I am glad I took it (though it wasn't cheap).
In the end, all of these courses have taught me there are some things that I don't know that I need to find time at some point to rectify (particularly: Calculus and Probability/Statistics). Someday.
But if I can do this, and it only took a total of about a year's time - and I walked away with more knowledge and understanding that has allowed me to now read better some of those inscrutable AI/ML papers that looked like gibberish before - then anyone else can easily do it too.
But there is something - even those courses aren't for the "faint of heart". Usually - though I never got any real hard numbers - the courses always started out strong, with a ton of students at the beginning. But the first few weeks were the "weed out" phase, and the numbers would then drop precipitously over the time of the course. If you are able to make it to the end of any one of them, you have really accomplished something from what I understand.
Anyhow - good luck!
|
|
|
|
|
Is a Holy Roller the man who makes bagels?
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
At yeast he doesn't slice them like this
|
|
|
|
|
He can bialy kneeds to be, easily rising to the occasion.
If he also sells bagels, he could take part in a schmear[^] campaign.
Ravings en masse^ |
---|
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
|
|
|
|
|
Let's hope he wears a hairnet, no one likes bagels and locks.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
That was shear genius. A cut above the rest.
Ravings en masse^ |
---|
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
|
|
|
|
|
I figured I was walking a razors edge, if people didn't like it, I might be given the chair, I don't want to dye just yet.
"the debugger doesn't tell me anything because this code compiles just fine" - random QA comment
"Facebook is where you tell lies to your friends. Twitter is where you tell the truth to strangers." - chriselst
"I don't drink any more... then again, I don't drink any less." - Mike Mullikins uncle
|
|
|
|
|
W∴ Balboos wrote: A cut above the rest.
Yep - the crew is really buzzing over that one.
Socialism is the Axe Body Spray of political ideologies: It never does what it claims to do, but people too young to know better keep buying it anyway. (Glenn Reynolds)
|
|
|
|
|
They charge the same for those so you actually get more bangs for your buck.
Socialism is the Axe Body Spray of political ideologies: It never does what it claims to do, but people too young to know better keep buying it anyway. (Glenn Reynolds)
|
|
|
|
|
Nightwish - Nemo[^]
An old one from my teen years this week.
Not sure how I got there, but for some reason I got into the metal I listened when I was still in high school.
Nightwish is definitely one of the more melodious and listenable of those bands
Nemo is pretty much the single from the album that made Nightwish known to a wider audience.
It's also the last album with singer Tarja Turunen and I must admit I haven't really listened to them since.
Their current singer is the Dutch Floor Jansen
Anyway, great track from a great album!
|
|
|
|
|
This week Metal Fleetwood Mac
and some cheese from the chinese charts that I'm too ashamed to post.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
who had that idea, if it 'aint iot it's not going to sell isit?
Message Signature
(Click to edit ->)
|
|
|
|
|
Tch! It's obviously for shaving your tongue ...
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
Bleeding edge technology
|
|
|
|
|
Wouldn't that be for mornings after having too much of the grape, hops, or other grain the night before?
|
|
|
|
|
Can you recommend some broadband ...
with a good guitarist?
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
|
|
|
|
|
No time for such things since I got a seat on the breadboard of the baker's guild.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
|
|
|
|
|
Ah breadboards! That was a while ago...
"If we don't change direction, we'll end up where we're going"
|
|
|
|
|
Not really so long. I have had two on the other desk when I wrote that, but did not find the time yet to wire up my next idea.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
|
|
|
|
|
I don't know any string-pluckers, but I hear there may be some musicians coming this MIDI to practice their bits together. Maybe they can point you to a good Guid-tarist?
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
|
|
|
|
|
|
There are The Bangles or The Go Gos but I'm not entirely sure about their guitarists.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
|
|
|
|
|
|