Learning Deep Learning

Author: wombat

  • Prerequisite 1: Machine Learning

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    wombat
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    To get into any subject, there is a lot of jargon to wade through. I love simplicity but precise terminology makes things much easier. In this post I’m going to establish basic definitions for these terms, which are necessary for deep learning: machine learning model supervised learning prediction cost function function optimization local minimum vs. global…

  • PSA: What makes a good personal essay?

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    wombat
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    It’s college essay season again. As hard and annoying as they are to write, I’m a huge fan of the genre of which they are a sub: the personal essay. The personal essay, when well done, exploits tools of both expository and creative writing. Here are some excerpts from my heroes and some notes about…

  • My baseline hero

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    In 1976, a major earthquake struck in Tangshan, China. Because many of the buildings had not been built to withstand earthquakes, and because search and rescue infrastructure at the time was poor, the death toll was large: the official estimate is about a quarter of a million people. In The Good Women of China, I…

  • What is deep learning?

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    wombat
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    Deep learning is a buzz phrase that refers to a branches of machine learning that involve multiple, interactive layers of nonlinear data transformations. It’s deep because there are multiple layers, and it’s deep learning because the layers can communicate with one another. Deep learning techniques have been growing in accuracy and success and are interesting to…

  • How I learned to stop worrying and love computer programming

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    wombat
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    As a go-getting engineering student, I chose my first university elective to be Computer Science 101. I didn’t like it. The lectures put me right to sleep – and I’m a lecture lover. The exams were not a problem. But the projects were another story. The first few were easy. But as they got harder,…

  • My brutish love of poetry, part 4

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    wombat
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    Poetry can be dangerous. Yes, it can be pretty, pithy, wise, amusing. But it’s gotten me and countless others into trouble. My web site here is a pretty safe place and I’ve quoted some pretty safe poems. There are many poets I love who are big troublemakers. Some write about the experience of love and…

  • My brutish love of poetry, part 3

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    wombat
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    Another gift of Canada is exposure to French Canadian poetry. If you know even a little bit of french, you can poke around at the edges. I am a fan of Anne Hébert and of her cousin Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau. His life was brief and his family posted his works here. Somehow poems in…

  • My brutish love of poetry, part 2

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    wombat
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    In 1920, Marianne Moore wrote a poem that begins: The Fish wade through black jade. You can immediately see that this poem plays with line breaks and structure and is not about meter and rhyme. Yikes, free verse. What is there for a brute lover of poetry to sink her teeth into? Marianne Moore is…

  • My brutish love of poetry, part 1

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    wombat
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    I never studied poetry the way I studied other subjects. But I love it, poems stick in my head for years, I can recite a few, and sometimes reading a poem colors my thoughts for hours. Since I don’t know or understand many underlying references and details, I love poems like a brute, like an…

  • Musical cross dressing – Bill Evans and “I love you Porgy”

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    wombat
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    Trio performance Here is a link to the Bill Evans Trio playing “I love you Porgy”. I bought this on vinyl years ago. Recently I had to chance to play “I love you Porgy” with some friends. And I thought about singing it. The lyrics are very much from a woman’s point of view: I…