#learning

I'm training RNNs all the time and I've witnessed their power and robustness many times, and yet their magical outputs still find ways of amusing me. This post is about sharing some of that magic with you.

I'm training RNNs all the time and I've witnessed their power and robustness many times, and yet their magical outputs still find ways of amusing me. This post is about sharing some of that magic with you.

Our implementation of SQL is based off of SQLite which is compiled down to asm.js by Emscripten packaged into sqljs.

Our implementation of SQL is based off of SQLite which is compiled down to asm.js by Emscripten packaged into sqljs.

If you simply remember how to do something, then all you can do is use it the same way over and over, but if you understand how it works, you can reason about it. Once you can reason about something in your mind you can contemplate why it is the way it is, you can apply your entire creative mind to making the most of it, and you can implement and question improvement – you own it intellectually.

Whether you've always wanted to learn or you're a veteran looking for a fun new way to practice, get ready to join the thousands using Synthesia.

Whether you've always wanted to learn or you're a veteran looking for a fun new way to practice, get ready to join the thousands using Synthesia.

The last couple of days, there's been a fair amount of blogosphere angst over Coding Horror's "Please Don't Learn to Code." Ironically, the best argument for learning to code appeared this morning, when it turned out that Judge William Alsup in the Google case could program, and learned Java in the course of the trial, and wasn't going for Oracle's claim that a short range-checking function was days of work. Alsup recognized immediately (and says he wrote the function hundreds of times during the course of the trial) that it's just a few minutes work for a competent programmer.

“What people are learning in school is often not connected to the world of work,” she said. “Badges can fill that gap. They can be a kind of glue to connect informal and formal learning in and out of school.” If valued, they might also inspire students to accomplish new tasks.

"If the mainstream of "college teaching" becomes a set of atomistic, underpaid adjuncts, we'll lose a precious academic tradition that is not easily replaced."

"The problem is that this person’s problem-solving technique is to ask for the solution. Not to seek advice on how to approach the task, or ask for the names of likely classes to look into, or a link to an example – but to just ask for the code, fully formed and ready to go. This is not problem solving, and software engineering is entirely about problem solving."

"Situated at Strong National Museum of Play, the National Center for the History of Electronic Games™ collects, studies, and interprets electronic games and related material and the ways in which electronic games are changing how people play, learn, and connect with each other."

"Note that the knowledge for each level is cumulative; being at level n implies that you also know everything from the levels lower than n. "

"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."

"The Extended Mind refers to an emerging concept within the philosophy of mind that addresses the question as to the division point between the mind and the environment by promoting the view of active externalism. This view proposes that some objects in the external environment are utilized by the mind in such a way that the objects can be seen as extensions of the mind itself. Specifically, the mind is seen to encompass every level of the cognitive process, which will often include the use of environmental aids."

"To grasp basics of a new language quickly, here are the exercises I use."

"For the past several months, a group of self-described geeks has gathered weekly to re-create the feeling of kindergarten, where everyone has a project and stays for the day, learning in a free-form kind of way."

"There should be a list of things that youth should learn as young as possible to be a part of society."

"Why should web professionals not be required to know their craft?"