Category Archives: DW Smackdown

My Sandy Timeline

Posted on November 2, 2012 by

Mid-April: I move to Hoboken, NJ with my 6-month pregnant wife and Bree and Max, my two 10-pound dogs. Some time in May: a relatively minor storm floods our parking garage and the nearby street. WTF? Lesson: Hoboken is really … Continue reading →

Posted in DW Smackdown, economics, insurance, politics (ugh), Reviews, science | 1 Comment

New Year’s Resolution

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

It’s a bit late for this, I know, but I’ve been flicking through the back catalogue of blog posts and I’ve realized something: I’m way too negative on this blog. I don’t like to think of myself as a negative … Continue reading →

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You Are What You Do All Day, Until You Are

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

Malcom Gladwell has a knack for catching the public consciousness, doesn’t he? Ever since that Outliers book (I’ve never read a Gladwell book), much of the really interesting writing I’ve come across probably owes its inspiration to him. Every personal … Continue reading →

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Machine Learning Course Notes – Bittersweet

Posted on October 22, 2011 by

Finished this week’s exercises in a 5-hour marathon starting at 4:30am this morning. Today’s meta-lesson: implementation is way harder than reading slides and ‘kinda getting it’. My god is it hard to actually write a program that uses even what … Continue reading →

Posted in DW Smackdown, math, Stanford Course Notes | Leave a comment

Things I Wish I Could Do

Posted on October 18, 2011 by

MIT’s Operating System Engineering Course. Hell, a whole Engineering degree, really. I’d need to freeze time for a couple of years to make it through, though. Alas, I cannot.

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Stanford Machine Learning Notes

Posted on October 18, 2011 by

Wow, I’m really loving this class. Lecture4 slides. [I should probably point out to regular readers that these notes aren’t really fit for mass consumption. I’m not going to bother even trying to build a complete understanding of each of the … Continue reading →

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Down Memory Lane: Stanford Machine Learning Course Notes

Posted on October 14, 2011 by

These courses are serving up distinct reminders of why I’ve always done poorly at school: I’m lazy and sloppy. Very lazy and very sloppy. And my god do schools punish you for these personality traits. The DB course is teaching … Continue reading →

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Stanford DB-class notes

Posted on October 13, 2011 by

Well, I’m still in the course despite my grumblings. I’m determined to not screw this up. I have a history with classes like this. In my second year of University, I took a finance course and COMPLETELY effed it up. Like, … Continue reading →

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Don’t Read With Sharp Objects Nearby

Posted on October 4, 2011 by

So I came home tonight in a bit of a mood and elected to shelve today’s work on the weekend project, crack a beer, order some food and curl up with the kindle backlog until my wife came home. And … Continue reading →

Posted in DW Smackdown, economics | Leave a comment

Ok, I Did It

Posted on September 25, 2011 by

Fair warning to blog readers. I’m going to use this thing as a crutch for the Machine Learning and Database courses from Stanford, which I just finalized my enrollment in. Look out for lecture summaries and coursework as I think … Continue reading →

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