Book picks similar to
Applied Predictive Modeling by Max Kuhn


data-science
statistics
machine-learning
mathematics

The Psychology of Computer Programming


Gerald M. Weinberg - 1971
    Weinberg adds new insights and highlights the similarities and differences between now and then. Using a conversational style that invites the reader to join him, Weinberg reunites with some of his most insightful writings on the human side of software engineering.Topics include egoless programming, intelligence, psychological measurement, personality factors, motivation, training, social problems on large projects, problem-solving ability, programming language design, team formation, the programming environment, and much more.Dorset House Publishing is proud to make this important text available to new generations of programmers -- and to encourage readers of the first edition to return to its valuable lessons.

Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are


Seth Stephens-Davidowitz - 2017
    This staggering amount of information—unprecedented in history—can tell us a great deal about who we are—the fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable.Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all drawn from the world of big data. What percentage of white voters didn’t vote for Barack Obama because he’s black? Does where you go to school effect how successful you are in life? Do parents secretly favor boy children over girls? Do violent films affect the crime rate? Can you beat the stock market? How regularly do we lie about our sex lives and who’s more self-conscious about sex, men or women?Investigating these questions and a host of others, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers revelations that can help us understand ourselves and our lives better. Drawing on studies and experiments on how we really live and think, he demonstrates in fascinating and often funny ways the extent to which all the world is indeed a lab. With conclusions ranging from strange-but-true to thought-provoking to disturbing, he explores the power of this digital truth serum and its deeper potential—revealing biases deeply embedded within us, information we can use to change our culture, and the questions we’re afraid to ask that might be essential to our health—both emotional and physical. All of us are touched by big data everyday, and its influence is multiplying. Everybody Lies challenges us to think differently about how we see it and the world.

The Art of Electronics


Paul Horowitz - 1980
    Widely accepted as the authoritative text and reference on electronic circuit design, both analog and digital, this book revolutionized the teaching of electronics by emphasizing the methods actually used by circuit designers -- a combination of some basic laws, rules of thumb, and a large bag of tricks. The result is a largely nonmathematical treatment that encourages circuit intuition, brainstorming, and simplified calculations of circuit values and performance. The new Art of Electronics retains the feeling of informality and easy access that helped make the first edition so successful and popular. It is an ideal first textbook on electronics for scientists and engineers and an indispensable reference for anyone, professional or amateur, who works with electronic circuits.

Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)


Christian Rudder - 2014
    In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are.   For centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers.   In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person’s sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America’s most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? (Hint: they don’t think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible.   Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves—a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.

Effective Java


Joshua Bloch - 2001
    The principal enhancement in Java 8 was the addition of functional programming constructs to Java's object-oriented roots. Java 7, 8, and 9 also introduced language features, such as the try-with-resources statement, the diamond operator for generic types, default and static methods in interfaces, the @SafeVarargs annotation, and modules. New library features include pervasive use of functional interfaces and streams, the java.time package for manipulating dates and times, and numerous minor enhancements such as convenience factory methods for collections. In this new edition of Effective Java, Bloch updates the work to take advantage of these new language and library features, and provides specific best practices for their use. Java's increased support for multiple paradigms increases the need for best-practices advice, and this book delivers. As in previous editions, each chapter consists of several "items," each presented in the form of a short, standalone essay that provides specific advice, insight into Java platform subtleties, and updated code examples. The comprehensive descriptions and explanations for each item illuminate what to do, what not to do, and why. Coverage includes:Updated techniques and best practices on classic topics, including objects, classes, methods, libraries, and generics How to avoid the traps and pitfalls of commonly misunderstood subtleties of the platform Focus on the language and its most fundamental libraries, such as java.lang and java.util

Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas


Seymour Papert - 1980
    We have Mindstorms to thank for that. In this book, pioneering computer scientist Seymour Papert uses the invention of LOGO, the first child-friendly programming language, to make the case for the value of teaching children with computers. Papert argues that children are more than capable of mastering computers, and that teaching computational processes like de-bugging in the classroom can change the way we learn everything else. He also shows that schools saturated with technology can actually improve socialization and interaction among students and between students and teachers.

Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World


Carl T. Bergstrom - 2020
    Now, two science professors give us the tools to dismantle misinformation and think clearly in a world of fake news and bad data.It's increasingly difficult to know what's true. Misinformation, disinformation, and fake news abound. Our media environment has become hyperpartisan. Science is conducted by press release. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. We are fairly well equipped to spot the sort of old-school bullshit that is based in fancy rhetoric and weasel words, but most of us don't feel qualified to challenge the avalanche of new-school bullshit presented in the language of math, science, or statistics. In Calling Bullshit, Professors Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West give us a set of powerful tools to cut through the most intimidating data.You don't need a lot of technical expertise to call out problems with data. Are the numbers or results too good or too dramatic to be true? Is the claim comparing like with like? Is it confirming your personal bias? Drawing on a deep well of expertise in statistics and computational biology, Bergstrom and West exuberantly unpack examples of selection bias and muddled data visualization, distinguish between correlation and causation, and examine the susceptibility of science to modern bullshit.We have always needed people who call bullshit when necessary, whether within a circle of friends, a community of scholars, or the citizenry of a nation. Now that bullshit has evolved, we need to relearn the art of skepticism.

Star Schema the Complete Reference


Christopher Adamson - 2010
    Star Schema: The Complete Reference offers in-depth coverage of design principles and their underlying rationales. Organized around design concepts and illustrated with detailed examples, this is a step-by-step guidebook for beginners and a comprehensive resource for experts.This all-inclusive volume begins with dimensional design fundamentals and shows how they fit into diverse data warehouse architectures, including those of W.H. Inmon and Ralph Kimball. The book progresses through a series of advanced techniques that help you address real-world complexity, maximize performance, and adapt to the requirements of BI and ETL software products. You are furnished with design tasks and deliverables that can be incorporated into any project, regardless of architecture or methodology.Master the fundamentals of star schema design and slow change processingIdentify situations that call for multiple stars or cubesEnsure compatibility across subject areas as your data warehouse growsAccommodate repeating attributes, recursive hierarchies, and poor data qualitySupport conflicting requirements for historic dataHandle variation within a business process and correlation of disparate activitiesBoost performance using derived schemas and aggregatesLearn when it's appropriate to adjust designs for BI and ETL tools

Multivariate Data Analysis


Joseph F. Hair Jr. - 1979
    This book provides an applications-oriented introduction to multivariate data analysis for the non-statistician, by focusing on the fundamental concepts that affect the use of specific techniques.

Introduction to Mathematical Statistics


Robert V. Hogg - 1962
    Designed for two-semester, beginning graduate courses in Mathematical Statistics, and for senior undergraduate Mathematics, Statistics, and Actuarial Science majors, this text retains its ongoing features and continues to provide students with background material.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid


Douglas R. Hofstadter - 1979
    However, according to Hofstadter, the formal system that underlies all mental activity transcends the system that supports it. If life can grow out of the formal chemical substrate of the cell, if consciousness can emerge out of a formal system of firing neurons, then so too will computers attain human intelligence. Gödel, Escher, Bach is a wonderful exploration of fascinating ideas at the heart of cognitive science: meaning, reduction, recursion, and much more.

An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, Volume 1


William Feller - 1968
    Beginning with the background and very nature of probability theory, the book then proceeds through sample spaces, combinatorial analysis, fluctuations in coin tossing and random walks, the combination of events, types of distributions, Markov chains, stochastic processes, and more. The book's comprehensive approach provides a complete view of theory along with enlightening examples along the way.

MAKE: Electronics: Learning Through Discovery


Charles Platt - 2008
    I also love the sense of humor. It's very good at disarming the fear. And it's gorgeous. I'll be recommending this book highly." --Tom Igoe, author of Physical Computing and Making Things TalkWant to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? With Make: Electronics, you'll start working on real projects as soon as you crack open the book. Explore all of the key components and essential principles through a series of fascinating experiments. You'll build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them!Build working devices, from simple to complex You'll start with the basics and then move on to more complicated projects. Go from switching circuits to integrated circuits, and from simple alarms to programmable microcontrollers. Step-by-step instructions and more than 500 full-color photographs and illustrations will help you use -- and understand -- electronics concepts and techniques.Discover by breaking things: experiment with components and learn from failureSet up a tricked-out project space: make a work area at home, equipped with the tools and parts you'll needLearn about key electronic components and their functions within a circuitCreate an intrusion alarm, holiday lights, wearable electronic jewelry, audio processors, a reflex tester, and a combination lockBuild an autonomous robot cart that can sense its environment and avoid obstaclesGet clear, easy-to-understand explanations of what you're doing and why

Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice


James D. Foley - 1990
    It details programming with SRGP, a simple but powerful raster graphics package. Important algorithms in 2D and 3D graphics are detailed for easy implementation, and a thorough presentation of the mathematical principles of geometric transformations and viewing are included.

Violent Python: A Cookbook for Hackers, Forensic Analysts, Penetration Testers and Security Engineers


T.J. O'Connor - 2012
    Instead of relying on another attacker's tools, this book will teach you to forge your own weapons using the Python programming language. This book demonstrates how to write Python scripts to automate large-scale network attacks, extract metadata, and investigate forensic artifacts. It also shows how to write code to intercept and analyze network traffic using Python, craft and spoof wireless frames to attack wireless and Bluetooth devices, and how to data-mine popular social media websites and evade modern anti-virus.