It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills—and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These “bots” started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected. In this fascinating, frightening book, Christopher Steiner tells the story of how algorithms took over—and shows why the “bot revolution” is about to spill into every aspect of our lives, often silently, without our knowledge. The May 2010 “Flash Crash” exposed Wall Street’s reliance on trading bots to the tune of a 998-point market drop and $1 trillion in vanished market value. But that was just the beginning. In Automate This, we meet bots that are driving cars, penning haiku, and writing music mistaken for Bach’s. They listen in on our customer service calls and figure out what Iran would do in the event of a nuclear standoff. There are algorithms that can pick out the most cohesive crew of astronauts for a space mission or identify the next Jeremy Lin. Some can even ingest statistics from baseball games and spit out pitch-perfect sports journalism indistinguishable from that produced by humans. The interaction of man and machine can make our lives easier. But what will the world look like when algorithms control our hospitals, our roads, our culture, and our national security? What hap­pens to businesses when we automate judgment and eliminate human instinct? And what role will be left for doctors, lawyers, writers, truck drivers, and many others?  Who knows—maybe there’s a bot learning to do your job this minute.

    Virtually every choice we make hinges on how someone generates data . . . and how someone else interprets it--whether we realize it or not.Where do you send your child for the best education? Big Data. Which airline should you choose to ensure a timely arrival? Big Data. Who will you vote for in the next election? Big Data.The problem is, the more data we have, the more difficult it is to interpret it. From world leaders to average citizens, everyone is prone to making critical decisions based on poor data interpretations.In Numbersense, expert statistician Kaiser Fung explains when you should accept the conclusions of the Big Data experts--and when you should say, Wait . . . what? He delves deeply into a wide range of topics, offering the answers to important questions, such as:How does the college ranking system really work?Can an obesity measure solve America's biggest healthcare crisis?Should you trust current unemployment data issued by the government?How do you improve your fantasy sports team?Should you worry about businesses that track your data?Don't take for granted statements made in the media, by our leaders, or even by your best friend. We're on information overload today, and there's a lot of bad information out there.Numbersense gives you the insight into how Big Data interpretation works--and how it too often doesn't work. You won't come away with the skills of a professional statistician. But you will have a keen understanding of the data traps even the best statisticians can fall into, and you'll trust the mental alarm that goes off in your head when something just doesn't seem to add up.Praise for NumbersenseNumbersense correctly puts the emphasis not on the size of big data, but on the analysis of it. Lots of fun stories, plenty of lessons learned--in short, a great way to acquire your own sense of numbers!Thomas H. Davenport, coauthor of Competing on Analytics and President's Distinguished Professor of IT and Management, Babson CollegeKaiser's accessible business book will blow your mind like no other. You'll be smarter, and you won't even realize it. Buy. It. Now.Avinash Kaushik, Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google, and author, Web Analytics 2.0Each story in Numbersense goes deep into what you have to think about before you trust the numbers. Kaiser Fung ably demonstrates that it takes skill and resourcefulness to make the numbers confess their meaning.John Sall, Executive Vice President, SAS InstituteKaiser Fung breaks the bad news--a ton more data is no panacea--but then has got your back, revealing the pitfalls of analysis with stimulating stories from the front lines of business, politics, health care, government, and education. The remedy isn't an advanced degree, nor is it common sense. You need Numbersense.Eric Siegel, founder, Predictive Analytics World, and author, Predictive AnalyticsI laughed my way through this superb-useful-fun book and learned and relearned a lot. Highly recommended! Tom Peters, author of In Search of Excellence

    This practical guide that covers all of the need to know topics in a very systematic way. For each machine learning approach, each step in the process is detailed, from preparing the data for analysis to evaluating the results. These steps will build the knowledge you need to apply them to your own data science tasks.Intended for those who want to learn how to use R's machine learning capabilities and gain insight from your data. Perhaps you already know a bit about machine learning, but have never used R; or perhaps you know a little R but are new to machine learning. In either case, this book will get you up and running quickly. It would be helpful to have a bit of familiarity with basic programming concepts, but no prior experience is required.

    This highly anticipated fourth edition of the most ...Download Link : readmeaway.com/download?i=0128042915            0128042915 Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) PDF by Ian H. WittenRead Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems) PDF from Morgan Kaufmann,Ian H. WittenDownload Ian H. Witten's PDF E-book Data Mining: Practical Machine Learning Tools and Techniques (Morgan Kaufmann Series in Data Management Systems)

    Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values. Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM) Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDFOrganized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology. There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.

    No statistical knowledge is required, and your programming skills can range from hobbyist to pro.Along the way, you'll learn about functional and object-oriented programming, running mathematical simulations, and rearranging complex data into simpler, more useful formats. You'll also learn to: Create artful graphs to visualize complex data sets and functions Write more efficient code using parallel R and vectorization Interface R with C/C++ and Python for increased speed or functionality Find new R packages for text analysis, image manipulation, and more Squash annoying bugs with advanced debugging techniques Whether you're designing aircraft, forecasting the weather, or you just need to tame your data, The Art of R Programming is your guide to harnessing the power of statistical computing.

    For years, Joel Spolsky has done exactly this at www.joelonsoftware.com. Now, for the first time, you can own a collection of the most important essays from his site in one book, with exclusive commentary and new insights from joel.

    However, data structures for these languages do not always translate well to functional languages such as Standard ML, Haskell, or Scheme. This book describes data structures from the point of view of functional languages, with examples, and presents design techniques that allow programmers to develop their own functional data structures. The author includes both classical data structures, such as red-black trees and binomial queues, and a host of new data structures developed exclusively for functional languages. All source code is given in Standard ML and Haskell, and most of the programs are easily adaptable to other functional languages. This handy reference for professional programmers working with functional languages can also be used as a tutorial or for self-study.

    This practical guide provides application developers, sysadmins, and DevOps practitioners with a hands-on introduction to the most important aspects of Prometheus, including dashboarding and alerting, direct code instrumentation, and metric collection from third-party systems with exporters.This open source system has gained popularity over the past few years for good reason. With its simple yet powerful data model and query language, Prometheus does one thing, and it does it well. Author and Prometheus developer Brian Brazil guides you through Prometheus setup, the Node exporter, and the Alertmanager, then demonstrates how to use them for application and infrastructure monitoring.Know where and how much to apply instrumentation to your application codeIdentify metrics with labels using unique key-value pairsGet an introduction to Grafana, a popular tool for building dashboardsLearn how to use the Node Exporter to monitor your infrastructureUse service discovery to provide different views of your machines and servicesUse Prometheus with Kubernetes and examine exporters you can use with containersConvert data from other monitoring systems into the Prometheus format

    In a self-contained manner it proceeds from mathematical and theoretical considerations to actual practical computer routines. With over 100 new routines bringing the total to well over 300, plus upgraded versions of the original routines, the new edition remains the most practical, comprehensive handbook of scientific computing available today.

    With complete coverage of 100% of the exam objectives, this book provides everything you need to know to confidently take the exam. The release of Java 8 brought the language's biggest changes to date, and for the first time, candidates are required to learn functional programming to pass the exam. This study guide has you covered, with thorough functional programming explanation and information on all key topic areas Java programmers need to know. You'll cover Java inside and out, and learn how to apply it efficiently and effectively to create solutions applicable to real-world scenarios.Work confidently with operators, conditionals, and loops Understand object-oriented design principles and patterns Master functional programming fundamentals

    Not only does this Bible give you a quick refresher on the structure of open-source Linux software, it also shows you how to bypass the hefty graphical user interface on Linux systems and start interacting the fast and efficient way?with command lines and automated scripts. You'll learn how to manage files on the filesystem, start and stop programs, use databases, even do Web programming?without a GUI?with this one-stop resource.

    A simple, easy-to-follow guide, illustrated with plenty of full-color examples, this book will lead you through the process of creating great designs from start to finish. Good design principles are not rocket science, and using the information contained in this book will help you create stunning web sites.Understand the design process, from discovery to implementation Understand what makes "good design" Developing pleasing layouts using grids, the rule of thirds, balance and symmetry Use color effectively, develop color schemes and create a palette Use textures, lines, points, shapes, volumes and depth Learn how good typography can make ordinary designs look great Effective imagery: choosing, editing and placing images And much more Throughout the book, you'll follow an example design, from concept to completion, learning along the way. The book's full-color layout and large format (8" x 10") make The Principles Of Beautiful Wed Design a pleasure to read.Editorial Reviews"The Principles of Beautiful Web Design is a good book to kick start your graphic-design journey. The biggest benefit that I got from this book is the knowledge to learn from great designs as opposed to just admiring them in a state of awe." - Slashdot.org"Jason is a great writer, and the book is quite easy to read. It's put together wonderfully, including many full color screenshots and other forms of imagery that make the book a pleasure to read. I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone in Web design." - MondayByNoon"Jason Beaird covers web design in a way that non-designers can understand. He walks you through all of the aspects of design development from initial meeting to finished product. If you are just getting into web development, this is a must read." - Blogcritics.org"This is a thoroughly practical guide to web design that is very well written: good technical depth in easy-to-understand language with excellent illustrations and graphics that support the text. For many users it will be the only web-design text they will need. For those who want to further advance their skills and knowledge it will provide a sound foundation." - PC Update"His "Don't just tell, show!" style makes this book accessible to everyone... It strikes a carefully thought-out balance between describing principles and illustrating them. It is clear and well structured, with practical examples in every chapter." - Mitch Wheat

    Mike Loukides kicked things off in June 2010 with “What is data science?” and from there we’ve pursued the various threads and themes that naturally emerged. Now, roughly a year later, we can look back over all we’ve covered and identify a number of core data areas: Data issues -- The opportunities and ambiguities of the data space are evident in discussions around privacy, the implications of data-centric industries, and the debate about the phrase “data science” itself. The application of data: products and processes – A “data product” can emerge from virtually any domain, including everything from data startups to established enterprises to media/journalism to education and research. Data science and data tools -- The tools and technologies that drive data science are of course essential to this space, but the varied techniques being applied are also key to understanding the big data arena.The business of data – Take a closer look at the actions connected to data -- the finding, organizing, and analyzing that provide organizations of all sizes with the information they need to compete.

    Presentation Zen challenges the conventional wisdom of making "slide presentations" in today’s world and encourages you to think differently and more creatively about the preparation, design, and delivery of your presentations. Garr shares lessons and perspectives that draw upon practical advice from the fields of communication and business. Combining solid principles of design with the tenets of Zen simplicity, this book will help you along the path to simpler, more effective presentations.--back cover