bookmark | Chris Aldrich

🔖 Taft Test – Web Dev Placeholder Image Generator

Bookmarked Taft Test - Web Dev Placeholder Image Generator (tafttest.com)

Does your site pass the Taft Test? Generate or swap images of Taft for web development.

I wish I had lots of bookmarklets that did quirky things like this. Interestingly this one has a relatively useful use-case in addition to its unintended comedic service.

🔖 How To Code in Python: Using Manifold to Deliver an Open Educational Resource | Building Manifold

Bookmarked How To Code in Python: Using Manifold to Deliver an Open Educational Resource (blog.manifoldapp.org)

Recently, my eBook on Python programming, How To Code in Python 3, was made available as a Manifold publication. I would like to offer my perspective to the Manifold community to give some background on the work and how I believe the Manifold platform provides additional layers of value to the text through providing a place for learning and idea exchange in both university communities and broader publics.

An interesting article about OER relating to a book that looks interesting to read.

🔖 What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America by Ted Dintersmith

Bookmarked What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers across America by Ted Dintersmith (Princeton University Press)

What School Could Be offers an inspiring vision of what our teachers and students can accomplish if trusted with the challenge of developing the skills and ways of thinking needed to thrive in a world of dizzying technological change.

Innovation expert Ted Dintersmith took an unprecedented trip across America, visiting all fifty states in a single school year. He originally set out to raise awareness about the urgent need to reimagine education to prepare students for a world marked by innovation--but America's teachers one-upped him. All across the country, he met teachers in ordinary settings doing extraordinary things, creating innovative classrooms where children learn deeply and joyously as they gain purpose, agency, essential skillsets and mindsets, and real knowledge. Together, these new ways of teaching and learning offer a vision of what school could be―and a model for transforming schools throughout the United States and beyond. Better yet, teachers and parents don't have to wait for the revolution to come from above. They can readily implement small changes that can make a big difference.

America's clock is ticking. Our archaic model of education trains our kids for a world that no longer exists, and accelerating advances in technology are eliminating millions of jobs. But the trailblazing of many American educators gives us reasons for hope.

Capturing bold ideas from teachers and classrooms across America, What School Could Be provides a realistic and profoundly optimistic roadmap for creating cultures of innovation and real learning in all our schools.

Marked to read after seeing reference in Venture capitalist visits 200 schools in 50 states and says DeVos is wrong: ‘If choice and competition improve schools, I found no sign of it.’ by Valerie Strauss.

🔖 Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith

Bookmarked Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era by Tony Wagner, Ted Dintersmith (Scribner)

From two leading experts in education and entrepreneurship, an urgent call for the radical re-imagining of American education so that we better equip students for the realities of the twenty-first century economy.

Today more than ever, we prize academic achievement, pressuring our children to get into the “right” colleges, have the highest GPAs, and pursue advanced degrees. But while students may graduate with credentials, by and large they lack the competencies needed to be thoughtful, engaged citizens and to get good jobs in our rapidly evolving economy. Our school system was engineered a century ago to produce a work force for a world that no longer exists. Alarmingly, our methods of schooling crush the creativity and initiative young people need to thrive in the twenty-first century.

In Most Likely to Succeed, bestselling author and education expert Tony Wagner and venture capitalist Ted Dintersmith call for a complete overhaul of the function and focus of American schools, sharing insights and stories from the front lines, including profiles of successful students, teachers, parents, and business leaders.

Most Likely to Succeed presents a new vision of American education, one that puts wonder, creativity, and initiative at the very heart of the learning process and prepares students for today’s economy. This book offers parents and educators a crucial guide to getting the best for their children and a roadmap for policymakers and opinion leaders.

🔖 Neural Networks and Statistical Learning by Ke-Lin Du,‎ M. N. S. Swamy | Springer

Bookmarked Neural Networks and Statistical Learning 2014th Edition by Ke-Lin Du,‎ M. N. S. Swamy (Springer)

Providing a broad but in-depth introduction to neural network and machine learning in a statistical framework, this book provides a single, comprehensive resource for study and further research. All the major popular neural network models and statistical learning approaches are covered with examples and exercises in every chapter to develop a practical working understanding of the content.

Each of the twenty-five chapters includes state-of-the-art descriptions and important research results on the respective topics. The broad coverage includes the multilayer perceptron, the Hopfield network, associative memory models, clustering models and algorithms, the radial basis function network, recurrent neural networks, principal component analysis, nonnegative matrix factorization, independent component analysis, discriminant analysis, support vector machines, kernel methods, reinforcement learning, probabilistic and Bayesian networks, data fusion and ensemble learning, fuzzy sets and logic, neurofuzzy models, hardware implementations, and some machine learning topics. Applications to biometric/bioinformatics and data mining are also included.

Focusing on the prominent accomplishments and their practical aspects, academic and technical staff, graduate students and researchers will find that this provides a solid foundation and encompassing reference for the fields of neural networks, pattern recognition, signal processing, machine learning, computational intelligence, and data mining.

h/t

Book: Neural Networks and Statistical Learning https://t.co/tO36Z5KRja

— Data Science Central (@DataScienceCtrl) April 30, 2018

🔖 Moving chairs in Starbucks: Observational studies find rice-wheat cultural differences in daily life in China | Science Advances

Bookmarked Moving chairs in Starbucks: Observational studies find rice-wheat cultural differences in daily life in China by Thomas Talhelm, Xuemin Zhang and Shigehiro Oishi (Science Advances)

Traditional paddy rice farmers had to share labor and coordinate irrigation in a way that most wheat farmers did not. We observed people in everyday life to test whether these agricultural legacies gave rice-farming southern China a more interdependent culture and wheat-farming northern China a more independent culture. In Study 1, we counted 8964 people sitting in cafes in six cities and found that people in northern China were more likely to be sitting alone. In Study 2, we moved chairs together in Starbucks across the country so that they were partially blocking the aisle ( n = 678). People in northern China were more likely to move the chair out of the way, which is consistent with findings that people in individualistic cultures are more likely to try to control the environment. People in southern China were more likely to adjust the self to the environment by squeezing through the chairs. Even in China’s most modern cities, rice-wheat differences live on in everyday life.

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