Machine learning lecture 1  (Page 4/17)

I also assume familiarity with basic probability and statistics. So most undergraduate statistics class, like Stat 116 taught here at Stanford, will be more than enough. I'm gonna assume all of you know what random variables are, that all of you know what expectation is, what a variance or a random variable is. And in case of some of you, it's been a while since you've seen some of this material. At some of the discussion sections, we'll actually go over some of the prerequisites, sort of as a refresher course under prerequisite class. I'll say a bit more about that later as well.

Lastly, I also assume familiarity with basic linear algebra. And again, most undergraduate linear algebra courses are more than enough. So if you've taken courses like Math 51, 103, Math 113 or CS205 at Stanford, that would be more than enough. Basically, I'm gonna assume that all of you know what matrixes and vectors are, that you know how to multiply matrices and vectors and multiply matrix and matrices, that you know what a matrix inverse is. If you know what an eigenvector of a matrix is, that'd be even better. But if you don't quite know or if you're not quite sure, that's fine, too. We'll go over it in the review sections.

So there are a couple more logistical things I should deal with in this class. One is that, as most of you know, CS229 is a televised class. And in fact, I guess many of you are probably watching this at home on TV, so I'm gonna say hi to our home viewers.

So earlier this year, I approached SCPD, which televises these classes, about trying to make a small number of Stanford classes publicly available or posting the videos on the web. And so this year, Stanford is actually starting a small pilot program in which we'll post videos of a small number of classes online, so on the Internet in a way that makes it publicly accessible to everyone. I'm very excited about that because machine learning in school, let's get the word out there.

One of the consequences of this is that — let's see — so videos or pictures of the students in this classroom will not be posted online, so your images — so don't worry about being by seeing your own face appear on YouTube one day. But the microphones may pick up your voices, so I guess the consequence of that is that because microphones may pick up your voices, no matter how irritated you are at me, don't yell out swear words in the middle of class, but because there won't be video you can safely sit there and make faces at me, and that won't show, okay?

Let's see. I also handed out this — there were two handouts I hope most of you have, course information handout. So let me just say a few words about parts of these. On the third page, there's a section that says Online Resources.

Oh, okay. Louder? Actually, could you turn up the volume? Testing. Is this better? Testing, testing. Okay, cool. Thanks.

So all right, online resources. The class has a home page, so it's in on the handouts. I won't write on the chalkboard — http://cs229.stanford.edu. And so when there are homework assignments or things like that, we usually won't sort of — in the mission of saving trees, we will usually not give out many handouts in class. So homework assignments, homework solutions will be posted online at the course home page.