Please reply to this comment if you intend to participate, and are willing and able to free up a few hours per week or fortnight to work through the suggested reading or exercises.
Please indicate where you live, if you would be willing to have some discussion IRL. My intent is to facilitate an online discussion here on LW but face-to-face would be a nice complement, in locations where enough participants live.
(You need not check in again here if you have already done so in the previous discussion thread, but you can do so if you want to add details such as your location.)
I’m not exactly between 0 and 1...But I have some hours available here, and would like to do this. I’ve been through bits of Jaynes, but the social aspect will make doing the whole thing more interesting.
FWIW, I’ve a math degree, and have 20 years of technical (math, software, etc.) teaching expertise, if you’d like some assistance.
I’d suggest to everyone who hasn’t as much tech-teaching experience that time spent doing exercises is the only thing that you should be counting as learning-time. Time spent reading has no feedback system, and you don’t know (despite believing) whether you’ve learned anything. Do-->Learn. Read-->???
Book discussions can counteract that to some extent: we will be asking questions about the material, and participating in such a discussion can correct misconceptions or prompt you to pay closer attention to something that struck you as trivial at first.
I will also be in the vicinity of the Bay Area from June 12 to late September, and would be quite happy to give the study group a try. I attempted a full read of Jaynes’ book about a year ago, and realized about 70% of the way through that I didn’t have all the mathematical background necessary to fully appreciate it.
A zipped archive of all the chapters, which seemed to be missing on the pages linked in the top-level post, is available here.
I’m currently trying to go through Jaynes:PTTLOS myself. As mentioned earlier in this comments: you hardly learn anything by reading alone, you need to discuss or solve exercises. So of course I would love to join a group!
I am currently in Manchester, UK, but will spend most of August and early September on the road, without regular internet access. After that I do not know for sure where I will live or how much time I can commit. But I am very interested!
I also do have a high-quality .pdf-version of the book. Apparently it is the first edition and has no links but it is not simply a scan of the pages of the book! That means the formulae and diagrams are all very high quality and you can do a full text search. I am not sure on the legal status though, probably it is an “only for private study use”-version that one is not supposed to make publicly available. What is the LW-policy concerning links to such content?
Non-profit doesn’t change anything as far as I know (IANAL as they say).
I’m pretty sure that people who want to get a copy of the book can get it based on information they already have, and my recommendation would be to not expose yourself to legal risks.
I don’t know what the copyright status is—the edition at http://bayes.wustl.edu/ was removed at the request of the publisher, so it might not be good.
I intend to participate, and I publicly commit 3 hours of reading/thinking/problems and one hour of discussion per week (negotiable). Face-to-face in Seattle would be great. IRC or moderated real-time chat would be great as well. weekly new posts and comment threads on LW would be less ideal, but I’m willing to give it a go.
Thank you very much for initiating this Morendil. I have lurked at LessWrong since Day #1 and came very close to getting an account several times before and submitting comments. This is my first one. I have studied Jaynes for years and spent many hours reading in the book and also his physics papers archived on the Jaynes website.
I look forward to some Probability Theory centered discussion and hope to contribute.
I have been going through the book myself, having never taken probability, statistics, combinatorics, past the high school level. I’m studying to be a mathematician, so I decided to fix that my reading Jaynes on Eliezer’s recommendation. I had an electronic edition, and just got the paper edition a couple days ago. I have a one week vacation starting now, so this will probably occupy a large fraction of it.
I’ve spent probably 15-30 hours in the last two weeks on it, but I’ve been having trouble with the problems (which is unusual for me), and was looking for a study group. I didn’t think it was appropriate for Less Wrong (clearly not true!) and I found someone locally.
I would be happy to talk with other members online. I’ve never used Google Wave, but people can contact me via email or instant messenger until I get the hang of it. My throwaway is ‘lispalien’ on Yahoo! Messenger, or you can get another IM handle by contacting me any which way, including a private message here.
This has been on my reading queue for ages, might as well join in!
I live in Seattle (technically on the border of Bellevue and Redmond), which makes me #3 for this area. Meetups would be great, though I’m unavailable weekdays until after 7 or so.
Good timing. This was among the next few on my list already. I would like to participate. I’m in Halifax, NS (Canada) and interested in trying IRL as well as online.
Edinburgh, Scotland, would love to discuss in real life.
I have the dead tree version and have written about the first two chapters.
I got hung up in chapter three on the symmetry of the hypergeometric distribution. I’ve managed to sort that out, but haven’t got going again due to poor health.
I’m very interested and able to devote the time, but I may lack the prerequisite knowledge—if at all required. The most math I remember is up to a US Junior-High level. (Perhaps ironic, given my SN.)
I’m inclined to participate. I have some baseline knowledge of various discrete math but not much probability theory.
I’m in West Michigan, within forty-five minutes of Grand Rapids and two and a half hours of Chicago. I learn better face-to-face than online, so I’d be happy to meet.
I attempted PT:TLOS back in September and made it to chapter 7 before realizing I had only been understanding 30% of it, and gave up. I’m certainly eager to have another stab at it.
In the Bay Area until early/mid August, then St. Louis for a week or two, then Pittsburgh for the school year.
I’ve been meaning to work through PT:LOS forever, but never gotten it done. I’d be interested. (In the SF Bay Area for about a month longer, then in Finland.)
Are there some places you would suggest as tentative meeting-points? I have the combination to get into one of the student lounges at the University of Maryland, College Park, if you want tables, chairs, and a whiteboard.
That’d probably be fine though not super convenient for me. Alternatively, the Georgetown University Library always has group study rooms free during the summer. What kind of math background do you have?
Georgetown University Library isn’t impossible, although I’d want help with the directions (particularly on locating the right building and right room in the building). My statistics background is the usual one-semester college course*, but I’ve got the full engineering-student education in calculus (I went as far as the partial differential equations course) and a smattering of linear algebra in the course of studying graduate dynamics and finite element methods. I usually pick it up fairly easily.
Random variables, standard distributions, moments, law of large numbers and central limit theorem. Sampling methods, estimation of parameters, testing of
hypotheses.
I live in Plano (i.e., for y’all far away, a bit north of Dallas). I might be interested in participating in a meatspace study group arrangement of some sort. I’ve never done something like this outside of university classes, dunno how it’d work out, except to guess that it probably depends strongly on individual personalities and schedules and such.
I’ve studied parts of the Jaynes book in the past. Recently I’ve been studying more specialized machine learning techniques, like support vector machines, but it seems clear that more time spent studying the more general and fundamental stuff would be time well spent in understanding specialized techniques, and the Jaynes book looks like a good candidate for such study.
Please reply to this comment if you intend to participate, and are willing and able to free up a few hours per week or fortnight to work through the suggested reading or exercises.
Please indicate where you live, if you would be willing to have some discussion IRL. My intent is to facilitate an online discussion here on LW but face-to-face would be a nice complement, in locations where enough participants live.
(You need not check in again here if you have already done so in the previous discussion thread, but you can do so if you want to add details such as your location.)
I’m not exactly between 0 and 1...But I have some hours available here, and would like to do this. I’ve been through bits of Jaynes, but the social aspect will make doing the whole thing more interesting.
FWIW, I’ve a math degree, and have 20 years of technical (math, software, etc.) teaching expertise, if you’d like some assistance.
I’d suggest to everyone who hasn’t as much tech-teaching experience that time spent doing exercises is the only thing that you should be counting as learning-time. Time spent reading has no feedback system, and you don’t know (despite believing) whether you’ve learned anything. Do-->Learn. Read-->???
That would be wonderful, thanks.
Book discussions can counteract that to some extent: we will be asking questions about the material, and participating in such a discussion can correct misconceptions or prompt you to pay closer attention to something that struck you as trivial at first.
I’m in. Taipei, Taiwan.
I will also be in the vicinity of the Bay Area from June 12 to late September, and would be quite happy to give the study group a try. I attempted a full read of Jaynes’ book about a year ago, and realized about 70% of the way through that I didn’t have all the mathematical background necessary to fully appreciate it.
A zipped archive of all the chapters, which seemed to be missing on the pages linked in the top-level post, is available here.
I’m currently trying to go through Jaynes:PTTLOS myself. As mentioned earlier in this comments: you hardly learn anything by reading alone, you need to discuss or solve exercises. So of course I would love to join a group!
I am currently in Manchester, UK, but will spend most of August and early September on the road, without regular internet access. After that I do not know for sure where I will live or how much time I can commit. But I am very interested!
I also do have a high-quality .pdf-version of the book. Apparently it is the first edition and has no links but it is not simply a scan of the pages of the book! That means the formulae and diagrams are all very high quality and you can do a full text search. I am not sure on the legal status though, probably it is an “only for private study use”-version that one is not supposed to make publicly available. What is the LW-policy concerning links to such content?
Non-profit doesn’t change anything as far as I know (IANAL as they say).
I’m pretty sure that people who want to get a copy of the book can get it based on information they already have, and my recommendation would be to not expose yourself to legal risks.
I don’t know what the copyright status is—the edition at http://bayes.wustl.edu/ was removed at the request of the publisher, so it might not be good.
I finally registered just to participate in this.
I’m living in Buffalo, NY for the summer if anyone is up for a meetup.
Will participate (online only, living in Serbia). Additional back-and-forth on IRC seems like a good idea.
I’m in. Living in New Haven, CT. Though I wouldn’t call myself “Between 0 and 1”.
I intend to participate, and I publicly commit 3 hours of reading/thinking/problems and one hour of discussion per week (negotiable). Face-to-face in Seattle would be great. IRC or moderated real-time chat would be great as well. weekly new posts and comment threads on LW would be less ideal, but I’m willing to give it a go.
I’ll be interested; I’m going to run a similar club on David Deutsche’s Fabric of Reality, and this would be a nice compliment.
Oxford for the next few weeks, then in the south east of the UK.
Thank you very much for initiating this Morendil. I have lurked at LessWrong since Day #1 and came very close to getting an account several times before and submitting comments. This is my first one. I have studied Jaynes for years and spent many hours reading in the book and also his physics papers archived on the Jaynes website.
I look forward to some Probability Theory centered discussion and hope to contribute.
I am in Houston, Texas, USA.
Woot! Third Texan spotted on Less Wrong! Other two.
I have been going through the book myself, having never taken probability, statistics, combinatorics, past the high school level. I’m studying to be a mathematician, so I decided to fix that my reading Jaynes on Eliezer’s recommendation. I had an electronic edition, and just got the paper edition a couple days ago. I have a one week vacation starting now, so this will probably occupy a large fraction of it.
I’ve spent probably 15-30 hours in the last two weeks on it, but I’ve been having trouble with the problems (which is unusual for me), and was looking for a study group. I didn’t think it was appropriate for Less Wrong (clearly not true!) and I found someone locally.
I would be happy to talk with other members online. I’ve never used Google Wave, but people can contact me via email or instant messenger until I get the hang of it. My throwaway is ‘lispalien’ on Yahoo! Messenger, or you can get another IM handle by contacting me any which way, including a private message here.
This has been on my reading queue for ages, might as well join in!
I live in Seattle (technically on the border of Bellevue and Redmond), which makes me #3 for this area. Meetups would be great, though I’m unavailable weekdays until after 7 or so.
I’ll give it a go. I will be in Iowa City until August, Philadelphia after that. Willing to meet IRL.
Good timing. This was among the next few on my list already. I would like to participate. I’m in Halifax, NS (Canada) and interested in trying IRL as well as online.
I’ll have a go. I’m in Oxford.
I live in Pittsburgh and would like to participate.
I’m in.
I’d like to participate. I live in a hidden location.
One would assume you already know what is to be known about inference, from examination of your own source code.
Of what type are your inference and decision algorithms?
I’m in. I live in Kenosha, Wi., on campus at UWP. No car.
Edinburgh, Scotland, would love to discuss in real life.
I have the dead tree version and have written about the first two chapters.
I got hung up in chapter three on the symmetry of the hypergeometric distribution. I’ve managed to sort that out, but haven’t got going again due to poor health.
I’m very interested and able to devote the time, but I may lack the prerequisite knowledge—if at all required. The most math I remember is up to a US Junior-High level. (Perhaps ironic, given my SN.)
I’m in Brisbane, Australia.
I live in Waterloo, Ontario (Canada). Does anyone live nearby?
I’m in.
This sounds great—count me in. I’m in Toronto.
I’d like to participate as well
Yes, I’d like to take part. I’m in the UK.
I’m in, Finland, UTC+02 time zone.
I am in (online only, Russia, Moscow).
I’d like to join. I’m in Greenville, South Carolina.
I’m in. I live in Bogotá, Colombia.
Buffalo NY USA
I live in Melbourne, Australia, and am open to discussion IRL.
I will participate.
In the interest of tsuyoku naritai, I’d like to do this. I’m in Lafayette, Indiana.
I’m in; Saskatoon, Canada.
I’m (still) in!
I live in Davis, California, USA which is about an hour from the Bay Area.
I’m inclined to participate. I have some baseline knowledge of various discrete math but not much probability theory.
I’m in West Michigan, within forty-five minutes of Grand Rapids and two and a half hours of Chicago. I learn better face-to-face than online, so I’d be happy to meet.
I intend to participate. I am in Seattle. Face-to-face discussion is possible, but not probable.
I’ll try. I know little calculus, though. Location is Finland.
I’m interested, definitely online, possibly IRL. I’m in London.
I’ve already read the book (the published paper version) without solving the exercises.
I’d be interested in participating in a technical discussion. Maybe (but not very probably) even IRL (Bay Area).
About time. Definitely in (will have to bump Subjective Probability: the real thing off the stack)
Edit: I work in NYC if anyone want to complement this with some IRL action.
I attempted PT:TLOS back in September and made it to chapter 7 before realizing I had only been understanding 30% of it, and gave up. I’m certainly eager to have another stab at it.
In the Bay Area until early/mid August, then St. Louis for a week or two, then Pittsburgh for the school year.
I’m in. I’m located in Salt Lake City, UT, US. I would be very willing to have IRL discussions, if I can fit it around work.
I’ll join in. I have some vacation coming up, but no more than a week at a time. In Denmark (fat chance).
I’m in. Started reading through it this past winter but stopped. Hopefully this group will provide some motivation.
Really tempted to participate, a IRL group would help, I am in London but spend lots of time in Guildford.
Count me in, I’ve had a copy of PT:TLOS sitting around forever, and I’m not too far into it.
I’m in Illinois and am often in Chicago on weekends.
I’ve been meaning to work through PT:LOS forever, but never gotten it done. I’d be interested. (In the SF Bay Area for about a month longer, then in Finland.)
I’m in. I’m near Phoenix, Arizona.
Participants in the DC area, reply to this comment.
(I can go anywhere where WMATA and Ride-On public transportation can take me, but spend a lot of time at the University of Maryland.)
I’m in DC.
Are there some places you would suggest as tentative meeting-points? I have the combination to get into one of the student lounges at the University of Maryland, College Park, if you want tables, chairs, and a whiteboard.
That’d probably be fine though not super convenient for me. Alternatively, the Georgetown University Library always has group study rooms free during the summer. What kind of math background do you have?
Georgetown University Library isn’t impossible, although I’d want help with the directions (particularly on locating the right building and right room in the building). My statistics background is the usual one-semester college course*, but I’ve got the full engineering-student education in calculus (I went as far as the partial differential equations course) and a smattering of linear algebra in the course of studying graduate dynamics and finite element methods. I usually pick it up fairly easily.
* The catalog entry for STAT400 in the year I took it states
I intend to participate, sounds like a great idea!
ETA: I live in Texas, on the northern part of the I-35 corridor. Anyone remotely nearby? (I’ll feel lucky to find just one person.)
I live in Plano (i.e., for y’all far away, a bit north of Dallas). I might be interested in participating in a meatspace study group arrangement of some sort. I’ve never done something like this outside of university classes, dunno how it’d work out, except to guess that it probably depends strongly on individual personalities and schedules and such.
I’ve studied parts of the Jaynes book in the past. Recently I’ve been studying more specialized machine learning techniques, like support vector machines, but it seems clear that more time spent studying the more general and fundamental stuff would be time well spent in understanding specialized techniques, and the Jaynes book looks like a good candidate for such study.
Yippee! I’m in Waco and wouldn’t mind meeting in Dallas (or Austin, if there are LWers there), but so far there’s only two of us.
I’d like to join too. I’m in Hungary, in the vicinity of Budapest.
Still in. I’m in London until tomorrow and then back home to Melbourne, Australia.