Free Data Science Books • Hacker News Board

Re: Free Data Science Books

#61

Post by msellout » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 4:45 AM UTC

hguant wrote: post #40

msellout wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand that IBM Insights note about Djokovic. Can you explain more?

Without doing the math - Djokovic is such a strong player that even if he's only returning a quarter of your serves, meaning you're 3/4's of the way to winning your set (I don't tennis, sorry if I'm getting the terms wrong), he's still probably going to beat you.

It's hard to take any action based on that fact without further information. Even a gambler couldn't use that tidbit without conditioning on things like the current score. Or am I missing something?

Re: Free Data Science Books

#62

Post by elechi » Thu, Sep 10, 2015, 1:25 PM UTC

hguant wrote: post #40

msellout wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand that IBM Insights note about Djokovic. Can you explain more?

Without doing the math - Djokovic is such a strong player that even if he's only returning a quarter of your serves, meaning you're 3/4's of the way to winning your set (I don't tennis, sorry if I'm getting the terms wrong), he's still probably going to beat you.

Well, that's a close explanation, except I think you're confusing set and match. For men's tennis, it takes 3 sets to win the match, with the potential of playing 5 sets.

I'm actually not sure that the math is true, though. (Or I really don't understand what the stat is saying.) Let's say that it actually is for every 4 serves, you win 3, Djokovic wins 1. That number gives you every game (winning the game game-point-15), to give you every set. I don't see how Djokovic ever wins a game, let alone the set or match.

Re: Free Data Science Books

#63

Post by SZJX » Sat, Sep 12, 2015, 3:43 PM UTC

shubhamjain wrote: post #14

Although, there is no denying that this is a valuable resource but I have started to get turned off by a list of n books to learn something - they can be valuable but it is undeniable that they can also be overwhelming and perplex someone about how to get started. I believe technical books should be used to complement your knowledge of the field not to get started in it. For eg, "Secrets of the JavaScript Ninja" will…

Sure a bunch of books is no use. But, for self learning there's nothing more systematic than following one or two well-written books through. Just trying to gain everything via "practical" knowledge without any systematic guidance is definitely dangerous.