Brett Hutley's Blog

Back in the late 80's/early 90's, I used to argue that programmers should do their coding on an 8086 machine, an IBM XT for example, rather than something more powerful like a 286. My argument was that by using a slow machine, you had the same user experience as your average user, and you could optimize the program appropriately.

Continue reading “Big Iron”

It seems like the World is breaking down, with increased terrorism in Europe, Trump supporting Neo-Nazis in the US, and the insanity that is Brexit. I've decided that I need to ignore politics for my own peace of mind, and focus entirely on maths, programming and science!

 

I met up with some of my old team from BNP Paribas last week. I found it striking that everyone who was there is now working directly with Machine Learning. It was quite inspiring!

For the last few years I've been building Trading Execution Algorithms for Westpac. Time to do something different!

I decided to enroll in Coursera's Deep Learning Specialization. I've just finished the first week, and I am really enjoying it. Andrew Ng is a fantastic teacher. I did his previous course on Machine Learning and loved it.

I have both an iPad Pro and a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablet running Linux. Depending on what I am planning on doing on a day-to-day basis affects which device I carry around. Mostly I carry my Surface, as I have Linux installed, and it allows me to easily do development, remotely administer machines, or do general computing tasks. The keyboard on it isn't great however - it's kind of flimsy and doesn't work well if it's not on a firm surface. I can't easily use it on a train for example. It was perfect when we were in Australia for a month, and allowed me to both work and do University assignments. I can use it as a tablet for reading, but it isn't great for that.

Continue reading “iPad Pro versus MS Surface Usability”