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David J.C. MacKay | |
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List Price: £19.95
Our Price: £15.19
Author:
David J.C. MacKay
By UIT
 Excellent in every department., 2010-02-16
Much was made in the lead up to, during and after Copenhagen. Add to this, the hysteria over UEA 'emailgate' and recent admissions from IPCC regarding "errors" in their recent climate-change reports and you have quite a mix. There have been dozens of claims, counter-claims, allegations, death threats, mud-slinging contests over the last few months and it is getting harder and harder to differentiate between genuine climate change believers, genuine sceptics and many of the ill-informed imbeciles in-between.
I happen to believe in man made Climate Change or AGW or whatever way you like to term it - i have done for some time. I never, however, had a solid grasp of WHY i believed it or the actual science behind it. I just believed it. This book, i found, gave a balanced, well-reasoned, thorough account of what climate is, how it has been created and what our options in confronting it. It avoids all the hyperbole been thrown around by the media and campaigners from various sides. If you want to get informed, away from much of the media sensationalism etc that is out there then take some time out and read this book.
Sensible, rational, balanced. Thoroughly recommended.
List Price: £45.00
Our Price: £37.43
Author:
David J.C. MacKay
By UIT
Excellent in every department., 2010-02-16
Much was made in the lead up to, during and after Copenhagen. Add to this, the hysteria over UEA 'emailgate' and recent admissions from IPCC regarding "errors" in their recent climate-change reports and you have quite a mix. There have been dozens of claims, counter-claims, allegations, death threats, mud-slinging contests over the last few months and it is getting harder and harder to differentiate between genuine climate change believers, genuine sceptics and many of the ill-informed imbeciles in-between.
I happen to believe in man made Climate Change or AGW or whatever way you like to term it - i have done for some time. I never, however, had a solid grasp of WHY i believed it or the actual science behind it. I just believed it. This book, i found, gave a balanced, well-reasoned, thorough account of what climate is, how it has been created and what our options in confronting it. It avoids all the hyperbole been thrown around by the media and campaigners from various sides. If you want to get informed, away from much of the media sensationalism etc that is out there then take some time out and read this book.
Sensible, rational, balanced. Thoroughly recommended.
List Price: £36.00
Our Price: £28.72
Author:
David J. C. MacKay
By Cambridge University Press
pretty much indispensible, 2008-09-26
This is an unqualified classic, to shelve with the likes of 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs', 'Concrete Mathematics' and 'Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics'. If you are involved with, or interested in, high-end data analytics, then you _need_ this.
However 'high-end data analytics' does not even begin to do the book justice, so let me try again.
This is a magnificent compendium of fascinating stuff presented in a coherent information-theoretic framework. It covers everything from how digital television data compression and CD error correction work to a detailed commentary on neural networks, and discussion of principled AI methods such as clustering, Gaussian processes and probabilistic graphical models, together with Monte-Carlo techniques and a bunch of statistical physics. It even throws in a complete course in Bayesian statistics. It reads like a really good 'popular' 'science' book (I often wonder where the scare quotes should be) that doesn't bother to try to be popular.
In fact I bought this originally as bedside reading, for pleasure. It was only later that I actually used it for anything.
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