Published in Towards Data Science·2 days agoGuided Transfer Learning: How to use ‘the power of scouts’ to boost machine learning performanceAn exclusive sneak-peek at a revolutionary new method for training neural networks — My good friend and humble genius Dr Danko Nikolić recently shared an unpublished paper with me, thinking I might be interested. Was I ever. Reading it made me feel like I was witnessing a historic moment before anyone else did, and I was immediately bursting to share. Thankfully, Danko agreed…Machine Learning10 min readMachine Learning10 min read
Mar 8Algorithmic bias, testing your preconceptions, and how to help build gender equalityA not-quite-buzzfeed quiz to check your biases; an intro to critical algorithm studies; and ideas for enabling ethical developers. — About once a month over on Substack, I compile a handful of the most interesting and useful things I’ve shared via Twitter on a specific theme into a short article about that topic. March is Women’s History Month, so this twitter Resources Roundup is an especially important one. That’s why…Gender Equality6 min readGender Equality6 min read
Feb 22Medians with SQL: How to solve these HackerRank problems like you actually know what you’re doingA beginners’ guide to working through complex SQL questions — and understanding the answers — If you’re reading this, you’re probably using HackerRank to learn SQL or prep for a coding interview. I did this too, but a lot of HackerRank solutions out there confused me more than they helped. So I did what any self-respecting data scientist would do: I memorised the answers, and…Sql7 min readSql7 min read
Jan 24Congratulations on Getting Fired. Here are 10 Ways to Bounce Back Even Stronger.Practical lessons from being let go, and how you can apply them too. So you got fired. Or made redundant. Potato, potata, it probably stings as much either way. This just happened to me, too. My employer went into financial survival mode, and my department had to go. So I…Life Lessons8 min readLife Lessons8 min read
Published in Towards Data Science·Jan 11How to Do Language Detection Using Python, NLTK, and Some Easy StatisticsA practical introduction to a technology you use every day. — Ever wondered how Google Translate’s ‘detect language’ feature works? Of course you didn’t, you had better things to do. But I went looking, and couldn’t find the answer (even though I’ve literally written a book on Natural Language Processing (NLP)). It’s Google’s secret sauce. So today, I’ll instead show you…Python12 min readPython12 min read
Published in Geek Culture·Nov 22, 2021Explaining AI — to comedians?Artificial Intelligence: it’s a topic surrounded by hype, hope, pessimism, and a healthy dose of confusion. Many people have many questions, as I have learned through discussions within my own personal circle. …Artificial Intelligence15 min readArtificial Intelligence15 min read
Published in The Startup·Nov 7, 2020How Your Digital Personal Assistant Understands What You Want (And Gets it Done)One of the most remarkable things I learned during my studies in Computational Linguistics was that we still don’t know how language is processed in the brain. We know that an average human has around 80,000 words in their vocabulary, and that somehow, when we speak, our brains are able…Machine Learning10 min readMachine Learning10 min read
Published in The Startup·Oct 26, 2020AI-driven Personalised Marketing Part 2: Examples and Use-CasesIn my last post, I introduced one of the biggest trends in AI-driven marketing: personalisation. I recommend you check out the full post, but in a nutshell: marketers have always tried to segment customer types and determine what messaging they would prefer, but in the past, the segmentation was coarse…Artificial Intelligence8 min readArtificial Intelligence8 min read
Published in The Startup·Oct 26, 2020AI-driven Personalised Marketing: How We Got Here and Where We’re Going NextAcross the entire customer journey, AI is helping marketers provide more assistive, enjoyable experiences for shoppers and improving performance with it: from one-to-one messaging that doesn’t sound like spam, to dynamic website design that adapts to individual users, and even retail stores that recognise and welcome their visitors. In part…Machine Learning7 min readMachine Learning7 min read