Has Anyone Tried the Treehouse Courses?

[Varine]

http://teamtreehouse.com/

Has anyone used this before? I'm considering getting a subscription as my ability at web development is meh, not much experience. Has anyone tried it yet? I'm wondering if it would be worth it, or if I should just teach myself like I usually do.

 

[FireCat]

Lol Nope. I've never tried.
But why not "try it out first" if you don't like it "then teach yourself!"

 

[Varine]

Has anyone whose opinion I care about tried them?

 

[Accname]

Nope.
But i would say you can learn anything web developement related through online tutorials without paying a dime.

 

[Varine]

I can learn it but won't have the certifications and references that come with said subscriptions, which may or may not be of value.

 

[sallybrunt]

Hi
I was thinking of doing a home study course with these and want to know what you guys think first. I have already done a home study course with the Stonebridge College. I am looking at doing the PC repair courses or website design.

http://www.opencollege.info/computercourses.html
Thanks for you feedback

 

[camelCase]

Is it just me or are machines slowly passing the Turing test?

 

[tom_mai78101]

Is it just me or are machines slowly passing the Turing test?

They already have passed the test some 20 years ago. Just look up Minecraft redstone CPUs on Youtube, and then exponentially multiply that with a bot.

 

[Varine]

Is it just me or are machines slowly passing the Turing test?

I made designs for things that would appear to pass it, but never actually built one.

 

[s3rius]

They already have passed the test some 20 years ago. Just look up Minecraft redstone CPUs on Youtube, and then exponentially multiply that with a bot.

What does that have to do with the Turing test?

Apparently Cleverbot almost passed the Turing test in 2011.
http://www.cleverbot.com/human

 

[Varine]

Cleverbot isn't very impressive.

 

[KMilz]

The Turing Test is flawed in that it claims to measure a computer's intelligence when it's actually measuring a person's stupidity.

 

[Varine]

It judges a computer's test to appear intelligent. It has no fundamental testing of it's actual capacity to learn, really. Cleverbot can't even learn my name; there's no requirement for analytical processing and cross referencing of memories, or underlying understanding of the concepts as more than an isolated piece of information. If you told it how to drive a boat and it goes and drives a boat, it's not intelligent, it's programmed for a specific task. If it then went off and drove your car without instructions, then we'd be getting somewhere.

 

[s3rius]

The Turing Test isn't supposed to be some scientific validation method.

And it doesn't measure a person's stupidity. Sure, you'll get different results if you put a computer specialist or a school child to the job.

But that doesn't change the idea behind the Turing test: it means to test how well a computer can imitate a human/intelligence.
We use people to judge that, but that's only because we have to better way of judging.

"The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of an actual human."

Note that exhibiting intelligent behavior, and actually being intelligent, are two different things.

And to come to Cleverbot's defense: they say they'd had much more processing power allocated when they did the Test But yea.. the online version isn't all that impressive.

 

[Varine]

Yes; rapid memory and association are two of the most vital components of any intelligence system. To make the appearance of intelligence, a program should be capable of at least temporarily storing parcels of information into an expandable library for later recall. Even online this shouldn't be difficult to achieve, even with less processing power. It should just take longer before each response, which it already does.

 

[Accname]

Linking complex information together and filtering it from nonsense is a costly procedure.

 

[Varine]

Not if you know what you're doing.

 

[Accname]

Not if you know what you're doing.

Computers never know what they are doing.

 

[Varine]

I said you have to know what you're doing. The computer just needs to be told how to interpret a more complex system.

 

[Accname]

I said you have to know what you're doing. The computer just needs to be told how to interpret a more complex system.

A memory which immitates the human brains capacity is very complex. A complex system needs complex calculations, usually.
Never tried to implement one so i can just guess, but since nobody ever managed to do it i guess my first guess is correct.