Lecture 1: Introduction to Information Theory
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as an enjoyable, clear introduction to information theory that pairs well with MacKay's free textbook.
What it is
The first lecture of David MacKay's Cambridge course on information theory, pattern recognition and neural networks. It introduces the core ideas of his book Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2018 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends swframe2 · 2018-02 · on “Probabilistic Programming and Bayesian Methods for Hackers (2013)”
I recommend David MacKay's Intro to Info Theory class: [this video] There is a free book for it at: [LINK] Daphne Koller's 3 coursara classes on Probabilistic Graphical Models are also really good.
Recommends maxov · 2020-06 · on “Ask HN: What, in your opinion, are the greatest and most useful textbooks?”
Had . Unfortunately Professor MacKay passed away from cancer in 2016. We lost a great soul. I concur that his textbook and sense of humor were fantastic. It was very enjoyable for me to learn the material from his lectures. They are a great supplement to the textbook (or maybe vice versa?) and you can find them here: [this video]
Recommends samch93 · 2021-10 · on “Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air (Revised, Community Edition)”
It‘s such a tragedy that he died so young. Prof Mackay was a role model who impacted our world in many positive ways (e.g. his work in information theory, Bayesian statistics, environmental science). I recommend his lecture on information theory which is available on youtube [1]. He also documented the progress of his cancer very detailed on his blog [2], which is a very interesting (and sad) read. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Cites noud · 2023-02 · on “David MacKay: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms: The Book”
"Your browser does not support playback of available video formats. Please install Adobe Flash player or upgrade to a more modern browser." ...Okay? I found the videos on youtube as well: [this video]
Cites scythmic_waves · 2023-02 · on “David MacKay: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms: The Book”
From lecture 1 [1]: > Ok, so, we have an answer of 1000 plus or minus 30 thanks to "Mr. Binomial", the inventor of the distribution that bears his name. Lol, this is great. [1]: [this video]
Cites teleforce · 2024-05 · on “Reading list to join AI field from Hugging Face cofounder”
Thanks for the list. Interesting to see that the book by the late David MacKay made it to the list, it is available to download in several formats from the book's website. Information Theory, Inference, and Learning Algorithms: [LINK] The lectures based on the book by David MacKay himself: [this video] Probably it's not a surprise that the father of information theory Claude Shannon is the earliest one to propose stochastic LLM based on Markov chain.