Sure. Learning from data (caltech) is a good course. But all I got from the course was to go pick up the book and learn this stuff by working through the proble

Sure. Learning from data (caltech) is a good course. But all I got from the course was to go pick up the book and learn this stuff by working through the problem set. And I have a pretty decent linear algebra and probability background. Imagine if you are getting into this stuff new (which is not an unreasonable assumption considering the diverse background of ML folks), this would be brutal. Math is a contact, no holds barred sport where some hand holding initially is pretty damn nice. Also, I did some schooling in the third world and I am never going to come out and say that someone putting material for a course online is a bad thing. I am just annoyed by this idea that a bunch of online videos is a superior or equally effective replacement to an education at MIT or Stanford.