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Jen Looper
Jen Looper

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Introducing MaZine Learning, Zines about Machine Learning

I'd like to announce the first 'drop' of five free 'zines' - all about Machine Learning!

What are zines, you ask? Well, they are printable papers that you can fold into small personal magazines. According to wikipedia, "A zine (/ziːn/ ZEEN; short for magazine or fanzine) is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation."

Forget the copy machine, though, we have graduated all the way to pdfs in this modern age! And so I'm happy to offer these small one-page foldable works of sketchery for free, to help you think about machine learning in a fun, visual way.

Join me and Professor Puff!

I'll be publishing these zines in 'drops' or groups of five at a time. The first drop includes "What Even Is Machine Learning", "What Even is Supervised Learning", "What Even is Unsupervised Learning", "What Even is Reinforcement Learning" and "What Even is Deep Learning". Perhaps you find a pattern in the naming. Seemed cute, might delete later.

download

Download all 5 new zines for free, here

I am creating these zines in black-and white format using Procreate (the world's greatest drawing software when paired with iPad and Apple Pencil, hands down). Here's a time lapse of how I'm doing them:

A time lapse video of a zine drawing

The basic idea behind these zines is that someone who is just getting started understanding the basic concepts behind machine learning might be able to download and print a zine and use the visual cues to remember some of the vocabulary and concepts behind this complex field.

How to fold a zine

Enjoy!

There is almost unlimited potential for study in machine learning, but getting started is difficult especially for those (like me) without formal university training in the field. Maybe, for some people, it might be useful to use animal metaphors to aid in comprehension.

Printed Zine

The first zine, printed out

To download all five of the zines, visit https://zines.jenlooper.com.

🎨 Let me know what you think!
🚀 Tell me what you'd like to see included in the next drop!

MaZine Learning

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