Toby is last in class but first on the playground! Toby may be the class clown, but he's smart enough to know what's what. Whether he's late for school, early for recess, or just in time to fail the next quiz, he's always got something to say about it. But even though his friends think he's funny, the adults in his life aren't laughing--mostly because they're not in on the jokes. No matter! Toby makes the best of it as he coasts through the day on his wit and good humor!

Toby is last in class but first on the playground! Toby may be the class clown, but he's smart enough to know what's what. Whether he's late for school, early for recess, or just in time to fail the next quiz, he's always got something to say about it. But even though his friends think he's funny, the adults in his life aren't laughing--mostly because they're not in on the jokes. No matter! Toby makes the best of it as he coasts through the day on his wit and good humor!

Toby may be the class clown, but he's smart enough to know what's what. Whether he's late for school, early for recess, or just in time to fail the next quiz, he's always got something to say about it. But even though his friends think he's funny, th

Want to tap the power behind search rankings, product recommendations, social bookmarking, and online matchmaking? This fascinating book demonstrates how you can build Web 2.0 applications to mine the enormous amount of data created by people on the Internet. With the sophisticated algorithms in this book, you can write smart programs to access interesting datasets from other web sites, collect data from users of your own applications, and analyze and understand the data once you've found it. Programming Collective Intelligence takes you into the world of machine learning and statistics, and explains how to draw conclusions about user experience, marketing, personal tastes, and human behavior in general -- all from information that you and others collect every day. Each algorithm is described clearly and concisely with code that can immediately be used on your web site, blog, Wiki, or specialized application. This book explains: Collaborative filtering techniques that enable online retailers to recommend products or media Methods of clustering to detect groups of similar items in a large dataset Search engine features -- crawlers, indexers, query engines, and the PageRank algorithm Optimization algorithms that search millions of possible solutions to a problem and choose the best one Bayesian filtering, used in spam filters for classifying documents based on word types and other features Using decision trees not only to make predictions, but to model the way decisions are made Predicting numerical values rather than classifications to build price models Support vector machines to match people in online dating sites Non-negative matrix factorization to find the independent features in a dataset Evolving intelligence for problem solving -- how a computer develops its skill by improving its own code the more it plays a game Each chapter includes exercises for extending the algorithms to make them more powerful. Go beyond simple database-backed applications and put the wealth of Internet data to work for you. "Bravo! I cannot think of a better way for a developer to first learn these algorithms and methods, nor can I think of a better way for me (an old AI dog) to reinvigorate my knowledge of the details." -- Dan Russell, Google "Toby's book does a great job of breaking down the complex subject matter of machine-learning algorithms into practical, easy-to-understand examples that can be directly applied to analysis of social interaction across the Web today. If I had this book two years ago, it would have saved precious time going down some fruitless paths." -- Tim Wolters, CTO, Collective Intellect

Steve is no ordinary Hermit Crab. He has a big dream... to be an astronaut and fly in space! His friends and family think he is crazy. They don't send crabs into space. Will Steve have "the right stuff" to be sent on a daring mission to Mars? Can he work hard to beat mischievous mice and mad monkeys to ride a rocket to the red planet? Only time and training will tell in this hilarious story of a crazy crab who wants to reach for the stars.

Toby Gold is a seventh grader in Wallingford, Connecticut who has always known that he is good with money but has no idea how good until he discovers a dangerous hidden society of money and intrigue that co-exists with the everyday world we all know. Toby stumbles upon this dark financial world one day when he discovers secret messages encrypted into the stock ticker crawl that moves along the bottom of the screen on the financial news channel. Toby's shock only grows worse when he realizes that the secret messages are directed to him! His unique abilities with math and money have been noticed by the wrong people, and Toby is quickly sucked into a high-stakes life or death financial conspiracy that he is only able to resolve by using his amazing skills with money. This action-packed urban fantasy introduces readers to many financial literacy concepts, including saving, investing, banking, entrepreneurship, time value of money and basic financial statements.

Genovese mob-scion Silvio Eboli lived within the shadows of history, and now for the first time, the untold story of a mafia legend is revealed. The Ganja Godfather is the story about an ongoing organized criminal operation, in real time with firsthand accounts and experiences by award-winning author and investigative journalist, Toby Rogers. Shadowing the Ganja Godfather, Rogers witnesses it all standing next to the Boss himself: violence, drugs, celebrities, girls, construction hustles, crime-family business meetings and social gatherings. From strip clubs in Atlantic City to Sunday night dinner with the wife and kids, Rogers experiences whatever the Ganja Godfather does on any given day. As exhilarating as Silvio's life had become, it certainly was much more stressful behind the scenes. Being the Empire State's spliff king was undoubtedly the hardest job in New York. And it was only after Silvio finally got to the top of the mountain that he realized just how easy it was to fall over the edge. With a wife and kids, dysfunctional family business obligations, and an out-of-control social life all pulling him in conflicting paths, Silvio struggled keep the empire moving forward without detection from law enforcement. But when he was introduced to a Colombian cocaine princess with aspirations to become a model, he saw an opportunity to expand the family's profit margins to unimaginable heights and risked it all despite the collision course with disaster he saw right before him.