Hi
I know next to nothing about Machine Learning, have a beginner-level (and growing) understanding of a variety of programming languages (mostly Ruby) and the highest level of math I've taken is Calculus I. No formal statistics. I read lesswrong.com and attempt to grok rationality and Bayes (no promises).
From searching around "noob" threads on /r/MachineLearning I came across the O'Reilly Natural Language Processing with Python book and was considering starting there.
The reason I am posting this here: As I said, I have no formal statistics training/education and the highest math I've completed is Calculus I. Math and statistics are intriguing to me but I haven't had time to pursue further. Is it not worth getting into Machine Learning with the level of math education I currently have? I am not opposed to learning more (I'd like to), but if that's a necessity from day one or shortly thereafter I might be better off waiting and pursuing this again in the future.
My interest is hobby-level at the moment, possibly developing into web-app applications down the line and of course with the ultimate goal of helping to save the planet and/or take over the world eventually.
Your advice appreciated! Be as honest as you want - you won't be crushing my dreams or anything. As I said: hobby-level interest at the moment.
Thanks!
EDIT: thanks thanks everyone so far!
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