The ImageDataGenerator class in Keras is a really valuable tool. I’ve recently written about using it for training/validation splitting of images, and it’s also helpful for data augmentation by applying random permutations to your image dataset in an effort to reduce overfitting and improve the generalized performance of your models.

Keras comes bundled with many helpful utility functions and classes to accomplish all kinds of common tasks in your machine learning pipelines. One commonly used class is the ImageDataGenerator. Until recently though, you were on your own to put together your training and validation datasets, for instance by creating two separate folder structures for your images to be used in conjunction with the flow_from_directory function.

The goal of this post is to train a convolutional neural network to properly play Conway’s Game of Life without explicitly teaching it the rules of the game.

XOR encryption (or Exclusive-OR encryption) is a common method of encrypting text into a format that cannot be trivially cracked by the average person. XOR encryption is great for storing things like game save data, and other data types that are stored locally on a users computer, that while not a big deal if they are tampered with, you would like to deter people from doing so. XOR encryption is also used often as a part of more complex encryption algorithms.

Getting Started First off, lets get Python installed. If you are running a Linux distro you should already have it on your system. Run the command: python -V In a terminal to see if you have it. If not take a look around for how to properly install it on your system. Many Linux distros rely on Python, and a specific version at that, so you have to be careful not to ruin your OS's...