Who can explain on the fingers what is gradient boosting?

Question

Machine learning

Or give a link that has an intelligible explanation for the most stupid morons like me.

Answer 1

on Habré Open course of machine learning. Topic 10. Gradient...
and "useful links" from there:

• Original GBM article by Jerome Friedman
  
• Chapter in Elements of Statistical Learning by Hastie, Tibshirani, Friedman (p. 337)
  
• Wiki article on Gradient Boosting
  
• Frontiers tutorial article about GBM (light self-promotion)
  
• Video lecture by Hastie about GBM at h2o.ai conference
  
• Video lecture by Vladimir Gulin about the composition of algorithms from the Technosphere
  
• Video lectures by Konstantin Vorontsov ( part 1 , part 2 ) about the composition of algorithms from the School of Data Analysis