My last company dabbled with the usual web data mining, but with some text mining / NLP twist for ads. Then later tried to apply machine learning but it closed down on our locality. I wish to continue learning and trying to research on it. I am horrible at math, but I'm trying to change that, so I'm trying to re-learn high school algebra as a starting point. I know some machine learning resources on the web speak heavily using linear algebra, so that would be my long term goal. What I wish to be is an active researcher on the field of machine learning. An independent researcher, which I know is possible since, from what I understood, one doesn't need government approval or very huge funds to start with it. Going to university is out of the question. I have to do researching myself with my own resources. Any help would be highly appreciated ;-)